Interviewed by Stephen Kelly, 10 August 2017. Let’s start with your initial contact with Granada. Well, long before I joined I was very familiar with the building, and a lot of the staff before I actually became employed there. In the late 60s, I’d done a fashion show with a friend of mine, we were…
Read MoreKim Horton
Interviewed by Stephen Kelly, 14 October 2017. Let’s start at the beginning. When did you join Granada, and how did you come to join Granada? I think I should start by saying that I grew up in Australia, and probably had not much of an idea about what Granada stood for and what sort of…
Read MoreEric Harrison
Interviewed by Judith Jones and Stephen Kelly, 21 March 2017. Starting at the very beginning Eric, can you tell me how did you come to be employed at Granada? Well, I was working at the BBC in television in the north region, I was a general assistant as they call them, in other words cameraman,…
Read MorePhil Griffin
Interviewed by Stephen Kelly, 8 September 2016. Let’s start with how you came to work for Granada. My first job after university was at Piccadilly radio when commercial radio was just getting some its early evolution. Put some years to all these. Yes, of course. In 1974 Piccadilly radio was the second independent station outside…
Read MoreDerek Granger
Interviewed by Stephen Kelly, 28 September 2016. How did you come to join Granada? I was a journalist, and I’d been a provincial journalist on the Sussex Daily News and Evening Argus in Brighton. I’d come out of the war, and I’d come out of the Navy where I was a lieutenant (or NVR? 0:46),…
Read MoreSteve Anderson
Interviewed by Geoff Moore, 6 December 2018. So Steve, going back before Granada, just tell us a bit about your background and education and stuff? Yes, well I grew up in a place called Kirkby, which was a big council estate on the outskirts of Liverpool. Newtown. It was where Z Cars was located. They…
Read MoreColin Weston
Interviewed by Stephen Kelly, 12 September 2016. Let’s begin Colin, with how you came to join Granada. Well, I lived in south London with my parents and I always wanted to get into television, and I used to regularly watch the ITV stations down in London. And I said, “I’d like to do that job,”…
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Michael Ryan – biography
Michael Ryan began his television career in 1963 as a BBC2 trainee, working on Panorama as a studio director. However a chance meeting in 1966 with Michael Parkinson in his father’s London pub, led to him joining Granada as a Researcher. In 1967 he worked on Cinema which, at the time, boasted an audience of…
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Steve Morrison – biography
Steve Morrison joined Granada Television in 1974 while still a student at the National Film School. He would quickly become a producer on World In Action. After making a number of World In Action programmes he moved to local programmes where he became editor of Granada Reports and a few years later became Head of…
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Brian Lapping on how he joined Granada
So that was my first job. I got a job at the Daily Mirror. And then I moved from the Mirror to the Guardian, and from the Guardian to the Financial Times, and then from the Financial Times to New Society, and it was when I was working on New Society, a weekly magazine, I…
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Brian Lapping on producing What the Paper Say
So what did you do at Granada? What were the first jobs you had there? Well, first of all I was put onto local programmes for a few weeks and sort of learned about things, and then I was given What the Papers Say to run, and I remember my first week on What the…
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Brian Lapping’s impressions of World In Action
Tell me how you came to be on World in Action. I don’t think it was anything to do with me. It was simply I was told by Denis (Forman) or David Plowright or whoever, “Will you take over World in Action?” Hah! It’s come back to me. I had a telephone call. I…
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Brian Lapping remembers the GTV series End of Empire (1985)
When I was on the Guardian, my job was largely writing about Commonwealth affairs. I went to the subcontinent and to Africa. I wrote quite a lot of stories about the conflicts Britain was having with the rebels there and the measures that were leading, in effect, quite a number of them moving to independence,…
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Brian Lapping’s gratitude to his colleague, Norma Percy
You worked a lot with Norma Percy over the years. You worked in Granada with Norma didn’t you? And since as an independent? How important has she been in your career? Absolutely crucial. It’s quite freakish. John Mackintosh MP, Labour MP, great enthusiasm for the creation of select committees, very significant figure. At the time…
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Brian Lapping on the Bernsteins and Denis Forman
One of the questions is what did you make of the grand days of Granada and the Bernsteins, and Denis Forman and Plowright? Well, I did get to know Sidney moderately well. Sidney was extraordinary. Very incisive and intrusive and fascinating to talk to. Cecil I didn’t know scarcely at all. But I had quite…
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Brian Lapping on leaving Granada TV and setting up as an independent
On your exit from Granada, how did that come about? Oh, well, it was perfect example. Channel 4 was about to be started, and somebody, I’m afraid I can’t remember who, said to me, “Rather than work for a company like Granada, why don’t you set up your own company and then you can sell…
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Claire Lewis on how she joined Granada
I was a newspaper reporter on the Rotherham Advertiser, believe it or not, in Yorkshire where I lived at the time. South Yorkshire. I had changed my career – I was reluctantly a primary school teacher – and then got an attachment to BBC Radio Sheffield in the ‘70s when Sheffield was the most progressive…
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Claire Lewis on Granada as a company
It was the best. It was the best. At the time I joined, I was very lucky. They were making wonderful, wonderful dramas that no one else was making – Jewel in the Crown, Brideshead – fantastic programmes. World in Action. Everything they did, wonderful. Tony Wilson, wonderful pop programmes. It was absolutely an amazing…
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Claire Lewis on learning filmmaking from the best!
I came as a journalist on Granada Reports. Off-screen journalist. And I’d only been at Granada six or eight weeks doing my basic filmmaking training, going out on stories, working with a film crew. I’d done a lot of radio, so I’d done a lot of radio reporting, so that wasn’t an issue. So I…
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Claire Lewis on how the programmes following Seven Up
So basically, the story about 14 Up, which is called 7 Plus Seven, Michael Apted, very quickly after Seven Up, wanted to be a drama director. His career progressed very fast. He did the Street, he then left, went freelance, came back, did some wonderful Jack Rosenthal dramas, and he was in the canteen and…
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Claire Lewis on researching for 28 Up
I think he (Steve Morrison) was quite sympathetic to me doing Seven Up, and because I’d asked for him, so it suddenly came up and there I was… we’re going to do 28 Up. And there’s a very interesting story about 28 Up. Somebody else did a little tiny bit of research and handed me…
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Claire Lewis on the challenges faced by mothers working in TV
I became news editor. I did a stint on an education programme, again with Gordon Burns, called Chalkface, which was a documentary series. So I swapped backwards and forwards from news to other programmes for three or four years. I then became news editor of Granada in 1981, which was great, working with Stuart Prebble,…
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Claire Lewis on the trials of working with animals
I’d worked briefly for Steve Morrison on his first drama, the Orwell drama, The Road to 1984, because I desperately wanted to do drama. And because I was working in local programmes, everything I was doing was in local programmes, I was working with Steve on a number of programmes and he got me in…
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Claire Lewis on tracking down the participants for 28 Up
I suppose 28 Up had the funniest stories. They were the ones where – I mean, there’s constant funny stories – but you have to remember, that when we made 28 Up there were no mobile phones. And I found Neil, who was a missing person, in this field in Wales. The problem with Neil…
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Claire Lewis on why Seven Up has been such a success
It’s worked because as time has progressed, we have progressed to a celebrity culture society. And the most wonderful thing about Seven Up is that it’s not about celebrities. It’s about us – ordinary normal people. And the more we become a celebrity-based culture, the more appealing Seven Up becomes. Because absolutely nobody gives anybody…
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Claire Lewis on Granada and the north – and Sidney Bernstein
Yes. Let’s talk a little bit about the ethos of Granada Television. Granada Television as a company. I’m thinking in terms of its northernness, its politics. They were very important. Its politics were very important. Its northernness was very important. It was completely different from anywhere else. And it was a combination of people who…
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Claire Lewis as an on-screen reporter and Granada’s ethos
I went back to Granada Reports as an on-screen reporter. Yes, that’s right. I went back as an on-screen reporter, which was also fun. I had to do a screen test, and they wanted more women on screen at the time, there were a lot of male reporters who weren’t that good. So there were…
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Claire Lewis explains the origins of Seven Up
Seven Up was a World in Action special made in 1963, and it was commissioned by the then editor of World in Action, Tim Hewat. Tim Hewat had been brought to Granada by Sidney Bernstein and Denis Forman as the very first editor of World in Action. He was an Australian and he was editing…
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Claire Lewis describes working on Reports Politics
I came back onto Granada Reports as an off-screen journalist, which I loved. I was immediately sent to Liverpool, to the Liverpool office in Exchange Flags to do a stint there, which was interesting and different, and then very soon, at Christmas, I was summoned to the head of local programmes, who said, “Right, we…
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Eric Harrison on his early days at GTV in the mid 1950’s
I was working at the BBC in television in the north region, I was a general assistant as they call them, in other words cameraman, sound engineer, general dogsbody – and due to various reasons I got quite upset about the BBC and I saw this advert for Granada. So I applied. And I’ve since…
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