Educating Cardiff (episode 1) took us to Willows School, recently turned around, we were told, by ebullient headteacher Joy Ballard and her team. The focus in the first episode was on Year 11, the GCSE year, although we did get a charming look at a Year 7 class being assured that the sun did indeed rise in Wales ('it's the one thing that turns night into day'), even though it didn't always feel like it; and the same class, I think, were involved in fantastic act of brinkmanship around the lunch break ('We're not finishing until this problem's solved'). The teacher in this case, and the one we saw most of, was Mr Hennessy; probably the most arresting moment of the programme was learning that Mr H himself had left school with just two GCSEs. He remembered crying in the kitchen with his mother the day results came out. He knew first-hand how things could go wrong, and went well beyond the limits of duty in trying to make sure that a group of truanting girls rocked up to their classes and took things like mock exams seriously. One of them, Leah, even got a wake-up call from Mr Hennessy each morning. We saw a lot of Leah, a bright girl who didn't see the point in school, although she was inspired by drama (the drama classes looked wonderful, by the way, and the rescue line they offered Leah was thought-provoking at a time when drama and indeed anything creative / expressive gets so little official support.) The other truant girls didn't seem to get so much attention, but that might have been editing. We also met Jessica, the oddball swat who actually wants to use classtime to study. Jessica was more comfortable with adults than her peers, diffident, introspective, not a great mixer, 'quirky' to use the word of the head ('I'm quirky too'). In a great move, Ms Ballard made Jess editor of the school newspaper, and she and her deputies promptly set about interviewing aspiring reporters, collecting comments in a suggestions box and proudly distributing the paper when it was complete. Both Leah and Jess got good news on results day. Leah could go to college and study drama, Jess got a string of As. Ms Ballard's governing style was matter-of-fact, arguing a reasoned case for turning up to school rather than bawling at her charges. I suspect anyone with Oxbridge airs and graces in this environment wouldn't last five minutes. Mr Hennessy stepped neatly into the tough-teacher-with-a-heart-of-gold persona that a series like this needs. The programme was edited from presumably hours and hours of film taken by hidden cameras. Classes looked quite bewildering exercises in crowd semi-management. There were terrific moments of wit (I loved the comment that a group of shuffling teens coming across the playground to school looked like a bad outtake from Reservoir Dogs). Some bits, like a roving reporter eavesdropping on a staff meeting (as teachers bizarrely discussed their fear of crabs and beetroot) had the feel of being staged. But beneath the charm the picture was troubling. Teachers seemed to be working with a population of children who were entirely disaffected. Where do you start with that? We saw nothing at all outside the campus, but it is only when family life is taken into account that the whole picture can emerge. I understand that Willows is in a very tough, very run-down part of Cardiff. What are the likely prospects for these children? What are their parents' expectations? As ever, the music pulled me whichever way the producers wanted my heart to go. I hope we'll meet a Welsh speaker before the series is done.
The Catch took us to a very tough place indeed, the fishing vessel Govenek as it sailed through a storm to trawl in the Atlantic, two hundred miles off the Cornish coast. I realised I knew nothing about fishing at all. For example, I didn't know that the men are not paid a regular wage. Instead they share the income from each catch, and are at the mercy not just of the tides and weather but also of constantly fluctuating prices. It was because foreign vessels had flooded the market and driven down prices that Govenek's crew had to stay out in the storm and go deep into the Atlantic (the eleventh, whatever that means), in the hope of catching enough to cover the costs of the trip. In the event, they came across a school of turbot and netted (hey, is that where that metaphor comes from?) £50,000 worth. (The selling is done at auction to supermarket buyers, with Govenek represented by an agent. There is a mark-up of over 50% by the time it arrives in the shops.) While crews are usually different for each voyage, skipper Phil has a loyal team who sail with him regularly, trusting his judgment and putting up with his occasional irate visitations to the deck, hurling crates around and stomping off in a blizzard of expletives. The crew also had under their wing novice seaman Loui, from Essex, an interesting young man with a background in home schooling, no qualifications, an adoring mum and an obvious desire to put on a good show and be accepted as one of the boys. He made a good enough job of it to be allowed the honour of casting a grappling hook (or something) and getting invited back for a second trip. The Catch made it clear that this trade is serious, dangerous business. 'What's the worst injury you've seen?' 'Death. Death over the side, by drowning.' Phil remembered a man going overboard. He reached him in the water but didn't have the strength to get him back on board. 'He's still out there somewhere.' Great television. Humbling. Willows and the Govenek. Which would find me more of a useless burden, I wonder? And who would jump in to save me? (Why, Phil or Mr Hennessy, of course, two of Britain's last real men.)
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