Wonderful Amy
Amy Garcia talks to Stephanie Smith about 10 years of presenting BBC Look North as she opens the doors of her lovely York home for a celebratory fashion photoshoot. Pictures by Tony Johnson.
IT was the chance of a lifetime, an opportunity that might never come again, but when Amy Garcia landed her dream job as the new main copresenter of BBC Look North, alongside the legendary Harry Gration, she found herself in a dilemma. Her baby daughter was just six months old. “I’m sure I was nervous on the first programme, but all I kept thinking was, I feel so guilty I’ve left her,” she said. “Straight after, I went home to breastfeed her, and came back to do a late shift.”
Next month, Amy marks 10 years in the evening hot seat at Look North. “A lot of things have changed since I started doing the main 6.30,” she said. “Behind the scenes, it’s a more slimmed down version of what it was,” she said. “Before the pandemic, there used to be two presenters, three camera operators, a floor manager and a make-up artist. And now there’s just me and one, possibly two, people on the floor.
“But what we do is still the same, the heart of what the programme is hasn’t changed at all since it started 50 years ago, which is programme for our viewers, the voice for our region and also celebrating our region.”
Amy celebrates her own Look North decade here with a Yorkshire Post Magazine photoshoot, wearing some of her favourite outfits in and around her home near York, which she shares with her husband of 13 years, Tim, a pop music writer (he has worked with Blue, Delta Goodrem, Eliza Doolittle, Toploader and many, many others), and their children, Mabel, now 10, and Ren, nearly eight. They also have a little community of rather cute silkie and pekin bantams in the back garden.
Born and bred in Wakefield, Amy grew up with her parents, Yvonne and Jesus, older sister Katrina and younger brother Jimmy. Yvonne was 18 when she met Spaniard Jesus in Majorca. “It was a holiday romance that obviously lasted,” said Amy. “We have always had that real sense of family. When we all get together, it’s very rowdy, with lots of laughter and Spanish food. My dad loves any excuse to cook a big dish so there’s always a paella or six tortillas on the go.”
The Yorkshire side of the family were market traders. Amy’s grandfather had stalls at Castleford, and Yvonne and Jesus followed suit, selling curtains and blinds at Wakefield Market (they made all the curtains in Amy’s house). Amy helped out. “That’s what gave me tools to go into presenting, because in the markets, you meet people from all walks of life, some amazing characters,” she said.
At Kettlethorpe High School, she began performing in stage shows – she was Annie at Wakefield Opera House and in panto at Bradford Alhambra with David Essex – and joined the National Youth Music Theatre. At 18 she got her first job, performing on a cruise ship. “To be able to see the world like that and get paid for it was just amazing," she said.
Her first presenting job was on S Club