Monthly Meetings

We meet at 2 pm on the fourth Tuesday of the month at the Congregational Church, Kilwardby St, Ashby.
There is normally a guest speaker or, in December, musical entertainment.
This is followed by tea, coffee and biscuits and a chance to meet and talk with other members.

We remind you that we cannot guarantee that all members or other participants at u3a meetings or gatherings will have been vaccinated nor that they are virus-free and that it is up to individuals to decide whether or not they are comfortable with the risks of mixing in groups when the virus is still very much at large.

Tea Rota and Reporting Groups

26th March - Alex Leger – Tales of Blue Peter

Alex Leger spent a record 36 years as a producer and director on Blue Peter before retiring in 2011. He told us many stories of his four decades on the renowned children’s TV show.

Alex was studying Industrial Engineering at Loughborough University when he thought about joining the BBC. Realising that his engineering degree wouldn’t get him the producer's job that he wanted he joined the Army instead but retired from that aged 24. Hoping that his management skills learnt in the army would help, he applied for a job as an assistant production trainee at the BBC only to find out that he succeeded because his mother's reputation as a producer got him the job. As he pointed out, nepotism was still rife then.

He started on a 6 month posting with Blue Peter working with the legendary Biddy Baxter who offered him a full time job as Assistant Producer at the end of it, and so his career on Blue Peter was started.

Much of the show went out live interspersed with film clips shot outside. Alex helped produce 100 films in his first 3 years!

His most famous film was that of John Noakes climbing Nelson's Column to help clean it. The workmen actually doing the job weren't interested in the BBC filming them until John Noakes name was mentioned and then they were more than happy to meet and work with him. Modern Health and Safety rules didn’t apply then so John was sent up a 170 ft ladder to the top of the column without any safety equipment, ropes or even a hard hat. Getting on to Nelson's plinth involved climbing the last part on an outward leaning ladder and he still wasn’t roped on! Having done it, the sound engineer said that John would have to do it again as he swore on camera the first time! Hats off too to the cameraman who climbed up there first by the same route, carrying his camera.

Alex also showed us the famous clip of Lulu, the baby elephant, that nervously relieved itself on the studio floor whilst John Noakes, Peter Purves and Valerie Singleton tried to control it.

We were treated to many other anecdotes including filming lava flow on Mt Etna where the presenter was standing so close to the lava that his skin was turning bright red and another where Alex himself was filming gorillas in Uganda from just a few feet away.

On another occasion he was recceing a site in the Soloman Islands when the little boat he and two others were in got caught in a violent lightning squall just as their engine packed up. By the time the engine was restarted it was nightfall and they could only see one light ashore several miles away.

Shortly after they eventually got back, lightning knocked out the island's power supply for 24hrs including the single light they had used to navigate home. If it had gone out earlier they might never have got back.

This was a fascinating look back at moments from our childhood which we all remembered but this time seen from the other side of the camera.