Muriel Janet Gray
FRSE
Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE) is an award granted to individuals that the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland's national academy of science and letters, judged to be "eminently distinguished in their subject". This soci ...
(born 30 August 1958) is a Scottish author, broadcaster and journalist. She came to public notice as an interviewer on
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a fourth television service ...
's alternative pop-show
''The Tube'', and then appeared as a regular presenter on BBC radio. Gray has written for ''
Time Out
Time-out, Time Out, or timeout may refer to:
Time
* Time-out (sport), in various sports, a break in play, called by a team
* Television timeout, a break in sporting action so that a commercial break may be taken
* Timeout (computing), an engine ...
'', the ''
Sunday Herald
The ''Sunday Herald'' was a Scottish Sunday newspaper, published between 7 February 1999 and 2 September 2018. Originally a broadsheet, it was published in compact format from 20 November 2005. The paper was known for having combined a centre- ...
'' and ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers '' The Observer'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the ...
'', among other publications, as well as publishing successful horror novels. She was the first woman to have been Rector of the
University of Edinburgh
The University of Edinburgh ( sco, University o Edinburgh, gd, Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in post-nominals) is a public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Granted a royal charter by King James VI in 1 ...
and is the first female chair of the board of governors at
Glasgow School of Art
The Glasgow School of Art (GSA; gd, Sgoil-ealain Ghlaschu) is a higher education art school based in Glasgow, Scotland, offering undergraduate degrees, post-graduate awards (both taught and research-led), and PhDs in architecture, fine art, an ...
.
Personal life
Born in
East Kilbride
East Kilbride (; gd, Cille Bhrìghde an Ear ) is the largest town in South Lanarkshire in Scotland and the country's sixth-largest locality by population. It was also designated Scotland's first new town on 6 May 1947. The area lies on a rais ...
, Gray is of partly Jewish ancestry. She presented a documentary for
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a fourth television service ...
tracing her Jewish roots on her mother's side, entitled ''The Wondering Jew'' (1996), in which she discovered her maternal line descended from what is now
Moldova
Moldova ( , ; ), officially the Republic of Moldova ( ro, Republica Moldova), is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Romania to the west and Ukraine to the north, east, and south. The unrecognised state of Transnistri ...
. She is married to television producer Hamish Barbour and they have three children.
In 1997, their daughter nearly drowned in a garden pond, which left her permanently brain damaged.
On 31 January 2016, Gray was seen thanking the British Airways pilot of the plane in which her husband, Hamish Barbour, was a passenger, for successfully landing on three wheels instead of the usual five.
Career
Early career
A graduate of the
Glasgow School of Art
The Glasgow School of Art (GSA; gd, Sgoil-ealain Ghlaschu) is a higher education art school based in Glasgow, Scotland, offering undergraduate degrees, post-graduate awards (both taught and research-led), and PhDs in architecture, fine art, an ...
, she worked as a professional illustrator and then as assistant head of design in the
National Museum of Antiquities in Edinburgh.
Broadcasting career
After playing in punk band The Family Von Trapp, she became an interviewer on the early
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a fourth television service ...
alternative pop show ''
The Tube'' from 1982; she was the main anchor on the short-lived
ITV Border
ITV Border, previously Border Television and commonly referred to as simply Border, is the Channel 3 service provided by ITV Broadcasting Limited for the England/Scotland border region, covering most of Cumbria, Dumfries and Galloway, the Sc ...
show ''Bliss'' in 1985, she presented ''Frocks on the Box'' (1987–88) and ''The Media Show'' (1987–89) again for
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a fourth television service ...
. She was briefly a
DJ for Edinburgh's
Radio Forth
Radio Forth is a group of two Independent Local Radio stations serving Edinburgh, Lothians and Fife. Radio Forth is owned and operated by Bauer, based at studios in Edinburgh and forms part of Bauer's Hits Radio network and Greatest Hits Radio ne ...
in 1983 and 1984. She was a regular stand-in presenter on
BBC Radio 1
BBC Radio 1 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It specialises in modern popular music and current chart hits throughout the day. The station provides alternative genres at night, including electronica, dance, ...
during most of the eighties, including for
John Peel. She also presented regularly 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 spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC' ...
, for ''
Start the Week
''Start the Week'' is a discussion programme broadcast on BBC Radio 4 which began in April 1970. The current presenter is the former BBC political editor and the BBC's former political Sunday morning presenter Andrew Marr. The previous regular ...
'' in
Russell Harty's absence and also during
Jeremy Paxman
Jeremy Dickson Paxman (born 11 May 1950) is an English broadcaster, journalist, author, and television presenter. Born in Leeds, Paxman was educated at Malvern College and St Catharine's College, Cambridge, where he edited the undergraduate new ...
's leave.
Later she presented ''The Munro Show'' (which documented her climbing Scotland's highest hills, the
Munro
A Munro () is defined as a mountain in Scotland with a height over , and which is on the Scottish Mountaineering Club (SMC) official list of Munros; there is no explicit topographical prominence requirement. The best known Munro is Ben Nev ...
s). She accompanied this with the book ''The First Fifty – Munro Bagging Without A Beard''. She presented various other TV shows including ''Ride On'', a motoring magazine show for Channel 4, ''The Design Awards'', for BBC, and ''The Booker Prize awards'' for Channel 4.
Gray presented ''Art Is Dead – Long Live TV''. This programme sparked a controversy when it was discovered that the series, covering the work of five artists, was a spoof.
Gray presented the definitive documentary on
The Glasgow Boys, a group of influential 19th-century painters, including Sir
John Lavery
Sir John Lavery (20 March 1856 – 10 January 1941) was a Northern Irish painter best known for his portraits and wartime depictions.
Life and career
John Lavery was born in inner North Belfast, baptised at St Patrick's Church, Belfast an ...
and
James Guthrie, who challenged the orthodox values of their day. ''The Glasgow Boys'' was shown on BBC2.
Gray co-presented Channel 4's coverage of the 2016
Turner Prize
The Turner Prize, named after the English painter J. M. W. Turner, is an annual prize presented to a British visual artist. Between 1991 and 2016, only artists under the age of 50 were eligible (this restriction was removed for the 2017 award) ...
ceremony in Glasgow.
Writing
Gray has been a columnist for many publications, including ''
Time Out'' magazine, the ''
Sunday Correspondent'', the ''
Sunday Mirror'', ''
Bliss
BLISS is a system programming language developed at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) by W. A. Wulf, D. B. Russell, and A. N. Habermann around 1970. It was perhaps the best known system language until C debuted a few years later. Since then, C b ...
'' magazine, and now writes a regular column in the ''
Sunday Herald
The ''Sunday Herald'' was a Scottish Sunday newspaper, published between 7 February 1999 and 2 September 2018. Originally a broadsheet, it was published in compact format from 20 November 2005. The paper was known for having combined a centre- ...
''. She won Columnist of the Year in the 2001 Scottish press awards. She writes regularly for ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers '' The Observer'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the ...
''.
She became a best selling horror novelist with the publication of her first novel ''The Trickster'' (1995), which was followed by two more, ''Furnace'' and ''The Ancient''.
Stephen King described ''The Ancient'' as "Scary and unputdownable." In 2004 a collection of short stories, "Scottish Girls About Town: And sixteen other Scottish women authors" was published. Gray was chosen with
Jenny Colgan
Jenny Colgan (born 14 September 1972, Prestwick, Ayrshire) is a Scottish writer of romantic comedy fiction and science-fiction. She has written for the ''Doctor Who'' line of stories. She writes under her own name and using the pseudonyms Jane ...
and
Isla Dewar to feature on the cover.
She wrote a history of Glasgow's
Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum
Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum is a museum and art gallery in Glasgow, Scotland. It reopened in 2006 after a three-year refurbishment and since then has been one of Scotland's most popular visitor attractions. The museum has 22 galleries, h ...
to mark its re-opening in 2006. She appears on the BBC Two programme ''
Grumpy Old Women
''Grumpy Old Women'' is a British television series, continuing in the same vein as its predecessor, '' Grumpy Old Men''. Both programmes are shown on BBC Two. The first two series were narrated by Alison Steadman
Alison Steadman (born 26 A ...
''.
In 2014 she contributed a new piece of writing for the 21 Revolutions project which had been inspired by the collection held in the Glasgow Women's Library.
Business interests
She started her own production company in 1989, originally named Gallus Besom (''besom'' being a Scots Language term of contempt for a surly or purposely awkward woman by a process of
synecdoche and ''gallus'' bold or cheeky
in
Scots), then renamed to Ideal World in 1993. It merged in 2004 with Wark Clements, the company co-owned by
Kirsty Wark
Kirsteen Anne "Kirsty" Wark FRSE (born 3 February 1955) is a Scottish television presenter with a long career at the BBC.
Starting on Radio Scotland, where she became a producer, Wark switched to television, presenting The Late Show and Newsnig ...
and her husband Alan Clements, to form IWC Media. The partners then sold the new company in 2005 to media company
RDF Media
Banijay (formerly Banijay Entertainment and later Banijay Group) is a French television production and distribution company which is the world's largest international content producer and distributor with over 120 production companies across 22 ...
for an estimated £12 million.
Honours and appointments
* She is a former
Rector of the University of Edinburgh
The Lord Rector of The University of Edinburgh is elected every three years by the students and staff at The University of Edinburgh. Seldom referred to as ''Lord Rector'', the incumbent is more commonly known just as the ''Rector''.
Role
Th ...
, the first woman ever to have held this post, and in 2006 was given an
honorary degree
An honorary degree is an academic degree for which a university (or other degree-awarding institution) has waived all of the usual requirements. It is also known by the Latin phrases ''honoris causa'' ("for the sake of the honour") or ''ad hon ...
of
Doctor of Letters
Doctor of Letters (D.Litt., Litt.D., Latin: ' or ') is a terminal degree in the humanities that, depending on the country, is a higher doctorate after the Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) degree or equivalent to a higher doctorate, such as the Docto ...
from the
University of Abertay Dundee
, mottoeng = "Blessed is the one who finds wisdom."
, established = 1994 – granted University Status 1888 – Dundee Institute of Technology
, type = Public
, chancellor = Alice Brown
, principal = Liz Bacon
, head_label = Chair of Co ...
.
*
* In 2013 she was given an honorary degree, Doctor of Letters, from Glasgow School of Art and the University of Glasgow.
*
* In her guise as a mountaineer she appeared in the comic strip ''
The Broons
''The Broons'' (English: The Browns) is a comic strip in Scots published in the weekly Scottish newspaper ''The Sunday Post''. It features the Brown family, who live in a tenement flat at 10 Glebe Street in (since the late 1990s) the fictiona ...
''.
*
* She was the chair of the judges for the 2007
Orange Prize for Fiction.
*
* She was a judge of the Robert Burns Humanitarian Award.
*
* Gray was the vice chair of the committee choosing the architect for a new building to be constructed on a site facing Charles Rennie Mackintosh's
Glasgow School of Art
The Glasgow School of Art (GSA; gd, Sgoil-ealain Ghlaschu) is a higher education art school based in Glasgow, Scotland, offering undergraduate degrees, post-graduate awards (both taught and research-led), and PhDs in architecture, fine art, an ...
.
*
* Glasgow School of Art appointed her as their first female chair of the board of governors from December 2013.
*
* Appointed to the board of trustees of The British Museum in December 2015
*
* Awarded honorary fellowship of The Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland in July 2016
* Elected a Fellow of the
Royal Society of Edinburgh in March 2018
*
* Appointed to the Board of the BBC as a non-executive director from the 3rd January 2022 until the 2nd January 2026.
*
Charity work
In 2005, she became Patron of the Scottish charity
Trees for Life which is working to restore the
Caledonian Forest. She is also a patron of the Craighalbert Centre, a conductive education school in Cumbernauld near Glasgow. She currently serves as a trustee on the following boards: the
British Museum
The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...
,
Glasgow Science Centre
Glasgow Science Centre is a visitor attraction located in the Clyde Waterfront Regeneration area on the south bank of the River Clyde in Glasgow, Scotland. Queen Elizabeth II opened Glasgow Science Centre on 5 July 2001. It is one of Scotland's ...
, the
Scottish Maritime Museum
The Scottish Maritime Museum is an industrial museum with a Collection Recognised as Nationally Significant to Scotland. It is located at two sites in the West of Scotland in Irvine and Dumbarton, with a focus on Scotland's shipbuilding heritage ...
, The Lighthouse and the Children's Parliament. She supports Action Earth.
In January 2009 she became the first patron of Scotland's Additional Support Needs Mediation Forum, RESOLVE:ASL.
Writing
Fiction
* ''The Trickster'' (1994), shortlisted for the 1995
British Fantasy Society
The British Fantasy Society (BFS) was founded in 1971 as the British Weird Fantasy Society, an offshoot of the British Science Fiction Association. The society is dedicated to promoting the best in the fantasy, science fiction and horror genres. ...
Best Novel prize.
* ''Furnace'' (1996)
* ''The Ancient'' (2000)
Non fiction
* ''The First Fifty: Munro-bagging Without a Beard'' (1991)
* ''These Times, This Place'' (2005)
* ''Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum: Glasgow's Portal to the World''. (2006)
References
External links
Gazetteer for Scotland biography*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gray, Muriel
1958 births
Living people
20th-century Scottish novelists
20th-century Scottish women writers
21st-century Scottish women writers
Alumni of the Glasgow School of Art
People educated at the High School of Glasgow
People from East Kilbride
Rectors of the University of Edinburgh
Scottish columnists
Scottish horror writers
Scottish Jewish writers
Scottish Jews
British people of Moldovan-Jewish descent
Scottish journalists
Scottish non-fiction writers
Scottish television presenters
Scottish women novelists
Scottish women columnists
Women horror writers