Biography

How It Started

Christine grew up wanting to be a journalist and writer, starting her career in local papers before making the transition into television as a reporter for BBC North West Tonight in Manchester. She fell into presenting by chance when the early morning presenter was ill and she was asked to stand in at short notice, despite having morning hair and nothing more presentable to wear but a big woolly jumper! This later led to a presenting role on the main nightly programme.

In 1993 Christine moved over the Pennines to join Yorkshire TV’s Calendar news programme as a reporter/presenter, before being chosen as the host of a new nightly magazine show Tonight which had viewing figures up to 50 per cent on many evenings, including the night Christine introduced her baby daughter Beth. It was a dream job which also took her all over the world in a spin off series “Christine’s Big Trip”. She interviewed ex pats from the region who now lived and worked in places as far afield as an Aborigine village in Australia and one of the world’s most iconic hotels, the Hotel Bel Air in Los Angeles.

Christine also co-hosted Live Lunch and was one of the first presenters on Wellbeing, one of the pioneering Lifestyle digital channels in 2000, often broadcasting live for three hours a day –covering everything from beauty and health to nutrition and daily phone ins – a huge learning curve!

She returned to Calendar in 2001 and co-host Duncan Wood joined two years later. The pair became the longest serving regional partnership in ITV regional news. Alongside Calendar she also presented programmes including Magic Moments, where Christine profiled the famous faces of the region, and the investigative series Xposed.

In the last twenty years she has covered most of the notable events in the region, including the Hillsborough Inquiry, the closure of the last deep pit coal mines and the arrival of the Tour De France Grand Depart in Yorkshire. In 2017 Christine and Harry Gration from BBC Look North joined forces on a live programme to mark the anniversary of the murder of the MP Jo Cox whose mantra had been “We have More in Common than that which divides us”

She has interviewed everyone from Prime Ministers to pop stars, including the late Robert Palmer, just two days before his untimely death in 2003, and carried out the very first interview with a young Gareth Gates!

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In 2017, a Calendar investigation into whether the Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe had ever killed men as well as women, led to Christine becoming one of the last journalists to receive correspondence in the form of a letter from the notorious killer in which he denied the claims.

Christine has always most enjoyed meeting and interviewing ordinary people with extraordinary tales to tell – among her favourites was the legendary Daleswoman Hannah Hauxwell. She also led the way journalistically with her interviews with the family of York woman Claudia Lawrence, who went missing in 2009.

Among her more memorable moments was playing herself in a disaster flooding episode of Emmerdale, where she had to stand under a fake rain shower for two hours!

Christine has won many awards for her work including the prestigious RTS and O2 awards as well as being named Yorkshire Personality of the Year in the publicly voted Yorkshire Choice awards.

Christine was diagnosed and successfully treated for breast cancer in 2012. She was hugely honoured to be asked to open the MacMillan Cancer Robert Ogden Oncology centre Harrogate in 2014 and tries to support others who are diagnosed and want help and advice.

She lives near Wetherby with her husband and daughter and loves making the most of the beautiful countryside she now calls home.