Helen Skelton: Blue Peter is still so important and relevant

Asked about reports the show is under pressure after the exit of three presenters in just over a year, Skelton said it is still “so important and so relevant”.

The CBBC programme is currently presented by Abby Cook and Joel Mawhinney, after the departure of Mwaksy Mudenda.

Her exit follows those of Richie Driss, who was replaced by Cook, in March and Adam Beales, who was replaced by Mawhinney, in July 2022.

Appearing on ITV’s Good Morning Britain, Skelton said: “I say to everybody who ever asks me, ‘Is Blue Peter still on?’, go to YouTube, look at Tony Walsh’s poem that celebrates 60 years of Blue Peter.

“It reminds you why that show is so important and so relevant. Blue Peter was telling kids to be whoever they want to be before everybody else was saying it.

“It was talking about sustainability and making stuff and recycling before it came on the agenda.

“It was a show that I was privileged to work on. Our job was to excite kids about the world and I hope that it’s doing that for a long time to come.”

The BBC said there are “categorically no plans to stop” the world’s longest-running children’s TV series.

A spokesperson said: “The future for Blue Peter is bright. There are categorically no plans to stop it. The programme continues to be enjoyed by audiences on the CBBC channel and iPlayer.

“Blue Peter has a track record of launching talent who go on to have great success in the entertainment industry, and we are always pleased to see our presenters move onwards in their careers.

“We have two new brilliant and popular presenters; social media star Joel Mawhinney and para athlete Abby Cook, who was announced on the programme in March.

“Blue Peter still inspires children, as seen with the popularity of the new Blue Peter book badge launched last month, and it continues to be a much-loved part of the CBBC line up, celebrating its 65th birthday just this week.”

Skelton reflects on the adventures she had while presenting Blue Peter from 2008 until 2013 in a new book and told GMB: “Time moves on and I think as you get older you have the ability to look back and think, you know, ‘I cycled to the South Pole’.

“Weird, unusual, challenging, but actually, what helped me in that time?

“I’m old enough, or I’ve got enough perspective now, to know what was useful and what helped me.

“And that’s what this is all about for me. It’s about taking a bit of perspective.

“I kayaked on the Amazon, walked on high wires at Battersea and Blue Peter was a gift of a job for person with an inquisitive mind – I went to Chernobyl, Sierra Leone, Uganda.

“And I just wanted to take this chance to go back, revisit it and remind myself what I learned in that time.”

Last week, the Prince of Wales was given a green Blue Peter badge for launching a prize for finding environmental solutions to repair the planet.

Skelton also reflected on her time on Strictly Come Dancing last year, when she was paired with Gorka Marquez.

She said: “You get out on the dance floor and it’s the most soul-baring, naked thing you can do. You’re so exposed, you have to be very brave.

“And that took me by surprise. And I just feel very, very lucky that I had wonderful people with me on that adventure.

“As adults, we’re not sometimes good at looking in the mirror and saying, ‘It’s all right’.

“For me, I went into it thinking, ‘I just had a baby. I’ve got three kids. My body is not what it used to be’.

“But the dancers look at you and go, ‘Oh, my gosh, that’s incredible, you made a human’. They look at their bodies as machines and I think that for me was a really empowering and powerful thing.”