Blue Peter

Sometimes this blog touches more to do with my present life and its issues while at other times it goes back into the throws of boyhood memories.

The television did play an increasing part in our childhood as much I was and remain very much a radio person and by the part of my childhood I start to have strong memories of, there was a good number of programs produced specifically for children be they cartoons, story telling on Jackanory, factual shows such as Animal Magic and Tomorrow's World, the science centred show.

The big daddy of them all as far as many of us was concerned was the long running magazine show Blue Peter that began in 1958 and is still with us regardless off changes in broadcasting and society over that period.

I began seeing the show at least as far as I have a memory of actively watching the show from 1971 and going through to around 1999 although by that point it was not as central  to my life as what I'd later describe myself as being adult but child-like as it was.

It tended to cover things of interest to us as children but as it was on the BBC driven more by the idea of cultivating interest and a sense of adventure  matched with a sense of wholesome morals to the point of having appeals for various causes you got engaged in.

There was a quite a bit of arts and crafts work featured in the program to encourage children of all ages (and I'm bound to add all abilities) to explore from drawing to making things using things like washing up bottles and the infamous sticky back plastic.

In 1992 during the run up for Christmas because of the surge in popularity of Thunderbirds lead to a severe shortage of the Tracy Island base, the show should children with some adult supervision how they could make their very own.

The show had pets on it in part because some children cannot have pets if where they live doesn't allow them and one many of us took to heart was Shep, a sheep dog that was linked to then presenter, the late John Noakes.

A large part of that came from the then programs  producer Biddy Baxter who set the tone for the 25 years she was in control from seeing to it the presenters were 'decent' with nothing in their lives that would let down a young audience.

Her successor had to act in 1998 when then presenter Richard Bacon was uncovered as a a drugs user by a national newspaper.

Another element of her personality that became a hallmark of the the show was the introduction in 1963 of the Blue Peter Badge that viewers could only gain by writing in with ideas, stories and pictures for the program and with it a card index to each child received a personal response and where the badge would be awarded to the best of them. 

This was born of her own experience of having two identical responses from the author Enid Blyton.
I feel one reason many of us including myself look back upon the show with much affection  was it offered a window on the world  with decent reliable people in who cared about us as the audience and where that interaction was governed by mutual respect.

Rather than commercially driven it, imparted actual skills and knowledge  promoting human decency, the things as children we really needed from friendly adults.

Anyone who wrote in always got a reply and that as a child with difficulties in your life is appreciated for having something beyond four walls that offered stability compared to just sending a postal order for piece of merchandise.

It is also why I have a poster of that line up of presenters from the mid 1970's now on my wall. It means so much.