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Desert Island Discs
Presented by Roy Plomley
Actor and television presenter, best known for presenting Blue Peter.
Eight records
No reason or quote given in transcript for this track selection; appears to be an introduction to the show's theme but not explicitly listed as a disc.
Climb Every MountainFavourite
Richard Rodgers / Oscar Hammerstein
No explicit quote; probable selection based on his climbing exploits mentioned in transcript.
Frederick Loewe / Alan Jay Lerner
No explicit quote; likely chosen for its connection to theatre.
The keepsakes
No book or luxury recorded for this episode.
In conversation
Presenter asks
What part of Yorkshire do you come from?
[Hallyfanks? - unclear from transcript; likely refers to a place name, but verbatim: 'Hallyfanks']
Presenter asks
What did you do when you left school?
Well, I started life as uh an engine fitter in the RAF.
Presenter asks
Had you done any acting as an amateur before pursuing it professionally?
No, none at all. Um we had things like Pirates of Penzanthon at school, and I used to sit in the audience thinking, This is terrible I could do much better. But there again, I didn't have the courage to try.
Presenter asks
How did you come to join Blue Peter?
The recording
Timestamps play the recording from that turn
Presenter
This download is the only extract the BBC has of this edition of Desert Island Discs. The presenter was Roy Plumley.
John Noakes
Yeah.
Presenter
What part of Yorkshire do you come from? Hallyfanks.
Presenter
What did you do when you left school? Well, I started life as uh an engine fitter in the RAF.
Presenter
Then I left the RAF and went to BOAC and
Presenter
I worked as an engine fitter there for about eighteen months. Yes.
Presenter
And then one day well I I've been having drama lessons, I've finally plucked up courage, uh because I wanted to become an actor, I thought well
Presenter
Maybe when I'm an old man I'll look back, and I've never tried, I'll regret it. Had you done any acting as an amateur? No, none at all. Um we had things like Pirates of Penzanthon at school, and I used to sit in the audience thinking, This is terrible I could do much better. But there again, I I didn't have the courage to try.
John Noakes
So you took lessons while you were still engine fitting.
Presenter
Yes. And my drama teacher, Mr Askew, suggested that I go to drama school full time. Yes. Which one? I went to Guildhall School of Music and Drama.
John Noakes
Did you get a grant to take you there?
Presenter
No, no, I couldn't get one. I had to work my way through. My first job was being a lift boy at the Saint James's Hotel an old fashioned lift, and you pulled on a rope to make it go up, and sort of pulled it the opposite way to stop it. It was quite a skill, really.
John Noakes
Really?
Presenter
What did you move on to? Then I did office cleaning, um, about six o'clock in the morning till nine o'clock. What was your very first job in the theatre?
Presenter
That was with Cyril Fletcher at the Cambridge Arts Theatre. I was doing pantomime there. I was a a clown and a a dog. And the clown who opened the show before the curtain went up, in fact, I had to go out all dressed up in these funny clothes and funny makeup and into the audience. Into the audience, dust the audience.
Presenter
I'll never forget actually. On the first time I went out there, uh I was terrified and I was dusting the audience. This was a sort of uh rehearsal audience, dress rehearsal, and I saw a little boy w with a lady there and
Presenter
As I turned to him to dust him, he turned to me and the look of horror as he saw this terrifying clown's face he screamed about twenty minutes afterwards. Now you stayed with Cyril after that, didn't you? Yeah, I went back and uh
Presenter
Sort of fed him during the his summer show. Uh we we started off in Yarmouth and ended up in Brighton. It was great. And then?
Presenter
There I went on to rep Bournemouth Harrigan.
Presenter
Sheffield, York, Manchester, Leatherhead, Worthing, Barnum.
John Noakes
Yeah.
John Noakes
Yes, oh I've been all over the place. And when did television first start for you?
Presenter
The latte reared its ugly head sort of after what you might call as my first big break. I I I got chips with everything that went to New York and after that I was on New Broadway about five months, nearly five months, came back and then started getting bits in television, still doing rep in the meantime, because I love rep, I think it's a super life.
John Noakes
I love rev
Presenter
And Blue Peter? Blue Peter it was one of these fairy story type things where
Presenter
I was there at the right time, it was the right face.
Presenter
Biddy Baxter, who's the editor, the boss.
Presenter
Her mum comes from Leicester. I was up at Leicester rep doing a guest appearance as Willie Mossop.
Presenter
in Hobson's choice. My picture appeared in the Leicester Mercury. They were looking for a third person to join the programme.
Presenter
So Biddy's mum sent the local paper down to Biddy and she saw the picture and wrote to me and said, Would I come down for uh an interview? So down I went and it was very strange because
Presenter
After the interview, I knew the job was mine. It was a very odd feeling.
Presenter
But uh the first few months were quite terrifying because I enjoyed being other people, pretending to be other people. I enjoyed dressing up, putting on the makeup and false whiskers and saying somebody else's words. Myself, I hadn't anything to offer, but I liked to be somebody else. And then sat in front of the camera, the camera wanted to see me, and it was a terrifying battle. It was quite frightening, in fact. It took quite a time to adjust to it. Yes, uh there was a break during the summer of a couple of months. I had a rest, and then we started again.
Presenter
And somehow I I came to terms with it. And now uh it's me in front of the camera instead of trying to be somebody else.
John Noakes
Uh
Presenter
How long ago is that? When did you draw?
John Noakes
But Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh
Presenter
Six years ago.
John Noakes
Yeah.
John Noakes
Yeah.
Presenter
It's quite a long dive.
John Noakes
Before you joined it, it had been going for some years.
Presenter
So, well altogether it's been going around about 13, is it?
John Noakes
Mm.
Presenter
And there are three of you who have presented. Yes, Valerie Singleton, Peter Purvis, and myself. And some animals on the board. Permanent strength as well. Can't forget those. There's Petra, who's Pete's dog. Shepp, who's a little border collie puppy who's just joined, and he's my dog, I look after him. And Jason, the cat that is Val's. Yes.
John Noakes
Oh no.
Presenter
Now the theme of the programme is adventure.
Presenter
Yes, it's very difficult actually to say what Blue Peter is in just a few words. It's many things, it's almost everything. We participate in things, we do things on film, we make things, we have other animals in in the programme as well.
Presenter
It it's actually difficult to say Blue Peter is this,'cause Blue Peter is this, that and everything.
John Noakes
Yes. But you always participate. You never go and see things. You all do things.
Presenter
Yes, we we never stand on the sideline uh and watch. We we join in, like uh Pete was down the the tube the other day helping to put a line in the underground. Uh
John Noakes
Uh
Presenter
I jump out of airplanes occasionally. Uh we we never just sit there and watch, we do it. And then the children can identify with you. Why not? Oh yes, yes. They they know that uh if we're gonna do something, we do it.
John Noakes
We do it.
John Noakes
Yeah.
Presenter
And it's hella we we do it, we we don't have any understudies or anything.
John Noakes
Now, unless one's at home during the day, one's inclined to think of afternoon television as a bit of a desert, but you have a tremendous audience.
Presenter
Oh it's fantastic. Yes, round about now we're up to about nine million. Nine million. Yes getting on there.
Presenter
It's um and it it's strange as well because they the people who watch the programme are not just children. They go from four to ninety four, a hundred and four in fact. Um, you get your old age pensioners, go down the docks, all the dockers know you, um, anywhere you go.
John Noakes
There's a great amount of viewer participation. A lot of children write in with ideas for the show.
Presenter
Yes, this is this is great. In fact, this is what we want, because twice a week uh you need an awful lot of material. They give us ideas for the show. Uh they they send in things that they make and sometimes we we make them on the programme and that they get the Blue Peter Badge as well, which is very coveted throughout the country.
John Noakes
Yeah.
Presenter
And there are
John Noakes
Blue Peter appeals, charity appeals, but these never involve money.
Presenter
No, th these happen every Christmas. Uh it's really so the poorest child in the land and the richest can anybody can find an old woollen sock or or a bit of tattered old pillowcase that's been lying around, send that in. And also there's a great funny trine to get hold of it. I mean go pinch Granny's bed socks.
John Noakes
Yeah.
Presenter
And with a
John Noakes
Yeah.
Presenter
Hold us old John.
John Noakes
Junk Blue Peters bought some very useful
Presenter
School equipment.
Presenter
Oh yes, it's it's fantastic really, if it was all added up. We've got things up and down the country, all over the world in fact. As a team you visit foreign countries to give us a look at them.
Presenter
Yes, we go abroad, say, three weeks and we make about half a dozen films showing us
Presenter
Enjoying ourselves. We do enjoy ourselves. We we we have a great time out there. Um and you you see different countries and everybody can see uh different countries as well by watching us.
John Noakes
Yes.
John Noakes
You do a lot of interviewing. Um you get some fascinating visitors in the Blue Peter studio.
Presenter
Yeah.
John Noakes
Who in particular do you remember?
John Noakes
Yeah.
Presenter
Chief Red Fox. He was a marvellous old fellow. Hundred and one he was. This red Indian, uh
Presenter
He he was really the last of the old wild west. You could have listened to him for hours, in fact. Uh one of the things that he did say that when he was a lad uh he he remembered uh Custer's last stand. He saw it from the hills.
Presenter
Which uh I think really is the best place to see it from. If you want
John Noakes
Or to be a hundred and one, yeah, that's great.
John Noakes
Now your filmed contributions to Blue Peter, John.
John Noakes
You must have a very good head for heights. Every time I've seen the programme you've been doing something quite hair raising.
John Noakes
You took a microphone hundred and eighty feet up a chimney to interview a steeplejack, I remember.
Presenter
Yeah, that that was the the first sort of climb I ever did. And I think actually when I got to the top on the film I said, I must be mad. And I was really talking to myself, but it came out.
John Noakes
And I was really talking to myself, but it came out.
Presenter
Um yeah, I had to stop a couple of times on the way up there to catch my breath,'cause it's quite hard work. That's not the highest.
Presenter
No, uh
Presenter
The television mast at Crystal Palace that that was the highest thing I climbed. The the first section was quite easy'cause you got by a lift. Then there's a big platform and a little sort of hut on there.
Presenter
Uh but then you've got to start the climb. And each section gets thinner and thinner. There's less metal around you, and the top section uh I mean, it's just like climbing up a ladder with maybe just two girders round you. You get butterflies in your dummy up there. And you've done all All the dangerous jobs in a circus, the high wire. Yes, uh then the high wire, the trapeze, the low sort of slack wire, bareback riding, being a clown.
Presenter
I think I think the nastiest bit was really the high wire. I'm sure it was very nasty. Especially when I had to come backwards.
John Noakes
It's all right if you're used to it, I suppose, but you must have driven every conceivable kind of mechanical contrivance that moves.
Presenter
Uh
Presenter
Yes, I there must be something I haven't driven. I don't know what racing cars I've done, banger cars, stock cars, tanks.
Presenter
Underwater stance too.
John Noakes
Underwater
John Noakes
Is there anything you want to do which they haven't let you do yet?
Presenter
No, I can't really think of anything. Um
Presenter
The something I wouldn't like to do is something that nobody's ever done before.
John Noakes
Uh
Presenter
Then then I would feel a little bit sorta worried about it.
John Noakes
Yeah.
John Noakes
Yes. You like the little expert advice first?
Presenter
Oh yes, yes. I I always listen to the experts. You you must, in fact.
John Noakes
But do you get a time to get acclimatized or is it more or less on the site and straight on the job?
Presenter
Half an hour you've got to learn somebody's job more or less. Uh you've got to go there, you talk to the expert, find out what he does, what his job is, and you've got to take it in very quickly. And also the thing I do, I find out what can happen, what can go wrong.
Presenter
And I've got to thump this straight into my head, so if anything does go wrong, I remember immediately what he said, if this goes wrong, do that. So I I must do it straight away. That's why I live so long in fact.
John Noakes
Trying to do it.
It was one of these fairy story type things where I was there at the right time, it was the right face. Biddy Baxter, who's the editor, the boss. Her mum comes from Leicester. I was up at Leicester rep doing a guest appearance as Willie Mossop in Hobson's choice. My picture appeared in the Leicester Mercury. They were looking for a third person to join the programme. So Biddy's mum sent the local paper down to Biddy and she saw the picture and wrote to me and said, Would I come down for uh an interview? So down I went and it was very strange because … After the interview, I knew the job was mine. It was a very odd feeling.
Presenter asks
How did you adjust to being yourself on camera after enjoying acting as other people?
…the first few months were quite terrifying because I enjoyed being other people, pretending to be other people. I enjoyed dressing up, putting on the makeup and false whiskers and saying somebody else's words. Myself, I hadn't anything to offer, but I liked to be somebody else. And then sat in front of the camera, the camera wanted to see me, and it was a terrifying battle. It was quite frightening, in fact. It took quite a time to adjust to it. … And somehow I I came to terms with it. And now uh it's me in front of the camera instead of trying to be somebody else.
Presenter asks
Who in particular do you remember as a fascinating visitor to the Blue Peter studio?
Chief Red Fox. He was a marvellous old fellow. Hundred and one he was. This red Indian, uh … he was really the last of the old wild west. You could have listened to him for hours, in fact. Uh one of the things that he did say that when he was a lad uh he he remembered uh Custer's last stand. He saw it from the hills. Which uh I think really is the best place to see it from.
“I thought well, maybe when I'm an old man I'll look back, and I've never tried, I'll regret it.”
“I'll never forget actually. On the first time I went out there, uh I was terrified and I was dusting the audience. This was a sort of uh rehearsal audience, dress rehearsal, and I saw a little boy w with a lady there and as I turned to him to dust him, he turned to me and the look of horror as he saw this terrifying clown's face he screamed about twenty minutes afterwards.”
“Myself, I hadn't anything to offer, but I liked to be somebody else. And then sat in front of the camera, the camera wanted to see me, and it was a terrifying battle.”
“Half an hour you've got to learn somebody's job more or less … And also the thing I do, I find out what can happen, what can go wrong. … if this goes wrong, do that. So I I must do it straight away. That's why I live so long in fact.”