Brian Blake – Granadaland

Brian Blake biography

Brian Blake joined Granada TV in 1966 after a short career in academia. He was initially employed to work on a project where World In Action material that had not been transmitted would be published in booklet or pamphlet form. After nine months however the project was declared unviable and Brian was told to go…

Brian Blake recalls how he joined Granada TV

Well I joined in 1966 and it’s a slightly strange story how I joined. Basically I was an academic, which sounds a bit pompous. I’d done two degrees in History and I was working on a big project in London on the history of parliament. I’d done three years of that and was beginning to…

Brian Blake talks about the different mix of staff that worked on ‘World In Action’

The team was always incredibly small, maybe sixteen, seventeen, eighteen of which eleven or twelve were producers, so about six researchers. We tended to get all the bread and butter stuff, the hard graft of hitting the phone and knocking on doors. Very rarely did you get abroad, all that began to happen much later…

Brian Blake talks about the working atmosphere on ‘World In Action’

What about women who worked on the programme (‘World In Action’)? There weren’t many at all, especially the early days. Most of them were single, tough in that sense because they had to be, it was an incredibly male society. It was funny it was different, they were very sensitive filmmakers, very good at emotional…

Brian Blake talks about working on the ‘World In Action’ programme that covered the first British Gay Pride rally in London in 1972

It was the first gay rights civil march in London, to Hyde Park on a Saturday. We had two crews out, one followed a group of gay rights people from Liverpool and I went down to London and filmed the equivalent London group of people who were marching to Hyde Park. So it was filmed…

Brian Blake on how Granada was run as a company

And there was an ability in those early days, was there not, to be able to come up with an idea one minute and by the afternoon be actually making the programme? It was exactly the same as I was saying earlier about picking people on a flair; ideas were the same. There were no…

Brian Blake remembers Denis Forman

When I came to Manchester, I had never been to Manchester before apart from playing football in university days, but I had never been to Granada. I went to the desk and asked “Can I see Denis Forman?” They looked at me, “Is he expecting you?” I said “Yes he is.” I didn’t realise he was…

Brian Blake remembers Sidney Bernstein and his film about the Belsen concentration camp

I had just finished the ‘History of Television’ and Steve Morrison rang me up and said “Sidney wants this film made.” I said “Oh yes” In the Second World War Sidney was one of the first people to go into Belsen concentration camp. He was a major in the army and he decided when he…

Brian Blake on trade unions

Let’s talk a little bit about the trade unions, at that time in commercial television, whether you thought there were certain rules which inhibited programme making or made life difficult. Whether they were they justified or not. I think the one that irritated me was you had to have a card to become a director.…

Brian Blake talks about the politics of Granada TV

Somebody said to me that Granada was an unashamedly left wing company. Would you agree with that? I know somebody who did, that was Ken Clarke. Again we were doing an interview with Ken Clarke in London, I think he was Home Secretary. He said to me, “I don’t know why I’m bothering doing this…

Brian Blake talks about Granada as an employer

You talked about the Granada ethos, what kind of company was Granada, would you like to expand on that? It’s difficult not to be clichéd about it. It had a genuine interest in all the people, in the early days certainly. Some moved from London to Manchester, you’ve still got the same thing now with…