This was a highly educational experience for me. As someone whose ambition lies in political journalism, understanding elections and counts is an essential skill. Learning about the BBC’s whole election night operation was incredibly useful fundamental knowledge. It also taught me a lot about how election counts work, and what happens in an outside broadcast.

I also played an important role of being a source of local knowledge for Jon Kay who was dispatched to our OB to cover the count. I was able to fill him in on some of the local context towards the elections happening in Newcastle and provide a specialist perspective on what we can draw from the results we’ve seen.

For example, while Sunderland and most of the North East voted to Leave, Newcastle returned a narrow remain victory, so Labour taking a significant hit to their majority here could indicate to us that it may be simply the case that the election was decided on Brexit and that alone.

Election night is a very tense and anxious night for all those involved in campaigning, and while it can be exciting many candidates and campaigners understandably have their guard up particularly against media. Finding any shred of information from campaigners and candidates was essential however, so it was key to proceed with caution.

I found it difficult to gauge how happy some people were to talk to me, and how honest others were being. I found it really tricky at first being one of the only people at the count (aside from the actual counters) not wearing a coloured rosette. It was particularly difficult to make conversation with Labour candidates and campaigners who minutes ago had been devastated by the exit poll result. This was a problem as we knew that all 3 candidates would likely hold their seat, and as one of the first results the BBC were keen to interview the MPs as soon as possible after the count.

After building confidence with some of the friendlier campaigners at the count I was able to speak to the people I needed to and delivered on the task of giving the BBC an interview when they wanted one available in Newcastle.

Before the night began I was at a completely separate event which was under-attended. This meant that there were a few boxes of Krispy Kreme doughnuts going spare and I was given a couple which I took to the count.

It meant that (having all arrived early anyway) the team was able to have a chilled out, casual briefing. I enjoyed sharing conversation with Jon Kay over an original glazed doughnut and got some really valuable advice and encouragement,

These doughnuts later would come in handy, as when trying to keep a politician with us I was able to offer them a doughnut to keep them occupied while the BBC was focussing on other coverage.

Sadly on this occasion the doughnut didn’t give the length of time buffer we needed and the politician in question decided to leave and speak to other people. However I was complimented on doing everything I could to keep them with us.