Dear Blue Peter: The Best of 50 Years of Letters to Britain's Favourite Children's Programme 1958-2008

by Biddy Baxter

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.

Genres: Nonfiction, Media Tie In

244 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 2008

About the author

Joan Maureen "Biddy" Baxter was an English television producer, best known for editing the long-running BBC TV children's magazine show Blue Peter from 1965 to 1988. As editor of the programme, Baxter devised much of the format that is still used today.

Reviews

[Varinka Strong · Rating 5 out of 5]

Memories of your childhood. Great

[Sophie Crane · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wonder if there has ever been a TV series for children anywhere in the world to match the success of the BBC's Blue Peter, which has now been going for more than half a century. This book, put together by Biddy Baxter, is a fitting tribute to the series. The series actually started in 1958 and I'm not absolutely clear if letters were a feature from the beginning, or whether (as seems likely) Biddy, the Blue Peter producer from 1962 to 1988, decided to make them a feature of the series. Whether it was her idea or not, the fact remains that in the days when the Royal Mail was the only way for most people to communicate thoughts in writing, Blue Peter became interactive. Letters from viewers were an important feature of the series and they are even more important in this book, which gathers a selection of them to use as a means of looking back at the first half-century of the series. Biddy explains in her introduction that she learned a hard lesson as a child, when as a child she wrote two letters to her then-hero Enid Blyton and received the same reply on both occasions. So in her time as Blue Peter producer, she set up an elaborate system that indexed all letters, ensuring that people who sent in more than one letter were remembered. The absence of canned responses brought its rewards in the end and no doubt ensured the longevity of the series.

Biddy does not give us a comprehensive history of Blue Peter (or even come close), but captures the essence of the series and what it meant and still means to the British public. So it is an affectionate tribute rather than anything else, but some controversial issues are included. I was once a regular viewer, in the days when all televisions transmitted pictures in black and white, but I don't remember any detail, only the generalities and the two presenters and dog who were the stars in those days. In fact, my memory is even hazier than I thought, because I don't remember either of the two female presenters that preceded Valerie Singleton. Christopher Trace, the other presenter that I remember from my days as a regular viewer, was there from the beginning. Given that I was able to watch TV in 1958, I probably saw Leila Williams and Anita West present the series, but even this book (which includes a 1959 picture of Leila with Christopher) doesn't jog my memory of them.

The book's chapters focus on different aspects of the series - badges, presenters, pets, criticism, babies, makes (all the things that the presenters taught the viewers how to make at home), appeals (for good causes), news headlines, competitions and PS. Of courses, some of these categories overlap; critical correspondence is not limited to the chapter on it. The appendices at the back list all the pets and presenters as well as the appeals targets and results.

The pets chapter inevitably has much about Petra, who was extremely popular with viewers but not with professional dog breeders. They were upset that so much prominence was given to a mongrel (Petra was an Alsatian cross), rather than a pedigree breed. Towards the end of Petra's life, she was diagnosed with diabetes and this became big new. A diabetic child wrote in with an invitation for Petra to a party for diabetic children and Blue Peter accepted the invitation. Nice touch, and while they obviously get far more requests and invitations than they can accept, this one showed that they picked good ones.

If you are or were a regular Blue Peter viewer, this book will amuse you while jogging the memory at least a little. Perhaps sociologists might also find it interesting as a study topic. I'm not sure who else would be interested, but as just about every Brit under 60 (and maybe quite a few over that age) watches or used to watch the series, that's still a huge potential market. Biddy Baxter did a great job as Blue Peter producer and now she's done a great job in putting this book together.

[Robin Fox]

A very enjoyable trip down memory lane

[Lewis · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a great read. It kept me laughing throughout, whilst still managing to provide a lot of interesting information about the history of one of Britain's best loved kids shows.