Percy THROWER (1913-1988)

Percy Thrower This Is Your Life

programme details...

  • Edition No: 435
  • Subject No: 432
  • Broadcast date: Wed 31 Mar 1976
  • Broadcast time: 7.00-7.30pm
  • Recorded: Wed 10 Mar 1976
  • Venue: Euston Road Studios
  • Series: 16
  • Edition: 21
  • Code name: Root

on the guest list...

  • Lesley Judd
  • Peter Purves
  • Shep - dog
  • Bob Musk
  • Connie - wife
  • Margaret - daughter
  • Susan - daughter
  • Ann - daughter
  • Mabel - sister-in-law
  • Maurice - brother
  • Harry - brother
  • Maud - sister
  • Joan - sister
  • Ken Hodgkinson
  • Arthur Billitt
  • Mai Zetterling
  • Harry Wheatcroft
  • Jim Smith
  • Leonard Dando
  • Ted Sturgiss
  • Tom Holt
  • Fred Newman
  • Ursula Steier
  • Filmed tributes:
  • Isobel Barnett
  • Simon Williams
  • Vince Hill
  • Tina Lunny
  • students of the Royal Normal College for the Blind, Rowton Castle

production team...

  • Researcher: Lavinia Warner
  • Writer: John Sandilands
  • Director: Mike Dormer
  • Executive Producer: Jack Andrews
  • Producer: Jack Crawshaw
  • names above in bold indicate subjects of This Is Your Life
related pages...

Margaret, Susan and Ann, daughters of Percy Thrower, recall this edition of This Is Your Life in an exclusive interview recorded in August 2017

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Screenshots of Percy Thrower This Is Your Life - and a photograph of Percy Thrower's big red book

Percy Thrower's biography

Timothy O'Sullivan recalls this edition of This Is Your Life in his book, Percy Thrower, A Biography...


At Clack's Farm there is a five-barred gate upon which Percy and Arthur sometimes rested or posed during a recording of Gardener's World. Lady visitors to Clack's Farm on open days would make for this gate and if necessary form a queue to file past, touching the top rail rather as if it were an icon in an Orthodox church.


Equally exotically, Percy's ways with plants attracted the admiration of the Swedish actress Mai Zetterling whose husband, possibly bored by having Percy quoted all the time, induced him to write to his wife about her lilies.


He duly did so and the letter was much appreciated; so much so that when in 1976 Percy was given the bizarre accolade of popular approval, an edition of This Is Your Life, Mai Zetterling was specially flown in to meet her hero for the first time.


It was manifest from the programme that the actuality of Percy did not disappoint her. Such gestures of appreciation were a small part of Percy's reward which lay, as it had always done, in making a living out of what was coincidentally his hobby.

Series 16 subjects

Ronnie Dukes | Ray Milland | Mike Hailwood | Frank Windsor | Magnus Pyke | Bill Tidy | Gladys Mills | Andy Stewart
Windsor Davies | Ray Reardon | Patrick Mower | Alberto Remedios | Susan Masham | Betty Driver | Henry Davies
Gwen Berryman | Vince Hill | Arnold Ridley | Beryl Reid | Alan Mullery | Percy Thrower | Gareth Edwards
June Whitfield | Terry Fincher | Richard Dunn | Norman Croucher