A brutal end for Busscherdrums in Klazienaveen this weekend. Henk Busscher’s music shop and music school burned to the ground. But literally being in sackcloth and ashes is not for the resilient music man. Because the Klazienavener has already focused firmly on the future. “We are going for reconstruction.”
“Henk, come out.” Henk Busscher hears it shouting behind him but he hesitates for a moment. He has just entered his warehouse, fire extinguisher at the ready. But he doesn’t see anything in front of his eyes. His business premises in Klazienaveen, which he has used for years as a music store and music school, is full of smoke. “I could have brought three saxophones or some other stuff with me,” he says. “But I listened anyway.”
Busscher got the fright of his life last Saturday. He has been selling instruments and giving music lessons for years from his building on Energiestraat in Klazienaveen. On that particular morning, he was still among ten students in the building. “I gave music lessons and I was busy with some postal packages. Then I went to our house (which is in front of the warehouse) to have something to eat.”
Busscher is startled by a sudden knock on his front door. “It was the neighbor across the street. ‘Henk, you have a fire,’ they shouted. Oh god, oh god.” Busscher walks to the warehouse and sees smoke at the back left of the building. The neighbors call the fire brigade, after which Busscher makes a futile rescue attempt.
He eventually manages to drive out a van with about thirty djembés. In the end, those instruments are all he manages to save. “And the clothes I’m wearing. It all happened so quickly.”
The fire brigade extinguishes the fire, but the warehouse can quickly be considered lost. The house also sustained significant damage. Only the living room is still standing, but it is uninhabitable. Busscher’s classrooms and all his instruments and equipment have been lost.
Busscher: “A real disaster. For years we invested in this company and then this. Drums, percussion instruments, cajons, djembes, saxophones and keyboards.” It’s all gone.