Written by Alan Janes. Tx 20th February 1979
School trips offer a chance to see both the pupils and teachers in a different environment, so it’s no surprise that Grange Hill would return to the school trip plot-line again and again over the years – since it always provided the writers with numerous dramatic possibilities.
One notable person missing from the trip is Tucker – which is a shame because there’s no doubt he’d have found numerous ways to liven things up. We do have Doyle though – who also likes to be the centre of attention. His first scene is lovely, as we see him marched to the coach by his mother who’s determined to put him on it, despite his protests. He manages to break free from her, leaving her running after the coach brandishing his forgotten wellington boots!
He later antognises Penny and Susi – which is an early sign of the feud that he’d enjoy with Penny during series three (especially when he becomes a school rep, much to Penny’s irritation). Penny’s at her most studious here – she’s puzzled as to why Susi decided to go on the trip since she doesn’t seem to have a great deal of interest in archeology. Susi’s reply is telling – her mother told her to.
Although Susi’s mother hasn’t featured greatly so far, everything we’ve seen of her suggests that she’s keen to dominate her daughter but also can’t resist belittling her achievements. She doesn’t believe Susi is particularly bright – even though Susi is that the top of most of her classes, Mrs McMahon is convinced that that’s more to do with the relative lack of ability from the other pupils than Susi’s own intelligence.
Doyle, Alan, Andrew and Justin decide to break free from Mr Sutcliffe’s party to explore the forest. Since they’ve been expressly forbidden from going off by themselves, you know this is going to end in trouble. Later, they spy Penny and Susi who have also wandered into the forest. Doyle makes various animal noises which frightens the girls, causing them to run even deeper into the forest, where they find themselves hopelessly lost.
I wonder if this episode was originally scripted with Tucker, rather than Doyle, in mind. Everything that Doyle does (placing a fake plastic spider on Penny, for example) could have also been done by Tucker and it’s unusual to see Alan team up with Doyle. Possibly it was decided to change things around in order to move Doyle more into the centre of the action or maybe Todd Carty wasn’t available for the filming dates.
Whatever the reason, the episode ends with Penny and Susi lost, but the real danger they face only becomes clear at the start of episode sixteen.
Archive Television Musings 
When series 2 was repeated (starting a pattern of an autumn repeat of that year’s series which would last almost without interruption until the next millenium), this episode and the next one were skipped over. I’m not aware of any especial controversy on the scale of series 1’s swimming pool antics so perhaps it was just a quirk of the schedule to end the reruns on 18 December and not have episodes shown on Christmas Eve/Day or running into the broadcast of series 3. Both episodes were reinstated for the 1990s repeat run.
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Yes it’s a bit of a scheduling oddity (although not unheard of).
There had been major uproar over the SAG protests seen in s02e11 (protesting on tables, headmaster “giving in” easily) and even more so regarding s02e12 (the sit-in in the secretary’s office) which was raised in Parliament, and which saw the Beeb having meetings with Phil Redmond which would in turn see some alterations regarding Series Three, all of which I’ll touch upon in a later post… But that was completely away from these two “school trip” episodes, and indeed there seems to have been no known controversy or problem with these two. Likely indeed a simple case of the two episodes being skipped to see that the repeat run was finished by Christmas. I wonder if they ever considered abridging the two episodes together for the repeat slot. The Radio Times listings for the repeats amend the repeat run to “16 parts”, I wonder if the on-screen numbering was altered or not.
I remember the annual BBC Two early evening repeats well (they continued BBC Two-wise until December 1983). Due to them having phases of being placed after repeat seasons of selected ‘Doctor Who’ stories in the schedules, it was waiting for GH to begin one evening that young four year old me saw a few moments of ‘Doctor Who’ which was enough to send me running screaming from the room and refusing to watch it again for some years. The cause of my terror? Bloody K-9, the Doctor’s robotic dog! (Ironically in the years since I became bit of a classic-era ‘Doctor Who’ fan, and still am this day).
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The first of what would become somewhat of a tradition most years – not every year, but most years – throughout the Golden Era of ‘Grange Hill’: The annual school trip. What’s more, this is the first episode of GH’s run not to have any scenes set at the titular school itself, although at the start we do see the coach for the trip outside of the school.
Quite whereabouts this was filmed, I’ve yet to fully determine; Logic would suggest it was at the side/rear of Kingsbury High School which served as Grange Hill for Series 1-2, but it’s certainly not at the front of the school as none of the details match and we see the school field to one side out of the rear window of the coach; maybe to the rear or side of the school, but even when considering for the many site changes over the years, again details do not tally, particularly with the field in relation to buildings.
We see Doyle walking to the coach being henpecked by his mother, who’s determined to see him off on the coach and carrying his wellies. This is a great scene, with normally semi-sort-of-bully Doyle instead being the embarrassed schoolboy. This is the only time we’ll ever see his mother (Amanda Reiss; just like we only ever got to see Doyle’s father just once, in s02e05) and I don’t know but I can’t help see a touch of Dick Emery in her! I vaguely recall a sketch where he was in drag in a similar sort of outfit (possibly his character Hettie? Memory is very hazy!) and certainly, it’s an amusing scene which would just as easily fit in to a comedy programme.
Either way, Mrs. Doyle and son appear to be walking across Roe Green Park (which backs on to Kingsbury High School), where we previously saw Judy run off across on her way back from the pet shop in s01e05. Yet when he arrives at the school – mother still in pursuit – the details don’t match (and Kingsbury High School seemingly not having easy coach access for the sort of back route the coach is driving along) enough for me to wonder if they used another school for this scene – I even wonder if it was on-site at what is nowadays Queens Park Community School in Willesden, which serves as Brookdale School several times in S2 … Or surely it couldn’t be at Willesden High School (now Capital City Academy), which would go on to serve as Grange Hill in Series 3-4??
Location curiosities aside, as the original blog post rightly points out, it is a slightly odd pupil line-up for this school trip. Benny is not present, but this is to be expected as his family couldn’t afford it, as touched upon in episodes 1-2, but there’s also no Tucker. Trisha and Cathy would still be suspended at this point which excuses their absence. The pupil line-up for the trip is actually pretty much Form R1, except for Doyle who is ordinarily in Form G1; although G1’s form master Mr. Mitchell is leading the trip. Whether pure coincidence, or whether we might presume the rest of G1 had another separate trip, we do not know. In fact, it probably wasn’t really intended to ever be analysed so closely!
I’m not sure I agree with the blog’s thoughts that Tucker might have been originally scripted to go on the trip and the story was subsequently adapted instead for Doyle; It would have changed the dynamic of subsequent events quite a bit – by this stage in the series, Tucker doesn’t seem quite so at odds with Justin, whereas Doyle behaves as little more than a bully to him for much of this two-part saga; and when it later becomes apparent that the missing Penny and Susi might be in danger, personally I can’t imagine Tucker threatening Justin to keep quiet for quite so long, even if it did mean landing themselves in it. I dunno, that’s just my take. The again, Alan’s status is also a little odd in this one – he’s amused by Doyle’s antics (as he equally would have been if it was Tucker) and doesn’t seem to mind his company, but is equally as content in the company of Justin and Andrew. And when Andrew tells Justin not to worry about Doyle, saying “there’s three of us”, Alan points out “two of you”. Oh I dunno. Maybe Alan just enjoys being a free agent. My head hurts!
(Possibly an early draft did indeed have Tucker in place of Doyle, but the whole two-parter would have been heavily rewritten and altered if it was indeed a character swap thing).
Much of the rest of the episode plays out as we might well expect when familiar with so many of the Grange Hill trips over the years. Strict head of site reads them the rules of what they must and MUST NOT do. Doyle’s grudge with Justin for “being a grass” leads to a dorm brawl and Mitch laying the law down hard. Penny and Susi wandering off; Doyle, Alan, Justin and Andrew also sneaking off and causing mischief which unintentionally sees Penny and Susi getting badly lost in the forest and potentially in danger. All of these basic template will become very familiar over the years, in particular the “getting lost as result of some mischievous shenanigans” plot.
There’s an amusing sort-of playing with the whole (vaguely) bad language issue; as Susi and Penny admire a horse in a fiend, prior to them becoming so lost in the forest, Susi comments “He’s got a nice life. I think I’d like to eat grass all day”, to which Penny responds “Yes, you look a bit of an ass”. They both also use the term “Red Indian”, which has become considered offensive nowadays (“Native American” or similar variants having taken it’s place). We’ve seen a bit of Penny over s2 thus far, but this is the most we’ve really seen of Susi as yet. They make a nice pairing; Penny is headstrong and yet – as we see here – also slightly free spirited. Susi is generally more cautious and slightly less confidant; we’ll learn more about her and her background over the next few episodes.
An enjoyable episode which really does set the “Grange Hill trip” template firmly in place, for it to be rehashed and reworked a number of times over the following few years.
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