Sweetly, work clubbed together and bought me four series of Grange Hill for my birthday. Actually, I asked for it as they didn't know what to get me, but it's the thought that counts.
So full of a big lunch, and with Mrs F-C away and not being one for birthday, I settled down to six full episodes of what was once my favourite show. I worried, however, that it might not stand up. I've seen bits of it over the years, and it always looked rather studio-bound and spare. It does, and the acting's shocking, but there's something about it that remains utterly marvellous.
Perhaps it's the nostalgia element: pudding bowl haircuts, those last few sunny days when you got back to school, making new friends, teachers allowed to hit you, the size of your new school, mean older kids making a your life a misery. Oh, those salad days. It's a trip back in time and it does still stand up today.
I was 13 when Grange Hill started in 1978, and it was so amazing because it was Just Like School. Just like it - well, if you lived in Hampshire and went to school that boasted one Asian girl. But it was still all about a modern comprehensive and tackled issues close to teenagers' hearts Nothing I'd ever seen before had come close. I thought Tucker, who was my age, was quite scary and me being more the Justin Bennett type would have been scared in real life. But they all look so young and so thin.
I met Todd Carty many times over the years, and he's a really nice guy. It was like a dream for me to sit and interrogate him about being Tucker and he was quite happy to talk about it, too.
It's great to spot the stars of today and also to see how many classmates you can recall. I'mm going to enjoy this very much and I can't wait for my favourite episode, the one where Cathy Hargreaves (my schooldays crush) went shoplifting with scary Madeleine Tanner who wore a racy dark green leather jacket.
Look out! There's a flying sausage coming your way.
