This Is Your Life: Desmond Wilcox

Desmond WILCOX (1931-2000)

THIS IS YOUR LIFE - Desmond Wilcox, journalist and filmmaker, was surprised by Michael Aspel while filming on the London Eye.

Desmond, who was born in Welwyn Garden City, began a career in journalism as a reporter with the Edgware Local in 1948. After his national service, he joined the Daily Mirror as their youngest-ever foreign correspondent, working out of their New York bureau. In 1960, he moved into television as a reporter with ITV's This Week current affairs programme. Five years later, he joined the BBC as co-editor and presenter of the landmark series Man Alive.

He was head of general features at the BBC between 1972 and 1980, when he quit the corporation to become a freelance documentary maker. As one of the UK's most innovative documentary makers, his groundbreaking films, under the generic title of The Visit, told moving stories of human lives in extraordinary circumstances and won several international awards.

"Well, you are joking? Michael! I don't believe it! I've gone all funny - I may fall into the river!"

programme details...

Edition No: 1051
Subject No: 1026
Broadcast date: Mon 15 May 2000
Broadcast time: 8.30-9.00pm
Recorded: Sun 12 Mar 2000
Venue: Teddington Studios
Series: 40
Edition: 26
Code name: Visitor

on the guest list...

Cassie - daughter
Emily - daughter
Rebecca - daughter
Joshua - son
Esther Rantzen - wife
Nerys Hughes
Nigel - brother
Mike - brother
Judy - sister-in-law
John Davis
Dennis Signy
Claire - daughter
Trevor - son-in-law
Ruby - granddaughter
Martha - granddaughter
Archard - grandson
Drew - grandson
Adam - son
Brian McConnell
Gillian Reynolds
Jenny Barraclough
Jeanne La Chard
John Pitman
Adrian Mills
Sally Magnusson
Alex McCall
Connie Carnan
Doreen Carnan
Pat Kerr
Marc Adams-Jones
Karen Adams-Jones
Rex Stanbridge
Rodney Foale
Jack Ashley
Pauline Ashley
Floella Benjamin
Joshua Handel
Max Caplin
Andy - son-in-law
Rosie - granddaughter
Ian Jackson
Marjorie Jackson
David Jackson
David Frost
Charlie Dimmock
Jeremy Isaacs
Nick Ross
Des Lynam
The Duchess of Kent

production team...

Researcher: Paul Broadbent
Writer: Ian Brown
Director: John Gorman
Associate Producer: Helen Gordon-Smith
Executive Producer: John Longley
Series Producer: Jack Crawshaw
Producer: Sue Green

names above in bold indicate subjects of This Is Your Life

related pages...

Presenting Life

celebrating the hosts

Family Life

keeping it in the family

The Night of 1000 Lives

a celebration of a thousand editions

Screenshots of Desmond Wilcox This Is Your Life

Esther Rantzen recalls this edition of This Is Your Life in her book, Esther, the autobiography...

Our last six months together were filled with lovely moments to remember. We spent New Year's Eve at the foot of the Millennium Wheel, watching the fireworks burst in an explosive fiery haze over the river. In March I plotted with the This Is Your Life team to surprise Desmond. We succeeded, but typically he surprised us, too. Most subjects of the programme are so overwhelmed with shock and pleasure that they say little or nothing themselves. Desmond was irrepressible.

When Charlie Dimmock talked about the water garden she had helped to create for us, he said, 'Water feature? She's turned it into the Grand Canyon'. When Michael Aspel described how he had been blinded by a gangster and had to be operated on by a surgeon in Switzerland, Desmond said, 'Yes, I was in hospital in Berne. But Berne's so boring it really doesn't matter if you've lost your sight'. Sadly most of his wickedness had to be cut from the programme, but the producers let me have a copy of the unedited version, a rare privilege. For Desmond the high spot of the programme was seeing Emily walk towards him, unaided and without her wheelchair, to embrace him.

Series 40 subjects