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
Vicki Wylde
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.

Martha Lowder Kimball recalls this edition of This Is Your Life in her book, Robin Cousins, the authorised biography...

On Saturday, March 22, Robin flew in from Geneva for lunch with the Lord Mayor. An open-top bus tour began on Dingle Close, which bloomed with Union Jacks and bunting. One whimsical Sea Mills neighbour wanted to turn the tennis courts into a skating rink.

More than fifty thousand people - the largest local crowd ever to assemble - lined the route into the City Centre and showered the bus with bouquets. The spectacle reached Biblical proportions: people in trees, on balconies, atop walls, leaning out windows, lining bridges, following on bicycles, and craning from ladders. Traffic jammed as drivers waved and honked their horns. Soccer games stopped while players applauded.

The hour-long procession ended on College Green, where the Lord Mayor made a formal presentation. As he concluded his remarks, television host Eamonn Andrews ran across the Green and leapt onto the dais.

"Robin Cousins, today 'This is your life!'"

A bemused look appeared over Robin's face. He wondered, "How can I be having a 'Life' when I'm still only twenty-two years old?"

During taping in the HTV studios, a parade of familiar faces passed in review: Jo, Fred, Martin, Nick, Pam Davies, Doris Nash, Joan Watson, Alan Weeks, Lynn Seymour, the Fassis, and an honour roll of British sports heroes. Throughout, Robin was nearly speechless, but the piece de resistance sent him into a few discreet tears.

A week and a half earlier, a telephone call had awakened B.L. and Bob Wylie at 5:00 A.M.

"This is so-and-so from England. We would like to have you come over and be on the television show This Is Your Life."

"Yeah, sure," they said, suspecting a practical joke. "When are you going to send us the tickets?"

A reasonable voice on the London end replied, "I will call you back and confirm."

"Jolly well, it was for sure," said B.L. "They put us in a hotel, and we were not to come out. My husband got out and ran the next morning, and the people on the show nearly had a heart attack. They said only Americans would run."

At the studios, the Wylies met Fred and Jo for the first time. It didn't take B.L. long to win Jo's advocacy. B.L. was short for Betty Lu, which was short for Elizabeth Lucy. Elizabeth Lucy's teachers had insisted on calling her Betty, which she didn't like. She had changed her name to B.L. at summer camp. The This Is Your Life staff didn't want to duplicate the familiar initials of British Leyland.

"We can't call you B.L. on the air. That's a car name."

Jo "which is short for Edna" found herself in familiar territory. She turned to the staffers and decreed quietly but firmly, "If she wants to be called B.L. on the air, call her B.L. on the air. We won't discuss this any further." They didn't.

Series 20 subjects