 | | Harry Gration |
He strongly believes the viewer must feel at home with the person they invite into their home every night, when they turn on their television. "But the poor souls get me looking back at them!" During Harry's break from this region, he tried out a professional job with a sport he'd followed for years - rugby league. In 1994, he became their Public Affairs Executive - and returned to broadcasting soon after. It is, he says, a year he'll always remember. Down south BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Match of the Day and Grandstand grabbed him and then followed four years with South Today where this northern boy was taken right into the hearts of those southerners! Harry has never followed a normal career pattern. He was a history teacher in Yorkshire and he used school holidays to do match reports for BBC Radio Leeds and BBC Radio Humberside. His natural talent was soon spotted and he took a gamble, giving up the teaching for a three-month contract as sports editor of Radio Leeds. Commentator There was no stopping him of course – he became a regular reporter and commentator for the BBC's Olympic and Commonwealth Games coverage, travelling the world for his profession - most recently at the 2000 Olympics. Harry has presented Grandstand and Sportsnight and has won two Royal Television Society Awards for his sports documentaries: White Rose in Africa (1992) and Dickie Bird - A Rare Species (1997). A favourite place You'd find me in Scarborough - walking the sands along the North Bay, to be precise. I love seaside towns - their smells, their look. The North Sea is hardly glamorous but it always has something to offer. It never looks the same. Every season it's different. And at the North Bay you can forget the noise of the tourist amusements to enjoy it as the Victorians must have done. But then if I really want to forget noise, Robin Hood's Bay is the place to go, with fish and chips at Whitby forming my tea-time stop-off. | 
