Anne Deirdre Gregg (11 February 1940 – 5 September 2006) was a travel writer and TV presenter from Northern Ireland.
After leaving school, she worked for a short time as a bookkeeper in the Ministry of Finance, but quickly left to pursue a television career.
Gregg joined Ulster Television at the age of 19 in 1959, starting as an announcer and later becoming a local news reporter and presenter of Roundabout.
[2] With a warm, personable manner, described by The Guardian as "unstuffy directness and warmth combined with an impish sense of fun",[5] she was popular with viewers.
She was counted as "thinking man's crumpet", alongside Joan Bakewell, Joanna Lumley and Felicity Kendal.
The Daily Mail reported that she had been sacked, and perceptions that she had been rejected for being too old at 51 (Rice was 17½ years younger) led to hundreds of viewers writing in to protest, pushing the issue of her departure to seventh on the BBC's list of viewer complaints, famously between complaints about bad language (sixth) and about a series of programmes on homosexuality on BBC2 (eighth).
[2][3][5] She, however, rejected allegations of ageism, pointing to successful older women at the BBC, such as Esther Rantzen and Sue Lawley.