This Is Your Life: Alfred Daniel Wintle

Colonel A D WINTLE MC (1897-1966)

THIS IS YOUR LIFE - Alfred Daniel Wintle, retired military officer, was surprised by Eamonn Andrews at Hay's Wharf in London, having been led to believe he was there for an interview with the Evening Standard.

Alfred was born in Crimea and educated in Germany, France, and the Royal Military Academy in Woolwich. He served with the 22nd Brigade, Royal Field Artillery during the First World War and was awarded the Military Cross for 'marked gallantry and initiative'. During the Second World War, he served as a military officer with the 1st The Royal Dragoons, but not before he was imprisoned in the Tower of London for threatening an RAF officer with a gun.

After the war, Alfred made legal history when he brought a legal action against a dishonest solicitor named Nye, whom he accused of appropriating £44,000 from the estate of his deceased cousin. To publicise the case, Alfred served time in prison in 1955 after forcing Nye to remove his trousers and submit to being photographed. Alfred eventually won his legal fight against Nye, becoming the first non-lawyer to achieve a unanimous verdict in his favour in the House of Lords.

"I thoroughly enjoyed the show!"

programme details...

Edition No: 82
Subject No: 82
Broadcast live: Mon 19 Jan 1959
Broadcast time: 7.30-8.00pm
Venue: BBC Television Theatre
Series: 4
Edition: 17

on the guest list...

Col Frank Jagger
May Burn-Callander
Cedric Mays
J D Casswell
Marie Guy
Harry Simpson
Mrs Simpson
Alan Simpson
Oldman Fadiga
Prince Aly Khan - live link
Maurice Molia
Dora - wife

production team...

Researchers: Nigel Ward, Michael Williams
Writers: Nigel Ward, Michael Williams
Director: Vere Lorrimer
Producer: T Leslie Jackson

related pages...

Military Life

saluting the armed forces

Will a 'Life' man ever stalk out?

News Chronicle editorial

This Is Your Life

Radio Times feature on the sleuth-like manner of the 'pick-up'

This Is Your Life

The Daily Mail profiles the programme's history

Photographs of Alfred Daniel Wintle This Is Your Life

A D Wintle recalls his experience of This Is Your Life in his autobiography, The Last Englishman.

I spent the rest of the war most actively, fighting England's enemies in the Middle East, Burma, Italy and – for the second time – in Occupied France.

But the really satisfactory sequel to my incarceration in Fort Ste Catherine did not come until 1959. I had always hoped that my challenging of my jailors' manhood had done some good but I had had no means of ascertaining what had happened to the men of the Gardes Mobile I had so soundly berated.

But in January, 1959 when – unbeknown to me – the BBC were co-operating with my lifelong friend, Mr Cedric Mays, in rounding up people to appear on This Is Your Life ... Col A D Wintle, they happened to locate the commandant of the Fort, M. Maurice Molia. The result was a delightful surprise for me and makes a marvellous postscript in that it justifies the sort of tireless positive action I have lived by.

It was this. M Molia appeared on the programme to tell of my provocative behaviour in Toulon. And he added simply: 'Shortly after Colonel Wintle left us I was moved – entirely because of his dauntless example and his tirade of abuse and challenge – to defect from Vichy. I took 280 men from the prison garrison – most of whom had also been inspired by the Colonel or shamed by him – and joined the Resistance. Many of my men were later killed fighting the Germans but we harried and did down the enemy for years as Colonel Wintle would have wanted us to.'

On that satisfactory, if surprising, side-result of my largely wasted days as a prisoner of Toulon I rest my wartime case.

Series 4 subjects