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Celebrating television's This Is Your Life

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THIS IS YOUR LIFE - Arthur Davies, musical director, was surprised by Eamonn Andrews while rehearsing the Luton Girls Choir at the BBC Television Theatre.

Arthur, who began playing piano at an early age, studied at the Trinity College of Music in London, before his appointment to direct one of the largest church choirs in Luton led to the formation of the Luton Girls Choir in 1936. Despite working full-time as an area supervisor with an agricultural firm, Arthur led the choir on an amateur basis, giving concerts nationwide and donating all money raised from their performances to charity.

By the mid-1940s, the choir was performing at events such as the 80th birthday celebrations of Queen Mary and the Royal Command Performance. They broadcast regularly on BBC radio and toured Denmark in 1953, Australia and New Zealand in 1959, and by their silver jubilee year in 1961, had raised more than £65,000 for charity.

programme details...

• Edition No: 181
• Subject No: 182
• Broadcast live: Mon 29 Jan 1962
• Broadcast time: 7.30-8.00pm
• Venue: BBC Television Theatre
• Series: 7
• Edition: 18

on the guest list...

• Anne Evans – foster daughter
• Harry Mortimer
• Margaret Goodman
• Ronnie Waldman
• Maryan Rawicz
• Walter Landauer
• Dorothy Seddon
• Robert Heap
• Mrs Davies - wife
• Maj Cecil Jaeger
• Bob Oades
• Marion Oades
• Band of the Irish Guards
• Luton Girls Choir

production team...

• Researcher: Suzanne Twiston-Davies
• Writer: Robert Stuart
• Director: Yvonne Littlewood
• Producer: T Leslie Jackson

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

A Musical Life

blowing a trumpet for the musicians

Maryan Rawicz and Walter Landauer

Photographs of Arthur Davies This Is Your Life