At this year's London Dinner (2022), the event was hosted by Old Hymerian Andrew Edwards, Senior Radio Presenter at BBC Leeds.  We spoke to him to find out more about his career since leaving Hymers College, as well as his memories from his time at the school.

What years were you at Hymers College?

1975 to 1985

What did you do after leaving Hymers?

I studied History of Art at the University of Manchester, graduating in 1988, and spent the summers working at the Birds Eye pea factory on Hessle Road. I had a place on a Masters course at the Courtauld Institute in London, but ended up taking a lifelong diversion into radio instead!

What career path have you followed?

After university I started volunteering at Kingstown Hospital Radio in Hull, which led to my first radio work - reading out sports results on Viking Radio on Saturday afternoons and putting together a weekly rugby union round-up. I was then taken on as a trainee reporter by the Hull Daily Mail, with the aim of becoming a sub-editor. However I’d also applied to the BBC’s Trainee Reporter Scheme and was lucky enough to get a place. The newspaper’s editor agreed to release me from my indentures (sounds very old fashioned now!) and, at the age of 22, I headed south.

I joined 11 other trainees in London in the strike ridden summer of 1989. One of them was Cathy Killick, who’s been my partner ever since. I’ve presented programmes from New York (after running the marathon), Durban (Leeds’s twin city in South Africa), Valencia (when Leeds United so nearly made it to the Champions League final in Rome) and the roof of Westminster Hall, commentating on the funeral of the Queen Mother.

How did the teachers at Hymers help shape your career choice?

Hymers opened my eyes to lots of opportunities, including radio. In the sixth form my friend Ed Bacon (OH 1978-85) and I entered a competition organised by the BBC and Hansard, the Chroniclers of Westminster. Lugging around a huge reel-to-reel tape recorder, we put together “PR: Progression or Regression?” which won the Yorkshire round, and led us to being interviewed (during school hours!) on BBC Radio Humberside.

First experience of live radio: me, Ed Bacon and presenter Judi Murden at BBC Radio Humberside’s studios on Jameson Street (1984)

Ed’s late economics teacher, Richard Baty, was a great encouragement. A careers evening in the school hall also led me to think that radio might be a possible line of work. I picked up several leaflets, including one for the course I later applied for.

More generally, annual play competitions, lots of drama and my experience of public speaking as head boy helped with the sort of skills I’ve used all my life, plus the ability to string a few words together on paper (honed particularly in English and history lessons).

Are you still in touch with anyone from Hymers?

Some of my closest friends are Old Hymerians, including John Kittmer (OH 1978-85), former UK ambassador to Greece, Bob Portal (OH 1975-85), now a film producer in L.A., and Tim Woodward (OH 1978-85), a fellow journalist whose career has taken him to the Yorkshire Post, Daily Mail and the Telegraph.

Who was your favourite teacher and why?

Neil King - an inspiration in and outside the classroom and someone I still see. Why? - for his wonderful English teaching; for his passion; for taking us to see live theatre; for treating us like adults; above all for helping this gawky lad have the confidence to stand up on his hind legs in public.

It’s tough to single one teacher out and there are many other stars, particularly John Morris, my fabulous A level history teacher (funny and so knowledgeable), and Ian Nicholls and the late Tony Tordoff who taught us German, brilliantly.

What is your funniest memory of Hymers?

Funny and fond. A lovely lad called Simon Atkinson (OH 1975-83) was in my class from day one (J1W - Mr Worthington) right the way up to O levels. During a physics lesson with Mr Ford, about specific heat capacity, Simon was asked about the distinctive aroma surrounding his place on the bench. He asked Mr Ford to come over to see for himself, and asked if he took sugar. ‘Wacky Acky’, as he was known, was brewing up Nescafé! Sadly Simon died, tragically, soon after we left school.

What extra curricular activities did you take part in?

Drama - I took part in many junior and senior productions directed by Jonathan Forster and Neil King; I was also involved with writing for and performing in the annual play competitions. 

My favourite roles were in Brecht’s ‘The Caucasian Chalk Circle’; as Don John the Bastard in “Much Ado About Nothing”, where I wore a monocle!; and as The Cardinal in Neil’s fabulous production of Webster’s “The Duchess of Malfi” in ‘A’ level year.

A Hull Daily Mail picture of Fiona Platt, Pippa King (Neil’s daughter and a fellow OH) and me in “The Caucasian Chalk Circle“ (1984)

Playing the malevolent Don John the Bastard in “Much Ado About Nothing” (1983)

The Hymerian - I was, and remain, a keen photographer and took pictures for the annual magazine, as well as writing a number of reports and articles.

School choir - with the wonderful Graham Watson for my first couple of years and then Desmond Swinburn.

Running - I was never a great sportsman but Les Price, who taught woodwork, and Geoff Wilson, head of languages, started a lunchtime running club. That gave me a lifelong love of exercise and fitness for its own sake, rather than for winning. We almost didn’t make it to my first ‘proper’ run, the Doncaster half marathon, when the minibus burst into flames at the start of the M62!

Can you tell us more about your radio career?

After moving around the country training (Stoke, Hereford and Cambridge), I got my first ‘proper’ job at a new station, BBC Hereford and Worcester, in 1990. For the next three years I tried just about everything - news-reading, reporting, producing and my first experience of presenting, providing holiday cover for Jane Garvey (later the first voice on Five Live and host of Woman’s Hour). 

I joined BBC Radio Leeds - the station for West Yorkshire - in 1993 and work there as a presenter/producer, currently hosting the weekend breakfast shows. I spent 15 years on the early shift during the week and have also presented the drive time show and a lunchtime phone-in. My work is really varied, including outside broadcasts such as a recent one for BBC Children in Need with footballing legend Chris Kamara.

BBC Children in Need - live in Pudsey with footballing and broadcasting legend Chris Kamara (2022)

In 2013, I won a prize at the New York International Radio Awards for a documentary I made with the former Prime Minister John Major called “Major at the Music Hall”. We recorded it at the Leeds City Varieties, where his father - an entertainer - performed just before the First World War but which Sir John had never before visited.

At the New York International Radio Awards: “Major at the Music Hall” (2013)

However my proudest achievement is “Mum and Me: The Dementia Diary”. My lovely Mum Carolyn, who lived off Westbourne Avenue in Hull, died in July 2022 after five years of mixed dementia (Alzheimer’s and vascular). Each week for three and a half years up to her death, I’d sit in the car or the back bedroom and - before heading home - speak my thoughts into my phone. 

Talking from the heart about the awfulness and the occasional joys of seeing someone you love disappear in front of your eyes touched listeners more than anything I’ve ever done before. That led to me being honoured as a ‘Dementia Hero’ by the Alzheimer’s Society.

To hear his diaries, please visit www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p082m6hx