Mavis Nicholson
Born
Mavis Mainwaring

(1930-10-19)19 October 1930
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

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

Early years

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

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

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

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

  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. 1 2 3 4 5 6 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. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "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. 1 2 3 "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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