Biddy Baxter

Joan Maureen "Biddy" Baxter, MBE (born 25 May 1933) is a British television producer, best known for editing the long-running BBC TV children's magazine show ''Blue Peter'' from 1962 to 1988. As editor of the programme, Baxter devised much of the format that is still used today.

Biography

Family

Her parents married on Wednesday 3 April 1929 at Swithland church by Rev Oliver. Her father (2 November 1905 - 11 February 1988), attended Ashby Grammar School, and was a sports teacher at the Roundhill School in Thurmaston, formerly Thurmaston Central School. The school opened in early 1929. He left Roundhill in July 1931, and served in the RAF.

Her father was a President of English Schools' Rugby Union. Her father also taught swimming, entering the Leicester Schools' Swimming Gala at Spence Street Baths. By 1936 her father taught at St Saviour's School. In July 1936 her father left education and entered business. Her father worked with Leicester Tigers in the 1930s, producing their programmes and literature for the supporters club. Her father had played rugby with Bernard Gadney, occasionally with Leicester Tigers in 1930 and 1931, and with the Aylestononians and Westleigh teams. Her father also played squash with Leicester Squash Rackets Club.

Her maternal grandfather was Sam Briers, born in Quorn, who ran the ''Griffin Inn'' in Swithland in the 1930s, and had been a detective inspector with Leicester City Police, from 1900 to 1925; his parents later emigrated to Canada. He was a member of the Leicester and Leicestershire Sweet Pea Society. He died aged 91, in Swithland, in early May 1968. His wife died on 6 March 1952 at Leicester General Hospital. Briers' son, Eric, took over the Griffin Inn in the late 1950s, until the 1980s; he died in 1993. Her cousin Gillian Briers, daughter of Eric, taught Art at Humphrey Perkins School in the late 1960s. Her paretnal grandfather was Charles Edward Baxter (1876-1957) of Ashby-de-la-Zouch.

Early life

Baxter was born on 25 May 1933 at Regent Hospital, Leicester, Leicestershire, to Bryan Reginald Baxter and Dorothy Vera, . Her father was a teacher, who later became the director of a sportswear company, and her mother was a pianist. She grew up at 'Brydor' on Syston Road in Thurmaston in the 1930s, then at 92 Highway Road in the 1940s. At Highway Road, she helped to raise money for the city's Spitfire fund in 1940.

She was educated at Wyggeston Girls' Grammar School, Leicester. After the war, aged 12 she took part in the Leicester Drama Society, at the Little Theatre (Leicester), and drama productions at the Wyggeston Girls School, such playing as Isabella Thorpe in Northanger Abbey in 1951. She visited her old school on Saturday 28 June 1975, at a garden fete, and another reunion at the college in April 1987.

At St Mary's, a women's college at Durham University, she studied between 1952 and 1955.

At a meeting with the careers officer at her university, Baxter noticed information about working for the BBC. "It wasn't that I was being snotty about secretarial work or teaching, I just didn't want to do either of them," she said in 2013 of the options offered to her on this occasion. "This particular teaching officer seemed to me – though maybe I was being unduly sensitive – to have this blind spot about women. All the men were going off to do these amazing things. I really should be grateful to him".

After graduating with a social sciences degree, Baxter joined the BBC as a studio manager in 1955, becoming a producer of schools' English programmes in 1958,Alistair McGow
"Baxter, Biddy (1933-)"
BFI screenonline and of '' Listen with Mother'' in 1961. After moving to a temporary post in 1962 within BBC Television owing to a staff shortage, she gained a permanent post as producer of ''Blue Peter'' from November 1962, and remained directly responsible for the programme for just over a quarter of a century.

''Blue Peter''

First broadcast on 16 October 1958,Asa Brigg
''The History of Broadcasting in the United Kingdom: Volume V: Competition''
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995, p.178 ''Blue Peter'' had originally been devised by John Hunter Blair, but it was Baxter and her deputy Edward Barnes, later head of BBC children's television, who developed the format into a successful programme, initially on a budget of only £180 per edition. When they were first introduced, Barnes was told: "You'll have to look after Biddy – she doesn't know very much", to his considerable irritation."How we made Blue Peter "How we made Blue Peter" ''The Guardian'', Bibi van der Zee 25 February 2013
/ref>

Baxter devised and introduced the Blue Peter badge in 1963 to encourage children to send in programme ideas, pictures, letters and stories and also she introduced the now famous annual appeals. She was awarded a gold badge herself when she retired as editor from the programme. Having been disappointed as a child to receive the same reply twice to different letters that she had written to Enid Blyton, she also introduced a card index system so that ''Blue Peter'' viewers could receive more personal responses. Baxter became programme editor in April 1965 following a reorganisation, while Barnes and Rosemary Gill became producers when the programme began to be broadcast twice a week in 1964.

Baxter was a divisive figure for some ex-presenters. Valerie Singleton has said Baxter treated the presenters like children.Cole Morto
"Blue Peter: A sinking ship"
''The Independent'', 15 February 2009 However, Peter Purves has also said: "the programme succeeded – and I've said this many times – because of her, not in spite of her. She absolutely ruled it; I didn't always agree with her views, but she was right." Yvette Fielding claimed that Baxter bullied her repeatedly until she decided to resign in 1988 after her first year of presenting, although she was convinced to stay and Baxter retired later that year.

Post-''Blue Peter'' life

Her final programme in the role of editor aired on 27 June 1988. Her husband, John Hosier, who had been a BBC Schools music producer and was a music educator, had accepted a job offer in Hong Kong. After returning from Hong Kong in 1993, Baxter continued to work for the BBC, as a consultant to directors-general Michael Checkland and John Birt. Hosier died in 2000.

In the 1981 New Year Honours, Baxter was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE), in recognition of her work as editor of ''Blue Peter''; she received her MBE from The Queen at Buckingham Palace, on 10 February 1981. She is also a fellow of the Royal Television Society, and has received honorary D. Litts from the University of Newcastle in 1988 and the University of Durham in 2012.

In September 2008, Baxter expressed dissatisfaction with the way ''Blue Peter'' was being run and said that she believed that the BBC was trying to close the programme down.

In November 2013, Baxter was announced as the recipient of the Special Award at the BAFTA Children's Awards in 2013. Baxter was praised by Anna Home, former head of BBC Children's Television, on receiving the award. Home told Jane Martinson of ''The Guardian'' in 2013: "Somehow she was overlooked. If anyone deserves to be recognised she does … ''Blue Peter'' is a legend and she is ''Blue Peter''".

In June 2014, Baxter was the guest on BBC Radio 4's ''Desert Island Discs''. Her choices were "Deo Gracias" from ''A Ceremony of Carols'' by Benjamin Britten, the final chorus from the ''St Matthew Passion'' by Johann Sebastian Bach, "Milord" by Édith Piaf, "Beat Out Dat Rhythm on a Drum" from the musical '' Carmen Jones'', the "Andante quasi lento e cantabile" from the ''Carol Symphony'' by Victor Hely-Hutchinson, the Allegro from the '' String Quintet in C Major'' by Franz Schubert, the Allegro from the '' Concierto de Aranjuez'' by Joaquín Rodrigo and the "Papageno Duet" from ''The Magic Flute'' by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Her book choice was '' The Traveller's Tree'' by Patrick Leigh Fermor.

Further reading

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References

Notes

Sources

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* The Mark Lawson Interview, repeatedly broadcast on BBC 4 throughout May 2007 as part of the 'Children's Television' season.
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Baxter, Biddy
1933 births
Living people
Alumni of St Mary's College, Durham
English television producers
Members of the Order of the British Empire
Mass media people from Leicester
BBC television producers