Big Red Book
Celebrating television's This Is Your Life
Tom EVANS (1919-2001)
THIS IS YOUR LIFE - Thomas Horace Evans, former Royal Navy officer, was surprised by Eamonn Andrews outside the Two Brewers pub in Windsor.
Born in Portcawl, Wales, Tom moved to London where he found work in a factory, and became a keen sea cadet in his spare time. He joined the Navy at the outbreak of the Second World War and, after surviving the sinking of the Laurentic, was posted to HMS Exeter, which was sent to the East Indies where she was sunk by the Japanese in 1942.
About 800 Allied seaman, including Tom, were picked up by the Japanese and became prisoners of war. Tom was interned in Fukuoka Camp 2 outside Nagasaki for three years. On 9th August 1945 while working in the Nagasaki dockyards, Tom briefly escaped the glare of the guards and hid in a concrete shelter to have a cigarette.
It was exactly at that point the atom bomb was dropped on the city, and miraculously Tom survived, but with injuries which would lead to a series of operations on his return home at the end of the war. Despite his injuries Tom became a licensee and made a success of running the Two Brewers pub in Windsor.
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Series 7 subjects
Max Bygraves | Mario Borrelli | Alastair Pearson | Brian Rix | Derek Dooley | Elizabeth Twistington Higgins | Sandy MacPherson