Michaela Strachan
Encyclopedia
Michaela Evelyn Ann Strachan (born 7 April 1966, Ewell
Ewell
Ewell is a village in the borough of Epsom and Ewell in Surrey, close to the southern boundary of Greater London. It is located 14 miles south-south-west of Charing Cross and forms part of the suburbia that surrounds Greater London. Despite its growing population it is still referred to as a...

, Surrey
Surrey
Surrey is a county in the South East of England and is one of the Home Counties. The county borders Greater London, Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex, Hampshire and Berkshire. The historic county town is Guildford. Surrey County Council sits at Kingston upon Thames, although this has been part of...

) is an English
English people
The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...

 television presenter.

Personal life

Strachan attended Claremont Fan Court School
Claremont Fan Court School
Claremont Fan Court School is a co-educational independent school, for boys and girls from 3 to 18. Situated just outside Esher, in Surrey, only sixteen miles from London, it is set in the historic grounds of the Claremont Estate....

, Esher
Esher
Esher is a town in the Surrey borough of Elmbridge in South East England near the River Mole. It is a very prosperous part of the Greater London Urban Area, largely suburban in character, and is situated 14.1 miles south west of Charing Cross....

, a Christian Science
Christian Science
Christian Science is a system of thought and practice derived from the writings of Mary Baker Eddy and the Bible. It is practiced by members of The First Church of Christ, Scientist as well as some others who are nonmembers. Its central texts are the Bible and the Christian Science textbook,...

 school. Later, while at college, she briefly held jobs as an Avon lady and as a kissogram
Kissogram
A kissogram, also called kissagram , is a message delivered along with a kiss usually arranged as a fun surprise for a person for a special occasion...

. After studying at ArtsEd London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, Strachan performed in theatre before moving to children's television.

She is a vegetarian and was married to film-maker Duncan Chard, but they divorced after five years. On 8 June 2005, she gave birth to her son Oliver with Nick Chevallier. The couple live in Cape Town
Cape Town
Cape Town is the second-most populous city in South Africa, and the provincial capital and primate city of the Western Cape. As the seat of the National Parliament, it is also the legislative capital of the country. It forms part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality...

 with Chevallier's children: daughter Jade and two sons, Tom and Sam.

Television

Strachan was a presenter on Saturday morning television in the 1980s, being involved in such programmes as TV-am
TV-am
TV-am was a breakfast television station that broadcast to the United Kingdom from 1 February 1983 to 31 December 1992. It made history by being the first national operator of a commercial television franchise at breakfast-time , and broadcast every day of the week for most or all of the period...

and Wide Awake Club with Timmy Mallett
Timmy Mallett
Timmy Mallett is a TV presenter and broadcaster in the UK. He achieved cult status on BBC Radio Oxford and Manchester's Piccadilly Radio and later on TV-am...

. In 1988 she hosted Boogie Box on music channel Music Box
Music Box (TV)
Music Box Ltd. was a television production company that developed from a pioneering pan-European 24-hour cable and satellite channel that ran from March 1984 to 30 January 1987, originally one of three channels along with PREM1ERE and The Children's Channel, that formed Thorn EMI's venture into...

. In 1993 Strachan joined The Really Wild Show
The Really Wild Show
The Really Wild Show was a long-running British television show about wildlife, broadcast by the BBC as part of their CBBC service to children. It also runs on Animal Planet in the USA.The show was broadcast continuously since January 21, 1986...

, a wildlife programme for children on BBC One
BBC One
BBC One is the flagship television channel of the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It was launched on 2 November 1936 as the BBC Television Service, and was the world's first regular television service with a high level of image resolution...

, until its cancellation in 2006. Strachan starred as "Her" in the music show The Hitman and Her
The Hitman and Her
The Hit Man And Her was a British television dance music show hosted by Pete Waterman and Michaela Strachan. The programme was produced by Granada Television in Manchester, Clear Idea Productions and Music Box and it ran almost continuously for over four years and three months September 1988 until...

alongside Pete Waterman
Pete Waterman
Peter Alan Waterman OBE is an English record producer, occasional songwriter, radio and club DJ, television presenter, president of Coventry Bears rugby league club and a keen railway enthusiast. As a member of the Stock Aitken Waterman songwriting team he wrote and produced many hit singles...

. She has also featured in a small acting role in the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

 sitcom Game On.

She was a regular reporter for BBC One
BBC One
BBC One is the flagship television channel of the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It was launched on 2 November 1936 as the BBC Television Service, and was the world's first regular television service with a high level of image resolution...

's Countryfile
Countryfile
Countryfile is a British magazine-style television programme produced by BBC Birmingham, first aired on 24th July 1988, which reports on rural and environmental issues within the United Kingdom. For its first 20 years it was fronted by broadcaster John Craven, until he stepped back from the role of...

for many years until the programme underwent a primetime Sunday evening revamp in April 2009. Her move to South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...

 prevented her from committing fully to the new show. While filming an item for Countryfile
Countryfile
Countryfile is a British magazine-style television programme produced by BBC Birmingham, first aired on 24th July 1988, which reports on rural and environmental issues within the United Kingdom. For its first 20 years it was fronted by broadcaster John Craven, until he stepped back from the role of...

in 2002, Strachan entered the World Gurning competition at Egremont Crab Fair
Egremont, Cumbria
Egremont is a market town and civil parish in the Borough of Copeland in Cumbria, England, south of Whitehaven and on the River Ehen. The town, which lies at the foot of Uldale Valley and Dent Fell, was historically within Cumberland and has a long industrial heritage including dyeing, weaving and...

. To her surprise she won the Ladies' World Gurning Crown.

More recently Strachan has presented a number of wildlife shows for Channel 5. These include Michaela's Zoo Babies, Michaela's Animal Road Trip, Animal Rescue Squad, Animal Rescue International and Michaela's Wild Challenge.

Strachan co-presented two series of Orangutan diary
Orangutan diary
Orangutan Diary is a nature documentary series on the BBC, which follows the lives of Bornean Orangutans in the care of Lone Drøscher Nielsen, a member of the Borneo Orangutan Survival foundation. The program tries to detail the threat that the orangutans face in day to day life...

with Steve Leonard
Steve Leonard
Stephen "Steve" Leonard is a British veterinarian and television personality.-Early life:Leonard's family moved to Cheshire, from Northern Ireland, when he was six weeks old....

 for BBC One
BBC One
BBC One is the flagship television channel of the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It was launched on 2 November 1936 as the BBC Television Service, and was the world's first regular television service with a high level of image resolution...

. These series followed the daily routines at a reserve for orphaned orangutans in Borneo
Borneo
Borneo is the third largest island in the world and is located north of Java Island, Indonesia, at the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia....

 and the work of Lone Drøscher Nielsen and her team in rescuing and rehabilitating the orangutans. They were broadcast in 2006 and 2008. She told The Independent
The Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...

that her greatest inspiration is Lone Drøscher Nielsen who "works under very difficult conditions, and shows an all-consuming dedication to these animals".

Strachan took part in a celebrity version of the TV show Total Wipeout
Total Wipeout
Total Wipeout is a British game show, hosted by Richard Hammond and Amanda Byram, which first aired on 3 January 2009. Each week 20 contestants compete in a series of challenges in an attempt to win £10,000. These challenges are based in large pools of water or mud and generally involve large...

, which aired on 18 September 2010. She joined the team presenting BBC Autumnwatch Live in late 2011.

Autumnwatch Live 2011. Autumnwatch returned with a new name Autumn Watch Live on the 7th October 2011. For the first four weeks was presented from the National Arboretum at Westonbirt
Westonbirt Arboretum
Westonbirt, The National Arboretum is managed by the Forestry Commission. Westonbirt Arboretum is located near the historic market town of Tetbury in Gloucestershire, England, and is perhaps the most important and widely known arboretum in the United Kingdom.Planted in the heyday of Victorian plant...

. For the final four weeks, the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust's Slimbridge reserve. Michaela Strachan, Chris Packham and Martin Hughes-Games were presenting, Kate Humble was not part of the series.

Also in 2011, she presented a series of programmes called Great British Ghosts shown on the freeview channel 'Yesterday'. In it, she travels Britain going to various haunted buildings and finding out what the stories behind the ghost sightings are.

Music

Strachan has also had a brief music career as "Michaela" with two UK hit single
Hit single
A hit single is a recorded song or instrumental released as a single that has become very popular. Although it is sometimes used to describe any widely-played or big-selling song, the term "hit" is usually reserved for a single that has appeared in an official music chart through repeated radio...

s; a cover
Cover version
In popular music, a cover version or cover song, or simply cover, is a new performance or recording of a contemporary or previously recorded, commercially released song or popular song...

 of Edwin Starr
Edwin Starr
Edwin Starr was an American soul music singer. Starr is most famous for his Norman Whitfield produced singles of the 1970s, most notably the number one hit "War".-Biography:...

's "H.A.P.P.Y. Radio" (UK
UK Singles Chart
The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ...

 #62, 1989) and "Take Good Care of My Heart" (UK #66, 1990).

In 2007, the British band, Scouting For Girls
Scouting for Girls
Scouting for Girls are a Brit and Ivor Novello nominated band from London, formed in 2005 by Roy Stride, Greg Churchouse and Peter Ellard. Stride and Ellard met in the Cub Scouts and Churchouse met Stride on their first day at school. They have sold over 1.2 million albums and over 1.5 million...

, included a song called "Michaela Strachan (You Broke My Heart)" on their eponymous debut album
Scouting for Girls (album)
-Bonus tracks:-Chart positions:When it was first released in September 2007 it debuted at No.12. The next week it fell down 8 places and then fell out of the top 40 in October 2007. It started to climb back up the chart in January 2008 until it reached its new peak of No.4 on 13 January...

, as a hidden track.

Other

Strachan is a celebrity supporter of the charity World Vision
World Vision
World Vision, founded in the USA in 1950, is an evangelical relief and development organization whose stated goal is "to follow our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ in working with the poor and oppressed to promote human transformation, seek justice and bear witness to the good news of the Kingdom of...

 as a child sponsor. She also supports their Alternative Gifts charity; life-changing gifts for communities in the developing world. She is the author of a book entitled Wild About Baby Animals.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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