Anthea Turner

During the Summer several past presenters have been involved in various events to celebrate Blue Peter's 60th Birthday. At the end of August the BBC's Antiques Roadshow team headed to Media City in Salford, where former presenters Peter Purves and Anthea Turner joined them for a special Blue Peter segment to be broadcast on a future show. This was also a chance for me to finally catch up with Anthea for  Project 161018.

Anthea joined Blue Peter in September 1992 and stayed for two seasons until June 1994. She was already a well known TV presenter when she arrived on Blue Peter, having been a regular on Saturday Morning TV (UP2U) and Top of the pops. During her time on the show she took part in many challenges including leaning to drive a Channel Tunnel train and being rescued from a broken down Ferris Wheel. Anthea also looked after the programmes dog at the time, Bonnie the Golden Retriever and together they took part in the dog agility course at Olympia. Anthea also became the Queen of Blue Peter makes, having always loved arts and crafts. She demonstrated Blue Peter's most popular make ever. When shops ran out of the must have toy for Christmas 1992, Margaret Parnell the lady who devised most of the Blue Peter makes came to the rescue with an almost identical handmade version. Anthea's demonstration of how to make Tracy Island was so popular, that the programme had over 100,000 requests for a fact sheet and a special BBC Video was also released.

1993

2018

During Anthea's time on Blue Peter there had been a break in the publication of Blue Peter Annuals, however in time for Christmas 1993 a magazine style yearbook was published. It had all the features of the normal Blue Peter books in a magazine style format.

After leaving Blue Peter in 1994 Anthea went on to present ITV's Breakfast Show GMTV, The National Lottery Show on BBC1 and Wish you were here, again for ITV.  Anthea has also taken part in Celebrity Big Brother, Dancing on Ice,The Jump, Antiques road trip and most recently Celebs in Solitary. After her time on Big Brother Anthea fronted the series Perfect Housewife for BBC Three and several books also accomplished the series.

At the question and answer session prior to filming for Antiques Roadshow, Anthea said she had really intended to stay with Blue Peter for another couple of years. However the GMTV job was an opportunity not to miss, yet she still says her happiest times on television was her time on Blue Peter.

Ayo Akinwolere

The beginning of July saw a trip down to Leicester to catch up with Ayo Akinwolere on The Time Capsule Tour.

Ayo at the time known as Andy presented Blue Peter from June 2006 until June 2011. Before joining the show he was working as a runner for CBBC. One evening whilst having drinks with friends in the BBC club, one of the Blue Peter production team heard him talking. She liked what she was hearing and suggested to Richard Marson the Blue Peter Editor at the time that Andy should audition. On 26th June 2006 Andy became Blue Peter presenter 32. His first challenges were abseiling and a bungee jump from a helicopter and this was the start of 5 years of fun and adventures.

During his final challenge before leaving Blue Peter Ayo set a new world record for the deepest location for an open water swim. He swam for more than five miles across the Palau Trench in the Pacific Ocean, the first person to ever do so.

Since leaving Blue Peter he has presenter Fort Boyard - Ultimate Challenge and taken part in Dancing on Ice, Celebrity Master Chef and The Great British Bake off. In 2012 he went to Jamacia to make a documentary for the BBC about Husain Bolt. Since 2014 he has presented Inside Out for the BBC in The Midlands Area.

In 2015 he created the swim challenge. a project to encourage people of colour to lean to swim.

In 2016 he changed his name back to Ayo, his birth name saying he wished to normalise his name and represent his community.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-37289733/ex-blue-peter-presenter-why-i-changed-my-name

Ayo features in Blue Peter books, 37,38,39 and 40.