So, Farewell Then, Grange Hill

My father regarded the "rude, ill-mannered children" depicted on it with utter horror.

And he was right, of course.

Grange Hill set the agenda now followed by the soaps, not only in making teenagers the main characters (increasingly the case on Coronation Street and EastEnders), but also in depicting extreme violence and sexual promiscuity, drug abuse, gangsterism, and daily screeching matches as the mainstays of ordinary life in general and of ordinary working-class life in particular. Just as long as nobody swears, of course.

EastEnders, above all, is now set in the Sixties, with Krayalikes, Mrs Mops, few or no Asians, few black characters, everyone using the launderette, and (as in all the soaps) a quite extraordinary amount of time spent in the pub.

Still, we should be pleased that these really are proper pubs, even if Coronation Street does depict an entire factory-full of machinists having a big, boozy lunch in one every day before heading back to work for the afternoon. For that matter, there is something rather touching about the continuing depiction on Corrie of a working textiles factory in this country.

We all know about the actors, but someone should also look into how many writers and production staff from teenage drama series, especially Grange Hill, have gone on to work for the soaps. Rather a lot, I suspect.