Jane Garvey (broadcaster)
Jane Susan Garvey (born 23 June 1964) is a British radio presenter, until recently of BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour, and co-founder of the weekly podcast series Fortunately (since March 2017). Garvey's was the first voice on BBC Radio 5 Live when it launched at 5:00 am on 28 March 1994. She presented the station's breakfast programme and the relaunched Midday show, and co-presented its Drive show on weekday afternoons with Peter Allen, for which she and Allen won four Sony Gold Awards. Early life and education Garvey was born in Crosby, near Liverpool, in 1964. Her father is Ray Garvey, and her mother, Maureen (born O'Neill), was a hospital receptionist. She was educated at Merchant Taylors' Girls' School in Crosby, a private school in Merseyside. She is a graduate in English of the University of Birmingham. Career Garvey was employed as a medical records clerk in a finance company, as a trainee for an advertising agency and as a receptionist before becoming a promotions assistant for Radio Wyvern, where she later became news editor, leaving in 1988 to join BBC Hereford and Worcester as a reporter. The station began in February 1989. In that year, Garvey was presenter of The Breakfast Show at BBC Hereford and Worcester, where Ben Cooper worked as her assistant. Garvey's was the first voice on BBC Radio 5 Live when it launched at 5:00 am on 28 March 1994. She became the co-presenter of 5 Live's award-winning breakfast programme in 1994, and also presented the Everywoman programme on the BBC World Service. She was also the presenter of the relaunched Midday show on BBC Radio 5 Live (during which the award-winning Postcards from the Street series by Stan Burridge was broadcast). Her final long-term assignment on 5 Live was as co-presenter of its Drive show on weekday afternoons with Peter Allen. She and Allen have won four Sony Gold Awards, and their relationship on air was described in The Times in 2002 as "a marriage made in radio heaven". In September 1997, Garvey was a passenger on the Swansea train in the Southall rail crash, and received praise for her on-the-spot reports. In May 2007, in a discussion on the tenth anniversary of the Labour Party gaining power in the United Kingdom, Garvey unwittingly revealed an apparent pro-Labour bias at the BBC. She reminisced how, the morning after the 1997 general election, "the corridors of Broadcasting House were strewn with empty champagne bottles – I will always remember that", though adding that the BBC had "perhaps fallen out of love with Labour" in more recent years. In September 2007, it was announced she would leave 5 Live after 13 years. On Monday 8 October 2007 she joined BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour programme as the second principal presenter, succeeding Martha Kearney in the role. She created a minor stir in February 2008 in an interview in The Guardian, describing Woman's Hour as too middle-class and fixated on cooking. She returned briefly to BBC Radio