Grange Hill. Series Two – Episode Nine | Archive Television Musings

Written by Margaret Simpson. Tx 30th January 1979

Almost as quickly as Cathy’s father turns up, he leaves again. As a character he’s not remotely important (we only hear him utter a handful of words) and he simply serves as a trigger to push Cathy into a series of delinquent misadventures.

The first sign of the trouble to come is when Cathy and Trisha fall out. And the even worse news is that Cathy finds a new friend straight away in Madelin Tanner. It’s pretty clear from the start that Madelin’s a bad lot – she encourages Cathy to bunk off from sports in order to go for a smoke in a secluded part of the school. There they meet Jackie Heron and her friend, but it isn’t long before their peace is shattered by the arrival of Mr Garfield.

Although they make a run for it, Mr Garfield and his colleague manage to run them down. I love the way Mr Garfield’s colleague brandishes a broom in their general direction – almost like he’s herding sheep!

This is only the start of Cathy’s naughty behaviour though and the bad feeling between Trisha and Cathy finally comes to a head during their art class. A brief fight between the pair of them breaks out and when Miss Summers intervenes, she accidentally strikes Cathy. Madelin is quick to insist that she hit Cathy deliberately and Cathy goes along with her.

The meeting in Mr Llewellyn’s office, with Cathy, Madelin and Miss Summers is rather instructive. Mr Llewellyn displays the same rather inflexible nature that’s already caused a certain amount of friction amongst the staff. Refusing to discuss the matter with her in private leaves Miss Summers no alternative but to hand in her resignation.

This episode mainly continues the story of Cathy’s “not dead after all” father, but first we have to contend with the another bout of Jess Samuels back on the warpath again, still on her apparently urgent mission to abolish school uniforms, with Sara Sugarman in full force in the headmaster’s office. And once again, with both the writing of the character and Sugarman’s portrayal, the character is INTENSE, to an almost comedic level (which isn’t to say Sugarman gives a bad performance).

With regard to the Cathy storyline, with the real stalker (i.e. not Cathy’s dad) also having been caught by police off-screen the previous night, it’s down to Mr. Mitchell to give a very public information film-like speech to his class, on stranger danger and what to do. Thankfully, due to both Mitch being a teacher so this being quite plausible, and with Michael Percival always giving reliable delivery as Mitch, this scene generally ‘works’ with a subtle message to young viewers at home without being too heavily done – unlike Episode 3 of Series 1, where Trisha’s sister Carol scolds Trisha and Judy with regards to what to do around bullying, which was so heavily done that one might almost expect Charlie the Cat to appear at the end!
During Mitch’s safety talk, for some daft reason I find it amusing when Tucker announces “You won’t find me going near the Old Bill” – considering that 14 years later, Todd Carty would play a police officer (albeit a villainous one) for two years in ‘The Bill’!

In terms of Cathy’s father, we hear that her father fled about 11 years ago, when she was very young (which must mean that brother Gary, a year or two older, can remember him slightly better, but this is never much embellished on). Interestingly, we never really get to “meet” Cathy’s dad beyond a few odd lines, and a few shots of him in/by his old Morris Minor; he continues to feel like a man of mystery even though he’s now known not to be the local stalker. The whole status of his abrupt departure years earlier is only lightly touched upon, and the storyline would likely be explored more over a few more episodes, had the story been done a series later. But it does serve to have an adverse effect on Cathy’s behavior at school and pushes her towards class bad girl Madeline Turner, whom had pretty much been a face in the background with only one or two lines before now.

Elsewhere in the episode, it is maybe a bit surprising to feature the “return” of Simon, after he might have been presumed to have left to go to a specialist school following events two episodes ago. But it’s actually not until this episode we say goodbye to him – a character I actually really like, it’s a shame he’d seemingly run his course after his dyslexia storyline and was written out.
There is an interesting quirk on the corridor set behind Simon – a National Theatre flyer, clearly dated July 1978. Even when the studio scenes of this episode were filmed, circa September/October 1978 were filmed (for broadcast January 1979), this would have been noticeably out of date. Talking of dated, it’s amusing elsewhere to see an old Raleigh Chopper bike, ready to be modified for use in the school play

Although the language in the series – always a divisive subject – will get slightly stronger within the next few episodes, I’m amused by some of the supposed “bad language” in this episode. Later when Madeline and Cathy are hiding away with Jackie Heron (whom until now we might have mistaken as being a Series One only character), supposed bad girl Jackie’s line “That Miss Summers, she’s a right cow” takes on a slightly comedic edge thanks to how well-spoken Miriam Mann’s delivery of the line is. Earlier on, after Jess and co.’s have a meeting with the headmaster regarding school uniform, one of Jess’s cohorts comments “What a berk” about him – again, very well spoken delivery, and a mild and nowadays slightly uncommon term (Although maybe not so mild when considering its Cockney Rhyming Slang origins – “Berkley Hunt”). Elsewhere though, re the now-finished stalker storyline, Cathy uses the word “rapist” – I wonder if this was a first for children’s television? Quite likely.

The rest of the episode – aside from more of Jess’ political obsessions – focuses on Cathy’s “going bad”. The trigger for the ultimate trouble – a fake ink blot which Simon got from Andrew – does feel a little small scale, even twee, but it serves as the catalyst for the chaos which ensues. The ensuing brawl with Cathy and Trisha, in which Mrs. Summers struggles to pull Cathy away, is interesting – it leads to the trumped up accusation, through Madeline’s “suggestion”, that Miss Summers deliberately struck Cathy, yet re-watching it (several times!), there’s never any visible hint that she might have even done so accidentally in the commotion, which would leaving the incident open to doubt. This arguably might have been intentional, but maybe some better choreography might been called for.

But very brisk moving through what what could have been a complex storyline, something that will also affect the following episode. Still good, though.

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2 thoughts on “Grange Hill. Series Two – Episode Nine”

P.j. Gathergood says:

July 9, 2025 at 10:21 am

This episode mainly continues the story of Cathy’s “not dead after all” father, but first we have to contend with the another bout of Jess Samuels back on the warpath again, still on her apparently urgent mission to abolish school uniforms, with Sara Sugarman in full force in the headmaster’s office. And once again, with both the writing of the character and Sugarman’s portrayal, the character is INTENSE, to an almost comedic level (which isn’t to say Sugarman gives a bad performance).

With regard to the Cathy storyline, with the real stalker (i.e. not Cathy’s dad) also having been caught by police off-screen the previous night, it’s down to Mr. Mitchell to give a very public information film-like speech to his class, on stranger danger and what to do. Thankfully, due to both Mitch being a teacher so this being quite plausible, and with Michael Percival always giving reliable delivery as Mitch, this scene generally ‘works’ with a subtle message to young viewers at home without being too heavily done – unlike Episode 3 of Series 1, where Trisha’s sister Carol scolds Trisha and Judy with regards to what to do around bullying, which was so heavily done that one might almost expect Charlie the Cat to appear at the end!
During Mitch’s safety talk, for some daft reason I find it amusing when Tucker announces “You won’t find me going near the Old Bill” – considering that 14 years later, Todd Carty would play a police officer (albeit a villainous one) for two years in ‘The Bill’!

In terms of Cathy’s father, we hear that her father fled about 11 years ago, when she was very young (which must mean that brother Gary, a year or two older, can remember him slightly better, but this is never much embellished on). Interestingly, we never really get to “meet” Cathy’s dad beyond a few odd lines, and a few shots of him in/by his old Morris Minor; he continues to feel like a man of mystery even though he’s now known not to be the local stalker. The whole status of his abrupt departure years earlier is only lightly touched upon, and the storyline would likely be explored more over a few more episodes, had the story been done a series later. But it does serve to have an adverse effect on Cathy’s behavior at school and pushes her towards class bad girl Madeline Turner, whom had pretty much been a face in the background with only one or two lines before now.

Elsewhere in the episode, it is maybe a bit surprising to feature the “return” of Simon, after he might have been presumed to have left to go to a specialist school following events two episodes ago. But it’s actually not until this episode we say goodbye to him – a character I actually really like, it’s a shame he’d seemingly run his course after his dyslexia storyline and was written out.
There is an interesting quirk on the corridor set behind Simon – a National Theatre flyer, clearly dated July 1978. Even when the studio scenes of this episode were filmed, circa September/October 1978 were filmed (for broadcast January 1979), this would have been noticeably out of date. Talking of dated, it’s amusing elsewhere to see an old Raleigh Chopper bike, ready to be modified for use in the school play

Although the language in the series – always a divisive subject – will get slightly stronger within the next few episodes, I’m amused by some of the supposed “bad language” in this episode. Later when Madeline and Cathy are hiding away with Jackie Heron (whom until now we might have mistaken as being a Series One only character), supposed bad girl Jackie’s line “That Miss Summers, she’s a right cow” takes on a slightly comedic edge thanks to how well-spoken Miriam Mann’s delivery of the line is. Earlier on, after Jess and co.’s have a meeting with the headmaster regarding school uniform, one of Jess’s cohorts comments “What a berk” about him – again, very well spoken delivery, and a mild and nowadays slightly uncommon term (Although maybe not so mild when considering its Cockney Rhyming Slang origins – “Berkley Hunt”). Elsewhere though, re the now-finished stalker storyline, Cathy uses the word “rapist” – I wonder if this was a first for children’s television? Quite likely.

The rest of the episode – aside from more of Jess’ political obsessions – focuses on Cathy’s “going bad”. The trigger for the ultimate trouble – a fake ink blot which Simon got from Andrew – does feel a little small scale, even twee, but it serves as the catalyst for the chaos which ensues. The ensuing brawl with Cathy and Trisha, in which Mrs. Summers struggles to pull Cathy away, is interesting – it leads to the trumped up accusation, through Madeline’s “suggestion”, that Miss Summers deliberately struck Cathy, yet re-watching it (several times!), there’s never any visible hint that she might have even done so accidentally in the commotion, which would leaving the incident open to doubt. This arguably might have been intentional, but maybe some better choreography might been called for.

But very brisk moving through what what could have been a complex storyline, something that will also affect the following episode. Still good, though.

LikeLike

- P.j. Gathergood says:
  
  July 22, 2025 at 7:51 pm
  
  “Madeline Turner”?! Try Madelin Tanner, even! 😀 Madeline without a second ‘e’ being quite an unusual spelling indeed.
  
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