Written by Margaret Simpson. Tx 12th January 1979
Love is in the air for Trisha, as both Simon Shaw (Paul Miller) and Gary Hargreaves (Mark Farmer) vie for her attention.
Simon Shaw was a rather short-lived character – he’s a central figure in the early part of series two before leaving for another school later the same year. It’s clear from the start that he’s someone with a problem – all the evidence points to the fact he has difficulty reading and writing. Although since we’re mid-way through the school year it’s difficult to understand how this has gone unnoticed for so long. He’s clearly interested in Trisha, but she doesn’t seem to notice him – Trish has only got eyes for the fourth-form football star Gary Hargreaves (Mark Farmer).
Mark Farmer (later to turn up as a semi-regular in Minder) certainly has the gift of the gab, but Trisha’s mother warns her that he’s too old for her. Gary will pop up now and again over the next few series, almost always when the plot is football related.
Elsewhere, Mr Mitchell is appalled at the standard of grammar and punctuation in his class and Mr Baxter continues to rail against Mr Llewellyn’s timetable arrangements.
This is the first of Margaret Simpson’s scripts for Grange Hill. She’d go on to clock up nearly sixty writing credits on the show over the next decade or so (her last being the series finale in 1992).
Archive Television Musings 
The DVD version of this episode is marred by an unfortunate music edit of over two minutes, where the playing of Bee Gees records at a lunchtime school disco has resulted in an entire scene being cut.
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If ever any company decided to issue more Grange Hill DVDs (a pretty slim hope I know – I’ve a feeling that my off-airs will have to suffice) it would be interesting to see what would happen to future episodes with music.
The 1981 Christmas Special, with its School Disco setting, would be one of the hardest to clear (possibly this was why it was also skipped from the 1990’s repeats).
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Definitely playing Night Fever at the disco in the version I just saw on Britbox. What is eating the usually jolly Mr Mitchell in this episode?!
I really liked the Simon Shaw character. I wish he’d been in it longer.
How old is Trisha supposed to be? She can only be 11 or 12 as a first former. I’m surprised her mother (or anyone else in the episode) isn’t more concerned about the age difference. I really hope Trisha bashes the hideous Gary with her briefcase in the next episode!
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It’s a shame the disco scene is totally missing from the DVD. I understand about copyright issues but in other DVD’s I own that had similar problems they simply replace the song with library music or some appropriate muzak. Most scenes involving music are filmed without the music, which is added in later as they need to ensure the microphones capture the dialogue perfectly. Why couldn’t whoever was behind these DVD’s do this? It’s a shame as we’re missing some good scenes.
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The problem is often down to budgets and what’s available. Many programmes either have the raw dialogue available or had an alternative prepared for overseas sales where the music track may not have been cleared and that can make for an easy substitution. Others have at one point had a sufficient budget and dedicated sound engineer unpick the dialogue from the combined track. But when only the finished combined track is available and the clean-up budget is limited the options are limited to either cut the scene or cut the episode or not release the series.
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