Wednesday 2nd January
On the road
My long break over the festive period was over.
Time to catch up on various administrative things that needed to by tied up to end last year.
I had spent a fair part of the day bashing away at the computer with no sign of any stories to cover.
The evening banter over a curry with friends was halted abruptly by a call from the Carol on the Newsdesk.
The "Black Dog Strangler" had escaped from a psychiatric secure unit in a hospital in Newcastle.
He was called "The Black Dog" strangler when whilst serving time in another secure unit in Liverpool for attacking someone with a knife, he strangled another inmate because he thought he was a black dog.
I would need to head to Newcastle to do live broadcasts, probably from the hospital.
The only slight problem was that ITN's Daybreak satellite truck was already assigned to a flooding story on the east coast near Bridlington. So, another truck would need to be found.
I was put on standby until a truck was confirmed. No point in setting off if no there was no truck to do the live broadcasts.
Getting close to 10 pm all the places that could provide satellite trucks had been contacted and replied.
None were available. No live broadcasts.
I started to think about bed when I got another call from Sam on the overnight team to say that a recorded piece to camera was needed that could be sent back from Tyne Tees in time for Daybreak's first news bulletin at six o'clock.
So, I set off down the A1 getting to my hotel in Gateshead a while after midnight with the prospect of four hours in bed.
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