40 YEARS ON: ZAMMO’S Grange Hill hit home.. it changed children’s TV forever
Zammo in heroin storyline Lee, left, talks to Erkan regularly
Erkan Mustafa – now a 47-year-old writerproducer – who played bullied Roland Browning.
Grange Hill, set in the fictional North London borough of Northam, was initially conceived as a nine-part series. Yesterday, ex-cast and crew met at Royal Holloway University in London to celebrate at an event organised Erkan as Roland and Lee as Zammo with TV archive organisation Kaleidoscope. Spokesperson Chris Perry said: “Kaleidoscope organised anniversary events for Blue Peter and Play School, so it seemed natural to do likewise for Grange Hill. “It was a pivotal moment in TV drama. Without it, we would have no Tracy Beaker, Byker Grove or Hollyoaks nowadays. Forty years deserves a celebration.” Viewers were captivated by the show’s groundbreaking storylines.
Over the years it won four BAFTA awards and clocked up many other nominations.
One of its best known and most controversial plots saw Zammo get addicted to heroin in 1986.
The Beeb consulted Lee’s parents and took him to rehab centres for research.
Lee, then 15, said: “As a teenager, you’re given the lines and you don’t think much about it. But as I got older I realised what a big issue that was.”
The storyline tied in with the Us-led War on Drugs at the time.
Grange Hill’s cast and crew released a cover of campaign song