30 years ago tonight, on Wednesday 8th February 1978, I arrived home from my suburban comprehensive school and settled down to watch a brand new children's TV drama series set in a suburban comprehensive school. The series was Grange Hill, there was nothing else like it on telly at the time, and it's remained one of my favourite programmes ever since. No really. I've watched almost almost every single episode since the show started, right up until last year when it was suddenly demoted to digital and the BBC snuck out the whole series without me noticing. And now suddenly this week, just as the show chalks up its 30th anniversary, the BBC has announced that the next series will be the last. Desklids down, doors slammed, and the staff room door firmly bolted shut. And I for one am extremely sorry.
So which era of Grange Hill do you remember? Trisha and Tucker maybe, or Gonch and Zammo, or perhaps Miss Carver and Mr Hankin? Did your school dinner ladies ever serve up a glowing sausage like that one in the opening credits? Was your school bully called Gripper, Imelda or Mauler? Did you ever wish that Mrs McClusky was your headteacher, or rejoice that Mr Bronson wasn't? Was your PE teacher firm but fair like Mr Baxter, a psychopath like Mr Hicks, or unexpectedly catapulted to headteacherdom like Mr Robson? Were there really ever any children in normal schools with nicknames like Pogo, Ziggy or Tegs? Did your class ever have a bolshy school refuser like Danny Kendall, or a misunderstood kid with Aspergers like Martin Miller (you've not been watching lately, have you?). Was Cartman from South Park based on Row-land Browning, did Boy George ever learn any fashion tips from Suzanne Ross, and would Nancy Reagan ever have learnt to 'Just say No' without Zammo's heroin habit? Ah yes, no central character was complete without some stereotypical medical condition and/or social inadequacy.
I was forever endeared to Grange Hill in 1994 when they filmed a scene betwen Mr Robson and his illicit love interest outside the house I grew up in. This was, however, a sign that the emphasis of the show was moving dangerously away from the lives of the children towards the lives of the staff. Who cared? And then the balance switched back rather too far the other way, concentrating more on extra-curricular romance than the back-row futility of double chemistry. Big mistake. Because Grange Hill's great strength was the mundane everyday world of history homework, field trips and petty bullying. And that's the golden age we all remember.
Five years ago creator Phil Redmond stepped back in to give the flagging series a boost. He resisted crashing a plane into the entire cast, like he normally does, and instead moved the school lock stock and barrel to the north-west of England (and no longer anywhere up the northern end of the Jubilee line). His efforts don't appear to have been enough. No mere mortal TV producer can defeat the towering legislative presence that is the new BBC Trust. They've decreed that the target audience for the CBBC channel is to be 6-12 year olds, and therefore no programme based on 11-18 education may continue. The 31st and final series will therefore "relocate to 'the Grange', a creative learning centre focused on multimedia technology" where various 10 and 11 year olds will have no doubt ripping adventures. But this ghastly committee-driven metamorphosis can't have worked. CBBC schedulers have chosen to delay transmission to the summer when nobody'll be watching, and then pulled the plug altogether on any subsequent episodes.
Grange Hill is a school whose era has been and gone. What was taboo in the 1970s is commonplace today. Kids today no longer say "flipping heck" or join the School Council to protest against school uniform. They shout obscenities across the playground, hide knives in their rucksacks and txt their classmates from underneath the desk during citizenship classes. And, most importantly, they no longer rush home from school to watch TV drama series, not like we did, because the 21st century is full of more exciting alternative distractions. Your children may never be part of a similar shared educational experience, but we will always be the Grange Hill generation.
Grange Hill (RIP)
I was forever endeared to Grange Hill in 1994 when they filmed a scene betwen Mr Robson and his illicit love interest outside the house I grew up in. This was, however, a sign that the emphasis of the show was moving dangerously away from the lives of the children towards the lives of the staff. Who cared? And then the balance switched back rather too far the other way, concentrating more on extra-curricular romance than the back-row futility of double chemistry. Big mistake. Because Grange Hill's great strength was the mundane everyday world of history homework, field trips and petty bullying. And that's the golden age we all remember.
