Early Life
Murray was born at Stewkley, Buckinghamshire, only son of Lieutenant Colonel Ingram Bernard Hay Murray (a great-great-great-great-grandson of John Murray, 3rd Duke of Atholl who married Charlotte, Baroness Strange) and Juliet Anne Thackeray, née Ritchie (a great-great-granddaughter of William Makepeace Thackeray). His grandfather, the diplomat Sir Ralph Murray, was a scion of Scottish nobility who married into the von Kuenburg family, aristocrats from Austria. His ancestral background affords him a privileged insight into European culture and heritage.
Murray was educated at Bedford School, before going up to St Edmund Hall, Oxford, graduating with the degree of MA in Modern History. At Oxford he performed in the comedy group, the Oxford Revue in a show directed by Stewart Lee.
Read more about this topic: Al Murray
Famous quotes related to early life:
“... goodness is of a modest nature, easily discouraged, and when much elbowed in early life by unabashed vices, is apt to retire into extreme privacy, so that it is more easily believed in by those who construct a selfish old gentleman theoretically, than by those who form the narrower judgments based on his personal acquaintance.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)