Lee parted company with Grange Hill because producers wanted to kill off Jonah! According to Grange Hill Gold, Jonah was to drown in the school swimming pool after his classmates turned against him. Lee was disgusted with the plans and didn't sign up for the new series. Lee Sparke who played Gordon 'Jonah' Jones left 'Grange Hill' in 1983 after he found out that his character was due to be killed off the following year. The character of Jeremy Irvine who had already been seen as Jonah's cousin replaced him in that storyline. From Quiz: 'Grange Hill' Nicknames. Erkan Mustafa as Roland Browning, Lee Sparke as Jonah Jones and Lee MacDonald as Samuel Zammo Maguire in series five of Grange Hill So Lee, what was it like being a child star? “It was really weird I did a series Noah’s Castle with Mike Reid, the guy from Eastenders, when I was about 8 or 9, he.
8 February 1978
Age 51; Born 1969-02-20 in London, England, UK.
This is another milestone. Although it's not quite the last children's programme in this list it ended up being the only one I was still watching into adulthood. Grange Hill replaced A Traveller In Time as the Wednesday serial in February 1978 but was a very different beast. For that we have to credit one of my least favourite people. 'Professor' Phil Redmond who's done more than anyone to debase the whole concept of higher education in the UK. Nevertheless , Grange Hill was a landmark in childrens' programming and should always be regarded as a feather in his cap. Grange Hill was set very firmly in the present day and the first series ( of 9 episodes ) followed the fortunes of what we'd now call a Year 7 class as they entered a comprehensive secondary school for the first time. And so we were introduced to lovable rogue Tucker Jenkins ( Todd Carty ), long-faced moaning Cock-er-nee Trisha Yates ( Michelle Herbert ), shy swot Justin ( Robert Morgan ) and deprived black football ace Benny ( Terry Sue Patt ) in the form class of typically bland geography teacher Mr Mitchell ( Michael Percival ) with his naff clothes and even naffer jokes . Some of the others introduced in the first episode ( in which nothing remotely interesting happens ) like Judy, Ann and David have vanished from my memory banks. My favourite was big fat Alan ( George Armstrong ). He started out as a minor character , one of a pair of henchmen for Tucker's escapades; the scriptwriters didn't even give him a consistent surname in the first series before settling on 'Humphries'. However, Alan clicked with the audience and, whereas the other lad didn't make it to the second series , he became a strong character in his own right. Towards the end of the series the first villain was introduced in Michael Doyle ( Vincent Hall ) a shifty-eyed blonde lad but he was a bit weedy compared to his successors and always fairly easily outwitted by Tucker. It took just four episodes before the first real controversy arose when Tucker and his mates dropped the benches into the swimming pool and parents and teachers became concerned about copy cat behaviour. Some primary kids were said to be terrified by the series. Nevertheless it returned the following year and in a big way , now twice weekly with a run of 18 episodes. Ann was dropped but the class was fleshed out with some new characters mainly girls like goody-good Susi McMahon ( Linda Slater ) who was often compared at our school to the girl I fancied, posh redhead Penny ( Ruth Davies ) and bright Asian , Sudhamani ( Sheila Chandra ). The series also acquired its first sex symbol ( Trisha actually had an older sister Carol who was quite nice but didn't feature enough ) in buxom Cathy Hargreaves ( Lindy Brill ). I actually preferred her dark haired sidekick but she never had an individual storyline. Justin got a mate called Andrew who had family problems and Tommy, who'd barely had a line before, got a new head and a beefed up role as another mate of Tucker. There were more adult regulars, such as new headmaster Mr Llewellyn ( Sean Arnold ) prissy English teacher Mr Sutcliffe ( James Wynn ) and hard but fair games teacher Mt Baxter ( Michael Cronin ). I don't think I saw much of this series first time round but my sister started following it. Series 3 saw a split focus between the old class , now under form teacher Miss Peterson and a new crop of Year 7's including good-looking Duane Orpington ( Mark Baxter ) and charmless fat boy Pogo Patterson ( Peter Moran ) . Their form teacher was the too-good-to-be-true Mr Hopwood ( Brian Capron ). Redmond started pushing the envelope a bit more with this series which included Susi having problems with a bra, Cathy having period pains and Sudhamani's dad fretting over her Westernisation. There was also a nice storyline for Alan who started a romance with Susi towards the end of the series. I think my viewing was intermittent to begin with but became more regular towards the end. Series 4 is the one where I was most committed to watching the series. The younger class was expanded with goodie-two-shoes Clare ( Paula Ann Bland ), her rebellious mate Suzanne ( Susan Tully ), likely lad Stewpot ( Mark Burdis ), giant black girl Precious ( Dulice Liecier ) and the show's most notorious villain, Gripper Stebson ( Mark Savage ) . New adult characters were headmistress Mrs McCluskey ( Gwyneth Powell ) , sexy IT teacher Miss Lexington ( Allyson Rees ) and the supremely irritating caretaker, Mr Thompson ( Timothy Bateson ). This series saw the show becoming much more soap-like with story arcs stretching across a number of episodes. One of these saw Cathy forming a band with two sidekicks , one of whom , ( either Ruth or Gerry, I'm not sure ) was a dark-haired beauty but she never got a surname or an individual storyline. That story ended with them getting the cane ( Note for CP fetishists ; it's not worth you checking it out ) for bunking off which reminds you that we were still in the corporal punishment era here. However in what was the most memorable episode of all , a transient PE teacher Mr Hicks, played by serial TV villain Paul Jerricho, oversteps the mark and gets walloped by Mr Baxter , a scene we'd been waiting for since Kes twelve years earlier. This was the last series written ( in the main ) by Redmond who had his hands full with Brookside which debuted later in the year. One year on, I was in the sixth form and no longer watching kids TV ( I took part in a sketch based on Willo the Wisp in the Sixth Form Review despite never having seen the programme ) but was drawn back to Series 5 by all my class mates talking about it and one character in particular, the hapless, hopelessly obese Roland Browning ( Erkan Mustafa ) and the main target for the ever-nastier Gripper. He was part of a new year 7 intake, along with the too self-regarding to be likable prankster Jonah ( Lee Sparke ), his slightly dim sidekick Zammo ( Lee McDonald ), bubbly croaky-voiced blonde Fay ( Alison Bettles ) and slappable spoilt brat Annette ( Nadia Chambers ). The one thing Roland had going for him was a self-appointed guardian angel Janet ( Simone Nylander ) who followed him around over-enunciating his name as 'Ro-land' but alas her passion was unrequited. Episode 15 'Despair', where all Roland's difficulties come to a head is a junior equivalent to 'Yosser's Story' in Boys from the Blackstuff, a remarkably harrowing 25 minutes for a children's TV slot. The only significant addition to the teaching cast was long-haired , sociology-spouting leftie Mr McGuffie ( Fraser Cains ) who was something of a caricature. With kids preoccupied by impending O Levels not offering too many dramatic possibilities , the original class were reduced to cameo roles in this series ( Tommy and Susi didn't appear at all ). Apart from Tucker making a couple of re-appearances as an adult many years later, this was the last series to feature the survivors from the first one ; Alan, Trisha, Benny and Justin ( who'd been pretty redundant from series 3 ) all took their final bows. Having baulked at killing Roland off in the previous series the only way for the writers to go in Series 6 was to make him a bit more comfortable in school and that necessitated getting Gripper off his back. The way they did that was to make this the most violent and controversial series of all as Gripper became preoccupied with racism and set up his own version of the BNP in the school which would eventually lead to his expulsion. Some light relief was had with three episodes taking place outside the school precincts on a field trip to St Alban's and an Outward Bound course in Wales. Educational politics, which hadn't been a major part of the series before, reared their head with the new teacher Mr Smart ( Simon Heywood ), fresh from public school with a head full of inappropriate ideas and approaches. By Series 7 I had left school myself and was at university but there were plenty of other Grange Hill fans in my Hall of Residence and I saw most if not all of the series. The major newcomers were a raffish rogue Jimmy McClaren ( Gary Love ) , love interest for Zammo , Jackie ( Melissa Wilks ) and the obnoxious Jeremy Irvine ( Vincent Matthews ) who'd appeared briefly in the previous series as the now-departed Jonah's cousin. He provided the series' main talking point when , after a few close calls in previous series the writers , bolstered by Redmond's return ( at least the credits for each episode say so ) , went the full hog and killed someone off, Jeremy not re-surfacing after arsing around in the swimming pool . Gripper had a small , rather disappointing cameo in one episode. This series was the end of the line for most of the second wave of pupils. Duane and Pogo departed along with Suzanne who provided another of the series' iconic moments when she turned up dressed as Boy George and gave Mrs McCluskey a mouthful in the corridor ( wildly cheered in our TV room ) having already left the school. The big break happened now for me . 90% of the students in the Hall left at the end of the year either because they'd graduated or preferred to house share in the bedsit land nearer to the campus. The handful of us that chose to remain divvied up the vacant roles on the Junior Common Room Committee between us ( I was Treasurer ) but perhaps inevitably we were bitterly resented by some of the incoming students saddled with a team they'd had no say in electing. And so we tended to huddle together for mutual protection and thus began the ritual of trying to be first in for dinner at 5.30pm. This meant queuing from 5.00 pm, outside the doors where there were some comfy chairs to sit on ; we were later satirised for this in the Hall newsletter although nobody was personally singled out. By the time GrangeHill came back round for Series 8 in February 1985 the habit was too ingrained and so I stopped watching it. And so I missed Mr Smart's conversion to a good guy, the entrance of the fearsome Mr Bronson ( Michael Sheard ) , Zammo's love triangle with Jackie and rival Banksy ( Tim Polley who she would certainly have picked in real life ) and most famously of all Zammo's drug habit in Series 9. I was aware of all the tabloid hype and of course the 'Just Say No' single and having left the Hall by then could have gone back to the series but I didn't.
Lee Sparke Grange Hills
That was the series' zenith ; though it marched on it would never enjoy the same high profile again. Once the hysteria had died down I thought little more about it except for when a familiar face would pop up in something else. Then in April 1993 the Beeb started repeating the series starting from the beginning on a Sunday morning on BBC2 to celebrate the show's fifteenth anniversary. This was irresistible , to wallow in something from what I already deemed the golden period of my life and so I watched Grange Hill all over again with far greater loyalty than I had the first time round ! I didn't stop until the end of the drugs series which they reached in 1996. There was no reason to continue beyond that point so I signed off for good. I don't recall that I had any real consciousness that the series was still going strong on the other channel. I remember reading about its cancellation in February 2008 and once I'd got over my utter amazement that it had still been going for all those intervening years I felt as much sadness as for the passing of Top of the Pops and Smash Hits, those other totems of my youth that todays generation had discarded. For a couple more years there will be school children who dimly remember the series then the lights will go out. As with the wrestlers, I'm not going to attempt to trace the subsequent careers of all those I've mentioned . Inevitably many of them didn't stay in acting and have long since vanished from the public eye. Some of them we'll meet again in a spin-off series further down the line. In 2005 Justin Lee Collins featured Grange Hill in his Bring Back.. series despite the series not having finished yet but he concentrated almost solely on those involved in the Zammo storyline including Erkan Mustafa who'd had a little brush with the law over drugs himself ( not sure if it went to court ) Alison Bettles who was now just a happy housewife after a brief spell in The Bill and Lee McDonald who did some reality TV on the back of the show and seems to be the one most enthusiastic to return to the public eye. They're not the ones who really hold a place in my heart though. I was sad to hear of the passing of Terry Sue Patt last year. My favourite , George Armstrong was last heard of working as the theatre manager at a public school. His lost love Linda Slater has long since vanished . Sheila Chandra had a brief pop career as lead singer of Monsoon and managed to sustain a low-key career in world music until she fell seriously ill a few years ago and had to retire. The lovely Lindy Brill gave up acting when she turned 30 and now works in personnel at a finance company .In case anyone's interested ( and let's face it guys we are ) I think just three of the actresses I've mentioned above have subsequently disrobed, Paula Ann Bland in The Fruit Machine ( 1989 ) , Rudi Davies in A Sense of Guilt ( 1990 ) and The Lonely Passion of Judith Herne ( 1987 ) and Melissa Wilkes in
The Advocate ( 1993 ).
Simon Luxton
25 April 2009tbs.pm/2234
Simon Luxton passed away on 3 March 2009. Before he died, he completed this article – part three of his series on Grange Hill. It is dedicated to his memory.
1982 saw major changes to Grange Hill, off-screen and on. After two years of filming at Willesden High in North London, the school ‘moved’ to what was then Holborn College in Greyhound Road, Fulham.
The new school looked very different from the previous two Grange Hills. It was in a more built-up area with space at a premium. However the new studio sets at Television Centre were a loving recreation of Holborn’s interiors. Phil Redmond stepped down as Grange Hill’s executive producer to form his own production company in Liverpool, which would produce a new soap for the forthcoming Channel 4. He also came off Grange Hill’s writing team. Colin Cant handed over the reins to new producer Susi Hush.
Grange Hill’s third crop of new ‘first years’ brought with them more of the anxieties we all felt at secondary school – cheeky chaps Zammo Maguire and Jonah Jones filled Tucker’s shoes nicely (he and his mates were now limited to cameo appearances in the new series, also his last), while Roland Browning was the archetypal fat boy and his lot was not a happy one. So much so that, in a harrowing study of the psychological effects of bullying, he throws himself under a car to escape torment from an increasingly malevolent Gripper Stebson. Whether he meant to end it all or just give himself a break is unclear but Grange Hill made a point of showing the vicious circle that caused Roland to comfort-eat when he was unhappy which ironically, would just make it worse for him.
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Series 5 was also the point at which Grange Hill became more openly political. A shortage of textbooks meant pupils had to share both in class and for homework. The parents had different ideas on how to overcome this. In a heated parent’s meeting, Stewpot Stewart’s socialist father insisted it was the state’s responsibility to provide enough to go round while Claire’s mum was all for parents buying the books. Then the end-of-term school revue organised by wild card English teacher “Scruffy” McGuffy, failed to impress Mrs McClusky with its biting satire of how she was running her school and of education in general. Finally the contentious issue of s-e-x raised it head, sex education in the third year divided pupils and parents and the prudishness of Mrs Scott backfired when Claire kept a diary fantasising about imaginary exploits with Mr Hopwood. Mr Scott was soon on his way to Grange Hill to knock ten bells out of Hoppy but Claire was left with egg on her face. Life was no easier for her best friend Suzanne Ross. A minor player in Series 4, Suzanne was thrust into the spotlight with her constant rebellion against the reintroduced school uniform and her regular ‘bunking off’. Suzanne also did not relish having “that flippin’ curse” for the next 30 years.
It is said that what made Grange Hill captivating was escapism. Children could watch their contemporaries do all the things they’d never get away with themselves. This is what got me hooked when I saw my first episode in 1983. By now Gripper Stebson’s bullying had gone from bad to worse as he resorted to hardcore racism against Grange Hill’s large community of black and Asian pupils. As a nine-year old at the time, the racist element went over my head during this initial viewing but to see Stebson making life a misery for all and sundry and – gasp – back-answering teachers like Bullet Baxter was something I would never have dreamt of doing. Unfortunately Gripper’s exploits were causing a wave of copycat behaviour throughout the land and Stebson was expelled from Grange Hill in episode 14. No sooner had I found Grange Hill than the main attraction had gone – but at least it brought to an end two years of misery for actor Mark Savage who was constantly being threatened with violence.
Gripper’s racist thuggery signified the hardening of Grange Hill, overseen by new script editor, the late Anthony Minghella in his pre-film-director career. Paying for it chester brown pdf. It was during Minghella’s tenure that Grange Hill produced its most memorable storylines including Zammo Maguire’s descent into heroin addiction. Minghella did not bank on a spanner being thrown in the works when planning the 1984 series. The main event was to have been the drowning of Jonah Jones in the school swimming pool. Actor Lee Sparke was unhappy with the plans and refused to sign up for the new series, forcing a major rewrite but one not too far away from the original idea. Jonah’s cousin Jeremy Irvine, previously a Rodney Bennett pupil returned, this time as a Grange Hill pupil, to take Jonah’s place at the bottom of the water. Jonah himself was packed off to Wales with his father’s new job. Vincent Matthews, who played Jeremy, told fan website Grange Hill Gold that the drowning of his character was intended to cause maximum impact because the departure of Tucker Jenkins had dented Grange Hill’s ratings slightly.
Grange Hill was now entering its highest-profile period. That brought its own problems – hordes of fans disrupting filming caused Grange Hill to move between real schools three times already, but plans were in hand to avoid the need for that. In 1983 the BBC purchased ATV London’s former studios at Elstree for the purpose of making a new twice-weekly soap opera. The site had more than enough space for other projects so Grange Hill could have a new permanent base there which was closed to the fans. Goalsarena uefa europa league highlights. The changes needed to be explained on-screen, so in Series 7 foundations were laid for Grange Hill to amalgamate with rival schools Brookdale and Rodney Bennett to form a new super-school. The merger was confirmed later in the series and paved the way for Grange Hill to make its periodical ‘refresh’ the following year.
So in 1985, the new Grange Hill opened as a split-site campus. The Upper School was the old Grange Hill building, the lower school the old Rodney Bennett campus. If the Lower School building looked familiar, it’s because it was in fact Neptune House at what was now BBC Elstree Centre, the plan being to move the entire production to Elstree in due course. With the new school came new ‘first years’ Gonch, Hollo, Ronnie, Calley, Jane and Trevor Cleaver who apart from having to overcome the usual insecurities of starting secondary school also had to step into rivalry between former Rodney Bennett and Brookdale pupils, now brought together under one roof. Mrs McClusky suffered a humiliating demotion to deputy head but the new head was hardly ever around, so her job changed little. Other new faces appeared in the staffroom, including a French master who would become the epitome of Grange Hill – one Maurice Bronson, very vocal in his opinions against the merger and who from the outset developed a penchant for picking fights with pupils, the first being Zammo Maguire. “You boy!” became Bronson’s war cry.
Zammo had other worries. No school drama would be complete without an epic romance. The Romeo and Juliet of Grange Hill were Zammo and Jackie Wright. Their pairing had more obstacles than Shakespeare’s young lovers – she was a Brookdale pupil. Once the schools merged, Zammo had a rival for Jackie’s affections in ‘bovver-boy’ Steven “Banksie” Banks. Actor Lee MacDonald chose his screen girlfriend himself when the BBC auditioned at the Anna Scher Theatre School and picked Melissa Wilks, at this point best known for her “Grand Pricks” faux pas on It’ll Be Alright On The Night. Over four series the Jackie/Zammo/Banksie love triangle remained compelling but it was always Zammo the viewers wanted Jackie to win and Zammo and Jackie’s union would have far more serious obstacles to overcome.
A fourth article was planned in this series on Grange Hill, which would have looked at Zammo and Jackie’s relationship in further detail, and other aspects of the series. However, with the sad death of Simon, it is here that this series must end.
Author
Simon Luxton
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Lee Sparke Grange Hill High School
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