Jennifer Gay

{{Short description|English television announcer and ballerina}} {{Infobox person | name = Jennifer Gay | image = | image_size = | caption = | birth_date = {{birth date and age|1935|09|22|df=y}} | birth_place = London, England | height = | death_date = | death_place = | birth_name = Jennifer Gaylor Rignold | other_names = | website = | years_active = 1949–1953 | spouse = }}

'''Jennifer Gaylor Rignold''' (born 22 September 1935) is an English television announcer and ballerina who was an on-screen BBC Children's TV continuity announcer for the BBC Television Service (later to become BBC One, but then the only British television channel) between 1949 and 1953. She was a roving reporter for the ATV nightly news programme ''ATV Today'' in the early 1960s.

==Early life== Jennifer Gay was born Jennifer Gaylor Rignold,<ref>{{Cite news |last=Pearce |first=Emery |date=8 November 1952 |title=Jennifer Has To Choose TV Or Ballet |page=3 |work=Daily Herald |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/113573197/jennifer-has-to-choose-tv-or-ballet/ |access-date=24 November 2022 |via=Newspapers.com {{open access}}}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |date=20 November 1952 |title=Jennifer takes to ballet |page=2 |work=Birmingham Gazette |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/113573335/jennifer-takes-to-ballet-birmingham/ |access-date=24 November 2022 |via=Newspapers.com {{open access}}}}</ref> to actress Molly Gay and composer Hugo Rignold.<ref name="Booth">[http://tvannouncers.thetvroomplus.com/channel-1.html ''TV Announcers:'' "The Continuity Booth"] {{webarchive|url=https://archive.today/20120717173908/http://tvannouncers.thetvroomplus.com/channel-1.html |date=2012-07-17 }}. Accessed 26 October 2008</ref> She was educated at St Margaret's School Hampstead and the Royal Academy of Dancing, the latter on a five-year scholarship that she won when she was nine years old and completed by 1950.<ref>{{Cite news |date=17 December 1949 |title=The story behind the screen smile – Jennifer Gay (14) is nervous |page=1 |work=Birmingham Gazette |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/113573898/jennifer-gay-14-is-nervous/ |access-date=24 November 2022 |via=Newspapers.com {{open access}}}}</ref><ref name=Mercury1950>{{Cite news |last=Allister |first=Ray |date=21 May 1950 |title=Now will children go to bed? |page=4 |work=Sunday Mercury |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/113574887/now-will-children-go-to-bed-sunday/ |access-date=24 November 2022 |via=Newspapers.com {{open access}}}}</ref><ref name=":0">{{Cite news |date=1 September 1949 |title=Schoolgirl, 13, as television compere |page=7 |work=Hampstead News |url=https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0004649/19490901/101/0007 |url-access=subscription |access-date=31 December 2022 |via=British Newspaper Archive}}</ref> Gay resumed her training at another ballet school in London for another three years before leaving to join the Royal Ballet School and then The Royal Ballet at Covent Garden one year later.<ref name=Mercury1965>{{Cite news |last=Plant |first=Pat |date=17 January 1965 |title=She was the little girl next door—to a TV producer |page=9 |work=Sunday Mercury |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/113575761/jennifer-gay-sunday-mercury-17/ |access-date=24 November 2022 |via=Newspapers.com {{open access}}}}</ref> She used a shortened version of her middle name for her professional career.<ref name=Mercury1965/>

==Television career== {{quote box|width=45%|quote="With her very fair complexion, light-brown hair and wise, grey-blue eyes she has occupied the children's TV studio with... determination to do the job seriously."|source=''The Television Annual for 1953''<ref name="TV53"/>}} Gay was given an on-screen trial of holding paintings by the BBC television producer and Far Eastern affairs specialist Peter Thompson after being introduced to him at his wedding,<ref name=Mercury1950/><ref name=":0" /><ref>{{Cite news |last=Lanchbery |first=Edward |date=15 November 1952 |title=Announcing Jennifer Gay... |page=5 |work=The Children's Newspaper |url=https://archive.org/details/The_Childrens_Newspaper_1756_1952-11-15/page/n4/mode/1up?q=%22Jennifer+Gay%22&view=theater |access-date=24 November 2022 |via=Internet Archive}}</ref> and was primed by Cecil Madden, the head of BBC children's television.<ref>{{Cite news |date=22 September 1952 |title=Too old at 17? |page=4 |work=Birmingham Gazette |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/113573255/bbc-holiday-guide-birmingham-gazette/ |access-date=24 November 2022 |via=Newspapers.com {{open access}}}}</ref> Gay began introducing children's programmes in June 1949,<ref name="Booth"/> and aged 14 became the "first schoolgirl in the world to announce TV programmes as a regular job".<ref name="TV53">Baily, Kenneth (ed.) "Kiddy-Vision, Once Daily" in ''The Television Annual for 1953''</ref> For the next three years, she grew up on screen, her name intrinsically linked with early 1950s children's television.<ref name="TV53" />

Introducing herself by name as "one of the Children's Hour announcers", Gay appeared most days at 5pm to introduce that afternoon's hour of programming, which included such favourites as ''Muffin the Mule'', ''Mr. Turnip'', and ''Hank and Prudence''.<ref name="Martin">{{Cite web |last=Martin |first=Andrew |title=BBC Archive - The Bits in Between... |url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/bitsinbetween.shtml?chapter=4 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090221010920/http://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/bitsinbetween.shtml?chapter=4 |archive-date=21 February 2009 |access-date=11 May 2026 |publisher=BBC Archives |language=en-GB}}</ref> Andrew Martin a BBC Archives expert described Gay as "the accepted way of presenting children to themselves".<ref name="Martin"/>

Her final on-screen appearance as an announcer was in May 1953,<ref name="Booth"/> after which Gay left the BBC to continue the ballet training she had pursued throughout her television career.<ref name="TV53"/> She made her television debut as a ballerina in the feature ''Shop Window'' in November 1952.<ref>{{Cite news |date=4 November 1952 |title=Jennifer's Dancing Debut |page=1 |work=Nottingham Evening Post |url=https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000321/19521104/003/0001 |url-access=subscription |access-date=31 December 2022 |via=British Newspaper Archive}}</ref> Gay toured the United States for three months with the Sadler's Wells Ballet Company (of which she was a member) starting from 4 September 1955.<ref>{{Cite news |date=19 August 1955 |title=Jennifer is now in ballet |page=3 |work=Belfast Telegraph |url=https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0002318/19550819/065/0003 |url-access=subscription |access-date=31 December 2022 |via=British Newspaper Archive}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |date=19 August 1955 |title=To Dance in U.S. |page=6 |work=Halifax Evening Courier |url=https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0003295/19550819/106/0006 |url-access=subscription |access-date=31 December 2022 |via=British Newspaper Archive}}</ref> When Gay was 25 years old, she decided to retire from The Royal Ballet after being persuaded to do so by her father so she could help him,<ref>{{Cite news |date=21 October 1960 |title=The Londoner's Diary – Meeting again |page=6 |work=London Evening Standard |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/113576532/the-londoners-diary-london-evening/ |access-date=24 November 2022 |via=Newspapers.com {{open access}}}}</ref> working as his secretary.<ref>{{Cite news |date=8 September 1964 |title=Three faces of Jennifer Rignold |page=3 |work=Birmingham Evening Mail and Despatch |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/115507536/jennifer-rignold-birmingham-evening/ |access-date=31 December 2022 |via=Newspapers.com {{open access}}}}</ref> Gay returned to television at ATV in the Midlands during the early 1960s, and was one of the launch team of reporters for the nightly news magazine programme ''ATV Today''.<ref>{{Cite news |date=28 September 1964 |title=A new title and a new name |page=3 |work=Birmingham Evening Mail and Despatch |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/113576264/atv-today-birmingham-evening-mail-and/ |access-date=24 November 2022 |via=Newspapers.com {{open access}}}}</ref> She had been suggested the job by television broadcaster Leslie Dunn and she received a one-month trial following an audition at ATV.<ref name=Mercury1965/>

===Career highlights=== In December 1949, Gay "announced the first children's programmes transmitted from the Sutton Coldfield transmitter",<ref name="Booth"/> while the 1953 ''Television Annual'' described Gay's "most frightening afternoon", as the occasion upon which "she had to partner Mrs. Attlee in the programme which opened the Lime Grove Studios," just five months later in May, 1950.<ref name="Booth"/><ref name="TV53"/>

Also in 1950, she battled sea-sickness after journeying to France to "take part in TV's first-ever cross-Channel hook-up", which included scenes of "Jennifer... going through Customs and being shown round the Port of Calais".<ref name="TV53"/> That same year saw Gay be presented with the Television Society's Silver Medal.<ref>{{Cite news |date=13 April 1950 |title=Jennifer goes to a party |page=6 |work=Hampstead News |url=https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0004649/19500413/078/0006 |url-access=subscription |access-date=31 December 2022 |via=British Newspaper Archive}}</ref>

==References== {{Reflist}}

==External links== *[http://www.whirligig-tv.co.uk/intro.htm A visual introduction to the early programmes and the bits in between...] *[http://www.whirligig-tv.co.uk/tv/memories/snippets/snippets20.htm "Jennifer Gay Leaves the BBC" at Whirligig] *[https://archive.today/20120717173908/http://tvannouncers.thetvroomplus.com/channel-1.html "The Continuity Booth" at the ''TV Room'']

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gay, Jennifer}} Category:1935 births Category:Radio and television announcers Category:English television presenters Category:English ballerinas Category:Living people Category:Television people from London