Eileen Browne, (5 August 1923 – 14 April 1999) was a BBC Radio broadcaster, perhaps best known for being one of the original presenters of Listen with Mother. Born in

Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...

, her parents were Minnie Gallaugher and Professor Francis James Browne, both originally from

County Donegal County Donegal ( ; ga, Contae Dhún na nGall) is a county of Ireland in the province of Ulster and in the Northern and Western Region. It is named after the town of Donegal in the south of the county. It has also been known as County Tyrconne ...

. Eileen studied at the

Royal College of Music The Royal College of Music is a music school, conservatoire established by royal charter in 1882, located in South Kensington, London, UK. It offers training from the Undergraduate education, undergraduate to the Doctorate, doctoral level in a ...

for 18 months with the piano as her first instrument. After working in

precision engineering Precision engineering is a subdiscipline of electrical engineering, software engineering, electronics engineering, mechanical engineering, and optical engineering concerned with designing machines, fixtures, and other structures that have excepti ...

during the war, she wrote to the BBC asking if there were any vacancies in the schools music department and she was given temporary employment as a junior programme assistant, which later became permanent. During the next seven years her assignments included ''Music And Movement'', ''Music Box'' and orchestral concerts. She also wrote the script for a series of on the lives of great composers called ''Adventures In Music''. For ''Listen With Mother'' she recorded the traditional nursery rhymes with George Dixon in 1950, when the programme began. She was also responsible for choosing the wide variety of music that opened each programme. The closing music, the ''Berceuse'' from Faure's Dolly Suite for piano duet, was recorded by Eileen and

Roger Fiske Roger Fiske (11 September 1910 – 22 July 1987) was a musicologist, broadcaster and author who played an important part in establishing music for schools at the BBC during and after World War II. Fiske was born in Surbiton. He studied English at ...

. She left the BBC in July 1953 shortly after her first marriage, but in 1955, she was the voice of Jenny Woodentop in the

BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board ex ...

's Watch With Mother series. She also worked regularly until 1964 as a part-time producer in schools radio. In 1956 she married Robert Mitchell. She had a son, daughter and three stepchildren.

References

Obituary ''The Guardian'' 5 May 1999
{{DEFAULTSORT:Browne, Eileen 1923 births 1999 deaths British radio personalities