Mary Nightingale

Mary Nightingale was born in North Yorkshire.   She was  educated at St Margaret’s School, an independent school for girls in Exeter, Devon and the University of London now part of Royal Holloway,  where she obtained a BA in English
Mary started her journalism career as a presenter and writer on World Business Satellite for TV Tokyo followed by joining the BBC World Business Report as a presenter and writer, covering economic and corporate news, including interviews with analysts, economists, plus regular links with overseas correspondents.   Mary also worked for Reuters  Financial Television in 1994 as a presenter on the early morning financial programme transmitted directly to city dealers

In 1995, Mary joined the ITN presenting weekend editions of ITN’s World News service. As well as being co-presented on Carlton Country, a factual series about life in the countryside, plus a presenter on BBC’s  Holiday Programm.

In  1995 she worked as co-presenter on ITV’s Rugby World Cup coverage from South Africa on the regular evening highlights programme. In 1996, Nightingale presented Ski Sunday and fronted the world skiing championships

Until April 1999, Nightingale was co-presenter with Alastair Stewart of London News Network’s flagship news programme London Tonight and was the sole presenter of London Today, Carlton’s lunchtime news bulletin.  She also presented the daily late news bulletins of London Tonight.

Nightingale anchored ITV’s flagship holiday programme Wish You Were Here…? from 1999–2001 and also presented The Really Good Food Show.   In November 2000, she started presenting Ratrap for ITV and in 2001, Nightingale was promoted to the ITV News at 6:30. Due to her new commitment she left her position on London Tonight. She was also part of the ITN team covering the 2001 general election

Nightingale has also fronted various ITV programmes including: Holidays Undercover in 200 The Girl Who Would Be Queen, which marked the 80th birthday of Queen Elizabeth II, and Diana – A Service of Thanksgiving in 2007 with live coverage of a special memorial service exactly ten years after the death of Diana, Princess of Wales.

Nightingale is also an occasional presenter of ITV News at Ten.
In April 2011 she took over from Mark Nicholas as the host of the ITV1 daytime cookery programme Britain’s Best Dish