I was a Blue Peter host - what the BBC's about to do to the show is so sad

It was quite simply, the best children’s TV programme ever… famed for its characterful pets, impressive makes, coveted badges and charity appeals, not to mention its hilarious unscripted mistakes that were always a particular delight of its live format.

So the announcement by the BBC that it is axing live episodes of the world’s longest-running kids’ TV show Blue Peter – just 13 years after it was controversially moved from its original teatime slot on BBC One to the CBBC channel – feels like nothing less than the end of childhood.

The much-loved and iconic 66-year-old show – a huge piece of national heritage that unites generations of Brits – will be available to watch as pre-recorded episodes on CBBC, Sign Zone, BBC Two and iPlayer in future.

“This is the demise of television for me,” says former presenter Yvette Fielding, 56, who worked on the show for two years in the late 1980s after becoming its youngest ever presenter at the age of 18.

Speaking exclusively to the Express, she adds: “I’ve always spoken quite openly about how sad it made me when the programme was taken off mainstream TV and relegated to a smaller channel specifically for children, which a lot of people would think would be the right thing.

“But I’ve always believed that Blue Peter was a family programme, and I think that they should put it back on BBC One. More than ever, we need to be together as families; we’re so separated now with children on their iPads.

“For me, my memory is of this lovely family experience where you would collect bottle tops with your granny and the whole family got involved.

“I believe very strongly that this is a family show and children need this sense of community – watching together and being involved together.”

For many, including Yvette, the show is the live elements.

“Those wonderful unscripted moments were some of the best bits of the show, including my failed attempts to flip pancakes,” laughs Yvette. “There are so many iconic moments that all Blue Peter presenters had on live TV that people remember, and it is such a shame to take all that away.”

She believes that Biddy Baxter MBE – the legendary producer of Blue Peter who edited the programme from 1962, starting out on a tight £180-per-episode budget, and who devised much of the format including the iconic Blue Peter badges beloved by generations – would be dismayed by the decision.

“I think Biddy would be very gracious about it, but inside she would be saying ‘This is a big mistake’ – to remove all the live elements entirely.”

At its zenith, Blue Peter was so pivotal to childhood that generations of adults remain bonded by the presenting team that defines their generation.

For those of us growing up in the 1970s, John Noakes, Lesley Judd and Peter Purves were so familiar that they felt like family – whether it was lovable Noakes (whom everyone secretly knew had the best job in TV) climbing Nelson’s Column in his jeans and maverick can-do demeanour, getting into a sticky situation with a badly behaved elephant or grappling with an equally badly behaved roll of sticky-backed plastic, the show was live and unedited and, above all, real.

You can carbon-date yourself by the Blue Peter pet that was poised for chaos – be it Shep in the 1970s, Petra and Patch in the 1960s or, for younger viewers, Bonnie the retriever or Mable the border collie. For children without pets, the antics of these animals need to be experienced live – just as in a domestic setting.

And this was the most involving of all live shows – inspiring attempts to construct the epic Thunderbirds’ Tracy Island out of used loo rolls and a washing-up liquid bottle, or to build a puppet theatre from used soap packets – which fostered creativity, resilience and ingenuity.

Taken together with the copper-bottomed bonhomie of the presenters, it was nothing less than nutrition for the growing soul.

Part of the appeal was that things happen on a live children’s TV show. And these things were not only funny and educational, they were also incredibly important in lots of ways.

The annual Blue Peter charity appeal used to galvanise the entire country and make headlines of its own. Letters would pour into the BBC at the rate of thousands a day,as generations of families would get stuck in together.

In 1986, Blue Peter’s Sight Saver appeal asked children to host bring-and-buy sales to fund mobile eye units in Africa. The aim was to raise £100,000, but the programme’s influence was so great that more than 32,000 bring-and-buy sales took place nationwide.

The final donations total came to more than £2million and the beneficiary of the appeal, the Royal Commonwealth Society for the Blind, promptly changed its stuffy old name to Sightsavers, following the appeal.

Blue Peter editor Biddy Baxter said at the time: “The appeal smashed all its targets. Two million people in Africa will have their sight saved as a result.”

Since its launch in 1958, Blue Peter appeals have raised more than £100million for good causes worldwide.

Simon Thomas, who presented the show from 1999 to 2005, and is now a Sky Sports presenter, says of the shift to exclusively pre-recorded content: “We probably didn’t realise it at the time, but we were working in the last years of the golden age of children’s TV, a time when children’s programmes filled the afternoons and Saturday mornings on BBC One and ITV. An era when audiences were measured in the millions rather than the thousands.

“Everything has fragmented now and the way children consume entertainment has changed forever. There will never be another era like it again.”

Janet Ellis, who presented Blue Peterfrom 1983 to 1987, also laments the missing live element.

“There is something of an adrenaline rush to doing things live, because things can go wrong, but I think it’s also the magic when they go right.”

She suggests that the “jeopardy” created in live moments is probably “the reason why, up until now, it has continued to be live in the face of everything else changing around it”. But not everyone is a fan, and in recent years the programme has been accused of being altogether too “woke” and a victim of its own obsession with “preachy” political correctness.

Presented currently by the trio of Shini Muthukrishnan, Joel Mawhinney and Abby Cook – I’ve never heard of them either – it was described by insiders just two years ago as “a very unhappy, sinking ship”.

Budgets were slashed as the show was relegated to one weekly live broadcast on Fridays, repeated on Saturdays. Elsewhere, the traditional sailors’ hornpipe was replaced by electronica – and in a recent episode, Abby visited a racetrack to sit in a replica Formula E car built from glued-together smartphones that earned its builders a green Blue Peter badge despite achieving a top speed slightly below walking pace.

Even back in its heyday it did have its detractors, however.

Former Express TV and theatre critic Maureen Paton was seven when the show began in 1958 and says she always felt sorry for all those “children tied up in sticky plastic knots”.

She adds: “My instinct was that it was a middle-class BBC person’s idea of what kids should be interested in; with that educational element as part of the Beeb’s mission. But working-class kids like me probably had other ideas.

“It reminded me of school…‘Now children, this is what you should do in your free time’…phooey!” Despite the live shows ending, Blue Peter will continue to be filmedin Salford.

“As we continue to navigate a challenging market and young audience viewing habits evolve, it is necessary to make changes to future-proof the show,” the corporation said.

But Richard Bacon, who hosted Blue Peter from February 1997 to October 1998 when his contract was terminated mid-season after reports of his cocaine use, does not feel hopeful for its long-term future. Describing it as “a big, well-made, lovingly made, really well-resourced live kids’ TV show”, he says “being live is what made it alive”.

Removing that exciting, magic and unpredictable element will further euthanise its influence. Sadly, the eventual cancellation of this much-loved national institution now seems inevitable.