Colin HODGKINSON (1920-1996)

Colin Hodgkinson This Is Your Life

programme details...

  • Edition No: 36
  • Subject No: 36
  • Broadcast live: Mon 7 Oct 1957
  • Broadcast time: 7.30-8.00pm
  • Venue: BBC Television Theatre
  • Series: 3
  • Edition: 2

on the guest list...

  • Sqn Ldr J S Fifield
  • Marcus Marsh
  • June - wife
  • Bill Stamper
  • Bill Andrews
  • Joseph Addo
  • Tony Phelps
  • Fred Massey
  • Gp Capt Johnnie Johnson
  • Jack Armstrong
  • Alecia Armstrong
  • Tony Fowler
  • Sonia Fowler
  • Betty Gordon

production team...

  • Researchers: Nigel Ward, George Bruce, Michael Friend
  • Writer: Ken Smith
  • Director: unknown
  • Producer: T Leslie Jackson
  • names above in bold indicate subjects of This Is Your Life
related pages...

Military Life

saluting the armed forces


This Is Your Life by Eamonn Andrews

Weekend Magazine reports from behind-the-scenes


This Is Your Life

Radio Times editorial


Johnnie Johnson

Colin Hodgkinson This Is Your Life

Colin Hodgkinson and guest Fred Massey with presenter Eamonn Andrews on This Is Your Life

Colin Hodgkinson's autobiography

Mark Hillier recalls this edition of This Is Your Life in his book, Best Foot Forward, reproduced here with kind permission of the author...


In November 1943 Colin was posted to 501 Squadron as a flight commander. It was with this unit that he undertook a high-altitude weather reconnaissance in a Spitfire IX - that with the serial number MJ117. Unfortunately, his oxygen supply failed at 30,000 feet and he crash-landed east of Hardelot, being knocked unconscious in the impact. The TV presenter Eamonn Andrews once said to Colin that 'the Germans have to cut you out of the wreckage with an oxy-acetylene blow torch', whilst other accounts state that he was pulled from the wreckage by two French farmers. However he was extracted from the wreckage of his Spitfire, Colin was then transported to a hospital at St Omer where he recovered consciousness.


Such were the terrible injuries to his face and head that, whilst a prisoner of war, Colin underwent a series of operations. During his internment, he lost a lot of weight, to the point that his artificial legs did not fit and he was in constant pain. Despite this, as fellow prisoner Marcus Marsh once said of him, 'he was always cheerful. A fine example to those who took captivity badly.'


Due to his disabilities and injuries, Colin was subsequently repatriated to the UK ten months after his crash. For many surely this would have been enough? Yet flying had cost Colin his legs and flying, he believed, owed him a living, so he returned to the skies once again, this time with a ferry unit at Bristol's Filton airfield. After the war, Colin continued to fly with the Royal Auxiliary Air Force, serving in 501 and 604 squadrons.


Colin often referred to himself as the 'poor man's Bader', but this is to diminish his achievements. It is perhaps not surprising, therefore, that Colin was one of the earliest people to feature in the BBC's This Is Your Life - it was on the evening of Monday, 7 October 1957 that Colin was surprised, whilst drinking in a pub near television centre, by Eamonn Andrews carrying the big red book. Aired live, Colin's episode was the second in series three. It would be another nineteen series before Douglas Bader received the same treatment.


Colin's story is truly a remarkable description of one man's battle against adversity. For me this man is a genuine unsung national hero, as Johnnie Johnson said when questioned by Eamonn Andrews: 'He was determined to be as good as his colleagues who were not disabled. He was a very brave man.'

Series 3 subjects

Albert Whelan | Colin Hodgkinson | Vera Lynn | Arthur Christiansen | John Logie Baird | Richard Carr-Gomm | Jack Train
Edith Powell | Anne Brusselmans | Norman Wisdom | Victor Silvester | Jack Petersen | Lucy Jane Dobson
David Bell | Matt Busby | Minnie Barnard | Gordon Steele | Louie Ramsay | Tubby Clayton | Daniel Angel
Anna Neagle | 'Dapper' Channon | Frederick Stone | Paul Field | Noel Purcell | Barbara Cartland
Harry Secombe | Archie Rowe | Humphrey Lyttelton | Francis Cammaerts | A E Matthews