NEVER DID ME ANY HARM: Channel 4
From the makers of Channel 4’s acclaimed series, That’ll Teach ‘Em, this new four part series is for every parent who has ever said “it wasn’t like that when I was young…”
In a unique social history experiment, four modern families turn back the clock for two weeks so that their children can live as their parents did when they were young – without the trappings of modern technology. Tonight’s opening film features the Gregory family from Milton Keynes. Dad, 44-year-old Jon, married to Emma, does not get any respect from his kids, Hannah 12 and Joshua 10. He wants life to be more like the 1970s when he was growing up on a Leeds council estate, when children knew their place.
Jon’s family had no money and he lived in modest conditions, or as Jon puts it, “I grew up in the scraggy arse end of a Leeds council estate…We lived in a terraced house where you couldn’t flush the loo without your neighbour knowing what was going on…There was no grey areas. Dad said jump. We said how high?” When Jon was 11, his mum died. His dad was left to bring up five children on his own. Despite his no-nonsense disciplinarian approach, Jon admired his father.
In contrast, Jon feels his own kids have little, if any, respect for him…”My dad would be turning in his grave if he knew I allowed my kids to give me backchat like they do today, there’d be swift retribution. My kids rule the roost. The hierarchy goes, the kids, Emma, the dog then me …” Jon has done well for himself. His family now live in an eight-bedroom house. Hannah has a serious shopping habit and can wrap her dad around her little finger. Josh is king of the living room. His best friend is the television. Nobody can get near the remote control or his leather throne in front of the set. But all this is about to change as Jon is adamant that his family need to and will learn to appreciate how lucky they really are.
For the next two weeks, they will all live how Jon used to when he was their age, and it is all going to come as quite a shock. For starters Jon lived in a house a fraction of the size. So in order to recreate the similar housing conditions of Jon’s childhood, half of their current, modern family home is cordoned off. The trappings of 21st Century living are going and being replaced by the sort of stuff Jon had as a child.
But the changes aren’t just material. The family structure is being turned on its head. From now on Dad will be in charge. He’ll sit at the head of the table and have his own armchair. Discipline, respect and thrift are the order of the day. And perhaps the hardest shock of all is the fact that the family will have to do a week’s shopping on £36 – the equivalent of what Jon’s dad had to survive on. Jon’s kids have no idea what a budget is – and Hannah has never had to live without regular hand outs from dad or a regular supply of hair mousse!
As expected, Hannah and Joshua hate the new regime, the new lifestyle and the new look to their house. They hate the 1970s camper van, the trips to the allotment, the daily piano practice and of course, they hate the tight budget. But will they come to realise why Jon’s childhood made him the man and dad he is today, and why it never did him any harm?
This show will air on Channel 4 on Tuesday 13 February 2007
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fantastic programme tonight about jon and his children. You really felt the emotions that jOn was going through- the realisation that his kids really had so much to learn about being responsible and respectful and that he had to do something and act now to sort it out. I wish him all the best. |He came across as a very genuine person and I was crying for him. This programme goes to prove that going back i time can move you forward in terms of changing attitudes and relationships and one’s perspective of the past
I really enjoyed this programme. Jon’s reactions made me laugh out loud. I got quite emotional when the family showed appreciation for each other. He’s right, we’re not doing our kids any favours giving them too much in the way of material things.
i think it was a great programme my daughter who is about to turn 11 years old watched it too,she isnt as bad like the kids on there but she does sometimes lip me but she said she would live like that.
i think not
jackie townsend
Whilst there were aspects of the programme that were very good, it came after a week in which i read in the news of mothers being captured on CCTV of goading their toddlers to fight (he hit you, hit him back type thing). I was saddened by this, and this attitude seemed to me to be exemplified in Never Did Us Any Harm..the older bot being goaded to fight in the boxing ring, in order to have his guitar returned. Not all boys in the 50’s took to the boxing ring – a contentious ’sport’. If i were Jon i would have been ashamed, not proud, that my son was encouraged to ‘fight’ when he clearly didn’t wish to. Shame on you all.
Whilst there were aspects of the programme that were very good, it came after a week in which i read in the news of mothers being captured on CCTV of goading their toddlers to fight (he hit you, hit him back type thing). I was saddened by this, and this attitude seemed to me to be exemplified in Never Did Us Any Harm..the older boy being goaded to fight in the boxing ring, in order to have his guitar returned. Not all boys in the 50’s took to the boxing ring – a contentious ’sport’. If i were Jon i would have been ashamed, not proud, that my son was encouraged to ‘fight’ when he clearly didn’t wish to. Shame on you all.
was one of the sons gay? he sounded it
i think i saw the street my dad works in on the program does and one have any clips of when the family was on the green bus, i want to see if it was really the same street, if you don’t have any pics can you please confirm if you can remeber any building work in the back ground or can see any signs saying brown and merry
i raelly enjoyed the program thge boxing bit was good and it was funny when the commentator person said at least they are all united even if it is in boredom
it was a bit harsh when the mum said if the boy did not get changed she would treat him like a baby and change him herself, she should of at least listened to the boy
in the comment above in the first line i was meant to put any instead of and
I agree with vjcv – shame on that Dad for making his boys fight. I think it was really awful, they clearly didn’t want to do it.
Holly – don’t you mean the son sounded a bit camp? He might be gay but most gay men I know are not camp, in fact they’d probably be champions in a boxing ring (not that I condone boxing).
i think that was a bit unfair when the dude took the other dudes guitar…and making him box just to get it back was like stupid i mean godssake. what does camp mean? and yeah he did a bit.
i thought the episode with the mcivers was great.
it makes the children really realise what their parents lives were like when they were young. well done channel 4. we need more programs like this!
omfg i was on it when they was on the beach in blackpool lol has anyone got any pictures of videos of the beach bit?
Hello,
I watched the recent episode last night. The nations favourite public announcement video from the 1970s was mentioned. It was a cartoon, with a cat, about not talking to stangers. Can anyone tell me what it was?
Is it on Youtube.com?
Thanks,
-Kate
this prog has me really confused, maybe its because i grew up in the 70s in london, in a working class cockney family, but we had central heating, 2 toilets( both inside our house)colour tv, phones, stereos, and as for no designer clothes and every one tyedying, i can remember wearing, oxford bags, safari leather jackets, dirndle( hope thats spelt right)skirts, farrahs, g.tops( gabicci)fiorucci etc, my dad was a plumber and my mum worked in scottish and newcastle beer factory, we did’nt have to pick potatoes or make our own toys and every one we knew in s.e, london was exactly the same as us, not posh, not rich, just normal working class.
HELLO TRICIA
Saw your post and saw red. Well I live in that part of the country where S & N originally did all the brewing.
My father was a skilled tradesman struggling to survive and mum was an office worker.(Father was struggling to survive because immediately after the war, people were not interested in having there suites re-upholstered or chairs patched up. Utility furniture was fast becoming the in thing , and it was cheap very much the IKEA or B & Q of today.) We lived in a council flat in a tenement. We had one inside toilet and the washing line outside was for communial use. The residents took turns in keeping the passage clean.
We had a great big black and white TV which rarely had all three channels working and for pocket money I gladly did household chores. Wages were low so clothing which was really shoes for school, was bought once or twice yearly and only what you needed. As a child growing up my mother accepted clothing for me from a friend. I can’t say it did me any harm being brought up like this, I think it taught me to respect my property and other peoples. It also gave me a real value for money. Especially when things broke down and we couldn’t afford to repair them. Indeed if the telly ever broke down that was it untill Dad had made enough to buy another second hand TV with one or two channels off. Gosh could we survive today like this. I still have my Sony Cassette player and it works. Must have been good manufacturing then by comparison to today.
Inactual fact the first fridge we had when I was a seven year old I USE TODAY – IT IS IN EXCELLENT WORKING ORDER. It has in fact outlived 6 full size fridge freezers which have previously gone to the tip.
Before the 1970’s, we lived in a downstairs terrace flat with one bedroom, a shared yard with an outside toilet. (the netty)I still have the old parafin lamp we kept in the NETTY so you could see at night. We did have a tin bath hanging in the yard but we never used it as it was far to long and awkward to handle instead we bathed at the sink or in a smaller tin bath we owned. We used to weekly call in at the swimming pool to use the bathing facility taking our towels and soap.
We were working class, but the working classes of the South of England did have a different lifestyle afforded to them courtesy of higher wages. In actual fact there has always been a North South divide, on income scales, the cost of living, and house prices.
Today house prices is the only real area that has moved and we in the North wish it hadn’t, for a time Southerners also wished things hadn’t changed as some areas came down to close the divide, leaving householders with negative equity.
The programme was obviously a good one to stir up memories like these. Are these your Good old days?
MMM Not here. Strikes, industrial action disputes poverty, no definitely not the good old days.
There was something very romantic about candle light and cooking with a little camping gas cylinder ooh and the excitment about power cuts to a child, its such a shame that adult eyes see things so very differently.
But we had to grow up. oh.
Maureen
Newcastle.
hi hunnie
sorry my comments made you see red, fortunatly those memories are not my good old days, although i must say they are for my mum and dad during and after the war, tin baths and outside toilets, luckily for me london was progressing by 1958 when i was born, so by the time i was a teenager in the 70s all that was a thing of the past, coming from generations born and bred in lambeth walk storys were passed down in familys about scrimping and saving and hand me downs , my mum lost her mum when she was 6, grandad was away fighting so mum and her sisters were,pushed about from pillar to post, my dad lost his dad to the war, by the time my dad was 9 he was scavaging in the bins to keep his family together my parents were just very determined that my brother and i would never no such hardship, and we had the most wonderfull happy childhood, mum and dad worked hard and saved harder, and if they could’nt afford it they would’nt buy it. mum hated tally men and debt, a principle which i still live by and instilled into my children.Before the 70s we lived in a prefab(again central heating) and mum did early morning and evening cleaning.Idont know enough about a north south devide to comment, i’ve never been politically minded and i hav’nt a clue about house prices( husbands dept)maybe the programe should choose a family from london to get a different view on things
tricia ,london
hi maureen
i did reply to your comments but for some reason its not appearing, anyhow now im confused by your comments, why do you see red?
I find the show It Never Did Me Any Harm unbelievable.
I was born in 55 and grew up in the seventies at Portsmouth UK.
At this time Portsmouth because of the Navy had low wages compared to say Southampton down the road.
So my Mother worked, my Father gambled (got kicked out when I was sixteen). Not once was I hit, never had to do housework, worked as paper boy for a pound a week as I never had pocket money.
Once home from school I was straight out with mates, we never hung around with adults, dident this bloke have any mates?
I had very few toys mainly boardgames, so what, I listened to records and hung around a cafe or park.
Now I come from a large family, 8 aunts and 8 uncles so plenty of cousins. Majority were working class, either renting or council so we were all in the same situation.
As for electronic games and DVD’s, what about pinball machines, mid seventies, video came out along with handheld game machines.
Also, before the oil war the seventies had plenty of work and if you dident want to work the dole was easy. A few of my uncles survived quite good on it.
So it comes to this I can’t see what this bloke is about, does he come a different world, if he was talking about the sixties I might relate to him better, I grew up in the country in the sixties and money was more of a concern to the family.
I’ve noticed that people talking about the past seem to exaggerate only the bad aspects.
Ta John