Grange Hill in the 1990s

I used to watch Grange Hill regularly and I also saw the repeats of the 80s series on Sunday mornings. Something I noticed about 90s Grange Hill is that continuity was poor, somethines characters would disappear after a series and would never be mentioned again. This even happened with two main characters, there was a girl called Anna who was a main character in 1995 and 1996, she was seen kissing Chris (Ben Freeman, who was later in Emmerdale) in her last appearance. When the next series started the actress had left and Anna wasn't mentioned once.

The character of Chris, again a main character, disappeared after two series later and was never mentioned again once. There would also be characters who would leave after one year of the sixth from and never be mentioned again.

I also remember Scottish woodwork teacher Mr Mackenzie who was in the series for longer than Bullet Baxter. By 1992, Mr Mackenzie's appearances became less frequent and in the 1993 series he was reduced to a minor character in a few episodes. The actor mentioned in recent years that "the accountants came in and I had fewer scenes", but by the next series Mr Mackenzie had typically just disappeared with no mention.

The only other series I can think of where characters just disappeared on regular occasions was Crossroads. I can't understand why Grange Hill writers didn't mention characters leaving, especially Mr Mackenzie after 9 series.

To be fair a lot of TV series back then were like that. Casualty and London’s Burning were the same! You’d have major characters regularly appear throughout a series then suddenly disappear the next never to be mentioned again. It’s even more apparent now with the daily repeats on Drama.

Grange Hill would be similar to Waterloo Road with actors who’d grow out of their characters (who would naturally leave school anyway) so would change from series to series. It’s a shame there aren’t any productions like this atm as it’s a great training ground for younger stars. Ackley Bridge probably the nearest contender.

I’m binge watching this at the moment - on series 13.

This was common throughout the entire series. There were very few characters who had a proper ending - Tucker and Tommy were the only ones from the original gang, and we never found out what happened to other main characters like Duane Orpington, Roland Browning, Paul ‘Hollo’ Holloway and Luke ‘Gonch’ Gardener.

I'm binge watching the adult version of this - Waterloo Road. Never realised how good this was when it was on TV but now I'm hooked.

I suppose in a series like Grange Hill that took up a relatively short part of a year on screen with new episodes ( eg nine weeks during the eighteen episode era ), do you spend the first couple of episodes going “ Oh I see Tom has left “ for the various pupils / teachers? It could sound very convoluted.

Most of the ( main ) young characters would reach the end of their school years and off they toddle.

I remember someone writing into the GH annual commenting that someone started secondary school in GH at the same time as them, but then seemed to be a year ahead. Phil Redmond admitted that they did this to move on the stories / characters, in order to introduce new pupils.

I suppose in a way its much like life, parents up sticks and move somewhere else for reasons of work/personal/fun and the kids have no choice but to go with them. Or somebody you knew and used to "hang out" (do they still say that?) with has had to go to another school for some reason... Next time you hear from any of these people its twenty years later on a social media account and inevitably you find out they didn't go to college/university and they're in a job earning twice as much as you do for half the hours worked.

I lost contact with most people who I was at school with, and discovered a large chunk of them on Facebook many years later. Still haven't said two words to most of them mind you, nothing changes after 20 years

Roland did make it to the sixth form, though and when he was in the series there was only one year of sixth form. Gonch also made it to the end of the 5th year, but you are right about Hollo, he was the first main character to disappear without any explanation and he left after the 1987 series. 1988 was when Grange Hill started to change to some extent, a rearranged theme and new titles, but I think it was a mistake to scrap the famous theme completely like they did from the 1990 series. Also, it was from 1988 onwards when more characters left with no explanation.

I just think it was bad continuity not to mention Anna or Chris as they were main characters

A lot of Gonch’s year group who were left at the end of series 12 went on to the 13th, the only exceptions being Helen, Gonch, Ziggy (who was given a leaving storyline), Vince and Danny (who died in series 12).

The original group did a good job of keeping most people in until the end of series 4/series 5. With Duane and pogo’s year group, a lot of it was replaced after one or two series because they weren’t gelling well, so characters like Tracy (Amanda Mealing) and Micheal Green (Benny’s brother) left after one or two series, to be replaced with characters like Stewpot and Claire.

There were a lot of pupils in Zammo’s year, and a lot of them left with no mention, or no on-screen departure. The worst group was Gonch’s however, who had characters like Hollo and Jane Bishop leave with no explanation.

Of course, the teachers were even worse. From the top of my mind, I can only think of three teachers who had an on-screen departure as such, these being Mr Mitchell, Mr King and Mr Bronson. Some were mentioned in the first episode of the next series (most of the reasons given was ‘moved to another area) like Miss Mooney, Mr Hopwood, Mr Smart and Mr Baxter.

Some teachers just vanished though, like Miss Summers, Miss Peterson, Miss Thomas, Mr McGuffy, Miss Washington, Mr Kennedy, Mr Scott, Miss Partridge and Ms Reagan.

Never quite felt the same when they changed the music. Also in that series there was some sort of pub fight scene involving the John Alford character. It was incredibly violent and I think the large amount of complaints got quite a lot of press coverage.

It felt a bit like the show was being provocative for the sake of it, as it didn’t have a worthwhile issue like drugs or bullying underpinning it.

I’m watching those episodes at the moment, and there has been a change of tone in series 13. A lot of dramatic music which seems like it should be in Eastenders or something, not Grange Hill.

The pub storyline has gone on for way too long in my opinion.

For me and most 90s kids the 90s theme is Grange Hill. Apart from when BBC2 reaired the early series in the 90s has Grange Hill ever been repeated on UK television?