Biddy Baxter and the Decline and Fall of Blue Peter
We all like to talk about conspiracies, psychological operations, propaganda and nudge. But what about Biddy Baxter? You know, the final name in the credits of Blue Peter: on consideration, fine filly, possibly mad. A human being. Though anyone associated with the BBC, to an impressionable mind in the 1970s and 1980s, had an almost impossible aura of order and perfection and stereotypicality: little actualities of the Platonic ideal, these BBC presenters, from John Noakes to Ted Baker to Jimmy Savile. But, of course, what I actually mean is that they were Completely Bonkers, mostly in a benign way, sometimes not: and that it was their complete bonkerishness, as human beings, that made them wonderfully unique before a camera: somehow managing to channel It for the sake of the camera – ‘It’ being that strange David Frost quality. Cathode ray men and women. In subsequent times we will call them ThemTubers to distinguish them from YouTubers.
Biddy Baxter, producer of Blue Peter between 1962 and 1988, has died. I wandered into Oxfam in Whitby a few days ago, and found a few Blue Peter annuals from the 70s for sale. I decided not to buy them, though it was amusing to see Peter Purves, Valerie Singleton and John Noakes holding hands as they ascended an Aztec ziggurat. (I bought Bertrand Russell’s Has Man a Future? for £1 instead.) Well, for many of us Blue Peter was the zeitgeist. So as Biddy Baxter ascends to the upper Broadcasting House, the reflections come.
To read the rest of this article, you need to donate at least £5/month or £50/year to the Daily Sceptic, then create an account on this website. The easiest way to create an account after you’ve made a donation is to click on the ‘Log In’ button on the main menu bar, click ‘Register’ underneath the sign-in box, then create an account, making sure you enter the same email address as the one you used when making a donation. Once you’re logged in, you can then read all our paywalled content, including this article. Being a Donor will also entitle you to comment below the line and access the premium content in the Sceptic, our weekly podcast. A one-off donation of at least £5 will also entitle you to the same benefits for one month. You can donate here.
There are more details about how to create an account, and a number of things you can try if you’re already a donor – and have an account – but cannot access the above perks on our Premium page.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
I used to enjoy Blue Peter in the 70s and John Noakes was a legend! The cleaning of Nelson’s column, climbing under that ledge and the Cresta run where he crashed are both examples of things that wouldn’t happen today for a verity of reasons
Yep, 70’s BP, Marine Boy and Dr Who, all treats, for when I refrained from setting fire to things or having dramatic but non life threatening accidents. I guess my parents took TV as a respite, a few brief minutes of me sitting quietly, absorbed by ‘safe’ nonsense, and not indulging in my own personal chaos, sweet memories of happy childhood….
Sit down and chew your Oxygum.
Yes? Probably too young to remember Freddie and the Dreamers or the Beatles on Blue Peter.
I remember the first episode (with the seagull or piece of dirt on the title-film of the ship). It seemed then to be just a more up-market Studio E.
The single worst piece on DS since its inception. Professors know an awful lot about very little, evidenced here.
Trashing the architect of the greatest children’s TV programme ever made. Sure she was driven, but look at the fruit.
BP declined when the BBC went woke, but under Baxter’s guidance it educated and entertained millions of young minds.
Bit harsh, when I used to watch it BP had great presenters and high production values.
You could say that back then the BBC still played the game.
The same was true of most the BBC’s output – yes minister, faulty towers, the good life to name but few, and obliged competing stations also to offer high quality programming.
When exactly the wheels came off, I couldn’t say. Obviously now the BBC needs to be put out of our misery, but it’s really just the same story of national and cultural decline which has been a feature of England for decades now.
for convenience we can date it from 1997.
The moment.? Death of, and more specifically, the funeral of Princess Diana, when we collectively lost our minds for the first of many times since.
Can’t say I agree with “single worst piece on DS” etc; I don’t think that James Alexander is capable of writing bad pieces (- please excuse the brown nosing, but I mean it). I agree though that often ‘experts’ know too much about too little and often get the little they do about completely arse about face. The question is whether, as Prof Alexander suggests, it was rather odd that the State broadcaster suddenly decided to get involved in parenting, or not; that earnest, we-know-better tone that lefties just can’t help producing, and which is insidiously comforting – even for people who aren’t really lefties at all. The question in my mind is whether Blue Peter (which I enjoyed as a kid) was ever ‘needed’ at all – regardless of its ability to entertain children – and whether or not the country – the world – would simply have been better off without television, and even without radio. Remember – that real world in which children found things out for themselves? Modernity – who needs it.
Emphatically, yes. He seems as incapable of writing something bad as others are of writing anything good. It’s mostly for him (I’ll out-brown-nose you, CR) that I read TDS. Almost everything else here is predictably opposite to conventional msm wisdom, i.e. itself obeys a convention. But just about everything of his comes from an unexpected and individual point of view, and not just in its argument but its style. His pieces are continuously interesting as few others are. TY is to be congratulated for making him a regular.
What? C’mon! This is the daily Sceptic not the Grauniad or Radio Times. Sceptical about Blue Peter not just in its decadence but heyday and inception? That is sceptical. You want positivity, you don’t have far to look. But where else are you going to find negativity as witty as the Professor’s?
And not a mention from anyone of the fact that Blue Peter pioneered recycling of household waste into inspirational models, gifts and decorations, still featuring in adverts for washing up liquid.
In those days the BBC aspired to help people who were not so well off (most of the country) rather than preach to the uneducated masses. I still to this day remember Barry Bucknell inspiring my dad to make a pelmet from hardboard to hide the crude and ugly brass curtain track. Not just one, the first success inspired him and every set of curtains in the house was eventually clad with his creations (and not a straight line was seen anywhere, as sawing with a blunt handsaw meant precision had to yield to experdiency.
Now, in our affluent world, no Guardian-reading young person would think of making something, when you can get a “man” in to do it, al.though I suspect a few Sceptics still have a tool-box that isn’t accumulating dust
The market has evolved a lot since her career. After all, until 1982 there were only 3 channels available for most geographical areas in the UK, then one more to the end (Channel 4). Then another year on the WWW was invented, in effect.
I enjoyed this article for it promoted some insights. Yet beyond Thesis, Antithesis, and Synthesis there is Hypothesis – where the idea promoted by Synthesis is tested against the real world.
So you can add evidence to bolster the synthesis – the early demise of Mrs Dale’s Diary, the ongoing posturing of the Archers and even the changing nature of soap operas (a large topic in itself). But the hypothesis to be tested is how much these programs affected real life, or whether these programs merely reflected change in real life.
No wonder the woke dislike science it tests ‘ideas’ against real life and may disprove beloved fictions.
My husband and I both preferred Magpie. Despite the old BP line ups with John Noakes and Valerie Singleton there was always that patronising attitude that is still prevalent today- “we’re the BBC and we know better than you”,
With that cute Marc Bolan look-alike.
You mean Mick Robertson, still alive and well at 79. Of course there was plenty to tempt the almost pubescent young chap, in the form of Susan Stranks (alive at 89) and Jenny Hanley (alive at 78) Magpie did have a bit of a fun edge to it, whereas Blue Peter was a visit by your maiden aunt. To show how elitist it was, my Mother could never afford ‘sticky back plastic’. We have to improvise with old newspaper and flour glue
“And next week I’ll be showing you how to make a Chieftain tank, so be sure to have some felt and tissue paper handy.”
The word “culture” needs to get a lawyer as it is misrepresented on nearly every tongue.
Culture – a linguistic group with shared morals, values, standards, manners, heritage, laws. Not anything to do with sticky-backed plastic and washing-up liquid bottles.
Back to Blue Peter: it was fun. Making models, the presenters out doing stuff, the unpredictable animals… Get down Shep!
It brought a wide world into my limited sphere of experience as it seemingly did for many children and even though “Middle Class” from my point of view, appealed to us Working Class kids too.
Born in the 1940s after the war, I should have been a follower of Blue Peter but never liked it. It felt contrived and ‘too nice’. To me, there was a false edge to everything whereby “you will enjoy yourself” was the mantra. Many of my contemporaries liked it but it was not for me.