I was a student at the National Film School, which is now the National Film and Television School, and I was in its first ever year when it opened. And I had started making an observational film about my local Labour Party, which was the Norwood Labour Party; it was largely about their social interaction.…
Read More
Steve Morrison on his first day at Granada
On my first day, they didn’t have an office for me because this documentary unit was a gleam in Gus’s eye, but nobody knew about it. So what the hell are we going to do with this guy who has turned up, and they said, “Look, why don’t you go into the studio and observe…
Read More
Tony Drinkle on the technological changes he has seen
By the end, well before that finished really, everything was being transferred to tape, the features and everything. One particular thing I remember, which probably wouldn’t happen these days, but it’s one of those things that stick in your mind… quite often we wouldn’t get a film until the day it was going out because…
Read More
Mike Beckham talks about how he came to join Granada.
I joined Granada in 1962. I was picked up at university, | was very lucky. I won the NUS Sunday Times drama competition and by great good luck, Derek Grainger happened to be in the audience. I’d done a lot of theatre at university, and he said, would you like to apply for a production…
Read More
Mike Beckham on working on Coronation Street
As production trainees, we were extraordinarily privileged because we were in a position where we knew we were going to be producer-directors. I joined on the same day as Leslie Woodhead. We were the second batch of production trainees. The following year were Mike Apted and Mike Newell, so that was the golden year. And…
Read More
Steve Morrison talks about working on Granada Reports
I got another phone call from Gus, after a couple of years, who said, “I want you to be the Editor of Granada Reports,” which was the nightly news programme. And of course I never worked in news, so there was a fearsome News Editor with a beard, who was very tough, on the news…
Read More
Mike Beckham moving from Coronation Street to World In Action
I then did some not very good detective series that I didn’t like and they weren’t all that good. I asked to start making films. I joined a series called ‘This England’ run by Denis Mitchell and Norman Swallow, who were two very good documentary filmmakers. The key to the series was that there would…
Read More
Steve Morrison recalls managing local programmes
It would be 1976-77. I was asked if I would run the whole of Granada’s regional programmes, which was a very, very interesting job, because you were like a TV station within a TV station, nobody higher up the building really cared, although obviously regional programmes are very important for the licence and the franchise,…
Read More
Mike Beckham describes how WIA was run
It was one of Granada’s jewels in the crown, as it were. It had the money, it had the backing, and above all it had the talent. There were some fantastic producers on there and some very good editors like Jeremy Wallington and Leslie Woodhead, Gus Macdonald, John Birt. It had the backing and the…
Read More
Steve Morrison talks about the Northern Documentary Unit
Basically, Gus (MacDonald) invented a new role, or a new unit, called the Northern Documentary Unit, and he said, “You’ll be running the Northern Documentary Unit, you make little films just for the region, and you find stories and you find directors, and I’ll give you a couple of researchers,” one of whom was Anna…
Read More
Mike Beckham describes his proudest WIAs
It’s extraordinary being in Vietnam because as I say, you’ve been in the Stables, and then a week later you’re in a helicopter in a battle zone. You had total access. The Americans allowed crews to go anywhere they wanted to, all you had to do was go to Tan Son Nhut and say, is…
Read More
Steve Morrison’s memories of working on World In Action
After I had ben running the documentary unit, Gayle and I – who were not romantically connected, but did films together – were invited to join World in Action, which obviously was a very glamorous programme, and we soon discovered that we were the ‘quick turnaround’ team. So while all the more established members of…
Read More
Mike Beckham remembers Golden Square
I loved the smallness of Golden Square. You know, there was World In Action, the lovely girls in the casting department, very talented, and there was the drama department. We all drank together in the various pubs around Soho. And it was still great so go up to Manchester to see all the editors and…
Read More
Mike Beckham on working on drama-docs
I then moved onto drama documentaries. These were an offshoot of World In Action. We found, this is Leslie Woodhead and myself, we found various stories behind the Iron Curtain, which we couldn’t get a camera to for obvious reasons, but we could often get, say, a transcript of a trial of dissidents, or an…
Read More
Steve Morrison remembers a difficult incident with a government minister
Gayle and I were sent off to interview the Labour Minister for what was then called… I think it was called Sport and Pollution. So this guy got this double-barrelled job when he was really interested in boxing and sport, which included tips and all sorts of pollutants that he was responsible for, and we…
Read More
Steve Morrison’s memories of making of the Spanish Civil War documentary series
I ran the Locals for two or three years, had a wonderful time, and then again, I think Gus may have been still in charge of the whole Factual area. He said to me, “I’ve got a problem with the Spanish Civil War.” He said, “We’ve got an Executive Producer and producers and a very…
Read More
Mike Beckham describes leaving Granada
I retired in 1998. I’d been there for 36 years. I was then age 60. I was told to leave. It was very cold outside, I can tell you. It was not this wonderful benign outfit. Towards the end I hated Granada because it had been taken over by Gerry Robinson and it was no…
Read More
Steve Morrison recalls starting the Granada Film operation
So during the time I was head of Features, I got this completely mad idea to start Granada Film, and on a Friday, at the end of the day, I used to sneak up the back stairs and occasionally have a whisky with the Managing Director of Granada then, who then became the Chairman, who…
Read More
Steve Morrison recalls winning two Oscars with ‘My Left Foot’
So there is a story I must tell you about My Left Foot. By the time the Oscars came around, we had completed the film, and I had been promoted again – which is a whole different story – from the head of Granada Film to the Director of Programmes at Granada, which meant that…
Read More
Jon Woods on how he joined Granada
I have been a staff member at Granada since 1978, that was when I joined the staff. But I left university in 1973 and was looking for work in television, I worked with Arthur Smith at Rose Productions, he gave me an opportunity, he knew a producer at the university, Vivian Daniels, a BBC Manchester…
Read More
Steve Morrison’s memories of making the film ‘The Magic Toyshop’
So David Wheatley and I had worked together, and we decided to make a film about one of Angela Carter’s books, and the one we chose was called The Magic Toyshop. Angela Carter was in Texas, lecturing, so David and I got on the phone, which in those days seemed a very long way away,…
Read More
Jon Woods on his ‘apprenticeship’ at Granada
When I first joined Granada in 1978, my first day on film ops was on Coronation Street, doing the location – all the location filming was done on film in those days, before electronics, you know, went lightweight. And Ray Goode was the senior cameraman, and I was his assistant, focus puller, and that was…
Read MoreSteve Leahy biography (interview carried out by Geoff Moore)
Steve Leahy originally joined Granada as an assistant transmission controller but two years later successfully applied to be a researcher, initially in local programmes. Following a period in children’s programmes he became Granada’s Head of Entertainment in 1987 where he developed his passion for quiz shows, with ITV network productions including The Krypton Factor, Busman’s…
Read More
David Liddiment on how he always wanted to work in TV
As you started university, what did you want to be? I wanted to work in television, and I had wanted to work in television since I had been a teenager. I loved the telly – I was born in 1952, I am a child of the television generation in the way that kids born today…
Read More
Mike Beckham’s thoughts on the new world of TV
Yes, World In Action was killed off during the reign of Gerry Robinson because it wasn’t getting enough ratings. OK, fair enough, there were a lot of channels. They were simply killed off, they said it’s just not… OK, it’s much more difficult to make current affairs now because we were doing shows which nobody…
Read More
Steve Morrison on working with Kid Creole and the Coconuts
One of the most original things we made, which was an idea from David Liddiment, who I know you have also interviewed, who was working in the Entertainment department, but the Entertainment department wasn’t making it, it was a musical called There’s Something Wrong in Paradise or something similar to that, I need to check…
Read More
Jon Woods remembers working with cameraman Ray Goode
He was a lighting cameraman on Brideshead, and also a lighting cameraman on Jewel in the Crown, which is where I worked with him for two years, just short of two years. So I was a camera operator on Jewel in the Crown. What was your opinion of Ray Goode? I think Ray had learnt…
Read More
Steve Leahy describes how he joined Granada
I was studying Law at Leeds and I’d scraped through my first year and hated it. My brother was a solicitor, that’s why I went into it. I didn’t know what the hell to do, so they nudged me that way, hoped I might make a barrister. I absolutely hated being a student. And I…
Read More
David Liddiment describes how he joined Granada TV
I joined Granada as a promotions scriptwriter. Joe Rigby hired me, and the only reason I got the job was, having applied for it before, I decided to apply for it again because I didn’t get it the first time round. Unbeknownst to me, I had narrowly lost it the first time around, so…
Read More
Barry Bowmer biography
Barry Bowmer joined the mailroom at Granada’s Golden Square office in August 1959. One of his principal jobs at that time was to take the early morning mail around to Lord Bernstein’s Mayfair flat where he was often greeted on the doorstep by Lady Bernstein in her negligee. He later moved to the mailroom at…
Read More