Late 80s Brookside

[James from London]

December 1987, and the contest is on between the Corkhills and the Grants to see who can have the most miserable Christmas. The Corkhills get off to a head start when they receive a card from Doreen somewhere in Bristol telling them to get on with their lives without her. Billy has a heart to heart with each of his kids, and agrees to let Rod the Plod contribute financially to the household and to start treating Tracy like a grown up. In spite of their troubles, they resolve to have a family Christmas, but then Rod agrees to pound the Crimbo beat, Billy gets some unexpected work that takes place all over the holidays, and Tracy and Jamie fall out after he makes a crack about her mum having another fella. So Tracy is left sitting on the sofa with her nan, pulling crackers and listening to anecdotes about Brycleem. Over at the Grants, the plan is for Bobby, Sheila and our Claire to drive to their Margaret's in Basingstoke on Christmas Eve. On the way, Bobby, fresh from an office party, is pulled over by the police and breathalysed. After he tests positive, the family return the close, where Bobby and Sheila bicker and he storms off to the pub. Barry follows him down there and they have a heart to heart about our Damon. (Barry also sets eyes for the first time on Boring Sue, the woman he will push off a scaffolding to her death once the show has turned to crap.) Meanwhile, Sheila sits at home, seething quietly.

I think you must have a TARDIS to fit in all the rewatch time you seem to have.

I fear the Monsters of Reality will soon be on my tail ...

[James from London]

January, 1988. The year gets off to a pretty good start for the Corkhills--once you get past Rod the Plod vomiting all over himself after encountering his first stabbing victim--when Billy is finally offered a full time job. Meanwhile, Bobby's New Year's resolution is to stay off the booze. "New Year, new start," he declares. "New relationship with our Barry? He's the only son you've got left," Sheila reminds him. An attempt to reach out to Barry results in a shouting match between father and son, and Bobby throws Barry out of the house. Sheila tries to intervene, but Bobby is insistent: "It was either him or me." It doesn't take long for Bobby to greak his New Year's resolution, and he and Sheila start to grow apart, bickering over everything from his drinking to her Open University course to how best to parent Claire. Best mate Matty Nolan advises Bobby to put more effort into his marriage. To that end, Bobby arranges to have the living room redecorated while Sheila is away from the house as a surprise for her. When she sees what he has done, she is devastated, as Damon had been the last person to decorate the room: "That wallpaper wasn't any old wallpaper; it was put up with love." She breaks down, Bobby comforts her and they are finally united in their grief. The next night, he takes her for with a romantic meal in a posh restaurant. Conversation is awkward over dinner and Bobby compensates by hitting the vino. The more he drinks, the louder he gets and the more Sheila is embarassed.

[James from London]

When they get back home from the restaurant, Bobby tries to bridge the gulf between him and Sheila by getting physical. She is reluctant, but he persists and ends up forcing himself on her. Afterwards, he weeps with remorse and apologises repeatedly. "You're all the same," responds Sheila, lying with her back to him. Rod and Tracy worry when Billy goes to Bristol in the vain hope of finding Doreen. He thinks he sees her on a bus, but loses her in the traffic. Sheila can relate--she follows a lad down the street because she thinks he's Damon. She and Bobby comfort one another briefly, before arguing over what should become of Damon's bedroom. Sheila insists that it be turned into a study room for her "so that I can learn the things I should've learned twenty years ago." Tracy asks Billy again why Doreen left, and he tells her a half-true story involving the supermarket robbery and her mugging. Tracy takes Jamie back, but insists on a belated Chrissy present. When he loses his job for sleeping in the company van, Jamie asks if he can resume sleeping on the Corkhill couch. Billy's brother Jimmy has beaten him to it, having been lashed out by his wife, the as yet (thankfully) unseen Jackie. Billy offers Jamie the living room floor instead, and Rod the Plod complains that his home is being turned into a doss house. The bad times continue to roll at the Grants when Bobby goes to court following his drink driving charge. He is banned for a year. Barry returns, anxious to make amends with his dad, and they bury their differences in the pub. They arrive home the worse for wear, and without the family photograph Bobby has had framed as a peace offering for Sheila. He apologises again. "That's your favourite word isn't it--'sorry, sorry, sorry'?" she replies. "Well, I'm sorry, but it's just not good enough."

[James from London]

Barry learns that Debbie is pregnant with Damon's baby and that her father wants her to have an abortion. Bobby worries how Sheila will take the news: "When she finds out she's pregnant, she'll go beserk. When she finds out they're talking abortion, she'll go off her head!" In the event, Sheila remains calm, but insists on a meeting with Debbie's father. He tells her that Debbie wants to keep the baby and asks for Sheila's help in talking her into an abortion. Sheila refuses, and not just because of her Catholic beliefs. "Can't you see, Mr McGrath? That's all that's left of our Damon!" McGrath explains that Debbie is a diabetic and the pregnancy could be dangerous, but Sheila will not be dissuaded. The discussion becomes heated and Barry ends up throwing McGrath out of the house, just the way McGrath threw Damon out of his. Sheila continues to brood about the baby, and feels let down when Barry suggests abortion might be the best solution after all. The mood is lighter at the Corkhills (heck, the mood was probably lighter at the Nuremburg trials), with Jimmy bringing home venison he bought in a pub on the Dock Road, and Rod the Plod kidding him into thinking it's really human flesh. Then Kathy, Jimmy's long term girlfriend, (played by the mighty Noreen Kershaw, now in LIFE ON MARS) turns up on the doorstep, having been thrown out by her husband. Billy tells Jimmy she can only stay for one night, but Kathy sets about making herself indispensible to the household, roasting chickens and ironing shirts. Billy relents and agrees to let Jimmy and Kathy stay, which means no room for Jamie, until Billy relents even more and agrees to squeeze him in. Oh, it's better than it sounds, honest.

[anniewalker]

Have you signed my petition to try and get the first decade of Brookside released on dvd or not?

[James from London]

Who, me? No, I haven't, but good luck anyway.

So the Corkhills' house is full to bursting, and Jimmy gets the bright idea to convert the garage into another bedroom. Billy reluctantly agrees, on the understanding that the neighbours don't find out (no planning permission, see) and that it only take a couple of days. Of course, it drags on for weeks, and Tracy and Jamie gets fed up with the mess and being Jimmy's lackeys. They decide to stop at a mate's until the work is done. Billy is none too pleased, but there's nothing he can do to stop them. Kathy feels guilty for driving Tracy away. Julia gets all excited about the idea of a granny flat until she realises it's not for her. "What's our Renee going to say?!"

Word reaches the Grants that Debbie has miscarried Damon's baby. Quoting the real life father of a girl killed by an IRA bomb in Enniskillen a few months earlier, Sheila clings to the belief that "this is all part of God's great plan." Bobby does not share her faith and confides to Matty that the two things that mean the most to him, his family and his politics, are slipping away. While Sheila wonders whether they have been told the truth about Debbie, he throws himself into his work. This leads to Sheila accusing him of always putting his socialist principles before his family. "You never loved him!" she says of Damon. "You loved other men's sons more, so long as they were part of your precious union!" Bobby's argument is that, had people stuck to their principles more when it came to Thatcher's government, so many lives wouldn't have been lost over the Falklands, and the likes of Damon wouldn't have been forced to leave home to look for work, and he wouldn't have died. Contrite, Sheila asks him to come to church with her. He gently refuses, suggesting that they each deal with their grief in their own way. "Once upon a time we'd have done them both together," she reflects. "Yeah, once upon a time," he agrees.

[James from London]

Billy hears that from Tracy's boss that she and Jamie are in London with Doreen (but really they've gone there to star in SOUTH, their own soap bubble miles better than DAMON AND DEBBIE). While he worries, Kath urges Jimmy to finish work on the garage-***-extension. In return for some plasterboard and whatnot, Jimmy agrees to hide some knock off gear in the garage. Billy doesn't want Rod the Plod to find out so he asks Barry to help shift it. Barry, having lent Terry £300 to go on a skiing trip with posh Jonathan (widower of the boring Laura), has access to Jonathan's garage where he stores the swag. Sheila catches him and is not best pleased. She has a go at Billy for involving her son in criminal activity and then slags him off for taking in his married brother's fancy piece. ("There's decent people round here trying bring up their kids decent!") Kathy is fuming when she hears about this and marches across the close to tell "Mrs High and Mighty Grant" what for, while Billy and Jimmy watch nervously through the net curtains (echoes of the great Sheila/Marie Jackson battle of 83). When Sheila and Kath come face to face, they recognise each other as old mates. Sheila apologises to Billy for losing her rag and sympathises with him over Tracy. Jimmy's still waiting for the gear he needs to finish the extension, so Kath comes up with a novel idea--why not buy the stuff he needs from an actual shop? When it's delivered, Billy assumes it's more knock off and gets rid of it. When he finds out Jimmy came by it legitimately, he laughs his head off, until he realises he's the one who'll have to fork out for replacements. Rod the Plod goes to meet Tracy's train from London, but she's not on it, having done a runner at the last minute leaving Jamie to return home alone. Rod decides that he and Jamie should get the next train down South to look for her. He only has time to leave a cryptic phone message for his girlfriend, which leaves Billy feeling like his whole family have abandoned him. In London, Rod's eyes are opened to a whole new world of squats, homelessness, kissograms and overacting extras.

[sunshineboyuk]

I can't really join in as I'm watching 1982 so I started another thread but suffice to say I now need as much 80's Brookie as I can get . God it was soooo damn good , I'd totally forgotten....

[sunshineboyuk]

Actually b#llocks to starting another thread I'm just going to gush on this one !

Wow. wow wow wow wow. THIS is tv.

Paul Collins goes for a job interview at 55 years old and thinks he's done really well and he hasn't at all. His daughter Lucy is completely p#ssed off with everything and doesn't want to go to visit her Grandmother's house which is 120 miles away. Heather and Roger Huntington are trying to persuade their neighbours to exert pressure on Gavin Taaylor to take down his shed but no one cares. Gizzmo fancies Karen Grant and Bobby's knackered from work.


That's about the gist of the omnibus episode I just saw and it was the most riveting , thought provoking , life affirming drama . It was brilliant. It was comprised of small things , small moments that made up the bigger picture. It wasn't driven by plot it was just character moments and the quibbles and frustrations of life in a suburban box.

There were no helicopters crashing into the local shops killing off half the cast And there were no bodies under the patio either and it was brilliant. This is the brookie that was good.

It's incredible how isolated each of the families are from each other and how it still works. It works more because of this actually. Sue Johnston is just brilliant as she tells Roger and Heather " It doesn't concern us does it . We can't see his shed from here " . And that is the final line of the episode. And yet its a stunning end , in a very different way from the sopa of today but it just resonates and I must stop posting now and go and see how Roger and Heather are going to cope with Gavins shed !

Loved the Lucy not going to visit her gran arc. It's so real. I used to feel like that . The sulkiness , the abstinance , the weight of the world om ur shoulders as ur parents try and get you in the car for an afternoon visiting the relatives.

God this show is good!

As for Damon , Ducksie and Gizzmo - well There is a bit of each of them in all of us. I think I'm more Damon and Gizzmo than Ducksie but then I suppose its in the eye of the beholder....

[anniewalker]

Actually b#llocks to starting another thread I'm just going to gush on this one !

Wow. wow wow wow wow. THIS is tv.

Paul Collins goes for a job interview at 55 years old and thinks he's done really well and he hasn't at all. His daughter Lucy is completely p#ssed off with everything and doesn't want to go to visit her Grandmother's house which is 120 miles away. Heather and Roger Huntington are trying to persuade their neighbours to exert pressure on Gavin Taaylor to take down his shed but no one cares. Gizzmo fancies Karen Grant and Bobby's knackered from work.


That's about the gist of the omnibus episode I just saw and it was the most riveting , thought provoking , life affirming drama . It was brilliant. It was comprised of small things , small moments that made up the bigger picture. It wasn't driven by plot it was just character moments and the quibbles and frustrations of life in a suburban box.

There were no helicopters crashing into the local shops killing off half the cast And there were no bodies under the patio either and it was brilliant. This is the brookie that was good.

It's incredible how isolated each of the families are from each other and how it still works. It works more because of this actually. Sue Johnston is just brilliant as she tells Roger and Heather " It doesn't concern us does it . We can't see his shed from here " . And that is the final line of the episode. And yet its a stunning end , in a very different way from the sopa of today but it just resonates and I must stop posting now and go and see how Roger and Heather are going to cope with Gavins shed !

Loved the Lucy not going to visit her gran arc. It's so real. I used to feel like that . The sulkiness , the abstinance , the weight of the world om ur shoulders as ur parents try and get you in the car for an afternoon visiting the relatives.

God this show is good!

As for Damon , Ducksie and Gizzmo - well There is a bit of each of them in all of us. I think I'm more Damon and Gizzmo than Ducksie but then I suppose its in the eye of the beholder....

Have you Sunshineboyuk signed my Brookside petition or not.

[sunshineboyuk]

Not .

Joy and bliss as Karen Grant gets discovered with the pill and all hell breaks loose in the best family domestic scene's I've seen for ages and ages ! They are as funny as they are serious and there isn't a moment in the Grant scenes that I dont feel complete empathy for every single character in the family , this sh#t is good folks !! Really , really good.... I'd forgotten how FUNNY Ricky Tomlinson's Bobby culd be - and I'd also forgotten how hard he used to smack Damon around the head . Ouch !

The Huntington scene's are so complex ! The issues in each scene are both trivial and huge at the same time. Again I'd forgotten how great Spendlove and Burton were in the early years...

Gavin is the original Billy Corkhill - obviously - duh - he came first ! But Gavin reminded me of Billy a lot , I'd never really made the connection before. Petra connected . She connected with a jug and smashed up a glass door when things came to a head with Gavin. He doesn't want kids and she's about to be sexually harrassed by her slimy boss at work i suspect... Its so exciting...

I think I've found a new tv religeion ( i can never spell that word ) and its called Brookside ,Brookie whatever, but its a drama experience i must relive all over again . So I am going back to my Tv Drug Dealer ( u kno who u r ) and I'm ordereing a big phat hit of Brookie. Drown me in it , overdose me I dont care , It'll be worth it.

Brookside - the early years - Must See Tv

[sunshineboyuk]

Oh Brookie just broke my heart in about 4 places ..... Gizzmo wrote Karen a Valentines and Damon found it and showed it to Gizzmo. Karen comes back and catches them and tells Damon not to show her Valentines to " any old dog on the street " and to " Divvy's " and " pillocks " and every other put down she can think of. Gizzmo admits he sent the card and walks off and I was suddenly 15 years old again . God this show is good. It's just the best drama Britain has ever produced

Over at The Collins Lucy is preparing for the Debating Society and the whole Collins storyline becomes about seeing other peoples points of view , its subtle and beautiful and complex and I just applaud everything about Brookie...

I may have to take two years off work and watch Brookside full time. I wonder if there's a government grant I could claim ?

[James from London]

Totally, totally. BROOKSIDE is where I learned the true meaning of drama. It's about details. If you can make people believe in the small moments--Bobby patting his wife and kids' heads whern he gets up from the breakfast table to go to work, the kids squabbling about who sits where in the car, Bobby asking where Sheila where she keeps the bleach ("Same place I've kept it for the last thirty years")--you can make them believe in the big moments. The important things aren't bodies buried under the patio or under the pub, it's a whole episode dedicated to a housewife losing her part time job in a cafe, or a daughter plucking up the courage to tell her Catholic parents she doesn't want to go to Mass anymore. If you don't earn the big stuff, it's meaningless.

1988: Rod returns home empty handed while Jamie stays down in London to look for Tracy. Still, at least the Corkhill garage has been turned into a habitable bedsit. Sheila gets caught in the middle when Tracy returns home unexpectedly in the middle of the day with no key, having had her horizons well and truly broadened. Sheila offers her a coffee. Billy arrives home and sees his daughter through the Grants' window. He bursts into their house and gets all emotional on Tracy's ass. He then takes her home where they make amends. Tracy sort explains why she did a bunk--it's all to do with her mum. Jamie returns home the following day, but Tracy refuses to say how she made ends meet in London, leaving Jamie's imagination to run all over Soho. Billy apologises to Sheila for his outburst and confides that, even with a full house, he still feels lost without Doreen. Sheila envies him caring so much about his marriage. "A year ago Bob and I were in Rome," she remembers. "I really thought we'd turned a corner." In his capacity of District Secretary, Bobby is approached by a young apprentice, who faces having his training cut short due to automation. Unsurprsingly, Bobby identifies him as another Damon and encourages the lad's fellow workers to come out on strike in favour of the apprentices. He even offers to donate his own wages to the strike fund. Meanwhile, Sheila confides in her priest about her marriage problems and he suggests a Catholic marriage counsellor. No sooner has Jimmy completed the Corkhill extension than he announces to Kath that he's going back to his wife (her father's popped her clogs and Jimmy thinks there might be some dosh in the offing). Kathy packs her bags, but Tracy and Billy ask her to stay. They like her hot dinners.

[sunshineboyuk]

a daughter plucking up the courage to tell her Catholic parents she doesn't want to go to Mass anymore. If you don't earn the big stuff, it's meaningless.

Oh I so agree! I just saw this episode where Karen tells Sheila she doesn't want to go to church anymore . It's probably the best episode of any soap ever made anywhere in the world. It is priceless. I have nothing more to say about it really because unless you've seen it you can't possibly grasp the content of the drama , it is sublime.....

Equally stupendous is Marie Jackson warning Sheila about Barry's relationship with Petra. It was electric and the things you want from drama. I cannot praise Anna Keavney's performance enough , its heartbreakingly good.... Marie is as delicate as she is tough and it was a joy to see two actresses of such skill deliver performnaces that so so so capture the spirit of the people of this time and place .... wow !

[sunshineboyuk]

I like the Gordon Collins school of hard drinking ...its all too painfully funny for words , its my Blue Remembered Hills ...


" I'll have a pint of bitter beer please "

[Tish Hope]

Where are you people managing to see these episodes, I'm frightfully jealous! Brookside was the only soap I ever watched (apart from Crossroads of course!) and I thought it was marvellous. Great drama as well as giving me Damon, Rod the Plod and later Tinhead to perve over ...

[sunshineboyuk]

I loved Tish ! She was like my favourite Aunty , when she arrived - not often enogh - I knew everything was gonna be ok !

SunnyNet.tv did a licencing agreement with JamesNet to rerun Brookside ....

[James from London]

I like the Gordon Collins school of hard drinking ...its all too painfully funny for words , its my Blue Remembered Hills ...


" I'll have a pint of bitter beer please "

Pure TV gold. You can keep yer Fools and Horses and yer Peggy Mitchells, just give me a pint of bitter beer please. Utterly, utterly priceless.

(I once became dangerously obsessed with a stage production of BLUE REMEMBERED HILLS and went to see it every day.)

Where are you people managing to see these episodes

Good old fashioned videotape, Tish.

JamesNet generously aired an extra large helping of 80s BROOKSIDE this week, due to the sheer enormity of its era-ending brilliance.

OK, so Sheila goes to see the marriage counsellor on her own without telling Bobby. She admits to the counsellor that she blames Bobby for driving Damon away, and herself for not fighting his decision. She realises that she's changed. ("I think Bob'd like to go back - him at work, me at home ... I can't go back, I won't. I wanna take Bob forward if he'll come, but I won't go back.") Meanwhile, Bob is still donating his wages to the strike fund but hasn't told Sheila. Inevitably, each finds out the other's secret and is far from pleased. Sheila then witnesses the tail end of a fight between Kath and Jimmy and invites Kath over for a coffee. Kath makes her laugh and suggests a girls' night out. Sheila's reluctant at first, but is persuaded. "How will we get back?" she asks as they walk over to the Corkhills where Kath is going to lend her some clubbing clobber. "We'll get a taxi," replies Kath, at which point there's a brilliant close up of Sheila where the camera does this Hitchcock type effect and the background suddenly seems loom forward--it's the visual equivalent of a stomach lurch. " I don't wanna go in a taxi," says Sheila. Billy comes home from work to find Sheila stirring his scouse while Kath's upstairs. (John McArdle and Sue Johnston play the awkardness of this scene brilliantly.) Kath comes down and asks Billy if Tracy can babysit Our Claire while they're out gallivanting. Sheila can see in Billy's eyes that he doesn't approve and tries to call the whole thing off. Once again, Kath's persistence prevails. Sheila goes home and Billy warns Kath that their night out is doomed to disaster: "Do you really think he's gonna let her go? ... Married women like Sheila Grant don't go clubbing it!"
Then it's Bobby turn to come home and be surprised by what he finds: Sheila all glammed up and looking Angie Watts-tastic. He wants to know where, why, how and what she thinks she's playing at. So she tells him: "Because you've given me something to PROVE! I need prove to meself that I can go out just once on my own and feel nice, JUST FEEL NICE!!!! Because nearly every night for the last thirty years I have sat in these four walls, LOOKIN' AT THEM! And tonight, for once in my life, all THAT is going to CHANGE!!" "You go out like that and you don't get back in 'ere ever, all right?" "Promises, promises!" Tracy's been delayed, so Sheila leaves Claire with Billy and goes into town with Kath, who's got a bottle of Bicardi in her handbag. "Well, we're not paying club prices." While they jig merrily about on the dancefloor to Phil Redmond's cut price version of Rick Astley, Bobby returns home to an empty house. He snaps and packs Sheila's belongings, Bible and all, into a case and tosses it out into the close. Then he broods and seethes and broods some more. When she still isn't back by midnight, he storms over to the Corkhills looking for his daughter. To his disgust, he learns that Tracy never showed and Billy has been babysitting Claire himself. He takes the little girl back, and tells Billy to tell Sheila that her clothes are in the street. A little while later, he watches through a darkened window as Billy fetches the case into his own house. Back at the nightclub, a tipsy Kath and Sheila have attracted the attentions of a couple of middle aged blokes (including Arthur Brownlow's son Ron) who are under the impression, thanks to Kath, that their husbands are away on the rigs. "It bought us a couple of Bicardi and cokes, didn't it?" Kath tells Sheila by way of explanation. The two men follow them to the chippy and even get on the same night bus. "It's all right," says, Sheila reassuring herself. "They don't know where we live." "I told them," admits Kath, meekly. Back at the Corkhills, they find Billy asleep on the settee. For a laugh, Kath attaches a yellow ribbon to his hair and then wakes him up. She and Sheila go into hysterics as Billy looks at them bewildered. He shows Sheila the suitcase and Kath invites her to stay the night with her in the garage/extension/thingy. Kath then asks Billy if he knows "Tie A Yellow Ribbon Round The Old Oak Tree" which sets them off again. They stop laughing when the two fellas from the club appear in the close and start banging on the door. Kath tries to prevent Billy from getting involved while Sheila drunkenly pleads with them through the door to go away. "He's not on the rigs," she says of her husband. "He's over the road and he can hear you! Will you LISTEN???" Bobby can hear and he barrels across the close, fists flying at the two blokes. Kath and Sheila are oblivious, having collapsed in hysterics over Billy's ribbon again. Then the window in the Corkhills' door is smashed. Billy bursts outside, separating Bobby from the two fellas who finally do one. Sheila and Kath stand chastened in the doorway and Bobby looks at the ribbon in Billy's hair: "What's going on?" Despite herself, Sheila starts to giggle. She goes to take the ribbon out of Billy's hair and Bobby belts her one hard across the face. She stares back at him.

Nest morning, a magnificently hungover Sheila drags her suitcase back across the cul-de-sac in full view of the neighbours. At her request, Barry fixes the Corkhills' door. When Bobby finds out, he is furious and puts it through again. Billy goes to throw a brick through the Grants, until Kath reminds him about the baby living there. In his final ever scene, Bobby admits to Sheila, for the first time, that he is to blame for what happened to Damon. Sheila says that "Damon means pleasure to me now". Then she moves her things into Damon's old room. Barry is awoken the next morning by the sound of his parents' rowing. (In reality, it's a recording of a scene from the previous year, Ricky Tomlinson having abruptly walked off the series never to return.) Sheila explains to Barry they're still arguing about money, or the lack thereof, now that he's thrown his wages into the strike fund. Barry promises to get her some money, and goes off to see S-S-S-Sizzler the crap gangster. Bobby doesn't show up for work. Sheila realises that his clothes are missing and that he's left her.

Tracy dyes her hair black and tells Billy that she has Something Important to tell him. We're meant to think she's pregnant, but she isn't.

[Final Terror]

Oh I'm captivated... but why did Mr Tomlinsons leave so suddenly James?

[sunshineboyuk]

I once became dangerously obsessed with a stage production of BLUE REMEMBERED HILLS and went to see it every day.)



Matthew Kelly was great in a production of it at the Bolton Octagon which was directed by Noreen Kershaw ( Kathy in Brookie )