Wincey Willis, who became ITV’s first female weather presenter on national television, has died aged 76 after battling dementia. Her death on 18 December last year was publicly announced this week.
Willis made broadcasting history when she joined TV-am’s Good Morning Britain in 1983, bringing a revolutionary approach to weather forecasting with her vibrant personality, colourful jumpers and distinctive mullet hairstyle.
The pioneering presenter had been diagnosed with fronto-temporal dementia and spent her final years in Sunderland. Her groundbreaking career transformed breakfast television weather presenting from its previously sombre style, paving the way for future female weather presenters including Trish Williamson and Ulrika Jonsson.
Willis was recruited by TV executive Greg Dyke in 1983 as part of a major overhaul to rescue TV-am’s dire ratings, which had fallen as low as 200,000 after two months on air. Dyke’s deputy Clive Jones had spotted her on Tyne Tees regional television and suggested bringing her to the national stage.
She replaced David Philpott, a retired naval commander who was switched to weekends. Willis joined a revamped presenting team that included Anne Diamond, Rustie Lee doing cookery, “Mad Lizzie” Webb’s exercise slot and the puppet Roland Rat.
Within months of these changes, Good Morning Britain had overtaken the BBC’s Breakfast Time in the ratings war.
Willis’s approach to weather presenting was refreshingly practical. “Most people don’t want to know about high pressure over the Azores,” she told the Liverpool Echo. “All they care about is whether they need their umbrella.”
At the peak of her career in the mid-1980s, she appeared on the game show Treasure Hunt alongside Anneka Rice. Her role at TV-am expanded to include co-presenting with Roland Rat.
A contract dispute led Willis to resign from TV-am in 1987, after which her television career largely ended. She subsequently devoted herself to conservation work, including spending six months living in a tent in Greece protecting endangered turtles.
She later hosted radio programmes for BBC Coventry & Warwickshire and BBC Hereford & Worcester.
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Born Florence Winsome Leighton in Gateshead in 1948, Willis was adopted by Florence and Thomas Dimmock and grew up in Hartlepool. She acquired her distinctive nickname when primary school classmates sang “Incy Wincy Spider” after hearing her middle name.
Willis left school at 16, travelling to France where she completed her baccalauréat before enrolling at Strasbourg University. She returned to the northeast in 1975, securing a behind-the-scenes role at Radio Tees in Stockton-on-Tees.
Her marriage to Malcolm Willis in 1972 ended in divorce. Willis’s pioneering role as ITV’s first female national weather presenter opened doors for subsequent women in broadcasting, establishing her as a television trailblazer.