Arij de Jong
A lifetime at Hoogovens.
Arij de Jong is eighty-nine when he tells his story. He will turn ninety soon. He speaks calmly, sometimes circling toward his point, but always precisely. Those who listen hear not only his own life story, but also the history of Hoogovens itself — from manual labor and heat to computers and cameras.
He started at Hoogovens in 1961. All the work was done by hand. Blast furnaces one, two, and three were open processes. Iron and slag flowed through sand channels that you built yourself and later cleared away. Tapping was not done with a button or a screen, but with machines you pushed toward the fire. You were literally standing in the heat.
Arij worked his way up to first smelter and later chief smelter. That meant responsibility. He managed the flow of iron and slag, monitored the process inside the furnace hall, and directed the workers. Above him was the senior chief smelter who oversaw the whole operation. But the real work happened below — with the men on the floor, at the base of the blast furnaces, where the miracle of molten iron had to be guided in glowing orange, boiling streams.
“You had to talk to those guys,” he says. If something went wrong, he knew immediately. He was always in contact with his crew — in the break room, on the floor. Not at a distance.
In the 1960s and 1970s, the work changed rapidly. Blast furnaces four and five were added, later six and seven — the two that are still standing today. First, the process became more controllable; then computers entered the scene. What had once depended on intuition and experience became increasingly precise. Today, everything is measured to the kilo. In the past, things could still go wrong.
Arij witnessed the harsh realities of the work up close. Serious accidents. Fatalities. An explosion at blast furnace five, caused by time pressure and excessive risk. He was not there himself — he was in the hospital — but he knew exactly what had happened. It could have been prevented, he says. But there was pressure. Production had to continue.
There was little discussion of these accidents. It wasn’t allowed. Causes faded from view, names were not mentioned. Only the memory remained.
At Blast Furnace 4, he also saw colleagues lose their lives after being struck by accretions breaking loose from the furnace wall. It was part of that era. Safety meant something different then. Protection was minimal.
Health was not a subject people discussed. Blast-furnace gas, carbon monoxide — if you had inhaled some, you went upstairs for a breath of oxygen and then quickly returned to work. Today, every accident requires an immediate visit to the first-aid post.
Arij also lost colleagues to illness. Men who died young. Others had worked in coke plants abroad, where substances were used that were later found to be harmful, and they too eventually succumbed. He does not deny any of this. But he also puts it into perspective. Some people are more susceptible, he says. Others seem able to withstand anything.
He looks back on his work with pride — on the technology and the process. When he sees the glowing iron flow, his heart opens. He still finds it magnificent.
Today, he follows the plans for green steel with interest. Hydrogen, new production methods — he believes it is technically possible. But it will take time. Good things always do.
He remains active as a volunteer at the Hoogovens Museum, where he scans photographs, organises archival material and talks with former colleagues. The industry has changed: fewer people, more automation. In places where twenty-three men once worked, there are now only three or four. Cameras monitor the process. Computers make adjustments.
The heat is still there. So is the fire.
But the world around it has changed.