Jennifer Gay

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, to actress Molly Gay and composer Hugo Rignold. 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. 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. She used a shortened version of her middle name for her professional career. and was primed by Cecil Madden, the head of BBC children's television. Gay began introducing children's programmes in June 1949, For the next three years, she grew up on screen, her name intrinsically linked with early 1950s children's television. Andrew Martin a BBC Archives expert described Gay as "the accepted way of presenting children to themselves". 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. 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, working as his secretary. 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. She had been suggested the job by television broadcaster Leslie Dunn and she received a one-month trial following an audition at ATV.