Blue Peter Annuals - Book One

The First Blue Peter Book was published in 1964 by Lutterworth Press, it cost nine shillings and six pence and on the front cover it boasted to be "The book which five million young viewers have been waiting for!"

The book was actually the idea of Michael Foxall of Lutterworth Press who approached the BBC with the idea, suggesting there was a lucrative gap in the market. The BBC licensed the book and following it's success they dispensed with the services of Lutterworth the following year and published the second Blue Peter book themselves. 

The first book featured an introduction from Chris and Valerie followed by the adventures of Bengo the Boxer Puppy illustrated by William Tymim (Tim). Bengo was already well known to Blue Peter viewers in 1964 as Austrian born artist Tymim had been producing the cartoon for the programmes since the late 1950s. His niece Dorothy Oxford once explained:

"These 'animated' cartoons would take all week between programmes to produce along with the story line. The drawings were done in vision (live) and the narrative read by Mary Malcolm or Sylvia Peters. (in the early days my uncle used to tell the stories in his charming Austrian accent but had been plagued by complaints that the marker pen he used to draw the characters would squeal and screech and drive viewers mad so the sound had to be eliminated while my uncle was actually drawing on screen)".

"Apart from drawing 'Bengo' followed by 'Bleep and Booster' in the late '50's early '60's my uncle had strip cartoons syndicated all over the world. In this country there was the character called 'Humphrey' who appeared in the magazine 'Woman'. 'Wuff, Tuff & Snuff', 'Sniff', 'The Boss' and 'Caesar' in the Sunday Graphic".

On the subject of dogs, the first Blue Peter book also featured the show's first and possibly most famous pet, Petra. With the help of plenty of photographs, Chris Trace explains to readers how he trained Petra from a small puppy. The book also features plenty of 'makes' with Valerie making clothes for dolls, sweets for a party, as well as explaining how to make a desert island out of a tray, some peat and real cactus plants, whilst Chris explains how to make a model circus out of balsawood and a sledge out of softwood and woodscrews. Chris also provides some very delicate engineering advice on looking after model railway locomotives and there is a feature about model motor cars called Blue Peter's Motor Show.

As well as Bengo, the first Blue Peter book features other art work by Tim including an adventure about the loveable Bleep and Booster. There are other children's stories such as Little Watch by Oliver Postgate and The Magic Egg by Edward and Anna Stanton.

Val makes a desert island

Animals feature heavily in the first Blue Peter book with a number of articles about pets and zoo animals, including a feature by zoo expert George Cansdale about Baby Animals. The book also featured a 5 page introduction to the Blue Peter Studio with plenty of behind the scenes photography, including a photo of pop 60s group The Hollies being recorded in the studio.  

Biddy Baxter later wrote about the first Blue Peter book:

"It was fun writing the book, not at all difficult because we were so used to writing scripts and the book was written in the same style. The worst problem was what to leave out". 
The hardback book contained 24 articles in 78 pages and cost just less than the modern equivalent of 50 decimal pence.  

Space age pals: Bleep and Booster