For all the cartoons, drama serials and quiz shows, nothing epitomises my age group’s children’s TV more than Blue Peter. Many of my primary school classmates were in the ITV Magpie camp but, being a predominantly BBC household, it was for Catherine and me Blue Peter every Monday and Thursday before tea. John Noakes may have been the headline-grabber action man, but it was Valerie Singleton who for years was the most reassuring studio presence.
As with Doctor Who regenerations, my most memorable moments were supplied by new additions to the Blue Peter presentation team. I definitely remember Christopher Trace handing on the baton to Peter Purves in 1967 (I was six) but John and Val provided the continuity that we youngsters craved. Those three were all trained actors which presumably helped with script-learning and taking direction but on live telly anything can happen. Everyone is familiar with John taking a tumble in Lulu the elephant’s pee and poo but few remember Val looking so cool amidst the chaos.
By this time, all three hosts were well into their thirties, positively ancient in the modern era of ‘Kids’ TV’ but if Blue Peter presenters were supposed to represent older siblings nobody consulted me. Who cared? John was Yorkshire through and through, Pete hailed from Lancashire and Val was born in Hitchin so they weren’t all middle-class Establishment figures, and I lapped it up, especially the recorded segments; even the traditional lighting of the Christmas advent candles.
Val’s more unruffled demeanour and mellifluous voice were also ideally suited to reporting and narration. She could hobnob with royalty, as she did in 1971 with Princess Anne, and front numerous Blue Peter Special Assignments throughout the Seventies, despite ceding the regular gig to the livelier Lesley Judd. She also interviewed assorted various ‘VIPs’ in ’73 and ’74. With hindsight, the most famous celebrated meeting was with the then whiny-voiced Education Secretary who pronounced there’d not be a woman Prime Minister in her lifetime. Her name was, of course, Margaret Thatcher, who entered Number 10 just six years later.
Singleton was too great a BBC asset to be isolated in children’s hour. She featured frequently on Nationwide, be it handling consumer items or interesting filmed reports, and continued her grown-up current affairs career on The Money Programme. This wouldn’t normally by my kind of show but, after leaving university in the early Eighties, I tried to supplement my ICMA accountancy lectures with extracurricular reading and viewing about business and economics in the real world. Finding Val in the presenter’s chair was a bonus.
Her new-found gravitas also lent itself nicely to send-up in a 1986 Comic Relief sketch with fellow Treasure Geoffrey Palmer while her wonderful voice and live broadcasting skills were ideally matched to some of Radio 4’s schedule staples like Midweek and PM. In ’94 Val also encouraged us to donate for victims of the shocking civil war in the former Yugoslavia as part of the DEC Appeal.
But, even almost five decades after leaving regular presenter duties, Val Singleton is inextricably linked to Blue Peter. I may have grown out of the show many moons ago but apparently she still rocks up for various anniversaries, nostalgia clip shows or occasional celebrity panel game or quiz. Let’s face it; she could marry Prince Charles but her obituary would still lead with the pirate ship and Jason the cat!
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