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The Best...Blue Peter moment

John Noakes and canine companion
  • Posted at 4:55pm
  • 06 October 2008
  • by DavidBrown-RT
  • 5 comments

It's so tempting to go for something unintentionally funny when picking the definitive spectacle from Blue Peter's first 50 years. Contenders could have included:

The horrified look on Mark Curry's face when he separated a giant Lego man's head from its body, wrecking in seconds what must have been months of work.

An apoplectic Percy Thrower describing the vandals who wrecked the BP garden in 1983 as "mentally ill" live on television.

A studio full of Girl Guides and Brownies resolutely keeping their posts around a campfire that's steadily growing into an inferno in the 1970 Christmas edition.

Mark Curry - for it is him again - smashing into a freestanding wall on the set while at the controls of a miniature train.

Or Sarah Greene happily discussing the history of ladies' underwear. In her underwear. (Or did I dream that one?)

But that would do a programme of Blue Peter's stature and longevity a disservice. So I've opted for a highlight from the year of my birth - 1977. A segment that I couldn't possibly have seen when originally broadcast, but which has been repeated tons of times since. A moment that, when viewed through 21st-century eyes, actually becomes even more momentous and eye-watering.

It is, of course . . . John Noakes scaling Nelson's Column on rickety ladders lashed together with rope to clean off the encrusted pigeon poo. It's a piece of television to simultaneously give you a vicarious thrill and a severe bout of nausea, a feat that would have been vetoed in 2008 by health and safety at the first mention of "a boatswain's chair".

One of the things that immediately strikes you is Noakes's calmness under pressure and his ability (even at 169ft above London) to downplay his own derring-do. There he is, Beatles haircut and flared trousers flapping in the wind, climbing up ramshackle equipment - and what comes out of his mouth? "By gum, his hat's a bit dirty." Maybe he'd become completely desensitised to danger by this point, having done a freefall with the RAF, shinned up the mast of HMS Ganges, boxed with a kangaroo and been trodden on by Lulu the elephant. But what in the name of Biddy Baxter was he thinking?

When Konnie Huq visited the restoration project at the same location nearly 30 years later, she made sure Nelson was covered in scaffolding first. When John Noakes reached the summit, he was met by a cleaner with a black plastic pail in one hand and a cigarette on the go in the other. Was there any job in the 1970s that you couldn't do while smoking a fag?

So, apologies to all of you who would have gone for Peter Duncan's green-and-white harlequin suit, Anthea Turner making Tracy Island or Simon Groom and his "lovely pair of knockers" - as a reward for sheer bravery or compensation for not having a serious death wish recognised at the time by his BBC bosses, it's my duty to Go with Noakes. Oh, and happy birthday, Blue Peter.

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Comments

  • Posted on 12 January 2009
  • at 5:38pm
  • by patricia

I was at school with Lesley Judd, where is she now?

  • Posted on 16 October 2008
  • at 11:03pm
  • by A member of guiding

Interesting fact - the young guide leader on the 1970 christmas programme is still involved at a high level in the organisation!

  • Posted on 15 October 2008
  • at 11:23pm
  • by Paul

Happy 50 Birthday to you all at BLUE PETER. I have a collection of BLUE PETER ANNUALS from N.o 1 to 21.

Well done John Noakes, & all you other presenters over the 50 years.

Keep up the great work.

Keep the BLUE PETER ship sailing for another 50 years.

Congratulations!!

Paul Perrett

  • Posted on 14 October 2008
  • at 8:24pm
  • by FormerBPViewer

What About The Dalek Car Driven into the studio by the Great Caron Keating in 1987? That's one of my fav BP moments.

  • Posted on 10 October 2008
  • at 8:58pm
  • by H

What, no mention of elephant poo? Or do events that long ago not count? What year was that?

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