Jan Elferink

Dagblad Tubantia, 24 March 1987

BREDEVOORT – If you do not know him, it would never cross your mind for a single moment that this man’s profession might be that of a bank manager. Bank managers are generally expected to walk around with permanent pound signs in their eyes, but Jan Elferink certainly does not fit that mould. He is witty, always up for a laugh, a fast talker, and never caught off guard. Yet the residents of Bredevoort who deal with Jan Elferink on a business level know that beneath this jovial friendliness lies a sharp businessman—a man who truly knows what he is talking about when it comes to financial matters.

He certainly learned that over the course of his 42-year banking career. This year, Jan is stepping down. As of 1 September, after he has shown his successor, G.W. te Brinke, the ropes, he will take early retirement. “I am 60 now, and the years beyond sixty are precious. That is why I am bowing out. I still have plenty to keep me occupied. I’ve already told my wife: if I do the work during the day that I currently do in the evenings, I will at least have a few evenings a week to myself,” Elferink says, explaining his departure.

It was 42 years ago when, at the age of 18, he started at the Raiffeisenbank in Lichtenvoorde. “I had always wanted to do that. But when I finished secondary school (ulo) in 1943, my father told me I had to help out in his painting business. Both of my brothers had been conscripted for forced labour in Germany, so I had no choice.”

However, the war was barely over when Jan saw his chance. The post-war monetary reform meant that banks had to take on extra staff. On 1 October 1945, he was hired, and exactly a year later, he transferred to the bank in Bredevoort. “When I first arrived here, I thought: I’ll gain a few years of experience and then move on to another town. But it never came to that. We feel very much at home here in Bredevoort. Happily, we were fully accepted into the community.”

For twelve years, Jan cycled back and forth between Lichtenvoorde and Bredevoort every day, until he married in 1958 and became a true Bredevoorter. You can certainly call him that when you see how deeply integrated he has become in the Bredevoort community.

A hardheaded business

In 1963, Jan was appointed manager of the bank in Bredevoort. “Banking is a hardheaded money business. That really consumes your time. Perhaps that is why, as a counterweight, I took on all those pleasant and social activities outside of my work.”

When Jan begins to list the activities he is or has been involved in, he takes quite some time. The local folk festival, the gondola pageant, the ice rink, board member of the school association, board member of St Bernardus, and so the list goes on. And that is leaving aside all the “ad hoc things” he occupies himself with, such as conducting charity auctions, organising carnival gatherings for the Zonnebloem charity, acting as a compere for the traditional brass band in Lichtenvoorde, and performing as a buutreedner (comic orator) during the carnival season.

“I wanted to call it a day when my partner, Bonekamp from Lichtenvoorde, stopped. But so many requests came in from all sides that I still write a new comic monologue every year. All of that keeps you going. From a young age, I’ve loved being a bit of a rebel. That was already the case at school, and later at the amateur dramatics society, which I joined when I was only fourteen.” His penchant for fun is also well known among his fellow bank managers, who know him affectionately as “Enerink from Smallevoort”.

Elferink makes no secret of the fact that the work of a bank manager in a small community like Bredevoort is rather different from that in a large city. “Here, you are not just engaged financially, but socially too.” Elferink has seen the banking world change dramatically in over forty years: from a small room with a single desk and a safe where savings books were updated by hand, to an exceptionally modern, automated office building where the entire money trade takes place, but where holidays, insurance, and securities are sold as well.