Christa Ackroyd has a spot on her face.

"Are you saying it's huge that spot?" she asks make-up girl Ruth with mock Catherine Tate-style aggression.

They both burst out laughing and Christa goes back to working on the blemish high on one of those Bradford-born cheekbones.

"It's nothing to do with being on television," she adds as she leans into the mirror.

"If I worked in Morrison's I would be covering it up, it's just a woman thing."

Christa provides guts and glamour for BBC's local news magazine show Look North and she's getting ready to join her teatime 'husband' Harry Gration.

Harry, the county's favourite TV uncle, is waiting, relaxed in his suit and tie to do the show that's the culmination of their day's work.

Harry is so confident and laid back he fell momentarily alseep once on when the programme was going on air. When he woke he thought he'd missed the whole show.

What is your favourite Look North memory? Post your comment below.

Look North is forty years old this week and tomorrow night they'll be wheeling out some of the memorable tales from four decades of Yorkshire life.

Since 1968 Look North has been been beaming in the best and worst of local news to family living rooms, bedsit kitchens and taproom tellies from Scarborough to Mansfield.

Whether it's the Miners' strike, giant cauliflowers, the Bradford fire, talking dogs, steelworks closing, the Yorkshire Ripper or gurning grandads Look North has been there and done it all.

Harry and Christa are the current public face of the news operation that lists Barry Chambers, Ken Cook, Mike Smart, Judith Stamper and Eddie Waring among its past presenters.

The current couple have had quite a year. The summer floods, Bollywood awards in Sheffield, Barnsley in the FA Cup, Shannon Matthews safe in Dewsbury.

"I think it gives impact to the story when we go out and we have been doing a lot more of that lately," says 57-year-old former history teacher Harry who has been presenting for 22 years.

"We both love that part of the job and being seen out in the communties is important for the show too. People are usually warm to us unless it's a nasty type of story.

"I started in sport but I'm doing more news now. "The best stories for me are the ones that transcend news and sport like the Derek Dooley story and Barnsley getting to the FA Cup semi-final. And it's the people we talk to in the street that make the programme what it is."
Christa agrees.

"I know it's a bit of a stock answer but the best part of this job is interviewing ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances," says the 50-year-old mother of three.

"People know it must be bad when we turn up. You can go to a place like Sheffield's Winn Gardens which was devastated during the floods and people have got nothing left and they are busy making tea for you on a little gas stove. Or you get to Meadowhall and there's three feet of water and they're sayng come on Crista give us a hand. Yorkshire people have something about them.

"From the Ripper to the Hillsborough disaster people have such dignity in these situations and they are the stars for me. We are just journalists who happen to be on television for half an hour a night."

Christa might put the looks into Look North but she and Harry are vastly experienced journalists. They sit with four or five voices being relayed to their ear pieces waiting for the show to begin.

Harry clears his throat, Christa checks her make-up and teases the immaculately trimmed strands of her shiny chestnut hair one more time.
Then they are counted in and they're on.

Just as we always see them. One minute chatting to each other the next addressing millions in at least four counties.

They make it look dead easy but there have been tough lessons along the way.

"When I was 18 I was covering the Yorkshire Ripper story and there were very few female crime reporters and one (polce press conference was adjourned because it was considered not suitable for women," said Christa.

"I remember crying in the toilets thinking 'what am I going to do?' It made me really angry and really determined, It was something that has driven me since. I still get angry about inequality."

So who has impressed most in interviews?

"Michael Parkinson has always impressed me," said Harry who interviews Barnsley's Parky tonight on Look North.

"And Michael Palin is always an interesting character who has so much to talk about."

Christa has her own memorable encounters.

"Margaret Thatcher terrified me," says Christa, not a woman who terrifies easily.

"I met her on a couple of occasions and she knew more about me than I knew about her. She was tough, I bet she never cried in the toilet."

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