When she first swept on to our screens she appeared impudent and self-important, but that was a public front to the kind-hearted side of Muriel Gray, as Alastair Gilmour finds out. *********
 As we walk into media specialist Muriel Gray's office, she and a colleague are speechless with laughter. On glancing over, she puts on a mock "serious interview face" and promises to calm down. Fortunately, that lasts all of 30 seconds before natural garrulousness resurfaces. Anybody who has followed the Gray career (which has been anything but grey) from punk television presenter through feminist flagwaver and serious film producer will recognise that this is a woman with a lot to say and who devotes a great deal of energy to supporting her opinions. It's not long into our chat before she has sorted out foxhunting, Prince Charles, education and boxing without protective headgear. Plus, we laugh quite a lot. It's her entrepreneurial side we're interested in, however. She has recently given time and encouragement to Bedroom Britain, an intitiative by Channel 4 and the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts which was developed as a competition to explore self-employment as an option for the nation's youngsters, and to introduce enterprise into the national curriculum. She was on the judging panel along with designer, Wayne Hemingway, R&B World ringtones creator, Alexander Amosu, and supported by fashion guru, Bruce Oldfield, campaigner Anita Roddick and concert promoter, Emily Eavis. She is no stranger to the region - she visited Newcastle earlier this year to encourage North-East schoolchildren into thinking enterprise - and she made her television debut in The Tube in 1982, co-presenting with Paula Yates and Jools Holland. She loves the compactness of Newcastle, its proximity to the sea in one direction and rolling wilderness in the other. She is also a huge admirer of the Angel of the North which she feels as proud of as if it were in her own Glasgow garden. "Bedroom Britain was a fabulous idea and last month's final was quite moving," she says. She also reserves praise for The Prince's Trust which helps the under-30s into self-employment, though the Prince of Wales himself has been in hot water for suggesting that youngsters should ditch the cult of celebrity and work seriously towards their goals. "Giving young people money from a charitable trust to start up a business is brilliant," she says. "The Prince's Trust has completely transformed some people's lives and he gets pilloried for making remarks about aspirations that are absolutely right. It's the first time I've ever been furious on behalf of the monarchy." Muriel started her working life as a graphic designer and was head of design at the National Museum of Antiquities in Edinburgh before being invited to co-present The Tube from the Tyne Tees Television studios in Newcastle. She then fronted a diverse range of programmes - Frocks On The Box, a long running fashion series, and Bliss, a teenage music and culture show produced by Janet Street Porter - as well as the influential The Media Show on Channel 4. She began her own production company in 1987, initially named Gallus Besom, which later became Ideal World Productions. Earlier this year, she and husband, Hamish Barbour, joined forces with Newsnight presenter, Kirsty Wark, and her husband, Alan Clements, to form IWC Media, creating Scotland's biggest television programme makers. Location, Location, Location is the company's highest-profile series and work in the pipeline includes The Russian Revolution In Colour and Monte Cassino: The Soldier's Story. Muriel, however, has moved on from presenting. "There's not very much to it," she says. "You just stand there and introduce bands; it's the occupation of chimpanzees. I'm not that good at presenting, anyway. I can't really be bothered." What she can be bothered with is writing. This side to her career began in the late Eighties with a non-fiction, best-selling mountaineering book entitled The First Fifty, about people's obsession with Munro mountains (those 284 above 3,000 feet). "The only previous ones had been very worthy and serious by bearded mountaineers," she says. "I'd been climbing since I was 16 and thought it would be funny to write an alternative view - from a woman climber and not very serious. "I bashed it off in five weeks before going to work every day and sold it later to television, which is the other way round to normal. It's a toilet book full of cheap gags and couldn't possibly be repeated. It was 17 years ago and taxi drivers still ask, 'are ye no away climbing mountains?'. The publication of her first horror novel came in 1993, which Stephen King called "scary and un-putdownable". She is currently working on an original horror screenplay commissioned by Little Bird Films as well as producing a regular column for the Sunday Herald. "There's theory about artists being good at writing once they stop being artists," she says. "I started writing the horror books when I was pregnant with my first child (she has three) and I got fed up travelling up and down to London. "I sold the first one for lots of money, so it allowed me to stay at home wearing big jumpers. It's bog-standard horror - Aaahhh. Run away. The End. "The best thing was, it sold well in America and Stephen King gave me a cover quote, but don't know if that was a good thing because I got frightened to do any more." Far from being "bog-standard horror", The Trickster is a gripping supernatural tale of dark spirits and magic, while Furnace centres around a town-with-something-to-hide which has genuinely creepy ideas and some razor-sharp writing. Muriel is passionate about young people's abilities and the importance of a good education. "We employ at lot of young people at IWC Media and that's the way it should be," she says. "You feel so invincible when you're young and nothing is a risk. "My sister-in-law did a radio programme talking to some people on Clydeside who had been part of a workers' revolution at age 16 and 17 - and they still have the same opinions at 60 and 70. It was all down to the level of education they had. My dad went to an ordinary primary school in Maryhill in Glasgow and was taught Latin. He had a stonking education, but it's now one of our biggest failures - that and housing. Crime, poverty, bad health - each of them stems from bad housing and a poor level of education. "Then we have youngsters who are fourth generation benefits people. It's not part of their culture to work for themselves." She is also keen on the sort of law-making that marks a progression in society and our earlier conversation about foxhunting has stemmed from her stance on decency. Five years ago, she surprised visitors on The Great Wall of China by conducting a two-minute Remembrance Day silence. "The Chinese were looking on and wondering what we were doing," says Pauline Proud from Cramlington, who was taking part in a children's charity trek along with Muriel. "Cruelty to animals is the next step to execution," she says. "It's like the laws on discriminating against homosexuality - not everybody will agree to it, but these benchmarks keep elevating society that little bit more." Another current item of news has disturbed her even more than the comments hurled at Prince Charles and which she believes shows another great failing by Government. But it's more than an opinion; it's a development of her family life. "I have some sympathy for that woman who dumped her husband in hospital when he got too much to handle," she says. "I know kids who won't admit that they've had to look after others in the family and get them ready before they get themselves to school. There's very little done for carers, but you'll be hearing a lot more about the Princess Royal Carers Trust; it's an absolutely brilliant organisation." Muriel and Hamish's middle child has cerebral palsy and the consequent muscular function impairment requires sustained attention. It's the first day at a new school and she's keen to get there and see how the teachers have managed to with feeding. "As if you need it - that's a bloody huge incentive to make your business go," she says. Visit www.iwcmedia.co.uk | 
