This Is Your Life: Naomi James

Dame Naomi JAMES DBE (1949-)

THIS IS YOUR LIFE - Naomi James, yachtswoman, was surprised by Eamonn Andrews at the Earls Court Boat Show in London while receiving a special presentation from the Royal Navy.

Naomi, who was born in New Zealand, met her husband, Rob James, while travelling around Europe. It was during their honeymoon that she decided to sail single-handed around the world, having had only six weeks of sailing experience at the time. Chay Blyth lent her the boat Spirit of Cutty Sark, later renamed Express Crusader, and a team of friends raised money for supplies.

Naomi became the first woman to sail single-handed around the world via Cape Horn, departing from Dartmouth, Devon on 9 September 1977 in the 53-foot yacht Express Crusader, and finishing her voyage around the globe on 8 June 1978 after 272 days - improving Sir Francis Chichester's solo round-the-world sailing record by two days.

"I don't believe it! I don't believe it! How extraordinary!"

programme details...

Edition No: 506
Subject No: 503
Broadcast live: Wed 10 Jan 1979
Broadcast time: 7.00-7.30pm
Venue: New London Theatre
Series: 19
Edition: 12
Code name: Lionheart

on the guest list...

Rob - husband
Bob - father
Joan - mother
Juliet - sister
Heine - brother-in-law
Brendan - brother
Fiona - sister
Paul Millett
Jane Millett
Martha Masse
Georgette - mother-in-law
John - father-in-law
Chay Blyth
Maureen Blyth
Quentin Wallop
Jerry Whitehead - via telephone
Bern Cuthbertson - via telephone
Les Halladay
Sir Alec Rose

production team...

Researcher: Debbie Gaunt
Writer: John Sandilands
Directors: Royston Mayoh, Terry Yarwood
Producer: Jack Crawshaw

names above in bold indicate subjects of This Is Your Life

related pages...

Life on the Ocean Wave

adventurers of the high seas

The Big Red Book

the programme's icon

Chay Blyth

Screenshots of Naomi James This Is Your Life

Naomi James recalls her experience of This Is Your Life in her autobiography, At Sea on Land...

The London Boat Show opened at the beginning of January and we attended from the first day. We only had a couple of official commitments there, but we enjoyed wandering round talking to friends and looking at new equipment.

About this time we were contacted by Chay who had a prospective buyer for Express Crusader. This news put us in a quandary: we wouldn't be in a position to buy the boat for another six months at least, but it was unreasonable to ask Chay to hang on that long. We had a meeting with the accountants and discovered that although we had insufficient money to buy the boat outright, we could put a deposit on her from the advance for the book. Lister was hoping to find a sponsor for me in the Observer Single-Handed TransAtlantic Race who would help pay for the yacht. Chay was happy to accept the deposit and the rest in three months.

The potential sponsor was Matthew Clark and Sons, who are British wine importers and agents for the French sparkling wine Kriter whose owners had sponsored a number of French yachts in the past. Kriter had decided to present me with the Kriter Bouchon d'Or, an award they make each year for outstanding sporting achievement, plus my weight in sparkling wine. The presentation was to take place at the Boat Show.

On the morning of the presentation Lister took me aside and asked if I would mind receiving another award at the Royal Navy stand after I was finished with Kriter. No speeches were required, he added hastily, it would only take five minutes.

A lunch with Hutchinson in the City was the first function on the agenda for the day. Rob, regretfully, had to leave early to meet a prospective sponsor, but he promised that he and Chay would be at the Kriter stand in time for the presentation. I wasn't due at the Boat Show until 3.30, so we loitered over lunch while Jeremy Cox from Hutchinson's publicity department showed me the finished dust jacket of At One With The Sea and the publicity material which was being sent round all the bookshops. David Roy, Hutchinson's sales director, accompanied me to the Boat Show and it was only afterwards that his haste and impatience with the taxi and his overfussiness with an umbrella to stop me getting wet became understandable.

David handed me over to Lister who looked flushed and on edge as we worked our way through the crowds to the Kriter stand. I was delighted to see that half a dozen friends had already settled themselves in with a glass of Kriter in hand, but there was no sign of Rob or Chay. I was introduced to David Stevens, a director of Matthew Clark and Master of Wines, who was responsible for the company's sponsorship. We chatted about the OSTAR and my plans until David decided it was time to make the award. Rob still had not appeared. The award, a golden cork, was duly given, and I managed, with someone's toe on the edge of the scales, to get myself weighed in at 245 lbs, or seven crates of Kriter, one of which we opened and distributed among the crowd. A great many people had turned up for the party, including some eminent yacht designers and well-known helmsmen, whom Rob would have got on well with. 'Where is Rob?' I kept thinking in vexation, sorry that he was missing the opportunity to meet so many interesting people. Lister kept reminding me we mustn't be late at the Royal Navy stand, but I was in no hurry to rush away. Eventually he took me firmly by the elbow. 'Don't go away,' I urged everyone. 'We'll be back in five minutes.'

Lister was holding my arm tightly and hustling me through the crowds. He seemed so very strained and nervous that I let myself be led along without protest. When we got to the stand an officer asked us to wait a couple of minutes as the cameras were not quite ready. I looked questioningly at Lister, who made a show of nonchalance. 'They've just been televising the exhibition,' he explained, which didn't explain anything.

Further questions were forestalled by an officer who beckoned us onto the stage. Another officer holding a ship's plaque announced into a microphone that I was being presented with the plaque in recognition of my achievement, etc. As he talked I peered up at powerful arc lights shining on the stage. I could see TV cameras behind them; one, to my surprise, was pointing up at the roof. The officer had finished his announcement. I accepted the plaque, murmuring my thanks, and turned to leave the stage.

Lister, who was standing right behind me, said into my ear, 'Just a second, there is someone else who wants to give you something. Look up there?'

I looked to where he was pointing at the roof. For a few seconds nothing happened. Then I saw something sliding towards the stand down a naval breeches buoy which had been rigged up for the show. The buoy is a sliding seat on a rope used for rescue at sea. Mystified I glanced at Lister who was looking very agitated and excited, as though he was about to blow up at any second. Wondering what on earth was going on, I watched as this thing which looked like a dummy dressed up in naval uniform slid slowly and rigidly towards the stage. When it reached the stand and stood up I could see that it was indeed an officer, who proceeded to get out of the seat with his back to me. I looked again at Lister in total bewilderment; he was nearly beside himself with suppressed emotion and gestured wildly towards the person on the stage. The creature, moving hunched and crablike towards me, was fumbling with something on his face. To my astonishment he was pulling off his beard, revealing a face that was vaguely familiar. Quickly straightening up and stepping right up to me, he pulled a large red book from a paper bag under his arm, grabbed the mike and said, with a big intake of breath, 'Dame Naomi James, this is your life.'

I stared at him in incomprehension for several seconds. Then slowly the penny dropped. My mind flew back to the one and only time I had watched This Is Your Life - only a few weeks before when Muhammad Ali was on. I looked from Eamonn Andrews to Lister in utter disbelief. Lister had uttered an amazing shriek a few seconds earlier which echoed in my ears as Eamonn took my arm and said, 'Don't worry now, everything is arranged. You have nothing to think about at all.'

Before I could gather my wits, he was ushering me off the stage, with Lister apologising profusely in the back-ground. In the distance I saw a couple of friends I had been with earlier. They were laughing together. For the first - but not the last - time I was hit by the startling realisation: 'So that's why Rob...'

Eamonn led me out to a car which was waiting to take us to the studio on the other side of London. As we drove he explained what was going to happen, but added that it was no use me asking him any questions. I tried to recall the programme I had seen. Rob told me later that he and the family had coerced me into watching it, otherwise I would not have recognised Eamonn Andrews and might have responded with 'This is your what?' My memory being what it is, I hadn't recognised Eamonn anyway; the truth had dawned at the sight of the red book.

At the studio I was bundled into a lift, down a corridor and into a dressing room. There was a big bouquet of flowers, a bottle of sweet martini - my favourite drink - and a suitcase of my clothes which Rob had obviously prepared.

The show was scheduled to begin live at seven p.m. and it was soon time to watch the 'pick-up' on a TV monitor by the studio stage entrance. It was amusing to see my reactions on film. I got a last glimpse of myself, hand over mouth and looking very blank, as the door opened and Eamonn escorted me to my chair. I had no chance to look around at the large audience because Eamonn went straight into his script.

I tried to concentrate on what he was saying. I lost the first few sentences trying to make myself behave normally. Then Eamonn waved his hand towards a door and Rob walked in, looking sheepish. He gave me a big hug and whispered in my ear, 'Sorry about that' Eamonn went on to tell something of my childhood in New Zealand. Although I was half expecting it, when he waved his hand again and my parents appeared through the door, I felt a real shock of surprise and emotion. I didn't realise that there was a camera over the door monitoring all my amazing grimaces - I thought my back was to the cameras. My parents were pretty overcome too. They had a more difficult task than me, as each of them had to say a little piece about some incident or other in the past, whereas I had only to respond. I found even that difficult enough. I was soon having to keep a grip on myself so that I didn't disintegrate into spluttering sentimentality which could ruin the show. I concentrated on Eamonn, who looked in control, although the effort was sending beads of perspiration running down his face.

Now he was pointing to a big screen on the stage. On it I saw someone rowing a funny little round tub through some water which was encrusted with ice. The person rowing was wearing a black bush singlet and, not believing my ears, I heard him saying, '...HMS Put-a-Put, we built on the duck pond when we were kids...' The screen went blank.

There followed a heavy pause, then Eamonn swept another flourish towards the door. I shook my head incredulously, muttering, 'I simply don't believe he's not at home on the farm in New Zealand,' and in came my brother Brendan. My head spun. It was all too incongruous for words. I kept repeating like an idiot, 'I don't believe it, I just can't believe it?' But there was more to come. My sister Fiona from New Zealand, Juliet and Heine, and the Directress of the Berlitz school where I had taught in Vienna, my parents-in-law, some workmates from my barmaiding days in London years ago, and a couple of extraordinary phone calls, one from the captain of the fishing trawler who had a rendezvous with me off Tasmania on my trip, and one from a boat owner in Cape Town.

The shocks grew less. There is a limit to the number of shocks that will sink in at one time, but the incredulity remained, especially when the harbour master from the Falkland Islands, who had been such a help on the trip, walked in. Chay and Maureen, Sir Alec and Lady Rose, and Quentin completed the most unlikely gathering of people I would ever see in my life.

When the programme was over I felt as if I had been wrung out; Eamonn looked as if he had. We all walked forward to the front of the stage and there I saw, in the front rows of the audience, all the people who had been at the Kriter party, the remaining members of the family, the Hutchinson people, and many more familiar faces. The thought hit me soundly on the head and made me gasp. They all knew! All of them knew what was going on except me. 'My god, how could I not have noticed?' But it was impossible to feel the tiniest annoyance with any of them, although they had all hoodwinked me so well. I was amazed to learn that the family had been in London for a week already, practically in hiding.

The programme's producers invited us all to a party at the studio and we tucked into drinks and food. Seeing my brother talking to Roddy seemed so outrageously out of place that I had to shake my head and laugh at them. It strangely distorted the senses to see people from every part of your life all talking together. There was an apparition-like quality about the whole thing.

After a couple of hours we saw a re-run of the show and laughed ourselves silly - at ourselves and each other, especially Brendan paddling around in an icy pond. He had to break the ice to get to the water and float the wretched vessel, while he froze to death in his bush singlet. Eamonn's handling of each sequence was very skilful, although everyone had been rehearsed, except for Rob who couldn't get away from me very often. Considering that most of these people had never been on stage before, let alone a live TV show, no wonder Eamonn had looked harassed. We all agreed that it had been great fun, though for some it was the hardest half hour they had ever been through.

Series 19 subjects