My mum worked with Biddy Baxter. Both women were formidable – and absolutely terrifying | Zoe Williams

David Attenborough’s description of Biddy Baxter, when he introduced her in 2013 with a particular Bafta for her 25 years’ work on Blue Peter, was simply the most effective: devoted, passionate and pioneering. However because the producer has died, at 92, and different reminiscences have poured in, you’ll be able to’t assist however discover what number of of them are synonyms for “scary”.“Producer” and “creator” describe Baxter’s work on Blue Peter, however don’t convey how completely and completely every part was her concept: from Tony Hart to the Blue Peter badges, from the golden retrievers to the Blue Peter backyard, from “right here’s one we made earlier” to the charity appeals, she conjured all of it, to make a cultural artefact that left no baby untouched. Should you ever acquired a Blue Peter badge, it’s odds on you continue to have it – and, if it’s a gold one, that you simply nonetheless discuss it.Biddy Baxter, the editor of Blue Peter, in 1968. {Photograph}: Mirrorpix/Getty ImagesMy mum labored on Blue Peter as a set designer, on and off, over the identical interval and was all the time utilizing phrases reminiscent of “formidable”, “uncompromising” and “takes no prisoners” about Baxter. It made no sense to me as a child, as a result of my mum was terrifying at work. She revelled in how scary she was, how she might make absolutely grown carpenters quake with one eyebrow. How might there be two of them? Absolutely that may trigger some type of chemical response? Additionally, my mum didn’t prize the “female” traits of amiability and compliance, so why did she sound faintly essential after they had been void in different girls?They had been totally different manufacturers of scary: Baxter was stilettos-on-the-studio-floor scary; my mum was dungarees-and-cigs scary. Baxter stored presenters of their place by insisting the actual stars had been the Blue Peter pets, whereas your entire design division (if reminiscence serves) acted like neither pets nor individuals held any which means in any respect, in contrast with a scale mannequin of an aquarium product of balsa wooden and sticky-back plastic.However nonetheless, you’d have anticipated possibly a hint of solidarity, a collective “actually, neither of us is scary in any true sense, we’re simply professionals with sturdy views who occur to be girls”. I didn’t see any of that, which speaks to Attenborough’s level about pioneers: in the event you’re ever carrying stilettos at work and telling individuals what to do with out placing terror into anybody, it’s as a result of Baxter and her ilk, from the 60s by means of the 80s, had been those they made earlier. Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist Do you could have an opinion on the problems raised on this article? If you need to submit a response of as much as 300 phrases by e-mail to be thought-about for publication in our letters part, please click on right here.