John Noakes, a former Blue Peter tv presenter 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 of the Balearic island where the couple live, that he was missing shortly after 9am.
Noakes, 81, suffers from Alzheimer’s disease. His wife Vicky reported his absence to the police around on Tuesday saying “I’m sure he’ll turn up. It’s just that he’s gone missing on the hottest day of the year so far.”
'I have friends out looking for him and we covered all the areas of the locality we would expect to find him in... My concern is that because it's extremely hot here today and he's got no water he'll get dehydrated.' She added that this would make him more confused.
'I'm concerned that maybe he's had a fall somewhere where someone hasn't been able to find him. If he'd fallen in a street someone would have picked him up and that wouldn't have been a problem. But between where we live and Andratx it's quite rural,' she said.
Police in the Andratx district of Mallorca said a dozen local police and Guardia Civil were searching for him. Usually a person has to be missing for 24 hours before police mount a search, but the effort was begun much earlier given Noake’s age and condition as well as the 35C heat.
Noakes presented Blue Peter for more than 12 years beginning in 1965 and becoming the show’s longest-serving presenter. Among many things viewers always remember is his association with the border collie Shep, whose occasional misbehavior brought the cry “Get down, Shep!” to national prominence. Shep died in 1987.
The show’s producer, Biddy Baxter, recruited him and later reflected: “We knew as soon as John Noakes opened the office door that he was our third presenter.”
Noakes 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.
