Big Red Book
Celebrating television's This Is Your Life
Another change to the schedule for This Is Your Life meant editions for its ninth series were now aired on a Thursday evening - with no regular broadcast time.
Producer Leslie Jackson, who steered the programme since the very first edition, was promoted to Executive Producer.
This series included the first tribute to the only subject who would be honoured a record THREE times during the programme's history.
And in this series, for the first time, a life story was told over two parts, not once but twice, as the production team revealed the remarkable wartime stories of a Belgian resistance fighter and a British Army officer.
And after nine years and 256 editions, the BBC cancelled This Is Your Life and broadcast the programme's final edition, which honoured a former nurse, who, in a strange symmetry to the first edition, is surprised in the audience of the BBC Television Theatre.
Eamonn Andrews left the BBC after negotiating a lucrative contract with ABC Television to present the commercial channel's new sports programme and a live weekly chat show.
related pages...
the show's fifty year history
Radio Times previews the ninth series
Radio Times feature on the sleuth-like manner of the 'pick-up'
| Stratford JOHNS | Actor | 3 October 1963 |
| Alice STERN | Concentration camp survivor | 10 October 1963 |
| Robert BOOTHBY | Conservative politician | 17 October 1963 |
| Bessie LOVE | American actress | 24 October 1963 |
| Joan STANTON | Blind pianist | 31 October 1963 |
| Harry WORTH | Comedian | 7 November 1963 |
| John DODD | Charity founder | 14 November 1963 |
| Ralph READER | Actor and producer | 21 November 1963 |
| Albert GUERISSE | Belgian resistance fighter | 28 November 1963 |
| Albert GUERISSE | 5 December 1963 | |
| Margaret LOCKWOOD | Actress | 12 December 1963 |
| Franklin DAY | Teenager blinded in an accident | 19 December 1963 |
| Frederick Spencer CHAPMAN | British Army officer | 2 January 1964 |
| Frederick Spencer CHAPMAN | 9 January 1964 | |
| Thora HIRD | Actress | 16 January 1964 |
| Evelyn BARK | Director of International Affairs for the Red Cross | 23 January 1964 |
| Madge WATSON and | Superintendent of Deep Sea Fishermen Mission | 30 January 1964 |
| Elsie WOOD | Superintendent of Deep Sea Fishermen Mission | 30 January 1964 |
| Petula CLARK | Actress and singer | 6 February 1964 |
| Derek MCCULLOCH | BBC radio presenter | 13 February 1964 |
| Bert MATTHEWS | Pearly King and charity worker | 20 February 1964 |
| Ted MOULT | Farmer and broadcaster | 27 February 1964 |
| Dot PALMER | Foster mother | 5 March 1964 |
| Teddy WINN | RSPCA inspector | 12 March 1964 |
| Barbara MULLEN | Actress | 19 March 1964 |
| Paul BURROUGH | Clergyman and former prisoner-of-war | 26 March 1964 |
| Sydney SCROGGIE | Disabled hillwalker, writer and poet | 2 April 1964 |
| Ninette DE VALOIS | Founder of the Royal Ballet | 9 April 1964 |
| Dominique PIRE | Belgian friar – recipient of Nobel Peace Prize | 16 April 1964 |
| Olivia DE HAVILLAND | Actress | 23 April 1964 |
| Mary HAWKINS | Nurse | 30 April 1964 |
Broadcast details
BBC tv (editions 1-28) | BBC1 (editions 29-30)30 editions | 3 x 30 minutes | 27 x 25 minutes
Thursday | 8.35pm x 6 | 9.10pm x 5 | 10.10pm x 1 | 8.50pm x 17 | 9.25pm x 1
Production team
Devised by: Ralph EdwardsExecutive Producer: T Leslie Jackson | Producer: Vere Lorrimer | Directors: Michael Goodwin, Mark Patterson, David Matthews
Writers: Nickola Sterne, John Dalzell, Peter Moore, Gale Pedrick, Liam Nolan, Suzanne Twiston-Davies
Researchers: Nickola Sterne, John Dalzell, Suzanne Twiston-Davies, Alan Haire, Gale Pedrick
Script Editors: Bob Stuart, Peter Moore | Music: James Turner