The Blue Peter effect - Interview with Biddy Baxter in The Times

In 1958 a television show was launched that transformed British children’s lives. Biddy Baxter, Blue Peter’s powerhouse editor for 26 years, opens the archive to reveal the amazing relationship its viewers formed with the programme

Janice Turner, The Times, August 30, 2008  

 

Before its integrity was rocked by a phoney phone-in and a cat named Cookie, before its innocence was besmirched by coke-snorting presenter Richard Bacon, long before it became absorbed into Seventies nostalgic kitsch, Blue Peter set the course of my life. It is uncool to admit this, safer to make glib gags about sticky-backed plastic and “Get down, Shep!”, but as a knowledge-hungry working-class child in a leaden northern town, Blue Peter offered me the world.

A safari in Kenya, training a guide dog, Noakesy on the Cresta run, even those history segments on Marie Curie or Christopher Wren, jazzed up with just a few line drawings… Every moment gripped me. Blue Peter made me long to see and know and do and travel. And the greatest measure of its power is that I watched until the last name rolled off the credits: “Editor Biddy Baxter”.

What other TV producer was ever a household name? Yet who was this Svengali figure, the puppet mistress who operated Val, John and Pete, who for 26 years steered the lives of millions like me? Perhaps only interviewing Enid Blyton would be more exciting to my inner child. And here is Biddy at the door of her gracious mansion flat just behind Broadcasting House, apologising for the clutter. Beside her desk is a towering complete set of Blue Peter annuals – whose covers from the years 1970 to 1975 give me Proustian flashbacks – and on top are screes of letters from children, just a few of the 1,000 a day the programme received, which Biddy has edited into a book, Dear Blue Peter, to coincide with its 50th anniversary this year.

Click here to read this full and fascinating interview with Biddy Baxter in The Times Online

History - enter the three headed monster

Biddy Baxter

Biddy Baxter was Editor of Blue Peter for over 25 years. She first joined the BBC in 1955, working on school programmes on radio before landing the job of Blue Peter Producer in 1962. Due to radio obligations Biddy was unable to start in post for several months and Edward Barnes therefore acted up alongside Leonard Chase until Biddy was ready to start in October 1962.

In Blue Peter 50th Anniversary Richard Marson describes the early days of the long Baxter / Barnes era:

"After an awkward and mutually suspicious beginning, the Baxter/Barnes partnership blossomed. She had an instinctive grasp of what children wanted; he had the skills to translate these instincts into good television. They learnt from each other and worked out their whole editorial policy in tandem. Biddy sensed that in Blue Peter they had "this marvellous canvas. We wanted to do something that was really going to bring viewers into the programme, to involve them and use their ideas".

During the early sixties, the new Blue Peter team was strong and determined enough to survive a ruthless reorganisation of children's television at the BBC and Biddy and Edward were joined by Rosemary Gill to make up a formibable alliance once described by Christopher Trace as "the three headed monster".

Amongst the developments of Blue Peter in the early to mid sixties under the stewardship of the three headed monster were:

• Greater prominence of 'the makes' led by Margaret Parnell
• More pets, appeals and competitions
• Petra arrives in December 1962, Fred (later discovered to be Freda) the tortoise in October 1963, Jason the Siamese cat in June 1964 and Patch, who was one of Petra's puppies born in September 1965  
• The launch of the Blue Peter badge in 1963 with a massive balloon release
• The design of the ship logo by Tony Hart in 1963
• A new and brighter studio
• Appearance of more Blue Peter experts such as George Cansdale, Mollie Badham and Grahame Dangerfield
• Paddington Bear creator Michael Bond became associated with Blue Peter
• Blue Peter went twice weekly
• Valerie Singleton joined Christopher Trace on 3 September 1962
• The first Blue Peter appeal took place in December 1962
• The first Blue Peter guide dog, Honey, was purchased as a result of the 1964 appeal 
• John Noakes joined as the third presenter on 30 December 1965

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

Christopher Trace - Pied Piper recordings

In 1967 Christopher Trace narrated a series of children's stories which were released as part of the Pied Piper series on 45rpm singles produced by Meccano.

Other guest narrators in the series were Johnny Morris who told the stories of Lorenzo, Muriel Young with stories about Jellyco the Magic Budgerigar, Jimmy Thompson with stories about Professor Brainstawm and Anne Massey with Princess stories.

Chris Trace wrote his stories about George the Reluctant Dragon for his son Jonathan. Cover illustrations were by his BBC colleague Tony Hart.  

Obituary: Christopher Trace

BIDDY BAXTER
The Independent

Tuesday, 8 September 1992

Christoper Trace, television and radio presenter, born Cranleigh Surrey 21 March 1933, married 1958 Margaret Cattrall (one son, one daughter; marriage dissolved 1968), died London 5 September 1992.

16 OCTOBER 1958 and the very first edition of a children's television programme that was to become a household name, was presented by Miss Great Britain 1957, a beautiful blonde called Leila Williams and a tall, handsome 25-year-old actor, Christopher Trace.

No one then had any idea how long Blue Peter would last. It was planned to fill the gap for five- to eight-year-olds, who were growing out of Watch With Mother, but were too young to follow Studio E, the regular magazine programme. Fifteen minutes long, Blue Peter was transmitted every Thursday. Like all male presenters in those days Chris Trace wore a suit and a tie - he mostly played with trains whilst Leila Williams concentrated on dolls. This passion for trains was shared by the programme's originator and first producer, John Hunter Blair. Trace had spent his entire audition playing with the '00'-gauge layout in Hunter Blair's office. After that, there was no hope for any of the other candidates.

During his eight and a half years on the programme, Blue Peter developed, enlarging its scope and its viewing figures, becoming hugely successful. This success was in no small way due to Trace's skill as a presenter. Small children liked him because he was steady, reliable and adventurous - the perfect older brother.

All the programmes were 'live' and there was no autocue. Scripts were learned overnight and when Blue Peter expanded to 25 minutes, and then transmitted bi-weekly, this required not only a good memory but an agile mind and the ability to remain unflappable in front of the cameras no matter what mayhem was going on behind the scenes.

On one occasion, when the promised, playful, small lion cub turned out to be almost full-grown and ferocious, Trace carried on his interview, ignoring the snarls and the blood streaming down the arm of the cub's owner whilst the others, save the camera crew who were quaking behind their cameras, fled.

Like all great presenters, Trace would have barely batted an eyelid had a bomb dropped on the studio. He never fluffed his lines, threw himself by his ad libs or waffled off the subject. He had the authority of the professional, which gave the audience confidence and helped build up a very special trust with viewers of all ages.

Like Valerie Singleton, who took over from Leila Williams in 1962, Trace won his way into the hearts of millions of five- to eight-year-olds with his 'makes'. Apart from demonstrating his beloved 00-gauge locomotives he showed how to create a scenery for the layout, he built the famous Blue Peter sledge, a circus, bird- boxes, model planes, a do-it-yourself life-size Dalek: and when he trained the programme's first puppy, Petra, he made dog-beds and other essential accessories for pets. 'Here's one I made earlier' has been lovingly parodied by programmes from Monty Python to French and Saunders ever since, as has 'Now for something completely different . . .'

It was a fluke that Christopher Trace joined Blue Peter. After leaving school he had a variety of odd jobs including farm labouring. He joined the regular Army and soon won a commission. He left the army for the stage and began his television career fresh from acting as Charlton Heston's understudy in Ben Hur.

After a season of bi-weekly programmes Trace pointed out in his usual forceful way that he was 'bloody knackered' and that if we didn't get a third presenter to share the load he would leave. John Noakes became the third member of the team in 1966.

These were pioneering days of the programme and there was much filming as well as the studio-based items. Trace took part in Blue Peter's first two summer foreign filming assignments, to Norway in 1965 and in 1966 to Singapore and Borneo. His favourite film of all was flying with the RAF's legendary Red Arrows, but he was thankful to hand over the programme's action- man role to new boy Noakes - Trace suffered from vertigo and climbing anything higher than a stepladder was a nightmare.

In the summer of 1967 Trace had what seemed at the time to be the chance of a lifetime. He was asked to join Spectator, a feature film company, as writer and Production Manager. Huw Wheldon was aghast at the prospect. 'There will be no Blue Peter without Christopher Trace,' he prophesied. He was wrong, but sadly the venture failed after only two years and Trace lost his life savings. By now he had also been divorced by his wife Meg, a vivacious and attractive actress, mother of his two small children, Jonathan and Jessica, who had been the rock that gave him the stability he needed. After his marriage broke down, Trace never appeared to have quite the same driving force.

He spent the six following years in East Anglia working for BBC's Nationwide and for radio as a reporter and presenter and later presented BBC Norwich's breakfast show. But his golden years belonged to Blue Peter and Trace always reminisced fondly about his exploits, keeping in touch by phone whenever he had an idea he thought the programme could use.

One brainwave came to him whilst he was actually 'on air', revisiting the programme for Blue Peter's 20th-birthday celebrations in 1978. 'I'd like to give an award,' he said, to the astonishment of those around him. 'I'd like it to be given for an outstanding achievement.' Ever since, the Blue Peter Award for Outstanding Endeavour has become an annual event. The first winner in 1979 was an entire air station. It was awarded to the men and women of Culdrose for rescuing the victims of the Fastnet Yacht Race disaster.

By then Trace had quit the world of television and films to become storekeeper and general manager at an engineering factory in Hemel Hempstead. 'I've always been interested in making things and using my hands,' he said. 'This is just the job for me.' The factory was shut down for the whole day of Blue Peter's 20th anniversary and the entire workforce crowded into the canteen to watch on a portable television.

For the last five years of his life, Chris Trace had the good fortune to enjoy a special friendship with Susi Felton, who gave him much comfort during his prolonged and fatal illness. Susi gave Chris back his confidence as well as love. Their flat in Walthamstow became a focal point for his family and friends and, before the cancer exerted its final and terrible hold, Trace was once again broadcasting, as a regular guest on Radio 2's Are You Sitting Comfortably?, a wallow down television and radio's memory lane hosted by Leslie Crowther. He also organised a highly successful reunion of the TV Travellers, the showbiz cricket team that raised money for charity.

Christopher Trace had a tragically short life but in spite of vicissitudes that most people would have found intolerable he never lost his panache or his love of the world of broadcasting that brought him fame and lasting recognition.

His spirit was phenomenal. Those of us who visited him last week, in the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel, could only marvel at the emaciated figure covered in drips and tubes, cracking jokes and holding court as if his side-ward was a television studio. 'Stop interviewing me]' he barked at Valerie Singleton, who was among those at his bedside two days before he died. And 'You'd all better bugger off now]' when he was too exhausted to talk any more. His first words to me - accompanied by a beaming smile - were 'God, she's here with her bloody obituary pen]'

Original article in The Independent Online

Presenter Profile - Christopher Trace

Christopher Trace and Leila Williams were the first two presenters of Blue Peter which started on October 16th, 1958. Trace was 25 years old and Williams was 21. In their book Blue Peter: The Inside Story, former editor Biddy Baxter and producer Edward Barnes described Christopher Trace as a tall, good looking young actor who shared producer John Hunter Blair's "passion for the Hornby world". It is said that when John Hunter Blair interviewed Chris Trace for the job, the pair spent the entire interview playing with toy trains. Trace was to be the main presenter of Blue Peter for 9 years.

Christopher Leonard Trace was born in Hambledon, Surrey on 21 March 1933. After a successful career in the army where he reached the rank of Lieutenant in the Royal Regiment of Artillery he became an actor. His most distinguished screen role was playing Charlton Heston's body double in Ben Hur.

Christopher Trace stayed with Blue Peter until 24th July 1967. According to Richard Marson, Blue Peter would not have survived the "grim period" between John Hunter Blair's enforced retirement and the arrival of Biddy Baxter without Trace .

"The combination of Chris and Valerie Singleton, who joined as his co-presenter in 1962, was an immediate success and grew more so after the programme went twice-weekly in 1964".

Chris Trace was extremely popular with the Blue Peter audience but by the mid-1960s he was becoming difficult to work with, particularly for the production team. Trace was becoming frustrated with the hard schedule of outside filming for the programme and threatened to resign on more than one occasion. Edward Barnes eventually wrote to Biddy Baxter suggesting that Trace was holding a pistol to their heads and recommending that they appoint a second male presenter to take on some of the action films on Blue Peter.

John Noakes therefore joined the team on 30 December 1965.    

Trace continued to tire of the programme and his life became difficult when his wife divorced him for having an affair with a 19-year-old hotel receptionist during the 1965 Blue Peter summer expedition to Norway.

He eventually resigned in January 1967 but his final appearance on Blue Peter was on 17th July 1967. After transmission the team organised a farewell party with champagne and potato crisps.

After Blue Peter Trace set up his own film company called Spectator but sadly it failed and he was declared bankrupt in 1973. Trace continued to work on radio and for local television in East Anglia and on Nationwide. Later on he worked as a taxi driver and in industry.

In 1980 he appeared on Blue Peter's 20th birthday show and introduced a new award called the Outstanding Endeavour Award. This bronze medallion was made in the factory where he was working and was presented every October up until 1990. Winners of the award included Bob Geldof and Musical Youth.

In 1992, at the age of 59, Chris Trace developed cancer and died on 5th September that year, two days after he was visited in hospital by Vlaerie Singleton, Edward Barnes and Biddy Baxter.

Christopher Trace is credited for coining two well known phrases whilst he was a presenter on Blue Peter, the segue "and now for something completely different", subsequently used by Monty Python and "here's one I made earlier" which has become a line repeatedly used by Blue Peter presenters during makes.

History - the ship sets sail (1958)

First Blue Peter presenters Chris Trace and Leila Williams

The first edition of Blue Peter went out on the BBC at 5 o clock on Thursday 16th October 1958. The programme was created to fill a gap in the BBC Children's Department's output and was aimed at 5 to 8 year olds. It was 15 minutes in length and the first episode featured presenters Chris Trace and Leila Williams.

On the first programme, Chris Trace revealed the Blue Peter model railway and Leila talked about 'things for dolls'. The show also featured a cartoon called Sparky and the Train. The programme was made at Studio E at the BBC's Lime Grove studio in West London and was produced by John Hunter Blair, described by various people as an eccentric and extraordinarily kind Bunterish academic.

It was Hunter Blair who conceived the name Blue Peter, after the flag that is lowered at the start of a ship's voyage. The theme music Barnacle Bill was used from the very first programme.

Artist Tony Hart was a regular guest on Blue Peter in the early years, narrating his own illustrated stories such as Packi the little white elephant (after pachyderm - a thick skinned creature). Tony Hart designed the Blue Peter ship and even presented two editions of Blue Peter himself.  

Former Miss Great Britain 1957 and co-host of the Six-Five-Special Leila Willams is credited as doing the very first 'make' on Blue Peter which was a patchwork quilt for a doll's pram made from a hem of an old dress. 

Tony Hart on Blue Peter

When producer and Blue Peter creator John Hunter Blair retired from the BBC due to ill health in June 1961, it set off an uncertain period for the programme with two successive producers, Clive Pankhurst amd John Furness, both failing to make a lasting impact. In the meantime Leila Williams was dropped by Parkhurst in January 1962 to be replaced by Anita West who stayed only as long as John Furness (May 1962 to September 1962).

Valerie Singleton became the programme's third female presenter alongside veteran Chris Trace on 3rd September 1962. Biddy Baxter took over as Blue Peter producer in October 1962 and stayed in that role for the next 26 years.

Reference:

Blue Peter 50th Anniversay by Richard Marson

Hello There!

Early presenters - Chris Trace, Valerie Singleton and John Noakes

Hello There ...yes, those were the two immortal words used by generations of presenters down through 5 decades of the children's television programme Blue Peter and, of course, in the introduction of each annual.

When I was born in 1961, Blue Peter had already been on the air for 3 years, but I am privileged to have viewed perhaps the programme's golden era as a child, when the legendary John Noakes, Valerie Singleton and Peter Purves were the presenters in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Every Christmas my parents would buy me the Blue Peter annual and nothing was so exciting as reading the stories, attempting the puzzles or finding out about the pets, presenters and the best bits of all the programmes throughout the preceding year.

Much has been written about the success and longevity of Blue Peter but I still find it intriguing to ponder on why it has continued to be so engaging for five or more generations of youngsters and adults alike. There is clearly something very special about it's formula that has kept it going for over 50 years when so many other children's television programmes have come and gone and yet the programme has changed almost beyond recognition from the days when Christopher Trace demonstrated his 00 gauge model train set wearing a very formal suit and tie back in 1958, to the newest presenter, Barney Harwood chatting informally to viewers via the Internet on the BBC website in 2011. 

But on reflection, perhaps the basic formula hasn't changed that much since 1958 - it's the world and our technology that have moved on and perhaps the style in which things are conveyed. What Blue Peter continues to offer is that friendly magazine format which entertains, informs, educates ...and includes young people.

Newest presenter in 2011 - Barney Harwood

Blue Peter has come through many wider social and cultural eras in the UK. Post war Britain experiencing mass immigration and the increasingly dominant influence of American pop / rock'n'roll culture and mass media from the late 50s; Jimi Hendrix and the permissive and psychedelic revolution of the 60s; urban expansion, modernisation and Sid Vicious in the late 70s; Thatcherism, yuppies, big hair, Bob Geldof and class conflict in the 80s; Tony Blair, the Gallagher brothers and the rapid growth of new technology such as the internet in the 90s; globalisation, war on terror, world recession and Simon Cowell in the 2000s; how can a television show survive so many periods of cultural, technological and social change without becoming outmoded or obsolete?

This blog is my celebration and exploration of the television phenomenon that has been and continues to be Blue Peter - the show that started 11 years before they put a man on the moon!

Through this blog I want to review my personal Blue Peter library of annuals and other publications and I will attempt to build an online archive of articles, videos, pictures and links.

The site is not for profit - my fascination with and admiration for Blue Blue Peter are purely a hobby - and neither is it my intention to infringe copy right, so please let me know if I have done so inadvertently, so that such items can be removed or so that I can acknowledge either author, artist or intellectual source.

Please enjoy my new blog and please contribute too!


Pete Millington
Birmingham, UK