In addition to giving a well explained history of the programme, there are sub sections on pets, appeals and summer expeditions amongst other long standing features, as well as presenter profiles for all the presenters up to Andy Akinwolere who joined in 2006 and is the only one in the book who is still presenting today.
I'm impressed that for most of them they've kept the original BBC press photos but the one that interests me the most for the usual reasons is John Leslie's one from 1989.
The reason being that the bottom of the photo has the old fashion BBC tv logo in the old fashioned curved squares which were still used by the corporation despite the slanted boxes with the lines at the bottom coming into use steadily, having been introduced in 1986.
They didn't appear at the end of BBC programmes until 1990 and from late 1992 a larger version of the logo appeared as well to accompany the smaller one.
It makes you realise how the corporation still had some of it's old fashioned conventions from the 70s/80s lasting well into the 90s.
Moving onwards, the book also revealed that the infamous incident with Lulu the elephant was actually pre-recorded although for some reason they decided to let it go out in full.
As well as the fact that John Noakes's yell of "Get off me foot!" was a reference to a comedian he used to see at Blackpool when he was younger.
Despite most of those involved being before my time, the book manage to bring my habit of laughing at lesser successful follow-ups into place with examples such as Christopher Wener who took over disastrously from John Noakes, and Michael Sundin who presented for just one series between 1984 and 1985.
Michael's departure saw the return of Peter Duncan who got a reprieve for one more year after the first series of "Duncan Dares", the title of which was actually chosen by Blue Peter viewers.
I only really remember the series when it was repeated on CBBC in 1989, despite being three years old. One of the directors happened to be Robert Benfield who's now one of the TV lecturers here on the Harrow Campus.
Sadly Sundin died in 1989 after an AIDS related disease.
There were also stories about parents complaining about Caron Keating's arrival in 1986 because they were worried their children might adopt her Irish accent and others thought it was hard to understand.
Let's say her voice was a lot more clear and coherent than Romana D'Annunzio who took over from Diane in 1996 and didn't last long due to her reluctance to take part in various items.
One presenter who it seemed couldn't get enough action was Tim Vincent who ended up appearing on Get Your Own Back in 1994 as the younger contestant thought he got "too action packed" on Blue Peter.
Tim on the other hand was looking forward to the whole experience of being on the show and ended up being dunked so I guess both him and the challenger were happy.
It's interesting seeing the names of perspective presenters for Blue Peter in the presenter profiles as around the time that Mark Curry got the job, Biddy Baxter wanted to get Phillip Schofield as a presenter, but his sights were set on Saturday mornings.
In fact Phillip was the complete opposite to the Blue Peter presenters as whilst they were your parents, or even teachers, Schofe was more of an older brother type figure.
Nowadays he's like the dad that everyone wants to have.
It's worth mentioning however that if it wasn't for Blue Peter there wouldn't have been Swap Shop as the creators of the "Swappie" Edward Barnes and Rosemary Gill worked with Biddy on Blue Peter for many years.
And of course if it wasn't for Swap Shop there would be no Going Live! and the list goes onwards.
It was also weird seeing photos of Richard Bacon without any stubble. It was clear that he was the obsessive type who knew TVC inside out and was trying so hard to be cool as he really wanted to be presenting Live And Kicking or shows along those lines.
He eventually reached those goals of live adlibbed television after his sacking in 1998 but as mentioned here before, I bet I'm not the only one who thought that BBC Children's Controller Lorraine Heggessy's annoucement was one of the most patronising things I've ever seen on television.
Former presenter John Leslie wasn't impressed by how it was handled but oddly enough Richard mentioned on Have I Got News For You that he appreciated what she did.
I happened to meet Katy Hill outside Capital Radio four years ago with a few jingle buddies wating for Hirsty to leave the building after that afternoon's Hit 40 UK.
I never expected to see Katy but she was really nice to us and I was really impressed, perhaps more so than everyone else having been the youngest one there. She even ended her mobile phone call so she could speak to us.
However a couple of months later she was sacked from Hit 40 UK after selling promotional CDs on eBay from what I've heard.
A similar thing happened near my neck of the woods to Ant Payne at Invicta FM a year earlier which resulted in fellow Morning Zoo presenter James Heming walking out in protest the next day and quite rightly so.
From what I remember he was absent for almost a week.
Ant was the stand out on that show at the time with his wicked sense of humour and it was a nice change to have a male hosted breakfast show at the time.
After the sacking it went back to the male/female regime that had turned me off for such a long time, and I believe it's still in place today with James still present with Gemma.
However the Morning Zoo tag has been dropped now, and they were really ambitious to use that brand name in the first place.
Although when then PC Sandy Beech introduced it to the station with Neil Francis at the helm, it was actually really great radio and the best breakfast presenter the county has ever had.
Speaking of which it's worth reading Chilver's analysis of the original Z Morning Zoo from his own blog whilst away in New York City.
Ant ended up at CTR in Maidstone hosting breakfast shortly after, although
that's now been turned into KMFM.
Ant's now moved on and in his place is another recent Invicta reject
Andy Walker.
I'll reserve judgment although you can't deny his overall passion for radio.
Anyway, back to Katy Hill and whilst we didn't actually have a camera at the time, I do have photos of when I went to visit Blue Peter back in 1994 which some of you may have seen already.
For those who haven't please try not to laugh.
Oh fuck it, here they are:
A much awaited opportunity to meet Anthea.
Diane and Bonnie.
And the ever ready for action, Tim Vincent.
I don't actually own a badge oddly enough as I didn't appear on screen
but it was a really good opportunity to visit such an iconic show and to meet
who I believe was their best presenter, only a month before her departure.
Although like many others I may hold rather cynical views about the show's current state, there's no denying that it's one of the most established and responsible for many developments in television since it's beginning.
Good Night.
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