Carol Chell (born 1941) is a British

children's television Children's television series (or children's television shows) are television show, television programs designed for children, normally scheduled for broadcast during the morning and afternoon when children are awake. They can sometimes run during ...

presenter A presenter is a person or organization responsible for the running of a public event, or someone who conveys information on media via a broadcasting outlet. Presenter may refer to: People * News presenter, person who presents news during a new ...

and TV executive. She originally qualified as a teacher, and produced many educational TV shows in the 1960s. She is best known for her work as a long-serving presenter from 1966 to 1988 on '' Play School'' and from 1971 to 1980 on ''

Play Away ''Play Away'' is a British television children's programme. A sister programme to the infants' series '' Play School'', it was aimed at slightly older children. It ran from 1971 until 1984, and was broadcast on Saturday afternoons on BBC 2.Alist ...

''.

Early life

She attended

Nottingham Girls' High School Nottingham Girls' High School is an independent selective day school for girls aged 4–18, situated just north of Nottingham city centre. The school was founded in 1875 and forms part of the Girls' Day School Trust. History Nottingham Girls' ...

, then a

direct grant grammar school A direct grant grammar school was a type of selective secondary school in the United Kingdom that existed between 1945 and 1976. One quarter of the places in these schools were directly funded by central government, while the remainder attracted ...

Career

Teacher

For a time she taught at Pierrepont Secondary Modern School for Girls, in Nottingham; also teaching there at the time was Brian Clark, who would become a television writer, writing ''

Telford's Change ''Telford's Change'' is a 1979 BBC television series by Brian Clark which stars Peter Barkworth. The theme music was composed and played by jazz composer John Dankworth. Outline Barkworth plays a bank manager, Mark Telford, who takes a backward ...

''.

Television

Chell appeared as herself as part of a group of 'time-travellers' trying to solve puzzles on the planet Arg in episode 1 of series 2 of

BBC TV BBC Television is a service of the BBC. The corporation has operated a public broadcast television service in the United Kingdom, under the terms of a royal charter, since 1927. It produced television programmes from its own studios from 19 ...

quiz series ''

The Adventure Game ''The Adventure Game'' is a game show that was originally broadcast on British television, UK television channels BBC One, BBC1 and BBC Two, BBC2 between 24 May 1980 and 18 February 1986. The story in each show was that the two celebrity conte ...

'' on 2 November 1981 (available on the DVD release of the series from Simplymedia). She took part in the ATV schools series ''

Starting Out ''Starting Out'' is an Australian television soap opera made for the Nine Network by the Reg Grundy Organisation in 1983. Background The five-night-a-week series was created by Reg Watson as the network's replacement for the long-running s ...

'' in 1982. She later worked for

satellite TV Satellite television is a service that delivers television programming to viewers by relaying it from a communications satellite orbiting the Earth directly to the viewer's location. The signals are received via an outdoor parabolic antenna commo ...

station

The Children's Channel The Children's Channel, also known as TCC, was a British-based pan-European children's television channel in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, which was owned by Flextech in London, England, UK. It began broadcasting on the original Eutelsat ...

, where she was head of pre-school programming until the channel's demise in 1998. Chell appeared alongside

Johnny Ball Johnny Ball (born Graham Thalben Ball; 23 May 1938) is an English television personality, a populariser of mathematics and the father of BBC Radio 2 DJ Zoe Ball. Early life Ball was born in Bristol and attended Kingswood Primary School on th ...

on a celebrity edition of ''

Pointless ''Pointless'' is a British television quiz show produced by Banijay subsidiary Remarkable Television for the BBC. It is hosted by Alexander Armstrong. In each episode four teams of two contestants attempt to find correct but obscure answers to ...

'', featuring stars of children's television. This aired on 20 September 2014 on

BBC One BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's flagship network and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television bulletins, p ...

Personal life

She married Ian Price (of

Costock Costock is a village and civil parish in the Rushcliffe district of Nottinghamshire, England. The population of the civil parish at the 2011 Census was 621. It was estimated at 664 in 1998. Although in Nottinghamshire, Costock's closest town is ...

) on Saturday 9 October 1965 at St Peter's Church in

Tollerton, Nottinghamshire Tollerton is an English village and civil parish in the Rushcliffe district of Nottinghamshire, just south-east of Nottingham. The population of the built-up area in 2011 was 1,544. It was estimated to have risen to 1,655 in 2019. Governance To ...

. At the time, her parents lived in

Christchurch, Dorset Christchurch () is a town and civil parish in Dorset on the south coast of England. The town had a population of 31,372 in 2021. For the borough the population was 48,368. It adjoins Bournemouth to the west, with the New Forest to the east. Part ...

. Chell and Price had a daughter, Emily, who was born in 1968 and also a granddaughter called Ella.Here's A House: A Celebration of Play School, Volume 1: Paul R Jackson, 2010

References

BBC television presenters British television presenters People educated at Nottingham Girls' High School People from Rushcliffe (district) Living people 1941 births {{UK-tv-bio-stub