Interview: BBC weather presenter Carol Kirkwood

Carol Kirkwood is the BBC’s first lady of weather. Here she tells Emily Horton about pressure charts, early starts and dancing days  

The Scottish vowels of Carol Kirkwood, the nation’s favourite forecaster, ring out with their usual good cheer. As the weather anchor on BBC Breakfast and The Chris Evans Breakfast Show on Radio 2, it’s Carol who greets us each morning, steering us through tempest, storm and wind with her disarmingly sunny smile. Little wonder that she has captured the nation’s heart.

“I love my job,” she says happily, down the line from her Maidenhead home where she has lived for some 20 years. “I love the weather and the fact that no two days are ever the same.”

One is tempted – if you’ll forgive the amateur psychology – to put it down to her childhood. Born in 1962, in the small North-West Scottish village of Morar, the young Carol MacKellaig grew up in a rare microclimate. Washed by the warming seas of the Gulf Stream that travel up from the Caribbean, Morar – famed for its silver sandy beaches – enjoys much milder temperatures than the rest of Scotland.

In fact, however, Carol’s career owes nothing to these unusual climatic roots.

“The area is stunningly beautiful,” she enthuses. “The movie Local Hero, with Burt Lancaster, was filmed up there. We have tropical trees, plus the shortest fresh water river and the deepest loch in Europe.

“But my interest in weather was accidental; it wasn’t something that I set out to pursue. I just wanted to work for the BBC. So, when I was 12, I wrote to Blue Peter asking if I could come and be a presenter. They kindly replied to say that I was too young, but that I should go back to them with a degree.” 

So, after boarding school, Carol enrolled at Napier University in Edinburgh.

“When I got to the age at which I was eligible to apply to Blue Peter though, I had become far too shy. I ended up becoming a BBC secretary instead, before moving into production as an assistant.” 

Carol left the BBC when she married her now ex-husband, Jimmy Kirkwood, a successful entrepreneur whose work took them across the country. For a while she worked in recruitment and management consultancy, before an old BBC friend asked if she still fancied being a presenter, as there was a role going in the training team. 

“She told me there were plenty of aspiring presenters, but that they weren’t able to talk live confidently and to time. During my production days I’d had some experience on radio, so I went to audition.

“I was lined up for my first presenting job with another lady who was so worked up with nerves that calming her down became my main concern. I didn’t give my own nerves a second thought and got the job”

“I was lined up with another lady who was so worked up with nerves that calming her down became my main concern. As a result, I didn’t give my own nerves a second thought. Thanks to that lovely lady, I gave a good show and got the job.”

In 1996, Carol went for interview at ITV for The Weather Channel, which was about to set up in the UK.

“I fell in love with the weather on the spot!” she says emphatically. “It was love at first sight. You’ve got the green screen behind you – which requires a lot of simulation, as you can’t see the graphics that the viewers are watching – and you have no script. Plus, of course, it’s live...”  

The Weather Channel folded within two years, but for Carol the BBC beckoned once again.

“In those days you couldn’t be a BBC weather presenter without Met Office qualifications. So, when I rejoined, they sent me off to study meteorology. I learnt all the basics – what a weather front is, how to read pressure charts, how and why the oceans influence our weather, and so on.” 

Since then, the Met Office may have fallen from BBC favour – losing its contract with the Corporation after 93 years in 2015 – but Carol has gone from strength to strength, presenting an array of major bulletins on BBC Radio and TV.

“You have to earn your colours before moving up to the most prestigious spots,” she explains. “I was asked to do BBC Breakfast News and I love it, as I get to go out on location, meet so many people and show off our beautiful country. 

“I visit places I never knew existed – like Ironbridge, one of the cradles of the Industrial Revolution, the other day. I go wherever I am sent – and it’s usually at short notice too!

“When on location, you look down the barrel of the camera and that’s it. Somebody in your ear says that you have two and a half minutes – go! It is challenging, but I have been doing it for so long now that it has become second nature. I shall never forget the first time though: you just hope that you won’t forget anything.”

Things do, of course, go wrong. 

“Once we were joined by some snow sculptors who painstakingly carved a beautiful teapot out of the snow. Before we went to broadcast, I asked if I could touch it. Fine, they said, as it’s hard-packed ice. 

“So there I was, live on air, exclaiming: ‘Look at this beautiful snow sculpture; it’s so sturdy!’ Then, just as I patted it, the whole thing simply crumbled. Well, I tell you, the look of horror on the faces of these poor men who had spent hours creating it. Three hours work down the swanny and I had to stop myself from laughing!” 

Recently, Carol has been in the New Forest, reporting at dawn on the first big frost of the year. Travel, early starts, the pressure of deadlines: it sounds a somewhat draining morning brew. 

“I get up every day at 2.45am, except for the weekends, when I tend to wake up about five,” she explains. “We have a 5am conference to discuss the weather for the day, when my hair will also be surreptiously done. Then I go and put my bulletins together, mindful of what my viewers will want to learn. Next it’s make-up and then straight to the studio, and now I am on my own.” 

So, is she just a pretty face with a script? 

“Not even that,” she chuckles modestly. “What you don’t see is that on my feet I wear trainers – I am constantly on the go. The only time I change into my heels is for the Victoria Derbyshire Show which follows Breakfast at 10am.

“Seriously, I always say that I am not a paramedic saving lives, but there is still a level of responsibility and I strive to do the best with the information available. If the forecasts turn out to be wrong though, there’s nothing we can do about it. It’s frustrating for the team because we want to do a good job – our credibility is on the line too.

“We are a close-knit bunch on Breakfast – we all know what it’s like to get up in the middle of the night. Not easy. I go to bed between seven and eight in the evening – I haven’t got a life,” she laughs. 

“The relationships you see between the presenters are all genuine. It is a wonderful team. I go on holiday with Sally (Nugent) and Steph (McGovern) each year. Now Dan Walker has joined us – he is such a honey,” she says, with typical warmth.

At more civilised hours, you may have caught Carol on The One Show, last year’s Strictly or, most recently, the dance show spin-off It Takes Two, with Zoe Ball, on BBC2. 

“Ah...” gushes Carol. “Strictly was an experience that I will neither forget nor regret. I had the pleasure of being partnered with Pasha Kovalev, who was such a gentleman. Even so, when you are not used to sticking your legs around somebody’s waist, it is quite embarrassing. I was blushing constantly in the first couple of weeks. ‘Oh my goodness,’ I’d say to him. 

“Then Pasha would joke that I had two left feet. On the weather, I do everything in reverse – so when Pasha would say to move my left leg, I would immediately move my right, and he would respond: ‘No, your other left leg!’” 

At 52, Carol was one of the older competitors that year, but she looked incredible; a breath of fresh air alongside the younger dancers and celebrities.  

“Oh, thank you for saying that,” she gushes some more. “I am a regular size 12, which is hardly big, but I felt like an elephant next to the professionals.” 

Earlier this year, Carol’s distinctly unelephantine frame received a workout through the BBC Sport initiative ‘Get Inspired’, aimed at encouraging more people to exercise and take up sports. 

“I signed up saying that I’d do anything but running – but that’s exactly what they gave me, insisting that it would present a genuine challenge. ‘No,’ I replied, ‘I’ve got boobs. This isn’t going to be nice.’”

Braced for humiliation, Carol decided that she should at least give it a go. So, she teamed up with a friend and together they set about following the Public Health England app, ‘Couch to 5k’. 

“The first couple of weeks was fine, but then we were tasked with running for a whole five minutes. ‘Oh no,’ I thought, but we did it. Then we progressed to ten, and then 15 minutes, and soon we were running non-stop for 25. Now I’ve got the bug: I run almost daily in our beautiful Berkshire countryside.

“Nobody ever regrets exercising because you always feel better for it. Even if your body shape isn’t changing, it’s benefiting your lungs, heart and bones. My top tip for new runners is always to stretch afterwards – never just walk away, or you’ll feel it the next day!”

Does she still dance?

“Not really, as none of my friends really do, but I certainly have a boogie if I go to a party. Not the quickstep though, which is a real shame, as I would have loved to carry on with that!”

And what does the festive season have in store? 

“Well, I love Christmas – even though I’m Scottish, I prefer it to New Year. There’s my mum’s 90th birthday to look forward to, plus the annual Christmas shopping trip to New York with my sister. I love shopping in Windsor too, and a visit to my favourite restaurant, The Waterside Inn in Bray, also goes down well. 

“Otherwise, I’m still waiting to hear if I am working for Christmas, but I will be with friends and family. With seven brothers and sisters, and lots of nieces and nephews and their children, there will be plenty going on.”

As indeed there is right now: Carol’s feline fella, Donald, is crying at the door. 

“Ah, Emily, I’m sorry,” she says. “Donald rules the roost here. I’d better go see to him...” 

And with a parting ‘bless you’ she is off, the sound of contented purring filling the air. It’s been a lovely morning though – exactly as forecast.

You can catch The Wind in the Willows at the Rose Theatre, Kingston Dec 6 - Jan 3. For tickets, visit rosetheatrekingston.org

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