This Is Your Life: Aled Jones

Aled JONES (1970-)

The final edition of This Is Your Life to be broadcast on BBC television

THIS IS YOUR LIFE – Aled Jones, singer and television and radio presenter, was surprised by Michael Aspel while recording a special edition of the BBC religious television programme Songs of Praise at the Royal Albert Hall in London.

Aled, whose talent for singing was spotted while he was a chorister at Bangor Cathedral, had released 16 hit albums and sold more than six million records before he was 15 years old. His angelic boyhood treble matured into a natural high baritone, and at 18, he became the youngest male student to study at the Royal Academy of Music.

He later trained in drama at the Bristol Old Vic and had a successful stage career, which saw him playing the lead in the musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. After that, Aled moved seamlessly into broadcasting, on the radio with BBC Radio Wales and Classic FM and on television with Songs of Praise.

"Well I was hoping for an early night actually!"

programme details...

Edition No: 1130
Subject No: 1104
Broadcast date: Fri 8 Aug 2003
Broadcast time: 7.00-7.30pm
Recorded: Sun 30 Mar 2003 11.00pm
Venue: Teddington Studios
Series: 43
Edition: 25
Code name: Angel

on the guest list...

Nest - mother
Claire - wife
Elsie Hughes
Edward Morris Jones
Rt Rev Ivor Rees
Dafydd Iwan
Robert Wyn Roberts
Kenneth Bowen
David Higgins
Ken Farrington
Janet Brown
Philip Madoc
Henry Kelly
Rev Mark Oakley
Emelia - daughter
Penny Poppins
Libera
Stuart Burrows
Terry Wogan
Bob Geldof
Julian Lloyd Webber
Robert Spooner

production team...

Researcher: Carrie Rose
Writer: Joe Steeples
Director: John Gorman
Associate Producer: Helen Gordon-Smith
Series Producer: Jack Crawshaw
Producer: Sue Green

names above in bold indicate subjects of This Is Your Life

related pages...

Presenting Life

celebrating the hosts

Timeline

the show's fifty year history

BBC axes This Is Your Life

Press coverage of the BBC's announcement

This Is Your Life Set For TV Comeback

Press coverage of the programme's relaunch

Janet Brown

Terry Wogan

Screenshots of Aled Jones This Is Your Life

Aled Jones recalls his experience of This Is Your Life in his book, Aled, The Autobiography...

I never imagined for a moment that I would ever become a victim of Michael Aspel and his big red book. Looking back on it now, the signs that something was going on were there in the days and weeks leading up to my being surprised by him live on stage at the Royal Albert Hall in 2003, but at the time they just passed me by completely.

Claire seemed a little strange in the days beforehand and I did not speak to Mam or Dad for a whole week, which is certainty not usual. I was to be a performer and one of the two presenters at the Songs of Praise Big Sing 2003 at the Royal Albert Hall, which is one of the biggest programmes of the year for us, with a huge number of people both in the audience and on stage, making it a bit of a logistical nightmare for everyone in the production team. To add to the pressure, I was just getting over a nasty bout of flu, which is probably what comes of having a small child. They do seem to catch every cough and cold within a ten-mile radius of wherever they happen to be, before lovingly sharing them with their parents.

I met the Songs of Praise director, Medwyn Hughes, the day before the programme was due to be recorded to check if I could read the Autocue in the hall, because it was a long way from the stage. These special programmes are always really high-pressured.

Pam Rhodes is amazing in the way that she learns all of her lines word-perfect. I much prefer to work from a mixture of learned lines and Autocue - it is a great safety net. As we were together, he seized the opportunity to take me through the running order. The first 56 items were very tightly scheduled, but when it came to item 57, it rather starkly said, 'Aled and Pam talk about the evening... how special it's been... will script individually.'

'Why do you want us to do that?' I asked.

'I'm moving a camera and need to fill the time,' he replied nonchalantly.

'Well, surely I could just go off stage for that bit. It doesn't really matter does it?' I said, because I did not really see the point of standing there waffling on stage.

'Listen, just do it!' barked Medwyn, with a force that surprised me.

I arrived backstage in plenty of time for the script meeting on the morning of the concert, where the director goes through what each of the presenters has to say and where they need to be on stage when they say it. By this point in the production of the programme, everything is usually set in stone. We finally arrived at item 57 and Medwyn started laughing. I was feeling quite sorry for myself because I was not well, and I thought, 'Right, what's going on here? They're finding something about me really funny. It must be because they think I can't fill when he's moving his camera.' I felt even glummer when I went on stage to rehearse with the BBC Concert Orchestra. I started to sing 'I Believe', which was one of the songs on my first adult album Aled. After struggling through two verses, I said, 'Listen guys, this isn't working, I'm afraid. I'm fighting a losing battle against my flu. I just can't get any notes out.'

'That's no problem, we can play a backing track and you can mime the song' replied Medwyn calmly.

I trudged off stage feeling dejected and noticed that my manager seemed to be hanging around for no particular reason. Then I wandered into my dressing room only to find that Mark Wilkinson from my record label had turned up.

'What on earth are you doing here?' I asked grumpily.

'Oh, I just came to see how it's all going,' he said with a big smile.

Rowan, who had been responsible for getting me on to Songs of Praise in the first place, then came and joined us in my dressing room. I started to become slightly annoyed because they were all just standing there chatting and getting in the way. My stress levels rose. Didn't they realise that I wasn't feeling my best and I needed to concentrate on performing on stage in front of 5,000 people in the hall, let alone all of the millions watching at home?

Eventually, I persuaded them all to leave and had a bit of a rest in my dressing room - a quiet period before the storm. Pam and I went on stage to a fantastic reception from the audience. Everything went very smoothly and I started to enjoy myself. The rush of adrenaline from being in front of such a big crowd seemed to have kept my flu symptoms in check. Then it came to item 57 on the running order, the part where we had to fill time while Medwyn moved his camera. Before we did that, Medwyn asked Pam to retake a link because something had gone slightly wrong in the background when they had recorded it the first time. She walked to her position and I started to walk off into the wings. As soon as I started to head for the edge of the stage, Medwyn literally screamed at me through my earpiece, 'Stand where you are!' I was shocked because he was actually yelling and I had never heard him talk like that before. 'Don't you move a muscle. You're spoiling my shot.' I felt like a small schoolboy who has been given a severe telling off by the headmaster. Had I not been standing in front of 5,000 people who were unaware of what was going on in my ear, I might well have started to sob.

Then Pam walked over to me and said, 'Well Aled, these sort of evenings are just magnificent.'

'Yes, this is what it's all about,' I replied. 'Five thousand people are here raising their voices to God in celebration.' As I finished speaking, I heard a gasp from the audience and sensed that something was happening behind me. I looked over my left shoulder and there was Michael Aspel with his famous big red book. The first thing that ran through my head was that it was Pam who was his intended victim. Whenever I think of what occurred over the next minute of my life, it always seems to happen in slow motion. Michael walked slowly towards me, put his hand on my shoulder and smiled.

Now I have never been shot, and I very much hope that I don't find out what it feels like for real in the future. But the way I felt at that moment would be exactly how I would imagine being hit by a bullet to feel. It was as if all the energy had drained out of my body. My mouth instantly went dry and I could not move my lips. People often talk about their legs turning to jelly, but mine seemed to go rigid. A dull ache streaked right through my body. My heart seemed to be missing beats. All that I could hear was wild applause from the audience in front of me. Behind me, the BBC Concert Orchestra were laughing like mad people and clapping enthusiastically.

When I watched the broadcast of the programme, I could see that the shock had made me do some very weird things on stage. I bent down. I stood up. I had a look of bewilderment in my eyes. I was so surprised that I had lost control of my faculties.

'Did you know?' I asked Pam.

'Yes, I did,' she replied, grinning broadly.

And she was not the only one. It turned out that everybody was in on the act: from my wife and parents, to my manager and record company, to the entire production team of Songs of Praise. I found out afterwards that there was a totally different camera script for Songs of Praise in existence from the one that I had seen. Not only were Medwyn and his crew filming Songs of Praise that day, but they were also filming me being set up by This Is Your Life. They had even rehearsed it with a stand-in, before I had arrived. It almost went wrong when I decided to walk off stage because Michael Aspel was waiting in the wings to come on. Had I walked much further, I would have seen him and rumbled what was going on; hence the ferocity of Medwyn's commands to stand still which crackled through my earpiece.

Michael Aspel waited for the applause to die down. 'Aled Jones,' he said slowly and deliberately. 'This is your life,' I rabbit-punched him and playfully pushed him. Much later, I interviewed him for my BBC Radio Wales programme and I felt that I had to apologise for the force of my reaction, citing intense surprise as my excuse. 'Yes, it was rather hard,' he told me with his trademarked understatement.

My only response to hearing the words 'This is your life' on stage at the Royal Albert Hall that night was to stammer plaintively, 'But I am only thirty-two.' From then onwards, it was a whirlwind. I was subjected to a military-style operation. It was quite late at night by this stage, probably about half-past ten in the evening.

'Do we go to film the programme tomorrow?' I asked innocently.

'No, we're doing it right now, tonight,' came the reply.

A woman producer from This Is Your Life walked into my dressing room with me. Miraculously, a suit for me to wear had appeared from somewhere and was already hanging up in the corner. Rowan and Sian from the Songs of Praise team came in and burst out laughing. I gave them both a hug, before saying a few choice words to them when I found out that they had known exactly what was going on for some time. 'Please, please, please,' I begged. 'I need a drink to help calm my nerves.' Despite their best efforts, all they could come up with was a Diet Coke, because there was no bar open backstage.

The This Is Your Life producer then took control. 'You don't need to pick up anything, just leave everything here in the dressing room. People will come in and sort out all of your stuff.' My manager was the only person with whom I was allowed any contact and he was standing in the corner smiling broadly at me. I suppose he was fulfilling the role of 'Prisoner's friend' while I was transported to the This Is Your Life studio at Teddington. Right at that moment, I didn't know whether to hug him or run away from him.

We left the Royal Albert Hall through the stage door before the Songs of Praise audience started to depart. They still had one hymn left to sing when I had been whisked off stage. I was led to the newest, shiniest, most blacked-out Mercedes I had ever seen in my life. Pete, my manager, sat in the front next to the driver, and the producer and I were in the back. Even though it was some time after the 'hit' by Michael Aspel on stage, I was still shaking. In a way, it was horrible because I was not allowed to see anyone other than Pete. I turned to the producer and said, 'I feel really, really uneasy. I don't like surprises. I like to be in control of what's going on.' She smiled and reassured me.

'Are my Mam and Dad down then?' I asked.

'Sorry, I can't tell you who's going to be there,' she said. 'Although your Dad's stayed at home on Anglesey.' This is what I had expected - appearing on television really is not his thing and he prefers to remain in the background proudly watching at home. The producer started to make an increasing number of calls on her mobile phone and as we drove up towards Teddington Studios, she gave a running commentary of our exact whereabouts. I was very familiar with the studios, which used to be the home of Des 'n' Mel. I was used to parking in front of the building, getting out of the car and walking to the studio through the main entrance, but we seemed to be taking a completely different route right round the back of the studios, to an area which is usually out of bounds. It was eerily quiet because there was absolutely nobody else around.

As we were approaching Teddington, the producer said urgently into her phone, 'We're twenty seconds away from the studio now.'

Somebody had been knocked off their bike and I remember the flashing blue lights of an ambulance, but looking back now it seemed to be happening as if it was in slow motion. When you read a detective novel by somebody like Patricia Cornwell and she describes places in a way that makes them almost 'otherworldly', well I was feeling that sensation right at that moment. The lights on the ambulance still seemed to be rotating really slowly. 'I haven't got a clue what's going to happen to me now,' I thought to myself. As I climbed out of the Mercedes, I looked around but could see absolutely nobody at all in the darkness apart from a couple of security guards with walkie-talkies. They hurried me into the building, which appeared to be devoid of all human life.

What I did not know until afterwards was that as soon as the producer had told the rest of the production team that we were just 20 seconds away from arriving, all of the other guests on the programme were quickly moved out of the way behind closed doors. I arrived in my dressing room with Pete and the producer. The door was shut firmly behind us. There was a huge plate of sandwiches on the table alongside two bottles of Chablis on ice.

'Can I see Claire?' I asked.

'No,' came the answer.

'Is she here?'

'I don't know.' They are that brutal with their victims because they want to capture every last ounce of surprise on stage in front of the television cameras. I gently sipped a glass of wine. My mind was buzzing with questions.

'So what will happen now?'

'Well, we'll take you down to the studio in a minute when everyone's in their place.'

I had my make-up applied there and then in my dressing room, which is unusual because normally everyone is made up in a dedicated area. The very jovial make-up lady asked me how I was feeling and whether I was excited. By way of answer, I turned to Pete and said, 'I'm really not enjoying this.' The thing that was scaring me more than anything else was that here was something to do with my professional life over which I had absolutely no control. I choose the tracks on my records. I choose which television programmes I appear on. And now I was sitting in Teddington Studios in the middle of the night, without a clue about what was going to happen to me. At that stage, it felt really uncomfortable. Little did I know that the biggest surprises of the night were still to come.

The production team had edited the recording of Michael Aspel pouncing on me earlier in the evening. It was played out so the This Is Your Life studio audience could see what had happened. I was amazed to find out afterwards that a couple of hundred of these hardy souls had turned up in Teddington at half past eleven at night without knowing who the programme's victim was going to be. I stood next to Michael behind the sliding doors watching the 'hit' on a small monitor.

'That's one of the best 'Gotcha's' we've ever done,' he whispered to me as we watched the Royal Albert Hall audience erupting on the tape. Suddenly, we were surrounded by the sound of the familiar strains of the This Is Your Life theme tune. I kept on having flashbacks of sitting at home in Llandegfan as a youngster with Mam. I was so small that Mam and I could sit comfortably together on the same armchair watching as Michael Aspel's predecessor Eamonn Andrews surprise another poor unfortunate.

The two doors in front of Michael and me slid open and we stepped out on to the stage to applause from the studio audience. I looked around and my past was sitting there in front of me. I noticed a bizarre assortment of people whom I would never have expected to see grouped together: Ken Bowen, my singing teacher from the Royal Academy of Music, Henry Kelly, actors Ken Farrington, Philip Madoc and Janet Brown along with members of my family including Mam, who was waving. Then I looked again and saw my Auntie Pat and Uncle Colin, Richard Fleming and Guy Lankester from Bristol Old Vic and George Muranyi from the Royal Academy of Music.

I was told to go and sit down. The seat next to me was empty, which was a real jolt. No Claire. My mind raced with possible reasons for her not being there. I knew that she would not have wanted to speak on television, so maybe she had been too nervous to appear? Or perhaps Emilia was ill and she had needed to stay with her?

Then the first person to come through the door was, of course, Claire with an enormous smile on her face. 'Are you all right?' she asked as we hugged.

'I love you...' I mumbled, looking completely shell-shocked. She, on the other hand, looked absolutely stunning.

All sorts of people had come from all over the country to take part in this programme, which was being recorded just before midnight on a Sunday night on the outskirts of London. The two guests who stick in my mind above everyone else and whose presence on the programme I found incredibly moving were Terry Wogan and Bob Geldof. Terry was unbelievably generous, saying that he was so proud of me for coming back and having a new career and that he had always been proud of me for singing on Wogan so many times. He said that he felt as if I was his protégé. By now, I was struggling with my emotions.

But nothing prepared me for the big, big surprise of when Bob Geldof appeared on the screen in front of me. He talked very movingly about his wedding to Paula, saying that I had made their day by singing during the service. I was almost crying, but in true Bob style, he finished his speech by saying that he had not seen me for years and that I was probably a hairy-arsed geezer now. The audience roared with laughter. I turned to Michael Aspel and said, 'Michael, what's a hairy-arsed geezer?'

As quick as a flash he said, 'Ask the Bishop!' and pointed to Bishop Ivor Rees, who was sitting in the front row, laughing hysterically. Bishop Ivor had come all the way from St David's Cathedral and he said some lovely things about me. Just like his former boss Rowan Williams, he is one of the truly holy people that I have been privileged to meet in my life.

Just before the end of the programme, the doors opened and Libera came out on stage. They performed 'I Will Sing for You', as they had done at my wedding a couple of years before. On that day, it had made me cry, but this time, on television, I thankfully managed to keep my emotions in check and did not dissolve into tears once again.

Right at the end of the programme, just before Michael handed me the book, the doors opened for a final time and there was Emilia with our friend Penny Poppins, who sometimes looks after her. Emilia had just started to walk at that time and toddled on to the set in a pretty white dress. (Lucas was still a glint in his father's eye at this stage.) Feelings of intense love and pride welled up inside me. I walked to the front of the stage with Claire next to me, Emilia tucked under my one arm and the big red book tucked under the other. All of the feelings of bewilderment and shock which had been swirling around my head earlier in the evening were by now long gone. Instead, they were replaced by a sense of intense happiness as I looked around me and saw so many people that I loved very dearly.

There was a huge party afterwards for all of the guests in the studio that went on until about two o'clock in the morning. Then we went to a hotel in Teddington where all of the people who had come down from North Wales were staying. The This Is Your Life producers very generously loaded us up with a case of white wine and a case of red wine to help the party go with a swing, saying that they knew that I would want to catch up with all of my old friends. I finally got home to bed at a quarter to five in the morning. By then, I had forgiven everyone for their duplicity during the previous few weeks because it had all been in such a good cause.

Even now, though, I still cannot quite believe how involved in the meticulous planning people like Medwyn had been. One of the things that made it even more significant was that the BBC decided to end the series with my programme. Not long afterwards, Michael Aspel announced his retirement from the show, meaning that it was the last new edition of This Is Your Life ever broadcast.

For me, the programme brought my life into sharp focus. My time as a boy soprano seems a whole world away from the person I am now, although everything I learned back then and all the people I have met along the way have come together to influence my personal and professional life today.

Whether it was singing my first solo in Bangor Cathedral, performing 'Walking in the Air' on Top of the Pops, my role as Huw in How Green is My Valley, playing the lead in Joseph, presenting television and radio programmes, learning to ballroom dance for Strictly Come Dancing or singing on stage and on disc today as a baritone, I have always tried to give my best performance and to enjoy the moment.

Wales Online 22 October 2003

This is Your Life axed after Aspel closes big red book for the last time

THE television show This Is Your Life has been axed after almost half a century.

The BBC said yesterday it was closing the big red book for the last time after the resignation of host Michael Aspel.

And Welsh entertainer Aled Jones, who was a surprise guest in May, revealed last night that he knew he would be Aspel's final "hit".

Aled had been presenting a Songs of Praise concert at the Royal Albert Hall in London when he was presented with the red book, which turned out to be the last.

"I discovered that it was Michael Aspel's last show and it was quite touching," he said.

The singer said he had absolutely no idea that he had been set up for a This Is Your Life tribute, saying, "The thing I noticed more than anything at that time was that people had stopped ringing me - I couldn't believe how quiet my mobile was."

"It was only when I saw the red book that I knew why."

Aled, who is nearing the end of a sell-out UK concert tour, said it was an honour to have been the guest of the final programme which was broadcast in August.

"I'm only 32, which is hardly a lifetime, so it was very special, and they did such a good job in profiling my younger life," said Aled, whose latest album is expected to go gold at the end of the week with 100,000 copies sold in only four weeks.

He added, "I've had so many letters and e-mails since the programme went out, from people asking where they can get a copy. I was so touched."

Aled said the highlight of his own show was a tribute from Terry Wogan. And having sung at the wedding of Bob Geldof and the late Paula Yates, Aled was also delighted when Sir Bob took part in the programme to pay a moving tribute to the singer.

Fans of This Is Your Life were enthralled for decades by the weekly "hit", and the expression of surprise on the face of the next mystery guest to be confronted by Aspel, who took over as host from Eamonn Andrews.

Celebrities and distinguished members of the community were all given the red carpet treatment as friends and colleagues would queue up to pay tribute.

Aled himself paid a memorable tribute by singing the Welsh anthem at the end of a show to celebrate the life of Welsh rugby legend Jonathan Davies.

Jonathan said he had been "gobsmacked" to have been presented with his own red book. "It was quite exciting to sit there and see friends I hadn't seen for years," he said.

"There was Meirion Davies, my teacher at Trimsaran Primary School from the age of four, as well as all the people I'd worked with in the BBC and the players I had faced over the years."

"The series had huge viewing figures and I was astonished by the number of people who came up to me and said they'd seen the show."

"I was absolutely amazed that I'd been on it. I felt honoured and privileged."

BBC1 controller Lorraine Heggessey said yesterday, "It's never easy to bring such a long-running show as This Is Your Life to an end, but I see this more as au revoir than goodbye."

The show moved to ITV between 1969 and 1993 before returning to the BBC in 1994, along with Aspel who had taken over in 1988 after Andrews's death.

Yesterday's announcement by the BBC may not spell the end for This Is Your Life - programme makers Talkback Thames said they were in talks with rival broadcasters.

Series 43 subjects