Big Red Book
Celebrating television's This Is Your Life
Harry PATTERSON (1929-2022)
THIS IS YOUR LIFE - Harry Patterson, author, was surprised by Eamonn Andrews while walking through Leicester Square in London’s West End.
Harry, who was born in Newcastle but grew up in Belfast and Leeds, worked as a clerk for Leeds Corporation before attending teacher training college after completing his national service with the Royal Horse Guards Regiment. He began writing and published several novels under his own name and various pseudonyms while teaching, before quitting the profession to become a full-time novelist.
Adopting the pen name Jack Higgins from the late 1960s, Harry had two minor bestsellers with the contemporary thrillers The Savage Day and A Prayer for the Dying. But it was the publication of his thirty-sixth book, The Eagle Has Landed, in 1975, that secured his reputation. The book, set during the Second World War, sold 5 million copies in 31 languages and was adapted into a film in 1976.
"It's a joke! I don't believe it!"
programme details...
- Edition No: 492
- Subject No: 490
- Broadcast date: Wed 17 May 1978
- Broadcast time: 7.00-7.30pm
- Recorded: Wed 10 May 1978
- Venue: Euston Road Studios
- Series: 18
- Edition: 25
- Code name: Henry
on the guest list...
- Judy Geeson
- Sarah - daughter
- Sean - son
- Hannah - daughter
- Amy - wife
- Rita - mother
- Cliff - stepfather
- Denis Horner
- Jimmy Savile
- David Scott
- Joe Cooper
- Shirley Cooper
- Sylvia Hutchinson
- Rev Reginald MacKenzie
- Jack Douglas
- Su Douglas
- Leslie Thomas
- Ruth - daughter
production team...
- Researchers: John Viner, Lavinia Warner
- Writer: Tom Brennand, Roy Bottomley
- Directors: Terry Yarwood, Peter Webb
- Producer: Jack Crawshaw
- names above in bold indicate subjects of This Is Your Life
Screenshots of Harry Patterson This Is Your Life
The film based on his book The Eagle Has Landed had just opened in Leicester Square on 10 May 1978, when author Harry Patterson – he took the pen name Jack Higgins from a deceased relative – was 'ambushed' by Eamonn Andrews and one of the stars of the film, Judy Geeson.
The former office boy in the Leeds Corporation Cleansing Department had written now fewer than forty books under five different pen names – and did not become a full-time writer until he was forty.
His daughter, Sarah, had written a best-seller The Distant Summer when only fourteen.
Harry had taken a BSc by correspondence course to become a college lecturer. The story of how he risked all to become a writer might have come from a novel.
He was on holiday in Cornwall, visiting the ancient church of St Kew. The vicar spotted him and thought he looked like a man with something on his mind. They got talking and the vicar advised Harry to follow the example of Winston Churchill: list the pros and cons of being a college lecturer and compare them with a similar list of being a full-time writer. Follow whichever came out on top.
Harry Patterson did exactly that, following the advice of the vicar at that one and only meeting nine years before. Their second meeting was on the Life, and the Reverend Reginald MacKenzie had no idea – until we told him – that the man he advised that day was now an internationally best-selling author.
Series 18 subjects
Richard Beckinsale | Peter Ustinov | Virginia Wade | Robert Arnott | Lin Berwick | Bob Paisley | The Bachelors | David BroomeArthur English | Barry Sheene | Margot Turner | Pat Coombs | Michael Croft | Max Boyce | Nicholas Parsons | Richard Goolden
Ian Hendry | Marti Caine | Ian Wallace | Dennis Waterman | Anton Dolin | Terry Wogan | William Franklyn | Richard Murdoch
Harry Patterson | Jule Styne | Mike Yarwood