Big Red Book

Celebrating television's This Is Your Life

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THIS IS YOUR LIFE - Mary O'Hara, singer and harpist, was surprised by Eamonn Andrews while filming at the National Motor Museum in the village of Beaulieu, Hampshire.

Mary, who was born in County Sligo, Ireland, achieved fame on both sides of the Atlantic in the late 1950s and early 1960s, recording with Decca Records and starring in her own BBC television series. However, after the premature death of her husband, American poet Richard Selig, Mary became a Benedictine nun at Stanbrook Abbey, where she stayed for 12 years.

Having discovered that her musical reputation had grown during her time as a nun, after leaving the abbey in 1974 due to health concerns, she made a triumphant return to performing, becoming one of the most prominent international recording stars to emerge from Ireland.

"Oh no! Eamonn! No!"

programme details...

• Edition No: 497
• Subject No: 495
• Broadcast date: Wed 8 Nov 1978
• Broadcast time: 7.00-7.30pm
• Recorded: Wed 4 Oct 1978
• Venue: Southern Television, Southampton
• Series: 19
• Edition: 3
• Code name: Vow

on the guest list...

• Gay Byrne
• Kathleen Byrne
• John - father
• Dermot - brother
• Deirdre Kelleher
• Sean Og O'Tuama
• Lady Mackenzie
• Gavin Scott-Moncrieff
• Lesley Findlay
• David Murison
• Richard Afton
• Joyce Grenfell
• Val Doonican
• Florence Selig
Filmed tributes:
• Joan Baez
• Joan - sister
• Sister Angela
• Sister Petra

production team...

• Researcher: Tony Lee
• Writers: Tom Brennand, Roy Bottomley
• Director: Terry Yarwood
• Producer: Jack Crawshaw

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

A Musical Life

blowing a trumpet for the musicians

Val Doonican

Screenshots of Mary O'Hara This Is Your Life

Mary O'Hara recalls her experience of This Is Your Life in her autobiography, Travels With My Harp...

One September afternoon in 1978 I was on Lord Montagu of Beaulieu's estate in Hampshire filming a scene for television, when Eamonn Andrews popped out of nowhere to announce: 'Mary O'Hara: This Is Your Life.'

I was driven to the Southern Television studios in Southampton to be confronted with some of the key people in my life to date. It proved to be a programme punctuated with laughter and tears. My father was brought from Dublin; Dermot (whom I hadn't seen since Christmas 1961 in Nigeria) from Calgary in Canada; Florence, my first mother-in-law, from Washington, DC; Lesley and Gavin Scott-Moncrieff and David Murison from Scotland; Deirdre Kelleher, Gay Byrne and his wife Kathleen Watkins, Seán Og Tuama, Val Doonican, Joyce Grenfell, Richard Afton and Lady Lily Mackenzie - all in turn greeted me with affection and sometimes emotion.

My sister Joan, Joan Baez, Sister Angela and Sister Petra from Sion Hill, unable to be with me in the studio, sent their greetings via television film. There were inevitably some gaps. Lord Moyne and Par O'Toole, significant people in my life and in my return to music, were not present.

Nor was there anyone from those Oxford days with Richard. I knew Dudley Moore was in town and would have been delighted to come on but I suspect they did not want to risk what they considered to be any 'sadness' creeping in. However, it was a moving experience, and at the end of the programme a smiling Eamonn handed me the big red book engraved with the words: 'This is your Life'.

The programme was broadcast on 4th October 1978. In a way it turned out to be only a small landmark in my life. I did not know at the time but there was a lot more to come.