His father, Wallace Barratt, was a tax inspector, while Doris, his mother died of tuberculosis when Michael was aged six.
[1] After leaving school and learning shorthand, he joined Kemsley Newspapers in Glasgow, beginning as a tea boy and horoscope writer on the Sunday Mail.
[1] Following his return to the UK, he worked as a production journalist on several English regional newspapers including a period at the Wolverhampton Express & Star.
[1] At the same time, he contributed regularly to the BBC World Service and began a freelance television reporting career, initially on the Midlands regional current affairs magazine Scan which had begun by 1961,[2] and then as a freelance reporter on the BBC current affairs programme Midlands Today.
“It was live television taking in all 11 regions of the country, which was unheard of at the time... things went drastically wrong technically.
In one episode, which was dedicated to punk rock, Barratt was depicted reading the news with a large safety-pin through his nose.