I then moved onto drama documentaries. These were an offshoot of World In Action. We found, this is Leslie Woodhead and myself, we found various stories behind the Iron Curtain, which we couldn’t get a camera to for obvious reasons, but we could often get, say, a transcript of a trial of dissidents, or an…
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Steve Morrison remembers a difficult incident with a government minister
Gayle and I were sent off to interview the Labour Minister for what was then called… I think it was called Sport and Pollution. So this guy got this double-barrelled job when he was really interested in boxing and sport, which included tips and all sorts of pollutants that he was responsible for, and we…
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Sandy Ross biography
Sandy Ross joined Granada Television in 1976 after working as a solicitor in Edinburgh. He worked initially as a Researcher on regional programmes and in particular Granada Reports before working with Tony Wilson on What’s On. He later became a Producer producing local and networked programmes such as the Mersey Pirate which presented more than…
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Steve Morrison’s memories of making of the Spanish Civil War documentary series
I ran the Locals for two or three years, had a wonderful time, and then again, I think Gus may have been still in charge of the whole Factual area. He said to me, “I’ve got a problem with the Spanish Civil War.” He said, “We’ve got an Executive Producer and producers and a very…
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Mike Beckham describes leaving Granada
I retired in 1998. I’d been there for 36 years. I was then age 60. I was told to leave. It was very cold outside, I can tell you. It was not this wonderful benign outfit. Towards the end I hated Granada because it had been taken over by Gerry Robinson and it was no…
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Steve Morrison recalls starting the Granada Film operation
So during the time I was head of Features, I got this completely mad idea to start Granada Film, and on a Friday, at the end of the day, I used to sneak up the back stairs and occasionally have a whisky with the Managing Director of Granada then, who then became the Chairman, who…
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Steve Morrison recalls winning two Oscars with ‘My Left Foot’
So there is a story I must tell you about My Left Foot. By the time the Oscars came around, we had completed the film, and I had been promoted again – which is a whole different story – from the head of Granada Film to the Director of Programmes at Granada, which meant that…
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Jon Woods on how he joined Granada
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 in television, I worked with Arthur Smith at Rose Productions, he gave me an opportunity, he knew a producer at the university, Vivian Daniels, a BBC Manchester…
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Steve Morrison’s memories of making the film ‘The Magic Toyshop’
So David Wheatley and I had worked together, and we decided to make a film about one of Angela Carter’s books, and the one we chose was called The Magic Toyshop. Angela Carter was in Texas, lecturing, so David and I got on the phone, which in those days seemed a very long way away,…
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Jon Woods on his ‘apprenticeship’ at Granada
When I first joined Granada in 1978, my first day on film ops was on Coronation Street, doing the location – all the location filming was done on film in those days, before electronics, you know, went lightweight. And Ray Goode was the senior cameraman, and I was his assistant, focus puller, and that was…
Read MoreSteve Leahy biography (interview carried out by Geoff Moore)
Steve Leahy originally joined Granada as an assistant transmission controller but two years later successfully applied to be a researcher, initially in local programmes. Following a period in children’s programmes he became Granada’s Head of Entertainment in 1987 where he developed his passion for quiz shows, with ITV network productions including The Krypton Factor, Busman’s…
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David Liddiment on how he always wanted to work in TV
As you started university, what did you want to be? I wanted to work in television, and I had wanted to work in television since I had been a teenager. I loved the telly – I was born in 1952, I am a child of the television generation in the way that kids born today…
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Mike Beckham’s thoughts on the new world of TV
Yes, World In Action was killed off during the reign of Gerry Robinson because it wasn’t getting enough ratings. OK, fair enough, there were a lot of channels. They were simply killed off, they said it’s just not… OK, it’s much more difficult to make current affairs now because we were doing shows which nobody…
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Steve Morrison on working with Kid Creole and the Coconuts
One of the most original things we made, which was an idea from David Liddiment, who I know you have also interviewed, who was working in the Entertainment department, but the Entertainment department wasn’t making it, it was a musical called There’s Something Wrong in Paradise or something similar to that, I need to check…
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Jon Woods remembers working with cameraman Ray Goode
He was a lighting cameraman on Brideshead, and also a lighting cameraman on Jewel in the Crown, which is where I worked with him for two years, just short of two years. So I was a camera operator on Jewel in the Crown. What was your opinion of Ray Goode? I think Ray had learnt…
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Steve Leahy describes how he joined Granada
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 nudged me that way, hoped I might make a barrister. I absolutely hated being a student. And I…
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David Liddiment describes how he joined Granada TV
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 round. Unbeknownst to me, I had narrowly lost it the first time around, so…
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Barry Bowmer biography
Barry Bowmer joined the mailroom at Granada’s Golden Square office in August 1959. One of his principal jobs at that time was to take the early morning mail around to Lord Bernstein’s Mayfair flat where he was often greeted on the doorstep by Lady Bernstein in her negligee. He later moved to the mailroom at…
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Barry Bowmer’s memories of the productions in the early 60’s
I wanted to get into production and as there was a studio at Chelsea I applied and got a job there which started in the mailroom and shortly afterwards I went as callboy which obviously involved all the shows that were put on there. And there were lots of them. Such as? Massive productions. Well…
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Mike Beckham reflects on Granada’s legacy
Well, I think it’s important that interviews like this try and keep it alive, because it was a remarkable company in that ratings weren’t the be all and end all. It was very important that there were good ratings, of course, but it was set up by Sidney and Cecil Bernstein. Cecil did the light…
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Steve Morrison discusses the changing nature of TV in the 1990s
There were basically two things that happened in the late 80s which were very, very important. The first thing was that when I was at the controllers’ group, there was a great deal of rivalry between what was called the seven-day companies, which were those that had franchises across the whole week, and the London…
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David Highet on how he came to be employed at Granada
It was 1979 and I was 38 and I was Assistant Editor of the Liverpool Echo which was at that time probably the biggest regional evening newspaper and I was getting a little restive. I’d spent 20 years in local newspapers, local journalism, and I felt it was time for a move but I wasn’t…
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Jon Woods on working on World In Action in Belfast
I assisted on quite a few World In Action’s. It was a very busy weekly show, high turnaround of ideas and projects, and one that I smile at a lot was a World In Action we were shooting with Stuart Prebble, producer, about the IRA, and we were filming in Belfast and Dublin, and it’s…
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Steve Leahy describes his move to being a researcher
Got into Granada, arrived very green, as a trainee assistant transmission controller, which was a nine-month training programme. And I did it in three months, which is astonishing because it was mind over matter, I can’t push buttons and do things, I really can’t, I had to just learn it. I was determined to learn…
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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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David Liddiment on moving from promotions to being a researche
I decided, having been there a brief while, the thing I wanted to do was direct, you know, sat in the back of the gallery producing a promo session – we used to run the trails through the gallery and we used to put the captions on with a manned camera crew on the studio…
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Barry Bowmer describes his first job at Granada in London
Well, I had various jobs 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 go into engineering and there were various jobs at London Airport (or Heathrow as it’s now known) and eventually my uncle, who used to…
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Steve Morrison talks about leaving Granada – and its legacy
I left in 2002. So I was at Granada for 27 and a half years, 21 in Manchester and the rest in London, and my reflection on all of this is that Granada went through two golden eras. The first golden era was up to 1987, when it had guaranteed programmes of a relatively small…
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David Highet on Granada’s rationale for opening a Liverpool office
At the time the long-standing antipathy between Liverpool and Manchester focussed – even more greatly than usual – on the lack of a television station in Liverpool while Manchester had the TV centre in Quay Street in all its glory and different organisations began to form. One of them was led by a Professor of…
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Jon Woods on filming the Toxteth riots in 1981
One of the big shocks of my life was having to work on the Toxteth riots for ITN. Shooting on film, spending nearly a week in Toxteth, not getting home for nearly a week, and being close to very serious danger, and being almost injured quite badly a few ties, with petrol bombs and flagstones…
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