Newsreader leaves home county radio after decades
BBCA newsreader who broke some of the biggest stories in her home county has announced she is retiring.
Heather Wainwright has been the voice of local news at Radio Cumbria, reading news bulletins on its breakfast show for 25 years.
She announced she was leaving the corporation during Thursday's show.
Wainwright said: "It's been an absolute privilege to read the news for the BBC, particularly in Cumbria, the county that I absolutely love and adore, I wouldn't have wanted to be reading the news anywhere else really - this is the place for me."
Wainwright had been away from work for the last few months and returned to announce the news to her listeners.
Her husband Richard Nankivell, a former breakfast show host on the same programme, died earlier this year.
She thanked listeners for their messages of support following the news.
"I have been overwhelmed by all the love, the support," she said.
"Lots of listeners have sent cards, emails, lots of messages since Richard died.
"It's also meant I've been able to share them with Richard's family."
SuppliedWainwright started working as a reporter at the BBC studios in her hometown of Barrow in the early 1990s and became a fixture of Radio Cumbria's breakfast show, produced in Carlisle, contributing to the programme and reading bulletins.
"I've been thinking long and hard and I've had a good innings, I've done about 34-35 years with the BBC, a lot of the times stomping all over the breakfast bulletins, and I just think it's time somebody else had a go," she said.
As newsreader she broke some of the biggest stories in the county including the 2009 floods when a bridge collapsed in Workington, the Derrick Bird shootings in west Cumbria and the foot and mouth outbreak.
"People have come to me after those events and said 'we listened to your bulletins at seven o'clock, eight and nine o'clock to get what we knew was accurate information', and I think that's what I will remember - that's probably my favourite bit," she said.
SuppliedWainwright also broke news of national importance, including the Brexit result in 2016 and the London bombings in 2005.
"I've thoroughly enjoyed it, but I've had a good innings and I do genuinely believe that every generation has to move on, make way for somebody else to do it and I think that time has come for me now," she said.
Listeners messaged and called into the breakfast show, presented by Mike Zeller, as the pair reminisced about Wainwright's career.
One said: "I'll miss your heavenly voice and no nonsense approach to life. Thanks for the years of excellent broadcasting."
Others said they would "miss Heather's excellent news reading and banter" and said her "shoes will be hard to fill".
Zeller, who worked with Wainwright on the show for about 10 years, told her: "The whole thing has been brilliant, your whole career has been brilliant, working with you has been wonderful."
