KA
Katherine
Founding member
‘ACROSS YORKSHIRE AND OTHER PLACES'
MY CAREER SO FAR
Across Yorkshire, Lincolnshire and the North Midlands, this is BBC1 with Look North, presented by Katherine Barclay and Harry Gration
10:30, Monday August 6th 2001. BBC Leeds'building on Woodhouse Lane certainly resembled the street-name it resided on, partially shrouded from view by a large tree and shrubs adorning the frontage. I was about to start a whole new period of my life as a broadcaster. I had come home to my region and I felt really excited at the prospect of doing the job I'd dreamed so much of doing as a young girl. I had enjoyed sixteen months as a presenter on BBC Midlands Today. But this was a lot different. Look North was going through considerable change. There was to be a new service for Hull and East Yorkshire. Clare Frisby, my predecessor had been asked to present this, eventually presenting a whole new programme for the east of the region. This new initiative left the Chief Female presenting position free. Hearing about this new position available in my home region, it was too good an offer to overlook. When the position was offered to me, I was simply overjoyed.
“I want to be Judith Stamper dad. I want to read the news just like she does!” “I'm sure you will Katherine!” my dad always used to reply when I said that. Since primary school, I had played at ‘reporting', using my hairbrush as a microphone. If I was not ‘on location', I was behind the studio ‘desk', that is, the living room coffee table, my willing twin brother Gavin as my co-anchor. Occasionally, dad would act as cameraman. My desire to be a journalist was fuelled further by a school trip a couple of years later, to the offices of my county newspaper. I remember that Gavin and I were so enthusiastic, we were reprimanded for playing at ‘reporters' too much! However, our school trip made it to the pages of the newspaper, and my picture was in it. It was the first time that Gavin and I had had our picture in any newspaper. My parents bought the photo from the newspaper, and that picture now adorns my dressing room table. When I celebrated my tenth birthday in 1987, I was now old enough to join the Yorkshire Young Reporters Club (YRRC), an organisation that had been in operation a couple of years. This had received very good backing and advertising from newspapers across Yorkshire and parts of Lincolnshire and Humberside. This was a club aimed at children from 10 to 16 years old. We had plenty of meetings per year, and it was this club that really served to develop my enthusiasm for journalism into something much more tangible than sitting behind a coffee table or holding a hairbrush microphone. At meetings, we would occasionally have a visit from a journalist in the business, revealing more about this fascinating area of work. It served to fuel my desire to be Judith Stamper more.
I had not had the easiest of births, resulting in my being born with cerebral palsy. I was born with my umbilical cord wrapped tightly round my neck like a fleshy tourniquet. My legs and left arm were held in permanent spastic tension. My voice too was affected by the disability slightly, but it remained comprehensible, if slightly slurred. Look North had, according to newspapers, ‘taken a brave step in employing a disabled presenter'. Upon reading this, my father Martin scoffed. “The lass has got there on ability, not disability. She's a born broadcaster!”. So too did my mother Gillian. This was not brave, but groundbreaking. If I could be a positive, rather than ‘brave' role model and encourage disabled people to take a more prominent role in society by doing things like this, then my time as a broadcaster will have been worth it.
I am 'Katherine Barclay', and this is my story. Would you like to read more over this year? Right from my humble beginnings at a children's journalism club to Look North's studio?
(Edited by Katherine at 4:46 pm on Dec. 25, 2001)
MY CAREER SO FAR
Across Yorkshire, Lincolnshire and the North Midlands, this is BBC1 with Look North, presented by Katherine Barclay and Harry Gration
10:30, Monday August 6th 2001. BBC Leeds'building on Woodhouse Lane certainly resembled the street-name it resided on, partially shrouded from view by a large tree and shrubs adorning the frontage. I was about to start a whole new period of my life as a broadcaster. I had come home to my region and I felt really excited at the prospect of doing the job I'd dreamed so much of doing as a young girl. I had enjoyed sixteen months as a presenter on BBC Midlands Today. But this was a lot different. Look North was going through considerable change. There was to be a new service for Hull and East Yorkshire. Clare Frisby, my predecessor had been asked to present this, eventually presenting a whole new programme for the east of the region. This new initiative left the Chief Female presenting position free. Hearing about this new position available in my home region, it was too good an offer to overlook. When the position was offered to me, I was simply overjoyed.
“I want to be Judith Stamper dad. I want to read the news just like she does!” “I'm sure you will Katherine!” my dad always used to reply when I said that. Since primary school, I had played at ‘reporting', using my hairbrush as a microphone. If I was not ‘on location', I was behind the studio ‘desk', that is, the living room coffee table, my willing twin brother Gavin as my co-anchor. Occasionally, dad would act as cameraman. My desire to be a journalist was fuelled further by a school trip a couple of years later, to the offices of my county newspaper. I remember that Gavin and I were so enthusiastic, we were reprimanded for playing at ‘reporters' too much! However, our school trip made it to the pages of the newspaper, and my picture was in it. It was the first time that Gavin and I had had our picture in any newspaper. My parents bought the photo from the newspaper, and that picture now adorns my dressing room table. When I celebrated my tenth birthday in 1987, I was now old enough to join the Yorkshire Young Reporters Club (YRRC), an organisation that had been in operation a couple of years. This had received very good backing and advertising from newspapers across Yorkshire and parts of Lincolnshire and Humberside. This was a club aimed at children from 10 to 16 years old. We had plenty of meetings per year, and it was this club that really served to develop my enthusiasm for journalism into something much more tangible than sitting behind a coffee table or holding a hairbrush microphone. At meetings, we would occasionally have a visit from a journalist in the business, revealing more about this fascinating area of work. It served to fuel my desire to be Judith Stamper more.
I had not had the easiest of births, resulting in my being born with cerebral palsy. I was born with my umbilical cord wrapped tightly round my neck like a fleshy tourniquet. My legs and left arm were held in permanent spastic tension. My voice too was affected by the disability slightly, but it remained comprehensible, if slightly slurred. Look North had, according to newspapers, ‘taken a brave step in employing a disabled presenter'. Upon reading this, my father Martin scoffed. “The lass has got there on ability, not disability. She's a born broadcaster!”. So too did my mother Gillian. This was not brave, but groundbreaking. If I could be a positive, rather than ‘brave' role model and encourage disabled people to take a more prominent role in society by doing things like this, then my time as a broadcaster will have been worth it.
I am 'Katherine Barclay', and this is my story. Would you like to read more over this year? Right from my humble beginnings at a children's journalism club to Look North's studio?
(Edited by Katherine at 4:46 pm on Dec. 25, 2001)