Granadaland Granadaland

Trevor Hyett describes how he joined Granada TV

Basically, I knew Gus MacDonald socially. And I was working for the TV Times and persuaded the features editor – I was doing the billings for the London region, you know, ‘7:00: Crossroads’ kind of thing, and I persuaded the features editor that it’s important to have a feature on World in Action because they…

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Trevor Hyett on Granada and the North

I think to work for Granada you had to buy into the non-metropolitan attitude, and that was a source of great pride as well actually. It wasn’t just a northern thing about ‘soft southerners’ or anything clichéd of that sort, it was, we are a distinct culture actually, and Sidney knew that, even though he…

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Trevor Hyett on introducing Ted Heath to George Harrison

And another great historic moment was in 1977, when Tony had just finished and finished interviewing George Harrison and I was about to interview Ted Heath. Ted Heath then long… I mean, this is now three years since he lost those two elections in 1974, and this was his first book I think, the one…

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Trevor Hyett remembers interviewing Muhammad Ali

My four years – 1974-1978 – with Granada Reports are still the best years of my working life. There are many highlights. One was a half-hour interview with Muhammad Ali in 1975. He was promoting a book, an autobiography, and I had to go down to ITN in Wells Street so do it, at three…

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Trevor Hyett has fond memories of his colleagues

Bob Greaves was wonderful. I used to sit and marvel as how he could do that job with such a naturalness and a relaxedness, and that he knew enough about so much to conduct any kind of interview with any kind of person for local news. Tony, of course, was just at such a… Tony…

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Trevor Hyett on working on C4’s Union World

I only stopped working on it (On the Market) because one of my favourite programmes asked me to go join them as a reporter, which was Union World, and I was a big supporter of Gus (Macdonald), and very proud of the fact that I knew the man who introduced two very important programme to…

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Trevor Hyett on what he enjoyed most about Granada

Granada is the place that gives me the biggest and strongest and deepest feelings of satisfaction and pride, and that will remain the case. The importance of the social life, I vaguely mentioned that. I think it was crucial actually. But I got the sense that it was… I was trying to say earlier, that…

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Trevor Hyett defines ‘Granadaland’

The thing I liked about Granada generally was its non-metropolitan attitude and that’s what I think gave us distinctiveness was the fact that Sidney started off in the very beginning, “We will not be London-based, we will never be London-based.” I had a little office in Golden Square but essentially Granada was Manchester, much to…

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Trevor Hyett on trade unions and what he was paid

I was in the NUJ; I’d been in the NUJ for a long time, since I was 21 when I was editor of that paper I mentioned earlier. The ACTT of course were the union with the muscle, and I always found actually… Gus would take the mickey out of us because every now and…

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Mark Gorton – A Lasting Memory of Anthony H. Wilson

There was a time when I read the local TV news with Anthony H. Wilson. As a television presenter he had the rare ability to be the same human being in two dimensions as he was in three. He also had the gift of writing out loud. What went down on paper and then came…

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Derek Granger remembers when he joined 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, and I had worked very, very briefly for them for about six or nine months before I…

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Derek Granger on his first Granada programmes

The very first programme I worked on was a programme called Sir Thomas Beecham at Lincoln’s Inn. And it was a programme I think which had been revised by Denis Forman, and Denis was my mentor then because he was teaching me to write for television, and I went in really as a researcher, that…

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Derek Granger on his close working relationship with Sidney Bernstein

And then I suddenly – ha! – in Granada’s typical way, I was made head of the play department, and rather eccentrically they didn’t call it head of drama which would have been sensible, I became head of the play department. But the interesting thing there was that I was working directly with the proprietor…

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Phil Griffin on how he joined Granada

This photo shows John Hopkins (Tech. Supervisor), Phil Griffin  & Mike Short (producer) (courtesy of Barry Hairline). My first job after university was at Piccadilly Radio when commercial radio was just getting some its early evolution. In 1974 Piccadilly Radio was the second independent station outside London. BRMB was the first. So in April, April 2…

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Derek Granger talks about filming drama in the late 1950’s

Everything then was shot in the studio and this rather lugubrious way with these great trundling television cameras, and the PA system in the actual control room, having to signal where the next cameras went, it was very curious. The television was set up like theatre in a way with rehearsals, and when it came…

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Phil Griffin on the significance of P.T. Barnum

P.T. Barnum, the image of P.T. Barnum on the wall of all the offices in both Golden Square and in Quay Street, it’s kind of the key to it, because it’s the great showman, but bear in mind that’s also transatlantic, you know, P.T. Barnum is not is not round the corner, it’s not Billy…

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Derek Granger on Cecil Bernstein

Cecil was a very, very interesting man. He hadn’t got the huge personality or the grandeur of Sidney, but he had a great integrity, and he had a marvellous nose for comedy and popular entertainment. And that’s what he did. And comedy under Cecil was very, very good. There was a very, very good actual…

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Phil Griffin remembers Tony Wilson

Tony and I were… he was one year my senior, and we met when we were at school because Tony was a gobby sort, and across the Irwell in Salford he went to the De La Salle School, and I went to St Bede’s Grammar, which was on Alexandra Road in Moss Side. Tony and…

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Derek Granger recalls producing Coronation Street in 1961

Coronation Street began in on December 1960, and it was going on long very, very well, and then Cecil came to me and said, “Derek, do you mind awfully coming on to Coronation Street?” And the idea was that, although it was going all right, it was rather… it was on a very small scale.…

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Phil Griffin on commercial TV in the 1950’s

The buildings, the sort of mission hut-type buildings that went up as Ralph Tubbs was developing the studios and the studio building, was that little complex that always had… Sidney saying. “Well, if this doesn’t work we can get out of here pretty quickly,” and one forgets how uncertain all of that was, which is…

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Jacki Turner’s Granada memories

Below are Jacki Turner’s memories of her career at Granada TV.  These were written by Jacki, rather than recorded as an interview. The other entries under her name are excerpts from this account. JACQUELINE MAJORIE STOTT/HARDING/TURNER – GRANADA MEMORIES Up to 1965 I’d been working as a secretary in an engineering company in Blackburn. I nearly…

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Phil Griffin on the importance of Granada to Manchester

Anybody I think who was around in Manchester in the late 60s, early 70s and through the 70s and into the 80s, just couldn’t avoid the place. The cultural imprint that Granada had particularly on Manchester, and more broadly in the northwest, has no equivalence. When the Manchester Guardian dropped ‘Manchester’ from its banner, which…

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Jacki Turner on how she joined Granada TV

Jacki Turner in studio with Johnnie Hamp and Phil Casson. Up to 1965 I’d been working as a secretary in an engineering company in Blackburn. I nearly married a colleague but then realised in a panic that I’d done nothing with my life and was not ready to settle down so I took myself off…

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