This Is Your Life: Robin Cousins

Robin COUSINS (1957-)

THIS IS YOUR LIFE - Robin Cousins, figure skater, was surprised by Eamonn Andrews on College Green in Bristol during a homecoming presentation, hosted by the city's Lord Mayor, in celebration of his recent Olympic success.

Robin, who first stepped onto the ice while on holiday in Bournemouth at the age of eight, won his first national title in 1969 at the age of twelve, and made his international debut two years later as Britain's junior champion. He represented the United Kingdom as an amateur figure skater for eight years, winning the British National Senior Championships for four consecutive years, the free skating portion of the World Championships three times, and silver medals at the World Championships in 1979 and 1980.

He reached the pinnacle of his amateur figure skating career by winning gold medals both in the European Championships in Gothenburg and in the Winter Olympic Games in Lake Placid, New York in 1980, and turned professional later that same year.

"Oh dear!"

programme details...

Edition No: 539
Subject No: 536
Broadcast date: Wed 26 Mar 1980
Broadcast time: 7.00-7.30pm
Recorded: Sat 22 Mar 1980
Venue: HTV Studios, Bristol
Series: 20
Edition: 18
Code name: Lake

on the guest list...

Alan Weeks
Colin Bayne-Jardine
Glynis Nicholas
Fred - father
Jo - mother
Nicholas - brother
Martin - brother
June - sister-in-law
Irene - grandmother
Carlo Fassi
Christa Fassi
Doris Nash
Joan Watson
Lynn Seymour
Pam Davies
Vicky Wild
Brian Moynihan
Donald Thompson
Ann Packer
Kenneth Matthews
Lynn Davies
Bob Braithwaite
Chris Finnegan
Adrian Parker
Harold Whitlock
Bob Wylie
BL Wylie
Dickie Davies
Jim Davidson
Judith Chalmers
David Hamilton
Deryck Guyler
pupils from Henbury Comprehensive School, Bristol

production team...

Researchers: John Graham, Cathy Parnall
Writers: Tom Brennand, Roy Bottomley
Directors: Paul Stewart Laing, Terry Yarwood
Producer: Jack Crawshaw

names above in bold indicate subjects of This Is Your Life

related pages...

Going for Gold

celebrating the world's best

This is the secret life

Jack Crawshaw reviews his time on This Is Your Life

This Is Your Life Set For TV Comeback

Press coverage of the programme's relaunch

Robin Cousins recalls his experience of This Is Your Life in an exclusive interview recorded in October 2011

Screenshots of Robin Cousins This Is Your Life - and Robin Cousins photographed at the Palace Theatre, Manchester with his big red book in October 2011

Robin Cousins recalls his experience of This Is Your Life in his book, Skating For Gold...

After Dortmund, the four-week ISU tour of World and Olympic medallists to fifteen European cities was rather an emotional experience as so many of us were planning to move on from the amateur championships circuit. The final performance, in Moscow on 10 April 1980, was one which I think many of us will long remember. It felt very strange to be skating together for the last time, having competed against each other so often for several seasons.

During that tour, I returned briefly to Bristol on 22 March for a civic reception of a kind I had hardly anticipated. I suppose I had not expected to receive such celebrity treatment so quickly. It was very difficult for me to accept that literally millions of people had seen on television what I had done during the previous two months. The amount of enthusiasm and the number of people lining the streets of Bristol to welcome what they must have regarded as something of a triumphal homecoming was absolutely amazing as my open-topped 'bus of honour' paraded slowly amongst them.

It was an incredible day for myself, my whole family and, indeed, everyone involved, culminating in a big surprise by Eamonn Andrews as I became the subject of the This Is Your Life television programme.

I was standing on the platform with the Lord Mayor, Tom Clarke, receiving a presentation on behalf of the city of Bristol, when Eamonn Andrews crept up behind the two of us and tapped me on the shoulder. I believe the crowd were concentrating so much on the presentation that few among them had noticed Eamonn running across Bristol's College Green before making his dramatic approach.

It all happened so fast and my immediate reaction was, 'Oh God, I'm only twenty-two and already they're doing my life!' But, obviously it was a great surprise to me and I was very honoured to find myself the subject of what has long been a very prestigious programme.

Series 20 subjects