Legendary TV producer Joan Maureen “Biddy” Baxter MBE died on Sunday (August 10) at the age of 92, it’s been announced.
Famous for turning the children’s show Blue Peter into a television institution, Biddy helmed it from 1962 to 1988.
During her tenure, she leant into audience participation in a way that felt novel and fresh. And she gained a reputation as a formidable leader – tenacious, driven by instinct, and “scarier than the Daleks”.
No cause of death is known at this time.
Blue Peter icon Biddy Baxter ‘didn’t see why girls shouldn’t do everything’
Biddy Baxter was adamant that girls should be able to do everything boys do. So it’s worth celebrating the fact that she lived to witness the Lionesses bring home the European cup for a second time this summer.
For 26 years, from 1962 to 1988, she edited Blue Peter. Her biographer Richard Marson wrote that the show she helped to make has since been “enjoyed, imitated, talked about, mocked, criticised, revered”.
It still retains many of the features she introduced, chief among them being audience participation. She was passionate about getting audiences involved in the programme – girls just as much as boys.
She was a remarkable woman.
“I didn’t see why girls shouldn’t do everything,” was her attitude. Marson wrote that she “wielded extraordinary power and control”, making her an outlier in an industry dominated by men. “Get on and do what you can do, don’t dwell on what you can’t” was her motto.
Colleagues described her variously as “scarier than the Daleks”, “the witch in Snow White” and “Miss Marple on acid”. But those who worked with her are grateful for the opportunity. Peter Purves, who worked on the show in the 1960s and 1970s, described her as an “absolute powerhouse”, per the BBC.
“She controlled everything about the programme, and with quite a rigid hand,” he said. “We didn’t always get on because of that, but she knew exactly what she wanted the programme to be, and it was a success absolutely because of her. She was a remarkable woman.”
Tributes pour in for ‘true force of nature’ TV legend
Peter Duncan was part of the show in the 1980s. He told BBC Breakfast she was a “a wonderful, inspiring person” and “a true force of nature”. “She was truly a one-off within the BBC. If something upset her, she would trail off to see the DG (director general) and tell him what she thought. We need people like that now more than ever,” he said.
Numerous others who worked with her over the years have been posting their tributes on social media.
Chris Chapman wrote that she was “entirely fascinating. In her career, she pushed hard, suffered no fools, but created an incredible legacy with her vision of Blue Peter.”
Matthew Sweet said he once enlisted her “Boudica-like power” to ensure a friend who had died got an appropriate send-off. Allison Pearson added that Biddy “shaped millions of childhoods with her formidable stewardship of Blue Peter”.
She was a “bit of a dragon, which was a good and essential thing. My generation was lucky to have someone who cared that much about standards,” she noted.
Her late husband John Hosier died in 2000. In his honour, Biddy set up a music trust to support aspiring musicians. She described the cause as “terribly rewarding” but admitted it will be “much better” after her death. Why? Because the trust will “benefit from my will”.
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