Brian Spencer was a freelance cameraman in the early 1980s who came from the BBC to work at Granada. He worked initially on regional programmes and regularly found himself filming exterior inserts for Coronation Street. He later worked as a lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University. I had been a film cameraman in television for some…
Read MoreEthnicity
If there was one area where Granada did not have a good track record it was with ethnicity. During the 1970s and 1980s the company employed just a handful of black staff and most of these tended to be in the production areas rather than technical areas. Among production staff there was just one producer,…
Read MoreGranada building after it was vacated
These photos were taken in late 2014 after Granada Television had vacated its Quay Street site. They may bring back memories to those who worked there and we would encourage you to leave your comments.
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Anne Reid – Valerie Barlow
Anne Reid played the role of Valerie Barlow, first wife of Ken Barlow, from 1961 to 1971. She asked to leave the programme and her character was killed off when she was electrocuted by a hairdryer with a faulty plug. Since leaving the Street she has appeared in a wide range of programmes as well…
Read MoreInteriors of Granada TV
An early shot of the Edit 1 editing suite The Festival Cafe in 1960 The Granada canteen in 1963 An empty canteen Another view of the canteen The serving area of the canteen The Old School Bar as it re-opened in 2000 The scenery workshop The Stables Club in 1969 A view down the VTR… Read More
Wallen Matthie describes how he joined Granada
Let’s do this chronologically when did you join Granada? I joined Granada in 1981. I was approached initially, I used to work for the BBC on a freelance basis, I did a bit of radio for them. And then the riots took place in the summer of 1981, which I covered for the BBC. As…
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Brian Trueman describes how he started work at Granada
I started at Granada in 1957 when I would be 25. I’d been, I won’t go into the tormented history of how I got there, but by a series of accidents I started acting in radio just before my fifteenth birthday. I’d acted through school life, and acted through university life and even on a…
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Brian Trueman recalls his early days as a newsreader
Very peculiar it was, wearing my makeup which was bright orange in order that I’d look normal with a vivid emerald green shirt which would look white because we were on, what did you call those cameras which were very slow? Very early black and white, very primitive camera. I read the news quite successfully…
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Brian Trueman talks about the importance of Granada TV to the region
How important do you think Granada was to the region? Hugely. Hugely. I mean it brought …. The BBC was already there, but the BBC somehow kept itself to itself and was obviously an adjunct of the metropolitan BBC, of BBC, the Corporation. I don’t think it interacted in quite the same way with the…
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Brian Trueman’s memories of Sidney Bernstein
Sidney was notorious for living on the premises! You know when they built the new block he had the Penthouse on the roof and begins … Sidney was known as “Fiddler on the Roof”! So he would patrol the building – in the evening – but he would patrol the building during the day with…
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Brian Trueman remembers meeting the Beatles and the Rolling Stones
The local programme, Granada Reports in the early days, was in a very small studio, Studio 4, which is now a store. Well last time I was in, it was a store room, electric cables, etc. We packed a lot into it. We would have the magazine programme and they would nightly, most nights I…
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Brian Trueman compares working at Granada with working for the BBC
People said what’s it like working for the BBC after working for Granada. I said working for Granada literally was like walking on broken glass; working for the BBC is like being smothered in cotton wool. It’s awful. Arm around the shoulders. “Wonderful to have you with us, Brian” all the rest of the stuff,…
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Ian Hunton on how he was first employed by Granada
It was serendipity: I was reading a magazine called Wireless World – which doesn’t exist anymore – and I just happened to open it at the adverts at the back, and there it said, ‘Granada Television is looking for trainee audio engineers’. I’d always been interested in high fidelity; in fact, I’d written my dissertation…
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Wallen Matthie describes some of the range of regional programmes he worked on.
Can you remember any of the other programmes you worked on? Yes, I worked on – as a researcher you moved in and out of programmes – in terms of regionals at the time Granada Reports was quite a big production. At one stage we had offices in Liverpool, and Granada Reports was being presented…
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Wallen Matthie describes working on the programme, This Is Your Right
This Is Your Right was a social action programme presented by the infamous Lord Winstanley. It was transmitted each weekday for five minutes and then on a Sunday they had a half hour programme. It was a consumer orientated programme and we had a whole range of advisers who were supporting the programme whether it… Read More
Ian Hunton describes the training he received as a video engineer at Granada
On the seventh floor, they had a training officer and an office that was divided into booths. They had these training machines then, which were microfilm. The training officer had written programmes about the technical aspects like lighting and lenses, and general theory about TV – colour didn’t exist then – and you were expected…
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Wallen Matthie talks about some of the people he worked with at Granada
Any other people in particular you remember? Yes, the people who stood out for me, people I worked with very closely – Mike Short who was a producer for Granada Reports. Before Mike Short, there was Rachel Hebditch – a phenomenal woman working in a man’s world. And Chris Radzinski stood out; again these are…
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