This Is Your Life: David Ellaway

David ELLAWAY (1937-)

THIS IS YOUR LIFE - David Ellaway, ambulanceman and Red Cross worker, was surprised by Eamonn Andrews in the audience at the Royalty Theatre, having been led to believe he was there to see a programme about the emergency services.

David, who was born near Cheltenham, studied at the Gloucester College of Art before doing his National Service with the Royal Air Force. Having had his first taste of ambulance work as a rescue team member at Smiths Aviation in Cheltenham, he joined the Gloucestershire Ambulance Service in 1965. In addition to ambulance work, he volunteered with the Red Cross to be specially trained as a member of select teams that flew out to the world's disaster areas.

Following his first mission assisting with the famine in Ethiopia in February 1974, he helped with the aftermath of the volcanic eruption on the Caribbean island of St Vincent in 1979. The following year, he was on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border helping with the refugee problem caused by the Soviet invasion, and earlier in 1985, he was assisting with the famine in the Sudan.

"This isn't happening to me!"

programme details...

Edition No: 685
Subject No: 679
Broadcast date: Wed 4 Dec 1985
Broadcast time: 7.00-7.30pm
Recorded: Tue 10 Sep 1985
Venue: Royalty Theatre
Series: 26
Edition: 7
Code name: Mission

on the guest list...

Margaret - wife
Andrew - son
Lorraine - daughter-in-law
Sharon - daughter
Paul - son-in-law
Susan - stepdaughter
Sandra - stepdaughter
Liv Fischer
Susan - mother
Arthur - father
Tom - brother
Judith - sister-in-law
Gerald - brother
Wendy Hill - cousin
Robert Sykes - cousin
John Burton
Steve Smith
Steve Lewis
Jim Wyatt
Cliff Beard
Stuart Hobbs
Jock McFee
Bob Schernfelt
Margaret Carrington
Philippa Linklater
Delwyn Evans
Elizabeth Morgan
Daphne Cuthill
Pete Murray
Stefan Caan
Joanne Twort
Jenny Batt - foster daughter
Diane Underwood
Denis Underwood
Taha Osman

production team...

Researchers: Claire Jenkinson, David N Mason
Writer: Roy Bottomley
Directors: Terry Yarwood, Michael D Kent
Associate Producer: Brian Klein
Producer: Malcolm Morris

names above in bold indicate subjects of This Is Your Life

related pages...

Life Savers

heroes of the emergency services

The Night of 1000 Lives

a celebration of a thousand editions

Pete Murray

Screenshots of David Ellaway This Is 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...

David Ellaway is the kind of ambulanceman you might see arriving at the scene of a minor road accident. But this member of the Gloucestershire Ambulance Service is also rather special, as we discovered.

He is one of a handful of Red Cross volunteers trained to be rushed to the scene wherever international disaster strikes.

David had put his own life at risk many times when the Life surprised him on 10 September 1985. He had put his special medical skills to use on the Caribbean island of St Vincent after a volcano erupted. He had been in the thick of sniper-ridden activity on the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan, helping with the vast refugee problem in the wake of the Soviet invasion. He had witnessed the horrors of famine in Ethiopia and again in the Sudan.

There he wrote a poem, 'The Beja Boy is Dying':

The Beja boy is dying, that's what they said to me

And they took me by the hand and led me there to see

To where he sat on a seat of mat, still and very cold

At just one year, the wizened face of a man so very old.

No ordinary ambulanceman.

Producer Malcolm Morris recalls this edition of This Is Your Life in his book, This Is My Life...

It is true that some people find This Is Your Life a little embarrassing at times. The traditional stiff upper lip does not allow many people to touch or hug or show their emotions and this is one of the great problems of the programme. I remember one particular Life; the man was a paramedic out in Afghanistan who had driven an ambulance and saved many lives under the most dangerous conditions. He had been invited to our studio to, he thought, watch a programme about the ambulance service. The programme started and Eamonn made his way from the stage to the audience and started to talk to various people seated by the aisle. He worked his way over to the unsuspecting chap and then showed him the Red Book and said the words: 'this is your life'.

David Ellaway was on live television when he calmly looked up at Eamonn. He went throughout the entire programme without any emotion and Eamonn began to worry that we had chosen the wrong type of person. None of his family or long lost friends brought so much as a blink from a face set in stone. It did not feel like a good show. As the cameras were switched off David went over to one of our researchers, clasped her to him and burst into tears. It had been the greatest night of his life he told her.

But fifteen million people at home were convinced he hated it. Sometimes you just can't win!

Series 26 subjects