Dame Jenni Murray, who has died at the age of 75, was a bona fide radio institution. As the longest serving presenter of Woman’s Hour, her on-air presence was grown-up, smart, and welcoming with a hint of steeliness. Hers was a voice like no other: husky, sonorous, intimate yet authoritative. If you were Radio 4 listener between the late 1980s and 2020, that voice would be as familiar as those of your parents or siblings. Unusually for a radio presenter, she was instantly recognisable in person. You couldn’t hear Murray without picturing her, bright eyes peering over her specs, one shoulder draped in a colourful pashmina.
Murray was fearless in her broadcasting, shining a light on subjects that were, at different times, considered taboo such as marital rape, infidelity, oral sex, pornography, female sexual pleasure, the gender pay gap and cancer. She talked frankly about her own experience of breast cancer and her mastectomy; a far cry from in the 1950s when Woman’s Hour delivered a warning at the start of episodes where the disease was discussed, so that listeners could switch off.
Murray was a bold and often funny interviewer too: right at the start of her Woman’s Hour career, she interviewed Bette Davis, whose formidable reputation preceded her, and persuaded her to deliver the immortal line from 1950’s All About Eve: “Fasten your seatbelts. It’s going to be a bumpy night.” Murray left Margaret Thatcher speechless when asking her about the sexist remarks directed at her by fellow politicians, and asked Edwina Currie when she last had a smear test. But she had a softer side too: she was one of the few journalists to treat Monica Lewinsky with compassion rather than disdain when she appeared on Woman’s Hour in 1999.
It is little wonder that Murray was made a dame in 2011, an honour that is usually the preserve of actors, politicians, philanthropists and sports stars. I met Murray just once when I was working as The Independent’s radio critic and was invited to Broadcasting House to share my thoughts on how to improve Woman’s Hour. I was nervous: Murray was known for not suffering fools gladly and for letting you know who was boss. I got a hard stare for suggesting they bring in newer, younger presenting voices – though I received an approving nod when I begged them to bin the Woman’s Hour drama.
After leaving Woman’s Hour in 2020, Murray hosted Experience is Everything, a podcast featuring older voices and in which she talked to guests including Ian Hislop, Trevor McDonald and Alex Kingston. Yet she never lost her passion for championing women and women’s issues. “I want to see women run the world,” she told an interviewer in 2016. “Maybe we will make as much of a mess of it as men have, but for goodness’ sake give us a chance.”
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