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Celebrating television's This Is Your Life

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THIS IS YOUR LIFE - Phyllis Holman Richards, charity founder, was surprised by Eamonn Andrews outside the BBC Television Theatre, having been led to believe she was on her way to dinner with a friend.

Phyllis, who was born in London, gave up a promising career as an opera singer to become one of the first nursing volunteers when the First World War broke out. After the war, she became the youngest woman, at 26, to receive an OBE, having established the Disabled Officers' Home in London, which cared for veterans.

During the Second World War, she was a volunteer nurse at Westminster Hospital before setting up the Memorial Centre of Help for Babies. The charity, which cared for war orphans, marked the beginning of an adoption agency in her name, established in 1942, that would help thousands of children across Britain and Europe.

programme details...

• Edition No: 223
• Subject No: 224
• Broadcast date: Tue 23 Apr 1963
• Broadcast time: 7.55-8.25pm
• Recorded: Mon 8 Apr 1963 8.00pm
• Venue: BBC Television Theatre
• Series: 8
• Edition: 28

on the guest list...

• Frederick Stone
• Mabel Deane
• Mary Street
• Basil Hitchin
• Frank Lockwood
• Ellen Hill
• Sister Mildred French
• Barbara Darley
• Max Muir
• unnamed children
Filmed tributes:
• Pamela Armitage
• Dawn - daughter
• Beryl Pepper

related appearance...

• Frederick Stone - Mar 1958

production team...

• Researcher: unknown
• Writer: unknown
• Director: Vere Lorrimer
• Producer: T Leslie Jackson

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

A Charitable Life

the unsung heroes

Frederick Stone

Photographs of Phyllis Holman Richards This Is Your Life