This is Your Life

Sister Caswell surprised her friend and colleague, British Red Cross ambulance driver David Ellaway on ‘This is Your Life’ (Season 26 Episode 8) back in 1985. Presenter: Eamonn Andrews.

I remember going with my parents and sister to London to film this episode. The trip lasted three days, it was my first trip to London and I was very excited. We visited Buckingham Palace, my dad was disappointed that we weren’t able to see the changing of the guard. Most memorably we were staying in the Ibis hotel, my mum and dad had their own room and my sister and I shared a room. I was curious about the lock on the door and noticed a delay in locking the door from the inside and wondered what would happen if I locked it from the inside and the outside at the same time. The result was that the key didn’t work anymore and the hotel staff came and took the door off to enter the room. We weren’t allowed to sleep in a separate room to our parents after that!

I also remember eating a meal with the other members of the 1974 Red Cross team in the hotel restaurant. The starter was melon, it was a WHOLE melon with ice inside. After eating the melon I had no room for the main meal of chicken in gravy and my sister and I were sent to bed! Margaret Carrington gave me a clippy kangaroo with red plastic boxing gloves and my sister got a clippy koala toy with a yellow plastic hat with the Australian flag on it.

During the filming we sat up very high in the audience with my dad. I remember a guy in a silver suit telling jokes prior to the show starting. After the filming we went to a wrap party. I met Eamon Andrews, I also swiped the last brown bread bun just before one of the other guests could grasp it.