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The phrase has become a staple in the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations. "The time is a quarter to two," the announcer would declare. "This is the BBC Light Programme for mothers and children at home. Are you ready for the music? When it ends, Daphne Oxenford will be here to speak to you." The music—a Berceuse from Faure's Dolly Suite—signaled preschool children nationwide to settle down. From 1950 to 1971, Daphne Oxenford regularly read the day's story on the show, alongside other storytellers like Julia Lang and Dorothy Smith. Radio historian Paul Donovan remarked, "Few radio memories come as misty-eyed as this."
Daphne Oxenford also appeared on television, notably in early episodes of Coronation Street. Between 1960 and 1963, she portrayed Esther Hayes, debuting in episode two. Despite the character’s background as a spinster with a criminal brother, Oxenford found the role dull and left after a few years, returning only for guest spots in 1971 and 1972, last seen at the wedding of Ernest Bishop to Emily Nugent. For 26 years, she was a familiar voice on What the Papers Say, Granada Television's irreverent weekly review of the British press, where she read excerpts from papers ranging from tabloids to The Daily Telegraph, often using various character voices.
Born Daphne Margaret du Grivel Oxenford on October 31, 1919, in Barnet, north London, she was the daughter of an accountant. After school, she trained at the Embassy School of Acting in Swiss Cottage, later known as the Central School of Speech and Drama, studying under Eileen Thorndike, sister of Sybil Thorndike. During World War II, she briefly worked in a bank and as a censor but disliked reading private correspondence. She was relieved to join ENSA, entertaining troops and later broadcasting on radio in Germany after VE Day. In 1945, she appeared with Sonnie Hale and Nellie Wallace in the revue That'll Be The Day.
Her first radio role was in Let's Join In! for schools radio in 1947, followed by her TV debut in 1949's Oranges and Lemons, a show she had performed in at the Lyric (Hammersmith) and Globe Theatres. She also appeared in a TV adaptation of Tuppence Coloured, a stage revue at the Lyric and Globe in 1947 where she worked alongside Joyce Grenfell and Max Adrian. Although her work on Listen With Mother became a staple from 1950, she continued to advance her stage career. She played Miss Gossage in The Happiest Days Of Your Life and appeared in Candida at the Library Theatre, Manchester, both in 1955. In 1969, she featured in Spring And Port Wine and Relatively Speaking at the same venue.
In 1979, she portrayed Violet in a revival of TS Eliot's The Family Reunion, starring Edward Fox, at Manchester's Royal Exchange and later at the Vaudeville in the West End. She played Miss Prism in Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest at Nottingham Playhouse in October 1990 and returned to Manchester in 1991 as Emmy in The Doctors' Dilemma at the Royal Exchange. The following year, she was Ethel Thayler in a stage adaptation of On Golden Pond at the Library Theatre.
From 1956, Daphne Oxenford frequently appeared on television with her friend Joyce Grenfell in the sketch show Joyce Grenfell Requests The Pleasure. She portrayed the mother in John Mortimer's autobiographical A Voyage Round My Father (1969), and throughout the 1970s and 1980s, she appeared in numerous comedies with Jimmy Tarbuck, Les Dawson, and Dick Emery, as well as dramas in the Play For Today slot, and popular sitcoms including Some Mothers Do Have 'Em, Rising Damp, and Man About The House. She played Mrs. Patterson, the village grocer, in To The Manor Born (1979–81). She continued making cameo appearances in the 1980s and 1990s in series such as The Bill, Brookside, and Casualty. In 2002, she portrayed the Queen Mother in an American TV biopic about Prince William. Though she resembled the character, she was displeased by some of the dialogue, protesting that the Queen Mother would never have said "when the chips are down," but was told it was to aid American viewers’ understanding.
Her feature film credits include roles in Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed (1969), That'll Be The Day (1973), and as Mrs. Pumphrey in All Creatures Great And Small (1974). She married David Marshall in 1951, and they lived in Altrincham, Cheshire, until relocating to Essex in 2001. After her husband's death in 2003, she moved to Denville Hall, an actors' retirement home in Northwood, where she continued occasional television work with roles in The Royal (2003), Midsomer Murders (2004), Heartbeat (2004-05), and Doctor Who (2008). Daphne Oxenford lived to the age of 93.
