Big Red Book
Celebrating television's This Is Your Life
Francis CAMMAERTS DSO, MA (1916-2006)
THIS IS YOUR LIFE - Francis Cammaerts, headmaster and former SOE agent, was surprised by Eamonn Andrews at the BBC Television Theatre, having been led to believe he is there for makeup tests for a future programme.
Francis, who studied at St Catherine's College, Cambridge, before becoming a schoolmaster at Beckenham Penge County School, registered as a conscientious objector at the outbreak of the Second World War and was sent to work as a shepherd in Lincolnshire. However, following the death of his brother Pieter, his views changed, and being fluent in French, he applied to join the Special Operations Executive, a clandestine organisation formed to encourage and facilitate espionage and sabotage behind enemy lines.
After training, Francis was flown into France in February 1943 and became an outstanding SOE agent, organising raids and sabotage in support of the advancing Allies against the German occupation, and was at one point in command of over 200,000 armed underground fighters. After the war, Francis returned to teaching and later became the headmaster of Alleyne's Grammar School in Stevenage.
programme details...
- Edition No: 64
- Subject No: 64
- Broadcast live: Mon 28 Apr 1958
- Broadcast time: 8.45-9.15pm
- Venue: BBC Television Theatre
- Series: 3
- Edition: 30
on the guest list...
- John Brocklesby
- Nan - wife
- Harry Ree
- Andre Simon
- Col Maurice Buckmaster
- Adolphe Glise
- Auguste Floiras
- Joanna - daughter
- Nicola - daughter
- Pat O'Regan
- John Newsom
- David Harding
- John Lloyd
- Peter West
- James Hemming
- Fielden Hughes
production team...
- Researchers: Ken Smith, Michael Williams
- Writers: Ken Smith, Michael Williams
- Director: unknown
- Producer: T Leslie Jackson
saluting the armed forces
Evening Telegraph 29 April 1958
WHEN a schoolboy comes along to say that everybody likes a headmaster, we can be fairly sure we are dealing with a remarkable character.
All we heard about Francis Cammaerts in This Is Your Life confirmed this.
We were not surprised to learn that none of the boys know about his magnificent war record: even Eamonn Andrews found it very hard to get anything out of him either...
There was a heart-warming tribute from one of his former fellow members in the Maquis: "He would never let you down."
The Birmingham Post and Gazette 29 April 1958
In recalling wartime experiences of Francis Cammaerts, DSO, MA, This Is Your Life on BBC television achieved its finest programme. This life was worth telling and, incidentally, threw dramatic light on a phase of the fighting that we still appreciate too little.
When war began Francis Cammaerts was a conscientious objector but changed his opinions and was enrolled for special service with the French Resistance.
Among the many colleagues and collaborators who came forward to testify to his coolness and bravery were Col Buckmaster, a Resistance leader and a wireless operator from France, and a pilot who dropped him into France who had flown in from Ankara.
Lincolnshire Echo 30 April 1958
THE subject of this week's This Is Your Life programme on BBC television was a man who, registering as a conscientious objector at the beginning of the war, became a saboteur with the resistance movement in France. As a C.O. Francis Cammaerts came to Lincolnshire, to become a shepherd for Mr John Brocklesby, of Lissington, near Market Rasen, a well-known breeder of Lincoln Longwools. Mr Brocklesby quickly developed a great affection for the man who joined him in such unusual circumstances and he told us "he showed us he could plough and mow but his real interest seemed in sheep."
The Standard 2 May 1958
SUBJECT of BBC Television's This Is Your Life on Monday evening – Lt.Col. FRANCIS CAMMAERTS, DSO, one-time conscientious objector who became a hero of the French Resistance, has been a regular visitor to Boston in recent years.
On a number of occasions he has stayed with his friend of their Cambridge days, Holland County Education Officer MR A W NEWSOM. And has addressed several local organisations, including the Rotary Club, the British Legion and the French Club.
Another man who appeared in the programme, MR HARRY REE, was in Boston last summer addressing the primary head teachers' conference.
He was the man who gave Col Cammaerts some of his early "cloak and dagger" training, and Mr Newsom, who naturally watched the programme with especial interest, tells me that their careers have been almost parallel.
At Cambridge together, both started the war as conscientious objectors. Both changed their opinions - and served with the French Resistance, and both are now headmasters in Hertfordshire - Ree at Watford Grammar School and Cammaerts at Alleyne's Grammar School, Stevenage.
HE MISSED IT
ALSO IN the programme was MR JOHN NEWSOM, former Director of Education for Hertfordshire, and now director of a publishing company, who is the cousin of Holland's Education Officer.
He was due to present the prizes at Boston High School speech day last autumn, but was prevented from attending through illness. Now it is hoped that he will be here for the school's next speech day.
One man who missed the programme and was afterwards sorry that he had done so was MR WALTER TRICK, of Pump Square.
He, too, knows a number of people taking part, including Cannes hotelier ADOLPH GLISE - the man whose cycle Col Cammaerts borrowed.
Last summer Mr and Mrs Trick spent a holiday at his hotel, taking with them a letter of introduction from Col Cammaerts. "And we had a wonderful time," Mr Trick told me.
A Lincolnshire flavour was given to the programme by the appearance of MR JOHN BROCKLESBY, of Lissington, with whom Cammaerts worked as a shepherd during his C.O. days, and who is well-known over a large part of the county as a singer, as well as a farmer and sheep breeder.
The News 2 May 1958
SUBJECT of the television programme This Is Your Life, on Monday was Mr Francis Cammaerts, ex-master of the Beckenham and Penge Grammar School for Boys.
Under the code name of "Roget" Mr Cammaerts was one of the leading members of the French Resistance in the last war, although at first he had refused to fight against the Germans because of his pacifist convictions.
The studio audience sat hushed as the compere of the show Eamonn Andrews told how Mr Cammaerts had begun the war as a Lincolnshire shepherd and then joined Colonel Buckmaster's special operations organisation.
"Francis Cammaerts was ideal for the job," said Colonel Buckmaster. "I would pick him for a job of that kind any day of the week."
MAN OF MODESTY
Mr Cammaerts was captured by the Germans in France, but before he was due to be executed a guard was bribed and he managed to escape.
"A man of modesty and courage who would never let you down," said Eamonn Andrews.
"Francis Cammaerts was one of that remarkable band of young men who were on the staff at the time," said the headmaster of the Beckenham and Penge Grammar School, Mr L W White.
Mr Cammaerts was at the school in 1938, he has degrees in English and History. He was in charge of hockey at the school.
South Yorkshire Times 3 May 1958
Was in TV Programme
Mr John Brocklesby, cousin of Mr Philip Brocklesby. MBE, president of Mexborough Rotary Club, appeared on the BBC programme This Is Your Life, on Monday, when the subject was headmaster, Mr Francis Cammaerts.
Mr Philip Brocklesby saw the programme on his television set at his home, 39, Holywell Lane, Conisbrough.
A farmer, of Liffington, near Market Rasen, his cousin helped to tell the life of Francis Cammaerts. He began the story by telling how Mr Cammaerts worked on his farm in Lincolnshire because he was a conscientious objector in the Second World War, how he later changed his views and went into the Secret Service.
Rotarian Brocklesby's father, the late Mr John Brocklesby, had one brother, George, father of Mr John Brocklesby, the subject of this story. Mr John Brocklesby was named after his Conisbrough uncle.
Evening Sentinel 14 June 1958
Headmaster was wartime hero - Well merited honours - More pottery dialect
AN unofficial accolade which probably at one stroke, makes those who receive it more widely known than almost anybody in the Honours Lists, is an appearance as the central figure in the This Is Your Life series on BBC television.
One of the most gallant and picturesque figures so recognised was a distinguished guest during the 440th anniversary celebrations at Alleyne's Grammar School, Uttoxeter, this week - Mr Francis Charles Albert Cammaerts, the 41-years-old Headmaster of Alleyne's Grammar School at Stevenage, Hertfordshire.
This quiet, studious, cultured man who has "no time for hobbies - the school keeps me busy" - started the war as a conscientious objector and finished it as a Lieutenant-Colonel with seven decorations, including the DSO, the French Legion of Honour and Croix de Guerre and the American Medal of Freedom.
With a price on his head, he was captured by the Gestapo and missed the firing squad by 60 minutes.
Bluff worked
IN 1943 he was parachuted into France, where he stayed for nearly two years, organising the Maquis in the Plateau of Vercors area. He was arrested in August, 1944, taken with two others to a prison camp and there sentenced to be shot.
"An hour before the execution was due," he says, "Mrs Christine Granville - the former Polish countess, who was stabbed to death in a London basement flat in 1952 - walked into the camp and told the sergeant-major in charge he had three important prisoners on his hands. She added that if they were shot, she would see that the Americans, then on their way to liberate the area, shot him."
"The bluff succeeded. We were released. Mrs Granville knew that if she had had to deal with an out-and-out Nazi she would have been shot with the rest of us. She was one of the bravest women I ever knew."
Poet's son
FOR two years after the war Mr Cammaerts worked in Brussels. (He is the son of the Belgian poet and dramatist, Emile Cammaerts, whose "Sing, Belgians, Sing," set to music by Elgar, stirred millions of Allied hearts in the 1914-18 war).
But the lure of England, where he was born, proved too strong, and he came to live here in 1948. A teacher before the war, he has been head of Alleyne's at Stevenage for six years.
He was able for some time to keep his war exploits from most of his pupils.
This Is Your Life ended all that. He is now a headmaster with the curious distinction of being much sought after by the pupils. They want his autograph!
The Bookery website 15 June 2018
In the 1950s, Francis Cammaerts was Headmaster of Alleyne's Grammar School for Boys, Stevenage. His authority was never in question. Imposingly tall and military of bearing, he never spoke of his own part in World War II. So pupils and staff were astonished one evening to find their Head was the subject of Eamonn Andrews's hugely popular television show, This Is Your Life. They learned that their reticent Headmaster had been one of the most effective agents in the Special Operations Executive, parachuted into Southern France to work with the French Resistance, disrupting the operations of the German army. The next morning the school cheered him into Assembly, no doubt much to his embarrassment.
He occupied leadership roles throughout his life - in the War, then in Education, including running teacher training colleges in Africa and, closer to home for us, a spell in the 1970s in charge of the highly-regarded Rolle College in Exmouth.
He was also the uncle of our Bookshop's patron. Sir Michael Morpurgo. Michael has long acknowledged the debt he owes to his two uncles, Francis and his brother Pieter - for the values and example they bequeathed to him when, as a small boy at the end of WWII, he learned a little from family stories about their parts in the conflict. Without them, there might have been no War Horse, no Private Peaceful. Francis had been a conscientious objector at the outset of the war, but the self-sacrificing death in a plane crash of his brother Pieter, a Sergeant Navigator in the RAF, set him on the path which led to his role in the SOE.
Michael Morpurgo's new novel, in the Mouth of the Wolf, finds Francis, aged 90, living In a village in the Languedoc. Francis tells his own story, beginning with the birthday party the village had organised earlier in the day in his honour. As he lies in bed that night, he summons up seven people who helped to shape his own life during the War. In his mind, he speaks to each of them - his father, his brother Pieter, his wife Nan, whom he met when she worked alongside him on the Lincolnshire farm where he'd been sent as a pacifist. Then he thinks of Harry Ree, the friend whose career as a co-ordinator in the Resistance and In postwar Education paralleled his own - it was Harry who first pointed him towards the SOE. He remembers comrades in the Resistance; his courageous radio operator, Auguste; Christine, the Polish countess, whose daring saved him at the last minute from the Gestapo firing squad; and Paul Heraud, whom Francis called 'freedom fighter supreme'.
Francis's memories provide an accessible framework to take young readers (maybe around 10-14) through the narrative of Francis's war, many pages enhanced by images from the distinguished French illustrator, Barroux. Young Adult and adult readers might move on to Ray Jenkins's excellent biography, A Pacifist at War, (Arrow, £10.99 pbk) which offers detailed - and revelatory - accounts of Cammaerts' war, as well as recording his subsequent career as an innovative educator.
Series 3 subjects
Albert Whelan | Colin Hodgkinson | Vera Lynn | Arthur Christiansen | John Logie Baird | Richard Carr-Gomm | Jack TrainEdith Powell | Anne Brusselmans | Norman Wisdom | Victor Silvester | Jack Petersen | Lucy Jane Dobson
David Bell | Matt Busby | Minnie Barnard | Gordon Steele | Louie Ramsay | Tubby Clayton | Daniel Angel
Anna Neagle | 'Dapper' Channon | Frederick Stone | Paul Field | Noel Purcell | Barbara Cartland
Harry Secombe | Archie Rowe | Humphrey Lyttelton | Francis Cammaerts | A E Matthews