About Marcel Rijs

I was born on August 31, 1970 and grew up in a very pop-oriented environment: both my brother and sister were heavily into music and I grew up on a steady diet of bands like the Beatles, Abba, Sparks, 10CC and Ultravox. I started buying singles as a young kid, and already owned some 50 7" singles by the time I was 10 years old. When Kim Wilde appeared in the charts the first few times, I was instantly attracted by the music. The real fandom only started in 1983 when 'Catch as catch can' was introduced into my record collection as a Christmas present. Before I knew it I was collecting all the other albums, singles and 12" singles.

When I discovered the Web in 1996, I realised that the world was missing a comprehensive website about my childhood idol, so I started one. Although the flame of fandom was burning less bright by now, I still enjoyed putting all the facts together. In the process, I was learning a lot about writing in html.

This proved to be a convenient thing, since my job as a librarian was starting to bore me to tears. When I got the chance to apply for a job as a web editor in 1999, I presented the Kim Wilde Encyclopedia as my 'portfolio'. I was accepted and for nine years I worked at the National library of the Netherlands, doing the editing for both the website and the intranet site. In February 2008 I became the webmaster of kvce.nl, a bureau that informs about safety and security for Dutch heritage institutions. In January 2010 I returned to my 'old' job: making web exhibitions for the website of the National library of the Netherlands. But while I divided my time between several 'side tasks' in the past, I'm now devoted to creating beautiful websites fulltime.

KimWilde.com and Wilde Life have also been a factor in friendships I have forged over the years. I have gained some friends in all of Europe, and some of them I have met in person. They contributed to the website, which has become a vault of information compiled by many fans, instead of just a solo operation.

In April 2008 I got married to Annette. Then in September 2008 my beautiful daughter Odilia was born. So you see, Kim Wilde is not the most important woman in my life after all...