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.