Once a month we kick off the weekend with a celebrity. This month: radio and TV icon Tineke de Nooij (82). She can be heard in the new podcast De Ketting van Santanera, about the inventor of the ‘beneficial’ magnetic chain BioStabil.
Tineke de Nooij became known as the first female disc jockey in the Netherlands and made a splash in the 1980s with her own afternoon program. Tineke on TV, created and directed even more popular programs and won numerous radio and TV awards.
But in the 1990s she was also inextricably linked to BioStabil: a magnetic chain with a yin-yang sign, which is said to have a healing effect. She appeared in commercials and was one of the founders of the collaboration between advertising channel Tel Sell and the creator of the controversial chain, Bruno Santanera. Wonder pendant or a rubbish product? That’s the question the new podcast revolves around Santanera Necklacemade by RTL News journalists Daniël Youssef and Sven van Diepen.
We ask Tineke 14 questions.
1. News junkie or zapping the news?
“I was a news junkie. When I was still making TV, I read five newspapers a day: from NRC until A.D and The Telegraph. That is no longer necessary, but I am still interested in news. Reading the newspaper is part of my morning routine, preferably with a cup of coffee and a stroopwafel. I hate doing that on my computer, so I’m thinking about subscribing again. But yeah, I recently subscribed to The Green Amsterdammer and suddenly there are fifteen magazines that I have to read again. I have a strangely busy life.”
2. Podcast or radio?
“Oh, radio. I think podcasts are more for young people. Current affairs and good music, that’s what making radio is for me. From the age of 12 I knew exactly what I wanted. I lived in Hilversum, everyone in the area worked at the broadcaster. And my mother was a radio freak. She especially loved radio orchestras. When I was 12, I was chosen from 500 gnomes to record the station call for a boy scout radio program on the AVRO. I have done nothing but make radio programs all my life. TV was also added later.”
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3. A discontinued radio show: a shame or a good thing?
“My program at Radio Veronica stopped in October, which was a shame. But when I recently… The Telegraph said that I miss making radio, four radio stations immediately hung up the line asking if I wanted to come and work for them. Will I do that? Not yet. Recently I also saw that Dorpsradio Laren will broadcast from the Rosa Spier House (a living and working community of older artists and scientists in Laren, ed.), where I have been living for a year. I’d like to do that sometime, I thought. Until I heard it would be every Saturday morning. I don’t feel like being stuck in that position, I also want to go to yoga on Saturdays. But I will always remain interested in radio.”
4. BioStabil: top or flop?
“I still wear it around my neck and still think Bruno Santanera made a fantastic necklace. There goes the podcast Santanera Necklace about; the makers have done incredibly good and fun research. I also believe in the effect of a magnet, just as others walk around with minerals, a crystal or rose quartz because they think it has a healing effect. Especially do it if you believe in it. I sit behind my computer all day and still feel that it protects me a little against all kinds of nonsensical rays.”
5. Making music or listening to music?
“Both. My grand piano is in a fantastic place in my apartment, and I started playing again. I couldn’t find my old classical music books anymore, so I ordered new ones online. Wonderful. But I also do a lot of listening. I I recently went to a concert by Desray and Lo van Gorp, with a fantastic band. I really enjoyed that.”
6. Recognized everywhere or anonymous on the street?
“Well, I’m really not recognized everywhere. My twelve-year-old granddaughter recently looked at me somberly and said: ‘Grandma, they say you’re famous. But there’s no one in my class who knows you.’ People over the age of forty are still I grew up with me, and there is a generation that even knows that I was on the Veronica ship. A period that I am still very proud of. But there is also a generation that has no idea who I am.”
“My twelve-year-old granddaughter recently said somberly: ‘Grandma, they say you are famous. But there is no one in my class who knows you.'”
7. Is success a matter of luck or hard work?
“Both. Success comes when you seize the opportunities that are offered to you or that you see. Those opportunities must be there, but you also have to do something that someone else does not do. And be good at your work. An opportunity that I I’m glad I grabbed it? When I started at Radio Veronica when I was nineteen, I was the only woman and I had to do the morning hours. I hated that: I wanted to play pop music at the end of the afternoon. But That’s what the boys did. Then I just made the morning very popular.”
8. Waiting or enterprising?
“Entrepreneurial. I have been the breadwinner for a long time. I was married to a man who could hardly work due to his health, and after the divorce I was alone for eight years. I have always had to take care of my two children independently, so I just had to earn money. But I didn’t have to work at the supermarket, did I? I had a nice job at the radio and had a production company, which I later sold.
I also, unhindered by any knowledge, bought a piece of land in South Africa: 104 hectares in the mountains, on which 24 houses could be built. I developed that, including installing electricity. Sometimes I think: I’ve actually done quite a lot. And still. For example, I write a lot. If you’re creative, you can’t sit with your arms crossed. If I have ideas, I have to express them.”
9. Save or spend?
“I’m a big spender. When I sold my production company and got some money for it, I took my entire circle of friends with me to South Africa.”
10. Laren or Cape Town?
“Both. I just spent five weeks in Cape Town again and loved it. I stayed with friends, because I sold my house a few years ago. It’s a shame that I no longer have my own place there, but I’m also happy that I no longer have that responsibility. Although Cape Town remains in my heart, I never wanted to emigrate. The Netherlands is my home country.”
11. Celebrate milestones or quickly return to the order of the day?
“I have always celebrated my birthday exuberantly, there were about seventy people there. I also had the space for that, but that is not possible in the Rosa Spier House. If I am in my room with four or five people, it is full. This This year I celebrated my birthday on a musical cruise to Norway, together with two of my granddaughters. By accident, actually. I thought it would be fun to do that cruise together, because they both sing, and it just so happens to be on my birthday.”
12. What do you save in the event of a fire: all the art from your living room or all the prizes you keep in the toilet?
“Oh, the art. What should I do with all those prizes? I always had a few in the toilet and a few in the bathroom. But in my two-room apartment I don’t have much space. During the move, my niece put them on a cupboard Coincidentally, I was watching it from bed this morning. Then I thought: damn, that’s nice.
For example, I am a Knight in the Order of Orange Nassau, with one of those ribbons that you are not allowed to wear – not that I would know what to put that on, by the way. I am also very proud of the Nipkow Prize and the Marconi Oeuvre Award, very special prizes in my profession.”
13. Overflowing with self-confidence or sometimes insecure?
“Of course there are times when I have doubts about something, but in recent years I have become more and more confident. Because people ask me for advice and sometimes say to me: because of you I also started doing my own thing. That is confirmation that you are doing something right. Do I also interfere with the criticism that there are too few women on the radio? No, yes. We really do have some very good women on the radio.”
14. Young dog or old dog?
“Haha, I was once asked to participate in the ‘Ouwe dibbes’ section in Chantal Janzen’s magazine. When the journalist mentioned that section name, I refused. I thought: if I had been forty, I wouldn’t have done it. I thought so badly, but now I’m an old fool and you’re not going to call me that.
What I don’t like about getting older are the ailments you get. But hey, I’ll be 83 next month, so what are we talking about? Luckily I’m not an old grump. That’s not in my character. I come from a family where there was a lot of laughter, I have plenty to enjoy and I have a positive outlook on life.”
Santanera Necklace can now be listened to in your favorite podcast app.
