Presenter Yvette Fielding has claimed that she was “bullied” when she worked on children’s TV programme Blue Peter.
The 55-year-old presenter joined the BBC’s long-running TV show when she was a teenager in 1987.
During an episode of the podcast Celebrity Catch-Up: Life After That Thing I Did, Fielding claimed that TV producer Biddy Baxter, who introduced the show’s badges in 1963 and contributed to the early start of the programme, had been “incredibly cruel”.
The brilliant @Yfielding joins me to reminisce about her years on Blue Peter, reveals the secrets behind "here's one I made earlier" and the trials of working with the Blue Peter pets 😼
Plus we chat Most Haunted, the paranormal and her latest YA novel, The Witches of Pendle. pic.twitter.com/WKbyoxeNkZ
— Celebrity Catch Up: Life After That Thing I Did (@CelebCatchUpPod) October 5, 2023
The BBC has declined to comment on the Most Haunted star’s claims and Baxter has been approached for a response.
Fielding spoke to Genevieve Hassan on the podcast and discussed what it felt like always trying to please Baxter.
“It was like being beaten by a parent”, she said. “It was like every time I did what I thought was right, she’d come back and she’d say something awful or she’d just berate me in front of other people and it was just absolutely soul destroying.”
Speaking further on her experience at Blue Peter, she said: “I’d been pushed to the absolute limit and I was ready to get in my car and drive back home to Cheshire.
“I had just had enough of being bullied, which is what I was.”
Fielding claimed Baxter compelled her to show her skin condition, vitiligo – which causes patches on the skin, on TV and also said that producers would phone her to make sure she was in bed to meet a curfew of 9pm.
She said: “I had no say in the matter. It was ‘You will go on television and you will pull your skirt up, show your legs, show where your vitiligo…’
“I mean, I was mortified, absolutely mortified.”
She added: “We had sackfuls of letters coming in from children with skin disorders saying that they feel a little bit more confident…. so she was so right on so many things.
She went on: “I mean you wouldn’t be allowed to get away with that now, you can’t force a TV presenter to bare their flesh.”
Fielding also 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 and that’s all I’ll say on it, it was very, very hard.”
Following Baxter’s departure, she said she had “an absolute blast” on the series and said that the producer made her “stronger” in the long run.
Fielding said: “When I think about it… the amount of awful people within the television industry and I always thank Biddy because I think if it wasn’t for her, there’s no way I would have stood up and basically told them where to go and been incredibly strong and just got on with it.
“And she did that. She gave me the balls to do that. And so I thank her for that. There’s no bitterness there whatsoever. In fact it’s the other way.”
Fielding left Blue Peter in 1992. She has appeared in 1990s soap Byker Grove and was a presenter on British paranormal TV programme Most Haunted.