Kathryn Apanowicz: Yorkshire Television actress and broadcaster and partner of Richard Whiteley dies aged 64 after long illness

In the 1970s and 80s she was also a national face as nurse Rose Butchins on the BBC medical soap Angels and appeared on Coronation Street, EastEnders and Emmerdale, before becoming a presenter on stations including BBC Radio Leeds and BBC Radio York.

Kathryn, who has died at 64 after a long illness, was also the partner of YTV’s most enduring presenter, the late Richard Whiteley.

The two had known each other for nearly 30 years when they became a couple.

Born in Bradford and raised in Leeds as the daughter of a Polish RAF pilot, Kathryn met him at YTV when he was hosting Calendar and she was fronting a local programme for children and teenagers.

The romance began when she was 18 and he was 34 and was at first brief because Kathryn wanted to pursue her acting career in London.

But they remained in touch and the relationship resumed when she returned to Yorkshire to care for her father. She and Richard set up home together near Ilkley and later in Wensleydale.

After his death in 2005, aged 61, she published a biography of him titled Richard by Kathryn, and donated pairs of his spectacles to a charity that sent them to Ethiopia to be dispensed to locals with the same prescription.

The journey became a BBC documentary.

Kathryn’s own career took in the film musical Bugsy Malone and when the radio station Minster FM was launched in 1992 she was among its first roster of presenters.

In the early 1990s, she helped launch the cable channel Wire TV and presented its magazine programme, Afternoon Live.

She also enjoyed a regular stint as one of the presenters of ITV’s daytime magazine show for women, Live Talk, later retitled Loose Women.

Recalling her early years in the business, she said that when she performed on Junior Showtime alongside the future Blue Peter presenter Mark Curry, the producer, Jess Yates, had arranged to pay them with a bottle of Coca-Cola each.

The show’s other ‘discoveries’ included the young Bonnie Langford, Lena Zavaroni, and the actress Pauline Quirke.