Hum The Theme Tune

The theme tune of Blue Peter is instantly familiar to viewers young and old. The famous instrumental tune is Barnacle Bill which was composed by Ashworth Hop (1880-1962).

The signature tune was first used in 1958, when the programme was launched and 11 different versions have been used since then, apart from a brief period in 2008 when a version of the Sailor's Hornpipe was used.

My recent purchase is this copy of the sheet music score published by EMI Music Publishing which was printed to coincide with the first revised version of the track, recorded by Mike Oldfield on Virgin Records in January 1979. The original version, used for 21 years was a production by Sidney Torch and The New Century Orchestra.

Other versions over the years include:

•Sidney Torch & The New Century Orchestra: October 1958 to January 1979
•Mike Oldfield: January 1979 to June 1989
•Simon Brint: September 1989 to September 1992
•Simon Brint: September 1992 to September 1994
•The Yes/No People: September 1994 to August 1999
•David Arnold and the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra: September 1999 to June 2004
•Nial Brown: September 2004 to December 2006
•Dave Cooke: January 2007 to June 2007
•Dave Cooke & Blue Peter Music Makers September 2007 to June 2008
•Dobs Vye: September 2008 – June 2011
•Banks & Wag: September 2011 – present
For those musically-gifted people out there who can read music, here is the score for you to practice and come up with your own version:

 

Bumber Colouring Book

Another one-off publication for the Blue Peter book shelf was this great Bumper Colouring Book published in 1972.

What I love most about this front cover is Pete's multi-coloured shirt, I do recall that fashion as it happens although I was probably just too young in 1972 to possess such an item, but old enough to remember how cool they looked. I'm sure there were jumpers of a similar design too. I wonder if Peter wore it for this photograph with the intention of suggesting a palette of colours for kids to apply in their colouring book.

You'd be right in thinking there isn't a great deal to comment on about a colouring book and once you've seen one, well you've seen them all. But notable in this one is a sketch of the FA Cup on one of the pages and I wonder if that relates to a story Blue Peter once did about the theft of the FA Cup from one of our local sports shops in my home town of Birmingham. My team Aston Villa had won the FA Cup and allowed a sports shop owner, Mr Shillock if memory serves me right from studying the story in my BP annual, to display the cup in his front window in the Newtown area of the city.

One night someone broke into Mr Shillock's shop and made off with the cup, never to be seen again. Sometime in the 1970s I remember reading that an old villain in the Aston area had claimed it was he that had stolen the said cup and melted it down, but I recall that the Birmingham Mail doubted his story because he got a lot of facts wrong about the break-in.  

The longstanding brag amongst Villa fans is that we've had the FA Cup stolen more times than local rivals Birmingham City have won it.

But anyway, looking at some of the other sketches to be coloured in, in this book, I recognise one or two images from Blue Peter programme features back in the day, such as the flying men of Papantla in Mexico and Daniel Lambert, Leicester's famous 'large' man weighing 52 stones 11 pounds. Both of whom have reputedly been given better odds of one day winning the FA Cup than the Blues.


 

Long Hot Summer

Hi De Hi campers

Anyone who remembers the summer of 1976 will recall it as being very hot for a very long time. Indeed this is why it is generally known as the long, hot summer of 1976.

The 1976 British Isles heat wave lasted for three months during which the whole country suffered a severe drought and there wasn't even a mention of global warming.

15 year old delinquents like me spent most of the long hot summer hanging around in the local park hoping to attract girls with my Bay City Rollers spiky hair cut. Whilst I quickly realised that it wasn't that cool for lads to emulate the infamous tartan army, fortuitously my hair cut meant that just 12 months later I was able to say I was the first punk rocker in our school.

With the sun shining brightly for weeks on end and hairy men donned in budgie smugglers flocking to Britain's beaches in their millions, what better time for Blue Peter to have issued their one and only Holiday Special bumper comic, featuring the iconic John Noakes on the front cover, resplendent in a fetching Butlinesque blazer, striped tie and straw boater ...all that was missing was a fringe trim, but it was 1976. 

The Blue Peter Holiday Special cost just 30p and far from being a comic, it was more like a mini soft-back annual, printed on good quality paper that has survived the years (but we didn't have deforestation back then either), it was packed with quality articles, jokes, comic strips, crosswords and even a nature update from the brilliant Grahame Dangerfield. Yes children of the new millennium, in our day tv naturalists had proper wildlife names like Dangerfield. In fact it was probably Grahame Dangerfield who eventually discovered deforestation and greenhouse gases, but back in 1976 he was doing the serious work of washing oil from puffins and keeping a watchful eye on the breeding patterns of badgers. Grahame was, by the way a Blue Peter regular.
 

Legends Purves and Dangerfield preparing lunch

Another friend of Blue Peter to get a page in the 76 Holiday Special was John Craven, the man who had made news about wars, famines, street riots and assassinations more accessible to the ears and minds of children through his popular News Round. Sporting a hair cut not too different to Noakes on the front page, though arguably better combed, Craven brought us the good news of famine relief in the Bangladesh village of Pullacandi. John Craven's Newspage was aptly followed by a comic strip of Angels, the tv series about nurses at St Angela's General Hospital. A few pages on and lovely Leslie picks up the theme with a 'make' featuring First Aid Angels made out of yoghurt cartons, steel wool and lace all held together with the inevitable sticky backed plastic.  
 
The Holiday Special featured two pages headed 'underground jokes' which might have suggested something along the lines of Private Eye, though apart from a couple of dodgy gags mainly about horses, provided some great comic magazine history from the archives of IPC, the publisher of this summertime BP comic. 
 
As if to combat it's poptastic rival Magpie, the 76 Holiday Special also dipped it's toe into the world of the contemporary young people's popular music culture of the time, with a feature called Noel Edmond's Pop Pop Pop Page. Whilst the comic's editors might retrospectively be relieved that they picked the forever squeaky-clean Noel Edmonds as their celebrity DJ (consider for one moment some of the available alternatives during that era), with Noel picking out stories on Elton John, David Essex and Marie Osmond for his 'special peek around the pop scene', unfortunately he also included the now disgraced glam rock star Gary Glitter. If only we knew back then what we know now, but we certainly can't blame Noel or Blue Peter for that!
 
The comic also has a sports section featuring the great strong men of the time, Geoff Capes and Precious Mackenzie, now there's two blasts from the past! Whatever happened to Precious Mackenzie? Is he still pulling jeeps I wonder?
 
All in all a great read in 2019, though I'm not sure it would have competed with Record Mirror back in 1976.
 
So it's Shang-a-Lang from me and "I am an anarchist and I wanna destroy" from him.
 
 

Interview with Peter Purves on Radio Suffolk

Thank you to Radio Suffolk presenter John West for sending us this link to an interview with Peter Purves he co-hosted on 16th July 2019.

John emailed "I noticed your BP blog and have enjoyed reading it. You may be interested to know that I interviewed Peter Purves for Suffolk and Norfolk Life magazine - issue May 2019. And I co-hosted a BBC Radio Suffolk show with Peter where we chatted about BP and Dr Who.  Here's the link

 

Fantastic to hear Peter's chosen track The Shape I'm in by The Band!

 

I told you the man oozes cool factor did I not?

 

Thank you John West and thanks also for sharing these great pictures of Peter visiting the studio at Radio Suffolk, featuring John sporting his 'John Noakes and Shep' t-shirt. Alongside John is film producer Jason Figgis (website https://figgisjason.wixsite.com/director), actor Julie Abbott (who is John's girlfriend and plays a ghost in Jason's latest film) and of course the legend that is Mr Purves.

John said that they are about to work on a new project with Peter - so watch this space for information on that one!

 

 

 

Beautiful knockers and a touch-up from the Groom

Blue Peter presenter number 8 was Simon Groom, a fresh faced young fellow from the Derbyshire town of Chesterfield, he joined the team in 1978 as a replacement for the quintessentially smooth, confident and professional Purves.

Brought up on a farm in Dethick and educated at Birmingham University, Groom was to have an eight year tenure as a BP presenter, seeing off many other presenters who came and went along the way.    
Groom might be described as the presenter who straddled the transition period between what is often described as the golden period of Blue Peter, i.e. Singleton, Noakes and Purves into the trendier era of the 1980s with all its challenges to keep a new generation on board whilst not losing the much-loved format. Groom achieved this with ease through his consistently friendly and engaging manner. Eighteen months working as a teacher before joining the BBC gave him the confident style of the archetypal 'everyone's favourite history teacher' or even as that youthful uncle that the high-spirited kids always gather around at family gatherings.    

Whilst he may initially have been perceived as the new straight-man to the veteran super-clown Noakesy, Groom was to stamp his individual mark as a Blue Peter mainstay and, in the words of Baxter and Barnes, he grew into the role.

Groom had become interested in television when period drama director Dorothea Brooking filmed A Traveller in Time at his father's Tudor farmhouse. Whilst neither Judd nor Singleton were seen floating elegantly around on this particular film set, even so it was enough to set the tenacious farmer's lad on a mission to get himself a broadcasting career, which included a stint in Germany working as a DJ (well who'd have thought it!)

Simon Groom is probably best remembered for being master of ad lib innuendo on Blue Peter, amusing  members of the production crew and the liberal mums and dads alert enough to spot his smutty remarks prior to them being highlighted to the whole nation by Barry Took, but being completely missed by the programme's audience of children (well, we assume so).

Simon started on Blue Peter in May 1978 on the same
day as Goldie (and I don't mean Sarah Greene)

Classics include describing the door knocker on the front of Durham Cathedral as "a beautiful pair of knockers". Another remark followed a piece about hedge maintenance where he closed with the remark, "As long as you have a decent length to start with, well then you can manage a good lay."

Even in his audition for Blue Peter, as described by Baxter and Barnes in their book Inside Blue Peter he managed to make the entire studio collapse into hysterical laughter whilst being put through a trampoline lesson from English national coach, Rob Walker. When Rob instructed him to "jump and bring your knees up - then sit down on the trampoline", Groom followed the instructions adding "Is this called a touch up?". "No" shouted the confused coach, "you mean a tuck jump!"

I'm not sure on this brief telling of the story whether Baxter and Barnes specifically got what the rest of the studio might have been hysterically collapsed by, but Groom's unfortunate fluff on this first occasion didn't seem to put them off giving him the job.    

Baxter and Barnes said "Simon may have felt he had blown it, but we were impressed. No presenter can ever be a carbon copy of another and we thought a country lad would bring a new dimension to the programme. He might have trouble learning his lines, but at least he would have no problem being himself. And he wouldn't have an actor's ego to overcome."

And so it was, with a little bit of touching up by Baxter and Barnes and given a visibly decent length as a presenter, Groom's knockers were confounded and the farmer's lad from Chesterfield became the Benny Hill of children's television.

Reference - Blue Peter The Inside Story, Biddy Baxter and Edward Barnes, page 149
 

Biddy Baxter - the attentive dictator

If Joan Maureen Baxter, MBE, aka Biddy Baxter (born 25 May 1933) had a reputation for being dictatorial, controlling and patronising to her presenters and production colleagues, no one can deny the huge influence she had in shaping the format of Britain's longest running children's television programme from the moment she took over in 1965 to her departure in 1988. Biddy was also extremely attentive to her viewers as is demonstrated in this letter of April 1976 in which she personally answers a child's enquiries about polychromy (the ancient Roman art of painting sculptures) and canals. 

Not only this but Biddy also praises the young viewer for her camp blanket and encloses the coveted prize of a Blue Peter emblem presumably on a badge.

In 2008 Biddy published a book of selected letters to Blue Peter titled Dear Blue Peter... The Best of 50 Years of Letters to Britain's Favourite Children's Programme 1958-2008.

The 2008 Amazon description of the book explains:

'Blue Peter, which celebrates 50 years on television this year, means something to children of every generation from the 1960s onwards - whether it's the theme tune, the pets, the endless sticky-back plastic, or the legendary mishaps. But one little known aspect of the programme is the extraordinary correspondence it generated almost from the day that John Noakes, Valerie Singleton and co, first went on the air. By the late 80s, Blue Peter was receiving an average of 7,000 letters per week. In this wonderfully entertaining book, Biddy Baxter - the programme's editor for 26 years, and the woman who used the Blue Peter badge to encourage children to write in with ideas, pictures and stories - reproduces some of the very best letters received. Original, engrossing, funny - and sometimes remarkably rude - they provide a unique record of life in the second half of the 20th century, of people all over Britain (and further afield) and children of every conceivable background'.

Even today, in the tradition started by Biddy Baxter, Blue Peter staff still personally reply to hundreds of letters from viewers every week. In a 2018 article on the BBC Blog, editor Ewan Vinnicombe said:

"The key to Blue Peter’s lasting success is that the audience are really at the heart of everything we do. We now have record amounts of post which shows how sending and receiving handwritten letters in a digital world is extra special to the children who watch.

So far in 2018 we’ve received over 105,000 pieces of correspondence, compared to 40,000 in 2011. Every letter is read and everyone gets a personalised reply. Children love to see their work on screen and their ideas influencing the content we make."

 

Still replying to more than 100,000 letters a year! Blue Peter at 60

Friday 12 October 2018 

               

https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/aboutthebbc/entries/a15509ac-4756-43fb-bdbc-6de64f368489

 

Val and John in the Flora advert scandal

There have been many scandals to hit Blue Peter over the years, from Richard Bacon's sacking in 1998 for cocaine use to the 2007 charity phone-in controversy (and we will look at some of these in more detail in forthcoming blog posts). But one that seems to have escaped much of this scrutiny was this article which appeared in the press many years ago - the cutting doesn't have a date on it and there's nothing online about the scandal.

The story of the dispute between John Noakes and Biddy Baxter over the costs of keeping Shep the dog is well known. Following his Blue Peter departure Noakes was allowed to keep his dog but the BBC refused to pay him his "dog money" whilst allowing Shep to make guest appearances on the new series, Go With Noakes. The dispute ended with Noakes relinquishing the ownership of Shep following an angry confrontation with Baxter. He did however purchase a new mutt, indistinguishable from Shep but named Skip which he used in adverts for Spillers "Choice Cuts" dog food.

Memories of the Flora margarine debacle however seem to have slipped under the radar. John and Valerie apparently upset the BBC when they appeared together in an advert for the spread using Flora tubs as pretend phones. According to the article the advert was a spoof of the programme's tradition of 'making useful items out of everyday objects' - though I'm not sure by what stretch of the imagination a pretend telephone system made of margarine tubs could be described as useful - but we know what they mean I think.

The newspaper article cites the BBC as saying that Flora hadn't asked for permission for the advert and that "viewers may believe they are watching a real edition of Blue Peter". They continued threateningly "our legal department are looking into it".

With a complete absence of further coverage or mention of this story anywhere on the world wide web, perhaps we can assume that in spite of numerous calls by the BBC legal department, they eventually gave up because no one at Flora would pick up their margarine tub.

For more well-known Blue Peter scandals and intrigues, check out this online article in the Daily Mail archive:  

Sex, lies and double-sided sticky tape! As it marks 60 years, the secret history of Blue Peter – by its star presenters

By Cole Moreton For Event Magazine

 

Published: 22:01, 22 September 2018 | Updated: 22:01, 22 September 2018

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/event/article-6188549/60-years-Blue-Peter-Gossip-scandal-classic-memories.html

Can one detect an element of self-send-up from these veteran creators
of useful things from everyday items?
Including Peter Duncan, still famous for his suits made from off-cuts
of Laura Ashley curtains

 

The 532 Blue Peter

On Sunday 22nd November 1970 a ceremony took place at Doncaster Works, British Rail Engineering Limited, in which a restored A-2 Pacific Class steam locomotive formerly named the 60532 Blue Peter was re-named the 532 Blue Peter.

The locomotive had originally been built at the Doncaster Plant Works and gone into service on 25th March 1948 with the livery of the newly formed British Railways. Along with thirteen other new A-2 Pacifics, the 60532 was named after a race horse and the Blue Peter was a famous horse which won the 1939 Derby.

The Blue Peter was sent to Scotland in 1949 and was withdrawn from service in 1966. After standing for two years at Thornton Junction, in 1968 it was purchase by Geoffrey Drury and Brian Hollingsworth who formed the Blue Peter Locomotive Society. The locomotive was restored in the L.N.E.R livery and given the number 532 which would have been her number before nationalisation into British Railways.

On 22nd November 1970 the Society performed a renaming ceremony with Valerie, Peter and John in attendance along with hundreds of Blue Peter fans, old and young who flocked into the Doncaster Works.

Music was played by the York Railway Institute Silver Band and the 532 Blue Peter arrived at 15.00 to be welcomed by the Mayor of Doncaster Alderman Mrs Olive Sunderland and General Manager of Eastern Region, British Rail Mr I M Campbell.

The renaming ceremony was then conducted by Pete, Val and John.

A notable member of the Blue Peter Locomotive Society was Rev. W. Awdry, the creator of Thomas the Tank Engine. 
  .     

In defence of Siamese cats and Peter Purves

 

More purchases from eBay include these early cast photos and autographs from original presenters from the 1960s, including Christopher Trace with Petra the dog and one of John with Patch, Chris Trace and Valerie with Jason the cat.

The lot included cards with their autographs.

Jason was a seal-point Siamese cat who first appeared on Blue Peter on 1 June 1964. Jason has been described by Blue Peter producers as "the perfect television cat, sitting so still that some viewers thought he was stuffed!" A role later taken over by Peter Purves (ouch!). Anyone recall a parody of Blue Peter where Pete was represented by a life-sized 2-D cardboard cut-out being carried around by John or Val? A bit unfair I feel as Peter often actively helped Val to make things, including the iconic Tottenham Hotspur rattle - aren't we glad most soccer stadiums now have shops where you can buy branded merchandise at extortionate prices though still less than it costs to buy the high quality planed timber, vice, carpentry tools and workbench which Blue Peter neglected to tell you you'd need to make an item which Spurs supporters had probably last used to cheer on Danny Blanchflower in the FA cup final of 1961 (now there's an idea - perhaps Spurs need to ditch Bale and bring back the Peter Purves Rattle).

No, but really Peter … much respect. You were and still remain a true pro and a nice guy.

Jason the cat did go some way to restoring the reputation of the Siamese cat for British children after Walt Disney had completely demonised the breed in Lady and the Tramp. Although I still wouldn't trust one alone in a room with either a sleeping baby or a goldfish. And when the cat starts to blame the hapless barking mutt - don't believe a word of it.

On reflection … Jason probably was stuffed. Valerie would have insisted as she was always very sensible.

 

A Letter from Leila

I managed to get this from eBay this week, which is a letter from Leila Williams to a fan named Ian.

It does not have a date on it and neither does it have the photograph with it which Leila apparently sent to lucky Ian, that will no doubt turn up on eBay as a separate auction. Call me a cynic...



 

But it does have Leila's autograph which is of great value to me, as well as expressing her frustration with sitting for photographs, which must have been a challenge for some one who was Miss Great Britain! I like how Leila has made a little face out of her autograph by double dotting the I - a picture of her soul I feel!

Leila is rapidly becoming my favourite, yet most under-rated Blue Peter female presenter ever. As kid's magazine format tv programmes go, Jenny Handley of Magpie will always take some beating, but Leila is definitely a contender.
 

We love Leila

Before anyone emails me to complain that I have turned my Blue Peter appreciation blog into a retro girlie magazine blog, I need to explain that this is the front cover of Picturegoer with Disc Parade Magazine week ending September 1959, featuring beauty queen Leila Williams on the front cover.

For younger Blue Peter viewers, well ok anyone under the age of 65, lovely Leila Williams from Walsall was the first female Blue Peter presenter from 1958 to early 1962, co-hosting the brand new children's show alongside the legendary Christopher Trace.

But Leila had many strings to her bow, in 1957 she won the Miss Great Britain title and after she was made redundant from Blue Peter because producer Clive Parkhurst couldn't think of anything for her to do (well how many presenters does it take to make a model train set), she went into a spot of acting then married Fred Mudd (the lead singer with The Mudlarks - yes that Fred Mudd).

Back in September 1958, Picturegoer with Disc Parade celebrated their Miss Great Britain front cover scoop thus:

Our Cover Girl

Leila Williams, this week's cover girl, has earned herself a new title . . . "Miss Weather." In April this ex-beauty queen took the job of broadcasting weather forecasts for a commercial TV company. Although the experiment of having woman forecasters failed, the name has stuck - as far as Miss Williams is concerned.

"They just decided they didn't want glamorous girl announcers any more," she sighed. "Still, I enjoyed it while it lasted." After small parts in The Lady Is A Square and The Mouse That Roared, she says: "I'm determined to become a straight actress. The Money I've earned through winning beauty contests and from TV roles has gone towards dramatic training. So I'm hoping that the forecast for me is now bright and cheerful."

Leila shows off the prototype doll for her successor Valerie Singleton

        
There was no mention of Blue Peter in this snippet of an interview with Miss Williams in Picturegoer with Disc Parade though her first appearance must surely have been imminent. Leila's post-Miss GB / weather girl / Blue Peter presenter  career path would include working as store manager at Dorothy Perkins and then being a publican alongside singing hubby Fred.

And if anyone is wondering who was in the hit parade in 1958, the magazine's pop round up included Vince Eager, The Megatrons, Conway Twitty, Ella Fitzgerald, Knuckles O'Toole, Mel Torme, Dizzy Gillespie, Big Bill Broonzy and George Hamilton.    
        

Fred Mudd and his group would knock spots of both Knuckles O'Toole and Conway Twitty

 

Good morning Vietnam - the soldier's sick bed

Instructions for Action Man's sick bed

Long, long ago in the days before Call of Duty on X-Box or Panzer Rush on PS5, young military enthusiasts would have to turn to our own imaginations in order to create the fun, excitement and downright bloody carnage of warfare. For some of us the excitement was gained from laying out our tiny plastic Airfix figures in battalions across the front room carpet, hours spent lining them up in strategic rank and file to be obliterated in seconds by incoming airborne marbles. But then came along the real hero of our dreams, Action Man, muscular, facially scarred, ruggedly handsome (sometimes coming with realistic fuzzy hair), thick necked and six-packed around the tummy area - a look only spoilt on the discovery of his very rigidly operating knee, ankle, wrist and elbow joints revealed after stripping him down to his permanent-painted underpants (oh yes, and no visible genitalia). The only action this guy would never be able to participate in convincingly were gymnastics and... ok moving on.

 

But my first Action Man was actually the astronaut, I can't quite remember what year but surely it must have been close to Christmas 1969. I don't think a Woodstock man was available, but to me Action Man Astronaut was totally phenomenal including space helmet, equipment box strapped to his back, silver suit with US badge and so on. Underneath all this he was still the Action Man we know and love in his permanently painted underpants, so just like his female counterpart Barbie he could be attired in a variety of outfits - though generally for Action Man these were mainly different shades of khaki.

 

As always, Blue Peter never missed a trick and even released instructions for a very special 'make' aimed at Action Man - or 'Soldier Toy' as they referred to him so as not to be seen to be promoting the commercial brand though we all knew it was AM. But clearly some thought went into this make, given that the horrors of the Vietnam war, the northern Irish 'troubles' and half a dozen other fully-televised conflicts were raging around this time, and as acts of political correctness go this early example was subtle.

 

The soldier toy make which Blue Peter came up with was a sick bay, complete with hospital tables and beds, chest of drawers, leg hoists, wall lights, radio headphones, bed charts, bandages and plaster casts all made out of lollypop sticks, card-board grocery boxes, something called fablon, glue and paint. Ok it wasn't Woodstock Man in a CND tee-shirt - although they must have worried that Magpie might yet have come up with that one - but it was all the same a make with a conscience, a make not glorifying but showing the realities of modern warfare. No more shooting Communists for this Action Man, the rest of his war could now be spent smoking a bit of weed in his sick bay bed and chillin to some Jimi Hendrix. 

 

The instruction flyer itself, which could be obtained simply by sending Blue Peter a large brown SAE, was basic, having the appearance of something run off on a Gestetner Duplicator by Biddy Baxter herself. Another great BP make with a bit of social history thrown in.