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Celebrating television's This Is Your Life

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THIS IS YOUR LIFE - Sandy MacPherson, theatre organist, was surprised by Eamonn Andrews while recording music at the Jubilee Studios in Hoxton, London.

Sandy, who was born in Ontario, Canada, studied the piano at the Hamilton Conservatory of Music before working at the city's Temple Cinema in 1918, where he accompanied the silent films. In 1928, he moved to London and became the resident organist at the newly opened Empire Cinema in London's Leicester Square.

In 1938, he was appointed the BBC's resident organist and, in the early years of the Second World War, presented request programmes on BBC Radio, including Sandy's Half Hour and Sandy Presents, in addition to travelling and performing live around the country to entertain the troops.

programme details...

• Edition No: 170
• Subject No: 171
• Broadcast live: Mon 13 Nov 1961
• Broadcast time: 7.55-8.30pm
• Venue: BBC Television Theatre
• Series: 7
• Edition: 7

on the guest list...

• George Morrison
• Teddie Garratt
• Percy Millard
• Violet Millard
• Jean Metcalfe
• Fred Dunnington
• Anne Dunnington
• Vic Oliver
• Reg Watkins
• Joyce Hepple
• Florence - wife
• Pamela Snow
• Ernest Link
• Alex Ogden
• Rees Lewis
• George Christefides
• Samuel Clowting
• Harry Power
• Michael Barker
• John Seaborn
• Stella Gillies
• Dawn Ellery
• Diane Hill
• Andrena McLean
• Judith Dyson
• Teresa Curtin
• Brenda Ellis
• Marion Healey
Filmed tributes:
• Compton Mackenzie
• Edmund Hockridge

production team...

• Researcher: Alfred Draper
• Writer: Peter Moore
• Director: Yvonne Littlewood
• Producer: T Leslie Jackson

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

A Musical Life

blowing a trumpet for the musicians

Compton Mackenzie

Jean Metcalfe

Photographs of Sandy MacPherson This Is Your Life