TV takes us back to school, sort of!

With three children, we endured thirty-nine September "first days back at school" over eighteen years. Haircuts, uniforms, bus passes, sports kits, new timetables, and on five occasions; new schools. Those were just the practicalities!

?

The fourteenth series of Waterloo Road (BBC 1) gives us a hair-raising peep into what television understands the return to school would feel like in a northern comprehensive.

?

Things have changed since the first series was aired in 2006. The school is now run by an academy trust where the management speaks in corporate jargon.

?

The trust has relocated the school to a new building with a new head. Joe Casey is completely out of his depth and his colleagues know it.

?

Casey gets some helpful advice from a mentor from the trust, Steve Savage, but Casey didn't anticipate the furore among the staff because the staff room had been re-designated as a student IT hub. They were to be relegated to a "break-out room"; in reality, a windowless cupboard.

?

The unhappiness amongst the staff is mirrored by the older pupils. The sixth-form room is luxurious, even with a snooker table! Sadly, a failed apprenticeship and poor results bring back the unpleasant boy Dean who starts trolling one of the young women students on her phone.

?

It is all very gritty and left me relieved that my children just missed the era of mobile phones and social media. The first episode of The Teacher (Channel 5) reinforces any prejudice we may have against mobile phone technology.

?

Teachers Dani and Jimmy take a party of eight older children on a field studies course. Very quickly we find that one of the boys, Zac, is the school victim and has brought quite a few problems with him.

?

While the two teachers disappear for a bit of "hows-yer-father", it must be said in a very uncomfortable but unwise position in the days of camera phones, as we find out later,? Zac disappears. It is not an altogether believable picture of school life, but the makings of a great mystery.

?

Neither programme is a ringing endorsement for co-education, it was good that both mentioned children who needed care rather than with living with their birth parents. Too often, such children are forgotten.

?

Few of us will forget the rightful outrage generated by Mr Bates vs The Post Office (ITV1) which was aired earlier this year. It showed a hitherto respected institution in an appalling light. Mr Bates vs The Post Office: the Impact (ITV 1) spoke to some of the real people who saw their reputations and lives shredded when the Post Office's IT system suggested they were defrauding funds.

?

Sub-Post Masters and Mistresses are rightly seen as some of the most respected members of their communities. It is heartbreaking to hear the stories of people, who had led impeccable lives, destroyed in the eyes of their neighbours, often in such picturesque places: Anglesey, Somerset, The Lake District and Chichester. The lives of over nine hundred families were destroyed with at least one suicide and countless mental health problems. Alas, the magazine "Computer Weekly", who first broke the story, tell us there is more to come.

?

Just one important quibble. Many of us have seen from the inside how big organisations work. It can be a bit like crowd psychology during a riot, or the top-down "I was just obeying orders".

?

The Chief Executive of the Post Office from 2012, Paula Vennals, left a public enquiry day after day in tears. By the time of her appointment, most of the damage had been done. Vennals tried to pick up the pieces and failed, but it is uncomfortable the way in which she is held to account for the whole fiasco. Had she been a man, the coverage may have been different. Has she turned into the useful witch the media and the establishment can now sacrifice?

?

The British establishment doesn't get a particularly good press in the latest Thinking Allowed: The Changing Nature of the British Elite (Radio 4). We meet Aaron Reeves from Oxford University who has trawled the pages of "Who's Who", the directory of the rich, powerful and influential. Starting in the 1890s he has traced the careers of 125,000 members of the British elite from the 1890s to today. I was particularly interested because I am one of those listed.

?

Reeves found that in the 1890s the most influential 20% of the entrants came from the 1% wealthiest families. When he repeated the analysis in the 2020s, he got exactly the same result, despite the belief that we now live in a more meritocratic society. He also added that the biographies have changed in recent years, with people trying to accentuate their humble origins! How daft is that?

?

When I was a working-class lad in the East End, The Siege of Sydney Street (Talking Pictures TV) was the talk of the playground. We may not have had much money, but we sure knew how to spin a tale. "The Siege" was as much part of East End folklore as Jack the Ripper and the Battle of Cable Street: everybody, knew somebody, who knew something if you get the drift.

?

The insertion of a fictitious romantic thread probably helps narrate the story. However, the events portrayed in Sydney Street were a response to the turbulent politics of Eastern Europe. Small violent pebbles create a ripple effect far beyond their intended target.

?This article first appeared in the Methodist Recorder, 20 September 2024