Here's one they didn't make earlier

Last week, at my friend Chris's house, I saw it. There, pinned to a cork board, was a Blue Peter badge. I gasped, I stretched my eyes, I had to sit down. All those years spent watching Val, John and Pete, dreaming of this, the pinnacle of derring-do...

Back then, the world was split into Blue Peter viewers and those brooding malcontents who opted for the dangerous realms of Magpie. Of course, history was on our side. Thirty-seven years on, Blue Peter is still going strong and this week it goes thrice weekly (Mon, Thur, Fri 5pm BBC1).

When the BBC announced EastEnders was doing the selfsame thing, script editors sloped about with secret storylines hugged close to their chests and the sword of Damocles hung perilously above anyone who dared to divulge the plots.

Not so presenters Diane-Louise, Tim and Stuart plus editor Lewis Bronze who now sits in the chair vacated by Biddy Baxter (I spent a large part of my childhood wondering if unseen Biddy was a man or a woman). They're full of the joys to come, like "chart-toppers" PJ and Duncan. You didn't get them in my day. We were too busy making the advent crown.

I had to know how my friend won his badge. Building a nuclear power station out of matchsticks? Making a citizen's arrest on the vandals of the Blue Peter garden? He finally admitted it. A friend of his worked on the show.