Big Red Book
Celebrating television's This Is Your Life
Reverend Brian HESSION (1909-1961)
THIS IS YOUR LIFE – The Reverend Brian Hession, clergyman, filmmaker and campaigner, was surprised by Eamonn Andrews at the King's Theatre, Hammersmith, having been led to believe he was there to record a radio programme.
Brian devoted his life to the Church from the age of 16, and after studying at Cambridge University, he took up the position of Curate at Lee, near Blackheath, London, in 1933. Having later developed the idea of using films to spread his religious work, he established the Dawn Trust, an organisation which produced religious films. In 1936, he became Vicar of Holy Trinity Church in Aylesbury, where he continued his work with the Trust.
In 1949, he resigned from his post in Aylesbury to devote more time to filmmaking. While on a trip to the USA in 1954 to promote his films, Brian was diagnosed with stomach cancer and given four days to live. However, a surgeon willing to operate was found. Following successful surgery, Brian wrote about his survival and faith in his book Determined to Live and began campaigning for a greater understanding of cancer.
programme details...
- Edition No: 24
- Subject No: 24
- Broadcast live: Mon 7 Jan 1957
- Broadcast time: 7.15-7.45pm
- Venue: King's Theatre, Hammersmith
- Series: 2
- Edition: 9
on the guest list...
- Catrin - wife
- Jim Carey-Wood
- John Barnes
- Harry Woodward
- Rev Francis Roberts
- Florence Carpenter
- Dr Rolant-Thomas - mother-in-law
- Dr John Howard Payne
related appearance...
- Stories behind This Is Your Life - Jun 1957
production team...
- Researchers: Peter Moore, Nigel Ward
- Writer: Gale Pedrick
- Director: unknown
- Producer: T Leslie Jackson
celebrating the 'men of God'
Stories behind This Is Your Life
a review of the second series
This Is Your Life by Eamonn Andrews
Weekend Magazine reports from behind-the-scenes
Brian Hession recalls his experience of This Is Your Life in the end of series review programme, Stories behind This Is Your Life, broadcast in June 1957
Eamonn Andrews with Brian Hession on This Is Your Life
One of Andrew's victims in the second series of This Is Your Life was the Reverend Brian Hession, who was furious to have been tricked into participating, believing that he was being invited to give a radio talk raising public awareness of cancer. Hession sent round a public letter denouncing the BBC for their subterfuge. He was later offered a platform on the 'Flashback' programme at the end of the series, to get across the messages he had hoped to include in his radio broadcast. He told Eamonn Andrews that people needed to realise that cancer was not infectious in any way, and that it could be cured, or endured, by a combination of medical skill, human endeavour, and faith in God. Hession's initial anger was applauded in the press. One article wrote that he had been right to hit back against this 'deplorable' programme, while admitting that 'many of those who suddenly find themselves confronted by their past enjoy it a good deal, and that such tears as are shed are usually tears of sentiment.'
Manchester Evening News 8 January 1957
OUR TWO TELEVIEWS
ONE man's fight against cancer was the theme of last night's edition of BBC's "This Is Your Life", and it was one of the most enthralling of the series.
Anglican priest Brian Hession was told he had only four days to live, but he decided he had far too much work still to do to fall in with that. Thanks to his own faith and tenacity and the brilliance of an American surgeon he pulled through.
The BBC have a lot of faith too - in the pulling power of this programme. And they are not afraid of splashing their money about on it. Last night's expenses included two first-class air tickets from California for the surgeon and nurse who saved Hession's life.
It was well worth it, if only for the wonderful encouragement it must have been to other sufferers.
Daily Express 8 January 1957
I GROW more chary each week of the tactics of the American-style BBC programme "This Is Your Life". Last night the subject was the Rev Brian Hession, who in 1954 underwent a major operation for cancer and by a mixture of remarkable surgery and heroic will-power recovered.
This was a story worth retelling and last night, with a doctor and nurse flown specially from the States, it was well told.
But the most fascinating part of the programme was the devious plot devised to get Mr Hession to the King's Theatre, Hammersmith, without his realising that he was to be televised.
While he was at Broadcasting House discussing a radio programme with producer Stephen Black, they were asked to go to Lime Grove for further talks.
BEWILDERED
Innocently Mr Hession was driven to the King's Theatre, with cameras at the stage door and in the wings to show his unsuspecting approach.
He was quite bewildered - and apparently mightily annoyed - when he saw the bright lights, Eamonn Andrews, and the audience beyond, and realised he had been caught out for "This Is Your Life".
It looked for a moment as if he might refuse to perform. That is the main and awful fascination of this programme. One night someone WILL jib.
Later, Mr Hession said, "If I showed annoyance, it was because I thought my story much less important than the programme I had in mind."
The People 13 January 1957
WHAT a pity Dr Howard Payne, the American surgeon whose cancer operation saved the life of the Rev Brian Hession, was shuffled off "This Is Your Life" in such a hurry!
For if the doctor had been given more time to explain why his operation on Hession succeeded when thousands of other cancer operations fail, the hopes of scores of sufferers all over Britain might not have been raised - to no purpose.
After the programme dozens of cancer victims phoned and wrote to Lime Grove.
Dr Payne, they were convinced, must surely possess a magic cure-all for cancer!
The doctor himself, modest and unassuming, made no such stupid claim. In fact he went out of his way to attack the "cancer quacks".
All very fine. But surely Lime Grove must know by now that thousands of its listeners still got the idea that in America some "magic" surgery can cure all cancer - which, of course, is not so.
A few brief non-clinical words from Dr Payne could have put Brian Hession's case into some sort of perspective.
As it was, he was hustled on towards the end of the programme and allowed only a few warning words about quacks.
The day after the broadcast a group of leading British medics called Dr Payne to a hurried meeting.
What passed remains a secret. No statement was issued.
The BBC, I am assured, has done its best for the cancer sufferers who telephoned and wrote to it. They have passed on their enquiries to Dr Payne. Even so, the doctor should have had the chance to explain.
They dodged!
SOME "This Is Your Life" programmes have been dropped because their subjects heard their lives were being prepared for transmission.
Bud Flanagan was to be caught napping at a presentation dinner.
Eamonn Andrews was to step forward, then the show was to be screened from the spot. But Bud grew suspicious and dodged the occasion.
Then Billy Butlin caught a whisper of the plans for his "life." It couldn't be done! And David Niven also narrowly escaped the trap...
Finally, when Gilbert Harding heard that his boyhood associates were being questioned by the BBC, he soon tumbled to it.
The plan was to face Gilbert with "This Is Your Life" at the end of his last "What's My Line?" appearance.
News Chronicle 18 January 1957
HUNDREDS of television viewers yesterday got a circular from the Rev Brian Hession, 47-year-old ex-cancer victim, complaining that he was "tricked" into appearing in the BBC's This Is Your Life programme and "deceived on a most serious issue."
Said the letter: "I was tricked. I went there imagining that I was going to do a radio recording."
Mr Hession said a BBC producer calling himself Noel Waters (in reality Mr Nigel Ward, a member of the This Is Your Life team) offered him a radio broadcast because in 1954 he was given only four days to live and since then has tried to secure the creation of a United British Cancer Society.
"Mr Waters" took a tape recording and called in a cancer surgeon to vet it. Mr Hession thought he was on his way to the studio to discuss it when he found himself thrust before Eamonn Andrews on the stage of This Is Your Life.
The BBC said last night: "We do not think it was in bad taste," but they admitted there was no producer on the staff named Noel Waters.
Southern Daily Echo 18 January 1957
THE last victim of the BBC's deplorable This Is Your Life programme has been the first to hit back. We congratulate the Rev Brian Hession on sending a circular to televiewers explaining how he was tricked into appearing on the show.
Of course, every victim of the programme is tricked into it, otherwise there would be little point in putting it on. It must also be admitted that many of those who suddenly find themselves confronted by their past enjoy it a good deal, and that such tears as are shed are usually tears of sentiment.
It is a sad comment on this kind of entertainment that its organisers have to deceive somebody - either the audience, by pretending the victim's reactions are spontaneous, or the victim, by getting him to the studio under false pretences!
The Daily Telegraph 18 January 1957
'DRAGGED' ON TV
DAILY TELEGRAPH REPORTER
The Rev Brian Hession, 46, who was featured in the BBC television programme This Is Your Life on Jan 7, has written to viewers complaining at the way he was "tricked" into appearing in it.
He went to a meeting with BBC officials under the impression that he was to do a radio broadcast on cancer. Instead, he suddenly found himself in front of TV cameras in the programme which brings the principal face to face with people in his life.
Mr Hession, who lives at Canford Cliffs, Bournemouth, is author of the book "Determined to Live," in which he tells how he survived an operation for cancer after being given a few hours to live. His protest was contained in a circular answering people who saw the programme and wrote to him.
The letter says: "To those who wondered why I looked surprised or annoyed at meeting Eamonn Andrews in a lighted doorway in a dingy corridor on television I would say that I had been tricked, deceived and dragged there, imagining that I was going to do a radio broadcast recording."
HARD WORK ON SCRIPT
"I and some cancer doctors had been working hard on it to decide how to say just the right thing to trigger off the new way of thought in Britain."
"I have been assured by the producers, who have apologised for the fake, that I would no doubt be allowed to unfold the serious side of my mission on radio or television in the form of a constructive talk or a series of television programmes."
At his home last night Mr Hession said he received a letter from a "Mr Noel Waters" suggesting he should do a 20 to 30-minute programme on the problem of cancer and how it affected Britain. "Mr Waters" came to his home and made a tape recording of their discussion.
On the afternoon for which the programme was arranged he went over the script in a London hotel with a cancer surgeon. He then went to Broadcasting House for further discussions and while there was told that the talk should be continued at another studio.
He was then taken by car to the King's Theatre, Hammersmith, led straight inside and found himself facing television cameras. After the show, "Mr Waters" said he was Nigel Ward of the This Is Your Life team and apologised.
"ALL PART OF RUSE"
A BBC spokesman said last night that the "script" Mr Hession checked in the hotel was only a transcript of the discussion recorded at his home. The surgeon who checked it with him was in on the secret.
There were no plans for a radio programme for Mr Hession. "It was all part of the ruse. This programme did more good for his cause than any talk would have done."
Mr Hession is director of the Dawn Trust, an organisation devoted to making religious films. In 1949 he resigned his living as Vicar of Holy Trinity Church, Aylesbury, Bucks, to devote more time to film making.
Daily Express 18 January 1957
By CYRIL AYNSLEY
THE Rev Brian Hession, who was tricked by the BBC into appearing on the American-style TV programme "This Is Your Life", yesterday sent out scores of letters to viewers who had written to him about the programme.
"To those of you who wondered why I looked a little surprised or annoyed at meeting Eamonn Andrews in a lighted doorway in a dingy corridor on TV, I would say that I had been tricked, deceived, and dragged there imagining I was going to do a radio broadcast recording."
Forty-six-year-old Mr Hession was given four days to live in 1954. He was operated on by an American surgeon for cancer and by courage and remarkable surgery recovered.
He received a letter from a Mr Noel Waters, a fictitious name hiding the identity of Mr Nigel Ward, who is on the programme's production team.
The letter suggested he should write a script for a radio programme on his plans for a nationwide attack on cancer. "I said I was very keen to do it," said Mr Hession last night.
Response
He worked on the script, was met by "Mr Waters" at his home near Bournemouth.
On the day of the "This Is Your Life" programme, January 7, Mr Hession was taken to Broadcasting House for more talks.
It was suggested that they went to another studio, and he was taken by car to the King's Theatre, Hammersmith, where in front of a theatre audience and a TV audience of millions of viewers he was suddenly screened without warning. He looked bewildered and annoyed.
Last night the BBC said: It did more good for his cause than any talk could have done.
Evening News 18 January 1957
BRITAIN should be placed "on a war footing" to deal with the problem of cancer, says 47-year-old parson the Rev Brian Hession, who recently appeared on BBC television in the programme This Is Your Life.
Mr Hession, himself a former cancer sufferer, was three years ago given four days to live.
In a statement issued today he says: "To my mind tremendous reforms are needed in the medical services and concepts of the whole nation." He suggests that the five existing societies dealing with the problem should be merged into one United British Cancer Society. This united society would be capable of dealing with cancer in a manner "worthy of the British nation who are supposed to have been, down history, the greatest administrators."
'SHOULD BE ASHAMED'
"We should be ashamed, as a nation, of the inadequate way in which our Government and nation are tackling this problem. Unless something is done there will arise so many quacks to rob the people of money at a precious time, that the Minister of Health should squirm in his seat until he forces the Treasury to pour money out of the Defence Ministry into the Health Ministry, to build new hospitals, new clinics, and foster the work of a British Cancer Society."
Mr Hession explains the look of amazement, plain to viewers, when he found out the reason for which he had been lured to the studio. "In my heart I was surprised that the BBC... to put it vulgarly... had the guts to let anyone open his trap on such a subject," he says.
Series 2 subjects
Peter Scott | Ada Reeve | Peter Methven | Sue Ryder | Harry S Pepper | Compton Mackenzie | Maud Fairman | Billy SmartBrian Hession | John Barbirolli | Duncan Guthrie | Esmond Knight | Sammy McCarthy | Edwin Madron | Diana Dors
Parry Jones | Percy Flood | G H Elliott | Stuart Hibberd