When I was little I had this book.
Published two years before I was born, it was probably my older brother’s to begin with. I can’t quite remember. But certainly out of the pair of us, I was the one who found it captivating.
On “Blue Peter” we’re always fascinated by other people’s jobs, and between the three of us we’ve had a go at most things – from operating a tower crane to being a waiter for a day at the Hilton Hotel. But most of the time we’re so busy finding new things to show on “Blue Peter” that we forget that working in Television is quite an exciting job as well!
Among pen-portraits of arcane roles like “boom operator”, “sceneman”, “vision mixer” and “sound supervisor” the book offered tantalising insights into the minutiae of TV production. Like:
There are 104 lighting hoists in Studio 3 which can be lowered or raised at the touch of a button.
Or:
You might ask why we don’t use radio mikes all the time. The answer is that the sound isn’t nearly so good as with a boom mike, and radio mikes aren’t half as reliable.
But when we want shots that are wide and exciting, it’s well worth taking the risk.
For a while this book made me want to get into telly when I grew up. Soon I became fixated on the idea of being a videotape editor. Not long after, I discovered the qualifications this would require – and that changed my mind again. (Physics? Not really my thing.)
But the allure of working in television never quite got dislodged from my brain; nor did the knowledge that it was Blue Peter which put it there.
Even my fleeting associations with the programme during my time with the BBC have been unaccountably exciting. And trust me, if I told you how tenuous they were, you’d know why I say “unaccountably”.
That’s why I was thrilled to be at Television Centre today to see a little slice of cultural history happening: the recording of the final Blue Peter to be made in its spiritual home of London.
More specifically, I managed to catch rehearsals for the show’s attempt to break the world hula-hooping record.
Here’s my video of what was going on, shot quickly before I headed off for my real reason for being at TVC: a meeting (they didn’t include any of those in the Blue Peter Book of Television).
By way of neat coincidence, several of my colleagues were at Blue Peter’s new home in Salford today – and that’s looking pretty exciting too. I wish the programme many happy years there.
