Grange Hill

When I was a kid, I wasn't allowed to watch Grange Hill by my mother in case it made me too scared to go to secondary school. I remember thinking that secondary school must be really dramatic if it was anything like the illicitly watched snippets I saw at people's houses. Despite the fact I think I had already gained an understanding of how TV and real life weren't necessarily identical, my Mum wanted to ensure that secondary school was something to be embraced. I was also specifically forbidden from watching The Bill, which presumably was either to make sure I wasn't too scared of the police to commit crimes, or to protect me from the overexcitement of people shouting at each other woodenly about crimes which always turn out to be intricately interconnected with one another and fortunately reach complete resolution by the end of the episode (unless it's a two parter where you can guarantee a cliffhanging volte-face at the end of the first half). I assume I will probably impose arbitrary rules on our future children's viewing habits, but I like to believe that I will at least embrace the arbritraryness and pick forbidden programmes based on the font of the titles, the name of the lead character or something equally fatuous.