‘MISERLY’ BBC NEVER PAID ME WHAT IT SHOULD: PETER PURVES ADMITS HE WOULDN’T GET A BLUE PETER BADGE FOR MONEY.
Peter Purves, the former Blue Peter presenter, would scrap income tax on pensions if he could. He also says the BBC was ‘miserly’ in the 1960s when he was working there, which means he is left with a less than adequate pension.
Purves, who lives on a £1million country estate with his six dogs, first went into TV as an actor, playing an early time-travelling companion to Doctor Who in 1965.
He began co-presenting Blue Peter with John Noakes and Valerie Singleton in 1967 and ended up hosting the show for 11 years. A keen supporter of dog charities, he has presented and commentated at Crufts since 1976.
He is also a celebrated pantomime director with more than 30 productions under his belt. Now 76, he lives with his wife, the West End actress Kathryn Evans, in Suffolk.
What did your parents teach you about money?
Not a lot. It is deeply ingrained in me not to have debt, if you can avoid it. But I was never particularly aware of money as a child. We never seemed to go short of it. We lived in Blackpool and my dad was a master tailor.
How much pocket money did you get?
I started getting one shilling and sixpence a week when I was nine years old.
What was the first paid work you ever did?
When I was 18, I was cast in a play called The Rainmaker. I played the sheriff. I got £4.50 for the rehearsal week and £5 for the performance week.
Have you ever struggled to make ends meet?
Oh yes, often. I never had money as a young person at all.
What was the toughest time in your life, financially?
When I moved to London in 1963 and did not have any work. My then wife was pregnant and we lived in a flat that was up 95 stairs in Maida Vale. I signed on at the Labour Exchange for three or four months, on and off.
How much did you have to live on?
About £4.50 a week. My rent was £4.05, so things were difficult. We struggled to make ends meet.
Have you ever been paid silly money per hour for a job?
Unfortunately no. I’ve never been paid what I should have been paid. The BBC were miserly in the 1960s and 1970s. One or two people seemed to feather their nests but I could never work out how that happened. Doing Blue Peter, we were not allowed to do any ancillary work, which was weird.
How much did you get paid by Blue Peter?
In my first year, 1967, I was paid 35 guineas [£611 in today’s money] a programme and we did two a week. When I left the show in 1978, I was earning £95 a programme [the equivalent of £528 today]. I wasn’t terribly well paid but it amounted to a reasonable income at a time when many people were not earning much money. It enabled me to buy my first house.
What was John Noakes like with money?
He was cleverer than I was. I’ve never been any good with money. With me, it was easy come, easy go. With Johnny, it was: never let it go!
He was careful, bless him. I love him dearly. He’s been a really good mate. I was saddened to hear he was ill, and then that he had gone missing. I hadn’t realised quite how bad it had got for him. Luckily, he was found and has recovered now.
Did you save into a pension?
I did for nearly 30 years. I’m receiving that now. It’s a small pension and it’s not adequate. But at the time, when you’re putting money away, you think you’re paying plenty. There was no occupational pension for me – you don’t get a pension from the great BBC when you’re a self-employed person. We weren’t looked after, to be honest.
What was the best year of your life in terms of the money you made?
In 1985, I hosted a game show on London Weekend Television called Babble, and I got paid £36,000 for doing a 13-programme series.
What is the most expensive thing you have ever bought yourself just for fun?
A 1952 Bentley Mark VI, in 1968. It cost me £750.
What is the biggest money mistake you have ever made?
Accepting a buy-out of my video production company in the late 1980s. The whole thing went wrong and in the end we had to buy back our company which cost us quite a lot. It was a badly managed affair, not my fault – well it was in that I should have understood the deal better. I was naive.
And your best money decision?
I bought a four-bedroom house in Rugby, Warwickshire for £201,000 in 1987. It was a former rectory and at the time an expensive purchase. I took the biggest mortgage I could. Its value rocketed and we sold it for almost double what we paid.
Did you trade up the property ladder?
Yes. We bought a derelict old rectory in Northamptonshire for just under £200,000. We spent over £100,000 on it and made it into a magnificent £600,000 house. After six years, I fell off the roof, broke both my heels and I couldn’t work for a year. We ended up broke and I had to sell the house.
Do you own any property now?
Yes, my current home, a timber-framed farmhouse in Suffolk with seven acres of land. It is currently valued at £1million and we have been mortgage-free for years.
It gives me a feeling of security. There will come a time when we will have to move into something smaller. But for the moment, we’re surviving here and it’s heaven – a beautiful part of the country.
Do you pay off your credit cards in full?
I don’t have a credit card. I’d be too tempted to build debt.
How much cash do you typically carry?
Usually about £50. I try to pay cash for everything.
What’s your one luxury you treat yourself to?
First-class air travel. It stems from the fact that we travelled the world in the 1960s and 1970s on Blue Peter. Never once did we fly anything but economy.
If you were Chancellor of the Exchequer, what’s the first thing you’d do?
I don’t think it’s right that income from pensions should be heavily taxed, so I would remove income tax on pensions. It’s money that you’ve saved and worked for. I think it’s unfair that you have to pay a wodge of it back to the Government. I feel badly done by.
Is it important to give to charity?
Yes. I give when I can, especially time. I am president of the Canine Supporters’ Charity and vice-patron of Dogs for Good.
What is your number one financial priority?
To survive and keep my head above water.
News Source: Daily Mail
