Judith J – Page 12 – Granadaland

Jon Woods on the importance of the Granada canteen

Inside the building, your duty of care almost, the canteen was the fantastic heart of the building, in its very first incarnation the canteen sat as a building that jutted out into the car park at the back of Granada and it was an L-shaped building with sort of banquette type booths that you could…

David Liddiment on the strengths and weaknesses of GTV

Okay. Granada Television – strengths and weaknesses, looking back, as a company. Well, I think it’s great strength was its singularity as a company, its willingness to go out on a limb for programmes – legally and creatively – famously over British Steel and so on… and also singular because of the way it…

Michael Ryan on Granada’s relationship with the North West

What was interesting about the local programming was that apart from university I hadn’t really lived outside London and being in Manchester was actually quite an education for me. The sixties were the last decade of Manchester as the industrial city. The buses to Old Trafford used to be choked at 6:30 in the morning…

David Highet describes how the programme ‘Flying Start’ came about

Flying Start was the notion of David Plowright. What happened after the riots is that Michael Heseltine came to Liverpool. He’d been appointed by Margaret Thatcher as Minister for Merseyside and I have to say he did an extraordinarily good job and that was a view shared by politicians of all complexions. Heseltine came and…

David Highet on the origins of Granada’s office in the Albert Dock

Yes, well one thing that you might want to think about discussing – or for me to remark on – is what Granada’s lasting legacy was in Liverpool and later in Manchester which brings me to the decision to open a News Centre at the Albert Dock in Liverpool. The Albert Dock had been derelict…

David Highet remembers the importance of Barnum!

I became Head of Public Affairs for the company in Manchester. I’d say that Sidney Bernstein, Denis Forman and David Plowright were three of the most charismatic, impressive, creative, commanding, engaging people I’ve ever met and ever worked for. They became mentors and heroes for me, particularly David with whom I worked very closely when…

David Highet on working as Head of Public Affairs

I moved from that (General Manager at Granada, Liverpool) when David Plowright became Chairman, I think it was 1986. I’d become very ill in the middle of 1986, which is unlike me because I don’t do illness and I managed to get back in time for the Christmas party – we always had a huge…

David Highet describes how he thinks Granada changed in the late 1980s

Things began to change towards the end of the 1980s. It’s a question of ethos and I think I would just like to quote from Ray Fitzwalter’s book – The Dream that Died, the Rise and Fall of ITV – and there’s a quote here quoting Bob Phillis, who was the Chief Executive of Carlton…

Tony Drinkle talks about when he left Granada

I left in 1989, just when… it was when the voluntary redundancies… I was 49 at the time, and funnily enough me and Jack Dardis left on the same day as well! We started on the same day in 1956 and left on the same day in 1989. So they were asking for redundancy and…

Michael Ryan compares Granada to the BBC

The BBC responds to competition, so the BBC in one period will be different to the BBC or Granada in another period. Perhaps I’ve tilted it more in terms of the Sixties and Seventies, but I do think that the central model is rather like putting on play, you only need a producer, a director…