Big Red Book
Celebrating television's This Is Your Life
Alex HIGGINS (1949-2010)
THIS IS YOUR LIFE - Alex Higgins, snooker player, was surprised by Eamonn Andrews while being filmed teaching the singer Joe Brown some snooker tricks at the Pot Black Club in London.
Alex, who was born in Belfast, started playing snooker at the age of 11, winning the All-Ireland and Northern Ireland Amateur Snooker Championships aged just 19. After turning professional in 1972, he won the World Championship at his first attempt - becoming the youngest ever winner of the title.
Nicknamed 'Hurricane' Higgins because of his fast play, Alex came to be known as the 'People's Champion' because of his popularity, and is often credited with having brought the game of snooker to a wider audience.
programme details...
- Edition No: 565
- Subject No: 561
- Broadcast live: Wed 11 Feb 1981
- Broadcast time: 7.00-7.30pm
- Recorded: Wed 11 Feb 1981
- Venue: Royalty Theatre
- Series: 21
- Edition: 18
- Code name: Gale
on the guest list...
- Joe Brown
- Jackie Rea
- John Virgo
- Kirk Stevens
- Steve Davis
- John Spencer
- Emlyn Hughes
- Brian Close
- David Watkins
- Dave Lee Travis
- Duggie Brown
- Dickie Henderson
- Suzi Quatro
- Terry Griffiths
- Lynn - wife
- Elizabeth - mother
- Alex - father
- Anne - sister
- Jean - sister
- Jean - aunt
- Isobel - sister
- Eddie Swoffie
- George McLachey
- Cecil Mason
- Dick Mackay
- Jocelyn Reavey
- Peter Madden
- Bill Caughey
- Jacky Shannon
- John Pulman
- Sammy McIlroy
- Jimmy Nicholl
- Lou Macari
- Geoff Lomax
- Julie - niece
- Betty Avison - mother-in-law
- Jim Avison - father-in-law
- Lauren - daughter Filmed tribute:
- Oliver Reed
related appearances...
- Ray Reardon - Jan 1976
- Dennis Taylor - Oct 1985
- Joe Johnson - Nov 1986
- Stephen Hendry - Nov 1990
- Jimmy White - Mar 1993
- John Virgo - Jan 1996
production team...
- Researcher: Robin Ellis-Bextor
- Writers: Tom Brennand, Roy Bottomley
- Directors: Stuart Hall, Terry Yarwood, Paul Stewart Laing
- Producer: Jack Crawshaw
- names above in bold indicate subjects of This Is Your Life
cueing the stars of snooker
Jack Crawshaw reviews his time on This Is Your Life
TV Times launches another new series
Screenshots of Alex Higgins This Is Your Life
I have to reserve a special mention for a couple called Sheila and Tony O'Beirne who were like a second mother and father to me when I was seventeen and in London struggling to make ends meet. They travelled all the way up from Guildford to give me £50 for an air ticket to Belfast so that I could fly home for a break. In the sixties, that was a lot of money. The sad thing is that Sheila and Tony didn't get an invite when I was the subject of This Is Your Life. If anyone should have been on the show, it was them. Unfortunately, Lynn, who helped draw up the list of guests, had never known the couple. It wasn't anybody's fault but I always felt that Sheila and Tony were insulted by that.
Alex left home when he was fifteen and virtually brought himself up. When he first took me to Belfast to meet them (his family), his mother wouldn't even talk to me. When we were introduced, all she could say was: 'So you're another one of his floozies.'
It came to a head when Lauren was about four weeks old and Alex was on This Is Your Life. When Thames Television first asked me I was still pregnant and not too keen to get involved. In any case, Alex had often said that he wouldn't fancy it and if anyone asked, to say 'no'. I told his mother and sister Ann, about the approach and they were all for it. His mother thought Alex had a right to be on. After Lauren was born I decided I'd give Alex the benefit of the doubt and go along with it. If he didn't want to do it in the finish, he only had to say 'no' to the man with the big red book.
Mrs Higgins and I had a heated disagreement at our house when Lauren was only five days old. I don't want to go into details but suffice it to say that we'd more or less barred her from the house. I swore I'd never speak to her again. The problem was: how to prepare for This is Your Life when the two sides of the family weren't communicating? We went ahead with the Higgins family on one side and my family on the other, both keeping a safe distance. Alex's mum and dad and sisters didn't want to mix anyway. The night before the programme they gave us the script and we all had to go through it and make alterations where we saw fit. You could have cut the atmosphere with a knife. There we all were sitting around this big table. I objected to some of the silly bits they'd put in. I thought Alex would be really annoyed over stories about him collecting potato peelings and jumping up and down on his mum's bed when he was little.
I told Ann I didn't think there was any need to include stupid things like that. What had they got to do with the life of a world snooker champion? His sister turned on me and said: 'That's what happened so it's staying in. Who do you think you are interfering?' I could have insisted but I didn't. Alex said later he didn't know what they were talking about. It was very embarrassing. In fact the whole programme was embarrassing. It must have been obvious that something was wrong.
At the party afterwards, things became more heated. One of the family had a few drinks and slapped me across the face. I don't know what I was supposed to have done. They're a funny lot. I did my bit by inviting them over for the christening a few weeks later. And we paid nearly a thousand pounds to bring his sister Isobel and Alex's niece Julie over from Australia for Christmas.
I was just getting over winning the second of my Benson & Hedges Masters titles against Terry Griffiths when the phone rang and I was asked if I would appear in Pot Black in London, to teach the singer Joe Brown how to play snooker. I had met him a year or so earlier at a book party so I agreed, and a few days later I headed down to the capital.
As I got out of the car and entered the building, Eamonn Andrews appeared with that famous red book. 'Alex Higgins,' he said, 'you are well known internationally as the Hurricane for the express action you bring to the game. Tonight, this is your life.'
Suddenly a number of strange incidents that had occurred recently began to make sense. Del Simmons had been a bit elusive and I'd been booked to appear at a couple of events that were supposedly cancelled out of the blue, which was unusual. I realised at once that these incidents were probably various attempts to set up the evening that hadn't quite worked out. Until then, though, I hadn't twigged at all. I wasn't as sharp as I liked to think I was.
I have to confess, I was thrilled. I was a huge fan of the programme. Over the next hour or so they recorded my life story, complete with most of the people who had witnessed my triumphs and falls over the years. Both families were there, although they had been at war for weeks since Lauren had arrived in the world. There had been a bit of tension earlier in the day, I later heard, mainly involving Lynn and her sister and my three sisters. It was all about who was going to say what and about whom. There was only going to be one winner in that contest. The original Higgins girls triumphed.
A trail of people appeared, some of whom I even knew well! Cecil Mason, John Virgo, Steve Davis, John Spencer, Jimmy White and Jackie Rea from my snooker world. From my celebrity world we had some Manchester United players, Emlyn Hughes from Liverpool (whom I'd met at a couple of charity golf events), Dickie Henderson, Suzi Quatro and many more. I can't remember them all right now. Suzi was there because I'd first met her a few years previously when I played her in a game of snooker arranged by the great rock promoter Mickie Most. She was a wild American chick and she shot a mean game of pool. We played in the Victoria Sporting Club in London, which was men-only in the snooker room. The fact that she appeared there created more publicity for her new record, which reached number one in the charts with a little help from the Hurricane. Mickie knew what he was doing all right. Unfortunately, neither his nor Suzi's chart magic rubbed off on me when I undertook a pop career a few years later.
The highlight for me was Ollie Reed. I couldn't wait to see him come on drunk, making a big fuss of me. He didn't disappoint, although he didn't actually appear in the studio. His contribution was pre-recorded because he was filming on location.
Ollie was drunk as usual and hamming it up, taking the piss. Wearing a very stressed waistcoat and a ripped shirt, his hair slicked back and holding a cue in one hand and a vase in the other, he fell down on to a stool and started to speak. 'You've caught me at a rather tense moment. Tonight I'm competing for this trophy, and you know how important they are to me.' He was trying to take me off, which most people in snooker try to do, lighting five cigarettes and doing my twitch, badly. He went on about how I had taught him a trick shot and beat him regularly at snooker at his home, but he had to get in that he always beat me in our drinking games.
He ended by doing a trick shot with the ball hitting a toy clown. The audience never quite got what that was all about, but I did. Ollie used to say that I acted like a clown but always bounced back. 'You can't keep a good man down,' he would say. The trick shot was his secret tribute to me – to both of us, in fact.
Despite the family row – which was a storm in a teacup compared to what was to come in the following years – it was a great night. The after-show party was terrific. I felt moved to have been singled out because it was a real privilege to be the subject, almost like the British equivalent of getting an Oscar or a gold medal. It meant you had arrived on the street of fame.
After appearing on This Is Your Life my popularity soared and bookings for exhibitions and personal appearances increased. So I told my management to up my exhibition fee to £750 per night. No one said boo. Del Simmons even set me up as a model for John Collier the menswear shop. I remember their advert song – 'John Collier, John Collier, the window to watch' – and there I was in that window as a cardboard cut-out.
Lauren was to make her first, but by no means most memorable, television appearance a few weeks later on This Is Your Life. The producer, Jack Crawshaw, remembers it as being 'A lovely way to end the programme.' The organisation required to surprise Higgins and then arrange for nearly thirty of his close family and friends to be waiting for him in a television studio without arousing his paranoia was impressive enough but other factors served to make it remarkable. In the first instance, Higgins had instructed his wife that if she was ever approached to collaborate on This Is Your Life for him, she should refuse. This made things problematic but was nothing compared to the mutual hostility felt between Lynn and his family in Belfast, particularly his mother Elizabeth. Following an argument five days after the birth of Lauren the two women were not even talking, which made liaising over what to include in the show extremely difficult. There were heated disagreements. Another factor causing a headache was the timing of the broadcast, as Higgins had engagements nearly every day of the week. The production team got round this by booking Higgins to appear with 'comedian' and 'pop star' Joe Brown in the Pot Black Club in London ten days after he had beaten Terry Griffiths in the Benson and Hedges Masters (when he had become the first player to qualify for four consecutive finals). It was his second Benson and Hedges Masters title and was won in front of a British record crowd of 2,422 for the final session.
He beat Griffiths 9-6 in the final to claim the £6,000 first prize and complete, as Eamonn Andrews put it to an alarmed and bewildered Higgins in the Pot Black Club, 'a sensational win'. We went on, 'You have taken the big money snooker world by storm and you are known internationally as the "Hurricane" for the express action that you bring to the game... tonight, this is your life.'
It is hard to overstate the popularity of This Is Your Life in the early 1980s. With just three channels available to the public, to appear on the primetime show was an accolade which meant that you were a national celebrity. It meant that you had arrived. This would normally appeal to Higgins' sense of his own self-worth and the reluctance to appear on it he previously expressed to Lynn can be interpreted as shyness or a desire to preserve his family's privacy. 'It is fair to say that we were a bit more than usual nervous,' explains Crawshaw. 'We didn't know how he was going to react, he was so unpredictable. We'd been led to believe that he would enjoy it once he got back to the studio but it was getting him there really. We recorded the pickup (when Andrews appears) and then went live in the studio. It was a little bit fraught.' There was also a concern that Higgins might be, in the words of a former defence counsel, '(displaying) some of the ebullience for which he is quite well known'. In the event he was fine but genuinely shocked. As Andrews appeared, he actually took a couple of steps back and lost the ability to speak. 'The thing I remember most about him is that he was like a little boy,' says Crawshaw. 'When we left the club he put on this huge sheepskin coat with his little pixie face staring out of the collar and he was very nervous. In the car on the way back to the studio he was asking myself and Eamonn who was going to be there but we couldn't tell him as it would ruin the surprise.' He had nothing to worry about. There were no embarrassing surprises.
The guest list was nothing if not eclectic. Amongst members of his family and snooker players such as Jackie Rae, John Virgo, Steve Davis and John Spencer, it included 'Radio One DJ' Dave Lee Travis; 'straight from pantomime' Dickie Henderson; 'top comedian' Duggie Brown; 'former England football captain' Emlyn Hughes and (obviously) Suzi Quatro, who claimed to have lost £400 to Higgins in a game. 'And I want my money back,' she joked. 'That's Mickey Mouse money,' Higgins can be heard to say as the host talks over him. They were all, it transpired, the celebrity halves of a recent ITV Pro-Celebrity snooker tournament (Joe Brown had been Higgins' partner). Oliver Reed appeared in a pre-recorded segment which began this chapter and several Manchester United players also made the journey down to London but the show was light on appearances from genuine friends. Lynn Higgins considered the entire experience to be embarrassing and also claimed that, 'At the party afterwards... one of the family had a few drinks and slapped me across the face.' Jack Crawshaw does not seek to contradict her but remarks, 'I would have heard about that. To my mind it was a very happy show.' The arrival of Lauren in the arms of her maternal grandparents certainly seemed to herald the arrival of more responsibility and a further stabilising influence in the life of Alex Higgins.
It reminds me of when Alex was the subject of the show.
Del Simmons was the contracts negotiator in snooker and a larger-than-life character. They had booked all us guests into a hotel near the studio. I went up to reception and said, 'The name's Virgo and there's a room booked for me.'
The fellow behind the counter spoke very little English, which seems to be the case more and more in London hotels, don't you find? He said, 'No – no Virgo here.'
So I called Del over and told him what the problem was. He was a good guy to have on your side at times like this. He told the hotel guy, 'I've spoken to the host of This Is Your Life and he said you were going to give Mr Virgo the best suite in the hotel.'
The guy got a bit flustered and said, 'The only suite booking I've got here is a Mr Watkins.'
Simmons turned to me with a straight face and said, 'Watkins? Isn't he drilling for you in Saudi Arabia?' Anyway, I ended up with the best suite in the hotel!
When Alex did the show it was a strange night. Suzi Quatro was one of the guests and he kept asking her for £400, which he said she owed him after a game of snooker they had played. Also, he wasn't getting on very well with his wife Lynn at the time. Indeed, they were having a fight back at the hotel. We went over to see what was going on and he told us to leave them alone.
Alex 'Hurricane' Higgins was the ripe old age of twenty-two when he became the youngest world champion, and he had just won the Benson and Hedges Masters against Terry Griffiths when we surprised him doing some trick shots with singer Joe Brown at the Pot Black Club on 2 November 1981. [Bigredbook.info editor: the tribute actually took place on 11 February 1981]
He and Joe had just won a pro-celebrity tournament, and there was quite a turn-out of pros and celebs, including Steve Davis, John Virgo, John Spencer, Emlyn Hughes, Brian Close, David Watkins, Dave Lee Travis, Duggie Brown, Dickie Henderson and the prettiest opponent he'd ever had at snooker, Suzi Quatro.
Son of a Belfast railway labourer, Alexander Gordon Higgins, known to his family as Sandy, often went without meals to save the threepence for the price of a game at his local billiard hall. He also collected potato peelings from neighbours to sell as pig food to raise the money to get on the tables.
He first crossed the water to become a stable-boy in the hope of being a jockey, but one night a snooker tournament in Bolton changed his life. Ten times world champion John Pulman was there to present the winning trophy and to take on all-comers. No one could beat him until 'this little kid from Belfast'.
There and then the former world champion told Alex, 'You've got to go professional.'
Pot Black Magazine April 1981
No matter what he does, Alex Higgins always manages to be different!
There have been quite a few reactions to Eamonn Andrews when he has popped out of the sidelines to declare, "This Is Your Life!"
But I doubt if anyone's has actually stuck out his tongue before!
It was not really a rude gesture, however, just proving that the camera can lie.
Alex relaxed quickly to enjoy his star rating on Thames TV's popular show.
And, having heard of his background and from his family and friends, many said they were able to understand a lot more What-Makes-Hurricane-Blow.
jimbrook.co.uk unknown date
An Exhibition by Mitch Vowles & Jim Brook.
On Wednesday the 7th of January 1976, Welsh snooker professional Ray Reardon was recording a session for Thames Television's Ladbroke International series at London's Swiss Cottage Holiday Inn. Having finished up the last frame, Reardon began setting up a trick shot - requested by the event's producers as possible programme filler - before the floor manager that day, David London, interrupted citing an unexpected 'technical problem'. As filming resumed and Reardon launched into his piece to camera and subsequent effortless trick shot, a man entered the hall via the rear doors, vaulted the table surrounds and approached the six-time World Snooker Champion, tapping him on the shoulder. A visibly startled Reardon initially looked over the wrong shoulder, before his legs almost gave way and he grabbed the table for support. "There's one red you haven't potted yet", declared the man, somewhat triumphantly.
Almost exactly four years later, on Wednesday the 9th of January 1980, fellow Welsh snooker pro Terry Griffiths was being driven through central London by Barrie Gill - the founder of sports marketing company CSS - following a long day of potential sponsorship meetings. While on their way to a Ford dealership showroom, supposedly for a similar meeting about an upcoming exhibition match, a large London bus pulled out in front of them, blocking the road ahead. That same mystery man, this time disguised as a bus conductor and brandishing a large red book resembling a family photo album, exited and made his way toward Griffiths in the passenger seat, grinning maniacally.
That man was, of course, television presenter and host of the long-running documentary series This Is Your Life, Eamonn Andrews. Andrews made a career out of doorstepping, ambushing and surprising unwitting celebrities, sports stars, cultural icons and even members of the public, before presenting them with that talismanic autobiographical tome and uttering the immortal eponymous epithet "Tonight, this is your life!". The 'victims', as they were known in the particular parlance of the popular light-entertainment programme, would then be whisked away to a television studio, where they were expected to discuss and dissect their life in front of a live audience, aided and abetted by a cohort of colleagues, friends, family members and surprise guests. It was typically an emotional affair, and Andrews didn't shy away from exploring the lows as well as the highs, the failures as well as the successes. Reardon, for example, was reunited with his fellow miners, those who had rescued him after an accidental roof collapse left him buried for almost three hours.
Alex 'Hurricane' Higgins, who had appeared as a guest for Reardon's episode, received the 'big red book' treatment himself in 1981, the snooker legend's trip down memory lane only slightly marred by the fact that his then wife Lynn wasn't on speaking terms with Higgin's mother Elizabeth. And despite tensions reportedly boiling over at the programme's after-party, with Lynn receiving a slap across the face from an extended 'Hurricane' family member, Higgins himself always remembered the experience fondly. For at a time when only three television channels existed, to air your dirty laundry and the trappings of fame and fortune on primetime was, according to the 'People's Champion', "almost like the British equivalent of getting an Oscar or a gold medal.".
Despite coming to an end in 2003 - after 48 years, 43 series and 1130 episodes - at Collective Ending HQ we find the programme's name in lights once more. Carnival lights, set within the green baise of a snooker table. It's an apt title for an exhibition featuring two artists who don't shy away from exposing their whole, honest selves through their practices. Autobiographical anecdotes abound, with tales of traditional Sunday chicken dinners and the resultant wishbone ritual. Sentimental stories shared within the sanctity of a snooker hall bridge the inherent North-South divide. Differences are put aside next to the coins stacked on the table's edge by awaiting competitors. There are the aforementioned guests, albeit more akin to ghostly apparitions than their over-excited on-camera counterparts. A father absent save for his size-nine Slazenger trainers, another immortalised within a customised keychain. Family portraits etched in motorcycle jacket patches. An uncle's pensive poetry and a grandfather's affectionate put-down. The loitering Levi 501s of fellow pub goers. And Alex 'Hurricane' Higgins again - of course - omnipresent in that renowned red and white floral funerary wreath.
"Jim Brook, Mitch Vowles, tonight, this is your life!"
Essay by Hector Campbell.
Series 21 subjects
Joe Loss | Julie Goodyear | Lawrie McMenemy | Peter Bowles | Mike Yarwood | John Schlesinger | Andrew Lloyd WebberJanet Brown | Rodney Bewes | Russell Harty | Joan Wells | Billy Connolly | Bill Owen | Jeffery Archer | Brian Jacks
Melvin Hayes | Fred Housego | Alex Higgins | Tim Brooke-Taylor | Bernard Cribbins | Gemma Craven | Jim Watt
John Thaw | Jonjo O'Neill | Judith Chalmers | Margaret Price