ANDREW EDWARDS

Andrew Edwards is a presenter at BBC Radio Leeds, the BBC’s station for West Yorkshire. He hosts the drivetime show between 3 and 6pm on weekday afternoons. He began broadcasting as a volunteer on hospital radio in his hometown, Hull, before making his professional debut as a sports broadcaster on Viking Radio. He started his career in journalism at the Hull Daily Mail and joined the BBC as a trainee reporter in 1989. He’s worked at BBC Radio Leeds since 1993. For more than fifteen years he presented the station’s breakfast show – that’s about four and half thousand 3.30am alarm calls! Andrew is the holder of a Silver Sony Radio Academy award. In 2013 he won a New York International Radio Award for his documentary ‘Major at the Music Hall’ about the first visit by the former Prime Minister, John Major, to the Leeds City Varieties where his father, a music hall performer, topped the bill.

Andrew has reported from the funerals of Diana Princess of Wales and the Queen Mother, investigated his Great Uncle’s death during the First World War, and presented shows from South Africa (a week in Durban, Leeds’s twin city), New York (after running the marathon) and Spain (in the not so distant days when Leeds United were one of the best football clubs in Europe). He regularly hosts concerts and events and works as a mentor. For many years he combined his broadcasting with teaching radio journalism at university. He lives in Leeds with his partner, BBC Look North reporter Cathy Killick, and their teenage daughter.