The launch was strikingly low-key. There were no special features in the Radio Times<\/em>, which seemed far more excited about the final of Miss World<\/em>. In any case, the new series was just one more children\u2019s programme among many. That same week viewers just back from school could also lap up Sooty and Sweep, Children\u2019s Newsreel, a \u201csketch club\u201d, several quizzes, some astronomy with Patrick Moore, or a wildlife show presented by Armand and Michaela Denis \u201con safari\u201d in Africa. Earlier in the day, younger viewers might have seen Watch with Mother<\/em>, featuring a rota of puppet characters from Andy Pandy through to the Flower Pot Men.<\/p>\n This is part 3 in a 13-part series by David Hendy that charts how the BBC shaped the nation. Read more about the history of the BBC:<\/p>\n <\/p><\/div> <\/section> But if Blue Peter<\/em>\u2019s debut went largely unnoticed, it would eventually become the most iconic children\u2019s programme on British television. Its distinctive formula \u2013 described by one of its producers as striving to \u201clift [children\u2019s] horizons and stretch them a little bit, give them information that they wouldn\u2019t know about in an amusing way and, through drama, to stretch their emotions\u201d \u2013 would also become a symbol of the BBC\u2019s determination to treat its viewers as citizens rather than consumers.<\/p>\n The BBC had always been keen to create content for children. In the 1920s, there\u2019d been a daily Children\u2019s Hour from Savoy Hill<\/em>, and a Kiddies\u2019 Corner<\/em> from both the Manchester station, 2ZY, and the Birmingham station, 5IT, each of which featured readings, drama sketches, competitions and talent shows.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Even in those pioneering days, however, the BBC\u2019s relationship with its younger audience was far from straightforward. John Reith had promised that it would provide every home with \u201cthe best\u201d in ideas and culture. He\u2019d also expressed a duty to avoid exposing the public to \u201cthings which are, or may be, hurtful\u201d. Children, especially, had to be introduced very gradually to the world and its wicked ways.<\/p>\n Derek McCulloch, who ruled over Children\u2019s Hour<\/em> for decades as \u201cUncle Mac\u201d, saw his mission as instilling impressionable young listeners with Christian values of godliness and neighbourliness. The result was programmes that, while unthreatening, could also sound preachy and cloyingly middle-class. Years later, Broadcasting House decided that every episode of its hugely popular drama serial Dick Barton \u2013 Special Agent needed a postscript solemnly explaining the moral rights and wrongs involved in the latest narrative twists.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Behind this nannyish approach, though, lurked a more considered philosophy. The BBC line, widely believed both inside and outside the Corporation, was that there would always be better things to do than merely sit and listen to the wireless or watch the screen for hours on end. As one senior television executive put it, the ultimate aim was \u201ca constantly diminishing audience\u201d. Viewers, she said, should be \u201cso stimulated to new activities that they had no time to turn on their sets\u201d.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Even when young viewers did turn on their televisions, it was important they be served what schedulers called \u201ca full service in miniature\u201d. The BBC had long reasoned that adults would become more \u201crounded\u201d citizens by being fed a \u201crich mix\u201d of news, documentary, drama, comedy and debate. Why then would children, the citizens of the future, not benefit from the same variety?<\/p>\n The arrival of ITV in 1955 unsettled everything. The BBC had served the very youngest audiences reasonably well, but slightly older children and teenagers were quickly seduced by commercial TV\u2019s westerns and crime capers. No matter how well-intentioned or well-done, drama serials such as Jane Eyre<\/em> were always going to struggle for their attention.<\/p>\n Faced with this ratings crisis, the BBC\u2019s new head of Children\u2019s Programmes, Owen Reed, recognised that the eight to 12-year-old age-group wanted plenty of action. Children\u2019s Television Club, which North Region had been running since 1956 \u2013 with its three presenters getting stuck in to activities such as riding go-karts, throwing pottery, or training \u201cConker\u201d the dog \u2013 was exactly the kind of thing Reed was after. He now used Manchester\u2019s tried-and-tested formula as the basis for a new series in London. His hope was that Blue Peter would become an \u201call interest, active, action-based programme for children and adults of all ages\u201d.<\/p>\n Reed\u2019s brainchild got off to a bumpy start, not least because of absurdly tight budgets and a rapid turnover of staff. But in 1964 the programme was upgraded from one to two episodes a week. Three years later, its roster of presenters had settled into the sure-footed and long-running trio of Valerie Singleton, John Noakes and Peter Purves. By the 1970s, Blue Peter<\/em> was woven tightly into the cultural fabric of the nation, the very embodiment of what might be called \u201cprogressive paternalism\u201d in the realm of children\u2019s broadcasting.<\/p>\n Those watching at home were still protected from some of the horrors the world might throw at them. The idea of having a resident pet was nearly scuppered at the start when a mongrel puppy introduced to viewers just before Christmas 1962 died of distemper within days. To avoid unleashing hysteria,\u00a0 <\/span>two producers secretly scoured the pet shops of London in search of a lookalike capable of scampering about happily in the studio by the time of the next broadcast. Viewers remained entirely ignorant of this well-meaning subterfuge, and later voted to name the hastily found replacement Petra.<\/p>\n Animals were key to Blue Peter<\/em>\u2019s success: the long line of dogs, cats and tortoises that followed Petra\u2019s own troubled debut were there to act as surrogate pets for all those children who didn\u2019t have ones of their own. Even more important was the programme\u2019s desire to empower young viewers by inventing lots of things for them to do. This meant\u00a0<\/span>a constant stream of basic food recipes or simple items that could be assembled from materials found at home \u2013 or which entailed the purchase of some sticky-backed-plastic.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n![\"""\"](\""https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/7\/2022\/04\/GettyImages-1027101098sml-8a74514-e1650899232554.jpg?quality=90&resize=415%2C413"\" "\\"\"\"\\"\/")
<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>Auntie knows best<\/h3>\n
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<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>Bumpy beginnings<\/h3>\n
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