Noel Dyson

Noël Dyson
Noel Dyson as Ida Barlow
Born	Elsie Noël Dyson (1916-12-23)23 December 1916 Newton Heath, Manchester, England
Died	29 June 1995(1995-06-29) (aged 78) Winchcombe, Gloucestershire, England
Cause of death	Cancer
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1938 – 1995
Television	Coronation Street
Spouse(s)	Kenneth Edwards Harry Judge

Elsie Noël Dyson (23 December 1916 - 29 June 1995) was an English actress.

Dyson appeared in a number of films but is best remembered as a versatile television actress who became a familiar face to British viewers in a career spanning almost 50 years. Dyson's best remembered roles are as Ida Barlow, one of the original characters in the long-running soap opera Coronation Street (1960–61), and Nanny in the sitcom Father, Dear Father (1968–73).

Dyson was born into a wealthy Manchester family (she was given the middle name Noel because she was born two days before Christmas), and was educated at the prestigious Roedean School in Sussex. Following a period at a finishing school in Paris, she enrolled at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London from which she graduated in 1938. Initially she performed in repertory companies around Britain, in Birmingham, Oxford and Windsor and elsewhere, before moving on to London's West End.

During the Second World War Dyson temporarily ceased acting to become a Voluntary Aid Detachment nurse. She returned to the acting profession, initially mainly in stage productions, then from the late 1940s started to become involved with television productions. Dyson's first known TV credit came in a 1948 BBC production The Guinea Pig, and for the next decade or so she would appear, mainly in one-off supporting roles, in a number of TV programmes as well as a handful of films. Her most significant roles in this period included seven appearances in the series The Vise (first broadcast in the U.S. between October 1954 and December 1955, but not shown on TV in the UK until 1957-59) and a BBC adaptation of The Secret Garden in 1960.