This Is Your Life article

BRITAIN'S BREEZIEST COMMENTATOR WRITES EVERY Wednesday in The Evening Mail and takes you behind the scenes of TV's most popular programmes

EAMONN ANDREWS

DON'T be surprised if any day now the signature on this page reads Private Eye Andrews.

Last week I discoursed - in a broadcast by Detective-Inspector Marner - on the subject of "dips" and the light-fingered gentry to be found where people gather together in holiday mood.

Now I've just come back from visiting Scotland Yard. It's the first time I've ever been at the other end of a 999 call - which is, of course, in their famous Information Room, where understatement and unhurried efficiency seem to heighten the drama of the world's most famous centre of detection.

Right now, crime just doesn't stand a chance of paying while I'm around.

Detection does, however. For instance, although it took them quite a while, the "What's My Line?" panel this week uncovered the fact that our mystery celebrity was that suave and debonair English film star David Niven. The clue that came to Bob Monkhouse was the disguised voice that Niven had used on a broadcast years before.

Life story

I HAVE permission to tell you a secret. I almost met David Niven on This Is Your Life.

Our investigators had found a life story behind the actor that for excitement and amusement rivalled many of the fiction films in which he has appeared.

We discovered when he was likely to be in this country and went about preparing what we hoped was going to be a very pleasant surprise for him.

As is our practice on this programme we contacted people near and dear to him for their advice, their help and their assurances - as best they could - that the subject of our tribute would not take exception to what we had in mind.

But one of the people we saw - no doubt with the best intentions in the world - contacted David himself to check whether he would mind or not.

Bang went the whole vital element of surprise. We had to cancel the programme.

Frightening

THIS week's edition of the programme, however, kept its surprise. We pictured the life story of Hugh Oloff de Wet, ex-RAF pilot, ex-member of the Abyssinian Air Force, ex-airman of the Spanish Civil War, ex-spy, ex-prisoner of the Gestapo for six dreadful years, and present painter and sculptor of exceptional talent.

It was a sombre programme. It was at times a frightening one. Many people felt it was a programme we should never have done.

Unbearable

ONE member of the orchestra who played background music to our story even asked to be excused and left the theatre because he could not bear to watch it.

But to me and to the many who offered congratulations afterwards it was an uplifting portrayal of the miracle that war and persecution and torture and degradation so often founder against - the miracle of one man's mind and soul and courage.

To me, it is something well worth remembering and well worth noting at any time in the history of the world.