This Is Your Life: Timothy Cain

Lt Cdr Timothy CAIN RN Rtd (?-1969)

THIS IS YOUR LIFE - Timothy John Cain, former Royal Navy Officer, was surprised by Eamonn Andrews at the Portsmouth Guildhall, from where the programme was then recorded.

Tim, who was born in Portsmouth but grew up in Fulham, London, became a boy sailor with the Royal Navy at the age of 14. At the outbreak of the Second World War, he joined the destroyers HMS Electra, which acted as a convoy ship and rescue vessel, notably saving survivors of the refugee liner Athena, HMS Hood, sunk by the German battleship Bismarck and HMS Repulse, sunk by Japanese bombers in the far east.

In Singapore, HMS Electra became part of a tiny allied force that faced the Japanese but was attacked and sunk in February 1942. Tim, the senior surviving officer, suffered shrapnel and splinter wounds but was rescued by a US submarine and taken to Australia to convalesce. While travelling to his next posting in Ceylon, his ship was attacked by the Japanese, and he spent the last three years of the war as a prisoner of war. After the war, Tim became an income tax collector.

programme details...

Edition No: 175
Subject No: 176
Broadcast date: Mon 18 Dec 1961
Broadcast time: 7.55-8.30pm
Recorded: Wed 29 Nov 1961 8.00pm
Venue: Portsmouth Guildhall
Series: 7
Edition: 12

on the guest list...

Cecil Brown
Robert Tilburn
Mabel Endicott - sister
Lillian Locock
Frank Martin
Capt Crommelin
Bill Tuffin
Bill Brayley
Philip Perkins
Fred Samuel
Dr Curtin
Belles - wife
Ronald - son
George - son
Capt Henry Munson
Mrs Wakeford May

production team...

Researcher: Arthur Sellwood
Writer: Arthur Sellwood
Director: Yvonne Littlewood
Producer: T Leslie Jackson

related page...

Military Life

saluting the armed forces

Photographs of Timothy Cain This Is Your Life

Series 7 subjects