R.I.P John Noakes.

[pastoralguy]

Just announced that the much loved tv presenter has died. Very sad news indeed.

RIP, John and thanks for the memories.

[Beef Oven!]

Such sad news. Part of my childhood. "Get Down Shep!"

RIP John, and thanks for all those lovely memories.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Very saddened to hear this - he was such a joy to watch on Blue Peter and became so bitter and then so ill in the last years of his life.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

This is how I remember him:

[Richard Tarleton]

The lunchtime news remarked, over the footage of him ascending Nelson's Column, about the relaxed attitude to health and safety in those days (I think there was a wire, but that was about it )

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

The lunchtime news remarked, over the footage of him ascending Nelson's Column, about the relaxed attitude to health and safety in those days (I think there was a wire, but that was about it )

A wire???!!! Not even a string!

[Petrushka]

Very, very sad news. I think I watched Blue Peter from the first episode and John Noakes, Chris Trace, Val Singleton and Peter Purves were a big part of my 1960s childhood.

He'd suffered from Alzheimer's Disease in later years and the family statement says:

"His many escapades with his faithful companion Shep, during his time with Blue Peter, will live on in many peoples memories. That is how his family would like him remembered."

Amen to that and RIP John Noakes.

[pastoralguy]

The lunchtime news remarked, over the footage of him ascending Nelson's Column, about the relaxed attitude to health and safety in those days (I think there was a wire, but that was about it )

I can't watch that clip without closing my eyes! One of the current crop of Blue Peter presenters covered the restoration of Nelson's Column but it was a different prospect with specially built platforms and a lift! And John Noakes discovered after that the shows producer, Biddy Baxter, hadn't felt it was worth the money to provide insurance.

[BBMmk2]

One of the best. RIP

[Conchis]

Very saddened to hear this - he was such a joy to watch on Blue Peter and became so bitter and then so ill in the last years of his life.

Let it not be forgotten that John Noakes was an actor (he was talent-spotted by Biddy Baxter while playing Will Mossop in Hobson's Choice) and the 'John Noakes' he played in Blue Peter was a performance - an excellent and convincing one at that!

Off set, he was reputedly a bit of grump; but that's his business. He was a consummate professional.

[Lat-Literal]

Very sad news about a key figure in many of our lives. The John, Pete and Val team - 1967-1972 - was not the first for Blue Peter but it was the first for us. It was also when the programme itself became fully established. It was, therefore, definitive and, of the three, John was the definitive presenter. The other two were mainly good but less good than Bleep and Booster. Why John? He was a natural and intelligent communicator whose laughter was infectious. That's important in contrast with today's culture which celebrates an oh-so-serious dim wittedness. A Northerner who didn't choose to wear his Northern background on his sleeve or as some did and do lay it on with a trowel in verbal mannerisms.

One thinks in the light of this development of the many social changes. There was a time - probably in the 1990s - when women decided that they should do everything that men did. Fair enough - but that has been based on a fake stereotype of men which men have also bought into in droves. Consequently, parachuting, which was one of the deceased's more memorable moments, is nothing exceptional now. It is an expectation that to be a competitively effective GP or business executive, male or female, one does such things on weekends. That's while being covered in tattoos and preparing to run umpteen marathons, entering the next bout of kickboxing and turning up showily celeb for whatever happens to be the latest soap opera style public mourning event. Oh yep. One in which all have acquired an ability to display a "sensitive" side in what is often actually a hard as nails drama of less than natural tears. Many of us know the history there. It was the melodramatic stuff of the Krays and similar. One can't help but see the Kray twins in many folk now.

So much for the culture of "all the old madam" in today's sexes. Those who are alpha in personal objective, plastic in character, so, so heavily authoritarian in their professed liberalism and, so far as any sense of community could be concerned, utterly brittle. Like many of his generation, John Noakes had actually come through a war, albeit in his childhood. When he strode out for the programme he did so rather as ex soldiers in Sillitoe's novels took themselves to the hills alone on walks, except fortunately he didn't have the battleground as a backdrop of unease and regret. He was younger. These were new times not least in broadcasting. Much was novel. There was more freedom. Some had fun.

But in this era of the late 1960s, a spirit of adventure was not necessarily chosen. If those who had been in the forces found it by way of a safer continuation of the previously endured and also as a reactive escapism, JN had a civilian job to do. He would go where he was asked by producers with a shrug of the shoulders', a chuckle and a "what have I got myself into now?" More solid and more professional, I would suggest, for being less self-driven, objective focussed and a part of any heavily conceptualised herding instinct. More boyish and and more mannish but in a way that his gender hardly mattered to any child, girl or boy, because all felt included by his persona of, well. being simply a person.

My own memories are of being led into making pizza with a crust that had the indigestible thickness of a garden wall; periods of the year when bath time could only be enjoyed when surrounded by watery stamps as we waited for them to detach from square bits of envelope; and especially the London to Brighton Veteran Car rally before which "we" stayed up all night to make a Blue Peter flag. It was a great replica of the image on the show and we were so proud of it. Actually, it may have been my Dad's best production.

But when they came through Coulsdon, Val was doing her best Princess Anne. Frosty faced. No wave. It was clear that she didn't want to be there, unlike in her rather good Special Assignment series which gave me an interest in Europe and even later a belief in the EEC. We caught a glimpse of the others. It was just about enough even if it was tinged with disappointment. And as previous contributors have suggested, that was probably the gist of it in the long term when it came to John's attitude to the television industry. Like many, it could have served him as he served it but it didn't. Why? Society had decided on its own version of progress which the longer we come from 1945 is setting us all back years.

RIP John Noakes

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I always liked the way his voice went up in pitch as he rose in altitude.

[Lat-Literal]

I always liked the way his voice went up in pitch as he rose in altitude.

Nice.

I like the inferences in the natural levels there.

[johncorrigan]

A true legend!