Big Red Book

Celebrating television's This Is Your Life

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THIS IS YOUR LIFE - Alan Patrick Herbert, novelist, playwright, poet and law reform activist, was surprised by Eamonn Andrews onboard HMS President, the Headquarter ship of the London division of the Royal Naval Reserve - docked downstream from London's Westminster Bridge - having been led to believe he was there for a conference.

Alan, who was born in Ashstead, Surrey, was educated at Winchester College and New College, Oxford. During the First World War, he served in the Royal Naval Division and fought at Gallipoli and on the Western Front. After the war, he wrote novels, children's verse, comic operas, musicals, plays, and articles for Punch magazine, whose staff he joined in 1924.

As an Independent MP for Oxford University between 1935 and 1950, he was an avid campaigner who played an essential role in introducing the Matrimonial Causes Act of 1937, which radically amended English divorce laws. During the Second World War, he joined the River Emergency Service, captaining his boat Water Gipsy on the River Thames as a petty officer in the Royal Naval Auxiliary Patrol.

programme details...

• Edition No: 147
• Subject No: 147
• Broadcast live: Mon 16 Jan 1961
• Broadcast time: 7.30-8.00pm
• Venue: BBC Television Theatre
• Series: 6
• Edition: 18

on the guest list...

• Carl Burgess
• Brig Basil Rackham
• Giles Playfair
• Lord Boothby
• Sid Callow
• Rose Campbell
• Cecil Campbell
• Edward Elsbury
• Vivian Ellis
• Gerald Barry
• members of the Royal Naval Minewatching Service
Filmed tributes:
• E V Knox
• Evelyn Laye

related appearance...

• Parry Jones - Apr 1957

production team...

• Researcher: Shirley Macnab
• Writer: Shirley Macnab
• Director: Michael Goodwin
• Producer: T Leslie Jackson

• names above in bold indicate subjects of This Is Your Life

• with thanks to Tony Bennett - whose grandmother Emma Bennett was a member of the Royal Navy Mine-Watching service - for his contribution to this page

The Written Word

putting pen to paper

Life on the Hustings

a cross-party celebration

Robert Boothby

Evelyn Laye

Photographs of Alan Herbert This Is Your Life