It's the cover of the Christmas edition of Radio Times, 1956, by Monica Walker.

If you look closer, the homely scene includes a television set - a fact reiterated by the magazine's introduction to the BBC's Christmas programming:

"There was a time, we remember, when a conventional picture of Santa Claus showed an airborne sleigh, pulled by magical reindeers, coming in low over the rooftops to alight beside some gaping chimney. A brief, low-level flight round any of our cities, towns, villages, or even rural areas nowadays would, however, meet with a new and hazardous obstacle-the television aerial, be it H-shaped, X-shaped, or that other squiggly shape that sometimes appears."

The highlights of the Christmas TV programming included Pantomania or Dick Whittington, which featured many BBC personalities in cameos, and Home is the Sailor, a comedy specially written for the BBC Television Service for Christmas Day by Arthur Macrae, telling the story of a girl engaged to a sailor who "is rather too much at sea for her liking" and ends up marrying... his father.

The Duke of Edinburgh was scheduled to speak from the Royal Yacht in South Pacific waters as a prelude from the Queen's Christmas message, followed by a telerecording of the Variety Theatre of China and a direct relay of part of the Grand Circus from the Palais des Sports in Paris.

Easter is of course a festival of food, and television quickly cottoned onto this in the 1950s. Here, legendary television cook Marguerite Patten prepares a simnel cake for the cameras as part of Designed For Women.

Billy Smart's Circus became a regular Easter treat for viewers during the 1960s and 70s, which included some elaborate and detailed listings, including an act "who spend their family life on a slack wire". This spectacle fell out of televisual favour in later years.

A suitably seasonal Radio Times cover for Easter week in 1960, which involves a liberal splash of yellow as colour gradually made an appearance in the magazine. 

Blue Peter became more famous for its annual Christmas advent crown and a whole host of other seasonal craft ideas, but the programme often got in on the Easter act as well, as this 1976 photograph featuring Lesley Judd shows.

Easter 1987 and here's a very striking cover from the Radio Times, created by artist Ashley Potter. It encapsulates one of the iconic themes of the season. 

It comes as little surprise that sitcom The Vicar of Dibley embraced both Christmas and Easter with special episodes. Geraldine Granger (Dawn French) was shown in a series of publicity photos with a bunny, a lamb, a fluffy chick - and this mouthwatering plate of hot cross buns.

Blue Peter is the BBC’s flagship children’s programme which has formed an important part of its output since its launch in 1958. 

As a favourite with succeeding generations, it has received a great deal of attention. Perhaps the greatest amount has been reserved for the ‘dream team’ era from the late 1960s to early 70s, when Valerie Singleton, John Noakes and Peter Purves were at the helm. Successive replacements have in many ways tried to emulate that formula, although in the changed environment of the 21stcentury the programme is a very different animal from 45 years ago.

The prominent figure behind the scenes from 1962 to 1988 was formidable editor Biddy Baxter, and her long service and strong personality have shaped the programme in no uncertain terms. 

Yet one figure who preceded her is the programme’s founder and first producer, John Hunter Blair, about whom little is known.

John Wauchope Hunter Blair was a slightly eccentric and obscure figure.  Born in 1903 to Major-General W. Hunter Blair and his wife Ethel, he went to school at the Royal Naval College in Osbourne and Dartmouth.  After studying at Edinburgh University, he did an MA in Modern History at Oriel College, Oxford, before becoming a schoolmaster.  

In 1933 he took the unusual step of going to work in Latvia, at the University of Riga.  He stayed there until 1940, when the independent republic was swallowed up by the Soviet Union.  In the course of his time there he became fluent in Latvian, began working in radio for the Latvian State Broadcasting Service, and married a local woman. 

Even less is known about Hunter Blair’s wife than about him:  she was called Helene Ezergailis, but by the time he was established in the UK as a television producer they had separated.  He obviously didn’t talk about her as it was only vaguely apparent to BBC officials and colleagues that he had been married. He lived alone, and some even referred to him as a bachelor.

When he left Latvia he moved to Australia, where he worked for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, initially as an announcer based in Brisbane.  In 1943 he became a script writer for ABC, and then in 1944 a Presentation Officer, which also involved writing.  He continued in this job until 1947, when for some reason he decided to return to Britain. 

He got leave of absence from ABC, and applied to join the BBC.  One of the great loves of his life was music, and he at first tried to enter the music department. But he was turned down, and gained a sick relief post in Far Eastern department of the Empire Service.  Following this he moved to Schools Broadcasting, where he obviously made a good enough impression. He is credited as script writer for the series Senior English in 1949, and for the Geography series, contributing a talk about Latvia, as a ‘former British resident'. In 1951 he was able to gain promotion to Producer in Children’s Television.

It’s not clear why Hunter Blair made the move to television, but by 1951 it was starting to expand around the country, with the opening of the BBC’s third transmitter, Holme Moss, bringing the medium to the North of England.  It had also been decided to start a regular children’s television service in 1950, to replace the patchy, occasional programmes shown before.  Although characters like Muffin the Mule were already popular, the BBC decided to dedicate a slot to children’s programming, which came from the new Lime Grove studios.  

The expansion of television meant new people were taken on, though Hunter Blair seems to have replaced a producer called Alan Bromly whose contract had ended. Bromly nonetheless went on to have a successful TV career, producing thriller serials including those of Frances Durbridge. 

At this point Hunter Blair did not even have a television set, unable to obtain one of the few domestic sets owned by the BBC for staff use, although he was able to hire one from Radio Rentals and claim back the cost.

Hunter Blair began work at Lime Grove on 1 November 1951.  Although working as a producer his name did not necessarily appear in Radio Times, and when it did it was sometimes in another capacity.  He is credited for musical direction on children’s drama series The Silver Swan. 

After a year or two his credits start to appear as a producer, for Jack-in-the-Box, The Runaway Band and The House that Jack Built.  In 1954 he continued with Jack-in-the-Box but was also producer, writer and music composer for a play with music called The Smith Family which received several showings, latterly billed as a children’s opera.  It’s not always clear from listings what children’s output Hunter Blair was producing, but among the material shown were items on model railways, and appearances by young artist Tony Hart, both of which would figure in Hunter Blair’s later career.

By 1955 he was dividing his time between drama serial Bobby in France, which combined elements of language teaching with storytelling, and allowed Hunter Blair to exercise his good command of French and passion for travel. His flair for music was reflected in Television Puppet Theatre and two programmes with Eric Robinson and his Orchestra. He was also still in charge of Jack-in-the-Box, which featured Nat Temple and his Orchestra.

Birth of Blue Peter 

His credits mounted up in 1956, producing drama including more Bobby in France, Lucky Silver and The Adventures of Pierre.  His musical output also increased, with Anniversary marking 200 years since Mozart’s birth and The Fisk Jubilee Singers, a programme of Negro spirituals.

By 1957 Hunter Blair was a safe pair of hands, and was commended – and given a bonus – for his innovative work in music for children’s TV.  Annual reports paint a picture of a man who was very happy in his work, though he could be uncommunicative in formal situations.  His appearance, as described by acquaintances and confirmed by the few photographs of him, was reminiscent of Billy Bunter, with his round face and spectacles.  There seems to have been something of the schoolboy about him too in his enthusiasm for model railways. He was said to possess a first class mind, though happy in his lot as a children’s TV producer.

His 1957 productions seem to have been mostly musical, until he was appointed editor and producer of the series Studio E.  Starting in January, Hunter Blair took over with what was described as a ‘scratch team of assistants’.  This magazine programme included comedy with the likes of Clive Dunn as well as a range of factual and music items. George Cansdale talked about animals, Percy Thrower about gardening, Shirley Abicair told stories and played her zither, Johnny Morris appeared as the Hot Chestnut Man.  It was presented by the redoubtable Vera McKechnie, later Elizabeth Lanchbury. 

Hunter Blair left “Studio E” in 1958 to be replaced by Ursula Eason, but continued to produce Jack-in-the-Box, until it finished in September.  He also co-wrote another musical drama, Castle Dangerous, for which he also composed and conducted the music.  He had the odd other credit, but something new was in the air.

Owen Reed, head of Children’s Television, saw there was a gap in the provision for children too old for Watch with Mother but too young for the sophistications of Studio E.  Sensing that Hunter Blair knew what appealed to children - despite having none of his own - Reed gave him the task of producing a weekly 15-minute magazine programme for primary-age children.  

Hunter Blair found a solid male presenter in actor Christopher Trace, and to partner him the 1957 winner of Miss Great Britain, Leila Williams. Needing a title for the show, Hunter Blair chose the name of the flag flown by ships preparing to set sail:  Blue Peter.

The first episode went out live on October 16 1958. Originally the series’ title sequence used film of a sailing ship at sea, and colleagues recalled Hunter Blair’s gleeful instruction in the gallery to add the sound of sea wash to the footage. The show quickly caught the imagination of children with its fresh and enthusiastic presentation.

Christopher Trace was an avuncular figure, a former army officer with an undistinguished acting career, but he took to presenting at once. He is cited as coming up with two of the best-known phrases associated with Blue Peter – “And now for something completely different” and “Here’s one I made earlier”.  Arriving for interview with Hunter Blair, staff remembered that he immediately bonded with the producer over a shared love of model trains, which soon became a regular feature of the series, even featuring in a regular story series.  Storytelling was also a feature, predating Jackanory.

Although Blue Peter aired every week, Hunter Blair continued to contribute to other shows, including Young Musicians (a one-off that included Jacqueline du Pré) and a series with Shirley Abicair.  But Blue Peter was his main job, and one which he was commended on numerous times.  He even went as far as taking trips abroad to try to source idea for items and unusual toys to feature in the series. 

Ill health

However, all was not well.  It’s unlikely that Hunter Blair took much exercise, and the stresses of live television production were starting to tell.  He began to suffer from heart problems, and was admitted to hospital in December 1960.  He returned to work the following January but had a heart attack in June.

His last day on duty with the BBC was the 12 June 1961 – a Blue Peter transmission day. Hunter Blair apparently collapsed in the production gallery, although not during transmission as far as records show.

He was signed off from work, and various others took charge temporarily, with greater or lesser degrees of success.  At first, this was thought to be until Hunter Blair would recover sufficiently to return to work, but eventually it was realised he would never be fit enough again.  He had angina, and struggled to climb stairs at times and was also suffering from Parkinson’s disease.  He had spells in hospital and nursing homes, and gave up his flat in Maida Vale to go and live in his sister’s house in Norfolk.  At last, the BBC agreed that he would have to retire prematurely on health grounds. 

A late starter with the Corporation, he was 43 when he joined and 57 when he made his last programme.  It was agreed his last day on the staff roll would be his 59th birthday, October 4 1962.  Hunter Blair’s health never improved, and he died just over two years later, on December 31 1964.

By that time, Blue Peter had celebrated over six years on air, and was now running twice a week, presented by Trace and Valerie Singleton.  Although the Children’s Television department no longer really existed, with most output farmed to other areas, Blue Peter survived, and under its eventual permanent replacement producer/editor Biddy Baxter, it would go on to fulfil and exceed all of John Hunter Blair’s hopes in the succeeding decades.

Gilbert Harding, notorious as “the rudest man in Britain”, was one of the most colourful of television personalities in the second age of television, when it started to become the favourite medium of most Britons. 

In his 1950s heyday he was a regular panellist on What’s My Line?, but made many appearances on many other programmes as host, presenter and contributor, starting as a radio commentator in the early 1940s.

Harding was born in 1907 in Hereford.  After school in Wolverhampton he studied French and German at Queen’s College, Cambridge, before beginning studies to become an Anglican priest, converting to Catholicism soon afterwards.  He spent most of the late 20s and 30s as a schoolteacher, although he also served as a policeman in Bradford, and latterly began to study for a career in law.  

Having briefly been the Times corresponden in Cyprus, he had failed to break into journalism in England, until the outbreak of the Second World War, when he was offered a job in the Monitoring Department of the BBC Overseas Service.  He was promoted to Information Bureau Supervisor, collating salient points from foreign radio bulletins at Broadcasting House.

Rudeness and intolerance 

He later worked at the Monitoring station at Wood Norton as one of a team compiling weekly summaries for the Cabinet. His reports were complimented by Churchill for the “succinct mind” behind them.  His first broadcast was during this time, for an Overseas Service series called Voice of the Nazi, standing in for the usual speaker.  On the back of this, he was offered a job by Michael Standing of Outside Broadcasts in 1942.

Harding worked as an interviewer on programmes for overseas consumption such as Meet John Londoner and the Home Service’s The Microphone Wants to Know.  His first domestic credit was for A London School in the Country, showing how an evacuated school coped with its new location. After a stint in Canada, Harding found difficulty in obtaining a role, although still on the BBC staff, but decided to go freelance when offered a presenting job on a new show.  Round Britain Quiz succeeded Transatlantic Quiz, which had had to be abandoned due to government restrictions on spending British dollar reserves.  Harding became a roving quizmaster on the series, travelling around the country while Lionel Hale presented from London. Known for its fiendish difficult cryptic questions, the programme continues to this day.

His profile greatly increased, Harding was now approached to be the chairman of The Brains Trust in 1948 and later became a panellist on We Beg to Differ, in which a team of two men faced four women in a light-hearted discussion of various topics.  

It was on this programme that Harding first acquired his reputation for irascibility and ‘calling a spade a spade’ – which many interpreted as rudeness and intolerance.  He was also accused of hating women, which impression the format of the show may have encouraged.  In 1950 he added the chairmanship of another radio quiz, Twenty Questions, to his C.V., but on one occasion various technical difficulties resulted in him losing his temper live on-air and was suspended from the programme for some months.  However, on the BBC’s other medium, television, he was about to enter his period of greatest fame.

Harding had made occasional television appearances since his debut in Crossword in September 1948, but had never made any great impact – even in a short-lived television version of We Beg to Differ.  In May 1951 he was invited to Lime Grove studios to view a recording of a US programme, a parlour game in which four celebrities had to try to guess the job of a challenger – What’s My Line?. 

Though not overly impressed, Harding saw potential if it was adapted to British sensibilities. But he wrongly assumed he was being sounded out as chairman rather than as a panellist.  A colleague attending the screening with him, along with other potential panellists, was a young Irish journalist called Eamonn Andrews – and he was the intended chair.  However the producer agreed to give Harding a shot at chairing the game, and he was assigned to the second programme. 

Again technical problems – a mix-up between the details of two guests – got in the way of Harding’s success, although he kept his temper sufficiently to come back as a panellist after a few weeks, and Andrews became the regular host of the show.

After its shaky start What’s My Line? soon became a phenomenon of early 50s television, and Harding’s regular appearances and brusque manner, was an almost essential part of the mix.  Other regulars in the first few years included the comic actor Jerry Desmonde, Barbara Kelly, Elizabeth Allen, Ghislaine Alexander, Lady (Isobel) Barnett, magician David Nixon and Marghanita Laski. 

Kelly and Lady Barnett were perhaps the best remembered, but they were outshone by Harding, who made more appearances than either.  The show’s success made it one of the highlights of the era, and made household names of its stars.  The members of the public who came on gave a mime of their job, and then could only answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to questions about it by the panel.  If they succeeded in getting 10 ‘nos’ before the panel worked out what they did, they had won – and got a scroll commemorating the fact (no cash prizes on the BBC in those days).

Man of the people

There was also a guest celebrity round, for which the panel were blindfolded – the celebrity put on a funny voice (on one occasion the impressionist Peter Cavanagh mimicked Harding himself), and the panel had to guess who they were rather than what they did.  Harding’s interaction with the challengers was the main cause of his temper fraying if he felt he was being misled in any way.  Another well-remembered aspect of the show was occasional oddly-named or obscure jobs.  The most celebrated of these was a job associated with pottery-making, a ‘sagger-maker’s bottom-knocker’.

The show’s success resulted in Harding making guest appearances in other programmes, and even in feature films.  He was a frequent host of radio series such as Gilbert Harding’s Book Club and The Harding Interview, which solicited the audience’s opinion on who should next be interviewed.  The 50s were a great time for the panel game, and Harding was a panellist on Who Said That?  a member of the TV Brains Trust, chairman for the pilot of Ask Your Dad (but replaced for the series by Humphrey Lestocq, then Peter West),  and ‘judge’ in a short-lived series called False Evidence on the Light Programme. 

He was a guest on a Frankie Howerd vehicle Nuts in May and fronted his own show about his personal tastes, A Little of What You Fancy.  His own view that women should be banned from universities was challenged in an edition of  Leisure and Pleasure in the For Women strand.  In 1955 he presented his own television show, Harding Finds Out in which he answered viewers’ questions, and in 1956 in a show just called Gilbert Harding where he was able to give his thoughts on any subject he chose, in the role of a ‘television columnist’.

Harding’s unlikely reputation as a ‘man of the people’ was exploited by radio series On the Spot, in which Harding acted as studio anchor interrogating BBC reporters who brought back stories from around the country.  In the same week Harding was still appearing on Twenty Questions and Round Britain Quiz, as usual.  The former also acquired a television version, and again Harding was the compere. He could also be avuncular, and was picked to preview the BBC’s Christmas offerings for 1958 in Gilbert Harding says ‘I Hope You’ll Like…’ 

As the 50s continued, Harding’s popularity did too, and his regular appearances both on What’s My Line? and numerous other programmes went on unabated – he was ubiquitous, the very epitome of the television (and radio) personality, and the workload must have been intense.  Harding was not a well man – he was an asthmatic, and kept a supply of oxygen with him in case of emergencies.  He drank, took little exercise, and was, not unusually for the time, a heavy smoker.  His stress levels, given his occasional apoplectic eruptions, cannot have been good.

As the sixties dawned, Harding even appeared twice on the new record review programme Juke Box Jury, and his reaction to the popular music of the era can be imagined.  On 18th September 1960 , he was the latest of John Freeman’s interviewees in the series Face to Face.  This series saw each subject constantly on camera, with Freeman barely seen, and they were questioned in depth about their beliefs and influences, and how they saw themselves and their place in the world. 

While potentially insightful and revealing, this could on occasion prove uncomfortable for the ‘victim’, and such was the case with Harding.  He was asked whether he had ever been with someone who was dying, in Harding’s case this was his mother, who had passed away not long before (his father died when he was a child).  Pressed on the matter, Harding could not hide his tears.

Prhaps this programme unlocked many self-doubts in Harding’s mind.  He had written books including 1953 autobiography Along My Line (serialised on the Light Programme in 1956), in which he already showed how uncomfortable he felt being a celebrity, how worthless he thought his career was, and which ends with the chilling line “But I do wish the future were over”. 

The part of Harding’s life that he could not admit to, as its practice was illegal, and which some felt that Freeman was getting at with the probing about his mother, was that Harding was gay, and society’s attitude at that time cannot have helped his evident feelings of self-hatred.  One of the quotes from his Face to Face was “I should be very glad to be dead, but I don’t look forward to the actual process of dying.” 

On 16th November 1960, Harding collapsed and died while getting into a taxi outside BBC Broadcasting House in London, after recording two editions of Round Britain Quiz.  To the panellists on the shows (which were never broadcast) he appeared ill, his breathing laboured and alleviated by oxygen and whisky, but he seemed his old self during the actual recordings. The following Sunday, BBC television showed a tribute called Profile: Gilbert Harding, in place of the usual edition of What’s My Line?.  

Harding, though seemingly a symbol of a bygone age, has never quite been forgotten, and his name occasionally surfaces when broadcasting in the 50s is discussed.  His life was considered in Late Night Line-Up’s Plunder feature in 1966, and he was profiled in In Search of Gilbert Harding in 1973 and Radio Lives in 1990, and was also the subject of a 2005 radio play Dr Brighton and Mr. Harding. 

For an age written off as deferential, he is a reminder, as more of an Angry Old Man than an ‘Angry Young Man’, that not everything is as they seem. In spite of his public image, those who knew him well remembered him as a loyal and steadfast friend.

On this day 60 years ago, ITV took to the air for the very first time. But its thunder was stolen by the shock death of Grace Archer in BBC radio soap The Archers, which left the nation open-mouthed.

Of course there was no indication of what was going to happen in the listings - the billing for 22 September 1955 is minimal at best and carries only the show's tagline, "a story of country folk".

However, actress Ysanne Churchman, now aged 90, says the demise of her character was caused by her own efforts to secure a better pay deal for her work on the soap, although it was presumed the ploy was to scupper ITV's launch.

A new radio play about the night Grace Archer perished and the story behind this memorable event was recently broadcast on Radio 4.

On 26 August, 1991, the BBC marked the closure of the Lime Grove Studios with a series of programmes. The studio in Shepherd's Bush, London, had closed a month before after being used by the BBC for more than forty years. The studios were bought by the BBC as a 'temporary measure' until Television Centre was ready.

The special programming began with a Children's Compilation which included programmes such as  Muffin, Bunter, Toytown and Bill and Ben.

The schedule also included The Wicked Lady, a "classic melodrama" starring Margaret Lockwood, the Doctor Who pilot or first episode An Unearthly Child, and a compilation of the most memorable films filmed in the studios.

The evening continued with reminiscences of Nationwide ("was Nationwide tea-time trivia, tabloid television or the BBC's first and last truly populist current affairs programme?") and episodes of soap opera The Grove Family (who were named after the studios), Dixon of Dock Green and This Is Your Life.

The day of memories finished with the airing of Alfred Hitchcock's The 39 Steps, which was filmed in Lime Grove Studios in 1935, when the studios belonged to the Gaumont Film Company.

Update, 27/08/2015: We just wanted to include two very interesting comments left on our Facebook page. Paul Burton shared: "I still have those programmes on video! That year also saw the BBC move out of BBC Television Theatre (Shepherd's Bush Empire) and BBC Ealing (which is once more called Ealing Studios). Then in 1995, the BBC moved out of the Paris Studio, Lower Regent Street (it's now a swimming pool)."

Meanwhile, Aidan Lunn added some more information about the cameras on the photograph of Studio E below: "The cameras are Link 110s. Introduced in 1977, IIRC, and installed in Lime Grove in 1981, to replace the EMI 2001s that had been there since 1970."

Remember the Lime Grove Studios with this small collection of stills from the BBC Archive:

On July 28, 1958, you would have sailed east on a cruise to Istanbul and the Aegen island of Lesbos with Sir Mortimer Wheeler and the Hellenic Traveller's club as company.

You can again travel from the comfort of your armchair as this programmes is available to watch on the BBC iPlayer - and easily findable through the corresponding BBC Genome listing.

Hop on - and let us know of any other armchair voyages you have undertaken.