Presenter leaves BBC after nearly 40 years on the air

Presenter Louise Priest is leaving the BBC after a career in local radio and regional television spanning nearly 40 years.

A familiar face to breakfast and lunchtime audiences of BBC Look East she said "it never occurred to me to leave" until now.

Joining the corporation in September 1983, she worked in Birmingham and Manchester before getting a job at BBC Radio Norfolk.

"I feel I have made the right decision to go, but I'm also slightly nervous about life after the BBC," she said.

Born in Loughborough, Leicestershire, she said: "I had a romantic notion about being a marine biologist for a while, but I wasn’t great at science so that was that.

"I almost went down the home economics teacher route but the thought of showing children how to make shortcrust pastry year after year just didn’t excite me enough."

Having decided journalism was the way forward, Priest's first job with the corporation was at BBC Radio Guernsey.

It was upon landing a job at BBC Radio Norfolk aged 23 that the county eventually became her long-term home.

"So many things have changed over the years. The way newsrooms are staffed, the advances in technology and of course the digital/online world," she said.

"I have been so lucky to have a variety of jobs at the BBC it never occurred to me to leave but, after almost 40 years, I felt the time was right.

"The impact of the 4am starts on my home life was the biggest factor."

Priest, now 62, who is married and has two children Clark and Grace, said it had been a "privilege meeting and interviewing people from all walks of life, from a prime minister to a pantomime dame".

"The early days were very different in terms of equipment. I remember hauling a very heavy 'mobile' phone around the Royal Norfolk Show in the 1980s and the radio recording equipment was so heavy - now it's all done on a smartphone," she said.

"No two days have ever been the same; the whole range of stories and laughs with my colleagues has meant a very varied work life.

"In the early days at Norfolk Tower [former base for BBC Radio Norfolk on Surrey Street in Norwich] the 'boys' [sports team] would play cricket in the main production office - until I got hit in the eye and that put a stop to that."

"I have loved my time in radio and the immediacy of responding to news and situations," she said.

"TV is very different but I have enjoyed bringing the news to viewers over the years but it does sometimes go wrong.

"Many years ago a camera slowly slipped down, leaving me with just my eyes showing at the end of a TV bulletin."

"There are so many radio 'almost mishaps' including uncontrollable giggling - corpsing as it's known - during a radio news bulletin.

"I blamed the presenter Roy Waller, who I'm sure many will remember [Waller died in 2010].

"He had to finish off reading the weather for me and from that day, news people were banned from reading bulletins in the same studio as the presenter."

Robert Thompson, the BBC's senior head of content production for the East and London, said: "Louise is a BBC East legend and has worked across so many of our radio and TV programmes across the region.

"Most recently she’s been waking up the region on TV during BBC Breakfast and I know that many of our viewers will really miss her, as will we.

"On behalf of us all, thank you."

Priest said she had "no firm plans" as to what she would do next.

"I'm not ready to put my feet up yet, so we shall see. Maybe I should write a book?" she said.

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