Working my way through BBC4's Children's TV on Trial, I've just watched the 1978 Blue Peter John Noakes retrospective. This was mainly a collection of all his stunts and more daring challenges from his time on the programme; and it's only worth mentioning a 29-year-old repeat in order to marvel at the three words demonstrably absent from everything attempted i.e. Health and Safety. Watching him climb up the ramshackle collection of roped-together ladders to get to the top of Nelson's Column was enough to induce giddiness, even from the confines of my sofa. You wonder if any disquiet was voiced from senior management, but, being the 70s, they probably didn't have to mention they were doing it anyway; they probably just grabbed a camera crew and headed off into central London. Have a tiny lookette here. Other familiar clips included his freefall with the RAF, the climbing of the mast of HMS Ganges, and, less dangerously but gloriously, the Lulu the elephant segment in full, rather than the 30 seconds or so you normally see - which showed that it actually was quite funny, despite having been told so for the past 40 years.
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