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

Written by Phil Redmond. Tx 5th February 1980

The episode opens with Mr Sutcliffe and Miss Mooney having a rather public argument (which amuses Cathy and Trisha no end!). Later, we see Mr Hopwood rather dismayed at the lack of interest shown by the pupils in discussing plans to set up the Outdoor Centre – only six people turn up.

But the bulk of the episode concerns itself with Penny Lewis’ crusade to expose Michael Doyle’s corruption and disinterest as a school rep. She learns from Andrew and Justin that Doyle asked for fifty pence before raising the topic of the Outdoor Centre at the next school council meeting. With Susi by her side she pens an incendiary article for the school magazine. Naturally, she doesn’t clear it with the teachers first, so both she and the editor have to face the music.

Doyle isn’t best pleased of course and confronts Penny and Susi – but luckily Alan and Tucker are around to see them off. Alan’s chivalrous action is another hint that he’s interested in Susi – a slow burn plot-line that will develop well into the fourth series.

It’s been stated before, and is again here, that as Doyle’s father is a local councillor (and also on the board of Governors at Grange Hill) his opinions tend to carry more weight than an ordinary parent. This is obviously unfair, but it’s something that Michael Doyle manages to use to his advantage and the teachers seem unable or unwilling to challenge this state of affairs.

The episode ends with a rather nice shot of a tearful Penny vowing to get even with Doyle. This is another plot-line that’s clearly not over yet.

A reasonable enough episode, and any episode which focuses on Penny – one of my favourite early years characters – automatically is of some merit, in my book. However it does offer a look at some of the slightly more extreme sides to Penny’s character – yes Doyle is clearly at fault and the villain of the piece, and any attempted action against him can easily be understood and empathised with, but even so Penny can extremely “My way or no way” headstrong to the point of almost bullish at times, particularly here in Series Three; even before the debacle of Doyle’s political corruption, we’ve seen Penny go head-to-head with Trisha resulting in a physical scrap.

First things first, as well as Pogo’s dad (completely unseen this time) dropping the lad off at school with what, we must be presumed, are items for the new tuck shop stall, we see Mr. Sutcliffe and Miss Mooney arriving for school in Hoppy’s delightful Mini van, Miss Mooney full on strop, much to the amusement and delight of Cathy and Trisha – Cathy’s quiet crush on Sootie being one of these S3 stories that has been gently rumbling away in the background but never particularly focused on. I’m wondering if the location work outside of the school (a.k.a. Willesden High School, as it was known then) had some kind of problem or has somehow been damaged over the years, as on the current digital versions of this episode, the location footage quality looks particularly ropey, even when allowing for the era.

Inside, we also get Mr. Hopwood in similarly foul mood … it’s because only six pupils have turned up for the meeting about the proposed Nature Centre they’ve all been pushing for. However, I do find the scripting and staging of this scene to be a little “off” – although the Nature Centre plot has, likewise, been ticking away for a few episodes, we go into this scene fairly cold – no flagposting to us viewers that a big, key meeting on it all has been planned, leaving us in the first rather in the dark at the usually rather mild mannered Hoppy’s outrage at such low turn out after he has been pushing the ever-unseen headmaster for the go ahead with the project.

The main offshoot from this, as well as those in attendance insisting they’ll do more to spread the word, is that Doyle in his role as year rep, hasn’t been doing his bit by promoting the meeting. The logistics of this sin are questionable – surely the project would be school-wide, and thus surely a universal letter, or assembly announcement, or whatever else, would have been more logical; but ever way, it does set in motion the cogs of episode, of Penny’s increasing annoyance and anger with Doyle.

After a rather drawn out scene (padding for time?) of Doyle and his two cohorts playing cards, Penny has a fruitless run-in with with the couldn’t-care-less Doyle (during which Doyle points out that there are two year reps now, and it wasn’t purely on his shoulders, which begrudgingly we must admit is a semi-valid point), Penny’s ire gets the better of her and she writes an angry article (again, a slightly drawn out sequence … was the episode at risk of underrunning?!) highlighting the “truths” about year rep Doyle for the school magazine – cue much fallout, with both Penny and magazine editor (Davy Jones lookalike Chris, in the final of his handful of appearances) get banned from contributing to the magazine forthwith. Although the majority of teachers appear to recognise what is being claimed about Doyle in the offending article to be true, the fact his father is quite the local bigwig, being both a local councillor and on the school board of governors) has much to do with this decision. It’s a shame that Doyle’s father himself doesn’t feature in this ep – much mentioned, he has only ever appeared once, in Episode 5 of the previous series, and as typically obnoxious as we would have expected him to be. To have him here in this episode, throwing his weight around when his “wonderful” son’s good name was being called into question, would have really helped beef up the story.

This plot alone is archetypal Phil Redmond – we already know his love of political themed storylines, very prominent in the series’ early years, and in this episode he turns his focus to the pros and cons of censorship.

Elsewhere, after all of the hubbub of the first day of the school tuck shop (as in, a couple of tables set up in a corridor, with some great vintage confectionery items, including pre-name change Opal Fruits – never “Starburst” to this day to my vocabulary! – and some long since disappeared from sale), Susi thanks Alan for never speaking up about the whole “accidentally seeing her bra” incident of Episode Three, helping to plant the seeds of the romance between the two which will unfold over forthcoming episodes. The fact that she thanks Alan, and not Andrew, with which she actually had a gentle ‘thank you’ moment with at the end of E3, does support the theory than the farm location work was undertaken before much of Series Three and that writers might have initially been contemplating the relationship instead being that of Susi and Andrew. I’m glad they went for Alan – Andrew’s an okay-ish enough lad, but Alan is always far more interesting and likeable to watch, one of the classic Grange Hill characters.

Incidentally, prior to this whole tuck shop rabble, we see Alan and Tucker once again playing chess. Although the pair had previously been seen playing in s2e11, where Tucker appeared to be a competent enough player (previously in s2e06 he had referred to Alan’s chess set as “Draughts”!), in this episode it might appear that Alan is still teaching Tucker how to play – Tucker: “You said the horse can jump over anything” Alan: “Yeah, two along and one across*” Tucker: “Yeah mine’s an Arabian charger though, in’he, he can jump over anything”. Then again, this could simply be perceived as young master Jenkins as usual just being mischievous for the sake of it! * – And yes, Alan does actually get this wrong, it should be “three along and one across” (alternatively one and three).
To keep up with the chess game count, Alan also plays against Hughesy again during this episode. This being long before the days of handheld video games and later, mobile phones.

The episode concludes with the rare sight of Penny visibly being upset (a good teary performance by Ruth Davies, an oft-overlooked asset the early years of GH), vowing to get even with Doyle in, unusually for the era, a quite moodily lit sunset shot as she stands looking out of a classroom window. A reasonable episode, although as mentioned, the inclusion of Doyle’s father would have really helped add some oomph to it all.

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

P.j. Gathergood says:

August 5, 2025 at 4:19 pm

A reasonable enough episode, and any episode which focuses on Penny – one of my favourite early years characters – automatically is of some merit, in my book. However it does offer a look at some of the slightly more extreme sides to Penny’s character – yes Doyle is clearly at fault and the villain of the piece, and any attempted action against him can easily be understood and empathised with, but even so Penny can extremely “My way or no way” headstrong to the point of almost bullish at times, particularly here in Series Three; even before the debacle of Doyle’s political corruption, we’ve seen Penny go head-to-head with Trisha resulting in a physical scrap.

First things first, as well as Pogo’s dad (completely unseen this time) dropping the lad off at school with what, we must be presumed, are items for the new tuck shop stall, we see Mr. Sutcliffe and Miss Mooney arriving for school in Hoppy’s delightful Mini van, Miss Mooney full on strop, much to the amusement and delight of Cathy and Trisha – Cathy’s quiet crush on Sootie being one of these S3 stories that has been gently rumbling away in the background but never particularly focused on. I’m wondering if the location work outside of the school (a.k.a. Willesden High School, as it was known then) had some kind of problem or has somehow been damaged over the years, as on the current digital versions of this episode, the location footage quality looks particularly ropey, even when allowing for the era.

Inside, we also get Mr. Hopwood in similarly foul mood … it’s because only six pupils have turned up for the meeting about the proposed Nature Centre they’ve all been pushing for. However, I do find the scripting and staging of this scene to be a little “off” – although the Nature Centre plot has, likewise, been ticking away for a few episodes, we go into this scene fairly cold – no flagposting to us viewers that a big, key meeting on it all has been planned, leaving us in the first rather in the dark at the usually rather mild mannered Hoppy’s outrage at such low turn out after he has been pushing the ever-unseen headmaster for the go ahead with the project.

The main offshoot from this, as well as those in attendance insisting they’ll do more to spread the word, is that Doyle in his role as year rep, hasn’t been doing his bit by promoting the meeting. The logistics of this sin are questionable – surely the project would be school-wide, and thus surely a universal letter, or assembly announcement, or whatever else, would have been more logical; but ever way, it does set in motion the cogs of episode, of Penny’s increasing annoyance and anger with Doyle.

After a rather drawn out scene (padding for time?) of Doyle and his two cohorts playing cards, Penny has a fruitless run-in with with the couldn’t-care-less Doyle (during which Doyle points out that there are two year reps now, and it wasn’t purely on his shoulders, which begrudgingly we must admit is a semi-valid point), Penny’s ire gets the better of her and she writes an angry article (again, a slightly drawn out sequence … was the episode at risk of underrunning?!) highlighting the “truths” about year rep Doyle for the school magazine – cue much fallout, with both Penny and magazine editor (Davy Jones lookalike Chris, in the final of his handful of appearances) get banned from contributing to the magazine forthwith. Although the majority of teachers appear to recognise what is being claimed about Doyle in the offending article to be true, the fact his father is quite the local bigwig, being both a local councillor and on the school board of governors) has much to do with this decision. It’s a shame that Doyle’s father himself doesn’t feature in this ep – much mentioned, he has only ever appeared once, in Episode 5 of the previous series, and as typically obnoxious as we would have expected him to be. To have him here in this episode, throwing his weight around when his “wonderful” son’s good name was being called into question, would have really helped beef up the story.

This plot alone is archetypal Phil Redmond – we already know his love of political themed storylines, very prominent in the series’ early years, and in this episode he turns his focus to the pros and cons of censorship.

Elsewhere, after all of the hubbub of the first day of the school tuck shop (as in, a couple of tables set up in a corridor, with some great vintage confectionery items, including pre-name change Opal Fruits – never “Starburst” to this day to my vocabulary! – and some long since disappeared from sale), Susi thanks Alan for never speaking up about the whole “accidentally seeing her bra” incident of Episode Three, helping to plant the seeds of the romance between the two which will unfold over forthcoming episodes. The fact that she thanks Alan, and not Andrew, with which she actually had a gentle ‘thank you’ moment with at the end of E3, does support the theory than the farm location work was undertaken before much of Series Three and that writers might have initially been contemplating the relationship instead being that of Susi and Andrew. I’m glad they went for Alan – Andrew’s an okay-ish enough lad, but Alan is always far more interesting and likeable to watch, one of the classic Grange Hill characters.

Incidentally, prior to this whole tuck shop rabble, we see Alan and Tucker once again playing chess. Although the pair had previously been seen playing in s2e11, where Tucker appeared to be a competent enough player (previously in s2e06 he had referred to Alan’s chess set as “Draughts”!), in this episode it might appear that Alan is still teaching Tucker how to play – Tucker: “You said the horse can jump over anything” Alan: “Yeah, two along and one across*” Tucker: “Yeah mine’s an Arabian charger though, in’he, he can jump over anything”. Then again, this could simply be perceived as young master Jenkins as usual just being mischievous for the sake of it! * – And yes, Alan does actually get this wrong, it should be “three along and one across” (alternatively one and three).
To keep up with the chess game count, Alan also plays against Hughesy again during this episode. This being long before the days of handheld video games and later, mobile phones.

The episode concludes with the rare sight of Penny visibly being upset (a good teary performance by Ruth Davies, an oft-overlooked asset the early years of GH), vowing to get even with Doyle in, unusually for the era, a quite moodily lit sunset shot as she stands looking out of a classroom window. A reasonable episode, although as mentioned, the inclusion of Doyle’s father would have really helped add some oomph to it all.

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