The canteen was the great democratisation. You would see Denis Forman with his tray looking like one of the doorman. And they would make a point of sitting next to plebs and we would then have indigestion for half an hour! There was a feeling of a slight democracy about it, whether that was true or not. I think in a way it did pride itself in running itself on vague BBC lines, in terms of its self-regard, which I think was very important. And you were also very aware that it was because we are Granada – “how can we do that?” because we were Granada. It had a sort of northern gritty edge to it, which had a slight implication that they didn’t want any of that grubby commercialism. Which was of course a load of nonsense, seeing as Thompson’s license to print money was still there. But somehow, they managed to pull off that there was a higher purpose to Granada in terms of educating. They always had that thing where they loved the fact that they had Coronation Street on one hand but they had World in Action on the other, and then they could do high-quality drama at the same time. They could have their cake and eat it, and it had a northern redoubt. They worked that one really well, I think, into an ethos that we all bought into. And to a large extent it was true, therefore that’s what you enjoyed.
