This Is Your Life: Michael Nicholson

Michael NICHOLSON OBE (1937-2016)

THIS IS YOUR LIFE - Michael Nicholson, journalist and broadcaster, was surprised by Michael Aspel at ITN headquarters in London, during a reception being given to celebrate his return from a recent assignment in Yugoslavia.

Michael, who joined Independent Television News in 1964 as a trainee, specialised in war reporting - covering every major war zone from the late 1960s to the early 1990s, including Biafra, Israel, Vietnam, Cambodia, Rwanda, Cyprus, Angola and Afghanistan among others.

He became ITN's first bureau chief in South Africa in 1976 and in 1982 covered the Falklands War, sharing the BAFTA award with the BBC for his coverage. He spent some time as a newsreader for ITN, before returning to reporting, firstly for a year as Channel 4's Washington Correspondent and then back to ITN as Chief Foreign Correspondent from 1989.

"Oh my god! Michael - you scoundrel!"

programme details...

Edition No: 819
Subject No: 809
Broadcast date: Wed 11 Dec 1991
Broadcast time: 7.00-7.30pm
Recorded: Tue 10 Dec 1991
Venue: Teddington Studios
Series: 32
Edition: 9
Code name: Wire

on the guest list...

Diana - wife
Tom - son
William - son
Mike Doyle
Anthony Carthew
Capt Roy Matthews - via telephone
Robin O'Connor
David Cousins
John Humphrys
Sir David Nicholas
Father Kevin Doheny
Alan Downes
Bob Hammond
letter from Prince Andrew
Eugene Campbell
Hugh Thomson
Peter Wilkinson
Nip
Wang aka David
Ann
Peter
Sandy Gall
Trevor McDonald

production team...

Researcher: Sarah Ann Cockcroft
Writer: Roy Bottomley
Directors: Brian Klein, Paul Kirrage
Associate Producer: John Graham
Producer: Malcolm Morris

names above in bold indicate subjects of This Is Your Life

related pages...

News At Ten

reporting the news

The Night of 1000 Lives

a celebration of a thousand editions

John Humphrys

Screenshots of Michael Nicholson This Is Your Life

Scriptwriter Roy Bottomley recalls this edition of This Is Your Life in his book, This Is Your Life: The Story of Television's Famous Big Red Book...

For more than twenty years ITN's award-winning war correspondent Michael Nicholson had been in the thick of the action all over the world, bringing the front-line stories to the nation's front rooms.

But on 10 December 1991 Michael himself was the story – our story.

ITN Editor-in-Chief Stewart Purvis was giving a cocktail party, attended by colleagues, including Carol Barnes, Trevor McDonald, Alastair Stewart and Julia Somerville, to welcome him back from his latest dangerous assignment in Yugoslavia. We had hastily postponed our surprise when he had to stay over to cover suddenly intensified fighting.

But Michael Nicholson had an unexpected guest at that ITN homecoming party – Michael Aspel.

Of all his death-defying adventures, from Africa to the Middle East, Vietnam to the Falklands, the most tense came in Angola in 1978 when he flew in to cover the civil war. For four months he and his crew were in the jungle surrounded by trigger happy guerrilla troops.

The urbane Anthony Carthew, former Royal correspondent, organised a rescue plane, posing as an eccentric millionaire in order to take off from Zaire. Sandy Gall was there to greet Michael when the rescue plane landed in Johannesburg.

For his Falklands coverage he shared the BAFTA award with the BBC's Brian Hanrahan. Michael got an interview with a certain helicopter pilot – Prince Andrew – who wrote to the Life with a special message congratulating Michael Nicholson on his newly announced OBE.

We had dramatic film of his escape, with cameraman Peter Wilkinson and sound man Hugh Thomson, from the besieged American embassy in Saigon in 1975. Ten years later he returned to reunite a refugee family with the son they had not seen for nine years, and bring him back to their new home in Wales. The family came to say their thanks; a moment of genuine happiness from all the tragedy witnessed by the award-winning reporter. A few months after our programme, Michael also brought happiness into the life of a nine-year-old orphan girl. He added Natasha Mihalcic to his passport to bring her home to leafy Surrey from war-ravaged Sarajevo.

Series 32 subjects