It's been close to two years since newsreader Paul Lobb was abruptly axed from the NBN newsdesk after 24 years with the media outlet.
He was one of more than a dozen staff made redundant in December 2021 as part of NBN's move from Mosbri Crescent in The Hill to a new studio and office in Honeysuckle.
The first the public knew of Lobb's axing was on Monday, December 12, when he did not appear on that night's news. Lobb had learned of his fate earlier that day when Nine's Sydney-based national head of news travelled to Newcastle to meet with him.
But that's all in the past. Old news. The award-winning - and personable - journalist and presenter has found a new way to put his storytelling skills to use.
Lobb is now a marriage celebrant and has started his own business, Married By Lobby.
He came up with the idea while exploring the Whitsundays with his wife Alison in 2022. The keen sailors spent close to a year on a sailing boat with their cat, Scuttlebutt, exploring every island and port along the way.
"Losing my job was a shock at the time, but ultimately it was a blessing because it took me to the age of 49 to really have a gap year - and I had a ripper of a gap year last year," he told the Newcastle Herald.
"We went on a grand sailing adventure which is what we'd been planning to do in our retirement, but when my job ended, we had the opportunity to bring it forward.
"We had a wonderful time and it gave me the chance to clear my mind and work out what my next step was going to be."
Lobb replaced Ray Dinneen on the newsdesk in 2010 and shared it with co-anchor Natasha Beyersdorf for a decade. He was named journalist of the year at the 2008 Northern NSW Journalism Awards for his report on the Pasha Bulker grounding on Nobbys Beach in 2007 and also won best television journalist and best TV news report.
Paul and Alison wanted to remain in Newcastle, and an idea started to take shape.
"It all goes back to 2006 when Alison and I got married on a tall ship in the Whitsundays, and the celebrant that performed our wedding made the day so loving and fun and unique that I thought, even back then, that one day I would like to sprinkle some of that magic dust over other couples on their happy day," Lobb explained.
"But it was just a seed that was in the back of my mind for all those years. It was something that I thought I might do in the later years of my retirement, or after my TV work had finished, or if I ever left TV.
"Now I couldn't get the idea out of my head, so I signed up for the training course for celebrants which took about three months, then applied for a licence to be an authorised celebrant which took another few months, and now I'm up and running."
Married By Lobby caters for weddings, funerals, vow renewals and baby namings. Lobb says he has "thrown out the tired templates" and avoided a "cookie-cutter approach" to ceremonies.
"There's nothing worse than a boring ceremony that you've seen many times before," he said.
"Being a writer, the one thing I love to do is to tell other people's stories, and so I spend a lot of time getting to know a couple. I've got a special questionnaire that I give them and what we end up creating together is very unique to them and important to them."
He still emcees at corporate events and loves it when people approach him on the street, having recognised him from his television days.
"I spent 24 years at NBN as a reporter, the last 10 of them as a full-time anchor, and prior to that I was with Prime and 2KO and NXFM - so I'd probably been on the Newcastle airwaves for about 30 years," he said.
"People still come up to me and say 'Oh we miss you on the tele'.
"I always find it a great compliment when people say hello because I really do see it as a mark of respect - they wouldn't do that if they didn't like you - and I appreciate it a lot."
