Big Red Book

Celebrating television's This Is Your Life

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THIS IS YOUR LIFE - Victor Silvester, dancer, musician and band leader, was surprised by Eamonn Andrews outside the BBC Television Theatre, having been brought there by producer Richard Afton.

Victor, who was born in Wembley, served with the First British Ambulance Unit in Italy during the First World War and was awarded the Italian Bronze Medal for Military Valour. After the war, he studied music at Trinity College, London. However, his passion for dance led to him entering a series of dancing competitions, and in 1922, he won the first World Ballroom Dancing Championship.

He went on to open a dancing academy in London, where he taught some of the top celebrities of the day, but the lack of suitable recordings for dancing led Victor to form his own five-piece band in 1935. The band was later enlarged and named Victor Silvester and his Ballroom Orchestra, and their first released recording, You're Dancing on My Heart, became Victor's signature tune. By the mid-1950s, Victor was the most successful dance band leader in British musical history and a major star on British radio and television.

programme details...

• Edition No: 45
• Subject No: 45
• Broadcast live: Mon 9 Dec 1957
• Broadcast time: 7.30-8.00pm
• Venue: BBC Television Theatre
• Series: 3
• Edition: 11

on the guest list...

• ACM Sir Victor Goddard
• Diana Churchill
• Mrs J H Churchill
• Gwen - sister
• Jack Massie
• Laurence Wade-Brown
• Phyllis Walker-Carter
• Dorothy - wife
• George Metcalfe
• Oscar Phillips
• Lenore Freeman
• Ben Edwards
• Oscar Grasso
• Victor - son
• The Victor Silvester Ballroom Orchestra
Filmed tribute:
• Lionel Sessions
Recorded tribute:
• Gerry Moore

related appearance...

• Anna Neagle - Feb 1958

production team...

• Researcher: George Bruce
• Writer: Peter Moore
• Director: unknown
• Producer: T Leslie Jackson

A Musical Life

blowing a trumpet for the musicians

Interviews

Tara Silvester, granddaughter of Victor Silvester, recalls her grandfather and her appearance on the BBC television programme The Repair Shop in an exclusive interview recorded in March 2023

Photographs of Victor Silvester This Is Your Life - and a photograph of Victor Silvester's big red book

The Birmingham Mail 10 December 1957

LAST NIGHT'S VIEWING

PROBABLY no one in the dancing business has made such a lasting impact as the quick-quick-slow-slow man, Victor Silvester.

Now, since he was the subject of This Is Your Life, his fans know a lot more about him.

Perhaps it is not surprising that when the early days of a celebrity are recalled the friends of those days remember the details much more vividly than the celebrity.

The Observer and Gazette 19 December 1957

Television life story of Victor Silvester

'EVIDENCE' FROM HARROW AND WEMBLEY

MEMBERS of several well-known families in the Observer area appeared on television on Monday last week to make their contribution to the BBC programme This Is Your Life which on this occasion dealt with the career of the dance orchestra leader, Mr Victor Silvester, son of the late Rev J W P Silvester, who was Vicar of Wembley for nearly 50 years.

The story of the night he was born was told by Air Marshal Sir Victor Goddard, one of the sons of the late Dr C E Goddard, Wembley's first medical officer of health.

MEMORABLE BIRTHDAY

The Air Marshal said: "It's one of my earliest recollections. My father was a doctor in the village. I remember my mother tucking me in to bed and telling me the Silvesters were expecting a baby in the Vicarage over the way. The next thing I became startingly aware of was the clang of church bells, which was strange because it was in the middle of the night."

"What's more, the entire population of Wembley ran out into the streets with drums and bugles, and my father, after attending Victor's birth, ran up and down the path banging our big dinner gong."

MAFEKING NIGHT

The compere Eamonn Andrews then heard the reason for this commotion, which was not the birth of young Victor. "The day was the 25th of February, 1900," said Sir Victor, "the day that Mafeking was relieved."

Sir Victor remembered that the vicar's son came to be known as a lusty infant with red hair.

OLD LYONIAN

Mr Jack Massey, who represented Middlesex at cricket and soccer, and is a well-known Harrow undertaker, was at the Lower School of John Lyon, Harrow, at the time when Mr Silvester was a pupil. He had previously run away from a school at Leatherhead, and Mr Massey said that the new boy "came from the blue and went into the blue."

Mr Massey was introduced to Mr Silvester as "a fellow schoolboy you last saw when you were 14 years old." Mr Massey said it was obvious that the young Silvester did not like school and did not mean to stay there. It was the summer of 1914 and the war was coming along. He made it clear he intended to be in the thick of it.

"He never said very much about his plans," said Mr Massey. "He was rather a problem chap."

WOUNDED IN THE WAR

In 1915 Silvester joined the Army, enlisting in the London Scottish. He was wounded as a member of a British ambulance unit in Italy in 1917. A fellow-driver at the time was traced to Tasmania, and a filmed interview was included in the show.

Another person to be interviewed was the actress Diana Churchill, daughter of the late Dr J H Churchill, of Wembley, who said that her first dance was with Victor.

"It was my sister's birthday party and I was about nine years old. He never trod on my feet once but, then, he should have been good because he had become the world's champion ballroom dancer." This was in 1922.

DROPPED THE BABY

Diana Churchill's mother, who now lives in Bath, also contributed a story to This Is Your Life. She said she had a special reason for remembering Victor when he was 18 months old.

"His mother gave me him to hold for a moment and I dropped him on the floor. But he didn't seem to mind and was all smiles," she said.

Victor's sister, Joyce, was another who took part in the programme.