Somebody has described Granada as being ‘unashamedly left-wing’. Yes. I thought it was left-wing in conventional political terms. I perceived it as being very, very conservative in social terms. So would you like to… Yes, I would have to explain that. Obviously – and I’m very glad it was left wing because that was a…
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Jon Savage on Granada’s Liverpool office
So when you worked in Liverpool, tell me about your impressions of the Liverpool office. Well, I must have worked on Exchange Flags twice, I can’t remember how long I was there for, I must have been there for at least six months, and of course Liverpool was really the poor relation and it was…
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Jon Savage on changes in the TV industry
I think Granada was going to go through a downscaling period pretty much after I left, which is December ‘82. So could you see the signs of the changes? Not yet, no. But I did very quickly afterwards, because I went to work at TV-AM, which was another television disaster. I just regard my time…
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Granadaland Conference
In May 2016 we held a one day conference at Manchester Metropolitan University to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the first transmission by Granada TV. The event was hosted by Gordon Burns with a keynote speech from Steve Morrison. Lord Bernstein’s two children – David Bernstein and Jane Wells – both attended along with 200…
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Mike Beckham
Interviewed by Geoff Moore, 4 November 2015. So, Mike, when did you 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 Granger happened to be in the audience. I’d done a lot of…
Read MoreAnn Lewis
Interviewed by Stephen Kelly, 26 January 2014. Cos it was all on the phones. I do think nonetheless that there was some good stuff. I remember I suggested to him, why don’t you get people with gardens and people without gardens and connect them to people who do have gardens and then they can. And…
Read MoreGeoff Moore
Interviewed by Stephen Kelly, 5 May 2015. Let’s begin, Geoff, by how you came to go to Granada and when you joined the company. I joined Granada in January 1969. I’d just graduated from Liverpool University, did a second degree in Politics there and came out of it after four years at university vaguely wanting…
Read MoreDavid Bernstein
Interviewed by Stephen Kelly and Judith Jones, 23 June 2013. David Bernstein is the son of Lord Sidney Bernstein. Although he worked in television, at Granada, for only a brief spell (during a summer vacation), he is nonetheless well versed in the life and times of Granada Television and his father’s role in the company.…
Read MoreJoan Riley
Interviewed by Stephen Kelly, 13 November 2013 When did you join Granada and how did you come to join Granada Television? There was an advert in the Evening News for a fast typist for the Granada Newsroom. I applied and was asked to go for an interview; a typing test. This was 1960. At that…
Read MoreGordon Burns
Interviewed by Stephen Kelly, 22 January 2015. Tell me how you came to join Granada and where you had been just before. Before Granada, I was at Ulster Television in Belfast because I come from Northern Ireland, I’m Belfast-born, half Belfast-bred – I moved to England when I was five, and back when I was…
Read MoreBrian Blake
Interviewed by Stephen Kelly, 8 November 2013. Brian Blake joined Granada Television in 1966 and worked almost exclusively on World In Action, initially as a Researcher and later as a Producer. Brian, let’s go through your Granada career chronologically. When did you join and how did you come to join the company? Well I joined…
Read MoreSandy Ross
Interviewed by Stephen Kelly, 1 December 2013. How did you actually come to work for Granada, because I know that Granada didn’t always take people who were obvious like journalists? It’s quite difficult to try and understand but I think I was part of the working class phase because you’re absolutely right, they had quite…
Read MoreBrian Trueman
Interviewed by Stephen Kelly, 13 February 2014. Right Brian. Let’s begin, let’s look at your career chronologically. When did you join Granada TV? I was there, 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…
Read MoreAndy Serraillier
Interviewed by Stephen Kelly, 14 October 2015. Let’s start where I started with lots of people. How did you come to join Granada Television? What was the process and where had you been before? I saw an advert in the Guardian, as I’m sure lots of people did. They had a page of media and…
Read MoreTony Drinkle
Interviewed by Stephen Kelly, 21 July 2015. How did you come to join Granada? Well, I left school at Christmas in ’55, and I started working at an advertising agency just off Peter Street, you know, brew boy, errands, things like that. And one lunchtime – I used to walk around town, as you do,…
Read MoreStewart Darby
Interviewed by Stephen Kelly, 16 December 2015 OK, Stewart when and how did you come to join Granada Television? Well, just before that let me tell you that I left school at 15 and in those days you left on a Friday and you started work on the Monday which I did and I’d got…
Read MoreSteve Morrison
Interviewed by Stephen Kelly, 19 January 2015. How did you come to join Granada? Well, this is actually a very funny story. Everybody says that! Well, maybe it’s true of Granada! I was a student at the National Film School, which is now the national film and television school, and I was in its first…
Read MoreSteve Leahy
Interviewed by Geoff Moore, 14 August 2015. Tell us how you got into Granada, and when it was. 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…
Read MoreStephen Kelly
Interviewed by Judith Jones, February 1, 2021 Can you start off by telling me when you joined Granada? I was working for the political weekly newspaper, Tribune, at the time. I’d not gone to university until much later in life, because I’d left school when I was 16 to work in the local shipyard, Cammell…
Read MoreRoland Coburn
Interviewed by Stephen Kelly, 30 January 2014. Let’s go through your Granada career chronologically. When did you join Granada? Bloody hell! I was there for thirty-seven years, and I left four years ago. When did you leave school? I left school when I was eighteen, and then I went to work for a company called…
Read MoreMichael Ryan
Interviewed by Stephen Kelly, 5 November 2015. What were you doing before you joined Granada Television? Working for the BBC as a studio director. I was headhunted, or something, for the BBC 2 start up. Technically I was a BBC 2 trainee from Oxford in 1963, and I spent about nine months on Panorama as…
Read MoreMaggie Coombes
Interviewed by Judith Jones, 18 March 2015. Okay, Maggie – just to begin, can you tell me how you came to be employed at Granada? Yes. I’d done a postgraduate course at Bristol University in film and television, and I just wrote round to all the television companies I could think of, this is who…
Read MoreLeslie Woodhead
Interviewed by Judith Jones and Stephen Kelly, 11 March 2015. Going right back to the beginning, how did you come to be employed at Granada? It’s a curious accident and quite simply the most fortunate thing that has ever happened to me. I was in my last year at Cambridge, reading English, and a chum…
Read MoreKathy Arundale
Interviewed by Stephen Kelly, 3 February 2015. Okay, Kathy. Let’s start by talking a little bit about your Granada career. When did you first join the company, and how did you come to join the company? I joined in May 1957, which was just a year and a few days after the company had gone…
Read MoreJune Buchan
Interviewed by Stephen Kelly, 21 January 2014. Let’s start June when did you join Granada and how come did you join Granada? I joined in 1973 in London as a Programme Secretary on a programme called, what was it called, I told you yesterday, Brian Lapping’s programme, State of the Nation, I was a programme…
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