Lesley Judd

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Lesley Judd (born 20 December 1946, London, UK) is an English dancer and TV presenter, best known as a long-serving host of the BBC children's programme Blue Peter. She was educated at the independent Royal Ballet School. Brought in to the show when Valerie Singleton became a part-time presenter in 1972, she presented alongside Singleton, but mainly John Noakes and Peter Purves, a partnership that lasted until 1978 and remains the show's longest-running line-up. Before then, she had appeared as part of the dance troupe the Young Generation on several TV shows and also had a small role in the first Monty Python film, And Now For Something Completely Different, made in 1971 and Tommy Steele's Half A Sixpence. Judd made a brief return to dancing in 1976 when she joined Pan's People on Top Of The Pops for a one-off routine. The rehearsals were later shown on Blue Peter. During her time on the show she was criticised in the UK press when she divorced her first husband, actor Derek Fowlds (former 'straight' man to TV Puppet Basil Brush), and married a Blue Peter cameraman, whom she also later divorced. It was her second husband's illness that caused her to leave Blue Peter in 1979.

After leaving Blue Peter, she appeared with another former partner of Basil Brush, Irishman Billy Boyle in an ITV series for children tracing the history of dance and was a regular panellist on game shows such as "Punchlines." She later featured as "The Mole" in the educational game show The Adventure Game, and was co-presenter of both the technology gameshow The Great Egg Race and the computer-related Micro Live. She also hosted the ever popular British radio show Woman's Hour from 1982 to 1988, and appeared as a television newsreader in the film Threads (1984). She also appeared naked in a print published charity poster in the early 80's which caused outrage at the time.

Lesley also presented a show on the London radio station LBC in the late 1980's, later co-hosted with the station's popular presenter Steve Allen.

She now lives in France near Toulouse and works as a conference organiser. Although she has been asked, on several occasions, to take part in Blue Peter reunions, she has always turned them down, as she feels that appearing on television is no longer a part of her life; she was last seen on Blue Peter's 35th birthday programme.

[edit] External Links

• Lesley Judd BBC Blue Peter
• The Great Egg Race at UKGameshows.com

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