This Is Your Life: Pat Kerr

Pat KERR MBE

THIS IS YOUR LIFE - Pat Kerr, humanitarian and former air stewardess, was surprised by Michael Aspel while signing copies of her newly published book in Tristar House at London's Heathrow Airport.

Pat, who was born in Cornwall, initially trained as an occupational therapist in Exeter, and later found work at the Royal Maudsley Hospital in London. After three years in the job, she decided on a career change and joined British Airways as a stewardess. On a four day stopover in Dhaka, Bangladesh in 1981, Pat was struck by the grinding poverty of the city's orphaned children, and following a visit to the local orphanage she decided she wanted to do something to help.

She took five months unpaid leave to set about moving into and running a charity orphanage in the city. With astonishing determination, courage and practical skill she started to raise the money and involve the crew - and eventually the might of British Airways itself - to improve the orphanage. When the orphanage was threatened with closure, she quit her jet-set lifestyle, moved to Bangladesh permanently and built Sreepur Village, a new permanent home for over 600 orphaned, abandoned and desperate children of Dhaka.

"Oh no, no, no, no!"

programme details...

Edition No: 840
Subject No: 830
Broadcast date: Wed 21 Oct 1992
Broadcast time: 7.00-7.30pm
Recorded: Tue 29 Sep 1992
Venue: Teddington Studios
Series: 33
Edition: 4
Code name: Air

on the guest list...

Harry - father
Rosemary - mother
Vivienne - sister
James - brother-in-law
Thomas - nephew
Andrew - nephew
Evelyn Foley
Ian - brother
Alison Kelly
John Cator
Andrea Bennett
Gordon Bowden
Gerry Deveraux
Desmond Wilcox
Mark Gillespie - via telephone
Trisha Sylvester
Dr Yousef - Bangladeshi High Commissioner in London
Lord King
Clare Taunton
Kamal Islam
Peter Flynn
Sheila Villers
children of Braddock Primary School, Liskeard, Cornwall
Lotifa

production team...

Researcher: Sue Green
Writer: Roy Bottomley
Directors: Brian Klein, Malcolm Morris
Associate Producer: John Graham
Producer: Malcolm Morris

names above in bold indicate subjects of This Is Your Life

related pages...

A Charitable Life

the unsung heroes

Desmond Wilcox

Photographs and screenshots of Pat Kerr 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...

A flight to Dacca in Bangladesh ten years ago changed the life of British Airways stewardess Pat Kerr – and the lives of thousands of underprivileged and abandoned children in the poorest of Third World countries.

Unknown to Pat, director Brian Klein and researcher Sue Green, with a film crew, captured the scenes which motivated her in giving up the high life to bring a new life to the children of Dacca.

We recreated her privileged view, as a BA stewardess, from the luxury of the five-star Sonargar Hotel. From its air-conditioned rooms she could see the sharply contrasting scenes of grinding poverty, especially the plight of the children.

On that trip, Pat Kerr made a decision. On her return, she requested a long period of unpaid leave. Next time she arrived in Dacca, it was not as a crisply uniformed stewardess – just a dedicated young woman, heading for a run-down building in a back alley, home for 150 children.

It was the start of a seven-year struggle to build a children's village. Back at British Airways, with the support of then Chairman Lord King, she turned that orphanage into a dream of the future – and that dream into reality. She received all manner of support from her colleagues, who formed the BA Staff Dacca Orphanage project.

She was signing copies of her book Down To Earth for her colleagues at Heathrow on 29 September 1992, when Michael Aspel dropped in with another book with her name on it.

She was so stunned she protested, 'No, no, no...' But a little gentle persuasion got her safely to our guest-of-honour seat in the studio. On our big screen, six hundred children back in Dacca greeted her with a wave and the name they call her: 'Pat Mummy'.

Series 33 subjects