SIXTEENTH BOOK
Published 1979
BP Team: Lesley Judd, Simon Groom, Christopher Wenner, Tina Heath
Cover: Simon funks it up in leather bomber jacket and medallion ensemble. Fellow DJ Goldie looks on giving it some attitude. No, Tina and Chris aren't on the back either.

Features: Quite a few significant changes are chronicled here - Simon helps Mike Oldfield record a new version of the Blue Peter theme and it turns out to be so popular with the viewers that it is installed as the opening theme before long... the team dig the Italian Sunken Garden (did you know it was vandalised even before the work was complete?)... Lizzie Dripping joins the team in the shape of actress Tina Heath and Chris Wenner teaches Lesley and Simon how to waterski by way of an introduction... (Tina's first show went out 5/4/79) Also October 1978 sees the 20th Birthday of BP and the presenters are reunited in the studio - although Noakes is represented by a cut out of himself and Shep from the front of Book 9 as he is busy filming Go With Noakes (i.e. in the pub). So who forgot to ask Anita West? Val co-ordinates a live balloon release - in Aberdeen is Isla St Clair, in Manchester Eddie Waring, in Belfast Mary Peters and in Cardiff it's - Bonnie Tyler!... Only Simon and Lesley get to go on the expedition (Wenner didn't join until 14/9/78), this year to the USA (later revisited in 1988)... A report on more Special Assignments - and look it's Peter Purves on page 68... competition prize winners blow up some chimneys... Simon makes his famous death slide run off Tower Bridge; "My heart was thumping as I got into position. There was no turning back now"...

Makes: A cardboard Blue Peter studio complete with triangular shelves. Actually rather good even if Purves slagged it off on the 40th Birthday Theme Night
Decorative Christmas flowers have a multitude of uses, including candle holders. The feature stresses that you need fireproof tinsel.

Historical Figure's Life Story in Pictures: The Tradescant family of Elizabethan gardeners
Many years before Disney - it's Pocahontas!
Stories: The seemingly indestructible Paddington hangs in there.
Rubbish Mystery Story: The Case of the Chinese Treasure

Notes: "And if you look inside you'll see pictures of me, Chris and Tina in fifteen different positions..." The endpapers of presenter photo figures to trace and put into your studio set inspired one of Simon's great on-air 'blunders' and provide an instantly memorable gimmick for this annual. It's not quite 'The 80s start here' however as there are too many old annual regulars still around, but it gets pretty near. The 'mystery picture' puzzle is dropped for this book though! A few pounds is all you should expect to pay at worst although don't expect to see quite as many about as those released either side of it.