This Is Your Life: Parry Jones

The Liverpool Echo article: Parry Jones This Is Your Life

The Liverpool Echo 16 April 1957

TELECRIT

QUITE a night for BBC Television! A punchy "Panorama", a better-than-average edition of "This Is Your Life", and a thrill-packed visit to the Royal Albert Hall for the London Amateur Association Boxing Championships. He would be an exacting viewer who could ask for more for his money in one evening.

Welsh singer William Parry Jones was an imaginative choice for "This Is Your Life". The last moments of the Lusitania were probably the most dramatic moments of his life, but there were more than enough other reminiscences away back across the years to make his half-hour appearance one to remember.

And there was a second Lusitania survivor in the audience - Liverpool docker Hugh Johnston, who was at the wheel of the liner when she sank. Mr Johnston recently told his story in the Echo.

Sunderland Echo article: Parry Jones This Is Your Life

Sunderland Echo 16 April 1957

LAST NIGHT'S TV

GENERAL Glubb, Parry Jones, Alan Herbert, Edwin Ditchburn, and Uncle Tom Driberg an' all... Rarely has television presented a more diverse assortment of personalities or subjects than it did last night - or left more questions unanswered.

For Sunderland audiences, of course - and, one suspects, for millions of other viewers with an eye to sporting sensation - the highlight of the evening was the first item on Panorama which introduced Mr B W Ditchburn, ex-chairman of Sunderland A.F.C., and Reginald Pratt, chairman of West Ham A.F.C., in a discussion which left them where it began - at opposite ends of a very controversial field.

"This Is Your Life" recalled the loss of the great Atlantic liner, the Lusitania and, more vividly, the career of the great Welsh tenor, Parry Jones, who survived the ordeal of May 7, 1915. The programme was also notable for the appearance of Sir Alan Herbert, who summed up Jones's career in a few "juicy" phrases.

News Chronicle article: Parry Jones This Is Your Life

News Chronicle 16 April 1957

LAST NIGHT'S TV

The man who was saved

THREE or four items lifted the BBC programme high above the average.

"This Is Your Life" surpassed itself with a life story adroitly built up on a series of surprises. Hugh Robert Jones, the man at the wheel of the Lusitania when she was torpedoed in 1915, was approached by Eamonn Andrews, but was not the man selected to be the subject of the evening.

The survivor

Andrews asked if any other survivor was in the audience. A Mr Bill Jones came forward and it was Bill Jones's life story we heard.

And we discovered that Bill Jones was William Parry Jones, the tenor, who has sung in all the famous opera houses of the world.

The programme had all the qualities of an O Henry story and was a triumph of devising for Ralph Edwards.

The Birmingham Post and Gazette article: Parry Jones This Is Your Life

The Birmingham Post and Gazette 16 April 1957

LAST NIGHT

This Is Your Life on BBC Television achieved a really dramatic surprise for the introduction of a feature based on the life of Parry Jones, the well-known tenor. The first person invited on to the stage was Quartermaster H. R. Johnson, who is one of the 30 survivors of the Lusitania who are still living. Eamonn Andrews appealed to the audience, "Are there any more of those survivors here?" and the cameras picked out Parry Jones. The outstanding incidents in his life made a good story, and it was a touching gesture when at the end he joined the tenors in the Welsh Choir who sang in his honour.

Western Mail article: Parry Jones This Is Your Life

Western Mail 17 April 1957

On stage

IT was not until Blaina-born Mr Parry Jones, the Covent Garden tenor, found himself on the stage of the King's Theatre, Hammersmith, as the subject of "This Is Your Life" on Monday night that he solved the fortnight-old mystery of his wife's repeated visits to the "dress-makers" and her frequent and cryptic telephone conversations.

"On the pretence of taking me to a show, which was to be followed by a party, she got me to accompany her," Mr Jones said yesterday. "As we have no TV set at home, I am not conversant with the drill of these programmes and so when Eamonn Andrews, after introducing a member of the Lusitania crew, asked whether there was any other survivor present I naturally put up my hand."

"I was just a sitting duck for the BBC and my wife was in the secret from the beginning."

South Wales Gazette and Newport News article: Parry Jones This Is Your Life

South Wales Gazette and Newport News 19 April 1957

The Voice of Blaina in the T.V. Choir

SINGING just like he sang at the beginning of his great career - in a choir.

That is the picture that will remain in the minds of his friends in the valley, who watched Parry Jones's story featured in the BBC Television programme "This Is Your Life" last Monday.

In Blaina, excitement swept through T.V. set owners' homes as families waited for the programme to begin.

For, unlike the rest of the country, many of the people of Blaina knew whose life was to be featured in it.

Ever since BBC researcher Nigel Ward had come among them and asked about the great tenor's boyhood.

And now as well as a reputation for producing singers, Blaina can boast a new one.

One of keeping a secret. For though Mr Ward thought the secret of his visit was bound to leak out not a word was divulged to curious strangers by those who shared it.

It was a programme of thrills for the viewers as they saw the personalities who had figured in their tenor's life - and in their Lives.

Mr and Mrs T. L. Davies, the teachers, Jack Williams, the old Welsh rugby international, and Parry's brother, Emlyn.

And they thrilled with pride when they heard the tributes to the local boy who made good, which were paid by such as Sir Alan Herbert and Sir John Barbirolli.

...But still the picture that fixed itself in their minds was Parry Jones - their Parry Jones - singing as they always remembered him singing - in a choir.

Western Mail 14 June 1957

His life

AN interesting sequel occurred today to the appearance of Mr Parry Jones in the BBC TV programme, "This Is Your Life", in which Eamonn Andrews puts a famous man or woman through the dramatic episodes of his or her career.

The Welsh tenor had perhaps the most terrifying of all the experiences described because he was in the sea for hours after the Lusitania went down.

It is the custom of the BBC to give every person honoured by inclusion in this programme a bound volume containing the life story and the names and photographs of the people who took part. There could not be a more handsome souvenir than that which Mr Jones has received.