A brief and long-forgotten part of my early Brussels existence crept up and surprised me recently during a very splendid birthday party lunch for an old friend.
The gathering was in a restaurant, the guests were spread across half a dozen or more separate tables and the birthday-boy host decided that he’d switch a few of us around between courses from time to time because some had never met before.
It was a good idea, because soon I found myself sitting opposite a jolly chap who introduced himself as a “Bruxellois”. When I jokingly asked him about his link to the rest of Belgium, he replied with a big grin: “I always introduce myself as a Bruxellois - because all the rest is Erps-Kwerps!”
It’s a bit confusing if you don’t know what an erps-kwerps is (maybe something like an aardvark?), but before I had a chance to say anything, he was explaining that Erps-Kwerps, a small village in Flemish Brabant, is the funniest place name ever and that he always uses it as a reference for non-Brussels Belgium.
I hesitated for a minute or two before deciding to reveal all. I know Erps-Kwerps well because I used to live there. And I genuinely only moved there because of the name.
Our casual meeting over a birthday lunch table immediately became an unbreakable bond. He stared at me in amazement and delight and told me to tap the shoulder of the lady sitting on the table behind us: “She’s my wife, tell her what you’ve just told me - she won’t believe you!”
I did as commanded, and she grinned and said: “My husband never stops talking about Erps-Kwerps…”
And nor did we for the rest of the party.
I came for the name
Erps-Kwerps came into my life like this: after arriving in Brussels many decades ago and starting out in a nice apartment in Ixelles, my wife fancied moving out of town into the tranquil countryside. At some point in the search for suitable, affordable accommodation, I stumbled across the name of Erps-Kwerps and couldn’t resist visiting the place.
At that time, Erps and Kwerps were separate villages, each with its own church, and the name Erps-Kwerps referred to a new development of houses recently built in the forest. We visited a small house for rent on an unfinished plot of land under a delightful canopy of trees and, after the owners emphasised that the correct pronunciation of Erps-Kwerps is “Errups-Kwerrups,” we did the deal.
We hadn’t noticed that the place was and still is “situated on the prolongation of the runway of the Brussel07R/25L of the Brussels airport”, but it was a nice spot to be, not far from Leuven and less than half an hour to Brussels on a good day.
My wife’s motive was the rural setting, mine was entirely the joy of the name. But the chances of me, a news agency journalist writing about the EU, getting a published by-line (“from Geoff Meade, Erps-Kwerps”) were thwarted by the lack of any EU institutions being built in the area.
The only Erps-Kwerps byline I achieved was in my news agency’s staff magazine, at the top of a story about how I couldn’t resist such a wonderful place name.
Some friends who visited us were not impressed, but that’s not the fault of Erps-Kwerps. One couple driving out for tea and crumpets one Sunday afternoon ended up with their car’s front wheels half-buried in a ploughed field about two kilometres away. They had misread my directions: instead of writing down “traffic light, turn left” at a certain landmark along Leuvensesteenweg, they had written down “TL TL”. So when they arrived at that certain point along the road, they wrongly guessed that the first TL meant Turn Left and then set off along a mud-strewn, narrow lane heading towards some fields in vain looking for the second TL, which they expected to be a Traffic Light.
In a heroic display of misguided confidence and optimism they drove slowly and relentlessly along a squidgy muddy path fit only for a tractor until the car’s bonnet sank in front of them. Of course, no traffic light materialised because by then they were confronting the farmland equivalent of off-piste, which they were, in more ways than one.
Sing along with Belgium
This was more than four decades ago, when phones were not mobile, so we couldn’t call them to find out why they were late, and they had to walk miles to find a phone box before calling us to explain. When they did, we followed their vague directions into the countryside on a rescue mission and then spent hours trying to find a tow-truck on a Sunday.
By the time the car was back on all fours and declared mechanically fit, there was just time for a cup of tea and a bun back in our fairytale forest dwelling before our friends had to start the journey back to civilisation in Wezembeek-Oppem, which is almost as satisfying to say as Erps-Kwerps.
Erps-Kwerps from the sky
They rarely mentioned Erps-Kwerps again, and our time living the country life, including a menagerie of free-roaming cats, only lasted 18 months until a lack of space forced a move to somewhere more practical.
And now my chance encounter with my Bruxellois chum has brought back these memories.
And it didn’t end there. A few days later, I met up with an old friend who, for many years, was part of a barbershop quartet in Brussels. I told him about the joyous Erps-Kwerps encounter at the birthday party and he jogged my Erps-Kwerps memory bank a bit more. You cannot possibly have forgotten, he said, a song called “The Belgian Commune Blues”?
But I had. The song was indeed performed years ago at a Brussels theatre show I was involved in.
It’s a funny ditty of frustrated romance, in which love is thwarted, with lyrics involving a recitation of Belgian communes, sung in close harmony, saving the most verbally amusing until last – a rousing bellow of “ERPS-KWERPS!”
Sadly, two members of the quartet, Derek Roberts, who wrote the lyrics, and musical director Tom Cunningham, have died since moving back to the UK years ago.
The other two are Mike Speer, whereabouts unknown, and Brussels lifer John Robinson who recalls that his role was “to try to keep the melody line intact under threat from spontaneous harmonic and linguistic combustion”.
John also tracked down the lyrics and sought permission from Derek’s family to use the words, so here it is…The Belgian Commune Blues:
My baby’s gone and left me,
And I’m feeling oh, so blue,
We’d made a date to meet
At the Quick in Waterloo,
But she’s left me all alone,
So, I’m looking for her everywhere.
I’ve been to Kraainem, Auderghem, Zaventem and Etterbeek,
Leefdaal, Watermael, Groenendael and Sterrebeek,
Saint-Josse, Drogenbos, Vrebos and Woluwe
I’ve looked in Duisberg, Everberg, Huldenberg and Ixelles,
Gembloux, Waterloo, Floriffoux, Stockel,
Schaerbeek, Wezembeek, Neder-Over-Heembeek and Uccle.
So if you see my baby,
Will you send her back to me
Whether she’s in Flanders, Brussels or Wallonie,
I’ve got the lonesome lover’s Belgian Commune Blues.
Soignies, Ottignies, Durbuy and Tirlemont,
Ramsdonck, Grobbendonk, Breendonk and Arlon,
Londerzeel, Steenokkerzeel, Nederokkerzeel and Braine,
Eeklo, Korbeek-Lo, Kessel-Lo and Saint-Gilles,
Ohain, Beauvechain, Spontin and Hamme-Mille,
Bastogne, Chevetogne
And I’ve even been to [stentorian stage whisper]…..Erps-Kwerps!
I’ve got the lonesome lover’s Belgian Commune Blues…
There are other great Belgian place names to conjure with, such as Silly, a municipality of Wallonia in the province of Hainault. But the name isn’t silly at all, because it comes from the name of a local stream called Sille in French and Zulle in Dutch.
Ages ago, when driving in the area, I saw a police car with the words “Silly Police” emblazoned along its flanks, and that’s not silly either, especially if you’re speeding.
And if you look online, there’s a link to Silly’s “International Relations” because Silly is twinned with San Minato in Tuscany, Italy.
Then there’s Wierde, a sub-municipality of Namur. Next time you’re driving towards Luxembourg with English passengers on board and pass a road sign for Wierde, just mutter “This is Wierde!” One of your passengers, who won’t have noticed the sign, is bound to ask what’s wrong, and you reply, “Nothing. Nothing at all. It’s just Wierde…”
And here’s something really weird: one Belgian place with a fun name that I’ve never been able to find is Wegomlegging. Whenever I think I’m getting close to the outskirts of the place, there’s always a road diversion.
(Please note: Funny place names are available in all other countries)
