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Blue Peter Special Assignment
Overview
Blue Peter Special Assignment was a factual BBC TV series broadcast in the 1970s and early 1980s, the first spin-off from the long running BBC series Blue Peter. It ran regularly from 1973 until 1981, usually at weekends on BBC1, and was heavily promoted on Blue Peter itself. The concept for the series was developed after Valerie Singleton had made a successful documentary 'special' with HRH Princess Anne when she had visited Kenya in 1971. The Special Assignment series was mainly produced by Edward Barnes and presented initially by Valerie Singleton and later by Peter Purves, Lesley Judd and reportedly Simon Groom, all of whom had been presenters on Blue Peter itself. Series One featured Valerie Singleton looking at six European Capital Cities. These included Rome, Paris, London, Edinburgh, Amsterdam and Brussels. The first programme to be filmed was the one featuring Rome and included a personal address to the children of Britain from Pope Paul VI in The Vatican. Series Two continued to feature Singleton looking at European Cities and included Dublin, York and Madrid. Later series looked at Islands and included The Isle of Wight, The Isle of Man, Hong Kong, Malta and Gibraltar. Later the show began to look at famous houses or famous individuals and included biographies of Vivaldi, The Brontë Sisters, The Duke of Wellington, Saint Therese of Lisieux, Marie Antoinette and Rudyard Kipling and both Lesley Judd and Peter Purves began presenting the series in place of Singleton.