Thoughts one year on about John Noakes

Just over a year ago, May 29th 2017 a man who was a part of the backdrop of my boyhood died aged 83 years from Alzheimer's complications.
You see ever since I was able to take in television, I'd always watch Blue Peter, the very long running BBC Children's program which at the time had a massive viewing and certainly I can recall seeing it from 1970.
The presenter John Noakes was a very much a hero to me cos he did things of extraordinary skill and bravery like climbing up Nelson's Column to clean it with no safety gear or Bob-sleighing at a truly hurtling rate of knots along the course.

Of course it did also help he had a dog called Shep, pictured and the pair were inseparable leading to the catchphrase, "Get down, Shep" because we could relate to that  and John while quite shy off camera had a lot of boy dare devil instinct which most certainly appealed to me in an era of fairly tame presenters.

This was 'the' classic line up of presenters from the mid 1970's going from left to right, Peter Purves, Lesley Judd, Valerie Singleton and John Noakes complete with pets.
It probably says a lot about what the show meant to me that I still have many of the yearly Annuals from this era, with just the odd pencil mark stored carefully.