Tony Marlow’s motion had described her as a “self-declared feminist with an unrepresentative lifestyle”, and so Jenni Murray took an impish delight in the subsequent revelation that Marlow’s own lifestyle was not exactly representative either. Marlow, it was revealed, had nine children, five by his wife and four by his mistress, and divided his time between the two women. If Jenni Murray did not put a high store by marriage, she always stressed the importance of fidelity.
An only child, Jennifer Susan Bailey was born on May 12 1950 in Barnsley, Yorkshire, where her maternal grandfather had been a winder at the local pit. Her father had trained as an electrical engineer but the key figure in young Jenni’s life was her mother, a housewife. She recalled, as a child, enjoying post-lunch hours alongside the family’s Bush wireless, listening to Woman’s Hour with her mother and being sent off to the kitchen on spurious errands whenever an item carried a “health warning” – a designation that covered such issues as the menopause, contraception and cohabitation.
Jenni was educated at Barnsley Girls’ High School, where she was described as “good at writing but a bit loose on facts”, and advised that she “should do well in journalism”. At Hull University, where she took a degree in French and drama, Woman’s Hour alerted her to Mary Quant and Vidal Sassoon. Courting her mother’s disapproval, she bobbed her hair and took to wearing the skimpiest of mini-skirts.