Blue Peter Special Assignment - Val branches out

 

 

In 1973 two paperback books were published by Pan Books by arrangement with the BBC which recorded the travels of Valerie singleton in her new role as Blue Peter's Roving Reporter.

Her first six assignments are covered in these first two books, another four books covering a further 10 assignments were to follow in the next two years.

The first six assignments were to the following six capital cities of Europe:

London, Amsterdam and Edinburgh

Rome, Paris and Vienna

In the introduction to these first two books, Valerie makes the link back to her visit to East Africa with Princess Anne just a couple of years earlier. Not quite as gripping a read as Bill Bryson, Paul Theroux or Michael Palin, even so Valerie Singleton was trailblazing as far as children's television was concerned and these books, actually written by Dorothy Smith and Edward Barnes captured her journeys with great interest and appeal.