Toast of Wetwang: A new front opens up for weatherman Paul Hudson

Believe it or not, he’s been on our screens now for 20 years but really, when I say our, I mean those of us living in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, where he’s become something of an institution.

As the weather anchor on Look North, he’s renowned for his lovable (dare I say it, cheeky chappie) image – and his verbal ping pong with the news anchors, not least while former presented Christa Ackroyd was in the post.

She may have left the show now but during their nightly exchanges and bits of banter, Paul was often the one who shone.

He gave as good as he got and the friendly friction which seemed to build up between the two spheres became something of a feature of the programme.

“I remember my first time presenting in front of a camera and it was daunting. I can’t remember 
what I said on air, it was Hallowe’en 1997. I remember feeling physically sick.

“You still get nerves to a certain extent, because otherwise you cannot perform, not if you want to be sharp – I always think a little bit of adrenaline helps your performance.

“You have to be on your toes because after you’ve done the weather, you have a little chat with the hosts and you never know what they’re going to say to you.

“We would have a bit of banter and sometimes we’d even carry that on afterwards, off air or outside the studio. It was all in good heart, though. You have to get on with people.”

Getting on with people has never really been a problem for Paul. Even when the weather is grim, his outlook is always positive and that’s opened doors for him.

His chipper personality and disarming smile, a constant fixture of his weather reports, have endeared him to the public – he has 61,000 twitter followers, for example, and is recognised in the street pretty much wherever he goes.

“I was out recently and it was like mob city, I’m used to being recognised and it’s mostly by women who are over 55, but you know, if you ever get the weather wrong, people are very quick to point that out.

“I went out in Leeds recently and I was surprised at how many young people recognised me, I had all these students coming up to me… and I think that’s down to youngsters watching Look North with their parents, which makes me feel old.”

Paul’s not old yet, he’s 44 and a father of two children, aged 10 and seven.

But now the forecaster is about to take his inimitable talents to broader pastures.

From this month – and in addition to fulfilling his slot on the nightly weather – he will be presenting the BBC’s Inside Out programme, the weekly magazine mixing topical and off-beat stories from around the country.

It’s a departure from talking about the national obsession but it’s one Paul is looking forward to. It will, if nothing else, showcase his inimitable presenting style to a much wider audience.

“I’ll be going down to three days a week so I can do the new project, I’ll be the main presenter, the main face of the programme, so it’s something I’m really looking forward to.

“We’ve already done some pieces for the programme, so there will be a mix of presenting and also making reports for some of the pieces.

“It’s going to be a real mix of things too, so it’s not just weather-related. There’s hard news pieces in there as well, which is a real change for me but I think it’s come at the right time. When you have done something for 19 years, there comes a time when you need a change.”

The tone of some of the stories featured on Inside Out will vary widely, Paul says – “from hard-hitting investigations where we hold people to account, to important and touching real life stories and great human interest features”.

It’s not that he hasn’t already dipped his hand into other areas of the media. He is the author of five books (yes, they’re all about the weather) and he also presents a weekly radio show (no prizes for guessing what that’s about, either – its title, The Weather Show, couldn’t be more unambiguous).

You might think that’s all there is to the TV man but he has even more strings to his bow. Aside from his blog – bbc.co.uk/blogs/paulhudson – he’s also the Mayor of Wetwang, a title he has held for the last 10 years, taking over from the late Richard Whiteley, who famously held the post.

Since assuming the ceremonial robes – he has to officiate at the parish’s annual scarecrow festival and vegetable show, a duty he describes as “high profile” – Wetwang has been a constant feature of the nightly weather maps on our screens.

He typically works four days a 
week, having Fridays off, a fact which led to him taking up golf and signing up as a member of Moor Allerton Golf Club, where he occasionally rubs shoulders with the likes of Geoff Boycott.

“I had to find something to do,” he says, almost apologetically, “and so I gave golf a try and now I really enjoy it. I play off 19, which isn’t bad, although I’ve yet to have a hole in one.”

Born in Keighley, Paul attended Old Bank School and did A-levels at the sixth form there and has always had an interest in the weather.

By the age of eight, he was running a fully-equipped weather station from his bedroom, complete with thermometer, hygrometer (for humidity), anemometer (for wind speed) and a copper rain gauge.

He recorded the weather every single day for the next ten years – yes, a whole decade – even forcing his grandad, who lived nearby, to take over whenever he went away on holiday.

So obsessed was he with the weather that he used the data he collected to draw graphs and bar charts, predicting trends and patterns.

By the age of 11 he was on Calendar being interviewed by Whiteley, and he had his own monthly weather column in his local paper the Keighley News.

He went on to study maths and physics at Newcastle University, before landing a work experience position with the Met Office in Leeds. It was from here that he progressed to presenting.

His new venture, however, will mean he will be slightly less visible on our screens, giving up his regular slot on Tuesdays so he can squeeze in his new filming commitments.

So, what’s the long-term forecast for his own career?

“I never want to leave the weather, it’s what I’m interested in and I love doing it. I can’t foresee a time when I wouldn’t be doing the weather.”

• Inside Out starts tonight at 7.30pm (Yorkshire & Lincolnshire only) on BBC One.