Written by Phil Redmond. Tx 2nd February 1979
The fall-out from Miss Summers’ resignation is still rumbling on. The staff, led by Mr Baxter, go on strike – which means that the children get an unexpected day off. This gives Mr Garfield a nice line where he bemoans that “nobody thinks about me. I never had this trouble with Mr Starling.” Most of Graham Ashley’s dialogue is matter-of-fact (he was never given the same comic material that, say, Timothy Bateson would later enjoy) so his deadpan delivery here is all the more memorable for its rarity.
Cathy and Madelin decide to go out somewhere. Cathy does offer Trisha an olive branch by asking if she wants to join them, but Trisha’s not interested. Madelin’s later comment that Trisha is a “stuck up bitch” is a little jarring – it’s a mild enough profanity (and pretty much every real school-child would have used far worse) but it’s still a surprise to hear it uttered in a BBC children’s series.
The pair head for the local shopping precinct. This is a lovely slice of late 1970’s Britain, complete with piped music, and we’ll see it again in series three (during the episode where Antoni Karamanopolis dies). Madelin decides that a bit of shop-lifting will pass the time and Cathy reluctantly agrees.
The first things that Madelin steals are a couple of apples (Cathy puts hers in the bin, which is a telling moment). They then take some empty record sleeves, to put on their bedroom walls. After this, it’s time for the big one – as they steal some clothes from the Clockwork Orange boutique (I wonder if this was a real shop or if the name was scripted? I hope it’s the former!)
As might be expected, they don’t get away with it – although if they had left when Cathy suggested, they might have done – for some reason Madelin decided to hang about, giving the shop assistants time to check that some of their stock was missing. A chase ensues and eventually the pair are cornered – but not before the sneaky Madelin has put the stolen top into Cathy’s bag and blamed her for the crime.
Many of the topics we see in the early series of Grange Hill will be done again in later years (some several times). Mainly this is because certain themes, such as shop-lifting, always remain relevant. And in the future I think the subject was handled a little better and with more depth than we see here.
Cathy is told at the end of the episode there will be no further action and Mr Mitchell advises her to settle her differences with Trisha. With Cathy’s delinquent streak only lasting two episodes it does feel rather rushed. When Grange Hill next tackled shop-lifting (about a decade or so later) the story was allowed more time to develop which meant that the ramifications for a character who had previously (like Cathy) led a blameless life carried greater weight.
Archive Television Musings 
There was a chain of clothes shops called “Clockwork Orange” but that was in Northern Ireland and began two decades later. However the onscreen shop’s logo is so close to the film’s that I’d be very surprised if the BBC designers had come up & got away with it.
It’s shocking just how much staff militancy there is in this series and also how many times Mr Baxter calls a walkout with immediate effect and no advanced warning. As someone not yet born when this went out it’s an eye-opener to a very different time. In the real world this was first transmitted during the Winter of Discontent.
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I’ve done some research into the ‘Clockwork Orange’ boutique and it’s location within the Wandsworth Arndale Centre (as it was called back then), and have just posted what I’ve pieced together in my own post somewhere down below. All indications suggest it was indeed a real boutique; possibly the connection with the Northern Island outlets (same name and fashion output… very coincidental!) being that the name was likely later brought up by SVM Textiles circa 1987, and whom also own several other recognised fashion labels.
I had just passed my first birthday when this episode was originally transmitted. The only discontent I was probably aware of that Winter was when it was next time for food.
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In the late 1970s, the age of the modern shopping mall began to descend on the UK with many town and city centres moving towards having key businesses under one roof in very cosmopolitan precinct designs.
Even out of town shopping centres were taking off – Brent Cross had recently opened with other sites opening across country in the years that followed.
I am not sure where the shopping lifting scenes were filmed, but the mall area is certainly very impressive for 1970s standards and would have been been something of a novel location to use back then.
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My home town of North Shields had its new shopping centre opened around the same time this episode was shown. Compared with the musty Victorian shops it replaced, this was possibly space age with all the fluorescent lighting, walkways, multi storey car park and new shops. It seemed every town in the sixties and seventies wanted an indoor shopping centre and most got one, though with varying degrees of success.
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The shopping precinct used was The Arndale in Wandsworth, now renamed I believed. Great to see those outdoor scenes, reminds me of my childhood in the 70s.
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It was indeed the Arndale Centre (nowadays known as Southside Wandsworth, and having mostly been heavily rebuilt).
I’ve undertaken an evening or so’s stupidly deep and pointless research into it, and the Clockwork Orange boutique which Cathy and Madeline shoplift from in this episode (my findings of which are in my own post elsewhere on this page). …I don’t suppose you can remember anything about the shop at all, can you? I’ve tracked down that it seemingly did exist, but it wasn’t there until sometime after June/July 1977 – the location work for this episode being shot late August/early September 1978.
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Not pointless at all, I find your posts interesting as many others will I’m sure.
Sorry but I can’t help with the shop, my memories are vague being so young at the time but I do recall my somewhat hippy of a mother visiting that place and dragging me in there in the late 70s. I have no memory of it’s name at the time though.
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With Mrs. Summers’ having handing in her resignation after events of the previous episode, Bullet Baxter (mentioned although not actually seen in this episode) has organised a teacher’s walkout. Although Baxter would most likely have put his weight behind such a cause throughout his time at GH, it’s interesting to see just how militant he is here in Series Two, at constant loggerheads with the new-ish headmaster’s way of doing things, whereas by later in his run, whilst still fiercely standing up for what he saw as ‘right’, we would often at more as a level-headed middle man.
I do like Jo Anderson’s performances as Cathy’s mother in this batch of episodes. Okay, so it’s hardly Royal Shakespeare Company stuff, but she gives a good portrayal as the single mother trying to juggle daily duties, whilst trying keeping Cathy out of trouble. The way she can quite clearly see Madeline is trouble, is nicely played. Elsewhere, on the subject of perceived (and actually quite rare) bad language in the series, Madeline notably refers to Trisha as a “stuck up bitch”. There are one or two notable instances of slightly strong-for-the-timeslot (and era) language in Series Two, and this is is one of them. Just over a decade later, Children’s ITV’s (excellent) ‘Press Gang’ – in some ways CITV’s counterpart to ‘Grange Hill’ – featured the word “bitch” in several episodes, although warnings for the stronger-than-usual language were given out of presenter Tommy Boyd beforehand. (Reportedly, when the series was later run on whatever children’s satellite station, these episodes were skipped due to the world being used).
With school cancelled, it leaves Madeline and Cathy free to go and cause trouble at the local shopping centre. For whatever reason, when I first saw this episode, way back, I actually didn’t enjoy this one too much (dunno why). But on repeated viewings, I’ve warmed to it more, mostly for the many shots of a typical (although then fairly new thing) shopping precinct in the late 1970s.
The shopping centre used for filming, was the Wandsworth Arndale Centre, opened 1971, nowadays knows as Southside Wandsworth, having considerable renovations over the last decade or two, and little or any of the areas feature within this episode surviving in any recognisable form. This is some 12+ miles away from Kingsbury in Harrow where the first Grange Hill building and extended local area was used for filming of Series 1-2 (although as we have seen, locations in Ealing have been used, such as the pet shop in s01e05, for example).
As discussed in other posts, shopping centres were a fairly new feature in the United Kingdom in the 1970s, with this location having been a fairly early-ish example. As such, it seemed to offer TV and film crews interesting new places to film once in a while (the second series ‘Minder’ episode “You Win Some, You Lose Some”, for random example, and the Wandsworth Arndale Centre itself is used elsewhere in ‘Sweeney 2’, as well as appearing again during Series Three of GH.
One thing I always pick up on when watching this episode, is how Lindy Brill appears to play Cathy as slightly more naive, “easy led little girl”-like in the shopping centre scenes. Yes granted she’s recently had quite a shock what with the return of her “dead” father, and has fallen in with the troublesome Madeline, but even so I do wonder if there’s some clues as to the order of filming to be had here.
We know that major, “non local” location work was often typically filmed ahead of the the other stuff – indeed, it is confirmed that Series Five’s memorable episode at Chessington Zoo was the first to be filmed for S5, despite not appearing on-screen until Episode 12 (with very minor differences regarding some characters in a couple of cases). So I do suspect the slight difference in Cathy’s portrayal here, is indeed a result of the location work at the Arndale Centre being filmed ahead of most of Series Two? Add to this, Cathy’s surprise/shock of Madeline’s suggestion of stealing some record covers, despite Madeline having already having suggesting to Cathy they could steal the record she wanted in the previous episode, maybe implying studio scripts were still being put together and tweaked after this location work was already in the can.
Then we come to the boutique, ‘Clockwork Orange’, which seems to be quite a curiosity among fans. Was it a real shop? Was it created purely for the episode?
If a clothes shop had been created specifically for this episode, then it would very likely have just been a generic shop name put over an existing one. It doesn’t hold much logic that they would have gone to the extravagance of creating one with such a well known title just for the sake of it, complete with recreation of the film’s logo, and the orange theme of the inner decor.
I’ve done a bit of research into this, and all indications are it was indeed an actual shop. Located at Number 60 within the Arndale Centre, it would have been a fairly recent addition – until the previous year, a branch of Scan TV (a long-gone TV rentals company based in Feltham) was here. They had vacated the premises within the the twelve months prior to filming of this episode which (if my above deductions aren’t too far off) would have been around late August or early September 1978; a newspaper promotion for the Arndale Centre tying in to the Queen’s Jubilee in June/July 1977, lists them as still being on-site.
Clockwork Orange itself, was a (small?) chain of luxury brand clothes shops based in Ireland, which still seem to have been trading until about ten years ago (as of writing in 2025). From what I can piece together, the seem to have attempted to crack the UK market, the store seen here one one of the few examples, but they appear to have subsequently pulled out, instead concentrating on the Irish market. So yes, unless I am extremely mistaken, the ‘Clockwork Orange’ which Madeline and Cathy visit in this episode was indeed a real shop in the Arndale Centre.
The outcome of the whole shoplifting caper, feels rather thrown together and not all that convincing. Why would the issue automatically be handed over to the school? Surely it would be the police. Cunning Madeline has hidden the stolen top in Cathy’s bag, yet although Cathy is “innocent” on this front, why would everyone instantly be so will to believe and excuse her, in comparison to presumably much harsher treatment of Madeline – even allowing for Madeline’s likely track record of such conduct. Then the whole issue is rushed to a conclusion, with Cathy apologising for her behaviour and confirming that Mrs. Summers hadn’t actually struck her after all. By the next episode, the entire set of issues are (bar one later passing reference from Mrs. Summers) are done and dusted and pretty much forgotten. The whole thing feels incredibly rushed.
Yes Cathy has had quite a shock with the return of her father which likely may have affected her behaviour, but none of this is ever really delved into to any great extent. All of the connecting matters, with the trumped up accusation against Mrs. Summers, and the shoplifting, also seem to rush for an unconvincing “quick fix”. The issue of shoplifting would be handled far more realistically later in Series 11, when Ronnie is caught shoplifting and must face up to the outcome and the possibility of a criminal record.
Despite the whole rushed and unconvincing nature, thankfully the quality of Series Two is of such standard it is still very watchable. Never-the-less, it does feel one of the less credible plots of the enjoyable second series.
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To update my above re the Clockwork Orange boutique, there is no evidence of the Irish CO on-line much before the late 1990s, but that was also around the same few years where many companies first appeared on the then rapidly growing ‘net anyway, so it could feasibly have been around prior.
There is the distinct possibility of ‘Clockwork Orange’ having the trade name of a smaller fashion outlet (including the one seen here) which had subsequently been brought up and used by a larger company – certainly, the Norther Ireland Clockwork Orange chain (nine stores at their peak) were under the SVM Textiles umbrella – formed 1987, whom also purchased the the Tommy Hilfiger, Replay and Miss Sixty names. Replay was, for example founded in 1978; it is possible the ‘Clockwork Orange’ boutique(s) went the same route of being brought up.
…I’ve now spent wa-a-ay too much time trying to get to the bottom of this one!! 🙂
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