Anne McGarry – Granadaland

Anne McGarry on what made Granada distinctive in its early years

There were two aspects to it. Firstly, there’s Granada as a working environment, and secondly, there’s Granada’s reputation, I suppose, as a television company. Firstly, compared with other companies I’ve worked for, before and since, during my time at Granada, I can own only describe the environment as being friendly and comradely. There was of…

Anne McGarry on how Granada extended its programming in 1964

Now, in the autumn of 1964, Granada as well as the transmitting Scene At 6.30 began to really emphasise its commitment to the North of England introducing what it called its Granada in the North concept and this involved two or three minutes of newsy features which were meant to supplement or replace the continuity…

Anne McGarry on Granada’s Graduate Training Scheme, launched in 1963

During 1963, Granada set up its Granada Graduate Training Programme. There were about a dozen young men, I think. I know there were men, I can only remember one young woman. As part of their training to find out what particular talents they had, they were assigned to a variety of programmes including the Northern…

Anne McGarry’s memories of Bob Greaves joining Granada

He (Bob Greaves) came to Granada, he replaced Terry Dobson as news editor. I think he was about 30 years old, although he was married and he had two children he gave me the impression of being a little older and more mature for his age. He was a lovely and pleasant and down to…

Anne McGarry on a typical day on Northern Newscast in the 1960’s

At the beginning, it was called Northern Newscast and it was a five-minute… sometimes it was little bit longer, sometimes they might give you six or seven minutes. You just had to take what they scheduled you on. So, my job description was that of secretary to the news editor, but the setup in the…

Anne McGarry’s memories of David Plowright

David Plowright was the news editor. He joined the company two years before. I had no idea what he’d eventually become, of course. And he was a 30-year-old man who was very energetic and confident, I’m even tempted to say charismatic. He was a friendly, no-nonsense type of a guy, who insisted on first name…

Anne McGarry describes the other members of the news team in the 1960s

The assistant news editor was Terry Dodson, he came from the Daily Express. He took over from David Plowright as news editor in 1960. It was him who was on duty the night Kennedy was assassinated. He was the first person who heard from the Press Association in London and passed it onto Barry Heads…

Anne McGarry describes the type of news stories Granada used to cover

Well, because of the very nature of news every day, every day was slightly different. There was a whole range of stories but you did, after a while, tend to categorise them. They would be the death and disaster ones, people hurt or killed in road accidents, fires, or at work or explosions, etc. Then…

Anne McGarry on two big stories – the Moors Murders and the assassination of President Kennedy

One of the biggest national stories we had to deal with was the Moors Murders, I remember. I think it must’ve been 1965. I was manning the newsroom one lunch hour and the others were having lunch in the canteen, and I got a phone call from our freelance cameraman who said he’d got a…