Blue Peter Special Assignment

Series guide

The first series featured Valerie Singleton examining six European capital cities: Rome, Paris, London, Edinburgh, Amsterdam and Brussels. Series Two continued with Singleton visiting European cities including Dublin, York and Madrid. Later series turned to islands, covering the Isle of Wight, the Isle of Man, Hong Kong, Malta and Venice (which had also appeared as a city earlier). The programme then focused on famous houses or individuals, with biographies of Vivaldi, the Brontë Sisters, the Duke of Wellington, Saint Therese of Lisieux, Marie Antoinette and Rudyard Kipling; Lesley Judd and Peter Purves began presenting in place of Singleton.

In 1977, Purves and Judd jointly presented a series on twin towns. The final series in 1981 was co-presented alternately by Singleton and Purves, with the theme of rivers: Singleton examined the Yukon and Niagara, while Purves reported on the Tamar, the Tweed and the Singapore Rivers. Spin-off books were published by Edward Barnes.

Episodes

The series was repeated on BBC1 on Monday 7 June 1971 at 7:20 pm and Monday 3 April 1972 at 5:00 pm, with Valerie Singleton reporting on six European capitals, produced by Edward Barnes. A further repeat in November/December 1973 changed the broadcast order to Rome, Amsterdam, Edinburgh, Paris, City of London, Vienna. Singleton reported on five European cities, produced by Barnes, and later on six islands. A repeat season in October 1975 featured Hong Kong, Brussels, York, Madrid and Amsterdam. Other episodes covered great names of history whose houses still exist; Purves and Judd visited five sets of twin towns; Purves investigated dramatic settings for six great personalities from Italy, France and England; and a series of five programmes was produced by Barnes.