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You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jan/10/blue-peter-genius-topped-poll-loyal-children-tv
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| Blue Peter’s genius is that it offers a view of a world worth growing up in | Blue Peter’s genius is that it offers a view of a world worth growing up in |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| Ask any adult to name a favourite children’s television programme from their childhood and their features will soften. The years fall away as they return to that special, unrepeatable moment in time, suspended forever between the demands of school and the torture of homework, a place without desks or rules or tests, where everything seemed safe. | Ask any adult to name a favourite children’s television programme from their childhood and their features will soften. The years fall away as they return to that special, unrepeatable moment in time, suspended forever between the demands of school and the torture of homework, a place without desks or rules or tests, where everything seemed safe. |
| In front of the television, watching children’s programmes, it didn’t matter what gang you were in or whether you understood trigonometry. It was of no concern that there were later, more challenging programmes you weren’t allowed to see. For those few, brief hours, the television was yours. More often than not, when you look back at that time, you’ll probably remember vague sensations rather than actual programmes, triggered by hearing a familiar theme tune, a catchphrase or recalling the way Uncle Dimitri in The White Horses used to make you feel (OK, just me, then). | |
| Blue Peter has just been named the number one best children’s programme of all time by an entirely unbiased panel (full disclosure – I was on the panel, but, hand on heart, I didn’t vote for BP, it seemed too partisan to do so – I knew it would rise to the top anyway). We registered our votes for more than just an emotional connection to our childhoods. | |
| Blue Peter holds an unusual place in children’s viewing history in that we don’t just feel a residual, fuzzy fondness for the programme, we can all remember specific incidents. People often have full recall of the individual appeals, for instance, they will remember exactly how they collected bottle tops or held bring and buy sales. More than that, they remember how much money was raised and exactly how it helped. | Blue Peter holds an unusual place in children’s viewing history in that we don’t just feel a residual, fuzzy fondness for the programme, we can all remember specific incidents. People often have full recall of the individual appeals, for instance, they will remember exactly how they collected bottle tops or held bring and buy sales. More than that, they remember how much money was raised and exactly how it helped. |
| Countless magicians, musicians, dancers, philanthropists, actors, mathematicians and writers, not to mention gardeners, astrologers and – probably – politicians, will tell you how Blue Peter inspired their career choices. There’s nothing like seeing another child achieve something to shine a light on a world of possibilities. Watching a presenter have a go – even if they didn’t succeed – was very encouraging, too. | Countless magicians, musicians, dancers, philanthropists, actors, mathematicians and writers, not to mention gardeners, astrologers and – probably – politicians, will tell you how Blue Peter inspired their career choices. There’s nothing like seeing another child achieve something to shine a light on a world of possibilities. Watching a presenter have a go – even if they didn’t succeed – was very encouraging, too. |
| Around Christmas time, you can’t move for people who think the advent crown was a bigger signifier of the coming holiday than Slade’s song or Santa’s grotto. Everyone has their favourite presenters – people made utterly familiar, if not always entirely lovable, by their pretty constant presence, week on week, in our young lives. And everyone feels a unique sense of ownership about a programme that reacted instantly and clearly to both world events and moments in history, and one that showed us how to cook or listen to music or walk the tightrope or bath a baby (or a dog). | Around Christmas time, you can’t move for people who think the advent crown was a bigger signifier of the coming holiday than Slade’s song or Santa’s grotto. Everyone has their favourite presenters – people made utterly familiar, if not always entirely lovable, by their pretty constant presence, week on week, in our young lives. And everyone feels a unique sense of ownership about a programme that reacted instantly and clearly to both world events and moments in history, and one that showed us how to cook or listen to music or walk the tightrope or bath a baby (or a dog). |
| We would be championing Blue Peter’s history even if it was no longer on air. We would also be demanding someone come up with a similarly successful magazine format if there was a BP-sized gap in the schedules. But it is still there, and not for reasons of nostalgia. TV is a business at heart, not a preservation society. It’s still on air because it continues to serve its audience with all the expertise, energy and enthusiasm that underpinned its creation. | We would be championing Blue Peter’s history even if it was no longer on air. We would also be demanding someone come up with a similarly successful magazine format if there was a BP-sized gap in the schedules. But it is still there, and not for reasons of nostalgia. TV is a business at heart, not a preservation society. It’s still on air because it continues to serve its audience with all the expertise, energy and enthusiasm that underpinned its creation. |
| However many brilliant cartoons there are on offer (and there are many), however many excellent children’s dramas and documentaries you can easily find (ditto), there’s only one magazine programme. There’s never a problem with access to events or locations when Blue Peter puts in a request, no one – from poets or professors, from gymnasts to royalty – ever declines to appear on it. (And not just because everyone wants a Blue Peter badge.) It’s because the show has stayed loyal to its core audience. | |
| It would have been tempting to wink archly at its (secret, but innumerable) adult viewers and reflect that in the content. It could have been easy, too, to rehash old items (there’s 60 years’ worth, who would notice?), instead of listening to the next generation of children, who continue to write in, in their droves, with suggestions and ideas. It’s always offered education by proxy, like a bounced ball you didn’t have to catch. It’s always had a properly childish sense of humour. And at a time when the adult default setting tends to the pessimistic, it still offers a view of a world worth living in. Worth growing up in. | |
| Life nowadays may be busy and fast, children can sometimes feel lost and ignored by it. Not at 5.30pm on a Thursday. Each week a unique, sometimes life-changing, occasionally provocative, always dedicated programme continues to save the world, one child at a time. | Life nowadays may be busy and fast, children can sometimes feel lost and ignored by it. Not at 5.30pm on a Thursday. Each week a unique, sometimes life-changing, occasionally provocative, always dedicated programme continues to save the world, one child at a time. |
| • Janet Ellis is an actor and former Blue Peter presenter | • Janet Ellis is an actor and former Blue Peter presenter |