The 4th Blue Peter Book

Published in 1967, the legend that was Chris Trace had left Blue Peter in July of that year yet notably, even though he had featured in over half of the year's shows there is not a single reference to him throughout the whole book, not even a fond farewell in the introductory review of the year "Hello there!".

This seems at odds with the reputation that Blue Peter had taken pride in building, with Trace's input it might be added, as the trusted friend of ordinary boys and girls everywhere. Here was a department of the BBC who kept a database of every letter ever written to the programme so that each child (sometimes 7000 a week) always received an individualised response and who painstakingly and stressfully deliberated over how to present to viewers news of every small life event of their dogs, cats, parrots and assorted shelled reptiles. Yet when it came to waving farewell to a presenter who had been the backbone of the programme ever since the ship set sail in October 1958, there was not so much as a (in the words of the great man), "thank you and now for something completely different".

Perhaps this was a statement of intent, subconscious or otherwise, from the Blue Peter book authors, messrs. Baxter, Barnes and Gill, "lest ye forget, no presenter will ever be greater than the Blue Peter alter ego" and as if to reinforce the point, the 4th book was the first of only 2 out of 40 books which didn't feature human beings on the cover (the other was book 12 which also featured Jason and the dogs - though Patch had been replaced by Shep and there was no parrot).     

Retrospectively, a little thank you and goodbye would have been a nice touch.

However, in Book 4 Noakes and Singleton resume the voyage for just a short time as a duo. Incidentally, Peter Purves joined the show in November 1967 though in fairness that probably was too late to go into this edition.

Valerie Singleton - with a monkey

Without Trace to cramp his style, action-boy Noakes now starts to come into his own. Robin has assumed the mantel of Batman. Even as the book progresses things just get better and better for John Noakes as he goes from looking after Joey the parrot on page 14 to training Patch (page 23) to making advent calendars out of coat hangers on page 44 and a polystyrene glider on page 54 (yes folks they trusted him with makes) to winding up Big Ben (page 48) and finally peaking with a climb to the top of a 110 foot tower crane on Gray's Inn Road (page 64). A prelude to far greater feats over the next decade. 

Valerie remains a steady influence on proceedings in Book 4 with a shoe box doll's house make and a recipe for fruit cream crunch (I'm sure people still use the exact same recipe all over the country to this very day). She also takes Jason on a visit to the National Cat Club Show and helps him research his family tree. The production team are clearly building up the suspense for when they send her out to walk the lion to the local paper shop - but that's for another book.

Patch mentors John on festive uses for a coat hanger which
don't involve stringing up Biddy Baxter from one 

Book 4 continues the delightful input of both William 'Tim' Tymym (Bleep & Booster and Bengo) and Michael Bond (Paddington Bear) and also features a rather detailed though fascinating Cutaway Engine diagram of the inside of the Blue Peter locomotive by one Geoffrey Wheeler. 

The print run is said to have been higher for Book 4 than the previous three editions though it apparently suffered from poor binding so existing copies of this edition tend to have dodgy spines.