Helen Young

Just been listening to the Janice Long show on Radio 2 and heard Helen Young giving her last ever weather forecast on that show - apparently she's leaving at the end of this week to spend more time with her family.

She's never been my favourite weather forecaster, but it's quite a high-profile departure for the Weather Centre as she's their Lead Presenter.

I like her, wonder who will take her job?, isn't she also the weather boss?, she took over from Michael Fish a few years ago just before she had her first baby?

Wish her the best of luck, doing the same as another of my favourites Suzanne Charlton who left to spend more time with her family.

As I said, she's "Lead Presenter", which is the new name for "Broadcast Manager", her old job - AIUI she's not the "weather boss" as such, there's a member of non-broadcast staff who manages the Weather Centre, but she is that of the most senior Broadcast Meteorologist in the team.

She took on the role from Bill Giles, not Michael Fish - he was never actually the Broadcast Manager. I'm sure I remember reading somewhere that he was offered the job but didn't want it because of the paperwork involved.

My money for the lead presenter's job would be on Peter Gibbs or Alex Deakin - they seem to be the most obvious candidates to me.

Could be Gibbs or Deakin but what about Helen Willetts or Penny Tranter?

Helen was one of the first weather women to get the publicity that the bbc do so well for it's "special ones " nowadays and got promoted perhaps too rapidly.

I've rarely seen her over the past few years and then it hasn't been because of anything positive. She took a lot of stick this year because of the furore over the weather graphics changes.

She is lucky that she can walk away from a job she hasn't been doing very well at and put her feet up while someone else supports her.

So who is going to take the Lead presenter role now? I'd like Rob Mcelwee to be the man as he has a genuine interest and focus on the job. I think he could stop the bbc weather forecasts from being simplified any further.

She was on maternity leave for huge portions of the last two years - and I don't think it's fair to apportion the graphics to her - which was surely a management decision.

No it probably wasn't fair but when the sht hit the fan back in the summer her name was up there along with a couple of other people as being responsible for the new production.

I wonder if this has anything to do with her leaving.

Is there any particular reason you always choose to publish the quotes underneath your reply?

It makes it a little consfusing to read.

I've not read anything about this on the BBC intranet, and I did have a good look earlier today. I'm not saying it's not true (I simply don't know) but it's odd that there's nothing about it on Gateway.

If indeed Helen is leaving I'd love to see Rob McElwee get the job.

It's a style i've got used to doing on the net. I assume that having the previous comments in mind , the reader can just read mine from the top without scrolling down .

It doesnt work as well where multiple posts get boxed and cascaded.

Except when I do this, your "style" makes no sense.

Nor does it work when regular readers go from topic to topic by clicking "last post", I'm afraid.

I would need a pretty extensive memory to hold so many discussions in mind - as *fabulous* as they all are.