Go Grandpa!

I had two grandfathers, which is the usual number, although it later transpired that my paternal grandfather wasn't exactly a blood relative - but that's another story.

The were a cheeky pair. My maternal grandfather was already in his 50s when my mum was born, so he was pretty old by the time I came along. He'd spent World War I on the front line as an engineer mending the little train which took food to the soldiers. Every day the Germans shot the train to bits and every day my Granddad - who was called Frederick but known as Jimmy - fixed the little train and sent it back to the front to be shot at again. I remember his cardigans, sitting on his lap shrieking "tickle me slowly" and paper bags full of stripy humbugs.

The other one - Stanley - was our very own Percy Thrower. His garden was huge and bursting with vegetables and fruit. He'd arrive to dig our garden in his old suit, hang his jacket on a garden fork, roll up his shirt sleeves and set to the double digging. In his youth he was an excellent snooker player and behind the wheel of a car he was utterly lethal.

They're long gone now and I have children of my own and they have their own grandpas. Granddad Peter looks after St Anne's Head lighthouse in his spare time, so my two think it's perfectly normal to have the free run of a lighthouse from time to time. Granddad Bob is impossibly tall, ex-army former butler to Lord B, with a handlebar moustache and the bearing of great grandpa Wallace who was in the Horse Guards.

There's a unique bond between grandparents and their grandchildren. There's no need for discipline and often there's a mischievous anti-parent, 'let's see what we can get away with' bond. This is the basis of the BAFTA nominated CBeebies series Grandpa in my Pocket, of which I've just been sent series one, volume two for review (out today with a finger puppet of grandpa, so his young fans can put him in their own pocket).

We hadn't seen this before for some reason but I mentioned it to friends who said it was good. So we watched it and it was. Grandpa is played by James Bolam who has been on my TV since he was a Likely Lad and right up to the present with his New Tricks. He has a shrinking cap which he puts on his head to shrink down to fit the pocket of his grandson Jason.

Grandpa does fun things like drive a toy car, fly a plane and ride on the back of Gordon the seagull. He loves hiding in things and making them look alive to the other grown-ups and he uses his voice to pretend that his Yorkshire terrier Beowulf can actually talk. Jason - and us, the viewers - are the only ones in on the joke and it's really quite fun. Grandpa does quite naughty things really and runs about the house causing comedy chaos - chased by Jason - shouting: "Catch me if you can!"

My six-year-old loved it. My elder daughter stated it was B. O. R. I. N. G. but as she's eight going on 13 so that's understandable. It's gentle and involving. Grandpa helps Jason to deal with things like nerves and he hates it when people are rude, mean or selfish. He's a mini force for good and it made a nice change - sorry H8 - from the relentless onslaught of Tracy Beaker and Hannah Montana.

Grandpa in my Pocket Volume Two DVD is released today RRP £12.99.

Do you High School Musical Too?

What a parent allows their child to watch, film or television-wise, is very much a matter for the individual. (And that is once you get over the question of if and how much they’re going to watch in the first place. Why is it that people without TVs are so holier than thou? Anyway.)

I loved that all too brief, innocent time when all mine watched was CBeebies. We loved the Teletubbies, Rubbadubbers and Balamory. But they graduated to Charlie and Lola, and then to CBBC and Blue Peter, MI High and Raven.

They like being terrified by Dr Who and they also clamour for Top Gear (and anything with Richard Hammond in it.) Then there are the other kids’ channels they switch on: PopGirl, for example, with Saddle Club, which is okay. Girls and ponies. But girls and ponies and fancying boys, which seems a little too old for girls of seven and five.

One thing we don’t have and which H7 wants is the Disney Channel. The wanting it started when she was infected with the craze for High School Musical by other children at school. One minute I hadn’t heard of Troy and Gabriella, the next their faces were on t-shirts, socks and pants. It was something we tried to ignore at first, but it seemed to be everywhere. So we gave in and bought the film on DVD and I have to admit, we all rather enjoyed it. Where Grease (arguably the original High School Musical) was about Sandy turning from a wholesome swot into a skin-tight trousered highly made up sex bomb with a cigarette, HSM (as we soon learned to call it) celebrated youngsters expressing their individuality, kicking over rigid cliques and learning the power of friendship (in a musical way).

HSMs two and three continued this theme, with the ongoing relationship between Troy and Gabriella supplying the boy-meets-girl element. But is it a wholesome enough thing for one’s little ‘uns to be watching? H7 tells me she has friends who aren’t allowed to watch HSM, which is fair enough, but it’s a difficult force to resist. They love the songs (as do I, they’re upbeat poppy songs and a vast improvement on ‘What’s the story in Balamory’ which makes my ears bleed.) But it all seems a bit grown up for such little girls as mine, still in primary school (or in R5’s case, only just in primary school). Not High School at all, not yet…

HSM3 came out last year and was the first to be shown in cinemas and we resisted all efforts on the part of H7 and R5 to go and see it. Instead we waited for the DVD this February and now thanks to Think Parents we have it on Blu-ray too. (You can see every bead of sweat on young Zac Efron’s face. Very disturbing for the peri-menopausal woman. Ahem.)

Oh we love it, of course we do. Yes it’s all about “big kids” and growing up and leaving school, something mine will have to face far away in the future (or tomorrow as it will probably seem to be). It’s about friendship and how it can be tested a times of stress and it’s about pulling together and supporting each other. It’s about how the frustrations of life can make you just want to scream. It’s also (alarmingly) about how, sometimes, you might have to consider that what your parents believe to be the best for you, might actually not be what’s best and you might have to grow up and make your own decisions. I wish I’d known that sort of stuff when I was 15 and doing my GCSEs.

I think most of that sort of subtext goes over H7 and R5’s little heads. They love Troy and Gabriella, Sharpay and Ryan and Chad and Taylor like they love some of  the “big kids” at school. But do they see them as role models? Who knows! What damage is this doing to their tiny minds? Should I worry? Need I worry? It seems harmless enough, they love the songs and they love Troy and Gabriella equally. Sigh. Now the big problem is Hannah Montana which H7, understandably, is drawn to. So far we have repelled it, but I’m not sure how much longer that will continue.

For those who haven’t got young children or who have only boys, here’s a clip: