I THINK I am the first person to notice this, but doesn't the chocolate man, currently appearing in TV adverts for Lynx deodorant, look like somebody we know and love?

Apart from his colour, I reckon he's a dead ringer for John Noakes, the former Blue Peter presenter.

As anybody of my generation will recall, he was the undisputed king - nay, god - of children's television.

In an age when presenting kids' programmes now consists largely of shouting at the camera as if a whole generation are otherwise too thick to pay attention, it's difficult to believe just how influential John was.

You can trace the start of the decline in teenagers' respect that led to the ASBO generation right back to when John hung up his stickyback plastic and pipe cleaners for good.

It was the golden era of the programme, before they started playing around with the format. So, suddenly overcome by a wave of nostalgia for what was easily the best children's programme ever to appear on telly, I got on eBay this week to purchase a piece of my past.

Sadly, my wallet doesn't stretch to the high prices demanded of genuine Blue Peter badges and, besides, it wouldn't feel right to own one if you didn't earn one.

So, instead, I bought myself a Bleep and Booster annual for £7 (including postage), which was a bargain as I was prepared to pay as much as £12. It's the same edition I had for a Christmas present in 1967 but subsequently lost, so now forms part of my master plan to re-buy all the toys I had as a child (I am currently saving up to by some Aurora glow-in-the-dark monsters).

Bleep was from the planet Miron and Booster, his friend, was an Earthling, and they would appear on the programme every couple of weeks or so, their space adventures being told with drawings.

The programme used the same method to tell historical stories or classic literary tales, which were always preceded by: "John Nettleton tells the story".

As you never saw him, John Nettleton's disembodied voice became a sort of mystical entity in our house.

And the same thing has happened to John Noakes. He became a kind of recluse after leaving the programme, and was the subject of various myths and rumours until he turned up again as the chocolate man.

Where is all this leading?

Well, it provides us with this week's doesn't-that-make-you-feel-old moment.

In our minds, John Noakes is still the action man that he always was.

But I made the shocking discovery, this week, that in real life he'll be 74 next month.

And Shep has been dead for 21 years.