BBC Breakfast's Carol Kirkwood opens up on decision to leave BBC job role

BBC Breakfast star Carol Kirkwood opened up about her impressive career on James Martin's Saturday Morning. The meteorologist has become a fan favourite of the BBC Breakfast show, but before that, she had a completely different role.

James kicked off the interview by asking "where it all started", to which Carol explained, "Yes, that was a million years ago, right now, when you know, the days of the bows and arrows.

"Business Studies, marketing, and accounting. So I learned to type and do shorthand, and in a way, that's helped me with my writing, because I can quickly jot things down."

"What got you into the weather bit?" James continued. "Was it through working at the reception?"

She told the TV chef, "I worked as a secretary at the BBC for a while, ironically as a production secretary on BBC Breakfast, and then I left.

"But I'd still got lots of friends there and one of my friends said, 'What do you want to do?' and I said, 'I'd love to be a Blue Peter presenter, but of course I'm too old, I'm never going to do it'."

"Don't be so daft," James quipped back before Carol joked, "Well, certainly not now."

Carol continued, "But anyway, when I left, one of my friends said, 'We're looking for presenters in television training, just a stooge presenter to train other people.'

"I said I'd go along and had an audition, and unbelievably got the job, and then later on, I thought, 'Right, I want to do this for real'.

"So I joined my local cable corporation and did everything. I was a researcher, a producer, a director, and a presenter. The only thing I didn't do was the camera work when we were filming it."

She continued, "But that all closed down, but there was a chap there who said he wanted to be an agent. And you know what it's like when you've no experience, you can't get an agent for love nor money.

"But when you have that experience, you can get an agent quite readily. So I said, that would be fab. We made a show reel together, just going around different places, wearing different outfits. And that very night, he was in the pub, and he met the chairman of the Weather Channel, the American weather channel, who was going to open up a branch in the UK."

"The right place at the right time," James chimed in. "It's always at a pub."

Carol added, "And so when he told me I had an audition, I said, 'I don't know anything about meteorology, and he said, 'Just go along and network, you probably won't get it anyway', but I did loads of research before this and watched all the weather reports because I knew I'd have to present the weather.

"But what was so magical about the audition, I hadn't even contemplated that there was a green screen behind me, and so you can't see anything. You just see the image that you see at home."

James Martin's Saturday Morning is available to watch on ITVX.