I was a Politics graduate Leeds University. 1978. Professor Ralph Miliband was my tutor and also Head of Department. David and Ed came in a couple of times. To fund my MSc course at University of Bradford, I managed to get a Research Assistant post with the Lucas Aerospace Shop Stewards Combine Committee. Thousands of…
Read MoreVanessa Kirkpatrick describes her induction weeks
The Induction weeks I was to start on Granada Reports and would be shadowing Judy Finnigan – ‘my mother’ for the two weeks induction. My unassigned ‘brothers’ were the three amigos: superstar editors, Oral, Dave and Kim who adopted me on the recommendation of a mutual friend. Everything was a haze, maybe because I was…
Read More
Vanessa Kirkpatrick remembers working on Granada Reports
One of my first assignments on Granada Reports was covering a large demo about public sector low pay. Some of my new Manchester friends were extreme left – and there they were on Bury New Rd. with their banners, some emblazoned with accusations of right wing media bias! One of them spotted me and shouted…
Read MoreVanessa Kirkpatrick on the different programmes she worked on at Granada
Between 1982 and 1989, when I left temporarily, I had worked on a whole swathe of regional and network programmes as a researcher/reporter. Granada Reports; This Is Your Right; A Place to Live – whereunder the energetic and scrupulous eye of Jack Smith (Head of Schools programming), we roamed North Manchester industrial estates for rare…
Read MoreVanessa Kirkpatrick on racism, sex and ‘Blond Blue Eyed Girls’
The first week of my induction at Granada wasn’t especially welcoming. After one of my first news conferences, a senior journalist frenziedly wheeled their chair to my desk (Hamilton couldn’t have done it faster) and whispered in my ear ‘you do know don’t you that you’ve only been taken on because you’re black.’ – then…
Read MoreVanessa Kirkpatrick on heart-stopping moments – and camaraderie
It was the Granada canteen that introduced me to the irresistible but heart disease inducing cheese and onion pie. The canteen filled me with trepidation but you could star gaze – and create opportunities. It was a bit like speed dating. It was supposed to be rest time for an hour or so but it…
Read MoreVanessa Kirkpatrick talks about Marjorie Giles, her mentor
Working for the gorgeous, sexy, sensational, witty ,bright eyed, intelligent, terribly posh and motivational producer Marjorie Giles, This Is Your Right(TIYR). Journalists and ‘serious researchers’ were very condescending to researchers who worked on TIYR. We had been cast into the wilderness of ‘programme making on pitiful budgets.’ But Marjorie didn’t care. She nurtured us,…
Read MoreNorma Percy
Interviewed by Geoff Moore, 3 April 2019. So Norma, can I just ask you to just tell us a bit about your earlier years and background education, and so on? Right. I grew up in New York, and when it came to go to university, I wanted to get as far as possible from my…
Read MoreDorothy Byrne
Interview conducted by Stephen Kelly, September 20, 2015. How did you come to join 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…
Read MoreJules Burns
Interviewed by Geoff Moore, 6 December 2018. Before Granada, just tell us a bit about your background. What was your education, and where did you live? I was born here, emigrated to Canada, my family emigrated to Canada. I came back when I was five. Went to prep school and then to Haberdashers’ school and…
Read MoreVanessa Kirkpatrick
Pre-Granada I was a Politics graduate Leeds University. 1978. Professor Ralph Miliband was my tutor and also Head of Department. David and Ed came in a couple of times. To fund my MSc course at University of Bradford, I managed to get a Research Assistant post with the Lucas Aerospace Shop Stewards Combine Committee. Thousands…
Read MoreNorma Percy – biography (interview carried out by Geoff Moore)
Norma Percy was born and brought up in America. After university in Ohio she studied at the London School of Economics and then became a House of Commons researcher for the Labour MP John Mackintosh. In 1972 she joined Granada to work with Brian Lapping on the State of the Nation series. This began a…
Read More
Norma Percy on how she met Brian Lapping and joined Granada
I grew up in New York, and when it came to go to university, I wanted to get as far as possible from my family. So I went to a small college in Ohio called Oberlin, where there was an extremely charismatic Hungarian professor of International Relations. And all we government international relations students actually…
Read MoreNorma Percy described the first programme she worked on
This was State of the Nation Parliament. And roughly what year? Brian first came to me to help develop it in February 1972, and we wrote a proposal. I guess we got started actually. You didn’t have to write proposals and get them to develop it. We started work. But there were a lot of…
Read MoreNorma Percy describes the journalistic reconstructions she made with Granada
Brian (Lapping), very soon, with our fly on the wall films, we discovered that you could only get access to what they really want to let you in for, and it’s not the top stuff. Therefore you have to find other ways of doing it. It wasn’t the top stuff. He came up with two…
Read MoreNorma Percy on her powers of persuasion
How do you go about getting a president or a prime minister on screen? With difficulty! And with a lot of time. And it takes time. The first thing you need is time because Percy’s first rule is that everyone worth having says ‘No’ at least three times, so you need time to keep…
Read MoreNorma Percy on being a woman working in television
How was it for you as a woman in those years? I had a lot of problems with that. I got an award for women in film and media this year. And I probably made a not particularly well-judged speech that said, “I have a terrible thing to confess, I don’t have women in my…
Read More
Norma Percy on leaving Granada
Brian (Lapping) was offered voluntary redundancy and set up… and Steve Morrison, or maybe it was Jules Burns, or maybe it was both of them, said, “Well, we could give you a job if Brian leaves, but it definitely would be in Manchester.” They made it quite clear that they probably thought it would be…
Read More
Jules Burns describes how he joined Granada
I was born here, emigrated to Canada, my family emigrated to Canada. I came back when I was five. Went to prep school and then to Haberdashers’ School and did very badly. Left at first year of sixth form. I got a place at Brighton art college that I didn’t go to and went to…
Read More
Jules Burns on his first impressions of Granada
I knew nothing about television. I hardly watched it. No, I mean I had management background because in the garage when I worked I started as a petrol pump attendant but I was manager of the garage after a couple of years. Oh right, I see. Okay. I sort of found I could do…
Read More
Jules Burns describes his role in programme services
Just going back to the programme services job, did that involve a range of specialties and personnel management as well as legal affairs? It was responsible for all the contracting. It had HR as it’s now known reporting to it. It had all of the creative functions, so everything from PAs through production managers into…
Read More
Jules Burns on the arrival of Gerry Robinson and Charles Allen
Well, Robinson was appointed first. I think Alex Bernstein. I think he was the Chief executive of Granada Group at one stage, and then moved to be the chairman, and I think Robinson was brought in. It was a group. Wasn’t it? Yes. Robinson came into group, and Robinson brought in Charles into group, and…
Read More
Jules Burns on his role as managing director
During the 90s you were joint managing director? Well, I was joint managing director of Granada, and then I was joint managing director with Andrea (Wonfor) of Granada Group Production. Who was by then we bought London Weekend, we bought Yorkshire Time Tees, and the Southern franchise and were integrating. If you’ll remember, what we…
Read More
Jules Burns on the three generations of Granada
It seems to me that there were three generations of Granada. There was the ‘56 to probably the mid 70s, which was probably the most exciting time. Then the mid 70s through to the 90s was probably the fattest time, when you know, everybody got a bit lazy and it was all a bit easy…
Read More
Jules Burns on how Granada became more commercially competitive
When I first arrived on the sixth floor as part of programme services, or when I was first settled in there, I was surprised that entertainment was regarded as really a bit below the pale. Drama and current affairs, they were the things that Granada did. I remember Paul David as the head of entertainment,…
Read More
Jules Burns’s view on the shift of power from north to south
Well I think it’s regrettable in that it gradually has dismantled the production capability in the north, it’s an inevitable consequence of it. When I first arrived, Manchester was completely buzzing. Probably 80, 90% of its production staff, its creative staff were actually based in Manchester. There were some in Upper James Street, but that…
Read More
Jules Burns on leaving Granada and setting up All3Media
Coincidentally Steve, David and I all left Granada in 2002. At slightly different times, but by the end of 2002 we’d all left. ……. Steve was insistent that we should start an independent production company, which neither David nor I thought was a particularly good idea. We were in our mid-50s and we thought now…
Read More
Luise Fitzwalter on how she came to join Granada
Well, we moved moved to Manchester because my then husband Deepak Nandy became the deputy chief executive of the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC), which had just been set up. And as a result of him taking on this equal opportunities role, I lost my job in London. So the deal was, have a baby, and…
Read More
Luise Fitzwalter describes her Granada career
I made a big pitch at my interview about children’s programmes, because inevitably I was a mother and I sat and watched this ghastly stuff. And I didn’t realise that Steve Leahy was just about to revamp the children’s department. And I was promised that I could work in children’s, but it didn’t happen, of…
Read More
Luise Fitzwalter describes the innovation on Open House
We created something called Open House for North West Parliament, which was a brilliant idea where we used the House of Commons set that Granada had and we invited local MPs from the north west, and the retired deputy speaker who lived in the north west, and they debated issues like education, health etc. They…
Read More