Child Of The 1980’s

Those good ol’ boys The Dukes of Hazzard burst onto our TV screens in 1979, and kept the police department of Hazzard County busy for 7 seasons, ending in 1985. The Dukes part of the title referred in the most part to the two lead characters, Beauregard Duke and his cousin Lucas Duke, which was a bit of a mouthful so they were known as Bo and Luke instead. They lived on a run down farm owned by their Uncle Jesse, and also yet another cousin, the pretty young Daisy Duke. With all these cousins it must have been a pretty big family, especially considering that Bo and Luke left for one series due to contract issues, and were replaced by two further cousins, Coy and Vance, the story being that Bo and Luke had left Hazzard to go NASCAR racing!

Of course, probably the most famous thing about the programme was the General Lee, the Dodge Charger which the Duke boys drove around in. It’s horn played a snippet of the song Dixie, and it was painted an orangey red with the US Confederate flag on the roof, and the number 01 on the doors. The doors were welded shut and access to the car was only possible by holding on to the roof and leaping in feet first. For filming the series there were several General Lees, the main reason being that the jumps and other stunts that the Duke boys performed each work had a habit of trashing the cars somewhat.

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The news that Neighbours has just swapped channels in the UK from it’s original home of BBC1 to five, reminded me of how much I used to love the show back in it’s hey-day of the mid to late 1980’s. It may still be on our screens after more than 5000 episodes and 21 plus years, but I no longer watch it, as the odd snippet I’ve seen recently seem to suggest a show about a bunch of thankless teenagers and a group of ineffective adults. Maybe my judgement is clouded by my memories and that was what it always was, but I’m sure it wasn’t.

Anyway, the show launched many careers, for some reason a lot of which have ended up being primarily known as pop stars. Most famous is of course Kylie Minogue, but the list extends to Jason Donovan, Guy Pearce (now a Hollywood star), Natalie Imbruglia, Holly Valance, Craig McLachlan, Alan Dale (he was in Torchwood the other night!) and even, bizarrely enough Russell Crowe, who appeared in four episodes as a petty criminal!

So, here are my memories of those unforgettable characters, on a house by house basis as we move around the most famous road in Erinsborough, Ramsay Street.

The Ramsay Household : Ruled over by gravel voice Madge, who had the tendency to become a bit argumentative when she wanted to be, she generally kept a firm but fair grip on proceedings in her home. Her daughter Charlene was always a little bit hot headed too, but ended up doing alright for herself as she left school and became a mechanic, then married her school sweetheart Scott Robinson. Madge also had a son, Henry, who was a bit of a clown and rarely took anything seriously, but was a good lad at heart. Madge eventually got re-married to Harold Bishop, who ummed and ahhed his way through conversations and could be counted on to disapprove of anything anyone younger than 20 ever did. Somehow we all loved Harold despite all that.

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Flippin’ ‘Eck! It was announced by the BBC last week that after 30 years they have decided to bring school drama series Grange Hill to an end. Creator of the show Phil Redmond was said to be disappointed at the decision, and I can understand why given the rather feeble excuse that the Beeb gave. Apparently, the show no longer represents what school life is about for children of today. Er, hang on a minute. Last time I checked kids were still supposed to go to school every day (truancy problems aside) so how can a programme about a school not be relevant? Presumably Grange Hill the fictional school has changed over the years to mirror the changes in UK schools that have occured, so surely it must still reflect life in secondary school today?

Oh well, the decision has been made, and this years series will be the last, so now seems a good time to remember Grange Hill as it was during the 1980’s. The first thing most people will remember about Grange Hill is “that” theme tune and the comic book beginning featuring a kid reading a comic in class (and being spotted by the teacher), a swimming lesson, a fight in the playground, and of course everybody’s favourite, the sausage on a fork that flew into the dining room scene. Unfortunately the theme song and comic disappeared sometime around the early 1990’s, to be replaced with a rather boring montage style title sequence and a terrible tinkly tonkly theme song.

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Today Is Saturday. Watch And Smile. If you ever wondered why ITV’s anarchic Saturday morning TV show was called Tiswas, then there is your answer.

Before Chris Tarrant started to annoy us all by asking Who Wants To Be A Millionaire contestants if they were sure C was their final answer, and when Lenny Henry was still funny (sorry Lenny, it all started to go downhill after Delbert Wilkins), Saturday mornings were ruled over by a crazy mess of flans, water, musical guests and mad presenters who didn’t care what they were doing so long as someone got either wet or covered in foam.

Chris Tarrant and Sally James were the main hosts of the show, but only really because they were most capable of appearing sane for short periods of time. Chris would keep the show moving along, and was normally armed with a clipboard if I remember rightly. Sally James main role was to provide us with one of her “almost legendary pop interviews”, where she would ask questions to whichever musical act happened to be on that week.

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It’s funny how some shows just seem to run and run, and Blue Peter is one such show.  It must have been watched by at least three generations of kids by now, possibly even four, but for each generation there will doubtless be a particular set of presenters who stick in your memory as being “The Blue Peter Team”.

The show was devised by the humorously named Biddy Baxter, and the presenters I remember most are the trio of Janet Ellis, Peter Duncan and Simon Groom.  You could also add Yvette Fielding (better known now for Most Haunted), Mark Curry, the now late Caron Keeting (daughter of Gloria Hunniford, she sadly died in 2004 from breast cancer) and Sarah Greene to that list, but those first three are the embodiment of Blue Peter for me.

Janet Ellis (mother of pop star Sophie Ellis-Bextor) was a favourite of mine because I used to love watching puzzle show Jigsaw, which she was also presenter on.  She most famously broke her pelvis whilst sky diving as part of one of her challenges.

Peter Duncan was also a bit of a daredevil, eventually getting his own spin off show Duncan Dares.  He ran in several London Marathons I believe, and also had the misfortune of having to wear a green and white checkered suit that made him look like a clown.  The suit was designed by one of the viewers in a competition, so he didn’t have a lot of choice in the matter!  Peter is currently the leader of the UK’s Scouts organisation, and I must say I think he’s an excellent choice.

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Good old Tony Hart. He was one of those BBC TV presenters who looked like a kindly old uncle, with his shock of white hair and his calm voice and mild mannered approach to teaching kids the basics of art. Watching him at work was always a pleasure, and like fellow artist Rolf Harris, he could create a stunning picture from a few simple lines with a thick black marker pen.

Every episode of Take Hart would teach you several new interesting ways of making a piece of art. Some were a bit messy or would be difficult to achieve on the often larger scale that Mr. Hart would work to. For example, painting a picture using paint rollers on a massive sheet of paper using emulsion paint was not the kind of thing your Mum and Dad would readily let you have a go at.

There were plenty of other things you could have a go at though, from the basics of drawing a simple cartoon character through to making three dimensional shapes out of drinking straws and cotton. These are the kind of things Tony taught you and made you want to have a go yourself.

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Hitting our screens in 1984 was the cult Thames Television kids science fiction show Chocky. Based on the John Wyndham (best known for The Day Of The Triffids) novel of the same name, the television version was adapted and updated for the 1980’s audience by Anthony Read.

The story revolves around a fairly average teenage boy called Matthew. Matthew is an adopted son to his parents, who start to worry when they notice that he appears to be talking to an imaginary friend, after all he’s a bit old for that kind of thing. As it turns out Matthew is not conversing with an imaginary friend at all, but a real live alien visitor called Chocky, who talks to him using a mix of telepathy and appearing as a big wibbly blue vortex thingy. They are even more worried when Matthew gets a fever and is unable to sleep because Chocky keeps talking to him all night, asking him questions about Earth.

The link with Chocky eventually does benefit Matthew though, as his intellectual and artistic skills are enhanced and his school work starts to improve dramatically. Unfortunately news of Matthew’s increased performance at school reaches a shadowy government organisation, who suspect that strange things are afoot. They kidnap Matthew to try and find out what is going on…

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Famous for its bright red front door with the huge yellow 7 and 3 daubed on, Number 73 was an ITV Saturday morning show of the kind that lasts most of the morning, and pulls together interviews, music, cartoons and a bit of comedy banter from the regular hosts. It first aired in 1982, only in the TVS region, which caused much consternation to those kids who would rather be watching Tiswas, which was still airing in most of the rest of the country - back in the 1980’s the ITV schedule varied from region to region much more than it does today you see.

Number 73 replaced Tiswas initially for just a six week run, but despite initial complaints it came back every year to cover the beginning of spring, when Tiswas no longer aired. The show was set in the titular Number 73, a suburban family home (well, a studio mock up of one anyway), which was inhabited by the slightly nutty Ethel Spoon (Sandi Toksvig), her nephew Harry Stern (Nick Staverson), her boyfriend Percy Simmonds (Patrick Doyle) and the forever rollerskate clad Dawn Lodge (Andrea Arnold). I think Dawn may have been a lodger (hence her surname) but I’m not 100% sure about that. For the first few series the cast were not credited, which led many kids to come to the conclusion that these were real people rather than actors.

In later years the cast was joined most memorably by artist Neil Buchanan, now host of Art Attack, pop singer wannabe Kim Goody and various others, including the papier mache head wearing Frank Sidebottom.

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