The absolute very first time I watched Grange Hill was the first series in the late 70s. It’s really hard to explain to my kids how anything which now looks like everything else in popular culture (Young Ones, Star Wars, Live Aid, Sex Pistols etc) was once genuinely different to anything else which came before it. Grange Hill fell into that category too. There just wasn’t anything on the telly like it.
The only school most of us had seen on TV before then was St Trinians with its cross-dressing headmistress, organised crime syndicates and institutionalised bullying, all set within acres of rolling Oxfordshire countryside. It was great fun and no doubt Tucker Jenkins and Alan Humphries would’ve loved to attend it but it didn’t look much like my middle-England grammar school, let alone an inner-city comprehensive.
Grange Hill did. The series caused controversy when it was first broadcast and was routinely accused of promoting unruly behaviour in the classrooms of Britain. To be fair to the writer, Phil Redmond, the storylines simply mirrored government policy at the time in which the Dept of Education's (DoE's) mission to improve the mental resilience of young people could be summed up by the mantra they borrowed from the German philosopher, Nietzsche (years before Kelly Clarkson had the same idea); "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger".
There were so many death traps which DoE policy makers in the 70s & 80s either turned a blind eye to or, as I strongly suspect, positively encouraged that there’s enough material for a later blog post and so I won't cover it all now. Suffice it to say, all toys were dangerous. None of them passed safety tests. All paint contained lead and killed you. Ring pulls on fizzy drink cans were designed to sever fingers and kill you. Cycle helmets were illegal and so there was a fair chance that falling off your Raleigh Chopper would kill you. Even sweets copied things that killed you. Cigarette sticks from Barretts? They made Refreshers, Flying Saucers and Sherbet Dib Dabs for god's sake!
To balance this off, the Department for Terrifying the Shit out of Children (DTSC) created the most horrific public information films (PIFs) aimed at children, most of which were so traumatic that many of my peer group are still receiving counselling 40/45 years later.
Up until then, the scariest thing I watched on TV (besides Dr Who) was the section on Play School where Brian Cant and Floella Benjamin (kids TV royalty) introduced stories through different-shaped windows, one of which - the arched one - I found particularly creepy. My heart would sink if they chose that one over the round or square options. Am I the only one? Oh, I see. What about the toys then? Big respect to Humpty, Jemima and the Teds but that Hamble had almost certainly escaped from the set of the Exorcist.
These PIFS took things to another level though. They were highly effective but were so absolutely terrifying that nothing they targeted could ever be looked upon in a positive light ever again. To this day, I wonder what it would be like to watch a fireworks display and marvel in innocent bewilderment at the kaleidoscope of colours lighting up the skies...but I can't, BECAUSE FIREWORKS KILL.
Same with frisbees They never seemed to sail serenely between acrobatic and athletic young children but, instead, lodged themselves in power cables which would summarily electrocute the unfortunate kid who climbed up to retrieve them, whilst his young friend beat herself up for not suggesting a more appropriate place to throw the thing around like one of the many open fields they'd trudged through en route to the electricity sub-station or down by the river.
NO, WAIT. Not the river. What am I saying?? Many of us can't look at a pond or stream without conjuring up the creepy figure of the Grim Reaper, voiced by the equally creepy Donald 'Blofeld' Pleasence (and who doesn't think, in Halloween, that he was just as scary as the piano music - here - or the nutter in the mask?), as he drowned any kid who so much as glanced at a pool of water….and a generation of Olympic swimmers were lost to Britain as a result.
They targeted old people too, though they had to dream up some pretty niche accidents to scare the crap out of the grannies including the classic ‘mat on the polished floor’ routine when you’ve got your son and his new baby visiting ('that old chestnut' I hear you chuckle...unless you actually said 'wtf??'). The voiceover dripped disdain: "Polish a floor, put a rug on it?" it mocked, "You might as well set a mantrap" and, with that, the cosy hallway mat was replaced with a rusting steel trap, primed to snap shut over the poor unsuspecting young man's ankle.
Even their choice of safety ambassadors was presciently chilling. Jimmy Saville advised us to clunk click every trip or he'd lean over and fix it for us. Rolf Harris taught us to swim ("I'm sure you can guess what it is yet, Rolf, but I'll still float without you putting your hand on it"). Even Darth Vader was used to teach us the Green Cross Code, reminding us that he wouldn’t be there when we crossed the road. No, he’d be exterminating entire planets in acts of global genocide instead.
Finally, I need to mention the 'Charley Says' series of adverts warning us against dodgy strangers. Although Charley was a crudely-animated cartoon cat with an unusual miaowing technique (courtesy of Kenny Everett apparently), I took his advice to heart and, when my uncle offered to show me some puppies, I screamed so loudly that the police were called. My uncle never spoke to me again but, if I’d managed to save just one other child by my actions, then that was a price worth paying.
Back to Grange Hill though (sorry, I tend to get sidetracked). In the first few series, Tucker and his mates encouraged us to throw benches into swimming pools, attempt to enter a foreign country illegally (France – why would you even bother?) and steal antique flintlock guns (was this the Middle Ages?) as well as introducing us to under-age drinking, glue sniffing, graffiti, truancy, numerous fights and some terrific bullying by Gripper Stebson.
I’m sure you can plot a direct line of correlation from the popularity of Grange Hill to the vandalism in the Blue Peter garden. And with their campaigning stand against snitching, you can also thank the programme for the fact that (leaving aside Les Ferdinand's unreliable confession, prised out of him by a sneaky journo) the culprits were never brought to justice. The BBC upped security afterwards but the horse had well and truly bolted by the time they got Jimmy Saville and Rolf Harris to patrol the grounds at Wood Lane. Now, if they'd had that idea in the first place......
Next: ABSOLUTE VERY FIRST TIME...HITCHHIKING
Definitely a popular policy with successive governments. The DTSC has a lot to answer for. I think they've disbanded the department now but I bet there's a few of the buggers still pulling the strings in the civil service
Another cracker...you are right I think there must have been a subversive team briefing the public info campaigns constantly pushing the boundaries to find the “utter nonsense” limit....only to realise there wasnt one!!