English radio and TV presenter Valerie Singleton has been in the limelight, gracing our screens for many years, best known for her work on the iconic BBC children's series Blue Peter from 1962 to 1972. She also presented the BBC Radio 4 PM programme for a decade. Read on to learn more about where Valerie is from, her career and her relationships.
Where is Valerie from?
Born on 9 April 1937 into a middle-class family in Hitchin, Hertfordshire. Valerie is the daughter of an RAF flight lieutenant promoted to Wing Commander during WWII. Valerie admitted to having a rebellious childhood and was once expelled from a convent school.
She comments about her rebellious childhood in an interview with the Daily Mail, "despite my rather conformist reputation, I was often naughty in my youth – a bit wild, even. So it’s a wonder that I ever appeared on children’s television."
Valerie mentions that she attended many schools and was thrown out of class a lot! She states, "even on my first day, aged four, I repeatedly kicked a table leg and was marched out to a dark room where everything was covered with dust sheets." Valerie and her family moved to London when she was eleven.
Career highlights
Valerie wanted to become an actress and as a teenager, she attended drama and dance school. At age 16, in 1954 she won a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA). She later spent a year at Bromley Repertory Company and performed in 24 plays.
Valerie started her career as a voice actress and voiced many commercials and documentaries from 1958. However, her first acting debut was on the BBC sitcom The Adventures of Brigadier Wellington-Bull (1959) where she played the Brigadier's daughter.
Later she became involved in some presenting work with ITV including ATV's The Arnold Doodle Show where she presented on her own on Sunday afternoons with Arnold Doodle a cartoon character. In 1962, Valerie got her big break. When the BBC was looking for the perfect presenter, she was asked to join the existing lead presenter Christopher Trace on the children’s TV show, Blue Peter.
Valerie despite being extremely glamorous and RADA trained she was never afraid to get stuck into the action on Blue Peter! With many of the activities being scary, wild and a little eccentric. Editor Biddy Baxter had commented that "If the studio roof had collapsed in the middle of a live programme, Valerie would have stepped out of the rubble and said, 'And now for something quite different,' without faltering."
Known as the Blue Peter 'action woman' Valerie spent a decade on the iconic children’s TV show. Showing viewers places and things they couldn’t visit or imagine. Some of her Blue Peter highlights were taking a lion for a walk, visiting Kenya with Princess Anne for the Save the Children Fund and bringing Lulu the elephant live on the show, who happened to wreak havoc in the studio.
Valerie had earnt quite the reputation and is still a much loved and remembered presenter on Blue Peter. She mentions in an interview that when "John Noakes (had) joined Blue Peter in December 1965 and, from November 1967, we had Peter Purves, completing what many people kindly regard as a legendary line-up." Many still regard this cast of presenters as the Blue Peter dream team.
Alongside Blue Peter, Valerie was an active radio presenter, she presented for the BBC Radio’s program, On the Sunny Side of the Street for the Light Programme and BBC Two’s Time Out.
After her decade with Blue Peter, she joined the network Nationwide in 1973 and covered the royal wedding. She remained there for five years, and then later moved to the late-night news programme, Tonight where she interviewed many noteworthy people such as Davie Bowie.
Another notable mention in Valerie's career was her time at BBC Radio 4 PM. Starting out in 1982, Valerie interviewed many distinguished stars such as Shirley Temple and Audrey Hepburn.
Over the years she has starred as a guest in many TV features such as Comic Relief (1988), Children in Need (1992), So Graham Norton (1999), This Is Your Life (2001), The Weakest Link (2008) and many more!
Where is Valerie now?
In 2005, Valerie moved from London to Dorset. In 2007, she told the Metro newspaper that she would be publishing her biography at the same time as the Blue Peter's fiftieth anniversary and that the book would reveal things that will shock people. The book is still not published, however she opens up in an exclusive interview.
She starts telling her story by admitting that "to most people I am the wholesome face of wholesome programming: Radio 4’s PM, Nationwide, The Money Programme and, I scarcely need to say it, the irreproachable Blue Peter."
Although what we see on screen is never a totally clear view of somebody's life. Valerie continues, " that this view of me, however deep-rooted, is completely false. I am no goody-two-shoes – far from it."
Valerie Singleton’s OBE
In 1994 Valerie won an OBE Awardfor her passion and services in children’s television. In the video below, Valerie returns to Blue Peter to talk about her OBE. She tells the presenters of the show of her experience in Buckingham palace and what it was like to receive the award from Prince Charles.
"The prince is lovely, he really takes a long time to talk to everybody," she told the panel. "He wanted to know about Blue Peter, how long I had done it and what I was doing now."
The present Blue Peter presenters then hand her flowers and tell her that they are very proud.
Does Valerie Singleton have a partner?
In 2008 Valerie disclosed about her past relationships stating that she had relationships with her co-star Peter Purves and the actor Albert Finney.
She spoke up about her love life when she was young, expressing that, "even so, many men were interested in me, particularly in my 20s. Some really did fall for me and I lost interest."
She admitted, "I'm not sure I've ever allowed myself to fall properly in love," she said. "I tended to avoid guys who made my heart flutter.”
In the late 60s, she was engaged to the Top of the Pops DJ Pete Murray however; the pair broke up and never got married.
In 2016, Valerie jokingly proposed to Eddie Mair live on air on BBC Radio 4on the leap year. She claimed on-air, in the PM programme, "I've lived for an awful lot of leap years and I've never actually asked anyone to marry me," she said. "I can die happy now."
Valerie is currently not married or rumoured to have a partner.
Valerie does not have any social media but frequently shows up on our TV screens as a guest on talk shows such as this recent interview on The One Show.
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