Big Red Book
Celebrating television's This Is Your Life
John VIDLER OBE (1890-1967)
THIS IS YOUR LIFE - John Vidler, retired prison governor, was surprised by Eamonn Andrews in the audience at the BBC Television Theatre, having been led to believe he was there to watch a film entitled 'In Prison'.
John, who was born in Rye, Sussex, was educated at Repton School and Oriel College, Oxford. In 1914 he moved to Ceylon to run a tea plantation, but after ill health forced him to return to England in 1919, he began working in the leather industry. He joined the prison service in 1932 and worked at Feltham Borstal as deputy governor.
He moved to Portland Prison in 1934, where he was made governor two years later. In August 1944, John was made Governor of Maidstone Prison, and while in that role, he was credited with effectively revolutionising the English prison system. He spent 12 years there before retiring in 1956.
programme details...
- Edition No: 79
- Subject No: 79
- Broadcast date: Mon 29 Dec 1958
- Broadcast time: 7.30-8.00pm
- Recorded: Mon 10 Nov 1958 8.00pm
- Venue: BBC Television Theatre
- Series: 4
- Edition: 14
on the guest list...
- Wilfred Harvey
- Bill Greswell
- Donnie - wife
- Sir Herbert Dowbiggin
- George Hilliard
- Arthur Shore
- Ernest Matthews
- Frances Banks
- Raymond Blackburn
- Dr Georg Sturup
- Reginald Bradley Recorded tribute:
- 'S' - unnamed former prisoner
production team...
- Researchers: Peter Moore, Ronald Vivian
- Writers: Peter Moore, Ronald Vivian
- Director: Vere Lorrimer
- Producer: T Leslie Jackson
the unsung heroes
Photographs of John Vidler This Is Your Life
The Observer 4 January 1959
TELEVISION
By MAURICE RICHARDSON
OF all the philanthropists who have appeared in This Is Your Life, John Vidler, the outstandingly humane ex-Governor of Maidstone Prison, is one of the most sympathetic. It looked, for a moment, as if his apotheosis was going to be rather under-manned; but in addition to a moving recorded tribute by a prisoner we got a courageous, and televisually most successful appearance by Raymond Blackburn.
Series 4 subjects
Jo Capka | Jimmy Edwards | Andrew Milbourne | Bella Burge | Tommy Steele | Ronald Shiner | James Edward WoodMargaret Rowena Jones | John Griffiths | Freddy Bloom | Bransby Williams | Miriam Moses | Elsie Mullock | John Vidler
Florence Desmond | Noel Duckworth | Alfred Daniel Wintle | Ted Heath | Andrew Macdonald | Harriet Cohen
Willie Hall | Reginald Blanchford | Kenneth More | Hugh Llewelyn Glyn Hughes | Miriam Jowett | Ted Willis
Alfred Southon | Tiger Sarll | Mary Ward | Roy Gill | Stirling Moss | Ethel Goldsack | Tommy Trinder