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Celebrating television's This Is Your Life

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THIS IS YOUR LIFE - Thomas William Henry Sarll, adventurer, journalist and former soldier, was surprised by Eamonn Andrews as he was about to dine with his son Alan at the Savoy Hotel.

Tiger, who was born in Highgate, north London, left school in the Autumn of 1899 to enlist with the South African Light Horse and fight in the Second Boer War, where he lost the sight in his left eye. He then worked as a war correspondent in Japan during the Russo-Japanese War before heading to Canada to join The Royal Canadian Dragoons. After a stint in North Africa with the Foreign Legion, he travelled to South America to help build a railway bridge.

During the First World War, he worked as a cameraman for Pathe and later served with The Royal Fusiliers. Between the wars, his exploits included being a journalist during the Rif War, catching pythons and alligators for zoos, performing as a snake charmer in a circus and working as a film extra. Tiger found work as a firefighter with the Thames River Police during the Second World War and joined the Royal Air Force in 1940 as a pilot officer, going on to become a flight lieutenant. By 1959, aged 76, he was working a 90-hour week as a night security officer.

programme details...

• Edition No: 93
• Subject No: 93
• Broadcast live: Mon 6 Apr 1959
• Broadcast time: 7.30-8.00pm
• Venue: BBC Television Theatre
• Series: 4
• Edition: 28

on the guest list...

• David McLellan
• Gp Capt Vincent Smith - via telephone
• Capt Raymond Frost
• John Shelley
• Frank Dallaston
• Alan - son
• James - son
• Peter - son
• Georgina - daughter
• Stella - daughter
• Daphne - daughter
• George - son
• Thomas - son
Filmed tributes:
• Col Macmillan
• Lt Col Joseph H Levey
• Gp Capt H Tynsley

production team...

• Researcher: Peter Moore
• Writer: Peter Moore
• Director: Vere Lorrimer
• Producer: T Leslie Jackson

Life on Earth

an uncharted adventure

Tiger Sarll with Eamonn Andrews on This Is Your Life

Eamonn Andrews recalls this edition of This Is Your Life in his introduction to the book, Adventurer Extraordinary, The Tiger Sarll Story...

If, quickly, I had to identify Tiger Sarll to viewers of the BBC's This Is Your Life, I'd forget about the monocle and the six foot four erectness of the soldier and even the near incredible incidents from his story.

I'd simply say:

'Remember the man who, when we brought his grown family on one after another, stopped one of them and said, "You're not one of mine, are you? Which one are you?"

He probably infuriated every woman in the audience – and the happy, robust family reunion afterwards was too late to assuage the feelings of outraged parenthood.

But that's Tiger Sarll, the wanderer, the adventurer, the soldier of fortune, the Spartan who puts sentiment and affection way down the line and who's not prepared to murmur with the rest of us a hypocritical, 'How nice to meet you again.' More likely, 'And who the hell are you?'

Godfrey Lias has had the chance we didn't have of talking to the Tiger himself before telling his story. So I've no doubt at all that the pages that follow will tell us something much larger than life and much more exciting than any six of us could achieve.

This extraordinary adventurer frightens the wits out of me every time we meet. It's safer to read about him than to meet him.