Let’s move on to The Krypton Factor. That’s the programme you’re most associated with at Granada. Like many things in one’s life, you get breaks you don’t expect to get – they happen in the most ludicrous way, and they change your life. And my break originally into newspapers in Northern Ireland was in a…
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Gordon Burns talks about the emphasis on quality within Granada
What I would say is that there was all that high energy of young people wanting to make a career in television, wanting to shine or wanting to become, if they were researchers, wanting to become producer or director, or indeed a presenter. And that actually gave the programme (Granada Reports)… it might have had…
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Gordon Burns remembers working on World In Action in Northern Ireland and the challenges he and his crew faced
The other thing I should mention, which is another one of my pride areas, that World in Action was the great award-winning, again, pioneering investigative programme which the elite, if you like, in news… most journalists’ ambition was to work on World in Action, and it was left, right and centre award-winning, and tremendous investigative…
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Gordon Burns remembers Sidney Bernstein – and his attention to cleanliness!
Sidney Bernstein. I remember quite vividly, every so often he used to set off round the building, and he had marching in his wake, an assistant who had a clipboard with paper on it, and Sidney Bernstein would head into an office and so on, and bark out things like, “Wall needs painting!” or whatever,…
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Gordon Burns remembers a programme he made about Uri Geller and his powers
One Reports Extra I did was with Uri Geller who had astonished the nation with his spoon-bending, and I wanted to see if he really could bend spoons, and whether he really had telepathy, because he claimed if you thought of a picture, he could probably draw it. So I invited him along and had lunch…
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Gordon Burns reflects on the growing power of the unions within Granada in the 1970’s
That was the time when the unions were growing in power, and I think that did lead to a change in situation when the unions were challenging the whole time, and strike action was not necessarily infrequent, but there was one major strike action, and in fact the unions, in my view, got far too…
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Gordon Burns recalls the resources that were available to staff working on Granada Reports
It was just Granada Reports when I started – and I was astonished. I’d come from little Ulster television, Belfast – and although we had a major international story on our doorstep night after night, so there was that huge programme, with big interviews to be done, and a very challenging situation, we had bombs…
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Gordon Burns recalls the innovative Granada 500 programme at the time of the 1979 General Election
Well, the Granada 500 was one of the best experiences I’ve had in television, certainly with Granada. Granada were this wonderful, pioneering organisation, I’ve talked about their quality demand, they are clearly pioneers of television, even in drama it was pioneering when they actually took on things like Brideshead Revisited and Jewel in the Crown,…
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Gordon Burns recalls a very unusual task he had to undertake as a presenter!
Because I had moved away from Granada Reports, I was given this late evening programme called Reports Extra, which was basically pop psychology. We had an audience in the studio, and we did all sorts of things, like we examined one of the senses each week, smell, touch and so on, and we would have…
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Gordon Burns describes his exclusive interview with Margaret Thatcher and how she kept a promise to his co-producer
Probably the highlight for me (on Reports Politics) was when I got to interview the then Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher. That was an interesting and strange experience, by the way it came about. My co-producer, David Kemp, who had also worked for World in Action, had made a documentary about Mrs Thatcher when she ran…
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Gordon Burns considers whether Granada looked after its employees
You talk very fondly there about Granada Television. Was it a company that cared for its employees? Well, care for its employees, that’s a good question. I think as much as companies do, yes – I think it did. We tended to get whatever we needed to make programmes, so they were fairly liberal with…
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Roland Coburn remembers visiting Granada as a child
I think you mentioned to me you would get taken into the studio by your mum? Yes. Obviously, with Father working for the BBC and Mother working for Granada, I was volunteered to go to boarding school — that’s probably the best way of putting it — and often, when I used to finish the…
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Roland Coburn on Granada as a family-friendly company
It was always very friendly, especially in the early days. I always remember, when I was possibly about eight or nine, Granada always used to have, at Christmas, a children’s show, that they used to have in one of the studios. They used to invite all the children of the employees down there and it…
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Frank Clarke remembers the sports clubs at Granada
What about Sport? Sport. You mean sport programmes? No, sport in the social context -did the Company do much sport? They didn’t have enough really. We had an inter-departmental – six a side tournament which was held at Whalley Range football club near Brantingham, off Wilbraham Road – there. That was for about six years.…
Read MoreSocial activities
Granada had a wide range of social activities although, in truth, mostly it centred on the Old School, Granada’s own bar. Nonetheless, there was the occasional football game and even cricket, won one year by the Granada women’s team. And every Christmas Granada hosted a party for the children of employees.
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Frank Clarke recalls the fringe benefits of working at Granada
How would you describe Granada as a company? Excellent,excellent. The Property Buyer, Spud Taylor, who had incidentally worked on Snows of Kilimanjaro, he was Property Buyer on the film. He was on the ladder, putting some props away, fell and broke his leg. Taken to hospital. Of course Sidney was told about it. He sent…
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Frank Clarke describes how programmes where costed in the 1950’s
Whatever the programme was, Denis (Forman) chaired it but when the costs were done, it was to Sidney (Bernstein) it went in those days. After things got run properly, it was just sent to the Producer and as long as it was within the overall estimate for, say thirteen weeks, there were no problems and…
Read MoreFrank Clarke’s memories of Sidney Bernstein
The secret I think was, everybody set out to please Sidney Bernstein. He, I’ll give you one incident he did, in mid ’56 it was. He was known for going out of his office during the day. Just saying to his office, “I’m going for a walk” – even she didn’t know where he was…
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Frank Clarke remembers the very early days of Granada
I went in the morning. Another lad joined me, Roy Montrose, and the first week we were just sitting there doing nothing. There were five Accounts staff. Two Accountants, an Office Junior, a Secretary and a Cashier. That was it and us two. Then Tuesday of the second week, Bill Dixon came and said “oh,…
Read MoreFrank Clarke remembers the Christmas parties that Granada held for employees’ children
In those days, by now in the late 60’s/early 70’s, we used to have a children’s party one Saturday before Christmas. All the employees could bring their child – one, two, three, whatever they had. They gave the employees chance to go Christmas shopping with their wives and husbands and whatever you see. About eight…
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Bob Greaves – Presenter
Bob Greaves was one of the most recognizable and best loved of Granada’s presenters. He joined the company in 1964 as a reporter and editor for the regional news magazine programme Scene at 6.30 and went onto work for Granada for 35 years, mainly in local programmes. He sadly died in 2011 and his obituary…
Read MoreIan White
Ian White joined Granada in 1978 as a researcher and later became a director, including working on Coronation Street. He now works as a freelance and has directed a wide range of drama programmes including Hollyoaks, Emmerdale and Casualty. I started working on Coronation Street in 1989 for about four years until I left in 1992. There were…
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Wally Butler – Director
Wally Butler joined Granada Television during the early 1960s and became one of the first directors of Coronation Street, beginning when the programme was still recorded live. Over the next 20 years he directed over 1,000 episodes of Coronation Street. Wally sadly died in 2003 and there is a link to his obituary here. …
Read MoreTom Elliott – Storyliner & Script Editor
Tom Elliott joined Coronation Street as a storyliner in 1983 contributing 577 episodes in that role over almost ten years. He also acted as the programme’s script editor in the early nineties and went on to write more than seventy episodes of the soap, before retiring from the writing team in 1997. My impressions when Coronation Street first began, I…
Read MoreRobert Khodadad – Director
Film Director, Granada TV. When I started on Coronation Street it’s quite a strange sensation working in through the doors of Stage One. I was born and grew up in south Manchester, just six miles down the road from Granada, and I remember as a five year old watching television with the family. We used…
Read MoreNorman Frisby – Press Officer
Norman Frisby joined Granada Television in 1959 and became chief press offic er. Much of his time was spent dealing with Coronation Street. I joined Granada in May 1959. I was there on the opening night as a journalist as the television correspondent of the Liverpool Evening Express, a tabloid newspaper in Liverpool. I…
Read MoreMike Newell
Mike Newell began working for Granada in 1963 and went on to direct Coronation Street during the 1960s. He is now a well-known film director whose major films include Four Weddings and a Funeral and Donnie Brasco. I started working for Granada in 1963, when I was 21, as a production trainee which was a…
Read MoreMichael Apted
Michael Apted is a well known film director who began his career at Granada Television in the early 1960s. He first directed Coronation Street in 1966. Later became man award-winning films such as The Coalminer’s Daughter, Gorky Park and Nell. I started working at Granada at the end of 63 on the production training…
Read MoreLes Chatfield – Cameraman & Director
Les Chatfield was for many years a Cameraman on Coronation Street and later became a director on the programme. Coronation Street was suddenly just there, it was called Florizel Street then. We were going to do six I think and we did the first one and nobody thought it was anything out of the…
Read MoreLeita Donn – Press Officer
Leita Dunn was Press Officer for Coronation Street from 1965 until 1987. As such she was responsible not only for getting stories into the newspapers but also for scotching some of the more absurd stories that appeared in the tabloids. She was a close friend to many of the actors. Over the years we’ve…
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