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

Written by Phil Redmond. Tx 11th January 1980

Tracey asks Duane how his father reacted to the loss of his bike. When he turns around she can clearly see – he’s sporting a black eye. Today this would have been developed as a major plot point, but here it’s just a fact and isn’t followed up. It’s not the first time during the early series that children either fear, or receive, domestic abuse from their parents. And as we’ll see later in this series, some of the teachers are also quite handy as well. It’s one of the clearest examples of how times have changed.

When the first year head Mr Curtis (Neville Barber) spots Duane’s black eye he asks how he came by it. When Duane tells him, all he does is sigh and lets the boy leave. He then shakes his head sadly at Miss Mooney and the matter is closed.

The friendship between Tracey and Duane is put under strain. Tracey finds herself teased by Karen, taunting her that Duane’s her boyfriend, whilst Duane becomes friendly (after a shaky start) with Pogo. We also see the first signs of Pogo’s acquisitive nature – he sees putty in the windows and decides to take it. The downside of this is that it makes the new windows fall out!

Whilst Tracey and Duane had been friends at primary school, different interests now push them into different directions – and eventually Duane will team up with Pogo whilst Tracey and Karen will become best friends.

At present, Karen is also friendly with Sally Forsyth (Sarah Summerfield). She’s complained of feeling ill and faint several times – this is another example of seeding a plot-point which will only come to fruition in a later episode.

The putty pilfering comes to an end after Mr Curtis impresses on everyone how dangerous it can be. But it’s put to good use by defacing the pictures of the teachers on the notice board. Mr Baxter, for example, is given a very fetching set of horns!

Although some of Series Three will prove to be a bit of a mixed bag, this one is actually, at it’s core, a really nice episode, focusing on two old friends – neither gender nor romance being a particular issue – and the challenges their friendship faces when they start a big new school and both discover new friends and interests. Amanda Mealing in particular is good in this one, with Tracey remaining loyal and platonically caring towards Duane despite his growing further away from here and letting her down several times.

Strikingly notable, is the black eye we see Duane has received from his father, after his new bike was stolen at school the previous episode. He wanders around with it for the entire episode; although only one teacher, first hear head Mr. Curtis directly comments. “Just a minute… Who gave you that?” “Me Dad, Sir” “May I ask why” “Got my bike nicked, Sir” to which Curtis sighs and says “Go on”, after which he and Miss Mooney look at each other and shrug. Astoundingly, it is as brief as that; an extremely different era indeed. Nowadays (unless there were severe failures) anything remotely like that would be immediately followed up with care services and possibly police. It won’t be the last time during the Golden Era where we’ll see the effects of a child having been hit by a parent – In Series 7, it is shown that Annette has also been hit, by her mother. We also see it certainly isn’t a one off occurrence – when Duane’s jacket gets covered in paint later in the episode, he is terrified of what his dad might do again.
According to an interview with Mark “Duane” Baxter, there were discussions whether the domestic violence issue with Duane and his father might be followed up further, but it was considered “too heavy” for the timeslot. In a way, it is more troubling how such an issue might be seen never to be followed up by a school. Possibly this is one of the instances where the series was “playing it safe” a bit more for Series Three after getting into trouble during Series Two, which I’ve commented on in the previous episode’s blog.

But on lighter matters, this is the episode where we see Duane form a friendship with Pogo, forming one of the more enjoyable elements of the sometimes bumpy Series Three. Pogo at this early stage, although fun to watch, can sometimes by be quite obnoxious, cheerfully being rude to all and sundry, forever causing some kind of trouble. From a couple of things he says, we might assume at home he is quite spoilt … and yet he does develop into one of the more notable and watchable pupils from Series Three’s new first year characters.

Here, with his arm in a sling (which, I believe, is never fully explained), he uses it to store various items, including putty which he is swiping from windows being replaced around the school – leading to his first a many escapades in the series with Duane – even if they don’t initially get off on the friendliest of terms. Considering how my all-time favourite Grange Hill character, Gonch Gardener, is in many ways a later reworking of the Pogo character, it is interesting that both Pogo and Duane, and Gonch and Hollo, both get off on the wrong foot and look set to fall out, but both end up becoming good friends. Oh, and at one point, Pogo does a mock Chinese accent, one of countless reminders of things that were once the norm on TV but which you’d seldom if ever get nowadays.

Tracy, meanwhile, gradually becomes friends with Karen and Sally, after there similarly being some friction initially. I actually quite like the character of Sally, the hints of her character being unwell being developed in this episode, but in my opinion the character of Karen doesn’t work very well at all, which in turn limits any on-screen chemistry with Sally, and it’s easy to see why they were part of the cast clear-out which will occur long before Series Four.

On other thing which interests me in both the proceeding episode and this one, is the large board in the corridor with photos of the teachers on. We can see some familiar staff faces, and likely use shots of the characters taken for publicity (or simply the actors’ standard headshots when applying for work). We see can headmaster Mr. Llewellyn, deputy head Mr. Keating, Mr. Sutcliffe, Mr. Baxter, Mr. Hopwood and new teacher Miss Peterson (who gets a close-up of her publicity shot photo!)
On the far end of the row there is a female teacher which appears to be the departed Miss Summers. Next to her in Episode One is an unidentified male – it’s not first year head Mr Curtis; but in Episode 2 is has been changed to a shot of Miss Mooney (and confirming the female which appears to be Miss Summers isn’t in fact Miss Mooney).
The others shots I suspect are members of the production team, and/or whatever random BBC publicity shots they would have had to hand at the time – – the bearded fella on the bottom left of the board looks distinctly like “awkward to mention him now” Dave Lee Travis!
Noticeably, although we do get some close up shots of certain staff members after their photos have been given funny faces courtesy of putty(!), we don’t get a close up shot of Mr. Llewellyn – likely once they realised that Sean Arnold wouldn’t be available this year and they’d have to write around him, they didn’t want to draw too much attention to him.

Although Series Three never quite lives up to the heights of Series Two (much due to the various behind the scenes production challenges) this is one of the far better episodes of the year, and Amanda Mealing is particularly good in it (she does slightly mangle the order of dialogue in one scene, regarding the paint on Duane’s jacket, suggesting they clean it at the wrong point, an error which becomes obvious by Duane’s response, but wasn’t severe enough that they went for a retake). After all the trouble that the workman has had throughout the episode thanks to pupil interference, it is quite warming to see him help Tracey when she asks for his help removing the paint, and the final scene between Tracey and Duane where it’s clear they’re still friends despite both finding new friends at school rounds it off well.

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

P.j. Gathergood says:

July 26, 2025 at 5:35 pm

Although some of Series Three will prove to be a bit of a mixed bag, this one is actually, at it’s core, a really nice episode, focusing on two old friends – neither gender nor romance being a particular issue – and the challenges their friendship faces when they start a big new school and both discover new friends and interests. Amanda Mealing in particular is good in this one, with Tracey remaining loyal and platonically caring towards Duane despite his growing further away from here and letting her down several times.

Strikingly notable, is the black eye we see Duane has received from his father, after his new bike was stolen at school the previous episode. He wanders around with it for the entire episode; although only one teacher, first hear head Mr. Curtis directly comments. “Just a minute… Who gave you that?” “Me Dad, Sir” “May I ask why” “Got my bike nicked, Sir” to which Curtis sighs and says “Go on”, after which he and Miss Mooney look at each other and shrug. Astoundingly, it is as brief as that; an extremely different era indeed. Nowadays (unless there were severe failures) anything remotely like that would be immediately followed up with care services and possibly police. It won’t be the last time during the Golden Era where we’ll see the effects of a child having been hit by a parent – In Series 7, it is shown that Annette has also been hit, by her mother. We also see it certainly isn’t a one off occurrence – when Duane’s jacket gets covered in paint later in the episode, he is terrified of what his dad might do again.
According to an interview with Mark “Duane” Baxter, there were discussions whether the domestic violence issue with Duane and his father might be followed up further, but it was considered “too heavy” for the timeslot. In a way, it is more troubling how such an issue might be seen never to be followed up by a school. Possibly this is one of the instances where the series was “playing it safe” a bit more for Series Three after getting into trouble during Series Two, which I’ve commented on in the previous episode’s blog.

But on lighter matters, this is the episode where we see Duane form a friendship with Pogo, forming one of the more enjoyable elements of the sometimes bumpy Series Three. Pogo at this early stage, although fun to watch, can sometimes by be quite obnoxious, cheerfully being rude to all and sundry, forever causing some kind of trouble. From a couple of things he says, we might assume at home he is quite spoilt … and yet he does develop into one of the more notable and watchable pupils from Series Three’s new first year characters.

Here, with his arm in a sling (which, I believe, is never fully explained), he uses it to store various items, including putty which he is swiping from windows being replaced around the school – leading to his first a many escapades in the series with Duane – even if they don’t initially get off on the friendliest of terms. Considering how my all-time favourite Grange Hill character, Gonch Gardener, is in many ways a later reworking of the Pogo character, it is interesting that both Pogo and Duane, and Gonch and Hollo, both get off on the wrong foot and look set to fall out, but both end up becoming good friends. Oh, and at one point, Pogo does a mock Chinese accent, one of countless reminders of things that were once the norm on TV but which you’d seldom if ever get nowadays.

Tracy, meanwhile, gradually becomes friends with Karen and Sally, after there similarly being some friction initially. I actually quite like the character of Sally, the hints of her character being unwell being developed in this episode, but in my opinion the character of Karen doesn’t work very well at all, which in turn limits any on-screen chemistry with Sally, and it’s easy to see why they were part of the cast clear-out which will occur long before Series Four.

On other thing which interests me in both the proceeding episode and this one, is the large board in the corridor with photos of the teachers on. We can see some familiar staff faces, and likely use shots of the characters taken for publicity (or simply the actors’ standard headshots when applying for work). We see can headmaster Mr. Llewellyn, deputy head Mr. Keating, Mr. Sutcliffe, Mr. Baxter, Mr. Hopwood and new teacher Miss Peterson (who gets a close-up of her publicity shot photo!)
On the far end of the row there is a female teacher which appears to be the departed Miss Summers. Next to her in Episode One is an unidentified male – it’s not first year head Mr Curtis; but in Episode 2 is has been changed to a shot of Miss Mooney (and confirming the female which appears to be Miss Summers isn’t in fact Miss Mooney).
The others shots I suspect are members of the production team, and/or whatever random BBC publicity shots they would have had to hand at the time – – the bearded fella on the bottom left of the board looks distinctly like “awkward to mention him now” Dave Lee Travis!
Noticeably, although we do get some close up shots of certain staff members after their photos have been given funny faces courtesy of putty(!), we don’t get a close up shot of Mr. Llewellyn – likely once they realised that Sean Arnold wouldn’t be available this year and they’d have to write around him, they didn’t want to draw too much attention to him.

Although Series Three never quite lives up to the heights of Series Two (much due to the various behind the scenes production challenges) this is one of the far better episodes of the year, and Amanda Mealing is particularly good in it (she does slightly mangle the order of dialogue in one scene, regarding the paint on Duane’s jacket, suggesting they clean it at the wrong point, an error which becomes obvious by Duane’s response, but wasn’t severe enough that they went for a retake). After all the trouble that the workman has had throughout the episode thanks to pupil interference, it is quite warming to see him help Tracey when she asks for his help removing the paint, and the final scene between Tracey and Duane where it’s clear they’re still friends despite both finding new friends at school rounds it off well.

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