Gay Search
{{Short description|English television presenter and journalist (born 1945)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=December 2024}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Gay Search
| birth_name = Mary Gay Search
| birth_date = {{Birth date and age|df=yes|1945|5|1}}
| birth_place = Hammersmith, London, England
| occupation = {{hlist|Television presenter|journalist}}
| television = Gardeners' World
Front Gardens
| spouse = {{marriage|Anthony Laryea|1977}}{{cite web |title=My first home: Gay Search |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/property/3289542/My-first-home-Gay-Search.html |access-date=9 July 2023 |date=9 June 2001}}
| children = 2
}}
Mary Gay Laryea ({{née}} Search; born 1 May 1945){{Failed verification|date=January 2024}} is an English television presenter and journalist. She worked on the BBC television series Gardeners' World with Geoff Hamilton, and on the series Front Gardens.
Early life
Mary Gay Search was born on 1 May 1945 in Hammersmith, London to Ruth (née Tapsell) and Wilfred Search.{{cite web |title=Mary Gay Search |url=https://www.freebmd.org.uk/cgi/information.pl?r=190480041:1495&d=bmd_1687955205 |website=FreeBMD |access-date=9 July 2023}}{{cite web|title=The spies in a suburban bungalow|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-29985359|publisher=BBC|first=Vincent|last=Dowd|date=11 November 2014|access-date=12 November 2014}} As a teenager, Search was a bystander in the capture of the Portland spy ring; her parents' house was used to surveil Peter and Helen Kroger, two members of the ring.
Career
Search started her horticultural career writing the garden column for Woman magazine, with help from Alan Titchmarsh, who prevented her from writing "daft" things.{{Cite book|title=BBC Gardeners'World Through the Years|last=Search|first=Gay|publisher=Carlton Books Limited|year=2003|isbn=1-84442-416-2|location=London|pages=152}} She devised and hosted gardening shows for BBC2 from 1988.{{Cite web |url=http://www.greeneheaton.co.uk/pages/authors/author.asp?AuthorID=8 |title=Literary agents for novelists, travel writers, scientists, biographers, historians, television presenters, children's writers and literary illustrators – Gay Search |access-date=20 May 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081210101601/http://www.greeneheaton.co.uk/pages/authors/author.asp?AuthorID=8 |archive-date=10 December 2008 |url-status=dead }} She worked as gardening editor for Sainsbury magazine for 13 years as well as the Radio Times.
Search is also patron of the British Thyroid Foundation.{{cite web|title=British Thyroid Foundation Patrons|url=http://www.btf-thyroid.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=42&Itemid=87|publisher=British Thyroid Foundation|accessdate=20 December 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121105180917/http://www.btf-thyroid.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=42&Itemid=87|archive-date=5 November 2012|url-status=dead}}
Personal life
Bibliography
- Front Gardens
- Gardening from Scratch
- Gardening without a garden
- Delia's Kitchen Garden, written with Delia Smith.
- Perfect Plants for Problem Places
References
{{Reflist}}
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Category:English television presenters
Category:English garden writers
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