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Helen Mary Malcolm
Retrieved 2012-11-08 (15 March 191813 October 2010) was one of the first two regular female announcers on
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
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...
Television after
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, and was a household name in the United Kingdom during the 1950s.
Biography
The daughter of
Sir Ian Malcolm and
Jeanne Langtry (1881–1964) and granddaughter of
Victorian socialite actress
Lillie Langtry
Emilie Charlotte, Lady de Bathe (née Le Breton, formerly Langtry; 13 October 1853 – 12 February 1929), known as Lillie (or Lily) Langtry and nicknamed "The Jersey Lily", was a British socialite, stage actress and producer.
Born on the isl ...
, who was the mistress of
King Edward VII of the United Kingdom
Edward VII (Albert Edward; 9 November 1841 – 6 May 1910) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and Emperor of India, from 22 January 1901 until his death in 1910.
The second child and eldest son of Queen Victoria an ...
, Mary was brought up in Poltalloch,
Argyll
Argyll (; archaically Argyle, in modern Gaelic, ), sometimes called Argyllshire, is a historic county and registration county of western Scotland.
Argyll is of ancient origin, and corresponds to most of the part of the ancient kingdom of ...
, Scotland. Until the age of 16, she attended the
Lycée Français Charles de Gaulle
The Lycée Français Charles de Gaulle, usually referred to as the Lycée or the French Lycée, is a French co-educational primary and secondary independent school, independent day school, situated in South Kensington in the Royal Borough ...
in South Kensington, London. She began her television career in 1948, having gained broadcasting experience on the
radio
Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmit ...
during World War II. As more and more men were called up to fight, women became increasingly in demand to fill posts at the BBC. Mary Malcolm was taken on and worked for the
Home Service
Home Service is a British folk rock group, formed in late 1980 from a nucleus of musicians who had been playing in Ashley Hutchings' Albion Band. Their career is generally agreed to have peaked with the album ''Alright Jack'', and has had an ...
as a continuity announcer from March 1942. With the relaunch of the BBC's television service after the war, she worked alongside
Sylvia Peters and
McDonald Hobley
Dennys Jack Valentine McDonald-Hobley (9 June 1917, Stanley, Falkland Islands – 30 July 1987) was one of the earliest BBC Television continuity announcers, appearing on screen from 1946 to 1956.
Childhood and early career
Hobley (pronounced ...
, with the trio averaging ten days' work a month each.
At this time, all television programmes were introduced by an in-vision host or hostess and broadcasts were normally live. Malcolm received no training and became known for her
spoonerism
A spoonerism is an occurrence in speech in which corresponding consonants, vowels, or morphemes are switched (see metathesis) between two words in a phrase. These are named after the Oxford don and ordained minister William Archibald Spooner, w ...
s: "By the end of the day I was tired, and when I came to the weather forecast I just read it out without really trying. My biggest fear was 'drain and rizzle', which I said more than once."
With the advent of commercial rival
ITV
ITV or iTV may refer to:
ITV
*Independent Television (ITV), a British television network, consisting of:
** ITV (TV network), a free-to-air national commercial television network covering the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man, and the Channel Islan ...
in 1955, the BBC's reliance on announcers diminished. Commercial breaks quickly became popular and the BBC decided audiences no longer needed a hostess to soothe them. Malcolm left the BBC in 1956 although she continued to appear as a guest on various programmes including an episode of the comedy series ''
The Goodies
The Goodies were a trio of British comedians: Tim Brooke-Taylor (17 July 1940–12 April 2020), Graeme Garden (b. 18 February 1943) and Bill Oddie (b. 7 July 1941). The trio created, wrote for and performed in their eponymous television comed ...
''.
[Ross, Robert ''The Complete Goodies'', (London 2000), B T Batsford.] Her autobiography, ''Me'', was published in 1956.
Selected filmography
* ''
Design for Loving
''Design for Loving'' is a 1962 British comedy film directed by Godfrey Grayson and starring June Thorburn, Pete Murray and Soraya Rafat. Its plot concerns a beatnik who becomes a top fashion model. It is also known by the alternative title ''F ...
'' (1962)
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Malcolm, Mary
1918 births
2010 deaths
BBC newsreaders and journalists
Wives of baronets