Peter Purves speaks with a knowledge and passion for dogs that comes with having worked with them professionally for more than 40 years and having had many as pets.
Yet Peter, who was an actor in Doctor Who before he started work on BBC’s Blue Peter, recalls that he wasn’t really a dog person until he joined the children’s programme. There, he was famously teamed up with Petra, a five-year-old border collie/German shepherd cross.
“She’d been brought into the programme as a surrogate pet for the nation – it was a brilliant idea. That was before I joined the show, so she’d been on the show for five years when I joined,” Peter recalls.
“But she never really liked the studio very much and the editor Biddy Baxter, whose idea it had been in the first place, after I’d been on the show for about three or four months said: ‘Look, Petra seems to like being with you on the set, she doesn’t seem to mind that too much, would you like to take her on as your pet?’
“Well, I had to think about it. As an actor you can’t have a pet because you can’t give them the time. It’s very unfair. If you can’t give a dog lots of time, then you shouldn’t have one.
“But then suddenly there was this option of having a dog at home which came to work with me, because she came to the studio every day, and if I was going filming in the UK she used to come with me – so it was very practical. And so that’s how I took her on.”
Peter and Petra were together for 10 years. Petra died in 1977 and today a bronze statue of her stands outside BBC’s MediaCityUK at Salford.
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STOP ME AND BUY ONE: Nigel's on the way with his 1981 Bedford
It’s something we all recall with delight. “Mum, it’s the ice cream man!” Let’s Talk’s motoring man David Clayton meets someone happy to be the owner of a Bedford ice cream van. Bring on the Strawberry Mivvis, choc ices and 99s ...
Beautiful Hill: Normandy Origin For A Name Meaning
Let’s Talk’s surnames expert Derek Palgrave, from Suffolk, researches three more of our readers’ names, the first of which probably stems from the geographical presence of a beautiful hill.
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Two centuries on Thomas would be DELIGHTED WITH HIS SUCCESS
He was a man without sight but with such vision. Derek James remembers Thomas Tawell who died 200 years ago.
TURNING 50
Here at Let’s Talk we recognise that our magazine is targeted at those aged 50 and older. So we hope we are always fair to our readers and to the older generation in general. But it seems many believe other media and businesses do not treat older people in the best way.
THE CHASE COULD BE ON FOR a Norfolk home for Bradley Walsh
He is one of the most popular celebrities on television at the moment. He’s a comedian, singer, actor, personality and probably the best quiz show host doing the rounds. David Clayton looks back to when Bradley Walsh came to Cromer.
The calendar is rolling around to the WINTER SOLSTICE
Claire Manion, of Norfolk-based Broadsky Astrology, looks at how we have always honoured the winter solstice, our shortest day.
PEACE, GOODWILL AND PROSPERITY must surely follow
In view of such uncertainty hanging over the rest of this year – and possibly well beyond – it was hard to come up with a suitable offering for December in his usual style, says Keith Skipper. So, he has decided to settle for a festive story set in 1951, that he wrote some time ago.
Friends
Readers of our short stories don’t have to have long memories to recall work by Anne Maxwell, who had a previous short story entry published in the summer.
