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John Noakes: relief as former Blue Peter presenter is found in Majorca

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As a child, BBC TV’s Blue Peter was one of the programmes that I was permitted to watch each week and that I couldn’t bear to miss. It was the early seventies and presenters John Noakes and Valerie Singleton – and of course dog, Shep – were my idols. So yesterday it was with great sadness that I learnt of Noakes’s disappearance near his home in the village of  S’Arraco in southwest Majorca, the island that he and I have, respectively, chosen to make our home.

After a major emergency search missing John Noakes was found safe in Majorca

By chance I happened to be at sea when the news reached me and with none other than Majorca resident and former British film director and TV producer, Gabrielle Beaumont, ironically a director of Blue Peter during John Noakes’s time on the show. She was shocked to hear that he was missing and reminisced about her happy time working with him during her tenure at the BBC.  Later, as we headed back into the bay of Port Soller, Jason Moore, editor of local expat newspaper, Majorca Daily Bulletin, called to let me know that the erstwhile presenter had been found safe, dehydrated and weak but otherwise OK.

Back in the days when I was an adjudicator for the Guinness Book of Records, one of my more unnerving tasks was to appear on Blue Peter and other children’s shows to judge record attempts. In fact I always kept in close contact with Blue Peter and its legendary producer, Biddy Baxter. On one occasion I arrived late for filming because I had to fulfil a deadline for the book’s editor, and was given a somewhat cool reception by the indomitable Baxter. By this time Caron Keating was one of the presenters and I remember how she gave me a wink and a kindly squeeze of the arm to show that I wouldn’t be held in bad odour for too long. And indeed I wasn’t. Biddy Baxter might have been a stickler for punctuality and a perfectionist but she was also generous-hearted and wrote me a wonderfully warm note when she left the show which I still have to this day.

As for John Noakes, news of his discovery was bittersweet for I had no idea that he had been suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. To become disorientated and lost on the island for more than nine hours at this time of the year would floor most people without his condition and with temperatures reaching 35ºC yesterday, the situation could have been grave. Happily he was spotted in a dry river bed by a helicopter conducting an emergency search, and taken to Son Espases Hospital in Palma for a routine check-up yesterday evening.

Let us hope that Mr Noakes has a speedy recovery and is able to enjoy the rest of the scorching Majorcan summer without further incident. If the alarming episode – and the brouhaha that ensued – proved one thing, it is that the former leading light of Blue Peter is still held dear by the British public and is regarded as a national treasure. I hope that he and his wife, Vicky, will take great comfort from that.

Anna Nicholas is an award winning blogger and the author of five humorous books about living in rural Majorca. Find out more about Anna Nicholas here or follow her on Twitter @MajorcanPearls

 

 


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