Correspondents

Penny's journalistic career began on a school magazine where she was the editor.

It won a competition run by her regional daily newspaper the Western Mail in Cardiff. 

When Penny applied for a job at the 'Mail' the then editor remembered her work and signed her up.

"It was a tough apprenticeship – at one stage I was the only woman in the newsroom!" Penny said.

Penny's first radio job was as a reporter at BBC Brighton. She was asked to join Radio Lincolnshire when it launched and was the first voice on air.

Three years later, Penny became an assistant producer on the new Breakfast Time programme. This was a backroom role, but within six weeks she was given her first on-screen break.

Penny has won an award for her reporting

"I was asked to fill-in doing a short studio item when someone went sick.

"I had turned up in a woolly pulley expecting to do a 12 hour overnight shift – and found myself on the red sofa reading auto cue for the first time! No time for nerves, make-up or to change!

"Apparently because I looked calm and in control the editor thought I had potential!" Penny said.

Penny became one of six Breakfast Time reporters.  Her first job, coincidentally was in Leeds with the first UK tour of American rock legends ZZ Top. 

"It was a pioneering programme where you got the opportunity to cover a huge range of stories – from the Brighton bomb, Zeebrugge ferry and Bradford fire disasters to interviewing such luminaries – and heroes of mine – as Stevie Wonder, Queen, Duran Duran, Dudley Moore and Donald Sutherland," Penny said.

"I travelled to France for the presidential elections and Northern Ireland for the continuing troubles as well as Yorkshire for the miners strike.

"It was varied, exciting and unpredictable, but it meant there was not much time for a social life," she added.

After working as a Breakfast reporter for four years, Penny yearned for a change in the pace of her life. She returned to live full-time in a cottage she had bought in Lincolnshire and join the ITV regional news programme 'Calendar'. Within months she was presenting the programme alongside the legendary Richard Whiteley. He became a good friend.

Within a year, Penny was called back to London. Her new role involved reporting and presenting a regional news programme, a documentary series and an events/entertainment series.

In 1994, Penny won the Royal Television Society Reporter of the Year Award.

Penny remained at Look East for eight years. But before long found the pressures of being in the public eye difficult.

"I found the public side of the job troubling: people wanted to follow me around supermarkets, thought that as they saw me every night they knew me and could invade a meal in a restaurant, a quiet country walk or even a dental appointment to tell me what they thought. As the saying goes 'If you can't stand the heat…'" Penny said.

"So I decided to turn what I found a negative side of the job to something positive. I quit – to everyone's shock and amazement.

"I joined a regional children's charity – a hospice - where I could use my profile to raise funds and its profile. It felt far more like I was doing some good, putting something back."

It worked. The money poured in – way above target. "Everyone now got to know about the charity, rather than me. But it was relentless, 24/7. You were never off work," she added.

When a family move brought Penny to Yorkshire, she began freelancing at Calendar, Tyne Tees Tonight and Look North.

"There is something about the adrenalin rush of daily journalism that is hard to get over!" she added.

Penny said of her current role as Health Correspondent "I try to continue the ethos of putting something back".

"As well as reflecting the ups and downs of the NHS I am keen to show how ordinary people deal with extraordinary health issues: the child battling kidney failure, the young man tackling leukaemia and the schemes to help people tackle drug abuse.

"In a roundabout way it improves health by making us realise how lucky we are!" she added.

Away from work, Penny walks her three dogs, does-up her house and tackles an obsession with chocolate and wine!