Coriona Kear Ware Corfield is a radio broadcaster and producer known especially for her newsreading and continuity announcements on

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of Talk radio, spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history fro ...

Early life and education

She was born 1961 in

Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

. Raised near

Stratford-upon-Avon Stratford-upon-Avon (), commonly known as just Stratford, is a market town and civil parish in the Stratford-on-Avon district, in the county of Warwickshire, in the West Midlands region of England. It is situated on the River Avon, north-we ...

, Corfield was educated at

Stratford-upon-Avon Grammar School for Girls Stratford Girls' Grammar School (formerly Stratford-upon-Avon Grammar School for Girls) is a fully selective girls' grammar school in England situated in Stratford-upon-Avon. Admissions The school has been consistently recognised as one of t ...

, where she became

Head Girl Head boy and head girl are student leadership roles in schools, representing the school's entire student body. They are normally the most senior prefects in the school. The terms are commonly used in the British education system as well as in Au ...

. She then read English and Drama at

Goldsmiths, University of London Goldsmiths, University of London, officially the Goldsmiths' College, is a constituent research university of the University of London in England. It was originally founded in 1891 as The Goldsmiths' Technical and Recreative Institute by the Wor ...

Broadcasting career

She joined the BBC as a studio manager in 1983 with the

World Service The BBC World Service is an international broadcaster owned and operated by the BBC, with funding from the British Government through the Foreign Secretary's office. It is the world's largest external broadcaster in terms of reception ar ...

. In 1987 she worked at the new BBC 648, and also became a newsreader for the World Service and read the news on Radio 4 from 1988. Between 1991 and 1995 she lived in

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the ...

, where she worked at

Radio 702 702 is a commercial FM radio station based in Johannesburg, South Africa, broadcasting on FM 92.7 and FM 106 to the greater Gauteng province. The station is also webcast via its website. It claims to be Johannesburg's number one news and talk ...

. She also worked as a producer for the

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (french: Société Radio-Canada), branded as CBC/Radio-Canada, is a Canadian public broadcaster for both radio and television. It is a federal Crown corporation that receives funding from the government. ...

. She returned to Radio 4 in 1995. Over a period from late 2010, with colleague Kathy Clugston, Corfield persuaded broadcasters connected with Radio 4 to don the ' slanket of con', a garment purportedly worn by continuity announcers in the air-conditioned chill of studio 40B as they read the late night shipping bulletin, and has photographed the wearers in various comic poses. The garment has since been sold. In 2016, she placed seventh in a ''

Radio Times ''Radio Times'' (currently styled as ''RadioTimes'') is a British weekly listings magazine devoted to television and radio programme schedules, with other features such as interviews, film reviews and lifestyle items. Founded in May 1923 by J ...

'' poll of the top voices on UK radio. She read the Six O'Clock News for the last time on BBC Radio 4 on 23 February 2021.

References

External links

Corrie Corfield BBC Radio 4

Slanket of Con

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Corfield, Corrie 1961 births Living people Alumni of Goldsmiths, University of London BBC newsreaders and journalists BBC World Service people BBC Radio 4 People educated at Stratford-upon-Avon Grammar School for Girls People from Stratford-upon-Avon Radio and television announcers