Written by Phil Redmond. Tx 1st February 1980
The attempt to establish a permanent Outdoor Centre picks up a little pace in this episode. Mr Hopwood has found the perfect place (the pupils already visited there in episode three). The owner of the property was impressed by the way the pupils helped to put out the fire during their last visit (although if he knew they were responsible for starting it in the first place he may not have been quite so understanding!)
But since he remains in ignorance, he’s happy to let the property for a nominal fee for the next year – provided the school can find the money to repair the derelict building. This, of course, is where the problems begin. Funds for extra-curricular activities have always been difficult to come by – and the early 1980’s was an especially cash-fraught time. Mr Keating, deputising for the (by now always) absent Mr Llewellyn doesn’t dismiss the plan out of hand, but it’s obviously going to be a considerable struggle to bring these plans to fruition.
The main part of the episode revolves around Pogo’s money-making plan to establish his own school tuck shop (since the official one still hasn’t been approved). This does mean turning his mother’s kitchen upside down in order to keep making all the cakes he needs in order to fulfill his orders. When poor Mrs Patterson surveys the mess she says that whilst she was happy for him to make a few cakes she didn’t realise he’d be attempting to rival Mr Kipling!
Pogo and Duane’s free enterprise did have the tacit approval of Mr Sutcliffe, who was also a willing customer. In fact, the original clamour for alternative food arose after Mr Sutcliffe blocked Mr Garfield from arranging the tables in the canteen for lunch. Mr Sutcliffe was taking a drama class at the time and didn’t understand why the caretaker had to disrupt his class when it was only mid-morning. Mr Garfield, being the inflexible man he is, was happy to walk away and do it later – though this meant delaying the start of lunch and thereby creating a whole group of willing customers for the few cakes that Pogo and his friends already had on them (which they made earlier on in their cookery class).
Sadly, Pogo’s tuck shop comes to an ignominious end after Mr Keating becomes aware of it. He starts by giving a dressing down to Mr Sutcliffe, who he says should really have known better, but then he has some good news. The school tuck shop will be going ahead – and Mr Sutcliffe, Pogo and Duane seem like the ideal people to help run it (they’re clearly not in a position to refuse).
And Mr Keating also has some not-so good news for Pogo and Duane – a series of detentions as well as an essay to be written by them entitled “the problems of private enterprise in an authoritarian society”!
Archive Television Musings 
Is this the first example of the pupil entrepreneur in the series?
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I think so. It would become a theme stretched to breaking point later in the decade but still feels fresh at this early stage.
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Fabulous ending to the episode, Pogo’s face had me roaring when Mr Keating ordered them to write that essay. The show was so good at balancing drama with humour in those early years.
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Another of the variable Series Three’s better episodes, one that sees the early, highly irritating Pogo (of which we do get a good dose if in this episode as well!) slowly evolving into the money-making young scamp of which he would become, with Duane as his luckless sidekick, as the early planned Pogo-Duane-Michael trio (with fourth tag-along David) which had initially been hoped to replicate the Tucker-Benny-Alan success began to fall by the wayside.
Things begin with some (slight) progression of two storylines that have been rumbling away on the sidelines for a few episodes, namely the proposals for an Outdoor Centre for the school, and Doyle abusing his recently won position on school council – here, he offers to push the matter of the proposed centre at for Justin and Andrew at the next council meeting… if they pay him, positioning himself as far more corrupt entrepreneur than the relatively “innocent” Pogo.
Mr. Hopwood wheels Justin and Andrew in to see Mr. Keating on the matter – from around this episode onwards, Keating will generally act as the stand-in for the ever unseen head Mr. Llewelyn (he is “…at county all today. Again”), this meeting quite clearly being a compromise of dialogue regarding the absent head, as Mr. Keating both debates the matter with them, but also “can’t speak on behalf of the head”.
It is often amusing to pick out little things which can date an episode, and Mr. Keating’s concern regarding the price repairs to the farm if it to be used for the Outdoor Centre “350 pounds sounds like quite a lot of money to me”, is a reminder of the rapid rate of inflation over the years. (There is also a debatable blooper in this scene, when a minute later, Keating this time quotes three hundred and fifty two pounds – maybe I missed it, but there’s no explanation where this extra two pounds suddenly comes from!).
Regarding the fictional area of London in which Grange Hill is supposedly set (“Northam” in North London), occasionally names of real places would appear in various guises, and here we have mention of a “Hayes Green”. Hayes is in West London (a few miles over from my location), although there is no Hayes Green in the area. Quite why they plucked his name out is a mystery.
Things warm up when we move on to the main focus of the episode – Pogo’s new money-making enterprise. Pogo is a proper little sod in this episode (lines such as “sorry. I didn’t smell you coming”), behaving quite obnoxiously towards Karen and Tracy in cookery class and a proper know-it-all, although the two girls do get their revenge (tipping a load of salt into his brew) before the end of class.
But after Mr. Sutcliffe’s drama glass leading to a fiasco with caretaker Mr. Garfield moaning that he can’t set up the canteen for lunch, resulting in a delayed lunchbreak, Pogo spots a handy gap in the market by flogging Duane’s chocolate cornflake cakes made in the aforementioned cookery class. Although we’ve seen Pogo ever-ready to make a quick profit before (putty, the odd sandwich, etc.), this development into him being more of an all-out wheeler dealer will, over time, serve to take the edge off of his obnoxious characteristics.
Cue a quickly established cornflake cake selling enterprise, with the two-man team of Pogo and Duane proving to be much more focused and entertaining without Michael, spare wheel David and whoever else. There are typical comedy tropes, namely self-appointed boss Pogo (in fairness, it was his idea) dishing out his orders to Duane, but whenever the chance comes along, having a rest for a minute and munching on the odd cake or two himself.
As an aside, I often like trying to pull apart what bits of various episodes were filmed in whatever order; Regarding the board with the staff photos seen in Episodes 1-2 (I commented on it in my post for Episode 2), in Episode One, on the second row down, second from left, was an unidentified male teacher (possibly first year head Mr. Curtis, but I don’t think so), replaced by a photo of Miss Mooney in Episode Two. In this episode, as Pogo and Duane walk down the corridor we again see the board – only now, the original unidentified male’s photo is again in place of Miss Mooney… suggesting this scene may possibly have been shot prior to Episode Two (else, the props department somehow just reverted to the previous line-up on the board).
The episode marks the only time we’ll ever see Pogo’s mother (Sylvia Carson), as well as the first of two appearances from his father, uncredited (likely just a crew member) with scant lines (“Can you manage?” “Bu-bye son”) and barely glimpsed as he drops Pogo and cakes off at school, in his fetching beige Volvo estate.
Meanwhile, Mr. Sutcliffe in this episode is reminiscent of the departed Mr. Mitchell – with his lightly sardonic exchanges with Pogo and Duane and being supportive of their little venture (even if it does later land him in trouble). Both Sutcliffe and Hopwood inherited various aspects of Mitch’s personality, and Sootie really reminded me of him in this episode.
Pogo and Duane’s cake outfit is destined to meet it’s end – firstly Karen and Tracy extract their revenge for the trouble Pogo caused them in cookery the previous day by hiding the stall’s tables; then Mr. Keating stumbles upon the pop-up enterprise (which they hadn’t really been cleared to run, despite Sootie’s unofficial approval), and finally two older pupils mug the two of their profits, Sootie coming to the rescue just time.
Sootie again shows his Mr. Mitchell mannerisms when he tactfully stands up for Pogo and Duane to Mr. Keating and insists such a venture wouldn’t have come about if the school tuck-shop would be given the go ahead. The whole tuck-shop thing is a bit of a mystery, it appeared to have got the okay during Series Two, but has then sat in limbo for over a year (bearing in mind that whole unseen school year between S2 and S3), but either way, Mr. Keating has already spoken to the headmaster – so he does still exist – who has given his permission to go ahead. Sootie, Pogo and Duane are lumbered with organising it!
The whole mini cake selling venture could feasibly have spanned two episodes, but maybe it’s better that it didn’t. It makes for a nice, tight, enjoyable episode and might have been stretched too far as a two-parter. Grange Hill’s later wheeler-dealer Gonch Gardener is my all-time favourite GH character (the Pogo-Duane pairing and their various schemes often being reminiscent of Gonch and Hollo’s later escapades), and their money-making rackets would often be spread out across multiple episodes, some sometimes successfully, sometimes less so. Regardless, Episode Eight does serve to more full establish Pogo and Duane as an enjoyable, usually doomed money-making duo, something which will go to be expanded upon further.
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