She was the first wife of the actor John Stride (1936–2018), whom she met when they were studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), and in 1964 she introduced the first programme to be seen on BBC Two.
[1] In the event, she went to RADA rather than read English at university, and took her husband's name for professional purposes because of pressure from agents who felt that Virginia Thomas "didn't sound quite right".
[1] Virginia Stride played the recurring role of control room radio operator Katy Hoskins in Z-Cars (1962–64), the long-running BBC television series about the police in a fictional town near Liverpool.
In 1964 she appeared in an episode of The Avengers as Alice Brisket, secretary to Quilpie (played by Ronald Radd), who was the controller of John Steed (Patrick Macnee) and Cathy Gale (Honor Blackman).
In the early 21st century Stride performed with the Agatha Christie Theatre Company, for example on tour in The Unexpected Guest (with, among others, Simon MacCorkindale and former singer Mark Wynter) in 2006.