Carol Kirkwood is a Scottish weather presenter working for the BBC Network and particularly in two shows; the BBC Breakfast and Victoria Derbyshire. She was also a participant on the 2015 13th series of BBC One's Strictly Come Dancing, where she managed to finish in the 10th place.
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Carol was born on May 29, 1960 in Morar, Invernesshire, UK. Her Scottish descent has been pinpointed by the bubbly weather presenter, thanks to a rather new service that provides a shorth of DNA ‘mapping’ technology. The results showed that Carol’s origins lie in the quaint Scottish town of Crieff, near Perth – the childhood hometown of actor Ewan McGregor.
Growing up in Morar, however, she was a student of Lochaber High School, Fort William and then went on to graduate with BA in commerce from Napier College of Commerce and Technology (now Edinburgh Napier University) in Edinburgh. Her family was in the hospitality industry, specifically in the hotel business. Considering that both her parents were working hard to maintain their business it is quite stunning that they had time to give life to eight children; yes, you read that right, Carol has seven siblings! To support herself, she worked as a Girls Guide.
Before joining the Met Office, Kirkwood worked in several other places. Armed with her BA degree, the young graduate first joined BBC’s Secretarial Reserve in London in the early 1990s and was frequently moved in internal positions until she until she got to present her own short slots on BBC Radio Scotland, and then BBC Radio 2 and BBC Radio 4. After that, she married Jimmy Kirkwood and decided to leave the job and move to a management consultancy as an associate director in recruitment and as a training consultant. In 1993, she re-joined BBC and worked as a freelance presenter in Elstree Studios training department. At the same time, she also presents a bi-monthly program Talking Issues for HTV West.
In 1996, she moved to the new UK operation of The Weather Channel. It soon closed in January 1988 and that is when the now famous BBC weather presenter underwent a training course at the BBC Met Office, and joined BBC News as a weather presenter. At this point it is worth mentioning that the Met Office – officially titled the Meteorological Office until 2000 – is the United Kingdom's national weather service, so getting through the training is no walking on the park.
Since 2008 she is the main weather presenter. Kirkwood regularly appeared on television shows such as BBC One, BBC News, BBC World News, BBC Red Button and BBC News at Six. Since 2005, she has been presenting live forecasts as part of BBC coverage of the Wimbledon Tennis Championships with Susan Powell and Dan Corbett.
As could be seen when she presents the weather, Carol is stylish, wears sexy clothes with plunging necklines, showing her ample cleavage and short skirts emphasizing her long slender legs. All in all, Carol Kirkwood is widely considered a hot figure on British television. She has a huge fan following. Five times has Kirkwood won the TRIC award for best TV Weather Presenter, in 2003, 2008, 2009, 2012 and 2013. Specifically, the fifth time she said “It was a lovely surprise because there are some brilliant people doing my job. That would be so pretentious! But my sister came out recently and got them out of the cupboard, so they're on a bookcase now”.
She has also received an Honorary Fellowship from HRH Princess Anne for "contributions to broadcasting" at Inverness College. In that speech, she said: “said: “I am thrilled and honored to receive an honorary fellowship of such a prestigious university and one so very close to my heart. No matter where I travel in life I will always be a Highland girl through and through. It was an amazing day and so encouraging to see such enthusiasm from those students who will be shaping our future. And the icing on the cake was to be presented this wonderful accolade by HRH The Princess Royal. Thank you so much.”
Now moving on to the spicier aspects of her personal life, Carol married James Kirkwood, a wealthy businessman in 1990. They met as students in Edinburgh Napier University. Though they lived a happy and contented married life, they were childless. Their marriage of almost 22 years ended in a divorce. It was a painful divorce which left her devastated. However, she took it in her stride and eventually accepted the separation gracefully. No one knows the real reason of the divorce. Is it so personal that it is kept private!
Until very recently, she was single and kept her personal life a secret, far from the prying eyes of the media. Post the divorce Carol got good support from her colleague Jon Briggs. He remains a very good friend to her. Generally, rebound relationships are common after a break up or divorce. However, this does not seem be the case with Carol. Not with Jon at least.
To all our surprise, speaking exclusively to Express.co.uk, Carol said: “"I’m very happy in my relationship status now. I’m not single!” And of course, even now that she claims to be happy she came clean about her relationship status, her fans do not get discouraged. If anything, mentions to her as ‘sexy’ are getting more and more each day, which seems funny to Carol who commented “Sex symbol makes me laugh, I couldn’t be further from a sex symbol if I tried! I think I’m more just your girl-next-door rather than anything else. If anyone says that, bless them.”
At one time when Carol and Jimmy were married, a stalker asked Carol to marry him. Later the stalker was found dead in his apartment. The gossip vine says Carol met someone special and rumor has it that Jimmy left Carol for her sister. However, both have not responded to any of these allegations so we won’t get ahead of ourselves. In sum, Carol Kirkwood is an achieved professional in her respective field and poses as an example to many of her followers. As for her personal life, she seems happy and at ease with everything that comes along her way.
Last Modified: Apr 8, 2020
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