This Is Your Life: Barry Sheene

Barry SHEENE MBE (1950-2003)

THIS IS YOUR LIFE - Barry Sheene, motorcycle racer, was surprised by Eamonn Andrews at a motor racing exhibition in London's Victoria.

Barry, whose father was a former racer and experienced mechanic, began competitive motorcyle racing in 1968, and riding with Yamaha, and later Suzuki, through the early to mid-1970s, experienced a meteoric rise and soon became the best known face of British motorcycling.

A spectacular crash at the Daytona 200 in the 1975 season threatened to end his career, breaking his left thigh, right arm, collarbone and two ribs, yet he recovered and was racing again seven weeks later. In the 1976 season, he won five 500cc Grands Prix, bringing him the World Championship, and took the Championship again the following year with six victories.

"Oh my God! You scared the bloody life out of me!"

programme details...

Edition No: 477
Subject No: 475
Broadcast date: Wed 25 Jan 1978
Broadcast time: 7.00-7.30pm
Recorded: Wed 11 Jan 1978
Venue: Euston Road Studios
Series: 18
Edition: 10
Code name: Gloss

on the guest list...

Stephanie McLean - partner
Frank - father
Iris - mother
Margaret Smart - sister
Paul Smart - brother-in-law
Francesc Bulto
James McMillan
Tommy Robb
John Lindsay
George Butcher
Les Edwards
Pat Hornblow
Rex White
Don Mackay
Mike Hailwood
Mick Grant
Stanley Woods
John Newbold
Ron Haslam
Steve Parrish
Roger Marshall
George Harrison
Dr Budd Neviaser
Giacomo Agostini

production team...

Researcher: John Viner
Writers: Tom Brennand, Roy Bottomley
Directors: Royston Mayoh, Terry Yarwood
Producer: Jack Crawshaw

names above in bold indicate subjects of This Is Your Life

related pages...

Life at Full Throttle

the lovers of speed

Mike Hailwood

Screenshots of Barry Sheene This Is Your Life

Stuart Barker recalls this edition of This Is Your Life in his book, Barry Sheene The Biography...

Soon afterwards, on 25 January 1979, Barry received further public acclaim when he was chosen as the subject of the hugely popular TV show This Is Your Life, which was then being hosted by Eamonn Andrews. Sheene, who had always thought the subjects of the show knew about it in advance, was genuinely surprised when Andrews, the famous big red book in hand, walked into an interview Sheene was doing at a bike show in London. The show was watched by a massive TV audience of 19.35 million. It might have run out of steam in recent years, but in the seventies This Is Your Life was generally the domain of major household names. It was indisputably another unique coup for a motorcycle racer.

Sheene brought up the subject of his schooldays again in 1978 when he appeared on the Parkinson show. Speaking of one teacher whom he had particularly disliked (he diplomatically stopped short of naming him) he said, "I was caught for This Is Your Life the other night. I thought, 'I hope they don't bring that teacher on because it would be the first punch-in.' I feel bitter about it. I think it is one of the things that's driven me on, because in the back of my mind there's always this guy saying you will never make anything of your life."

Scriptwriter Roy Bottomley recalls this edition of This Is Your Life in his book, This Is Your Life: The Story of Television's Famous Big Red Book...

If there is a more testing moment in sport than pulling on the boxing gloves, then it must be putting on the crash-helmet in motor sport.

It is generally agreed the world's most dangerous sport is motorcycle racing. Barry Sheene was the master, world champion not once but twice in a death-defying sport which we illustrated with a piece of film at an exhibition of racing motorcycles in London.

Viewers saw Barry racing at 180 mph and surviving a crash at that speed at Daytona, Florida. Then Eamonn Andrews crashed through the screen on which the film was being shown – with the Big Red Book. It was 11 January 1978, and Barry had just been awarded an MBE.

In that Daytona crash he had sustained a broken thigh, wrist, forearm, collar bone, six broken ribs and compression fractures of the vertebrae. Seven weeks later, he was racing again. One of the all-time greats, Giacomo Agostini, came to tell us that when he witnessed the crash he had thought Barry Sheene was dead.

One of Barry's greatest fans joined us to celebrate the fact that the great motorcycle racer, whose father Frank had tuned motor-racing machines in Italy, was still alive: ex-Beatle George Harrison, making a rare TV appearance.

And a further reference from the same book...

Rhyming slang had eluded the Dublin-based Eamonn Andrews, and the night we did the Life of motorcycle world champion Barry Sheene, it showed.

Former Beatle George Harrison came along to say he was a keen fan, but until he met the amazing speed merchant he had thought he was a bit of a 'Midland banker'.

The audience stifled chuckles, as did the crew. Eamonn carried on regardless, and afterwards wanted to know why it had never appeared in any of the research that George had once worked for the Midland.

Series 18 subjects