24/01/2017 Look North (North East and Cumbria)

Hello, and welcome to the lunchtime Look North.

The medical advances that mean Margaret has lived to see

And celebrating the film industry up north and the millions it brings

17 years ago, a group of patients with a rare blood cancer were given

But thanks to a clinical trial which doctors in Newcastle helped

lead in the year 2000, many have lived to see children grow

And some are now thought to be cured - something doctors

at the city's Freeman Hospital never thought possible.

The long-term results of the trial have just been accepted

for publication and patients have spoken exclusively

I think I just thought there wasn't another option, really.

I think 17 years later, it never occurred to me I'd still be alive.

It never occurred to me I'd see my family grow up.

I thought probably by 50, I would be dead.

Even if he had been alive and been a match,

I would have been too old to have a bone

I would have danced with the devil to have extra time.

I've seen seven grandchildren being born.

Can't believe I would have lasted for 17 years

and that the disease would have gone.

You know, without research, half the patients with this disease

would have died after five years and now they have

So it's painful and expensive to do research.

I feel very lucky, very blessed, to have been

in Newcastle at the time when they were offering this option.

For the most part, people go on the drugs that I'm

on and within a few months, six months, they're back to normal.

And you can see more on Look North at 6:30pm,

including the next stage of research - which promises to be

Cumbrian school pupils are being encouraged to consider

careers in the county's emergency services.

Paramedics, police officers and NHS staff are hosting two careers events

where more than 600 pupils will get the chance to take part

Megan Paterson sent us this report from Workington.

Inside this bag, lots of things that could help save your life,

help make your journey in the back of an ambulance to hospital

that little bit easier, and this is just one of the bits

of kit that the pupils here are going to get to see today

Lauren Watson, you're a paramedic here.

You're going to be chatting to the kids.

What sort of things are you going to be sharing with them today?

Well, we want to encourage people in the local area to come

and join us in the North West Ambulance Service.

We believe that the future of our workforce is here and we'd

like to keep our paramedics and technicians in Cumbria if we can.

We know in Cumbria that it is sometimes difficult to get people

What are you hoping that the kids take away from today?

We hope they'll be inspired by lots of things that we do.

We're going to show them a few different things.

We're going to show them how to do CPR and put airways in and show them

the different kit that we carry and explain about all the different

It's not just paramedics and technicians.

We've got lots of urgent care, patient transport staff

and lots of other jobs you wouldn't even consider.

Well, I love helping people, I love the patients.

My role in Cumbria is a community-based role.

It is to increase survival rates of cardiac arrest so I'm out

there in the community and I get to meet lots of people,

engage with lots of people, every single day.

So, Lauren is one of many emergency services staff who are here today

to share a bit of their passion and hopefully encourage young people

in Cumbria to consider a career in the emergency services.

A report into severe flooding in York during Christmas 2015 has

concluded the decision to open the Foss Barrier was correct.

More than 600 properties were flooded,

but a review panel found the action was the best option available.

The report makes 85 recommendations for ways the city

Football, and Sunderland have made their first January signing.

As expected, he's Joleon Lescott, who's joined the Black Cats

The 34-year-old defender, who spent three years

with David Moyes at Everton, has put pen to paper on a deal

until the end of the season after being released by AEK Athens.

A new charity is aiming to build top-class sporting

facilities in Berwick which will serve both the local

The Berwick Stadium Trust has found land near East Ord, which it hopes

to develop to inspire a future generation of sporting youngsters.

As well as artificial pitches indoor and out,

there would be a gymnastics hall, multi sports courts and a full

We've got an option on the site here, which is a fantastic location,

straight off the Berwick bypass, and we're at the stage now

of working from an idea on a piece of paper to making it reality.

It's taken quite a long time just to get to this stage,

so I wouldn't be deluded enough to think it's going to happen

immediately, but already there's been a bit of a groundswell of

And all it takes is the right people to speak to each other to start

How many times have you heard the expression that such and such

a town or city is the Hollywood of the North or the East,

Well as Ken Loach's I, Daniel Blake gears up for the final lap

of the awards season, it's worth remembering

From Stormy Monday to Hebburn, The Likely Lads to

It's an incredibly gritty and authentic film

Get Carter, one of the all-time gangster greats.

The feature film was shot on location in and around Newcastle.

Released in 1971, it put the city on the cinematic map.

This is where, literally, Michael Caine's ghost walks straight

This is where Sting and Tommy Lee Jones walk

That's where Mr James Bond himself, Daniel Craig, as Geordie Peacock,

makes that last walk with Oasis playing in the background in

With no film fund currently in place, the health of the film

and television industry is purely down to the region's natural assets.

In 2015, the region's film and TV industry generated about ?13 million

And that's with no inward investment?

And that's without inward investment.

So just imagine what we could do if we had those funds again.

Well, the future of the industry lies firmly

Maybe a Geordie soap or a rom-com could be the answer to its prayers!

You can catch that full report tonight. Now to the weather. It is

getting colder. Here is Abbie Dewhurst.

It's quite a cloudy picture out there for most but it's

There will be some sunshine to be enjoyed for parts of North Yorkshire

but we'll just take a quick look at the pressure chart,

showing our wind direction coming in from the South West.

Quite light, I think, for most of the afternoon,

but they will change as we head through the next few days.

They will swing round to a southerly overnight Wednesday into Thursday,

so pulling up some very cold air from the near continent

But, for this afternoon, a fair bit of cloud,

quite thick, low cloud, over parts of Cumbria

and here we could see the odd spot of drizzle.

But, elsewhere, part of North Yorkshire along the east

It's still feeling very cold, though, despite the sunshine.

So, through this evening and overnight, it's going to be

quite a cloudy picture, certianly at first.

A few spits and spots of rain just over higher ground but elsewhere,

As we head through to the early hours of tomorrow morning,

We'll see some breaks in the cloud and therefore the risk of a few

patches of fog forming, particularly over higher ground

but not quite as dense or as widespread as some

We will start the day tomorrow with a fair bit of cloud, yes,

but some brighter spells developing as we head through the morning,

certainly for parts of the North East.

In that wind, it is going to feel quite chilly, swinging

round from a south-west to a southerly, so highs tomorrow

of seven or eight Celsius, but the feel factor is going to be

But speaking of cold, Thursday may well feel

like the coldest day of winter so far.

That southerly wind pulling up some very cold air

from the near continent and it is going to feel bitter.

I had a horrible feeling I was tempting fate earlier in the week by

saying how mild it had been this winter! That's it from the lunchtime

team. Have a good afternoon. We're back at 6:30pm. Until then, bye-bye.