BLUE PETER (aka Book 1) Published 1964 BP Team: Chris Trace, Valerie Singleton. Cover: A sensible jumper, a dog on a chair, a gorgeous pouting young lady - it can only be the very first Blue Peter Book! Features: Training Petra... Behind the scenes in the Blue Peter studio... Tips for model railway enthusiasts courtesy of Chris... Stories: Bleep and Booster and Little Watha Notes: "The book which five million young viewers have been waiting for!" screams the cover. Well, the vast majority of them must have been disappointed as the print run would have been far less than that! The beginnings of the Blue Peter Book (never referred to as an annual although that's certainly what it is) are controversial. In 1964 the managing director of a small publishing firm called the Lutterworth Press, a man called Michael Foxall, approached BBC Publications with the bright idea of a large format Blue Peter book for the Xmas market. The BBC must have thought the idea a good enough one to license it although they were not interested in producing it themselves. So Lutterworth created the Blue Peter book pretty much as we still know it today (makes, stories and the highlights of the Blue Peter year), although it is well worth noting that in fact the book's contents were written by Biddy Baxter and the current BP team even then. The small firm produced only a relatively small run and it's this that makes the book so rare today. The book was a phenomenal success. So much so that when it came to start work on Book 2, the BBC took back the rights and published the book themselves, thus denying Lutterworth their place in publishing history and, quite probably, a fortune in sales over decades. Very, very rare and sadly there is no copy on our Triangular Shelf. Please do send us more detailed content info if you have one. The thorny issue of price is a vexing one. If we publish a ludicrous price some shysters might start charging that. It has been said that mint copies (of the book that was published in 1964 priced nine shillings and sixpence) can go for three figure sums, although the chances of finding a mint one are slim. £30-40 seems more reasonable and maybe around £10-20 for more distressed copies that have seen better days! Despite being published around September 1964 the Book is still possibly not the oldest item of Blue Peter memorabilia. The first item may well have been this BBC postcard (above). Signed by both Val and the late Chris Trace, examples are worth around £20-30.