IT’S a grey and wet November Saturday morning when Pam welcomes the D&S Times to her home.

As a basis for discussion, and much to Pam’s amusement, her entry on the notoriously unreliable online encyclopedia Wikipedia has been printed out.

It turns out to be about 75 per cent accurate – not bad, we agree.

It also turns out that the road to becoming one of the most popular and recognisable faces on North-East television has been far from conventional.

Pam was born in Leicester but at just six months her family moved to South Africa. “Dad was an electrical engineer and he was sent out there,” she said.

Three years later the family moved back to the UK and the North-East.

“Dad was based in Middlesbrough and to begin with we lived in Guisborough. He always had this dream of building his own house and managed to buy some land in Carlton.

“I remember helping to dig the foundations and we lived in a caravan for a year while it was built, so Carlton is really where I grew up.”

By the time she was 18, Pam was working in the advertising department at the Middlesbrough Evening Gazette, but when her parents bought a nine-bed hotel in Dartmouth, Devon, she moved with them and spent three years on the south coast.

At 21, she took up a place at Newcastle University studying English language and literature.

After graduating came the first hint at what the future might hold.

“I had been for an interview for That’s Life with Esther Rantzen. She was recruiting her on-screen team and through a process of interviews and auditions I got down to the last ten.

“I was a member of NUTS – the Newcastle University Theatre Society – and a friend heard about it on Radio One and said I should go for it.”

At the same time, Pam had applied for a teaching post in Hong Kong and it was to be there she made her television debut.

“While I was in Dartmouth, I worked at the naval college helping the librarian. I had done a teaching diploma in speech and drama and felt I had enjoyed the teaching side of things.

“The post in Hong Kong was the job I got.

“It was a fantastic time and at that stage I thought that if I didn’t get away, then I probably never would.”

While in the former British outpost, she joined the local amateur dramatics group – the Hong Kong Stage Club.

One of the group – a local solicitor – also read the news on Radio Television Hong Kong, the English language channel.

“He was going on holiday and they auditioned people to take his place.”

And so, at 11pm on October 28, 1981, Pam Royle read the news on television for the first time.

“I only read the news for three weekends, but it was absolutely fabulous.”

After 18 months in Hong Kong, she was asked to return to Tyne Tees for an audition.

Weather presenter Wincey Willis was leaving to join the launch of TV-AM and a replacement was needed.

Pam landed the job, but it was far from plain sailing.

“After about 18 months presenting the weather, there was a round of cutbacks and the weather got axed.

“I was on contract and the contract was not renewed.”

There followed a spell as a freelancer before heading to London.

“I applied to ITN as I heard they were setting up a world news programme for Superchannel – the first satellite television company.

“It was fronted by John Suchet and I was the weather and travel correspondent.”

Financial problems at the broadcaster put an end to Pam’s involvement, but with an increasing interest in current affairs, she enrolled on ITN’s graduate news training scheme and began reading bulletins for LWT at weekends.

This led to a year as chief anchor for the Friday night magazine programme Friday Now.

“Before it was announced that Friday Now was coming to the end of its run, I had decided I wanted to ultimately come back to the North-East – my home.

“I had already been asked to come back by head of news Dave Picken but at that time I had just started fronting Friday Now, so I said no out of loyalty to LWT.

“But when some months later Jane Wyatt fell pregnant and Dave asked me again, I said yes because the timing felt right. It was after that Friday Now ended.”

The rest, as they say, is history.

She presented Northern Life alongside Paul Frost and continued fronting Tyne Tees Today and the north edition of Tyne Tees News.

In 1996, following the arrival of Mike Neville, Pam became a bulletin presenter and stand-in anchor.

By 2005 she was presenting the north edition of North East Tonight, moving to the south edition a year later.

In February 2009, Tyne Tees and Border were merged and Pam now presents Tyne Tees News and Lookaround.

Despite clocking up 30 years, there will be no slowing down.

“What we do has changed so much. The pace of change in the last ten years has been so dramatic and being able to adapt to those changes keeps you fresh.

“There is no chance to rest on your laurels. We are producing two 30-minute news programmes – one for the Borders and one for Tyne Tees. Your feet don’t touch the ground.

“I am learning new skills and every day is a new challenge.”