Behind the scene
A life at Maison Dandoy
Our editor, Clara, meets Bernard Helson, former head of the House, and Patricia Nootens, who worked there her entire career. Together, they look back on their thirty-seven years at Dandoy.
The appointment was made at the Dandoy shop in the Galeries on a beautiful May afternoon. Patricia arrives well before time. When she sees "Monsieur Bernard", she exclaims: "You have caught the sun!" After 37 years of working with someone, you know their usual complexion. And she is right; Bernard has just returned from a few days in Bretagne. Once settled on the terrace, Patricia orders a hot chocolate with a generous portion of whipped cream. When you have a snack at Dandoy, the whole point is to not do things by halves.
They drink and chat while Anne-Sophie Guillet, the photographer, tries to take some nice pictures. I'm standing aside so as not to be in the way, so I can't hear what they are saying to each other. I worry for a moment: maybe they are discussing things that would have been perfect for the article. But as I watch them catch up with so much enthusiasm, my FOMO stops. It's nice for them to get to talk without anyone sticking their nose in. It's not because I initiated this interview that I'm entitled to know everything or write about everything. Anyway, the choreography of the tourists who pass by in waves prevents Anne-Sophie from working, and we quickly migrate to the restaurant of the hotel des Galeries.
Patrica was, until her retirement last year, the longest-serving employee of Maison Dandoy. She joined in 1978 at 18, six years before Bernard Helson joined the family business. Last year, Bernard gave a speech at the company party honouring her. For the occasion, he rummaged through the archives. He found a note of apology from Patricia's mother: her daughter was ill and could not come to work that day. Like all the employees of the Maison Dandoy, Patricia has always called him "Monsieur Bernard", a savvy compromise between the too-formal Mr Helson (his real name) and the too-familiar Bernard. This compromise symbolizes a time when the distances between bosses and employees in small businesses were different. It is through this era that Bernard's and Patricia's respective careers have spread. The age of a more pyramidal and even a little rigid management.
And Bernard can attest to that. When he arrived in 1984, nothing could be changed, and no spontaneous initiative was welcomed. One day, he tried to move a mirror in the offices on Rue au Beurre. When Valère Rombouts-Dandoy, his step-grandfather, realized this, he gave him half an hour to put it back in place. Thirty years later, Bernard and Patricia remember the little quirks of Valère Rombouts-Dandoy. He ran the Dandoy House with his wife Fernande Dandoy, the last to bear the name, from 1932 to 1978. And for a few moments, he is here with us. No one is really gone as long as there are people to remember their little oddities.
"Remember his butter bag?" They laugh before explaining that he always put the butter in a specific bag. He kept this bag (and not another one) for a long time, telling anyone who would listen: "Do you have any idea how much a bag costs?" Valère lived through the Second World War, and wars leave marks. In his eyes, there were no small savings. His son Jean, who succeeded him, (fortunately?) took things less to heart. To Patricia, who suddenly wonders why, Bernard explains that he was less passionate about all this than his father. Jean could have worked for NASA. He was a food chemist and had been offered to prepare the astronauts' meals for the Apollo missions. Valère supposedly asked: "You have a family business. Why would you even want to go to space?" And as one is often left speechless when faced with wildly dishonest arguments, he stayed. To make up for it, he launched some "extra-terrestrial" experiments from the workshop, such as his famous seaweed rusks. Patricia was there to taste them, and she doesn't mention how she reacted at the time. Today, she dares to admit that she didn't precisely savour them. "It wasn't great," she whispers as if Jean could still hear her and get offended.
Bernard tried to shake up this pyramidal management. "Valère and Jean were respectful bosses, and I learned much from them. But when I took over in 1998, I wanted to engage more with my employees and feel closer to them." Patricia testifies that Mr Bernard would come to the workshop daily to greet the employees. So much so that if there was a day when he didn't come by, everyone would ask with concern the following time: "Have you been sick, Mr Bernard?"
During the 37 years they worked together, Patricia and Bernard never argued. "We have always shared the same vision", Patricia tells me while Bernard nods in agreement. One day, Patricia told Bernard that she had checked on the Belgian official website the amount of her retirement fee. Bernard was about to do the same when Patricia looked at him with round eyes. "Why would you do that?" Reminiscing, Patricia laughs and tells me that it had never even occurred to her that one day Mr Bernard might leave Maison Dandoy. After all, he had worked there for 37 years, and she could no longer imagine Maison Dandoy existing without him.
Patricia was supposed to quit in the spring of 2021. But she had gotten tired of working under the permanent stress and troubles of Covid. She went to find Bernard and asked him if she could leave at the end of February instead. Visibly moved, she remembers his answer, "If it's okay with you, Patricia, it's okay with me." With one hand, Bernard sweeps away the recognition. He had always admired Patricia's energy and unfailing courage; it was just logic for him to grant her what she needed. Besides, Bernard also began to feel that he had done his time: he followed her soon enough.
He had seen Valere stay until he was 82. He had a sense of when it was the right moment to leave. Besides, it was time to rest after fighting to keep the boat afloat. A little emotional, he talks about the recent challenging times. The Covid pandemic and the fear, fear for the company he had given so much to, fear that everything he had worked for would disappear. He spent several sleepless nights dreading the moment when he would have to lay off, to close down. With the stores downtown representing 80% of the turnover and the absence of tourists for two years, Bernard knows that Maison Dandoy was close to disaster. "I had become a shadow of my former self. One day, Alexandre, my eldest son (the current co-director of Maison Dandoy with his brother Antoine), told me: "You do what you want, but you take three weeks". Bernard took three weeks, came back and, with his sons and thanks to all the employees of the House, managed to raise the bar.
When he felt that the future of the House was no longer in danger, he decided it was time to pass the torch to his sons. He wanted to leave them in charge before they turned 50, so they would have time enough to leave their imprint on the future of the House. Also, Bernard had set himself a limit: the day he could no longer remember the birthday of each of his employees, he would leave. Don't get me wrong: Bernard has an excellent memory. It's just that over time, the House has grown.
Patricia and Bernard left their jobs at Maison Dandoy in 2021 (although Bernard is still on the Board of Directors). They start alluding to their respective experiences since then. Bernard begins, "For 37 years, I would get up and go to Maison Dandoy. I was living in Dandoy. It was rooted in me." So, in the early days, he couldn't help himself from checking his email three or even four times a day. "Don't tell my sons (sorry, Mr Bernard, they might find out now), but I was checking the accounts, calling suppliers to ensure everything was going well...". The latter told him: "Everything is going as well as when you were there, Mr Bernard", and he gradually managed to relax. "I still think about it daily, but I don't talk about it as much to my wife and sons. I might even have become good at leaving them alone!"
Patricia is well placed to understand this. For her, too, Dandoy was a family affair. Her husband, then ex-husband, worked at the workshop, along with her ex-brother-in-law and ex-sister-in-law. When he was old enough to work, her eldest son, Cedric, joined too. She recalls that he had to insist that she stop calling him "my boy" in front of all the employees in the workshop. "I understand that you needed to talk about it. After I stopped, I kept asking Cedric questions. There's a lot of change; I'm happy when he tells me about it. It's like I'm following it all from a distance." Even her granddaughter once told her, "Grandma, I'm going to work at Maison Dandoy too." The little girl knows the first name of the head of the workshop, and sometimes she asks her father, "So, how is Guillaume?" Yes, she concludes, Dandoy sticks in your head.
And they agree on one thing: spending so much time with people and suddenly not seeing them anymore is bizarre. So Patricia takes the opportunity to say she is happy to have seen Mr Bernard again. "We email each other from time to time, but it's not really the same." "Yes, and by the way, you're the only one who checks up on me!" adds Bernard, grateful.
The interview is coming to an end. I don't know if Patricia and Bernard took notice, but they have been shyly oscillating between the formal "vous" and the familiar "tu". After all, Bernard is no longer the boss, and Patricia is no longer his employee. When I ask Bernard if he has started writing his Memoir on the Dandoy House, Patricia jumps in: "Ah, but aren't you going to need my thinking head?" Bernard starts laughing, "Yes, of course, you will be called to the office, Patricia."
And I bet they'll be thrilled to take on these roles again.