Grange Hill. Series Two – Episode Fourteen

Written by Phil Redmond. Tx 16th February 1979

Following SAG’s recent disruptions of school-life, Mr Llewellyn has instigated various procedures which he hopes will tighten up the pupils behaviour. These include a zero-tolerance policy on late arrivals – which means that Mr Baxter is present at the front gate, making a gleeful note of every latecomer!

This is bad news for Tucker, who turns up some twenty-five minutes late. Partly this is because he’s missed the bus, but it’s also because he was waylaid by three Brookdale boys on the way to school. The running battles between the Grange Hill pupils and the Brookies would be a recurring theme during the next few years and even when the schools were merged in series eight the arguments and fights would rumble on for a time.

Tucker, Benny, Alan and Hughes are at their most boisterous in this episode. A spot of fighting during lunch time is spotted by a teacher who decides they can drop a letter off at the secretary’s office since they’ve clearly not got anything better to do. Tucker decides that if they do they won’t have time to go to the chippy, so Benny pops the letter into his blazer pocket to deliver later (the fact they don’t deliver the letter straight away seems set up to be important, but it later turns out to have no bearing on the plot).

They’re just as uncontrollable when they get to the chippy. Tucker declares that he won’t have the chop-suey as he’s convinced that cats and dogs are put into it. Instead, he decides he’ll have something that you can be sure is fine – a sausage (even though Hughes tells him that it’s made up of sawdust!). Tucker’s slitty-eyed impersonation of the Chinese owner of the shop (highly politically incorrect of course) proves to be the final straw and all of them are forced to leg it.

More battles with the Brookies on the way back to school result in them taking Benny’s blazer. This means that Tucker, Alan and Benny have to infiltrate the enemy territory of Brookdale in order to retrieve it. As they pace the unfamiliar school corridors, there’s a rare use of incidental music to heighten the tension. Since music wasn’t something the series used at this time it’s a little jarring to hear it in these scenes – but it does help to enhance this largely dialogue free section of the episode.

This episode is rather a throwback to the rough-and-tumble Tucker of series one, but since there hasn’t been a decent Tucker-centric episode for a while it’s a welcome one.

One thought on “Grange Hill. Series Two – Episode Fourteen”

A fun episode, showcasing Tucker and his cohorts (including Hughes, another episode where he’s brought to the fore slightly more) caught up in some typical Tucker-esque escapades.

Following the S.A.G. protesters’ sit-in, which we hear was “the previous week”, Mr. Llewellyn is cutting down on slack behaviour. These results in a nice opening scene, where Bullet gently chases up Benny and Alan, who are dawdling on the pavement playing football, telling them there’s two seconds left to get inside the gate before he’ll have to mark them as late. This is why Bullet is such a great character (and always well played by Michael Cronin), strict but fair, if you’re behaving and in his good side he’ll look after you, and this is reflected in the respect that Benny and Alan visibly show him in response.

Things aren’t going so well for Tucker though – rushing out of the house late as usual, and subsequently running in to some Brookdale lads, who decide to cause him some hassle, roughing him up and defacing his school blazer. We’ve heard occasional mention of the rivalry between Grange Hill and Brookdale previously, but this is the first time we’ve actually seen it on-screen. It’s maybe interesting to note that, despite Brookdale generally being regarded as the posher, “better” school and GH generally the poorer, “rougher” school, it is the Brookdale boys who start on Tucker – although maybe the old “there’s more of us than there is him” rule simply kicked in, and if it were three Grange Hill boys against a lone Brookie pupil it might have been the same deal. We might presume, though, that the Brookdale pupils start later, as these lads aren’t rushing to school!
The street corner that the fracas takes place on, Rugby Road turning onto Eton Grove, is the same corner where Gary was waiting for Trisha back in s02e04; and the black lad who is one of the Brookdale trio appears again in the final episode of Series Two as part of Brookdale’s quiz team. Credited here as Larry Mark (curiously he’s not credited on the later episode, despite having dialogue), this – unless I’m extremely mistaken – is Lawrie Mark, co-star of the UK’s first “all black” sit-com, LWT’s ‘The Fosters’, who appeared in the infamously unbroadcast ‘The Professionals’ episode ‘Klansmen’, and co-starred in the memorable (to some) Children’s Film Foundation film ‘Sammy’s Super T-Shirt’.

After various high jinx (although during which, Alan finds time to again use his portable chess set, this time against Hughesy) and leaving school to head to the chippie, they are collared by a once-only-appearance teacher to deliver a letter to the secretary. This “one off” teacher, Mr. Matthews (Brian Attree) is interesting in that he has a very pronounced stutter; as we never seen him before or after this scene, it’s left to our imaginations some of the nicknames and comments both Tucker and other pupils must have for him, and yet on-screen here, his speech characteristics are never once reference, when we might ordinarily expect at least one wisecrack from young Jenkins as he and his pals walk away.

…Which of course wouldn’t be very-PC, but if it’s PC behaviour that you want, don’t goo expecting any in the Chinese take-away/chip-shop scene. Arriving in typical unruly manner and being told to queue by the stern, and following a humourous (but un-PC) debate about what goes into the chop suey, Tucker decides to mock the owner will full on slitty eyed, hands pressed together, bucktoothed stereotypical caricature. For some reason, the owner furiously chases them out of the shop, I can’t imagine why(!)

Without going down the whole “It was a different era” rabbit hole, it’s maybe interesting to consider that Tucker isn’t beyond doing something like this, which he likely regards as some mischievous fun, but always stands up for Benny whenever someone taunts him about his colour. I haven’t as yet been able to identify where the take-away/chippie was located. By the way, I may be wrong, but I think this is the first episode where Tucker mentions “Our Kid”, which seems to refer to his never-seen older brother (I’ve been keeping tabs on most things this run-through, by may have missed any previous “Our Kid” reference).

More Brookie run-ins and blazer swiping shenanigans follow – and it’s a strong moment for Benny, the moral voice of the outfit when, left with a Brookdale blazer after their victim has fled, Benny insists that they can’t just leave it in the street and they should hand it in at Brookdale school, pointing out Tucker “How would you like it…”. This is maybe one of my favourite Benny scenes; Although he often gets caught up in Tucker’s misguided capers,
(another example is previously in s02e05, when they find the “old sofa” (expensive chez longue) outside the shop; Benny insists they should at least check first, whereas Tucker insists they should just take it!

Regarding Brookdale School itself – I goofed in my previous post on s02e02 where I mistakenly believed it to be a lightly redressed use of the first Grange Hill school itself, Kingsbury High School (shame on me!!). The actual school used for Brookdale is on the site of what nowadays is Queens Park Community School (much rebuilt and enlarged since then) in Willesden – ironically, only around a mile away from Willesden High School (now rebuilt and called Capital City Academy) which would serve, externally, as Grange Hill school itself in Series 3-4.

As Tucker, Alan and Benny venture into Brookdale (Hughesy waits by the gates to hold their blazers and ties), the rare use of incidental music does feel out of place but adds to the “alien” feel of the trio exploring such foreign land, as does the very different sounding school bell. I haven’t put any legwork yet into identifying the piece(s) of stock music used, but we can easily presume it is straight out of the BBC Sound Music Library, likely also turning up in everything from ‘Dixon of Dock Green’ to ‘The Two Ronnies’ and the other usual suspects of the era.

This a fun little escapade; the plot-line in Series Five where Jonah and Zammo infiltrate Rodney Bennett does of course have some echoes of this story. A likeable episode; one of Series Two’s (many) strengths is in it’s variety of stories and their tone.

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P.j. Gathergood says:

July 17, 2025 at 6:34 pm

A fun episode, showcasing Tucker and his cohorts (including Hughes, another episode where he’s brought to the fore slightly more) caught up in some typical Tucker-esque escapades.

Following the S.A.G. protesters’ sit-in, which we hear was “the previous week”, Mr. Llewellyn is cutting down on slack behaviour. These results in a nice opening scene, where Bullet gently chases up Benny and Alan, who are dawdling on the pavement playing football, telling them there’s two seconds left to get inside the gate before he’ll have to mark them as late. This is why Bullet is such a great character (and always well played by Michael Cronin), strict but fair, if you’re behaving and in his good side he’ll look after you, and this is reflected in the respect that Benny and Alan visibly show him in response.

Things aren’t going so well for Tucker though – rushing out of the house late as usual, and subsequently running in to some Brookdale lads, who decide to cause him some hassle, roughing him up and defacing his school blazer. We’ve heard occasional mention of the rivalry between Grange Hill and Brookdale previously, but this is the first time we’ve actually seen it on-screen. It’s maybe interesting to note that, despite Brookdale generally being regarded as the posher, “better” school and GH generally the poorer, “rougher” school, it is the Brookdale boys who start on Tucker – although maybe the old “there’s more of us than there is him” rule simply kicked in, and if it were three Grange Hill boys against a lone Brookie pupil it might have been the same deal. We might presume, though, that the Brookdale pupils start later, as these lads aren’t rushing to school!
The street corner that the fracas takes place on, Rugby Road turning onto Eton Grove, is the same corner where Gary was waiting for Trisha back in s02e04; and the black lad who is one of the Brookdale trio appears again in the final episode of Series Two as part of Brookdale’s quiz team. Credited here as Larry Mark (curiously he’s not credited on the later episode, despite having dialogue), this – unless I’m extremely mistaken – is Lawrie Mark, co-star of the UK’s first “all black” sit-com, LWT’s ‘The Fosters’, who appeared in the infamously unbroadcast ‘The Professionals’ episode ‘Klansmen’, and co-starred in the memorable (to some) Children’s Film Foundation film ‘Sammy’s Super T-Shirt’.

After various high jinx (although during which, Alan finds time to again use his portable chess set, this time against Hughesy) and leaving school to head to the chippie, they are collared by a once-only-appearance teacher to deliver a letter to the secretary. This “one off” teacher, Mr. Matthews (Brian Attree) is interesting in that he has a very pronounced stutter; as we never seen him before or after this scene, it’s left to our imaginations some of the nicknames and comments both Tucker and other pupils must have for him, and yet on-screen here, his speech characteristics are never once reference, when we might ordinarily expect at least one wisecrack from young Jenkins as he and his pals walk away.

…Which of course wouldn’t be very-PC, but if it’s PC behaviour that you want, don’t goo expecting any in the Chinese take-away/chip-shop scene. Arriving in typical unruly manner and being told to queue by the stern, and following a humourous (but un-PC) debate about what goes into the chop suey, Tucker decides to mock the owner will full on slitty eyed, hands pressed together, bucktoothed stereotypical caricature. For some reason, the owner furiously chases them out of the shop, I can’t imagine why(!)

Without going down the whole “It was a different era” rabbit hole, it’s maybe interesting to consider that Tucker isn’t beyond doing something like this, which he likely regards as some mischievous fun, but always stands up for Benny whenever someone taunts him about his colour. I haven’t as yet been able to identify where the take-away/chippie was located. By the way, I may be wrong, but I think this is the first episode where Tucker mentions “Our Kid”, which seems to refer to his never-seen older brother (I’ve been keeping tabs on most things this run-through, by may have missed any previous “Our Kid” reference).

More Brookie run-ins and blazer swiping shenanigans follow – and it’s a strong moment for Benny, the moral voice of the outfit when, left with a Brookdale blazer after their victim has fled, Benny insists that they can’t just leave it in the street and they should hand it in at Brookdale school, pointing out Tucker “How would you like it…”. This is maybe one of my favourite Benny scenes; Although he often gets caught up in Tucker’s misguided capers,
(another example is previously in s02e05, when they find the “old sofa” (expensive chez longue) outside the shop; Benny insists they should at least check first, whereas Tucker insists they should just take it!

Regarding Brookdale School itself – I goofed in my previous post on s02e02 where I mistakenly believed it to be a lightly redressed use of the first Grange Hill school itself, Kingsbury High School (shame on me!!). The actual school used for Brookdale is on the site of what nowadays is Queens Park Community School (much rebuilt and enlarged since then) in Willesden – ironically, only around a mile away from Willesden High School (now rebuilt and called Capital City Academy) which would serve, externally, as Grange Hill school itself in Series 3-4.

As Tucker, Alan and Benny venture into Brookdale (Hughesy waits by the gates to hold their blazers and ties), the rare use of incidental music does feel out of place but adds to the “alien” feel of the trio exploring such foreign land, as does the very different sounding school bell. I haven’t put any legwork yet into identifying the piece(s) of stock music used, but we can easily presume it is straight out of the BBC Sound Music Library, likely also turning up in everything from ‘Dixon of Dock Green’ to ‘The Two Ronnies’ and the other usual suspects of the era.

This a fun little escapade; the plot-line in Series Five where Jonah and Zammo infiltrate Rodney Bennett does of course have some echoes of this story. A likeable episode; one of Series Two’s (many) strengths is in it’s variety of stories and their tone.

LikeLike