Big Red Book
Celebrating television's This Is Your Life
Albert GUERISSE (1911-1989)
- The first subject whose story is told over two consecutive editions of This Is Your Life
THIS IS YOUR LIFE - Albert Guerisse, Belgian resistance fighter, was surprised by Eamonn Andrews in the audience at the BBC Television Theatre.
Albert was an army physician when Germany invaded Belgium in 1940, and having fled to Gibraltar after the Belgian Army's surrender, he joined a British Navy special operations unit where, using the name Patrick O'Leary, he participated in secret missions in the Mediterranean.
Captured by the Germans, he escaped and returned to Belgium, where he led an underground network through which hundreds of Allied airmen, shot down over the continent, returned to England. In 1943, he was arrested for a second time by the Gestapo and was held in several Nazi camps, for the duration of the war. In 1946 he was given Britain's highest civilian award, the George Cross, for his underground activities during the war.
programme details...
- Edition Nos: 235 / 236
- Subject No: 236
- Broadcast date: Thu 28 Nov 1963
- Broadcast date: Thu 5 Dec 1963
- Broadcast time: 9.10-9.35pm
- Recorded: Mon 4 Nov 1963 8.00pm
- Venue: BBC Television Theatre
- Series: 9
- Editions: 9 - 10
on the guest list...
- Jack de Brabant
- John O'Neill
- Commander Painter DSC, RN
- Geoffrey Robinson
- Alex Wattebled, Legion d’Honneur, Croix de Guerre, Ordre Leopold II, MBE
- 8 ex-RAF escapees
- Robert Leycuras, Croix de Guerre with Palm & 2 stars, MBE
- Colonel James Langley, MBE, MC, Croix de Guerre
- Madame Guerisse – mother
- Fabien de Cortes, MM, Croix de Guerre
- Bob Sheppard
- Arthur Haulot
- Madame Sylvia Guerisse
- Patrick Guerisse Jnr
- Marcel Herlin, Chevalier de l’Ordre de Leopold II with Palm, Croix de Guerre with Palm
- Louis Nouveau, GM Officier de la Legion d’Honneur, Croix de Guerre – World War I, Croix de Guerre – World War II
- Ian Garrow Filmed tribute:
- Tom Groome
production team...
- Director: Michael Goodwin
- Producer: Vere Lorrimer
- Executive Producer: T Leslie Jackson
Series 9 subjects
Stratford Johns | Alice Stern | Robert Boothby | Bessie Love | Joan Stanton | Harry Worth | John Dodd | Ralph ReaderAlbert Guerisse | Margaret Lockwood | Franklin Day | Frederick Spencer Chapman | Thora Hird | Evelyn Bark
Madge Watson and Elsie Wood | Petula Clark | Derek McCulloch | Bert Matthews | Ted Moult | Dot Palmer | Teddy Winn
Barbara Mullen | Paul Burrough | Sydney Scroggie | Ninette de Valois | Dominique Pire | Olivia de Havilland | Mary Hawkins