Big Red Book

Celebrating television's This Is Your Life

  

• HOME
• |
• SERIES
• |
• SUBJECTS
• |
• FEATURES
• |
• ARTICLES
• |
• INTERVIEWS
• |
• ABOUT

THIS IS YOUR LIFE - Humphrey Lyttelton, jazz musician, was surprised by Eamonn Andrews on the stage of the BBC Television Theatre, having been led to believe he was taking part in a variety programme which had been hastily prepared as a replacement for an edition of This Is Your Life which was cancelled after the press had exposed the intended subject.

'Humph', as he was affectionately known, was born in Eton, where his father was a housemaster. He developed a love of jazz while still at school, teaching himself the trumpet. After enlisting in the Army in 1939, he spent a year volunteering at the Port Talbot steel plate works before being commissioned into the Grenadier Guards, where he formed a band while training at Sandhurst Academy.

After the war, he studied at the Camberwell School of Art and later joined the Daily Mail as a cartoonist while continuing to play the trumpet on the burgeoning London jazz scene, having joined the George Webb Dixielanders. He formed his own band in 1948 and became a prominent figure in the British revival of the traditional jazz sound, which originated in New Orleans.

programme details...

• Edition No: 63
• Subject No: 63
• Broadcast live: Mon 21 Apr 1958
• Broadcast time: 8.45-9.15pm
• Venue: BBC Television Theatre
• Series: 3
• Edition: 29

on the guest list...

• Rose Bourne - sister
• Nat Gonella
• Sim Saville
• Fred Hurley
• Barry MacKay
• Carlo Krahmer
• Lynn Dutton
• George Webb
• Wilfred Norton
• Wally Fawkes
• Dr Norman McSwan
• James MacGibbon
• Jill - wife
• Mary Stewart-Cox - sister
• Simon Burt
• Shirley Abicair
• Al Fairweather
• Keith Christie
• Bruce Turner
• John Dankworth

related appearances...

• Nat Gonella - Feb 1960
• Cliff Michelmore and Jean Metcalfe - Dec 1986
• George Melly - Apr 1993
• Barry Cryer - Jan 1995
• Helen Shapiro - May 1995
• Benny Green - Feb 1996

production team...

• Researchers: George Bruce, Bill Nolan
• Writer: Bill Nolan
• Director: unknown
• Producer: T Leslie Jackson

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

• with thanks to Stephen Lyttelton for his contribution to this page

related pages...

All that Jazz

covering all the notes

This Was Almost His 'Life'

A rare press reporting of a cancelled programme

John Dankworth

Nat Gonella

Photographs of Humphrey Lyttelton This Is Your Life - and a photograph of Humphrey Lyttelton's big red book

News Chronicle 22 April 1958

IN MY VIEW

36 hours to hoax Humph

THE men who keep the BBC's biggest secret every week scored well last night.

A programme like This Is Your Life which depends so much on surprise, is always poised near disaster as the history of the "victim" is being accumulated without his knowledge.

This week the intended victim learned what was going to happen to him if he set foot near Shepherd's Bush.

With 36 hours to go, producer Leslie Jackson and his team of three researchers and two writers had to build up a new "life" of an entirely different person.

Fish and chips

Fish and chips and red wine fortified them as they worked throughout Friday night.

At 9 a.m. on Saturday they made the last of their dozens of night calls, to ask an army officer's wife in Malaya if she would catch the next plane to England.

So it was that Mrs Mary Stewart-Cox flew 10,000 miles from Bahra, near Johore, to join jazzmen and others turning back the pages in the history of bandleader Humphrey Lyttelton, who first played trumpet when he was at Eton.

Lyttelton had been brought to the cameras under the impression that he was to perform in a show to replace the cancelled programme.

He proved to be one of the least surprised, but certainly most charming "lifers" yet.

He may have had his suspicions but no one told him what was going to happen, until Eamonn Andrews appeared.

Norman Hare

---

Halifax Daily Courier and Guardian 22 April 1958

Eye on TV

THE publicised predicament facing This Is Your Life - when the secret of whose life it was to be leaked out - resolved itself without perceptible difficulty last night. In fact, one wondered whether the producers had not welcomed the opportunity to show how quickly they could work.

Ostensibly recruited to take part in the substitute variety programme, Humphrey Lyttelton found himself as the central figure. As the procession of former associates, hands outstretched, came from behind the closed curtains to pay their tributes, he fingered his lips and clutched his trumpet with embarrassed modesty.

With the usual flourish Eamonn Andrews conjured up Mr Lyttelton's sister - flown 10,000 miles from Johore at a few hours' notice - and regular viewers of the programme must have detected just an extra note of triumph in Mr Andrews's voice as he dispensed the last item in the formula with the presentation of the album and the declaration "This Is Your Life."

---

Daily Herald 22 April 1958

TELE-PARADE

Fast work to trap 'Humph'

By Andrew Smith

SMART work, BBC! Eamonn Andrews went on last night despite the "leak" which caused Alexander Samuels (Mr Traffic) to be withdrawn from the programme.

The BBC learned on Friday that somebody had warned Mr Samuels of the trap set for him. So producer Leslie Jackson and his three research team workers and two script writers worked all through the night preparing a new show.

Jackson plied his team with fish and chips - with red wine to stimulate ideas.

Humphrey Lyttelton was invited to take part in a variety show which he believed was replacing This Is Your Life.

Jazz friends and old Army pals were taken into the secret. BBC officials phoned and cabled Humphrey's sister in Malaya, where her husband is in the Army.

She flew across two continents to reach London at 9.30 am yesterday.

And at 8.45 pm she joined the party in the TV theatre where Humphrey was stopped in the middle of his act to be told: "This Is Your Life."

---

Evening Telegraph 22 April 1958

THE lively personality of Humphrey Lyttelton shone through the friendly tributes paid him in This Is Your Life. His successful career, as musician, cartoonist and writer, were recounted in a programme hurriedly put together as a replacement.

Flying a sister 10,000 miles from Malaya, a gesture typical of this programme, never fails to bring a lump to my throat, even though something like it has been done so often before.

---

Daily Express 22 April 1958

HUMPH GETS TV SHOCK

Old Etonian jazz-man Humphrey Lyttelton went to the BBC Television Theatre last night to fill in for a This Is Your Life programme which had been called off. He was stopped in the middle of a number to go under the spotlight himself.

Said the producer, T Leslie Jackson: "I'm worn out - this was all fixed in 48 hours."

The programme's 12,000,000 viewers should have seen Eamonn Andrews bring Alex Samuels, the traffic expert, before the cameras. But Mr Samuels found that he was to be the subject.

---

Evening Sentinel 23 April 1958

On the mark

TOP marks to the BBC for the last-minute improvisation of This Is Your Life, after someone had blown the gaff on the original subject - the production nightmare with this programme.

The hurried assembly of tributes to jazz virtuoso, old Etonian Humphrey Lyttelton - including that of his sister, whisked almost overnight 10,000 miles from Malaya - maintained the feature's reputation.

In fact, I thought its spontaneity lifted it above some programmes recently, where carefully rehearsed tributes have been obvious.

---

South London Observer 24 April 1958

SURPRISE FOR "HUMPH"

Jazz trumpeter Humphrey Lyttelton, chosen as this week's This Is Your Life subject on BBC television, had a surprise on Monday when his old tutor from Camberwell Arts School came on to the stage.

Humphrey was a student there when he intended to take up art as a career.

The tutor, Mr Wilfred Norton, said "Humph" would have made a successful artist - though would not have been likely to make so much money as he has as a jazz musician.

---

Reynolds News 4 May 1958

OTHERS MORE DESERVING, BUT -

It's fun being a Life man

By HUMPHREY LYTTELTON

IT may seem almost indecent to say it, but I rather enjoyed being the victim of This Is Your Life a fortnight ago.

No one but a balloon-head would relish the "tribute" aspect of the thing – the procession of kind people coming forward to tell generous fibs about one's character and deeds.

From this point of view, I fared better than some of the more meritorious and saintly people who have been put on the spot.

Apart from the gush, though, one cannot but enjoy the opportunity of meeting old friends and having a party.

We had a get-together afterwards in the BBC hospitality room – and in true jazz-party tradition the refreshments vanished as speedily and as thoroughly as if a swarm of locusts had passed through.