I loved Blue Peter

When I was a kid if there was one TV show I would never miss, it’s was Blue Peter. They are celebrating their 60th anniversary today. It was a general children’s entertainment show and I say children but at the age of 19 years old I remember being moved listening to the story of Ann Frank when Valerie Singleton went to Amsterdam to visit the house where Anne Frank and her family hid from the Nazis. Until it moved to CBC and was on BBC1 I would still dip in and out of the programme even thou my kids had grown up.

It’s the longest running children’s TV show in the world. From milk bottle tops and sticky back plastic to famous Tracy Island the show has had 37 presenters, 25 pets and handed out one million badges, I never got one. The show transcend six decades and countless generations and why it still manages to inspire children and shows little signs of stopping any time soon.

What do you expect of the presenters just an energetic, fun-loving and happy faces and that curiosity to go that extra mile for the show. Has for the show I remember some cock-ups … like the school kids in the studio sitting around a campfire when an electrical fault in the campfire set off a real fire.

Remember, a naughty little elephant called Lulu who crapped all over the studio floor that was funny.

The programme has raised enormous amounts of money for a plethora of charities, both international and in the UK and instilled a sense of social conscience in the children who helped raise funds. You would be excited for the latest reveal of the totalizer who knew old used stamps were worth money but the Bring and Buy sales revolutionised the shows fund raising by the programme.

It is estimated that, across the 49 appeals in the history of Blue Peter, children have raised the equivalent of over £100 million in today’s money for causes worldwide and here in the UK. One of the most popular appeals have been for the RNI lifeboats and the show can never be called as behind the times building eight flats for homeless people. In recent years, Blue Peter has supported Sport Relief.

Konnie Huq became the longest running female Blue Peter presenter, working on the show for 11 years. One of her memorable moments includes visiting Bangladesh and speaking to members of her extended family who she had not seen for many years.

John Noakes is the longest-serving member of the team in total, presenting for 12 years on the show between 1965 and 1978 with Shep the dog he was an institution who clambered to the top of Nelson’sa column with no safety rope.

Every one as a group of presenters from their era and dating myself Valerie Singleton, John Noakes, Peter Purves and black and white TV. Today for the first time in donkey’s years, I watched the special on CBC.