Former Blue Peter presenter Yvette Fielding has claimed she was bullied while working on the BBC kids’ TV show.
Fielding, 55, joined the show in 1987, aged 18, and still holds the record of being its youngest-ever presenter.
However, during a recent appearance on the Celebrity Catch-Up: Life After That Thing I Did podcast, Fielding revealed that people’s behaviour towards her on the show left her a “shaking, gibbering wreck”.
“I felt very lonely because I was the youngest. I was considered a kid – and a pain in the arse of a kid,” she said.
“I wasn’t given any training. I wasn’t told how to present, I wasn’t given any tips. I was basically left on my own, to just get on with it. And it wasn’t a pleasant first year.
“I would ring my mum up and then hear my mum’s voice and burst into tears, because I was so homesick.”
Fielding moved away from her family in Stockport to London for the job, where she claims she was forced to live with Bonnie, the Blue Peter dog, against her will.
Yvette Fielding— (Getty Images)
“It got to the point where I’d just had enough. Being made to live with the dog, I had no say in it: ‘You will move out of your flat and you will move into this house with the dog’,” said Fielding.
“Given this dog to look after at 18, and not just a dog – the most famous dog in the country. Poor Bonnie was pining for her owner, scratching at the door every night. It was too upsetting. Imagine how many hearts would be broken if anything had happened to her. It would have been national mourning!”
The presenter claimed her mistreatment stemmed from Blue Peter’s notorious editor Biddy Baxter, who helmed the show for 25 years from 1962 until her retirement in 1988.
“I wanted her to be so proud of me, yet it was like being beaten by a parent. Every time I did what I thought was right, she’d come back and say something awful, or berate me in front of other people. It was absolutely soul-destroying,” she said.
“You’ve got to be confident in front of 8 million people twice a week, but my confidence was at an all-time low. I was a shaking, gibbering wreck.”
Fielding added: “I actually resigned and walked out because I found it really hard going. I’d been pushed to the absolute limit and I was ready to get in my car and drive back home to Cheshire,” she said.
Blue Peter’s former editor Biddy Baxter— (PA)
“I’d just had enough of being bullied, which is what it was.”
Fortunately, her time on the show turned around after Baxter’s retirement. She was convinced to stay and had an “absolute blast” in her remaining years on the show.
“The amount of awful people in the television industry … I always thank Biddy because I think, if it wasn’t for her, there’s no way I would’ve stood up, told them where to go and got on with it,” said Fielding. “She did that. She gave me the balls to do that. And I thank her for that. There’s no bitterness there whatsoever.”
The Independent has contacted the BBC for comment. A representative for Baxter was not locatable.
Fielding’s comments about Baxter mirror those of many of her ex-colleagues.
In an interview with The Independent in 2009, Baxter was asked about her reputation as a dictator, to which she responded: “Is your editor a dictatorial? It’s difficult to be an editor and not edit.”
She added: “I had only three secretaries in 23 years, so I must have had more bearable moments.”
