Whoever walked into the stately building of the Ten Hoet bookshop in Nijmegen could just get the idea of entering a sanctuary. And once over the invisible threshold, the next challenge awaited: owner Rein Gerretsen. Erudite, eloquent and, for those who didn’t know him, maybe a little intimidating.
It sometimes seemed, says Hans Peters, his former colleague from bookshop Dekker vd Vegt, as if he sold the books with a slight doubt. “And then made an exception just for you.” But once the deal was done, he could be extremely cordial. ‘You had, as it were, passed a purchase exam he had taken.’
Until its closure in 1985, the Ten Hoet bookstore, right next to the town hall in Nijmegen, was considered the oldest in the country. Research by the historical society Numaga showed that as early as 1633 there was a shop that dealt with books.
At least as legendary as the property was its last owner, the third of his family’s generation to run the shop. And that while Rein Gerretsen, born in 1922, had actually wanted to study art history. But the early death of his father, just after the war, changed everything. That’s how he ended up in the bookshop.
quirky
He managed this in his own way. Sale, he didn’t care, comic books and school books were ‘stupidly boring’, and to Me Jan Cremer it was a vain search in Ten Hoet. Peters: ‘He only sold what he liked. Cremer next to a thin print by Van Oorschot, that was simply not possible, he thought.’ There was, however, a special department for valuable and exclusive art books.
Yet Gerretsen, in all his idiosyncrasy, was more commercial than it seemed. ‘After an impassioned speech, he was able to let someone walk out of the shop with a book about the history of Viennese Art Nouveau porcelain worth 125 guilders’, says Peters.
He also organized literary evenings with great writers and poets such as Remco Campert, A. den Doolaard and Lucebert (‘A poser’) and in a special notebook he wrote down the names of his customers along with their hobbies and areas of interest, his son Job recalls. ‘When a book came out that could be of interest to someone, he wrote that person a handwritten note, with stamp and all. Success guaranteed. It was direct marketing avant la lettre.’
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Still, it became increasingly difficult for Gerretsen to survive in the ever-changing book market. Quality bookstores united in large cities and chain stores such as Bruna, with a limited but popular range of books, were also on the rise. He was also getting older and his children had no interest in continuing the bookshop.
And actually he couldn’t be followed either, says Peters. “Rein was the shop.” In 1985 he decided to close the business. Thus, on a rainy day in April, 350 years of book history came to an end.
Rotary club
Gerretsen was by no means bored. Throughout his life, art history was his passion, he was a prominent member of the Rotary Club, fulfilled many social volunteer positions and what remained was the love for books.
A few weeks after his death, his children began to clear out his apartment, including his imposing bookcase. ‘And in every book I come across five or six newspaper clippings. Some sentences are underlined in pencil. So he really read them all,” said his son.
Gerretsen reached the blessed age of one hundred years. He died at home, just as he wished. One sigh, and life was over.