Happy 60th birthday Blue Peter – from a proud former guest

As a young girl, Zoe Williams was invited on to the show to sing carols as a man threw fake snow in her face. She recalls her favourite moments, from the out-of-control Brownie bonfire – to Anthea Turner’s cardboard Thunderbirds island

Blue Peter was created exactly 60 years ago by a man with a name like a limerick, John Hunter Blair. Despite its high formality – presenters buttoned up like teachers, voices like newscasters but more cheerful – the show had a radical format. It took a novel view of children, regarding them as an audience with their own tastes and interests, rather than as interim humans to be quieted while you waited for them to see sense.

The one constant across the decades has been viewer participation, with its rather broad invitation to send in literally anything interesting – a poem perhaps, or a fascinating rock. Or even yourself: for to be invited into the studio for any purpose was, and perhaps remains, the most exciting thing that could happen to a child. And that’s what happened to me in 1983.

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from Children | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2IXs5nL