Back To The Old School - The Grange Hill Fanzine

24/02/2022

Absolutely awesome gift in the post today from Neil Sausage On A Fork - A Sausage On A Fork mug!

If you've not already checked it out, go give it a listen, a podacst dediated to Grange Hill, interviewing cast members every episode!

17/09/2021

Just got this fantastic DVD to review for our next issue, from the 2019 Grange Hill 40th Anniversary Celebrations!
Produced by the amazing The Good Grief Trust, and featuring absolutely tons of cast members getting together to talk about their time on the show, and so much more. Really looking forward to watching and covering this in our next issue.
Huge thanks to Lee Myers for hooking us up with this.

23/08/2021

If you've not already got on this, then put it on your 'to do' list!
Absolutely belting first episode of Sausage On A Fork - The first ever Grange Hill podcast! Neil is a fantastic and knowledgeable host, and his first guest is the fantastic Ricky Simmonds who played Ant Jones, as he talks candidly and openly about his time on the show, with stories behind the scenes, the cast members, the just say no trip to America, and so much more!
We honestly cant reccomend this enough!

https://open.spotify.com/show/4yPVwjBML0sNZY7oMxmhPM?si=1tVzkAGWR_C2WF6BI8qQaA&utm_source=copy-link&dl_branch=1

Listen to Sausage On A Fork on Spotify. Sausage On A Fork is a podcast dedicated to the U.K.'s longest running children's drama, Grange Hill. Each episode will feature an interview with a former cast member about their life before, during and after Grange Hill.

15/08/2021

We'll be starting work on issue 2 very soon, and hoping to have it released in October (but you know us and deadlines...)
In the meantime, you can still grab issue one while stocks last, £3 from our Big Cartel page.

If you bought the first one, let us know what worked and you enjoyed (and also what didnt work too well). What are you wanting to see in issue 2?
And also, and this is important, was the font size ok? I could fit more in an issue with smaller text, but I'm also very aware that people our age start struggling without reading specs....

We have a few more in stock!
£3 plus postage. Available from grangehillfanzine.bigcartel.com

The unofficial Grange Hill fanzine!
Exclusive interviews with Paul McCarthy (Tommy), Mark Baxter (Duane), Sara Sugarman (Jess), Ian Congdon-Lee (Ted) and Lisa Skeates (Christine).
We delve into the music of Grange Hill, and we find out the favourite 80s albums of 4 cast members from different eras - plus Captain Sensible!
Plus articles on Mr Bronson, The Mean Girls of Grange Hill, Romances, Tuckers Luck, End of the 80s, First Day of School, Reviews, & more!

Please Share!

13/05/2021

I'm feeling super generous today, so I'm going to give away a FREE copy of our first issue! To enter all you have to do is:

1. 'Like/Follow' the Back To The Old School page.
2. Screenshot one of your favourite scenes/storylines/characters and post it in the comments below.

Tomorrow lunchtime I'll get my 3 year old to randomly pick a picture in the comments, and that person will get sent a copy of issue 1!
Enter as many times as you fancy.

21/04/2021

We have a few more in stock!
£3 plus postage. Available from grangehillfanzine.bigcartel.com

The unofficial Grange Hill fanzine!
Exclusive interviews with Paul McCarthy (Tommy), Mark Baxter (Duane), Sara Sugarman (Jess), Ian Congdon-Lee (Ted) and Lisa Skeates (Christine).
We delve into the music of Grange Hill, and we find out the favourite 80s albums of 4 cast members from different eras - plus Captain Sensible!
Plus articles on Mr Bronson, The Mean Girls of Grange Hill, Romances, Tuckers Luck, End of the 80s, First Day of School, Reviews, & more!

Please Share!

12/04/2021

Nice little write up about our fanzine by the awesome people over at Grange Hill Gold website! Go check out the site if you've not already, loads of news, interviews, pics and more!

https://grangehillgold.wordpress.com/2021/04/11/grange-hill-fanzine-now-available/

Way back in the early 80s, Grange Hill the TV series had its own magazine and annuals, whilst on screen Grange Hill school regularly had its own school magazine, fanzine or newsletter – alway…

12/04/2021

We are down to our last 20 or so copies of issue #1!
Thank you to everyone thats bought a copy, we've had some amazing and positive feedback from lots of you, so hopefully we're doing something right.
If you're still wanting a copy, get on it quickly, these last ones will probably be gone by the end of the week, and not sure when we'll be getting a repress.
www.grangehillfanzine.bigcartel.com

09/04/2021

Who needs a playlist for the weekend?
In our first issue we discuss the best music in Grange Hill, as well as get 4 different generations of the Grange Hill cast joined by Captain Sensible to come up with their favourite albums of the 80s - and so we've created a playlist on Spotify inspired by the article. With artists like Spandau Ballet, UB40, The Jam, Blondie, David Bowie, Bananarama & The Clash, and so many more, it'll keep you uplifted right through the weekend! Enjoy!

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4nGc4Y7mlLPS9hK3QUqySy?si=PIsvnavVSTW7HgZHc6vk7w&utm_source=copy-link

08/04/2021

Who's got their fanzine already?
Our reprint is selling well, just posted another load off today - we've even recently had orders from Ireland and Canada! If you've not got yourself a copy yet, you can get one from grangehillfanzine.bigcartel.com
And we've already started thinking about improvements and articles for issue 2!

07/04/2021

Back in stock!
Issue #1 of our Grange Hill fanzine is back in stock and available from our BigCartel site.

Visit https://grangehillfanzine.bigcartel.com/

06/04/2021

Issue 1 will be back in stock and on sale on Weds at 10am!
We have postage rates up now for other parts of the world where people have enquired from, and also for those of you who enquired about Postal Orders, we can do that too - just message us to sort that out.
If copies sell as fast as they did last time, we will get another batch printed straight away, and they take about a week to get to us, so keep that in mind if your don't get an order in early.

Follow the link below to get yourselves a copy from tomorrow...
https://grangehillfanzine.bigcartel.com/

30/03/2021

As some issues are now hitting peoples doorsteps, we thought we'd do a quick follow up on one of our articles. In 'The Grange Hill Romances' we talk about the stories and relationships between Alan & Susi, Mr Sutcliffe & Miss Mooney, Zammo & Jackie, and Fay & Mr King.
What other GH Romances did you enjoy, and we should maybe cover in the next issue? Claire and Stewpot, with the complications of Duane and Annette thrown in would be one of our favourites, and we want to cover that next, but what other ones need exploring?

29/03/2021

SOLD OUT!

They flew out of our hands faster than Gonchs Hot Toast! We've already placed an order with the printers for a re-print, and that will be with us on Weds April 7th - Easter got a bit in the way there, otherwise we'd have had them earlier.

Thanks to everyone who bought one, we've posted them all out and they should be with you soon! Let us know what you think to them!
Huge thanks too to all the cast who've helped contribute to it, and also to the admins of the GH groups who've offered advice and allowed me to promote it on their pages. They've really helped build a huge community for us all to reminisce and enjoy Grange Hill,so hats off!

We started this project as a means to keep sane during lockdown, we've not done it to make money, we're happy we broke even - we're just huge fans of the program and wanted to do something to celebrate it. And we can't believe all the postive support we've received already, it means the world to us! Hopefully we've done a good job, and that you all enjoy it.

We'll post up a few pages to read online this week, for everyone that missed out on the first print. We'll also have overseas postage rates and postal orders available for the next run too, please get in contact if you have any questions about it. If all things go to plan you'll be able to place orders Weds 7th!

Peace!

29/03/2021

ALMOST SOLD OUT!
Wow! We are down to our last 5 copies!
We have aleady placed an order with Mixam for another batch, and that will be with us Wednesday April 7th, so unless you're very quick and grab one of these last few copies, then there'll be a wait of just over a week until we're selling again.
We'll post up something once these last copies are gone, and will be updating you with overseas postage fees, and also the option to use Postal Orders for those who don't like to purchase things online. Any other questions or queries, just ask us.
Thanks to everyone that ordered a copy (or two) this weekend, they're all posted off and should be with you in the next day or so.

Edit: Completely sold, out until next week!

28/03/2021

Flippin' Heck! I'm gonna break me back carrying this lot to the post office tomorrow! Thank you so much to everyone that's ordered a copy of our first issue already, we're completely blown away by the support!
Bloody good lot you are!

27/03/2021

The unofficial Grange Hill Fanzine is now available! Visit our BigCartel page, and purchase via Stripe or PayPal.
Its £4.85 ppd in the UK.
We'll be getting overseas postage costs sorted at the start of the week, so will keep you updated there.
We'll also be putting a few pages to read for free online next week too.

https://grangehillfanzine.bigcartel.com

26/03/2021

Just to let you all know where we're at with selling the fanzine, as we've been getting a lot of interest. We're gonna pop to the post office tomorrow morning to confirm post rates, as its pretty heavy, and classed as large letter, so 1st class will probably be £1.83, or thereabouts.
It will be up available on our BigCartel site some point after that. If you'd prefer to save some pennies and have it sent 2nd class I'll have an option somewhere to do that. I just need to confirm prices with the posties before I add p&p.

We're completely in love with how its turned out, and really hope you all enjoy it. We'll have a link where you'll be able to read a few pages online at some point over the next few days, just so you know what the quality of writing/layout etc is like in case you were unsure about buying. Its a glossy full colour cover, with 74 high quality b&w pages of original content, professionally bound with a spine. Its not a shoddy photocopy job, its a proper high quality print.

Absolutely massive thanks to Sara Sugarman, Mark Baxter, Paul McCarthy, Ian Congdon-Lee, Lisa Skeates, Sheila Chandra, George Wilson, Renée Montemayor and Captain Sensible for their contributions.

Keep an eye on these pages, and we'll let you all know once it goes up on sale.

Here's a link to our BigCartel page, where you'll be able to get it:

https://grangehillfanzine.bigcartel.com/

Online shop for Back To The Old School, the unofficial Grange Hill fanzine.

26/03/2021

Just arrived! Absolutely amazed at the quality of the print job, thanks to Mixam! Will be on sale this weekend on our Big Cartel page!

18/03/2021

The fanzine is all done and dusted, and has been sent to the printers. The worlds first Grange Hill fanzine should be available next Friday!
Interviews with cast members: Sara Sugarman, Paul McCarthy, Mark Baxter, Lisa Skeates, Ian Congdon-Lee, plus chats about 80s music with others members of the cast, and also Captain Sensible, articles on Mr Bronson, The Meanest Girls of Grange Hill, the Best Episodes, The first day of school, the Tuckers Luck spin off, our favourite GH Romances, Reviews, plus so much more, jam packed into 76 pages of pure nostalgic cult tv fun!

Not for sale to Brookies!

Keep an eye for the official release date on our socials, or our Big Cartel page (once we figure out how to add PayPal to it)...
https://grangehillfanzine.bigcartel.com/

Online shop for Back To The Old School, the unofficial Grange Hill fanzine.

15/03/2021

Coming soon! We're very nearly there now, we just have to spell check and tweak a few pages layouts, and then it'll hopefully be off to the printers this week, and on sale the following week! Full colour cover, and a whopping 76 pages of Grange Hill!
Copies will be available from our Big Cartel page, which we're just setting up, we'll stick the link up soon as we know when we'll be getting them back from the printers. Crazy excited about this!

09/02/2021

With Valentine's Day just around the corner, we thought we'd show you all who we've picked in Part 1 of our (hopefully) on going articles on Grange Hill romances. The up and down struggles of Zammo & Jackie, the original Grange Hill couple Alan & Susi, the teacher romance of Mr Sutcliffe and Miss Mooney, and the controversial teacher/student fling of Mr King & Fay. Which of these storylines had you hooked? And which ones would you like us to cover in a future issue?

04/02/2021

Another great interview added to our first issue, this one with the absolutely lovely Lisa Skeates who played Christine Everson from series 5 in 1982 through to series 7 in 1984, we chat about the haircut from Precious, her first scenes and much more...

04/02/2021

We've just completed an article about the 'Bad Girls'of Grange Hill. From GHs first ever bully Jackie Heron, to Madeline Tanner, the duo of Mandy Firth and Sarah Wilks, Imelda and her Terrahawks, to Alice Rowe and more... Who were your favourite bad girls?

12/01/2021

Check some of these pics out on Twitter - Disney style animation versions of some of our favourite GH characters!

https://twitter.com/hill_grange/status/1349018025228447750?s=19

“If Grange Hill had been a Disney/Pixar production - a thread.”

08/12/2020

Another interview added to the first issue, with Ian Congdon-Lee, who played Ted Fisk in series 11 through to 15. Ted was part of the bully gang Gridiron Crew, and later was involved in Grange Hills first pregnancy storyline.

08/12/2020

We've had to take a bit of a break from this fanzine recently, a trip to hospital and some minor surgery, and a lot of rest, hopefully that's the last of it. So the last month theres been nothing done, totally throwing my chances of it being out before Xmas. However, on a brighter note, it has allowed me to get a couple more interviews sorted out, and now I'm feeling a lot better I can crack back on with it all. I'm not sure about a timescale on when it'll be out, we'll maybe send it to the printers in January now, later than I wanted, but health comes first, and occasionally life throws a left hook. Thanks for sticking by, and we'll keep you updated with what's going on as it happens.

14/11/2020

Just a quick note to let you all know I'm a bit behind schedule - I've just got out of hospital today, been bad for the last week but hopefully it's not too serious, it's just cost me a couple of weeks work on this. In gonna rest up this week before more tests and then I'll be working hard at it. Its very doubtful I'll be sending it to the printers in the next couple of weeks though as planned.
On the plus side it means I've hopefully got a bit more time for a couple more interviews to get back to me.

* Not a sympathy post either, I'm getting better, I'm just totally bushed and not had the spare time to do this, and didn't want people to think I've abandoned it. It was looking rad before I got ill.