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John Vicky Noakes Mallorca
John and Vicky Noakes in Mallorca in 1990. The former children’s TV presenter has been found after going missing during a walk. Photograph: Ltd./Rex Shutterstock
John and Vicky Noakes in Mallorca in 1990. The former children’s TV presenter has been found after going missing during a walk. Photograph: Ltd./Rex Shutterstock

John Noakes found after going missing during walk near his Mallorca home

This article is more than 8 years old

Former Blue Peter presenter, who has Alzheimer’s disease, taken to hospital after he was found in a field in 35C heat

Former children’s television presenter John Noakes has been found after disappearing during a walk on the island of Mallorca early on Tuesday morning in 35C heat.

Noakes’s wife Vicky said she alerted police in Andratx, the district where the couple live, that the 81-year-old – who has Alzheimer’s disease – was missing shortly after 9am.

Noakes, who presented the BBC programme Blue Peter for more than 12 years, was found in a strawberry field less than a mile from his home at 7pm local time. His wife said he was found “in the bottom of a storm drain”, explaining why search parties had failed to see him earlier in the day. A police helicopter spotted Noakes and took him to hospital.

A local police officer said Noakes was found to have a weak heartbeat and was suffering from dehydration, but is expected to recover.

“He was very weak because he has been outside for many hours in the heat, presumably without eating or drinking anything,” the officer said.

“Bear in mind that this gentleman is 81 and suffers from Alzheimer’s, which is assumed to have contributed to him going missing.”

The local council posted a message on its Facebook page stating they had “located the missing person” and that he is “stable and has been taken to hospital for a checkup”. It had earlier posted two photographs of Noakes and a message asking people to look out for him.

Vicky Noakes said: “I knew it couldn’t be far because he wouldn’t have been able to walk that far. I would like to say that the emergency services have been really excellent and pulled out all the stops, and they were greatly helped by our friends and local people.”

Halifax-born Noakes, who joined Blue Peter in 1965, was known for both his adventurous physical exploits, including what was at the time the longest free-fall parachute jump by a British civilian, and his association with one of the show’s resident dogs, border collie Shep, which died in 1987.

As well as being the show’s longest-serving presenter, Noakes was arguably the best loved by viewers, renowned for his good humour amid on-screen mishaps, including the occasional misbehaviour of Shep – “Get down, Shep!”, becoming something of a national catchphrase – and an occasion when Lulu the infant elephant ran riot in the studio, urinating and defecating on the floor.

Noakes trained as an aircraft engine fitter before going to drama school. The Blue Peter producer, Biddy Baxter, recruited him after liking his face in photo from a theatre review in a local paper.

She said of his success: “There’s never any shortage of solid, run-of-the-mill, competent professionals, guaranteed to look at the right camera and speak on cue. On the whole they’re boring and quite unmemorable.

“But once in a while a jewel emerges – usually totally by chance. We knew as soon as John Noakes opened the office door that he was our third presenter.”

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