This Is Your Life: Denis Compton

Denis COMPTON CBE (1918-1997)

THIS IS YOUR LIFE - Denis Compton, former cricketer, was surprised by Eamonn Andrews at Thames Television's Teddington Studios, having been led to believe he was there to be interviewed by presenter Nick Owen.

Denis, who was born in Hendon, was a keen sports player as a youth and combined jobs with the ground staff of both Lord's Cricket Ground and Arsenal FC after leaving school. As a professional footballer, he played with Arsenal, winning the League titles in 1948 and the FA Cup in 1950 and represented England in twelve wartime games.

As a cricketer, Denis, who played in 78 Test matches and spent his whole career with Middlesex, is credited as one of England's most remarkable batsmen, achieving his century of centuries in 1952. Billed as the glamour boy of sport, he was the public face of the Brylcreem range of men's haircare products. After retiring from sport, he became a journalist and later a commentator for BBC Television.

"You're joking! Good heavens!"

programme details...

Edition No: 723
Subject No: 719
Broadcast date: Wed 18 Feb 1987
Broadcast time: 7.00-7.30pm
Recorded: Tue 10 Feb 1987
Venue: Teddington Studios
Series: 27
Edition: 19
Code name: Captain

on the guest list...

Brian - son
Patrick - son
Richard - son
Gillian - daughter-in-law
Christine - wife
Charlotte - daughter
Godfrey Evans
Keith Miller
Peter May
Alec Bedser
Trevor Bailey
Fred Trueman
Hilda - sister
Brenda - niece
Ian Moonie
Diana - sister-in-law
Joe Mercer
Ted Dexter
John Warr
Don Wilson
Alan Oakman
Fred Rumsey
Colin Milburn
Colin Ingleby-Mackenzie
Doug Insole
Ted Woodward
Jim Murphy O'Connor
Lewis Sander
Brian Sheridan
Craig - grandson
Elizabeth - granddaughter
Victoria - daughter
Glynis - daughter-in-law
Nicholas - grandson
Alexandra - granddaughter
Sir Leonard Hutton
Mike Gatting
President Zia of Pakistan
Gubby Allen

production team...

Researchers: Sue Green, Tom Wettengel
Writer: Norman Giller
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 Before Wicket

bowling up the cricketers

Joe Mercer

Colin Milburn

Fred Trueman

Screenshots of Denis Compton This Is Your Life

Norman Giller recalls this edition of This Is Your Life in his book, Denis Compton...

The television cameras and studio microphones had just been switched off, and Denis Compton stood cuddling the famous red This Is Your Life book that had minutes earlier been presented to him by programme host Eamonn Andrews. Alongside Compo beamed his old sparring partner and pal Keith Miller, who had been flown in as a surprise guest from Australia. "Just think, Nugget," Denis whispered mischievously to Keith, "the stories they could have told...!"

The eyes of the two sixty-something sporting idols suddenly twinkled like cut diamonds as a hundred recollections queued for a place in their memories.

I was a privileged witness to this confidential moment in my role as scriptwriter for the show, an assignment I would willingly have paid to carry out after decades of hero-worship and then friendship with The Great Entertainer.

"What a book it would make," I said to Denis. "The Untold Stories."

"Not a chance, old boy," he replied. "It would need to be printed on asbestos!"

Well, that only made me more determined to write a fireproof book about one of the truly outstanding sporting folk heroes of the century.

I have researched the book on and off for the little matter of forty-two years! When I was a young sportsroom assistant at the much mourned London Evening News in 1955 I was seconded to do the background research for a secret pull-out supplement headlined: FAREWELL COMPO. The News cricket correspondent, E.M. Wellings. had been tipped off that Denis would never play again following an operation to remove his right kneecap. We were about to go to press when a statement was released from the surgeon that Denis would play again. The headline was hastily changed to WELCOME BACK COMPO!

Little did I know it then, but I had laid the foundation to this book with dozens of quotes and anecdotes from all manner of people in Compo's life, including his parents, schoolteachers and early Middlesex team-mates.

Along with thousands of other star-struck schoolboys from my generation, I queued in the early postwar years to watch Compton's centuries and to chase his autograph. His goals for Arsenal and dribbling left-wing runs for the wartime England team were another source of wonder.

The calendar moves forward to 1964, when I joined the same Express Newspapers staff as Denis. I am always wary of getting in touching distance of a sporting hero, but over the next ten years of working in the same Fleet Street office (I was for some time chief football reporter on the Daily Express) this was an idol who grew rather than diminished in my estimation. He was everything you hope for in a hero: entertaining, modest and always approachable.

"I'll have a large G and T old boy," was the opening line to many fascinating conversations about his incredible life and times. Keith Miller, his greatest friend and rival from Down Under, was also on the Express staff, and my sportsroom colleagues and I used to have wonderful sessions in Fleet Street watering holes such as El Vinos and the Cheshire Cheese listening to them swapping summertime yarns about their Test battles and off-the-pitch escapades.

Forward now to 1987 and by this time I was a scriptwriter for This Is Your Life. Eamonn Andrews told me when we decided to make Denis the subject, "I am going to put two researchers on the programme who don't know a leg before from a leg over. I do not want this to be a sports documentary, but just to make sure we cover the best cricket and football stories I want you to get Denis talking his head off."

Eamonn then added with as stern a look as he could create on that friendly Irish face, "Don't, whatever you do, give him the tiniest hint that I am after him with the Big Red Book."

True to his word, Eamonn appointed Sue Green now the show's producer, as main researcher. By her own admission, Sue does not know one end of a cricket bat from the other, but she got on famously with Denis's wife, Christine, in their clandestine meetings and she expertly dug out the salient family background facts. Assigned to assist Sue was Tom Wettengel, an ace American researcher who at first thought that Denis Compton was a quaint old Somerset village. Neither Sue nor Tom would have known a cricket story if it had jumped up and bitten them at long leg.

So I had the responsibility for drawing the cricket stories from Compo. He must have wondered what he had done to deserve to see so much of my ugly face, because every time he walked into his golf club, the Express office or local pub he found himself bumping into me. This went on for three years on and off before we finally got the show on the air. The first proposed programme was postponed because of the death of his brother Leslie and the second one following the passing of his old runmaking partner Bill Edrich.

Once the show was safely in the can ("One of the great nights of my life," was how Compo described it) I got Denis and Keith Miller - as big a sporting god in Australia as Compton in England - reminiscing on some of their fascinating tales of the unexpected.

Compo's eventful life took another enormous turn in 1943 when he was posted to India. He marked his farewell appearance for Arsenal in the wartime Southern League with a hat-trick against Luton Town, and then the next day sailed to the subcontinent on the crowded troopship Stratheden, a sea journey that took four weeks. Just before embarking on his journey Denis was surprised to find himself promoted to sergeant-major. The usual mental picture conjured up of a sergeant-major is of a bellowing Windsor Davies-type making life hell for the bullied soldiers under his command. This image could not have been farther from Sergeant-Major D.C.S. Compton, British Army India.

The beer run

DENIS COMPTON: "My job was to get British soldiers fit for the Burma campaign. Among the lads passing through were commandos on the way to top secret missions against the Japanese. These guys were tough enough to break me in two. I used to tell them, 'Look chaps, we've got to make it seem as if I'm giving you a hard time. I'm going to take you on a run and when you get back I want you to let the officers know what a b****** I've been.' We would then run for a mile or so to a place where I had laid on some beer for the lads. Then we would run back looking exhausted. Those boys were going to have a hard enough time without me adding to it. I was also in charge of the weapons training of young Indian officers. One of them became the ruler of Pakistan."

When Denis told me this during my undercover research for his This Is Your Life tribute, I wondered if it was an exaggeration. Sue Green, a researcher with the show and later the programme's Producer, did some detective work and after a series of long-distance telephone calls reported, "It's true! General Zia remembers him and wants to film for the programme." Zia was considered a dictator with a suspect human-rights record but Eamonn Andrews ruled that as his contribution would have no involvement with politics we should go ahead and film him. Eamonn liked nothing better than to have presidents and kings on his show. A film crew was sent to General Zia's headquarters, and he went on record with this tribute...

Weapons training

GENERAL ZIA UR RAHMAN: "Denis, my good friend. You will probably not remember me but I was an officer cadet under you in the Cadet Infantry School at Mhow in 1944. I am glad to have this opportunity to thank you for all that you did to help mould me into a proper soldier. You were a very kind and understanding weapons training instructor, and my young colleagues and I were all in awe of your prowess at both cricket and football. I followed your career very closely and I congratulate you on having become one of the world's truly outstanding cricketers. I am very proud to say that I was trained by none other than Denis Compton. Thank you so very much, my friend."

Denis was overwhelmed by this warm tribute, and was able to tell me, "I told you so... everybody thought I was making it up when I said that I had trained the future President of Pakistan."

"Denis always made female hearts flutter, yet he is what I would call a real man's man." - Eamonn Andrews

WHEN Eamonn Andrews presented Denis with the Big Red Book at the end of his This Is Your Life tribute, Compo was close to tears. He was surrounded by family and friends, including his third wife Christine, Brian, his son from his first marriage, sons Patrick and Richard from his second marriage, daughters Charlotte and Victoria from his eleven year marriage to Christine, along with five grandchildren who had all been flown in from South Africa where his sons all lived. Also filling the set with their love and respect for Compo were his old Arsenal skipper Joe Mercer, along with former cricketing colleagues Keith Miller, Godfrey Evans, Peter May, Alec Bedser, Trevor Bailey, Fred Trueman, Ted Dexter, John Warr, Don Wilson, Alan Oakman, Fred Rumsey, Colin Milburn, Colin Ingleby-Mackenzie, Doug Insole and ex-England rugby wing hero Ted Woodward. Denis gave an emotional, impromptu speech to the studio audience...

A wonderful life

DENIS COMPTON: "I have been lucky to have had many great days in my full life, but this beats them all. What more can a man ask than to be surrounded by the people he cares about most of all? To have my children and grandchildren all together for the first time is as marvellous a gift as I could receive, and to see so many of my old sporting pals brings it home to me just what a wonderful life I have had. I have known Eamonn for many years, and congratulate him on catching me out. I honestly had no idea that this was going to happen, and there are not words to express how happy I feel. Thank you."

Eamonn Andrews was secretly battling against failing health, and none of us knew that this would be one of his final This Is Your Life assignments. He died later that year to bring to an end one of the great broadcasting careers that had its foundation in the world of sport.

Booked at last

EAMONN ANDREWS: "I had been wanting to present the Book to Denis ever since I first launched the British version of This Is Your Life back in the 1950s. There was always something cropping up to stop it, such as his change of partners and the passing of people vital to the story. He and I have known each other well since the days when I used to present Sports Report on radio, and I often had the pleasure of interviewing him. What I like so much about him is his humility. If anybody has cause to swagger it is Denis, whose sporting achievements were just phenomenal. But he has always been modest and self-effacing, and when you try to talk to him about his sporting triumphs he will volunteer facts about the times when his career was not going that well. He is as happy to talk about his ducks and the missed goals as he is about the moments that brought joy and excitement into the lives of thousands lucky enough to have seen him in his prime. I have known many sportsmen in my time. Denis, is without any question, one of my favourites. I am delighted to have been able to book him at last! I know Christine will not mind me saying that we will get a lot of ladies switching on when they know that it is Compo's life that we are featuring. He has always made female hearts flutter, yet he is what I would call a real man's man."

Sir Gubby Allen had planned to join the This Is Your Life show but became unwell and his contribution was confined to a live telephone call in which he told the story of the umpire giving Denis out in his debut because he wanted to spend a penny. Had he been able to come on, he was going to apologise to Denis for possibly costing him five England Test caps.

An apology from Gubby

SIR GUBBY ALLEN: "I had the casting vote as England skipper when we were discussing whether to take eighteen-year-old Denis on the 1936-7 Ashes tour to Australia. It was my view that he was too inexperienced, and was concerned that a bad tour could wreck his confidence and spoil one of the greatest prospects we had ever produced. In subsequent years as I watched Denis develop and got to know him as a good friend I realised that I had been wrong with my assessment. He had the sort of approach that meant he would have flourished Down Under. The bigger the occasion the better he played. Denis represented England seventy-eight times in his distinguished career. I am very sorry that it was not eighty-three Tests, and I want to offer my profound apologies to Denis."

The after-show party at the Teddington Lock studios in the Compton territory of Middlesex went on to the early hours, with Denis one of the last to leave. He made the point of going to every person who had appeared on the programme to thank them for coming; and he also found time to tell the This Is Your Life production team how much he appreciated their efforts in putting the show together. It was a typical well-mannered, thoughtful act by a thoroughly nice man.

Denis also playfully pummelled Nick Owen and myself for the part we had played in the pre-show subterfuge. "I'll never trust you again," he told me. "All those talks we've had, and I thought it was all because you were a fan of mine!" With the conspiratorial blessing of Christine, Nick Owen - then an ITV sports presenter - and I had drawn Denis to the Teddington studios under the pretence that Thames Sport were producing a programme on great sporting heroes. We kept the charade going as Denis was being prepared in the make-up room for his appearance in front of the television cameras. We all roared when the girl applying the make-up asked Denis, "Can I have your autograph, Mr. Compton?" Compo was just removing a pen from his pocket, when she added "It's for my grandma. She used to have a picture of you on her bedroom wall."

To keep Compo convinced that he was about to appear on an interview show about great heroes, Nick had a notepad page full of questions that he put to Denis to get him primed for what he was convinced was a programme looking back on his career. It was a session that helped me get extra background facts for this book. At the after-show party, with Denis acting as an enthusiastic orchestrator, the night was brightened by a procession of Compo stories.

Champagne glass in hand, Denis listened to all the stories being swapped about his life and times, and positively glowed with pleasure. He added bits and pieces here and there like a master chef seasoning his own exclusive dish, and there were some stories that he dismissed as "made up by the fairies, old boy". He had us roaring when he said that if half the tales about his playboy adventures were true he would by now be an exhibit in the jar of a research unit. "How many times," he was asked, "did you turn up for a day's play wearing a dinner suit?" "Just once or twice," he said, pausing before adding with perfect timing, "...a season."

Getting shirty

DENIS COMPTON: "So much has come flooding back to me with all these memories that we have been sharing tonight. Trevor's story about me picking up his clothes reminds me of when I was fielding on the boundary in the 1946-7 Sydney Test. I always made a point of striking up conversations with spectators, and we were having a good old chin wag between overs, with me leaning back against the fence, when they started to fall about laughing and pointing at me. 'Can't you afford your own gear, Compo?' one of them shouted. I passed W.J. on my way to my next fielding place and said, 'Can you see anything about me that is making that lot laugh?' Bill gave me a close inspection and then started to laugh as well. "I think you're better off discussing it with Jack Ikin,' he said. 'You've got his shirt on.' Somehow I had picked up one of Jack's shirts and had managed to put it on so that the label in the back of the collar was sticking up. it read, J.T. Ikin.

Another thing I recall from Trevor and Fred mentioning the West Indies tour is of being invited aboard Errol Flynn's yacht for a very lively party. But I'll tell you this, there has been no party for me to equal the one here this evening. Seeing so many of my dear old friends together again has given me the thrill of a lifetime. As Eamonn was listing all the things that I had managed to do, it made me realise what a lucky person I had been and also how quickly it had all gone. It's wonderful to have an occasion like this just to prove you were not dreaming it all."

Eamonn Andrews posed for one more picture with Denis for This Is Your Life stills photographer Stan Allan. It is a sequence of photos taken from the moment of the 'hit' at the top of the show that fill the final edition of the Big Red Book, which is given to the subject a week or so after the programme as a memento of their special night.

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...

Graham Gooch trained with West Ham and Ian Botham with Scunthorpe – once he actually got a first team game – but sporting legend Denis Compton played on the left wing for Arsenal and was a wartime international footballer as well as getting himself into cricket's record books with his run-making for Middlesex and England.

Denis thought he was coming to the studio for an ITV Sport interview with Nick Owen. Before the evening was out, some of the greatest names in cricket had been reunited with the 1950s 'glamour boy' of the game, whose advertisements for Brylcreem had made his face – and hair – amongst the most famous in the land.

Peter May, Alec Bedser, Trevor Bailey, Ted Dexter, Godfrey Evans and Sir Leonard Hutton all sang the sporting praises of the man known as 'Compo'.

Keith Miller let viewers in on a secret, explaining why he bowled the occasional 'bouncer' to his great pal. They used to bet on the same horses and if Keith got the message via a fielder that they had got a big winner, he signalled the news to Denis with a bouncer.

Series 27 subjects