Blue Peter legend Diane Louise Jordan reveals how she defied teacher’s racist slur to become national treasure

thesun.co.uk:

BLUE Peter legend Diane Louise Jordan made history in 1990 when she became the iconic children's show's first black presenter.

But six years before landing the high profile telly gig on talent alone, she was explicitly told by the director of Rose Bruford College that she would never make it on-screen unless "they were casting for freaks".

In an exclusive interview Diane, who has founded the inspiring oral archive The Making of Black Britain, says: "In the third year, when we were getting prepared to leave college, the course director said to me ‘Diane, you’re actually a really natural actress, you’re great, but you’ll never get a job because you look too young for your age, you wouldn’t play any of the main leads on the stage, you’re only 5ft, so on TV you’re the wrong size for the cameraman to measure you up and also, because you’re black, unless they’re casting for freaks, you don’t stand a chance’.  "He wasn’t being mean, this was the early 80s, things were just beginning to change then.

The theatre world was really diverse and exciting. I think he was thinking about mainstream work and was trying to help. At that point I thought 'I don’t know if I really want to be an actress, but what I don’t want to happen is I’m restricted based on things I can’t change'." Diane, 62, only applied to the college as a dare from friends to help with her aversion to public speaking that often left her stammering and unable to put sentences together.