The Other Iron Lady

Chris Hallam remembers the actress Gwyneth Powell who played Grange Hill's long-serving headmistress Mrs McClusky among her many roles

- Chris Hallam

For a decade, she ruled over Grange Hill with a rod of steel. Bridget McClusky first arrived as the new headmistress of the fictional school in the first episode of series four, broadcast on Tuesday 30 December 1980. She quickly learned she had inherited a school in a state of chaos. Pupils no longer wore uniforms and the school was plagued by a spate of vandalism. A small fire even broke out in the school on her first day.

By the time of her departure at the end of series 14 in 1991, much had changed. Uniforms had quickly been restored but the school had faced a financial crisis before merging with neighbouring schools Rodney Bennett and Brookdale, a change which temporarily robbed Mrs McClusky of her headmistress status. After returning to power, following the new headmaster's death in a car accident, she faced new challenges: some serious (a drug problem within the school), some more trivial and ultimately less realistic (the adoption of Harriet, an official school donkey, and a rebellion inspired by a new school radio station, a rarity in British comprehensive schools at the time).

But through it all, the iron will of Mrs McClusky remained indomitable. Her physical stature may have been occasionally mocked (she was commonly referred to as "Bridget the Midget"), but her overall authority was never in doubt. She remains one of the best known of the hundreds of characters to appear during the show's 30-year run between 1978 and 2008. It is probably no coincidence that her tenure coincided with what is now widely seen as the heyday of the popular school drama, bridging the gap from the age of Tucker Jenkins (Todd Carty) and "Pogo" Patterson (Peter Moran) to the era of "Tegs" Ratcliffe (Sean Maguire) and Trevor Cleaver (John Drummond). Neither the school nor the series were quite the same without her.