Scandal of Blue Peter presenter
It’s 50 years next month since Christopher Trace, the man who was Charlton Heston’s body double in Ben-Hur, left the children’s favourite under a cloud after an affair with a Scandinavian hotel receptionist
WHEN the fans’ all-time favourite Blue Peter presenters are called to mind, there’s one that rarely if ever gets a mention. Long before the likes of John Noakes and Valerie Singleton arrived on the scene he made the BBC children’s programme his own.
As the nation mourns Noakes, who died earlier this week aged 83, the name of Christopher Trace is regarded as little more than a footnote. It’s 50 years next month since he left Blue Peter under a cloud but he holds the honour of being the show’s fourth longest-serving presenter and lovers of the show owe him a huge debt of gratitude for helping to make it such a hit.
A former soldier and actor, Trace was one of the two original hosts and was in the Blue Peter hot seat for almost nine years. Public school-educated, he trained at Sandhurst and joined the Army but after rising to the rank of lieutenant he quit the military to become an actor. His greatest claim to fame was becoming Charlton Heston’s body double in the 1959 film epic Ben-Hur. Frustrated by his failure to land more juicy film roles he decided to try out for a new children’s programme in 1958.
It’s said that Trace, who was then 25, got the Blue Peter job because during the audition he showed much boyish enthusiasm for a model train set. Producer John Hunter Blair decided he would be perfect for a show that was then aimed at five to eightyear-olds as it was originally envisaged that the programme would fill a 15-minute gap after Watch With Mother.
Blue Peter aired for the first time on October 16 1958 but no one ever dreamed it would go on to become Britain’s longest-running TV programme. In those days there were just two presenters and Trace’s co-host was Leila Williams, a former Miss Great Britain. There’s no doubt that both were chosen partly because they were easy on the eye but the success of Blue Peter, which was soon extended to 25 minutes, owed much to Trace’s natural broadcasting talent.
He was regarded by children as a zestful older brother and showed great aptitude for making things from cardboard and sticky-backed tape, which became a Blue Peter staple. His triumphs included a sledge, a life-size Dalek, bird boxes, model planes and a miniature circus. In this role he is credited with coining the phrase: “Here’s one I made earlier.” Less well known is the fact that it was him, not Monty Python, who first popularised the line: “And now for something completely different.”
TRACE, who was nicknamed Uncle Chris, once said: “I like kids and I get on with them. If you are straightforward to children they will be straightforward to you. They are all equal, all equally inquisitive and all want to learn things.”
At the time the programme went out live without Autocue and while it’s Noakes’ mishaps that are best remembered – who can forget him skidding across the studio on elephant dung? – Trace enjoyed the odd unscripted moment of his own. In one edition he carried on broadcasting as a lion cub sank its teeth into its trainer’s arm, drawing a torrent of blood.
Legendary Blue Peter producer Biddy Baxter said of Trace: “He had an agile mind and the ability to remain unflappable in front of the cameras, no matter what mayhem was going on behind the scenes. He never fluffed his lines and like all great presenters Trace would hardly have batted an eyelid had a bomb dropped on the studio.”
As Blue Peter grew in popularity and began airing twice a week it was Trace’s suggestion that a third presenter should be added. By then Williams had made way for Singleton and in 1965 Noakes joined the Blue Peter team. Unwittingly Trace had helped pave the way for his own downfall. Noakes was an instant hit with viewers as he relished the daredevil assignments that Trace didn’t appear to enjoy. The following year Trace blotted his copybook during a Blue Peter “culture embracing” trip to Norway. The married presenter took the notion of getting to grips with local culture too literally and had a fling with 19-year-old hotel receptionist Tone Keri Fjalstad.
Details of the affair leaked out and unsurprisingly the BBC – which prided itself on Blue Peter’s wholesome image – took a dim view. So did Trace’s wife Meg, the mother of his two children, who divorced him. He clung on to his job for a while but although his departure was dressed up as a resignation he was eventually pushed out in 1968.
ANOTHER ex-actor, Peter Purves, replaced the disgraced presenter marking the start of Blue Peter’s most famous line-up of Noakes, Singleton and Purves. Veteran BBC broadcaster Huw Wheldon was aghast, claiming: “There will be no Blue Peter without Christopher Trace.” But he was wrong – Blue Peter always managed to recover from the loss of star presenters.
Trace joined a feature film company as a writer and production manager but the venture failed after two years and he was left penniless. In 1971 he married Prudence Day but two years later he was declared bankrupt and was forced to work as a mini-cab driver and in a pub to make ends meet.
He eventually got his TV career back on track by working for BBC’s Nationwide, presenting regional programmes in East Anglia and the breakfast radio show on BBC Norwich. In the mid-1970s Trace again quit TV to become store keeper and general manager at a factory in Hemel Hempstead.
“I’ve always been interested in making things and using my hands,” he said, with a nod to his glory days. And when the time came for a 20th anniversary Blue Peter special, Trace was invited to appear on the show and the factory where he worked was shut down for the day so his colleagues could watch. It was on that programme that Trace, to the surprise of the producers, announced that he would like to give out an Outstanding Endeavour Award, an honour that became an annual fixture.
He could never resist the lure of being behind a camera or microphone and in the 1980s made a comeback on Radio 2’s Are You Sitting Comfortably?
For the last five years of his life Trace battled cancer and died in 1992, aged only 59. He spent his final months in a rented flat in east London, relying on benefits.
Among younger viewers he might be the forgotten Blue Peter presenter but it is a testimony to his popularity and professionalism that two of the last people to visit him in hospital were old colleagues Singleton and Baxter.