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Mavis Nicholson

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Mavis Nicholson
Born
Mavis Mainwaring

(1930-10-19)19 October 1930
Briton Ferry, Glamorgan, Wales
Died8 September 2022(2022-09-08) (aged 91)
NationalityWelsh
Alma materSwansea University
Occupation(s)television presenter, writer
TelevisionGood Afternoon
After Noon
After Noon Plus
Mavis on 4
A Plus 4
Spouse
Geoffrey Nicholson
​
​
(m. 1952; died 1999)​
[1]
Children3

Mavis Nicholson (née Mainwaring; 19 October 1930 – 8 September 2022) was a Welsh writer and radio and television broadcaster. She was born in Wales, and worked throughout the United Kingdom.[2]

Early life

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Nicholson was born on 19 October 1930 in Briton Ferry,[3][4] where she spent her childhood.[5] Her father worked as a crane driver at the Port Talbot Steelworks in Aberavon.[3][5] She attended Neath County School, leaving in 1949. She then studied English at Swansea University,[5] although was unable to pass her final exams in English, forfeiting a degree.[3] It was here that she met her husband, and both of them were tutored by the novelist Kingsley Amis.[6]

In 1951, at the end of her undergraduate studies, Nicholson won a scholarship to train as an advertising copywriter and with this moved to London. There she and her husband were at the centre of a lively social circle, including their former tutor, Kingsley Amis, and the journalist and broadcaster John Morgan.[5] According to Peter Corrigan's obituary of her husband, Mavis and Geoff Nicholson "became a much-loved double-act. Amis did not always approve of their views and claimed to have invented the word 'lefties' during one little set-to with them. While it was true that the Nicholsons didn't have dinner parties as such – they invited people for an argument and threw some food in – they were by no means belligerent but had in abundance the Welsh love of debate".[7]

Career

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Early years

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Nicholson stopped her work as an advertising copywriter when she had her children. Her second career as a broadcaster began in 1971 when, because of her probing and engaging conversational style at the dinner table, she was asked by Thames Television to host a programme on newly launched daytime television (British television had previously only started to broadcast in the late afternoon).[3]

Broadcasting

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Nicholson's screen debut occurred when she spoke out over a local dispute over school buses. The presenter of Thames TV News, Eamonn Andrews, told her she was a natural for the job. [6] A year later, Nicholson had secured her first presenting job on the 1971–72 show Tea Break.[8] By April 1972,[9] this had become Good Afternoon, after which her TV career spanned the next 25 years.[10] Nicholson then presented British television programmes such as After Noon, After Noon Plus and Mavis on 4 from the 1970s to 1990s, on which she interviewed people including Elizabeth Taylor, Kenneth Williams, Kenny Everett, David Bowie, James Baldwin, Peter Cook and Dudley Moore.[11][12][13] Nicholson presented the Channel 4 programme A Plus 4, which ran from 1984 to 1986. In 1983, she presented the discussion series Predicaments, also a Thames production for Channel 4; she dismissed the view that the programme was "voyeuristic" as "middle-class queasiness".[14] For the BBC, she appeared on Start the Week regularly in the 1970s, presented You and Yours in 1976 and hosted a number of interview and discussion series, including Open Air from 1988 to 1989 and Welsh editions of the Radio 2 Arts Programme in the 1990s.[15]

In the 1980s, she and her husband returned to Wales to live in a farmhouse in Powys.[16] In the early 1990s, she fronted a number of Channel 4 series produced by YoYo Films, such as Third Wave, In with Mavis, Moments of Crisis and Faces of the Family.[17] She also presented the discussion show Right or Wrong, made by Central Television and taken by some other regions including Meridian.[18] Her last work for television was Oldie TV in 1997, a television version of The Oldie magazine. However, in 2005, she returned to interview Elaine Morgan in an On Show programme for BBC One Wales, broadcast on 13 March that year.[19] On 25 August 2016, BBC One Wales broadcast a profile called Being Mavis Nicholson: the Greatest TV Interviewer of All Time? in a peak 9 pm slot.[20]

Other activities

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After a deeply sympathetic interview with Richard Ingrams, he was compelled to appoint her as resident agony aunt for his magazine The Oldie, for which she wrote until 2014.[6][21][22] She was the author of the 1992 book Martha Jane & Me: A Girlhood In Wales.[23]

Nicholson also presented radio shows, including a history of the department store and a look back at her childhood.[24]

Personal life

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Nicholson married Geoffrey Nicholson in 1952. They met while studying at Swansea, and remained married until his death in 1999. Together, they had three sons.[3][5]

Nicholson was a staunch supporter of the Labour Party.[5]

Nicholson died on 8 September 2022, at the age of 91.[3][5][25]

References

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  1. ^ "Index entry marriage record". FreeBMD. ONS. Retrieved 5 July 2021.
  2. ^ Chilton, Martin (1 June 2011). "Hay Festival: day seven as it happened". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 30 July 2015.
  3. ^ a b c d e f Brown, Maggie (11 September 2022). "Mavis Nicholson obituary". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 12 September 2022.
  4. ^ "Index entry birth record". FreeBMD. ONS. Retrieved 5 July 2021.
  5. ^ a b c d e f g "Mavis Nicholson, Welsh broadcaster whose skill and warmth as an interviewer drew out the best from celebrities – obituary". The Daily Telegraph. London. 11 September 2022. Retrieved 12 September 2022.
  6. ^ a b c "Mavis Nicholson obituary". The Times. 13 September 2022. ISSN 0140-0460. Retrieved 14 September 2022.
  7. ^ Corrigan, Peter (4 August 1999). "Obituary: Geoffrey Nicholson – Arts & Entertainment". The Independent. Archived from the original on 12 May 2022. Retrieved 12 June 2012.
  8. ^ Daily Express, page 10, 26 January 1972.
  9. ^ Daily Mirror, page 18, 19 April 1972.
  10. ^ "Film & TV Database – Nicholson, Mavis". British Film Institute. 31 October 2005. Archived from the original on 22 January 2009.
  11. ^ "North Powys Youth Music by Mavis Nicholson". North Powys Youth Music. 2006. Archived from the original on 8 August 2007.
  12. ^ "Bowie Golden Years: ITV February 1979". Bowie Golden Years. 2007.
  13. ^ "Good Afternoon!: Good Afternoon[RX 01/08/74]". BFI. 2007. Archived from the original on 29 January 2009.
  14. ^ Colvin, Clare (25 March 1983), "Peeping in on people's problems", The Times, page 13.
  15. ^ BBC Genome Project – Radio Times listings
  16. ^ McCoid, Bill (15 December 1988), "A life on the open air" by The Stage and Television Today.
  17. ^ YoYo Films YouTube channel
  18. ^ Daily Express, page 34, 1 September 1993
  19. ^ Wexford People, 9 March 2005, and several other Irish papers
  20. ^ Daily Mirror, page 42, 25 August 2016
  21. ^ "Magazines: The Oldie". The Independent. 31 October 2005. Archived from the original on 7 May 2007.
  22. ^ Kington, Miles (10 November 2006). "Miles Kington: Trapped in the Med with the wise and witty Oldies". The Independent. Archived from the original on 30 September 2007.
  23. ^ "WorldCat: Martha Jane & Me: A Girlhood In Wales". WorldCat. 2007.
  24. ^ "Radio Listings "Mavis Nicholson"". Radio Listings. 2007.
  25. ^ Grove, Valerie (10 September 2022). "RIP Mavis Nicholson, 91". The Oldie.
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