Interviewed by Stephen Kelly, 16 June 2015. So, Jon. Just to get going with this, take us back. How did you come to join Granada and when? I have been a staff member at Granada since 1978, that was when I joined the staff. But I left university in 1973 and was looking for work…
Read MoreGlenda Wood
Interviewed by Judith Jones, October 2015. Can you tell me when and how you came to work for Granada? 1966, and I had been at Tyne Tees Television for three years before that. And I got married to this bloody idiot, and I thought, “I’ve got to go, got to go.” And there, we just…
Read MoreGeorge Jesse Turner
Interviewed by Judith Jones and Stephen Kelly, 4 August 2015. To start off with, George, can you tell me how you came to work for Granada? Well I have to go back rather a long time. As a child I lived in Southport and my father, one of the many hobbies he had, was he…
Read MoreFrank Clarke
Interviewed by Stephen Kelly, 22 November 2013. Frank, let’s begin at the beginning. How old were you and when did you come to start at Granada? How did you get the job? Well, what happened in those days, with National Service, an employer was only obliged to take you back for 12 months after you…
Read MoreEsther Dean
Interviewed by Judith Jones, 4 November 2015. Okay. Can you begin by telling me how you came to be employed at Granada, how you joined Granada? This is going to be quite a long story! I was always very stage-struck. I was brought up in Manchester. Even during the war I can remember going to…
Read MoreDon Jones
Interviewed by Geoff Moore, 18 August 2015. So, Don, can I just start you off by asking, how did you join Granada? How did you come to join? In 1980 I was a sports reporter on the Lancashire Evening Post. I’d been there six years. I’d joined them as a junior reporter, straight from school…
Read MoreDavid Highet
Interviewed by Judith Jones, 23 April 2015. So I wanted to start, David, by asking you how you came to be employed at Granada Television because that wasn’t your first job? No, it was 1979 and I was 38 and I was Assistant Editor of the Liverpool Echo which was at that time probably the…
Read MoreDavid Boulton
Interviewed by Stephen Kelly and Judith Jones, 18 June 2015 David, let’s begin with looking at how you actually came to join Granada Television. I was working for Tribune and running a campaign for Nuclear Disarmaments Paper, Sanity, and I started writing a series of articles on Conscientious Objectors in the First World War –…
Read MoreBruce Anderson
Interview with Bruce Anderson on January 27, 2015. When you joined Granada, where did you come from? Right. From the age of 17 to the age of 21, I spent four years at Bournemouth and Poole College of Art, which is now part of Bournemouth University. I primarily went there I suppose, because I wanted…
Read MoreBrian Park
Interviewed by Geoff Moore, 18 November 2015. OK. Let’s start the interview proper. So Brian, let’s start with how you came to join Granada. I was at Edinburgh University. I had started a life as a perpetual student; I had done two degrees and was starting a PhD, but then I thought maybe I should…
Read MoreBarry Bowmer
Interviewed by Stephen Kelly, 10 September 2015. Let’s start Barry by how you came to join Granada, how old were you? Well, I had various jobs going at Localis(?) where I lived in the south. My father who was a tool-maker at the BMI could see that going downhill so he persuaded me not to…
Read MoreDavid Liddiment
Interviewed by Geoff Moore, 13 August 2015. Tell us how you came to join Granada. I joined Granada as a promotions scriptwriter. Joe Rigby hired me, and the only reason I got the job was, having applied for it before, I decided to apply for it again because I didn’t get it the first time…
Read MoreWallen Matthie
Interviewed by Stephen Kelly, 14 February 2014. 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…
Read MoreJohn Huntley
Interviewed by Stephen Kelly, 25 February 2016. What did you do before Granada and how did you come to join Granada? I’ve been thinking about that, Steve. I was at York University from ’69 to ’72. Also at York University was Jeremy Fox, who I met, and we used to do TV programmes. It was…
Read MoreIan Hunton
Interviewed by Stephen Kelly, 18 February 2014. Let’s start from when you joined Granada, Ian. Tell us about how you came to join Granada and when you joined. I did a degree in electrical engineering and electronics at Newcastle University. I was on a scholarship with a company called AEI (Associated Electrical Instruments) and I…
Read MoreJanice Finch transcript
Interviewed by Stephen Kelly, 12 December 2013. Let’s talk a little bit about your career at Granada Television, the programmes you worked on and when you joined. So initially I did a six-month stint on Exchange Flags which, as you know, was a live lunchtime programme done in Liverpool. After that I was asked to…
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David Bernstein – biography
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. In particular he met many executives, actors and friends of his…
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Dorothy Byrne on how she joined Granada
I was working on the Northern Echo and I saw an advert in the Guardian for a researcher. I applied, and I found it very interesting that, when I think back, that this was an advert for the Guardian for a staff job in TV, and how that just doesn’t happen in that way any…
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David Bernstein on why his father chose the north west for his TV company
He and his brother Cecil looked at a population map for the United Kingdom, and the rainfall map of the United Kingdom and decided, when they were choosing which of the franchises to bid for, that the north west would have most people at home on a rainy evening, ready to watch their programmes, and…
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Sidney Bernstein as a risk taker
I wasn’t aware of the fragility of the company’s finances – very few people were aware of the deal that was done with ATV and Rediffusion, I only read about that in the book years later. The little bit of indiscretion which I probably will allow myself, because it’s all a long time in the…
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Dorothy Byrne on working on Granada Reports
Granada Reports… was really, really a good programme, and within a very short number of weeks I was out making 10-minute films myself, and I just thought it was absolutely fantastic, and because we made, in Granada Reports, investigative films. I did a film investigating how bed and breakfasts in Blackpool were taking money from…
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Dorothy Byrne on the Channel 4 programme ‘Union World’
Then I went to work on Union World, and I had to pass a test to work on Union World. So I was called in by David Kemp – many people said, “I don’t know why you don’t work on Union World, because you’re Scottish,” and there seemed to be at Granada, as they called…
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