He is perhaps the oldest hairdresser in Drenthe. Gradus clouds from Barger-Compascuum (87) still cuts his loyal customers every day. This year he is celebrating his 75th anniversary.
Clouds started working in a hair salon at the age of twelve. Not so much out of passion, but because it had to be. His father sent him to the local hairdresser where he could get started. “It was not asked if I wanted to, you just had to work,” says Wolken soberly. “My father said,” Money needs to be earned so you have to learn something. “
After a while, clouds left school and from that moment he worked completely as a hairdresser. Fortunately it worked out well: clouds turned out to be cut for the hairdressing profession.
When his daughter Monique took over the hair salon 25 years ago, clouds did not sit behind the geraniums. On the contrary. “If I had to sit behind this,” he says, pointing to the house behind the salon, “then that was not good.” That is why he still cuts now, in the salon of his daughter.
“I am still here every day, because I still have agreements almost every day,” he laughs. Yet in recent years he has started to take it a bit quieter. “I almost only cut the regular customers, the people I have known for years.”