I have been avidly watching the fantastic BBC4 "Children's TV on Trial" season all week, from its roots in the Fifties and Sixties, through Oliver Postgate, Magic Roundabout, Crackerjack, Blue Peter and Grange Hill, to the decline of children's broadcasting into the Nineties, when I heard the sad news that earlier this week one of its old stalwarts died.
Tony Bastable, one of the original presenters of Magpie - ITV's answer to Blue Peter in the 70s - was a major TV presence when I was a child. In a similar way to presenters like Michael Aspel, Michael Rodd and Brian Cant, Tony Bastable provided that safe, chummy, well-groomed "older brother" air in anything he presented, and although it seems his career never really made it further than those dim and distant halcyon days he still remains an important part of the very history the BBC has been trying to explore this week.
>Such a shame that so few people will remember him. RIP.
Read his obituary in The Guardian
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