Big Red Book

Celebrating television's This Is Your Life

  

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

THIS IS YOUR LIFE - Lucy Jane Dobson, retired seamstress, was surprised by Eamonn Andrews in the audience at the BBC's Dickenson Road Studios in Manchester.

Lucy, who was born and raised in Hulme, Manchester, worked as a seamstress from the age of 14, having been taught to sew by her mother. She initially worked in factories on steam-driven machines but later worked from home making wedding dresses for the local mill girls. In 1895 she went to work as a nurse, with her mother as matron, at a workhouse, the Erpingham Union Hospital in Norfolk.

Having returned to Manchester, she met her husband William Dobson while teaching Sunday School at the All Saints Parish Church in Gorton, and after marrying in 1901, they set up home in West Gorton. In 1912 they moved to seek work in Glasgow, where Lucy went into private service as a Cook. After William died in 1936, Lucy returned to Manchester and settled in Wythenshawe, where she took up sewing and dress-making again until she retired aged 81.

This edition of This Is Your Life raised the issue of loneliness at Christmas time, and Lucy was chosen as a subject because she otherwise 'would have been lonely on Christmas Day'.

programme details...

• Edition No: 47
• Subject No: 47
• Broadcast live: Mon 23 Dec 1957
• Broadcast time: 7.30-8.00pm
• Venue: BBC Studios, Manchester
• Series: 3
• Edition: 13

on the guest list...

• George Thornton - brother
• Harriet Jones - sister
• Isabel Hunter
• Mrs Plunkett
• Mrs Walsh
• Martin Walsh
• Gladys Winton
Recorded tribute:
• Espie Blackater

production team...

• Researchers: George Bruce, Michael Friend
• Writer: Peter Moore
• Director: unknown
• Producer: T Leslie Jackson

related pages...

Jack of all Trades

from domestic cleaner to teacher

'This Is Your Life' But It Dominates MINE!

Producer Leslie Jackson recalls some heart-stopping moments

The Liverpool Echo 24 December 1957

TELECRIT

BBC Television last night focused attention on the prospects for Christmas of old people. "Panorama" interviewed a number of them.

There was one married couple whose total income was £3 14s 6d a week. Another couple had £4 5s. There were single people with £2 19s. Asked what sort of Christmas they would have, all agreed philosophically that it would be "very quiet," and that, of course, is just another way of reminding us that for people working to such a finely-balanced weekly budget Christmas is just another day in the calendar. But in This Is Your Life, the BBC saw to it that one little old lady had what was perhaps the most eventful Christmas celebration of her life.

She was 84-years-old widow Mrs Lucy Dobson, of Manchester, who until last night thought that she, too, would be having a "very quiet" Christmas.

---

News Chronicle 24 December 1957

The day of her life

By H de Winton Wigley

WIDOWED Mrs Lucy Dobson is 84, and typical of those indomitable old ladies who fight the world alone and seem to think little of it.

She has worked all her life - as a seamstress, dressmaker and cook.

Last night millions of viewers saw her sitting at the head of a long table laden with turkey, plum pudding, champagne, crackers and fruit, presiding at her own party.

Unsuspecting

It was a Christmas dream that came true in the BBC's This Is Your Life.

Mrs Dobson, all unsuspecting, was plucked from the audience in the Manchester studio, to meet long-lost friends, summoned by Eamonn Andrews, out of Christmases past.

One of them, asked to come only 48 hours before, left her own family and flew from New York.

The clues to her existence were found in the Christmas card she had sent, which was found on Mrs Dobson's mantlepiece.

---

Ireland's Saturday Night 26 December 1957

Looking in at TV with Hastings Maguinness

Mrs Dobson was star of the week

THE sophisticates can sneer and pooh-pooh as much as they like, but for me the most enjoyable viewing of this entire Christmas week was the This Is Your Life of the charming little old lady, Mrs Lucy Dobson.

Mrs Dobson had no dramatic story to tell, no amazing experiences to relate and no special claims to being chosen for the pre-Christmas subject.

She was simply an ordinary person, just the sort of person who could live at the top of your street or my street.

One of my outstanding memories of 1957 TV will be Mrs Dobson's obviously wide-eyed wonder and delight when she was taken to the platform by Eamonn Andrews and realised she was in the This Is Your Life spotlight.

It was all so unaffectedly natural that one found oneself ready to hit back at those who attack This Is Your Life on the grounds that it is "corny".

There is one point about which the BBC can rest assured. If such things as Mrs Lucy Dobson represent "corn" there are an awful lot of people who like "corn".

I concluded a sort of private poll about this particular This Is Your Life. I was enthusiastic myself.

But as I wanted to be sure I was reflecting public opinion, I asked at least a dozen people what they thought of it before I wrote a line.

The verdict - 100 per cent, backing for my opinion. Not a word of criticism.

And a postscript. With hardly an exception the people I quizzed had loads of praise for the gentle and kindly way in which Eamonn Andrews handled Mrs Dobson and eased her out of her bewilderment.