Joan Gilbert

Joan Gilbert (11 August 1906 – 29 January 1991) was an English television broadcaster for the BBC. She began working at the BBC as a shorthand typist in 1933 and became secretary of the radio programme In Town Tonight four months later. In 1938, Gilbert moved into television as a scout and assistant editor to producer Cecil Madden on the weekly programme Picture Page. She was at the BBC's Overseas Unit Light Entertainment presenting radio broadcasts for British troops stationed overseas during the Second World War. Upon the resumption of television broadcasting in the United Kingdom in 1946, Gilbert became editor-in-chief and presenter of the afternoon and evening editions of Picture Page and various programmes aimed at women.

Biography Gilbert was born in Cambridge on 11 August 1906 and was of Irish descent. She had most of her childhood spent at a French convent school in Sussex and did not see much of her father, who was on service in India. When she was young, Gilbert thought about becoming an interior designer or a dress designer. Four months later, she became the secretary of W. H. Hanson, the producer of the radio programme In Town Tonight. Gilbert conducted interviews with many people alongside Brian Michie over a period of five years. She left the programme after Hanson died in 1937. She worked as a scout and assistant editor to Cecil Madden, the producer of the weekly programme Picture Page. At the suggestion of Gibraltar's governor-general Noel Mason-MacFarlane, Gilbert travelled to Gibraltar in 1943 to meet troops who listened to the programme. a re-branding of Picture Page.

Gilbert made her last television appearance as a BBC staff member on 30 June 1953 and became a freelance broadcaster and writer, having left the corporation on amicable terms. She was the presenter of various programmes aimed at women. Gilbert hosted the afternoon magazine programme for housewives About the Home from 1951 to 1958, the TWW general interest series Women's View in late 1958, and the fortnightly magazine programme Joan Gilbert's Diary from September 1953 in which she interviewed notable individuals. Gilbert wrote a regular weekly column about the people she met and what she watched on television in the television magazine TV Mirror from December 1953 to August 1955. She joined the News of the World newspaper in February 1955 as a contributor of a weekly feature. Gilbert's final years saw her work in charity, particularly with Christian Aid, and she was the London co-ordinator of Mother Teresa's appeal.

Personal life She did not marry. Gilbert died on 29 January 1991.