facts:

Vandalism!

It was in the November of 1983 that the show began with photo stills of a devastated garden. Children across the land watched in horror, wondering what kind of freak weather might have caused such destruction. But then presenter Janet Ellis confirmed their worst fears. Vandals had once again broken into the Blue Peter compound at Television Centre and run amok. An expensive ornamental sundial had been tipped over and smashed; plants had been ripped up and strewn across the garden; an urn had been thrown into the pond and, worse, the vandals had poured oil into the water. While the team all leapt in to repair the damage, for Percy Thrower it was all too much and, in a memorable scene, with tears in his eyes, he forgot himself for a moment and declared that in his opinion, the kind of people who could do such a thing must have been 'mentally ill'. No-one would admonish the man for his temporary political incorrectness. A nation was emotionally scarred that day.

To this day, the culprits have never been identified. However, in 2000, footballer Les Ferdinand boasted that he had been a member of the gang who trashed the Blue Peter garden. Having misjudged just how the public might react to such an admission, though, he later recanted the claim.

The ransacking of the Blue Peter Garden has become a popular element in fiction. In 2002, author Paul Magrs revealed in his hilarious novel All The Rage how it was all down to the transvestite manager of the fictional band Things Fall Apart, while Doctor Who author Lawrence Miles claimed it was the work of the amoral time-changing cult Faction Paradox. The repeated boasts of culpability by numerous readers of the 'adult' comic Viz can, however, be discounted.

Posted By: Cheltenham_Canary, Jan 12, 11:55:50