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Celebrating television's This Is Your Life

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THIS IS YOUR LIFE - John Joseph O'Neill, jockey, was surprised by Eamonn Andrews in the foyer of Thames Television’s Euston Road Studios, having been led to believe he was there for an interview with Dickie Davies.

Jonjo, who was born in Castletownroche, Ireland and began riding horses at the age of 6, earned an apprenticeship at 16 under trainer Michael Connolly at his Kildare stables before moving to Britain in 1972 to ride for Gordon Richards at Castle Stables in Cumbria.

Having turned freelance in 1976, Jonjo became a dominant force in National Hunt racing, named champion jockey in the 1977–78 season, with a record-breaking 149 winners, and regaining the top spot again in 1979–80 season, with 115 winners, including the Cheltenham Gold Cup.

programme details...

• Edition No: 571
• Subject No: 567
• Broadcast date: Wed 25 Mar 1981
• Broadcast time: 7.00-7.30pm
• Recorded: Tue 24 Mar 1981
• Venue: Royalty Theatre
• Series: 21
• Edition: 24
• Code name: Gold

on the guest list...

• Dickie Davies
• Michael Wale
• Peter O'Sullevan
• Sheila - wife
• Pat Muldoon
• Mick Connolly
• John Dixon
• Ginger McCain
• Dave Goulding
• Tim Eastbury
• Ron Barry
• Terry Biddlecombe
• Fred Winter
• Thomas - father
• Jerome - brother
• Dennis - brother
• Thomas - brother
• John Joseph - uncle
• Margaret-Rose Hunter
• David Hunter
• John Hunter
• Don Reid
• Gordon Richards
• Emlyn Hughes
• Terry McDermott
• Audrey - mother-in-law
• Stanley - father-in-law
• Louise - daughter

production team...

• Researcher: Katie Lander
• Writers: Tom Brennand, Roy Bottomley
• Directors: Stuart Hall, Terry Yarwood, Paul Stewart Laing
• Producer: Jack Crawshaw

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

Equestrian Life

from racing to show jumping

Terry Biddlecombe

Dickie Davies

Emlyn Hughes

Screenshots of Jonjo O'Neill This Is Your Life

Jonjo O'Neill recalls his experience of This Is Your Life in his autobiography, Jonjo: An Autobiography...

Before catching an early-morning train from Carlisle to London Euston in March 1981, I presented Sheila with a long list of jobs and instructions for the builders who were busy altering and rebuilding Ivy House, which we had bought the previous year. I asked her to drive the eight miles from Deep Ghyll at Plumpton to Skelton Wood End to be certain that they understood exactly what was required. I caught the train totally unsuspecting that Sheila would be aboard a London-bound train only an hour after me. And if I had known the yarn she span to the builders over the phone the moment I walked out of the house I think I would have been asking some leading questions! Little wonder the builders found plenty to gossip about.

Sheila telephoned, explained my instructions, then signed off by saying, 'I'm going away for a couple of days, but Jonjo doesn't know. If he rings don't tell him I have not been over to deliver his list personally and don’t say anything about my being away.'

Sheila recalls that she could almost hear the builder's imagination working overtime down the phone and was fully aware of the extent to which she had set tongues wagging. She had told me she would be staying with her mother Audrey, at Ivegill, three miles from Ivy House. But she did not say that the phone would be taken off the hook to prevent me ringing up. John Lowthian had organised two radio interviews for me in London that Monday, 23 March 1981. The following day I was to attend an ITV pre-Grand National dinner. I met up with Colin Turner, racing correspondent of LBC, and he duly extracted the necessary news and views from me on the subjects of injury and the build-up to the Grand National. Later in the day I explored the London shops, taking periodic breaks to try to ring Sheila at her mother's to check on the builders' progress. I could not understand why the number was continually engaged. I still had not dialled through by the evening and was beginning to spit and curse into the mouthpiece each time I lifted a telephone. I arrived at the Thames Television Studios early on Tuesday evening and only seconds after I had put a boiled sweet in my mouth Eamonn Andrews appeared from nowhere to announce, 'This is your life,' and lead me into the studios and onto the stage, where, of course, I met Sheila and little Louise, to say nothing of my family from Ireland and many friends in racing.

Thanks to Sheila's and her family's discreet handling of the build-up to the programme I was taken by complete surprise. It was a moving experience, particularly when two-year-old Louise walked through the sliding doors onto the stage after we had been watching film of her on her pony Sparky at Becher's Brook and in the winners enclosure at Aintree. I felt honoured that I should have been considered a suitable subject for a programme with such a wide audience. But when I came down to earth I began to wonder if, at twenty-nine, they hadn't missed rather a large chunk of my life.

The builders and workmen at Ivy House thought it was the funniest television programme they had seen after the instructions they had received from Sheila!