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Biddy Baxter
Joan Maureen "Biddy" Baxter, MBE (25 May 1933 – 10 August 2025) was an English television producer. She was best known for editing BBC Television's children's magazine show Blue Peter from 1965 to 1988, devising much of the format that is still used today.
Baxter was born on 25 May 1933 at Regent Hospital, Leicester, Leicestershire, to Bryan Reginald Baxter and Dorothy Vera, née Briers. 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.[failed verification]
At Highway Road, she helped to raise money for the city's Spitfire fund in 1940. After the war, aged 12, she took part in the Leicester Drama Society at the Little Theatre and drama productions at Wyggeston Girls' School, at such playing Isabella Thorpe in Northanger Abbey in 1951.
Baxter was educated at Wyggeston Girls' Grammar School, Leicester. Her nickname of "Biddy" was assigned at school because there were too many girls with the name "Joan" in her class. She visited her old school on Saturday 28 June 1975, at a garden fete, and attended another reunion at her college in April 1987.[citation needed]
Baxter studied at St Mary's, a women's college at Durham University, 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, 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.
First broadcast on 16 October 1958, 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.
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.
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Biddy Baxter
Joan Maureen "Biddy" Baxter, MBE (25 May 1933 – 10 August 2025) was an English television producer. She was best known for editing BBC Television's children's magazine show Blue Peter from 1965 to 1988, devising much of the format that is still used today.
Baxter was born on 25 May 1933 at Regent Hospital, Leicester, Leicestershire, to Bryan Reginald Baxter and Dorothy Vera, née Briers. 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.[failed verification]
At Highway Road, she helped to raise money for the city's Spitfire fund in 1940. After the war, aged 12, she took part in the Leicester Drama Society at the Little Theatre and drama productions at Wyggeston Girls' School, at such playing Isabella Thorpe in Northanger Abbey in 1951.
Baxter was educated at Wyggeston Girls' Grammar School, Leicester. Her nickname of "Biddy" was assigned at school because there were too many girls with the name "Joan" in her class. She visited her old school on Saturday 28 June 1975, at a garden fete, and attended another reunion at her college in April 1987.[citation needed]
Baxter studied at St Mary's, a women's college at Durham University, 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, 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.
First broadcast on 16 October 1958, 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.
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.