Born at 2 Kirtley Terrace, Bishop Middleham, Muriel Young served in the ATS during the war, and trained as a special wireless operator. She was remembered as pretty, cheerful and good-natured. She subsequently joined ENSA and started out as an actress before becoming a children's television presenter, in the early days of ITV, as the lively Auntie Mu, with her disreputable Scouse owl, Ollie Beak. She obtained the job by going to the wrong audition, that for presenters, rather than actors. She worked as presenter on Granada's People and Places and hosted a popular show with Wally Whyton and Bert Weedon. Under various titles, the show lasted until the re-allotment of ITV contracts in 1968, when Associated Rediffusion was merged with Thames television.
In her new capacity as head of children's TV at Granada, she devised Clapperboard, a popular cinema series for younger viewers and a number of pop music series. In the early '80s, after leaving Granada, she made music programmes for Channel 4. She married Cyril Coke, a television drama director, but in 1990, they decided to retire to the North East and took an apartment in Stanhope Castle. Muriel took up painting and exhibited both locally and in London.