by Stephen Brotherstone and Dave Lawrence et al

Available now

A lookback at the decade of Grange Hill, V and The Singing Detective…

What’s the 1980s to you? If you’re young enough not to remember it perhaps it’s just when Stranger Things is set and everything was made from neon tubes. If you’re old enough to have had kids of your own it might be the decade where you banned them from watching Grange Hill or caught them sneakily watching a late night Red Triangle film. If you’re middle aged it may be the decade that slaughtered your space heroes at Christmas, made you vow never to look at phenomena in the night sky and wonder just what Mary Whitehouse thought she saw when watching The Singing Detective. If you’re in the latter camp then this is right up your alley.

Unlike 2017s Volume 1, which was a smorgasbord of all things 1970s (even scary crisp packets), this volume has a tighter remit. Originally planned as a single volume, the sheer amount of material means it’s been split into two, with Volume 3 due next summer. While we must wait for the panoply of video nasties and the threat of nuclear Armageddon what we have here is an incredibly detailed and affectionate look at a decade of, frankly, extraordinary television.

The 1970s are often touted as being the Golden Age of British telly, but I’d argue that even a glance at the contents page tells you that the eighties was the era where British TV really grew up and began challenging the audience like never before. There’s no attempt to cover everything; the Scarred for Life ethos seems to be to examine the programmes that most disturbed, confounded or even enraged those who saw it, or at least left a lasting impression. Certainly if I were to pick my 1980s Scarred for Life moments, they’re all here. The aforementioned Blake’s 7 Christmas massacre sits alongside V’s space lizard Nazis, giant Tripods bestride lethal Triffids, and Salem’s floaty-vampire-boy taps on the window while Roald Dahl introduces an unexpected tale (although in our house we called the show Tales of the Bleedin’ Obvious but we loved it anyway). Brotherstone and Lawrence (plus a number of guest contributors) really do seem to have got it all covered, although it should be noted that some entries have been held over for the next volume in order to be placed in their proper context (nuclear horror Threads for example).

It’s not all SF and horror either; one of the joys here is finding elements of non-genre shows that also left scars. So we have a fascinating appraisal of Grange Hill, not only the very high profile Zammo/heroin/Just Say No storyline, but the earlier, rather forgotten, racist bullying plot. Racially charged police dramas have usurped the problematic sitcoms of the 1970s (dealt with with refreshing level-headedness, without swerving criticism, in Volume 1), so we get detailed entries on the gritty and frank Wolcott alongside the much cosier The Chinese Detective, and even a good look at the early years of The Bill, before it descended into soapery. Serious drama for grown-ups is covered with the likes of Troy Kennedy Martin’s Edge of Darkness, Michael J. Bird’s Dark Side of the Sun and Maelstrom, and Dennis Potter’s The Singing Detective (as well as the eventual transmission of his incredibly difficult Brimstone and Treacle, delayed from 1976). Fans of PIFs (Public Information Films) will enjoy the examinations of this decade’s offerings; the 1970s were their heyday I think, but there’s a good few here I’d long forgotten and was pleased to be reminded of, including a timely piece on the resistance to the seatbelt laws that pre-echoes the cries of loss of liberty from 2020’s wilfully unmasked. Plus of course the already much-missed Dave Prowse is given his due for his simple and easy to remember road crossing advice as the Green Cross Code man.

Rather wonderfully (no doubt in part due to being self-published) the authors are able to temper their approach for each entry according to what their readers are likely to want to read about (and themselves write about), lending their text a friendly and very personal tone. These are no dry accounts of facts and figures; the essential information is there, along with necessary context via quotes or news coverage, but it’s usually mixed in with their personal recollections of viewing at the time. Doctor Who, for instance, is covered with a list of the main authors’ favourite Scarred moments (including the inevitable acid bath, crushed hands, puking Cyberman and exploding teenager), rather than by picking over well-worn ground likely familiar to many readers and easily available to others elsewhere should they want it. This personal angle in turn triggers one’s own treasured or even long-forgotten memories, so I hope you’ll forgive me for sharing a few of my own here; it’s that kind of book.

I wasn’t there for Zammo, my mum wouldn’t let me watch Grange Hill due to all the swearing she’d read about in The Telegraph, but no one could escape the media attention it garnered (or that well-intentioned if massively simplistic “just say no” campaign). I was one of thousands of teenagers perplexed and um… frustrated by the distinctly unsexy fare offered under Channel 4’s Red Triangle banner. I too was disgusted and horrified by the teenage girl from V giving birth to the lizard baby. I tuned into Dead Head for, well, a dead head (and Wedge from Star Wars) but stayed for the evisceration of the British class system. I have distinct memories of the walls of the school science block bestrewn with as-seen-on-TV posters about Rabies and Nic-O-Teen’s filthy ciggy habit, replaced mid-decade of course by stern warnings about the new terror of AIDS.

My big two big 80s horrors are present and correct. Firstly the cliffhanger to an Armchair Thriller starring Ian McKellen, as he’s assailed by a horribly mutilated Ringo Starr lookalike outside his train window, smashed and bloodied glasses and all (I refused to go to the loo that night in case the man got me from the window behind the toilet). Secondly, in an illustration of how these chills and horrors can come from the most unlikely of sources, the true nature of the event which lead to Hawkeye’s mental breakdown in the final episode of M*A*S*H (a plotline even more horrific once you know it really happened and a moment that still makes me well up all these many years later).

Of course few of us would have seen everything on offer here, in my case we were a distinctly BBC household (until Channel 4 exploded onto our screens, covered of course in fascinating detail here) so much of the ITV material is unknown to me and it was fascinating reading about all I’d missed. Each entry helpfully points the reader to the relevant DVDs/Blu-rays and failing that whether they’re available on YouTube. They’ve certainly convinced me to add a few items to my watchlist.

As with Volume 1, if you were there I think it’s safe to say this is essential reading. You’ll relive fond memories but also learn a lot about what you didn’t manage to see as well as much about what you did. For those too young to be there then this will give you a sense of what that decade was like far beyond what all those “Weren’t the [insert decade] a bit racist and sexist” shows they churn out, and without the inevitable giggling at the shoulder pads and complicated hairdos. Eighties television was, for the most part, better than that and deserves (as here) to be taken seriously.

Verdict: Once again the Scarred for Life team transport us back with their impeccably researched and eminently readable time-travelling brick of a book. 10/10

Andy Smith

Scarred for Life Volume Two is available as print on demand or as a PDF. Volume One is also currently available by clicking here