Say it isn’t so! After nearly 40 years in the industry, veteran Afrikaans newsreader Riaan Cruywagen is retiring. This was confirmed by acting head of news and actuality at the SABC, Jimi Matthews. He said that Cruywagen will be leaving the SABC during this month sometime.

In an interview with Beeld, Matthews added that on 26 November it will be exactly 37 years since Cruywagen started working at the SABC – brining his on-air tally to a whopping 7000 TV broadcasts!

Apart from reading the evening news, Cruywagen is also known for being the voice on one of the first children’s TV programmes ever to be broadcast in South Africa: Haas Das se Nuuskas.

When asked by the paper how he felt about retiring, Cruywagen responded that he is looking forward to it.

[7000 broadcasts] means that I couldn’t spend time with my family for at least 7 000 evenings, so I must say I’m looking forward to the evenings at home. I last had a ‘proper’ holiday in 2006 and after that a long weekend here and there. But that is not really enough time to rest and switch off. That’s how it goes when the news is your food, but it’s going to be nice to get to read novels instead of newspapers.

[Source: Channel24]