This Is Your Life
From John Peel Wiki
- JP received the big book treatment from Michael Aspel after presenting Top Of The Pops on 1995-12-13. The programme was broadcast 1996-01-24. (Ken Garner, The Peel Sessions p150, p235)
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[edit] Peel Remembers
(From John’s Jukebox: 1990s 31 August 1999)
I hadn’t done Top Of The Pops for nine years and the technology has overtaken me. And I found it a most grueling experience, because I kept looking in the wrong places and doing the wrong things and making people go back and do everything again and again and again.
But right at the end I was thinking to myself, “If I get this link right, within ten minutes I’ll be in the car, I can listen to the second half of the match on the radio, and I can buy a bag of chips in Bulldock, and be home by 10, you know.”
I could feel someone pushing really hard at my right shoulder, and I thought, “When this is over, I’m going to turn around and give them a piece of my mind.” And I turned around, and of course it is Michael Aspel with the red book.
I was very wise, because I didn’t do that thing where you kind of go, “Michael, me? Little old me?” Because I thought myself I’d be the butt of the nation’s jokes for the rest of my life if he said, “Sorry, John, not this time. This is …” You know, then: “Narvel Felts, ace cameraman, this is your life!” I though, “No, I’d never recover from that.” So I hesitated a bit, but once I realized if was me…
You know, you think when you are sitting in the pub and talking to your chums and stuff, you say, “Of course, if they ever did it to me, I’d tell them where to go.” Everybody always says that. But when it happens, a lot of things happen.
First of all, you think, “It wouldn’t have got this far if Shelia, my wife, hadn’t OK’ed it.” And then, kind of curiosity takes over, because you want to know who they’ve got.
[edit] Guests
(Studio): Shelia Ravenscroft (wife); (children) Alexandra, William, Thomas, Florence Ravenscroft; Alan, Frank Ravenscroft (brothers); David Jenson (BBC Radio One DJ, Top Of The Pops co-host); Malcolm Davis (schoolfriend); Tony Blackburn, Ed Stewart (DJs, Radio London, Radio One); Alan Freeman (Radio One DJ); Andy Kershaw (Radio One DJ), John Walters (Peel show producer), David Gedge (Wedding Present), Paul Whitehouse (comedian), Ken Dowe (KLIF DJ);
(Video): David Bowie, Kenny Dalglish (Liverpool FC), Ken Dowe (KLIF, Dallas), Billy Connelly (comedian, ex-Humblebums), Richard Branson (Virgin Records), Mark E Smith (Fall)
(Others): included Bernie Andrews (BBC) (Garner p150)
[edit] See also
Pages including transcriptions of some of the individual tributes on the programme:
After Peel's death, surprise This Is Your Life guest Ken Dowe of KLIF radio station in Dallas posted an online tribute here.
