Today, current Blue Peter presenter Mwaksy Mudenda and former Blue Peter presenter Sarah Greene joined children from Wormholt Park primary school in White City to open a Blue Peter time capsule buried as a record of life in the 1980s and recently rediscovered during construction work at Television Centre.

The Blue Peter time capsule was originally buried in 1981 by Sarah Greene and school children under a new BBC car park being built at Television Centre, with other Blue Peter presenters Simon Groom and Peter Duncan.  It was filled with the children’s ideas and drawings of life in the 1980s – including booklets on clothes, dance, games, sweets and aircraft – and also a vinyl record of the Blue Peter theme tune by musician Mike Oldfield, a script from the 1981 Blue Peter episode of the day and a canister including a BBC film made by Blue Peter about the construction of the car park at Television Centre.

Mwaksy Mudenda, Sarah Greene and the school children from White City opened the time capsule today live on ITV’s This Morning at Television Centre and the kids added their own examples of contemporary culture not around in 1981, like an oyster card, COVID test and PPE, an oyster card, ITV script and new Blue Peter badge. The time capsule box was then reburied as part of the redevelopment of Television Centre by developer Stanhope, construction partner Kier and affordable housing partner Peabody in a garden which will be publicly accessible just off Wood Lane, on the site where the original BBC car park once stood and will now be affordable housing as Macfarlane Place.  In a complete coincidence, one of the 1981 school children, Andrew Highton, who put his record of 1980s life in the capsule, is now a Senior Project Director at Stanhope.