Presentator, Journalist
"In 20 years, 120 episodes. Served fresh each day. Thirty creators. A cheerful battlefield. By the end, we too were ready for the broom wagon."
For twenty years, I was the creator, presenter, and editor-in-chief of Het Gevoel van de Vierdaagse (The Feeling of the Four Days Marches), a daily program from my hometown Nijmegen, covering the world’s largest walking event.
This annual summer hit may not have been the pinnacle of my journalistic career, but in terms of television-making, it was probably my greatest challenge.
I decided to make the program as a cheerful and light-hearted counterbalance to the intense treadmill of serious current affairs. But it was no easy sidestep—far from it.
Every year, we descended on Nijmegen with a team of thirty: reporters, producers, camera operators, sound engineers, editors. In a race against the clock, we crafted the daily broadcasts—a rollercoaster of reports, quirky vignettes, personal portraits, and historical footnotes. Sidekicks like Erik Hulzebosch and Sander de Kramer took part as well. A feat of endurance deserves a wink.
It was television in its purest form. Every morning, starting with a clean slate, knowing that by the end of the day, with the push of a button, the show would be broadcast into more than a million living rooms. A massive achievement by an exceptional team of skilled TV makers.
This led me to a surprising conclusion: crafting such an apparently light, cheerful, and varied program actually demands more craftsmanship than many supposedly more “serious” platforms. It requires the utmost creativity, empathy, practical inventiveness, originality, and high-pressure professionalism.
By the end of the week, the entire team was ready to be scooped up, utterly exhausted, by the broom wagon.
In 20 years, 120 episodes—always reaching over a million viewers. And for many team members, the most enjoyable week of the year. What a joyful battlefield it was.
