Former disc jockey Jan van Veen has died at the age of 79. His family confirmed this to the ANP on Sunday evening.
He died after a short illness. Van Veen was best known as the presenter of the radio program Candlelight. In it he read love poems in his characteristic deep voice.
Van Veen started his career in the mid-1960s as a DJ at Radio Veronica, where he later also became program leader. He presented programs such as De Gouden Discotheek, Hits uit Zee and the Top 40. A joke that got out of hand in which Van Veen read love poems on the radio led to pockets full of poems from listeners, after which the Candlelight program was created. The program was successively heard on Veronica, the AVRO and from 1991 on Sky Radio.
In 2003, Candlelight quit Sky Radio. Because he continued to receive poems, he started the internet radio station Candlelight Radio a few years later. On May 11, 2009, Van Veen was appointed a member of the Order of Orange-Nassau.