When Henk ten Hoor suddenly passed away on May 29 this year, it came as a shock to his former employees in Diever. Gea Tiemens and colleagues worked for him for 25 years in the first branch of the textile chain. Until they were fired in 2010. Tiemens: “But we never blamed him.”
Gea Tiemens and Margret de Graaf worked from the start in Henk ten Hoor’s first store, which was located in an old farm on Peperstraat. They were given complete freedom to arrange it how they wanted. “We were given a free hand,” says Gea. “As long as we sold. And we did.”
Henk often dropped by the store to see how things were going. “He was also the only one who was allowed to smoke in the store. First his pipe and later his cigar. There are so many stories. We could write a book about it,” says Gea, laughing.
Yet Gea did not set foot in the store on Peperstraat for years, where another store chain is now located. The forced dismissal when Henk ten Hoor went bankrupt had not affected her. But she makes an exception to say something about their ‘Uncle Henk’ on camera. “We do that for him.”
Henk ten Hoor was much more to the ladies than their boss. Allet Lok, who later came to work in the store in Diever, also has warm memories of her time there. “He had a big, black mustache. He spoke Drenthe. And Henk was never higher than you as your boss.”