Sue RYDER (1924-2000)

Sue Ryder This Is Your Life

programme details...

  • Edition No: 19
  • Subject No: 19
  • Broadcast date: Mon 12 Nov 1956
  • Broadcast time: 8.15-8.45pm
  • Recorded: Thur 20 Sep 1956 8.30pm
  • Venue: King's Theatre, Hammersmith
  • Series: 2
  • Edition: 4

on the guest list...

  • Tadeusz Moneta
  • Josef Mojcik
  • Stefan Szypanski
  • Ludwig Jania
  • Capt Gruszynski
  • Mabel - mother
  • Pamela Dyboski
  • Steve Dyboski
  • Sarlote Aume
  • Osvalds Aume
  • Pawel Makowiak
  • Egon Gorecki
  • Maureen Mackie
  • Rita Comerford
  • Joyce Pearce
  • Prof Dr Albert Krebs

production team...

  • Researchers: Peter Moore, Nigel Ward
  • Writer: Gale Pedrick
  • Director: unknown
  • Producer: T Leslie Jackson
  • names above in bold indicate subjects of This Is Your Life
related pages...

A Charitable Life

the unsung heroes


Family Life

keeping it in the family


Stories behind This Is Your Life

a review of the second series


This is Leslie Jackson's Life

Interview with the first producer of This Is Your Life


This Is Your Life by Eamonn Andrews

Weekend Magazine reports from behind-the-scenes

Sue Ryder recalls her experience of This Is Your Life in the end of series review programme, Stories behind This Is Your Life, broadcast in June 1957

Sue Ryder This Is Your Life Sue Ryder This Is Your Life

Photographs of Sue Ryder This Is Your Life


Sue Ryder explains how her appearance on This Is Your Life helped the Sue Ryder Foundation in an interview with Michael Parkinson on BBC Radio's Desert Island Discs, broadcast in January 1987

Susan Ryder's autobiography

Sue Ryder recalls her experience of This Is Your Life in her autobiography, Child Of My Love...


The national press took a great interest, and later, in 1956, much to my embarrassment and surprise, I was confronted by the television programme This Is Your Life, of which I had never heard. Although I have a personal dislike of publicity, it is, however, most useful to focus attention upon the needs of large sections of the community, both here and abroad. Thousands of letters, accompanied by donations, came in. Here are two:


I send you £10 for having nearly walked off Eamonn Andrews' show. I know you remained for your people's sake. I am like la mule du pape, late but sure! You shall have more (as a little boy told me) when I got summink I'll give you summink. L.D.


Once upon a time, many years ago, when you were one of the first people to appear on This Is Your Life I drove over to the Sue Ryder Home in Suffolk to find little candles burning in the windows, waiting to welcome those who were coming. This sight touched me deeply and the atmosphere was special, living, warm and good. You were away and for so many years have travelled very far indeed and, if I may say so, achieved a lot.


The sight of those candles with the Christmas spirit will remain in my memory. R.E.

Sue Ryder's biography

Tessa West recalls this edition of This Is Your Life in her book, Lady Sue Ryder of Warsaw, Single minded philanthropist, reproduced here with kind permission of the author...


The words "television audiences" mentioned at the end of the previous chapter refer to the fact that though Sue Ryder had founded her first Suffolk home only a few short years earlier, Eamonn Andrews, in 1956, was greeting her as his guest personality on This Is Your Life. The familiar format of the show was that the host would welcome and surprise a famous guest before taking them through their life with significant family and friends and the assistance of the Big Red Book which listed important points in the subject's life.


Many other fund-raisers would have jumped at such an opportunity, but Sue Ryder nearly refused to participate. She knew nothing about the programme and did not want to waste her time on something which has been sprung upon her and which she perceived as trivial and as preventing her from getting on with what really mattered. Eamonn Andrews' biographer wrote:


So busy was she with her work, that she had not heard of the show, despite the fact that the series had run for over a year and was attracting millions of viewers. Unsurprisingly, when Eamonn handed her the red book that evening in the King's Theatre, Hammersmith, she looked absolutely bewildered. As she was greeted by her mother, friends and fellow workers she hardly knew what to say. She stood there, a small, unassuming woman, her face pale, her eyes deep set and dense.


However, the fact that her mother was there in the studio with about fifteen people she cared about, such as Joyce Pearce of the Ockenden Venture and at least half a dozen Poles who mattered to her greatly, meant that she agreed to stay and accept the accolades. It was a live broadcast so if she decided to walk away it would have been particularly dramatic for viewers, as well as providing quite a challenge to Eamonn Andrews. [Bigredbook.info editor - Sue Ryder's edition was pre-recorded, not live] To Sue's rather naïve astonishment her appearance resulted in a surge of donations, which she immediately acknowledged were extremely welcome. At that time much of the Foundation's income would have been quite small, boosted from the Sue Ryder shops which were then beginning to spread. A sudden influx of funds generated by this unsought publicity and acclaim must have felt like manna.

Gus Smith biography of Eamonn Andrews

Gus Smith recalls this edition of This Is Your Life in his book, Eamonn Andrews His Life...


When producer Leslie Jackson and the This Is Your Life team checked out Sue's mother as the key contact for the programme, they found she was prepared to assist them, though she felt that her daughter was rather shy of publicity. The team did not see this as the real problem. A woman who travelled so extensively was hard to pin down in one place long enough for Eamonn to present her with the red book.


By now, Eamonn was intrigued by the work of this unselfish woman they called 'a modern day Florence Nightingale'. To thousands of the sick, crippled, jobless, displaced persons of Europe she was a link with hope and sanity. She was 'Mamma' to many youngsters whose childhood was spent in the nightmare stench of Nazi concentration camps, whose parents died in the gas chamber. She was 'Sister Sue' to thousands of men and women whose bodies and minds were shattered in the hells of Buchenwald, Belsen and Auschwitz.


As the Life researchers pieced together other aspects of Sue Ryder's extraordinary life, they learned that she would be in London for a few days in November. But what they or Eamonn hadn't known, or could not be expected to know, was Sue Ryder's total ignorance of This Is Your Life. So busy was she with her work, that she had not heard of the show, despite the fact that the series had now run for over a year and was attracting millions of viewers. Unsurprisingly, when Eamonn handed her the red book that evening in the King's Theatre, Hammersmith, she looked absolutely bewildered. As she was greeted by her mother, friends and fellow workers she hardly knew what to say. She stood there, a small, unassuming woman, her face pale, her eyes deep-set and tense.


Today, Sue – or Lady Ryder of Warsaw as she prefers to be known – remembers the occasion. From the Foundation's headquarters in the picturesque Suffolk village of Cavendish, she said she was at first a little baffled by the Life programme.


'When Eamonn Andrews handed me the red book I couldn't comprehend what was happening to me. I had never before seen the show, so it was new to me. I couldn't understand the nature of the programme, but I know now I felt happy. Seeing my mother so happy, and my smiling friends around me, made me feel proud and secure. I didn't find it an emotional experience.'


What was to please her greatly in the subsequent weeks were the many congratulatory messages, as well as postal orders and cash, that poured into the Foundation's headquarters. To Eamonn, the programme had served its purpose. In addition, in his view, to being good television, viewers had met a remarkable woman with a stirring story. As he had pointed out, there was a place in the series for the heroic story. It showed that Life could be meaningful despite what some of his detractors liked to think.


Lady Ryder of Warsaw was to be the guest on two further Life programmes when she was able to study Eamonn's role as presenter more closely. She was, as she says, enormously impressed. 'I thought it was amazing how he handled the programme. His personal approach, his anxiety to put people at ease – these things, as well as his obvious sincerity and dedication, ensured the success of the show. I admired also the way he coped with different people.'


As time passed she was delighted to find that Eamonn continued to take interest in her work for the Foundation. 'He used to send me these little notes asking me if he could help in any way. I knew he was under a lot of pressure and for that reason I didn't want to bother him. As far as I could see, he never spared himself. He always worked so very hard.'


She and Group Captain Leonard Cheshire married in 1959 when both the Cheshire Homes and the Sue Ryder Foundation were firmly established. Before doing so they wrote to their colleagues: 'We assure you that our sole aim is still the good of the work.'


Although Eamonn never cared to take the credit, it was generally believed that certain This Is Your Life programmes, especially in the early post-war years, helped to further good causes. In the case of the Sue Ryder homes this is probably true; there are now twenty-two in Britain and twenty-eight in Poland.

Britain and the Holocaust book cover

James Jordan recalls this edition of This is Your Life in the book, Britain and the Holocaust...


Sue Ryder, tx 12 November 1956


The second series of This Is Your Life started with conservationist Peter Scott, actress Ada Reeve and Edinburgh fireman Peter Methven. Then on 12 November 1956, in a show pre-recorded in September at the King's Theatre, Hammersmith, it was the turn of Ryder, who was then working tirelessly with DPs across Europe. Like Cook, she was a person who had already featured on the BBC (although she had never heard of This Is Your Life) and is a person whose story has remained in the public consciousness. Taking part that evening were friends and colleagues who would speak of Ryder's bravery and determination, including representatives of the Committee for Aid to Ex-Concentration Camp Survivors in Germany and former concentration camp inmates.


The programme opened with one of the most elaborate of all Life ruses, featuring an extended interview between Ryder and the actress Edana Romney. Onstage with Ryder and Romney sat five people who spoke no English. They were all originally from Poland and all now lived in German DP camps. The first was Tadeusz Moneta, identified in the programme by his first name only. Tadeusz had been only 15 when he was deported to Mauthausen in 1940. He had been imprisoned there for five years, finally hitchhiking his way home after the war to discover his family dead. Josef Mojcik had escaped from a forced labour camp only to be sent to Auschwitz, 'where five million people were exterminated'. Next was Stefan Szypanski, a member of the Polish underground who had been in Auschwitz and Flossenburg. The fourth person was Ludwig Jania, who 'after the most fearful interrogations [by the Nazis]' had been 'sent to a place we have all heard of - Dachau. The details of what he underwent there are too horrible to mention.' Finally came Captain Gruszynski, a Polish officer and POW who had spent seven years in different camps across Europe, These men were all homeless, all suffering from illness, physical injuries and mental scars which meant that they could not leave Germany. There were, Ryder explained to Romney, currently over 100,000 similar DPs across Europe, 'survivors of over twelve million who died or were exterminated during the war'. Unless something could be done, they were destined to remain DPs for the rest of their lives, condemned to live in the overcrowded former POW and slave labour camps, with little compensation for their treatment and no stimulation.


At that point, seven minutes into the programme according to a script annotation, the camera switched to Andrews who was seated in an offstage dressing-room. From there he explained that this elaborate opening was a subterfuge to surprise Ryder, an individual so prone to 'self-sacrifice' that it was suspected she would refuse to participate in what was planned. For that reason the announcement of the true purpose of the show was followed by the immediate presence onstage of Ryder's mother to ensure she remained. Once Ryder was safely seated in the 'chair of Honour' Andrews began the show proper, introducing it as 'a story of a young woman dedicated to helping people who were imprisoned and tortured in those infamous camps at Belsen, Buchenwald, Auschwitz and the rest'.


For the next 20 minutes, the audience learned of Ryder's extraordinary efforts on behalf of thousands of 'Forgotten Allies' trapped in camps across Europe. The next day Cecil McGivern, Deputy Director of Television Broadcasting, called it 'an excellent edition, most moving and, of course, most timely', a reference to the Armistice day commemorations and the recent plight of Hungarian refugees. The BBC's internal audience research gave viewing figures of 26 per cent of the adult public (55 per cent of the adult viewing public) and suggested that for many of them this had been the best This Is Your Life they had seen, giving it an RI of 76 (slightly above average of 72). There was a minority who were critical of the fact that it had been filmed in advance, that Ryder was too young and her life 'severely limited', and that the introduction was drawn out and muddled. But the majority felt she was an 'excellent choice'. Here was 'a life that really did deserve to be told, and no more fitting day than this could have been chosen', reported one viewer.


One of the critics was Ryder herself. She 'hated the limelight' and was initially uncertain about the programme, even if the day after the recording she thanked Jackson 'so very much indeed for all your wonderful help for this Cause'. If she had appeared ungracious at the outset, she continued, 'it was only because I felt deeply embarrassed and shocked that I was the centre of a programme which I should naturally have preferred dedicated solely to these brave and unfortunate people who endured such appalling sufferings'. With that in mind, Ryder asked Jackson if, when the programme was eventually broadcast, the viewer's attention could be drawn to the importance of hospital visiting and the patients.


Ryder herself missed the broadcast as she was 'dashing from Camp to Camp in Germany', but the public response was overwhelmingly positive. When donations and offers of help started coming in she realised, Andrews would later recall, that 'we [the programme makers] were trying to help, too'. By 12 December 1956 approximately £2066 had been received in donations. There was also a request from one viewer for contact details of the Polish workers who appeared on the programme, another from a member of the public who had adopted a Polish Displaced family, and another from a registered foster mother living in Kent who asked that Ryder be told 'we are quite willing to have 2 children, any nationality boys or girls preferably young, say under 7 or 8'.


Sue Ryder's appearance once again highlighted the heroic British response to the fate of refugees and MPs across Europe, making a neat parallel to Ida Cook's pre-war rescue efforts. It was another familiar story but unlike Cook's there was no newsreel footage involved in the retelling, as the programme considered more the aftermath and ongoing troubles rather than the historical persecution under Hitler. Furthermore, Ryder's story, rooted in the present, made reference to Auschwitz and a camp experience that went beyond Belsen, taking it into a realm of memory and memorialisation that was at that time unfamiliar for a British audience, starting to integrate both Britain and the Holocaust into a wider context. The next related episode, however, took a step backwards as it returned to the liberation of Belsen.

Series 2 subjects

Peter Scott | Ada Reeve | Peter Methven | Sue Ryder | Harry S Pepper | Compton Mackenzie | Maud Fairman | Billy Smart
Brian Hession | John Barbirolli | Duncan Guthrie | Esmond Knight | Sammy McCarthy | Edwin Madron | Diana Dors
Parry Jones | Percy Flood | G H Elliott | Stuart Hibberd