Muriel Young

Muriel Young (19 June 1923 – 24 March 2001) was an English television continuity announcer, presenter and producer.

She was born in 1923 in Bishop Middleham near Sedgefield, County Durham. As a child, she lived with her family in the gatehouse of Elmwood (now the Elmwood Community Centre), Hartburn, County Durham near . Her father, Wilfrid Young, was batman and later chauffeur to Col. Kitching, who lived at Elmwood for many years after retiring from the army in 1939.

Young worked briefly as a librarian on leaving school and attended art college, before deciding to embark on a career as an actress. She joined a repertory theatre in Henley-on-Thames, where her uncle was directing. She subsequently performed at the Gateway Theatre, London, and the Theatre Royal in Chatham. Trying to get into the film industry, she did modelling for advertising agencies, including promoting products such as toothpaste, which paid her enough money until she became an actress. She also studied to be a dental nurse and used her artistic talents to paint glassware.

Starting out as an actress, she starred with Rex Harrison and Kay Kendall in The Constant Husband (1955) and was also in The Story of Gilbert and Sullivan (1953), acting in a segment featuring The Mikado.

In 1955, as the first ITV company Associated-Rediffusion was gearing up to launch, she intended to attend an actors' audition at the company, but mistakenly went to an announcers' audition instead. Nevertheless, Young was instantly hired and announced for Associated-Rediffusion on 22 September 1955, the opening night of commercial television in the UK. Young worked as a presenter and interviewer for regional programmes on Granada Television and Southern Television, and as a disc jockey on Radio Luxembourg. She was cast, alongside Peter Sellers in the movie I'm All Right Jack (1959) as an announcer, without the director knowing that it was in fact her real-life job. However, her career could have easily taken a different route. Just before joining ITV, she had been on stage touring with Eamonn Andrews, in a game show called Double or Drop. Shortly after signing her ITV contract, he told her that he had sold the idea to the BBC. It was later used as part of the children's show Crackerjack!.

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