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Name: Jenni Murray
Field:
Broadcaster
Productions:
An Audience With Jenni Murray
After Dinner Speaker Biography: Dame Jenni Murray OBE, was born in Barnsley in Yorkshire, only four years after Woman's Hour first came on the air. She recalls many post lunch hours sitting on a pouffe alongside the family's 'Bush' wireless, listening with her mother and being sent off to the kitchen on spurious errands whenever an item carried a 'health warning'. The programme has never been afraid to tackle controversial issues and was the first to discuss the menopause, homosexuality and cohabitation and in those early days listeners were warned of any 'racy' content - hence the occasional banishment!
Jenni attended Barnsley Girls High School, where, like many of her contemporaries who were lucky enough to benefit from a northern grammar school education, began the process which concluded in the best compliment she's ever received. She was described in a newspaper article by a colleague as having 'a well stocked mind'. The second best compliment came from the veteran broadcaster and journalist, Charles Wheeler, who said she had "the most beautiful voice on radio, ever".
She studied French and Drama at the University of Hull and began her broadcasting career in local radio in Bristol. She presented South Today on television for a number of years before taking the plunge in the metropolitan shark pool. She presented Newsnight on BBC2 and Today on Radio 4 before inheriting the Woman's Hour chair from Sue MacGregor in 1987.
In the Queen's Birthday Honours 1999 she was made an OBE for radio broadcasting. She presents The Message from Manchester. Jenni is the author of The Woman's Hour: A History of Women Since World War II, Is It Me or Is It Hot In Here: A Modern Woman's Guide to the Menopause and That's My Boy! A Guide for Parents. She was a weekly columnist for The Daily Express from 1998 to 2000 and now writes for various newspapers and magazines, including The Daily Mail.
She lives partly in London in a basement flat and in Cheshire in a Peak District farmhouse - wuthering heights and wuthering depths. She has a partner, David, of twenty six years standing and two sons.
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