Categories: uncategorized
Date: 16 September 2008 10:10:45
So last night, as even the BBC news was reporting saw the last ever episode of Grange Hill . I have to say that I wasn't paying too much attention until Todd Carty appeared and Third Party and I had a bit of a wierd conversation going along the lines of "mum, look Mark from East Enders on here" and me replying "oooh, they've bought Tucker back for the last episode".
Apparently it's been axed because there's only a certain number of times you can recycle storylines until they lose their bite. Think they might have a point, but last nights appearance of "Tucker" and his lines about the purpose of education showed what Grange Hills strength was in "the good old days". Grange Hill in my time was a cutting edge drama which addressed racism, sexism, drugs and relationships in a way nothing else on tv did. It was proper drama, but about kids and for kids. Being 6 when it started I grew up looking up to Tucker, Tricia, Suzanne and the earlier characters and then identifying to certain a certain extent with Rowland, Zammo and co as I got older and went through school when they did.
As a show it has over the years reflected the political changes within education and that's what last nights speeches by Tucker really went back to. The lines which summed it up were:
"In my day this place was all about people, now it's all about numbers" and a speech about the purpose of Comprehensive Education and the chance it gave to all.
As somebody who has lived in an area with selective education and seen the damage it still continues to do in that area, and as somebody who has experienced the struggles of being a teacher continuing to focus on students as the LSC and others forced us to give statistics primary importance I knew the truth in those lines. Grange Hill may have been fiction but it disclosed more truths about education over the years than many of us would like to acknowledge.