Growing up in the UK at any time in the past 60 years, you will have seen Blue Peter at least once. I remember watching it every week and being inspired to make something from cardboard tubes, newspaper and sticky back plastic on a regular basis. The programme fired me up about their campaigns (did anyone else collect hundreds of shiny milk bottle tops?!) and I loved watching the challenges the presenters put themselves through. We can age each other by the presenters we watched – mine were John Noakes, Peter Purves and Lesley Judd; my kids loved Matt Baker, Barney Harwood and Helen Skelton. The pets, the Blue Peter garden, the lighting of the advent candle and so much more… There has been no other children’s tv programme that has touched lives the way Blue Peter has.
To celebrate 60 years of this British tv institution, the poet Tony Walsh has written a tribute. I watched it yesterday with tears pouring from my eyes. Have the tissues handy.
acoastalplot 
Goodness, some of that was a bit close to home. Such wonderful words. I loved Blue Peter and I was the same era as you were. I imagine your ‘modern child’ wouldn’t understand the huge effect one program could have and how we lived for the next episode.
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You were not wrong about needing tissues!!
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Thank you so much for posting this, I, too have tears in my eyes- and the memories came flooding back. I am of the Val, John and Peter generation and my children watched an array of presenters in the 2000s, although I suspect that I enjoyed it even more than they did.
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Thanks for sharing this link Sam! I was a great fan of Blue Peter and didn’t know it is still running. (I haven’t lived in the UK for so long!) I remember John Noakes best – he was always game for any challenge and a great inspiration for us all. I even remember Val, as well as Lesley. And of course, the homemade gifts made of bits of string, buttons and silver paper etc were brilliant for kids like me with no natural artistic talent! LOL! Glad it is still going strong. 🙂
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Thanks so much for sharing. And yes, I needed the tissues too.
Get down Shep! X
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Clearly this is a British thing exotic to us on this side of the Atlantic. I enjoyed the video even so.
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That was a nostalgic jaunt 🙂 I wish I hadn’t thrown away my Blue Peter badge.
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Not part of my life … but as I watched, halfway is a view from Table Mountain down to Camps Bay and half my life.
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