Big Red Book

Celebrating television's This Is Your Life

• HOME
• |
• SERIES
• |
• SUBJECTS
• |
• FEATURES
• |
• ARTICLES
• |
• INTERVIEWS
• |
• ABOUT

THIS IS YOUR LIFE - Mary O'Hara, singer and harpist, was surprised by Eamonn Andrews while filming at the National Motor Museum in the village of Beaulieu, Hampshire.

Mary, who was born in County Sligo, Ireland, achieved fame on both sides of the Atlantic in the late 1950s and early 1960s, recording with Decca Records and starring in her own BBC television series. However, after the premature death of her husband, American poet Richard Selig, Mary became a Benedictine nun at Stanbrook Abbey, where she stayed for 12 years.

When she left the abbey in 1974 for the sake of her health, she found that her musical reputation had grown during her time as a nun, and she made a successful return to performing, becoming one of the biggest international recording stars to come out of Ireland.

"Oh no! Eamonn! No!"

programme details...

• Edition No: 497
• Subject No: 495
• Broadcast date: Wed 8 Nov 1978
• Broadcast time: 7.00-7.30pm
• Recorded: Wed 4 Oct 1978
• Venue: Southern Television, Southampton
• Series: 19
• Edition: 3
• Code name: Vow

on the guest list...

• Gay Byrne
• Kathleen Byrne
• John - father
• Dermot - brother
• Deirdre Keller
• Sean Og O'Tuama
• Lady Mackenzie
• Gavin Scott-Moncrieff
• Lesley Findlay
• David Murison
• Richard Afton
• Joyce Grenfell
• Val Doonican
• Florence Selig
Filmed tributes:
• Joan Baez
• Joan - sister
• Sister Angela
• Sister Petra

production team...

• Researcher: Tony Lee
• Writers: Tom Brennand, Roy Bottomley
• Director: Terry Yarwood
• Producer: Jack Crawshaw

• names above in bold indicate subjects of This Is Your Life

A Musical Life

blowing a trumpet for the musicians

Val Doonican

Screenshots of Mary O'Hara This Is Your Life

Mary O'Hara recalls her experience of This Is Your Life in her autobiography, The Scent of the Roses...

One September afternoon when I was on Lord Beaulieu's estate in Hampshire filming a scene for television, Eamonn Andrews appeared out of nowhere to announce: "Mary O'Hara, this is your life."

I was driven to Southern Television studios in Southampton to be confronted with some of the key people in my life to date. It proved to be a programme punctuated with laughter and tears.

My father was brought from Dublin; Dermot (whom I hadn't seen since Christmas in Nigeria) from Calgary in Canada; Florence, my mother-in-law, from Washington, DC; Lesley and Gavin Scott-Moncrieff and David Murison from Scotland; Deirdre, Gay Byrne and his wife, Kathleen, Sean Og O'Tuama, Val Doonican, Joyce Grenfell, Richard Afton and Lady (Lily) Mackenzie, all in their turn greeted me with affection and sometimes emotion.

My sister Joan, Joan Baez, Sister Angela and Sister Petra from Sion Hill, unable to be with me in the studio, sent their greetings via television film. There was inevitably some gaps. Lord Moyne and Pat O'Toole, significant people in my life and my return to music, were not present. Nor was there anyone from those Oxford days with Richard.

However, it was a moving experience for all present, and at the end of the programme a smiling Eamonn handed me the big red book engraved with the words: 'This Is Your Life'. And so it was in many ways my life. So far, thank God, so very good.