Big Red Book

Celebrating television's This Is Your Life

  

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THIS IS YOUR LIFE - Barbara Cartland, novelist, was surprised by Eamonn Andrews in the audience at the BBC Television Theatre.

Barbara, who was born into an upper-middle-class family in Edgbaston, Birmingham, was a flapper girl on the London social scene of the early 1920s, contributing to the society gossip columns of various newspapers. She used this experience as the basis of her first novel, Jigsaw, published in 1923 and described as 'Mayfair with the lid off'. She continued writing throughout the 1930s, specialising in contemporary and historical romance novels while providing articles and columns for various publications.

She developed an interest in politics and civic welfare, assisting her brother Ronald in his electoral campaign to become MP for King's Norton, Birmingham. Later, during the Second World War, she volunteered with the Auxiliary Territorial Service and the St John Ambulance Brigade. By the mid-1950s, Barbara had established herself as the Queen of Romance, having published 80 novels.

Barbara Cartland was a subject of This Is Your Life on two occasions - surprised again by Michael Aspel in November 1989 at Elstree Studios.

programme details...

• Edition No: 60
• Subject No: 60
• Broadcast live: Mon 24 Mar 1958
• Broadcast time: 8.00-8.30pm
• Venue: BBC Television Theatre
• Series: 3
• Edition: 26

on the guest list...

• Polly - mother
• Clare Wade
• Freda Breitmayer
• Georges Carpentier
• Ivy Allen
• Gp Capt Edward Mole
• Mrs Koby
• Joyce Camden
• William Knight
• Ald J A Canvin
• Raine, Viscountess Lewisham - daughter
• Elfrida Eden

related appearances...

• Katie Boyle - Nov 1982
• Norman Parkinson - Nov 1983

production team...

• Researchers: George Bruce, Bill Nolan
• Writer: Nigel Ward
• Director: Vere Lorrimer
• Producer: T Leslie Jackson

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

• with thanks to Ian McCorquodale for his contribution to this page

related pages...

Barbara Cartland

second tribute

A Novel Life

a page-turning good read

Life Second Time Around

surprised again!

The Audience

the applause, laughter and tears

Producing Life

the producers who steered the programme's success

The Big Red Book

the programme's icon

Photographs of Barbara Cartland This Is Your Life - and a photograph of Barbara Cartland's big red book

Barbara Cartland recalls her experience of This Is Your Life in her autobiography, We Danced All Night...

In May 1922, 2LO broadcast a commentary on a boxing match between Kid Lewis and the handsome heart-throb Georges Carpentier at Olympia. Of course, the Daily Mail was behind the enterprise, which I didn't see as I disliked boxing; but I was present at the three-minute Carpentier-Beckett fight at the Holborn Stadium in 1919, when the gate money of £30,000 broke all records.

When Eamonn Andrews interviewed me in the programme This Is Your Life in 1958 the BBC flew Georges Carpentier from France to meet me, Eamonn said to him:

'Wasn't it quite a new thing in 1919 for ladies to watch boxing?'

'In those days perhaps it was,' Carpentier replied, 'but it was always evening dress at the ringside, you know, and boxing had become a fashionable sport.'

'You were something of a social lion too, Georges.'

'People were very kind,' Carpentier smiled, 'and I enjoyed myself. I met many charming people over here, and I think of my visits with great affection. Ladies like Miss Cartland made me realise that, despite the war, England still retained something of the old elegance.'

'We were in love with you,' I told him as he kissed my hand.

Western Mail 25 March 1958

On TV last night

This was torture by TV

By Robert Graham

LAST night Miss Barbara Cartland won the final accolade of the successful writer: finding herself the victim of This Is Your Life.

But the script was against her. It flitted from one episode to the next like an ill-cut, jerky old newsreel. Miss Cartland's lively character was made lifeless.

Cardboard

No longer a real person, she became a link between today and Edwardian England, a cardboard cut-out leaping through successive hoops to the rattle of cliches.

Surely there can have been fewer funnier moments for any viewer than that in which a fanfare burst into fortissimo, the curtain on the dais parted, and the Mayor of a small city was presented to an expectant world.

Another worthy told the hot-under-the-collar Miss Cartland as an embarrassed Britain blushed, "You had tremendous drive and enthusiasm." She undoubtedly had, but we only heard about it, never saw it for ourselves, while the torture-by-television left her squirming.

Tight time-table

Worse still, the tight timetable which inhabits so many amateurs, ironed out the last flickers of spontaneity.

Mr Eamonn Andrews was visibly distressed when Miss Cartland's friends had said their leaden say, and went on to the chats which might have been so much more interesting.

---

The Liverpool Echo 25 March 1958

THE Cartlands (three generations) swept into This Is Your Life last night and gave us a singularly feminine and gushing half-hour.

The programme really belonged to Mrs Barbara Cartland, who has written 78 books and has still found time for various good works. Tributes to Mrs Cartland's sincerity, generosity, organising powers, charm, and maternal excellence flowed in an unceasing stream.

The studio rang with glad and ecstatic cries of greeting and warm approval. And Mrs Cartland, who unlike most of those who appear in this programme, registered not the slightest blink of surprise when Eamonn Andrews collected her from the audience, presided happily like a middle-aged sugar plum fairy.

And what better ending than a few well-chosen words (I resort to this hack phrase as being the only one applicable) from Lady Lewisham, looking like a younger sugar plum fairy.

---

Daily Herald 25 March 1958

TELE-PARADE

NO KNOCK-OUT THIS

By Andrew Smith

GEORGES CARPENTIER, one-time heavyweight champion of Europe, made a one-minute appearance on BBC Television last night.

Though in his 60s, he's still the debonair Georges. The face bears the lines of age, but the body is as lean and lithe as a young athlete's.

He bowed low to novelist Barbara Cartland, elegant in evening dress, and kissed her hand. For this he had been flown specially from Paris.

1919 FIGHT

Barbara was the latest "victim" of This Is Your Life. And Eamonn Andrews recalled that back in 1919 she had paid 25 guineas to see Carpentier knock out Joe Beckett in 73 seconds.

Eamonn thought this was frightfully daring in those days. Georges corrected him.

"In those days it was always evening dress at the ringside," he said. "Boxing had become fashionable, and there was no reason why a lady should not go."

Barbara blurted: "We were all in love with you."

Eamonn tried to present Barbara's life as a chapter in social history - the emancipation of woman. It didn't come off. There was too much Society gush. It's time this programme had a rest.

---

The Birmingham Post and Gazette 25 March 1958

LAST NIGHT

A Midland personality, Miss Barbara Cartland, was featured in the BBC television programme This Is Your Life. Among the people who added tributes to this elegantly gowned lady was her mother, a lively octogenarian, and her daughter, Viscountess Lewisham, also a picture of elegance in a lace gown, with an apron front and a bustle effect at the back.

The three generations posed together at the end, along with one of this year's debutantes, Elfreda Eden, who presented them with bouquets. A schoolmistress said that Miss Cartland was not particularly fond of English when she was young, yet she is the author of 78 published novels and two unpublished which she wrote as a child.

---

Evening Chronicle 25 March 1958

Last night

I MAKE no apologies for jumping on my favoured hobbyhorse. This Is Your Life is the silliest and the nastiest programme on either channel. When it is not prying and snooping (and often upsetting the victim) it is just superficial, skimming over the surface.

So it was last night. A battery of old and ageing dears swooned on Barbara Cartland. There were lots of embraces, Dahhrlings, and How Loovely-to-See-You's.

And at the end all we had learnt was that Miss Cartland had rather more silver spoons to start with than many people.

---

Hertfordshire Mercury 28 March 1958

Surprise

THE BBC television programme This Is Your Life on Monday focused attention on Mrs Barbara McCorquodale (Miss Barbara Cartland, the authoress), of Camfield Place, Hatfield. Mrs McCorquodale expressed surprise when the programme's compere, Mr Eamonn Andrews, walked into the audience and revealed that she was to be the subject of the programme. As she went on to the stage, she said to Mr Andrews, "I'll never forgive you for this, Eamonn." The first person to greet her was her mother, Mrs Bertram Cartland, who is over 80.

---

Sydenham Gazette 28 March 1958

Lady Lewisham & mother on TV

VISCOUNTESS LEWISHAM (formerly Mrs Gerald Legge) appeared on the television screen on Monday in This Is Your Life in company with her mother (Barbara Cartland, the novelist) and the latter's 80-years-old mother.

The three were shown sitting together after the close of a presentation by Eamonn Andrews of the life of Barbara Cartland.

In the recital the busy career of Lady Lewisham's mother was outlined in detail with plenty of anecdotes and one interesting incident was of her attending, about 1919, a boxing encounter between the French champion Georges Carpentier and Joe Beckett.

In this interlude Carpentier himself appeared on the screen - having come over from Paris - and made the comment that by this date boxing was becoming a fashionable sport. "Everybody was very kind to me," said Carpentier with a smile.

Writing

The story went on to outline how Barbara Cartland began to write books about 30 years ago and has written about eighty books in all.

She became interested in gliding and in the wartime was very busy in social and entertaining work for the troops and in connection with the St John Ambulance Brigade.

A speaker who was the Mayor of Bedford in 1944 observed that Barbara Cartland had the faculty of making a large number of voluntary workers, who were already working hard, work even harder.

It was described in the narrative also how her daughter the Viscountess Lewisham was brought out as a debutante at Court in 1947.

Bouquets

At this point Viscountess Lewisham herself appeared and in a tribute to her mother said she was always full of ideas, that whatever she did she was always out to win.

She was always ready also to listen and give encouragement when it was necessary.

At the end of the programme the three women - all charmingly dressed - representing three generations were presented with bouquets, amid an affectionate family scene.