Farewell John Noakes, my first crush and the only northern voice on 1970s children's television

It is with sadness that I’ve learned of the death of my first love, the dare-devil, tousel-haired Blue Peter presenter John Noakes. He was 83.

Back in 1977, he was aged 39 when he climbed to the top of Nelson’s Column without any safety equipment at all. Just Noakes clad in flares, brogues and a combat jacket climbing a ladder. I was only four, but even then, watching on a 20’’ Grundig Supercolor TV from 350 miles away in Cumbria, I was deeply smitten.

Noakes, with his 1970s moptop, infectious laugh and vagabond heart was the best sort of kids TV presenter. Not a grown-up, as such, but a large, brave, magical creature who could turn four wire coat hangers and a yard of tinsel into a terrific advent crown. Or an old Lenor bottle and four Fairy Liquid cartons into a mock Tudor castle with turrets.

Noakes also loved dogs, which is, to my mind, a vital component in all decent human beings. Noakes and Shep taught a nation of children that it was fine to be soft-headed about animals, to bond with your pets, to have your own codewords and in-jokes with them, and to grieve them like family when they died. The nation is richer for this.

Throughout my childhood, Noakes was warm, upbeat and as politely irreverent as one could be at 5pm under the heavy scrutiny of the BBC. Amazingly, for the times, his accent was unashamedly northern but in spite of this – or perhaps because of it – millions of after-school sofa dwellers saw him as a figure of gentle, avuncular, trustworthy pleasing authority.

Yes, I flirted with watching Thames TV’s cooler, copycat show Magpie with Tommy Boyd, and even the snoozesome How with Fred Dineage. But it was when the Blue Peter hornpipe theme tune played that many of us felt truly comfortable. There is a school of nostalia that believes 1970s children found their ecstasy in the wanton flan-flinging chaos of ATV’s Tiswas, but I think this is overstated. Many more working class kids found deep comfort in Blue Peter’s rules, orderly conduct and acts of philanthropy.

If this show was a televisual extension of the Baden-Powell spirit, a weekly paean to teamwork, practicality and the outdoors spirit, then Noakes was its twinkle-eyed akela. His impact entirely outshone the glitter-applying and sticky-back plastic achievements of Simon Groom, Peter Purves and Peter Duncan. Noakes truly was the star of the show.

We loved him asking us collect stamps, buttons and old keys to convert into ambulances, lifeboats and meals-on-wheels vans. We tolerated the the little historical sections on Anne Frank or Grace Darling. We even endured the parts when Noakes and Lesley Judd tackled the Blue Peter garden for a section of digging, planting or unveiling some sort of plaque.

It must be noted that John Noakes did not have rose-tinted memories of his time as a Blue Peter icon, calling Biddy Baxter, the show’s producer, "an awful woman" and complaining retrospectively that he was ever allowed to take part in such daft stunts without insurance. But this merely made me carry on loving him all the more. No mortal human turns up for work every day to scrabble around in elephant piss and appeal for old paperbacks with a smile on their face.

When Go With Noakes, his spin-off show, came along, featuring "On Ilkla Moor Baht ‘at" as its theme tune, there was a definite sense that Noakes had been set free. Go With Noakes began as a daredevil show but, by series four, episodes included a loose gander around south west Ireland, just John and Shep on a traveller’s caravan having a smashing time, or an impromptu shepherding session with David Bellamy. It’s all, in hindsight, deeply Alan Partridge.

In the 1980s, Noakes loved gently examining Britain’s odd ways: Pooh stick racing, the flora dance, being carried by Geoff Capes, brass bands, and looking for the Loch Ness Monster. The realities of urban Britain under Thatcher rarely touched the Go With Noakes universe, but I didn't mind that; I was knee-deep in town life anyway.

In recent years, we heard that Noakes had gone missing temporarily in Spain. He was 81; it was June, very hot, and he’d been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. It felt unbearably cruel that my favourite childhood adventurer could now possibly no longer reliably remember where he lived.

Life is short and Noakes truly lived it. Not everyone gets to stand with Nelson on top of his column. I hope wherever he is now, Shep has found him there.

They’re not really gone – they're just off filming one long, celestial episode of Go With Noakes.