Big Red Book
Celebrating television's This Is Your Life
The basis of This Is Your Life was to tell interesting and remarkable stories, and one area which had these qualities in abundance was the medical profession – concerned by its very nature with the life cycle – from birth to death.
Here we look at the medical subjects - including one or two patients - as well as those doctors and nurses whose hard work was rewarded with a dose of medicine in the shape of the Big Red Book* treatment...
Johanna HARRIS 1 January 1956 The Red Cross nurse was surprised by Eamonn at the BBC Television Theatre. |
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Elizabeth WILDE 22 April 1956 Elizabeth, who worked as a companion, injured her spine in a serious fall at a friend's house party. She spent many years in various hospitals, and had both her legs in plaster for a total of 18 years. |
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Edith Muriel POWELL 18 November 1957 Muriel - a nurse who founded the Searchlight Trust to care for older disabled boys, and to teach them skills to prepare them for adulthood - was surprised by Eamonn in the audience at the BBC Television Theatre. |
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Andrew MACDONALD 2 February 1959 The retired doctor and missionary - who founded the Itu Leper Colony in Nigeria in the 1920s, which provided shelter, care and dignity to thousands of patients who were otherwise ostracised by their community - was surprised by Eamonn outside the BBC's Riverside Studios in Hammersmith, London. |
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Reginald BLANCHFORD 23 February 1959 After being involved in a road accident while riding his motorcycle on Guernsey, which had no official rescue service, Reginald made it his mission to revolutionise the emergency services on the island. Eamonn surprised him at the Alexander Gardens Theatre in Weymouth, from where the programme was then broadcast. |
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Miriam JOWETT 16 March 1959 Miriam, a welfare officer with the British Red Cross, who was sent to Arromanches and Bayeux in France to help with the casualties in the aftermath of D-Day, and later helped the British nationals in Berlin at the end of the Second World War, was surprised by Eamonn at the BBC Television Theatre. |
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Mary WARD 13 April 1959 Surprised by Eamonn in the audience at the BBC Television Theatre, Sister Mary - from Stoke Bruerne in Northamptonshire - had in the 1930s established an unofficial surgery administering medicine and care to the boat people of the many canals in that part of the country. |
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James SLATER 28 September 1959 Despite being diagnosed at the age of 16 with muscular atrophy – a disease which causes muscles to waste - James qualified as a Radio Engineer and later utilised his skills to develop an electric wheelchair. |
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Thomas DRAKE 16 November 1959 Tom - who went blind as a teenager - was surprised by Eamonn in the audience at the BBC Television Theatre. |
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Robert FAWCUS 6 February 1961 The production team travelled to Somerset in order for Eamonn to surprise the retired doctor at Dillington House in Ilminster. Dr Fawcus joined the 'Fore Street Practice' in Chard in 1919 and devoted the rest of his working life to serving the town. This recorded edition was broadcast in place of the planned edition featuring footballer Danny Blanchflower. |
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Helen WILSON 10 April 1961 The Scottish nurse was surprised by Eamonn at the Edinburgh Academy. |
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Isabella WOODFORD 25 December 1961 Eamonn surprised the former nurse - who spent time in France during the First World War - in the Buckinghamshire village of Quainton. |
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Hester MEAKIN 23 April 1962 The retired district nurse was surprised by Eamonn outside the Queens Institute of District Nursing headquarters in central London. |
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Franklin DAY 19 December 1963 Franklin - who was left temporarily blind and paralysed after an accident which involved him being thrown from a Big Wheel in Southend - was surprised by Eamonn on the stage of the BBC Television Theatre. |
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Mary HAWKINS 30 April 1964 In the final edition of This Is Your Life to be produced by the BBC, Eamonn surprised the nurse at the BBC Television Theatre. |
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Michael WOOD 22 March 1972 Michael - a founder of the Flying Doctors Service of East Africa - was surprised by Eamonn in the Bush country of Southern Kenya - the first time This Is Your Life had travelled beyond Europe. |
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Janet ADAMS 14 March 1973 Eamonn surprised the nurse who, in a remarkable career with the British and International Red Cross, had tended the sick and wounded in spheres of natural disaster and man-created conflict worldwide for 25 years. |
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Margot TURNER 1 February 1978 The military nurse and former prisoner-of-war was surprised by Eamonn at the Frimley Park Hospital in Surrey, while volunteering in the hospital shop. |
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Rob BUCKMAN 18 November 1981 Eamonn donned a white coat to surprise Rob - a doctor of medicine - at London's University College Hospital. |
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June MCELNEA 12 February 1986 Eamonn - disguised in a Donald Duck mask - gatecrashed a children's party in ward 5d of London's Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital to surprise the nursing sister - known to all as 'Sister Mac'. June is a keen cricket fan, and among her guests are cricketer Ian Botham and commentator Brian Johnston - whose daughter Sister Mac had previously cared for. |
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Robert WINSTON 12 January 1998 The doctor and scientist - an expert in human fertility who became well-known as a television presenter - was surprised by Michael while filming an episode of his new television series, The Human Body, at the London Aquarium. Among those paying tribute to the man known as Professor Lord Winston was Prime Minister Tony Blair. |
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Ray and Trevor POWLES 20 February 2002 The twin brothers - both professors of medicine and cancer specialists who qualified as doctors in 1964 - were surprised by Michael at the Royal Marsden Hospital in Sutton, Surrey. |
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Stephanie COOK 28 February 2002 Steph - a qualified doctor who had put her medical career on hold to compete in the women's modern pentathlon at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney - was surprised by Michael during a fashion shoot at the Lichfield photographic studios in London. |
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* the pre-1970 subjects were surprised by a different coloured book - see the Big Red Book feature for full details