Biddy Baxter, the pioneering television producer who transformed Blue Peter into a national institution, has died aged 92, the BBC has confirmed.
Born Joan Maureen Baxter, she studied Social Studies at St Mary’s College, Durham University, where she first saw recruitment flyers for the BBC. Determined to prove a careers officer wrong after being told no-one from from hometown had ever joined the broadcaster, she applied, beginning her career as a radio studio manager in 1955.
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She went on to produce Listen With Mother and Schools’ Junior English before moving into children’s television. In 1965, she became editor of Blue Peter, several years after its launch. Over the next two decades she introduced the show’s most famous elements – from the Blue Peter badge, designed by Tony Hart, to the annual appeals – encouraging children to send in ideas, drawings and letters.
During her tenure, Blue Peter won 22 BAFTAs, and Baxter herself was nominated 12 times, winning twice. Upon her departure in 1988, she was awarded the programme’s highest honour – a gold Blue Peter badge. “I didn’t want to do anything other than Blue Peter,” she told The Guardian in 2013. “It was an absolute dream… a terrific time to be in television.”
Baxter later served as a consultant to BBC directors-general and continued to champion children’s media. In 2013, she received the BAFTA Special Award for her outstanding contribution to the industry, presented by her friend Sir David Attenborough.
Reflecting on her Durham years, she once said: “It was a very academic course – the professor said: ‘You have the rest of your life to do practical things. Spend these three years reading.’” Those studies, and the decision to answer that BBC job advert, set her on a path that would influence generations of British children.
News of her death has sparked an outpouring of tributes. Peter Duncan, who was among the show’s presenters in the 1980s, told BBC Breakfast she was “a wonderful, inspiring person” and “a true force of nature”.
“She was a true enthusiast and a supporter of young people,” he said.
The presenters could get “a right old telling off” if they messed up, but “I loved working with that kind of energy and that kind of expectation”, Duncan said.
“She was truly a one-off within the BBC. If something upset her, she would trail off to see the DG (director general) and tell him what she thought. We need people like that now more than ever.”
Peter Purves, who starred on the show in the 1960s and 70s, described Baxter as “an absolute powerhouse”.
“She controlled everything about the programme, and with quite a rigid hand,” he told BBC Breakfast.
“We didn’t always get on because of that, but she knew exactly what she wanted the programme to be, and it was a success absolutely because of her. She was a remarkable woman.”
