This Is Your Life: Acker Bilk

Acker BILK (Bernard Stanley BILK) (1929-2014)

THIS IS YOUR LIFE - Acker Bilk, jazz clarinetist and bandleader, was surprised by Eamonn Andrews at the site of a proposed new centre for disabled youngsters in Slough, having been led to believe he was there for publicity photographs.

Acker, who was born in Pensford, Somerset, first played the clarinet while serving with the Royal Engineers during his National Service. Later, working as a blacksmith, he continued playing on the Bristol jazz circuit until he took up music full-time and formed his own band, the Paramount Jazz Band.

Having developed their distinctive style and appearance, complete with striped waistcoats and bowler hats, the band became part of the boom in Trad jazz in London in the late 1950s. They achieved chart success with various recordings, including Stranger on the Shore, composed by Acker, which became the UK's biggest-selling single of 1962 and won an Ivor Novello award.

programme details...

Edition No: 192
Subject No: 193
Broadcast live: Mon 16 Apr 1962
Broadcast time: 8.00-8.30pm
Venue: BBC Television Theatre
Series: 7
Edition: 29

on the guest list...

George Lewis
Ella Harris
Graham 'Holy' Baber
Gordon 'Zank' Sawyer
Sgt Murdo Chisholm
Gordon Hazell
George Ireland
Jean - wife
Cliff Brown
Roy King
G Q Williams
John Skuse
Johnny Stainer
Mike Redston
Carl Lyrmann
Prof Stanley Unwin
Jenny - daughter
Peter - son
Nora Ellerker
Dave - brother
Lilian - mother
Paramount Jazz Band
Heather Butler
Richard Watts
Mrs Ford
Mrs Whitemore
Nora Ford
Mr Davis
Mrs Perry

production team...

Researchers: Alfred Draper, John Ralph
Writer: Alfred Draper
Director: Yvonne Littlewood
Producer: T Leslie Jackson

names above in bold indicate subjects of This Is Your Life

related pages...

All that Jazz

covering all the notes

The Big Red Book

the programme's icon

Interviews

Acker Bilk recalls his experience of This Is Your Life in an exclusive interview recorded in January 2010

Photographs of Acker Bilk This Is Your Life - and Acker Bilk photographed at his home with his big red book in January 2010

Gordon Williams recalls this edition of This Is Your Life in his book, Acker Bilk...

The date was April 16, 1962. A few hours earlier that versatile Irishman Eamonn Andrews had sneaked up behind Acker Bilk and announced, "Mr. Acker Bilk, this is your life..."

We had just come from the BBC theatre where this weekly orgy of heart-warming, tear-jerking, uplifting family entertainment had been produced. Acker Bilk was No. 192 in the list of people chosen for This Is Your Life. Intellectuals sneer at this programme for its relentless adherence to the values inherent in the stories of cripples who have triumphed, ordinary men and women who have triumphed, nobodies who have staved nobodies...

It was something of an event for Acker Bilk, probably the gustiest, gutsiest personality in British show business, to be shown on this programme at all.

Most of his friends who had watched the show 'live' thought that the BBC were to be credited for having achieved the near-impossible: they had almost tamed Acker Bilk, watered him down in forcing him into the relentlessly up-beat formula of the programme.

"There are so many good stories about Acker you could tell," said one of his backroom associates. "Maybe one day when they're not so mealy-mouthed and we have adult-TV we'd be able to do Acker Bilk properly..."

One refreshingly honest moment stood out during the half-hour's programme. Knowing full well the emotional drawing power of any human being under the age of ten, the BBC had arranged for Acker's two toddlers, Peter and Jenny, to be brought on before the cameras.

When their cue came, all the eight million viewers got was a wail from behind the screen. Eamonn Andrews strode behind the screen to fetch them out. Being true Bilks, the two infants wouldn't budge an inch.

"They must be frightened," said Andrews.

"They're needing their potty," said Acker. The studio audience didn't need a man to raise his arm above his head to tell them to applaud that crack.

Series 7 subjects