On Wednesday 31, at 19.00, Jan Becaus will present the evening news on the main VRT channel for the last time before entering a well-deserved retirement at the age of 65 – the only anchor ever to have seen it through to the bitter end. Before that, however, as a sort of lap of honour, viewers saw him last weekend anchor the state broadcaster’s marathon coverage of the 21 July celebrations, which this year also included the abdication of Albert II and the oath-taking by his son Filip to become king.

“I had thought I would get a chance to take it easy in July,” Becaus said. However, King Albert’s surprise announcement at the beginning of the month changed all that. “The boss and the board all insisted I be there.” Becaus, a newsreader of the old school, always said that he tried to make the job as “colourless, odourless and tasteless” as possible, like a potato. “The news anchor is not the news,” he said.

Becaus was born in Ghent in July 1948 and qualified as a teacher before gaining a degree in English, Dutch and German. He taught from 1972 to 1984, with the exception of his military service, and later became a journalist with the BRT, as it then was. He’s therefore been in service half as long again as the king.

But it was his English which endeared him most to his faithful fans. As impeccably correct as any dinner-suited BBC announcer from the 1930s, his pronunciation of English names and words – even those considered to have been assimilated into Dutch – were a highlight for audience and colleagues, who it is rumoured tried their best to sneak as many odd English words into reports as possible, in a vain attempt to catch him napping. “I think it’s a basic form of politeness to speak a language properly,” he said.

He now plans to spend his retirement travelling, but not ignoring the news. “I’m a newsfreak,” he told De Morgen, doubtless pronouncing the word exactly as it ought to be pronounced. “I need to have news or I get anxious.”