It happened yesterday while those of us old enough to have been around when the first episode aired were at work. Or signing on.
The last episode of Grange Hill went out yesterday and good ol’ Tucker Jenkins (played by Mark Fowler in a Todd Carty disguise) returned to see it off.
For me, this stirred memories of Sunday mornings when BBC2 would repeat the old school episodes… That youngster drowning in the pool. The teacher with the big beard punching the other teacher (without a beard). Some lads hoping to keep a ‘school horse’. Danny Kendall being bullied by a scarily realistic Adolf Bronson. Gonch. Zig. Trev. Benny. Alan.
Goodbye to the rolling hills of the grange. WWM salutes you.
Tags: BBC1, CBBC, Danny Kendall, Drama, Entertainment, Grange Hill, Mr Baxter, Mr Bronson, Television, TV, Uncategorized
Watch With Mothers 
September 16, 2008 at 8:36 am
I will admit to fast forwarding through this on Catch Up last night – just for old times’ sake, etc. Tucker’s career advice surely should have gone along the lines of – play the loveable rogue like me at school and you too can go on gain lucrative parts in Eastenders and The Bill!
There sure are a lot of Scousers in North London these days, aren’t there?
September 16, 2008 at 8:39 am
Not that I’ve noticed, Who…
Mark Fowler was one of the dullest Easties characters ever…
September 16, 2008 at 8:43 am
Why are they stopping the series? I think modern yoofs still have schools, right?
September 16, 2008 at 8:49 am
They still have schools but the problems now, especially in inner city London, are a bit more controversial than the grafitti, bullying and sweetie-theft.
Happy-slapping, hardcore pornography on the computers and knife-distribution might not sit well with Ofcom.
September 16, 2008 at 8:55 am
First Top of the Pops, then this. What is next eh?
*shakes fist at ‘the man’*
September 16, 2008 at 9:03 am
They’ll axe Wogan next, then Noel’s House Party and – to add insult to injury – Eldorado.
It’s a fucking disgrace.
September 16, 2008 at 9:05 am
Before long Tomorrow’s World will be gone and then how will we know about futuristic watches that run on gin?
September 16, 2008 at 9:19 am
Judith Hann… how I miss her.
Last night I memorised every team in all 5 divisions in alphabetical order. They’re all swimming about in a brains stew.
it’s good that my memory is capable of this, but now I’m coming to realise that this skill is of no use to me whatsoever.
September 16, 2008 at 9:19 am
Axing Wogan is a bit brutal, they should give him time to flee at least. I’m imagining him in a smock, pounding breathlessly over a fen. In the distance, the clamour of a murderous village, giving chase with weapons.
Can Wogan make it to the dockyard, and thence to Holland?
September 16, 2008 at 9:23 am
I think you might be associating Alan Partridge’s escape from his obsessed fan with Terry Wogan being axed there, Wally. It’s amazing what hoops the memory will jump through to form associations.
*burns all memory training books to curb obsession*
September 16, 2008 at 9:30 am
Swineshead, I can imagine that your new skills could be useful in quite a few sports themed pub quizzes.
September 16, 2008 at 9:31 am
Pub quizzes was my first thought – now I’m thinking foreign languages. Voulez vous, adios amigo, etc…
September 16, 2008 at 9:37 am
Are you taking part in some sort of memory training montage?
September 16, 2008 at 9:38 am
What’s the first and last teams alphabetically then SH?
Grange Hill went down hill when it was taken over by mr hollyoaks, and relocated to liverpool for no real plot reason.
September 16, 2008 at 9:39 am
Arsenal – York City. If you include non-league.
September 16, 2008 at 9:41 am
mostly – Yes, it is a bit Rocky round at Swineshead Towers at the moment. Paper flying everywhere – Swineshead sucking a pencil, pressing fingers against his temple and punching the air while his missus rides a bike alongside him down Lower Clapton Road.
September 16, 2008 at 9:43 am
It’s AFC Bournemouth who are first. I lost a pub quiz on that question, I’ll never forget.
September 16, 2008 at 9:43 am
Aaaatishooooo! http://bmtv.wordpress.com/2008/02/06/not-over-the-hill/
September 16, 2008 at 9:52 am
Nah – Bournemouth are down as Bournemouth AFC – you were diddled.
September 16, 2008 at 10:01 am
Shit – Accrington Stanley should be first.
Thing is I learned this using the Loci system which means I haven’t got it in there in a process I can manipulate the order of. I’m learning the peg and phonetic systems this week so that I’ll be able to answer that sort of thing with no problem.
*realises everyone has left*
*weeps*
September 16, 2008 at 10:06 am
SH: Coincidentally, Ive just downloaded the following memory programs:
Brian Tracey. Accelerated learning techniques. Edward de Bono lateral thinking. gary small improve your memory. Make your mind work.
Ive no idea if any of them are any good though. my memory is shite.
who are you anyway …
September 16, 2008 at 10:08 am
Blimey – that is a coincidence.
I’m reading Kenneth Higbee at the moment… he’s not very amusing but he’s good for the nuts and bolts.
September 16, 2008 at 10:16 am
the main one ive heard about seems to be that one where you make everythig into one big picture you can decode. that guy who can memorise an entirre pack of cards in minutes, wordl memory champion, uses that one I think, pretty amazing. i bet hes a hit with the ladeez.
September 16, 2008 at 10:19 am
we remember stuff thats interesting I suppose. hence the trivia. I remember useless but interesting stuff.
for instance, the american actor timothy hutton ( from the excellent nero wolfe mysteries) had a daughter born on september 11 2001.
September 16, 2008 at 10:23 am
There are a few systems and they get progressively more difficult to get your head around with progressively impressive results…
First one’s the link system which is piss easy and you can crack immediately.
Then there’s ‘loci’ which will make your imagination go insane. I’ve had Martin O’Neill, Frank Skinner and a human breast in my fridge for the past few days. Don King is drinking at the pub on the end of my road and Optimus Prime is standing at the bus stop.
Then you’ve got Peg, then phonetic systems which help you remember things by number. It’s hard to achieve but I’m getting there… you can remember strings of numbers as long as you like once you’ve cracked it, or look at a shuffled deck of cards and tell which card is missing after one glance through it. Or cheat at blackjack.
*organises a WWM blackjack evening*
September 16, 2008 at 10:24 am
So long as you have a vivid mental image of something, you’ll remember it.
September 16, 2008 at 10:26 am
*inspects mental library of vivid images*
*shrieks in horror*
*stays in bed for 7 days*
September 16, 2008 at 10:31 am
are you training for anything in particular. or just planning on increasing your geek status amongst friends?
September 16, 2008 at 10:32 am
It is a problem, now you mention it Wally. Sometimes the only thing that fits is a family member or next door neighbour.
I’ve lost count of the times I’ve used Harry Redknapp to remember stuff.
September 16, 2008 at 10:33 am
Like I said, I’ll probably use it to learn a language – see how that goes. What about you?
September 16, 2008 at 10:35 am
just getting old im afraid.
I got the CDs free with a jumbo box of incontinence pants.
September 16, 2008 at 10:35 am
Perhaps the police were using Harry Redknapp in the same context – to remember various crimes. Hence the accidental dawn raid last year.
September 16, 2008 at 10:36 am
Manpons?
September 16, 2008 at 10:36 am
Go on Swines say something in Harry Redknapp.
September 16, 2008 at 10:37 am
I think that’s undoubtedly the case, Wally. His red face and vacant cockney charm seems to fire off half-remembered facts. He’s essential to any police investigation.
September 16, 2008 at 10:42 am
I have learnt a little Jose Mourinho and learning a little Scolari at the moment. I find Arsene Wenger a useful language sometimes. “I was unable to see clearly the incident”, is a very useful phrase!
September 16, 2008 at 10:42 am
Imagine if this trend catches on – Redknapp’s life becomes a constant stream of retribution from cuckolded husbands, scapegoated ex-cons and furious swimming pool cleaners etc.
September 16, 2008 at 10:43 am
yes SH Manpons. they match my Manzier or my ‘bro’ as I call it.
September 16, 2008 at 10:45 am
Redknapp could get his own daytime TV show when he retires… sort of like Jeremy Kyle, but without the need for lie detector tests – just Harry pointing his fingers at his temple.
September 16, 2008 at 11:22 am
Todd Carth WAS THE dullest EE “star”.
Then he was the dullest policeman on The Bill.
Where will he spread his dullnest next.
Perhaps there is a vacancy to be the bloke inside the Mr Blobby suit?
I’ve made an facebook application for my blog widget and am well chuffed.
All these new words….
September 16, 2008 at 12:34 pm
“So long as you have a vivid mental image of something, you’ll remember it.”
Yes SH, but aren’t some things very un-memorable/boring, making it bloody diffcult to form a vivid mental image of it? Please enlighten me.
“I’ve lost count of the times I’ve used Harry Redknapp to remember stuff.”
If, for example you’ve used HR to remember 7 different things, how do you remember which of the things assigned to him is the right piece of information for the list you’re trying to remember (if that makes sense).
September 16, 2008 at 12:38 pm
R.I.P. Rip.
September 16, 2008 at 12:39 pm
It depends on the system you’re using. For example…
I use Harry Redknapp to remember Portsmouth – he’s the manager of that team. So using the loci system, Harry Redknapp is in the window of a shop on my way to work in the location that tells me where Portsmouth are on the list.
In the link system he represents Arizona when I remember the 50 states of America. He’s shivering in Alaska (for which I visualise snow) and then he picks up a handsaw (Arkansa) which he drops onto the fauna (California) which changes colour (Colorado).
So you take the word and associate it with something far more vivid…
Sometimes this really encourages the darkest parts of your brain to simulate imagery, unfortunately.
September 16, 2008 at 12:44 pm
Where the bloody hell’ve you been, JQW? We’ve been worried sick.
September 16, 2008 at 12:46 pm
It was explained on my excuse for a blog. I am busy and stealing next door’s wireless.
September 16, 2008 at 1:08 pm
I’m the only person in the world to prefer the new theme tune over the classic one.
I do hate the show though. I was a Byker Grove kid and that snuffed it years back.
September 16, 2008 at 1:15 pm
Children’s Ward.
September 16, 2008 at 1:17 pm
Children’s Ward – with a young Tim Vincent. How I hated Tim Vincent when I was a boy. He’s married to one of Destiny’s Child now, apparently.
September 16, 2008 at 1:20 pm
One of the anomynous troll ones from back when they were a four piece, I’d wager. I wish no success upon Tim Vincent.
September 16, 2008 at 1:21 pm
Pressgang
The Doubledeckers
*gets misty eyed*
September 16, 2008 at 1:22 pm
I like The Tribe on Channel 5.
September 16, 2008 at 1:23 pm
The Tribe? Isn’t that the thing from the mid-nineties where Anna Friel got her waps out?
September 16, 2008 at 1:25 pm
Oh yes, the happy shopper serialised Mad Max.
I used to like that Australian kids programme which followed the disturbing dream experiences of a boy in a coma (he’d had his head beaten with a rock by a bully and half-drowned), sometimes influenced by what he heard in the outside world, but generally a terrifying Lord-Of-The-Flies dystopic endless nowhere where he would wander and fall into strange fleeting encounters and bizarre stand-offs. Used to scare the shit out of me.
Noone else seems to remember it, which worries me.
September 16, 2008 at 1:29 pm
I remember it. I remember my dad having to explain it to me.
September 16, 2008 at 1:29 pm
For the kids…
September 16, 2008 at 1:44 pm
Nick, that’s what I imagine the first WWM podcast recording looked like, with the same slightly too short trousers.
September 16, 2008 at 1:58 pm
We’re getting more repeats on this blog than on TV.
September 16, 2008 at 2:01 pm
How’s this a repeat, Mikey?
September 16, 2008 at 2:10 pm
But who do you use to remember Harry Redknapp?
Who watches the watchmen?
Ahhhhhhh…
September 16, 2008 at 2:12 pm
Tim Vincent fact is an untruth, SH. On a station platform a young man came up to my mum and presnted her with a bunch of flowers. He was an inspiring actor and when we asked him what he was in he said look out for a new prog ‘Children’s Ward’ – he was a doctor in it. Pretty sure it wasn’t Tim Vincent though.
Progs from the past wot I liked:
The Living Soap
Heartbreak High
Eerie Indiana
September 16, 2008 at 2:13 pm
I was referring to the link to the Double Deckers. This was cited in our intellectual discussion on good mood music for the bedroom.
September 16, 2008 at 2:15 pm
I ate a Double Decker at dinner time. Mmmmmmm
September 16, 2008 at 2:26 pm
Tim Vincent was a patient in Children’s Ward…
September 16, 2008 at 2:29 pm
I know, I was joking.
Do you remember The Living Soap SH?
September 16, 2008 at 2:33 pm
I do remember it. Specifically a girl called Spider. And a twat called Dan.
They were probably all twats, I just wasn’t very discerning.
September 16, 2008 at 2:42 pm
Eerie Indiana was fantastic.
What was the programme with the sand fairy in it? That was good when I was young.
September 16, 2008 at 2:46 pm
Yes she’s the main one I remember and yes they were all twats. I loved that prog though and it was probably what got me addicted to reality TV. The early 90s was a golden telly time for me…
September 16, 2008 at 2:46 pm
Is that the one about the students, in a house? If so, I was thinking about the girl crying at university because she couldn’t work out how to register on her course just yesterday. This is true. Was that spider? Why was I thinking about her?
September 16, 2008 at 2:48 pm
Students in a house but that’s about all I can remember. The asian girl was called Spider… Dan had long hair and was an intellectual (we know this because he took the Guardian AND the Sun – meaning he understood every walk of life…)
September 16, 2008 at 2:50 pm
I thought it was a real shame that Eerie Indiana was such a short series, there were only about 12 of them and then it stopped. I hate that when a series you love finishes and a voice over tells you it’ll be back in the autumn and it never bloody well comes back on. That happened with Angels, any one remember that?
September 16, 2008 at 2:55 pm
May I just point out I mean Angels (80s nursing drama) not to be confused with god-awful No Angels (00s nursing drama).
September 16, 2008 at 2:58 pm
Not as good as Angles (90s mathmatical drama).
September 16, 2008 at 2:59 pm
SAND FAIRY – VICTORIAN KIDS – SUGARED MICE – EH?
September 16, 2008 at 3:02 pm
I have no recollection of this. I was porobably too busy being petrified by Moondial (weird BBc drama for children) and those bloody Moomin creatures (stuff of nightmares).
September 16, 2008 at 3:02 pm
*probably
September 16, 2008 at 3:05 pm
I remember Moondial. Very eery but nothing ever happened. Occasionally Minty got chatting to a ghostly chimney sweep lad but, apart from that, rubbish.
September 16, 2008 at 3:07 pm
For some reason it disturbed me though. A lot.
September 16, 2008 at 3:19 pm
Does anyone remember The Gaffer with Bill Maynard?
It’s the hot office topic this afternoon conducted by myself as I mutter at my desk
September 16, 2008 at 3:20 pm
I don’t remember Moondial but I remember fucking Moonfleet -Christ that was dull
Anyone remember Changes, it was utterly terrifying?
September 16, 2008 at 3:21 pm
http://www.bilderberg.org/changes.htm
September 16, 2008 at 3:22 pm
Even looking at that website a bit of poo came out
September 16, 2008 at 3:29 pm
Christ – I do remember that very vaguely…
September 16, 2008 at 3:29 pm
Acess Denied
Access to the requested URL http://www.bilderberg.org has been denied.
The URL has been designated as Intolerance & Hate,
and has been blocked in accordance with U*** Security Policy.
September 16, 2008 at 3:32 pm
Me too.
Blocked!
Does it have wandering Jews?
September 16, 2008 at 3:32 pm
That wasn’t the link I posted Mr Bazoom
It was on a long time ago but they repeated it a few times
September 16, 2008 at 3:33 pm
Christ Changes does look pretty horrific, glad I missed it. Did the maker of these progs realise how they mentally scarred a whole generation of children?
Moonfleet or Starfleet?
September 16, 2008 at 3:35 pm
It is, it’s what I clicked on. You posted a link to Intolerance and Hate. The compluter has protected me.
Thank yous compluter.
September 16, 2008 at 3:38 pm
thanks gds for the compluters
September 16, 2008 at 3:38 pm
I’ve no idea what that website was, I just put ‘The Changes’ into google and that link came up…
Eat that
September 16, 2008 at 3:39 pm
…actually it’s quite nice
September 16, 2008 at 3:56 pm
My So Called Life.
*realises she’s the only late-20s girl here*
Shit… *skuttles off*
September 16, 2008 at 4:04 pm
My So Called Life – isn’t that by the production company what couldn’t sell some newfangled show so they made a big fuss about shoving it onto the super-duper internet thingy, as a fingers up to corporate arses that wanted to stomp on creativity, and nobody watched it? Is it that My So Called Life? If so, it’s rubbish. There, I said it.
September 16, 2008 at 4:08 pm
It was the one with Claire Danes, I believe. Fodder for teenage miserabilists. Which just about covers all teens.
September 16, 2008 at 4:11 pm
BM – I’m a girl in my late 20s (just crept into 30s category).
High 5?
September 16, 2008 at 4:13 pm
BM – I peg you as the kind of girl that sits in bed all day wearing big furry, rabbit-shaped slippers, picking on a piece of toast like a pigeon and watching endless episodes of Dariah.
September 16, 2008 at 4:18 pm
Clarry: *high five* Mate just leant me the box set. Gunna have a fest soon methinks.
Davethermal: Ha ha. No, but I do have some furry boots. And I don’t piuck. I gorge (especially on choccie fountains – snuck into a press event last night and was like a pig in (chocolate) shit.)
September 16, 2008 at 4:29 pm
‘I’m a girl in my late 20s (just crept into 30s category).’
Well I’m enjoying my fabulous fifties (in my early 20s). Fact.
September 16, 2008 at 4:41 pm
Badgermadge and Clarry – I’ll be twenty-nine in December.
…awesome?
September 16, 2008 at 4:45 pm
Is that code for being 32?
September 17, 2008 at 8:37 am
BM & Miss TA – Woo yeah! ALRIGHT!
*high fives indiscriminately*
September 18, 2008 at 12:46 am
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September 18, 2008 at 1:06 am
Dear owner of This Blog
To day i find a blog for make many of a new friends that write about finance ,money Investment tips etc., Goodluck much more ,Accidentally I meet your blog.while I read you blog .I thing your blog is good and useful for my reader very much.
My blog Update every day about Finance tip. Company, and etc., have many regular visitor. I hope to be your friend. and exchange a reader.
Please If you interesting for enhance a new reader please add my link in your blogroll and contact me by email that i send to you . I will add your link fast as fast i can.
Thank you Goodluck.