Who's that?

- by Ward Hulselmans, scriptwriter (Salamander, Netflix) and ex-journalist (GVA)

Ward Hulselmans was a professional journalist for 17 years before he started writing TV series in 1989. He invented and wrote the series Niet voor Publicatie, Heterdaad, Stille Waters, Witse, Salamander and also wrote two films. He stopped writing in front of the screen in 2019 to only make diary entries. Hulselmans has been living in Wallonia for ten years and has been navigating rivers and canals in France for years. He has a love-hate relationship with both his Flanders and Wallonia. In May he was the first passenger to make a voyage with a freighter via the Antwerp startup Cptn Zeppos: to Ireland and back. Next time he wants to take a freighter across the ocean, preferably to Jamaïca. The acquaintance with Joris Van Bree, the founder of Cptn Zeppos, was one of the reasons to stop scriptwriting. Hulselmans has had an eventful life behind him, but calls himself a lucky man because he has followed his heart and not his mind at decisive moments in his life.This is his diary, which begins in April 2019 with the decision to stop writing in front of the screen.

To understand why I called Cptn Zeppos and how my life took such a turn after that, you must know that at that moment I was working on a story that took place in a completely different time, more specifically in March 1970, when a 45-year-old man entered the hotel "Au bon Espoir" in Brussels. He wears a violin case that has had its best time. He books three nights. He looks bad and the receptionist gets a bad feeling. On his way to the lift he scurries along some postcards depicting the hotel in its most glorious period. In his room he slides the table against the window, takes a picture postcard from the stack and writes.

"I have decided, for the first time in my life, to write down my real thoughts. In order to understand who I am and what I have done, I dig for my deepest memories, for the experiences hidden under my lies, under my excuses and the false representations with which I have lived. I write down these thoughts, every morning, every afternoon and every evening". In three days and nights he writes his life story. It is the story of the Belgian violinist Jeremy Caals who once played the finals of the Queen Elisabeth Competition and, after an international concert career, chose the wrong path, ending up as a semi-criminal and drowned-out street musician. He doesn't conceal anything and by writing he saves his life. When he leaves the hotel, he is no better, but a different person.

He gives away his violin and a year later he meets the love of his life. He eventually dies at the age of 80 in his bungalow in Nieuwpoort, after 33 happy years. In 2019 - fifty years after Brussels - a well-known Flemish actor will find the postcards at a second-hand fair in Ostend.

They are bound together with red ribbon between another eight scribbled scribbled notebooks with the stamp of hotel "Au bon Espoir". The actor struggles with suicidal thoughts. He reads Jeremy's confessions in one fell swoop and exhausts the courage to go on living. Two days later he calls me and gives me the package. On one condition: if I make a scenario out of it, he wants the leading part. As said: what is written above is fiction, Jeremy Caals never existed, nor did the actor who found his diary and supposedly called me. I came up with this story for a short drama series for TV and my producer is currently reading the raw text, which is still full of holes. I have worked hard on it, from the deep conviction that events from the past can really help us to understand what is happening to us in the present. But today I have decided that I will not finish the story any further. I stop writing fiction drama because last night I suddenly saw the similarity between myself and my character Jeremy: playing the violin has never given him joy, just as I haven't written one scenario in ten for the past 30 years. The 135 Sunday nights TV drama from my pen didn't give me any pleasure at all, and the success afterwards didn't change anything.

A month and a half later:

I am standing with a small travel bag in the port of Antwerp next to the container ship Elbfeeder. The cargo sails under the flag of Cyprus and the last cargo is still being brought on board. I can almost touch the green wall of the ship. Behind it the deep sound of the ship's engines vibrates. A crew member beckons over the railing. I'm allowed aboard.

The gangway swings as I climb up and my heart beats like that of a 14-year-old. My first voyage on a cargo ship begins. God, life goes so fast sometimes!