I was working for Tribune and running a campaign for Nuclear Disarmaments Paper, Sanity, and I started writing a series of articles on Conscientious Objectors in the First World War – this was at the time of the fiftieth anniversary of the beginning of the war – and the articles were picked up by the…
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David Boulton’s memories of ‘Scene at 6.30’
I was a very poor press officer because I wasn’t any good at publicising things and being a PR man and after a fairly short while (I think about a year) Sidney summoned me and said, ‘How are you getting on?’ and I said “I hope I’m doing alright.” And he said, ‘Well, I think…
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David Boulton describes how ‘World In Action’ operated in the 1970’s and the team that supported the journalists
At any one time there was somewhere between 12 and 15 (maybe even a few more) producers, directors and researchers on World in Action and, of course, we had very regular meetings to discuss programme ideas and there was a quite fierce competition among the producers and researchers to put forward ideas that they would…
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David Boulton describes his experiences of making films in Northern Ireland for ‘World In Action
The two strands that I tended to make my own were films in Northern Ireland (that was the first one) because the so-called ‘Irish Troubles’ or the ‘English Troubles’ as far as the Irish were concerned were all bubbling up at this time from 1969 onwards and I had a peculiar ‘in’ into Northern Ireland…
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David Boulton on the renowned Steel Papers ‘World in Action’ programme
What happened was that there was a strike at British Steel. British Steel was still a nationalised company and there were rumours that the management end of the dispute was being dictated by the Thatcher Government and these rumours were very strongly denied by the management of British Steel, Charles Villiers, the Chairman of British…
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David Boulton reflects on the challenges of managing the ‘World In Action’ team
You’ve talked a little bit about the eclectic bunch of people who worked on World in Action. What was it like being editor of that programme and having to deal with these very clever but also people who could be very awkward, shall we say, to work with? Yes, you’ve put it very well. They…
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David Boulton on how he valued the support of his cameramen and film editors on ‘World In Action’
When I joined World in Action (in 1969) the two newly appointed editors of World in Action, joint editors, were John Birt and Gus MacDonald. John Birt was, I think, only about 23 when he was appointed editor of World in Action and Gus was a little older but had already begun to make his…
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David Boulton on the challenges of making films under-cover
Another strand of films that I got involved in but I think this was really something that Gus MacDonald initiated was we needed to meet the criticism that it was very easy for us to go out to the United States, say, a very, very free country and make films very, very critical of the…
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David Boulton’s impressions of Granada as a company
First of all it was a family company. The Bernsteins were the bosses. The Bernsteins made the decisions. Sidney was the one with the social conscience who determined that Granada would be better than the BBC [British Broadcasting Company] at producing its news programmes, its current affairs programmes, and in developing a social justice direction.…
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David Boulton on ‘What the Papers Say’ and encountering Nigel Lawson
Of course, producing What the Papers Say was great fun as well. It’s amazingly still going. It amazingly still has the title music that I chose for it! That was a very simple job. I mean it just involved having a team of regular presenters across the political spectrum. I remember one of the presenters…
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David Boulton on the introduction of Electronic News Gathering
Another thing that you did when you were head of current affairs was the introduction of the new technology in Liverpool, ENG [Electronic News Gathering], and the new technology high-tech newsroom. Yes, that was a nightmare because if there was anybody in Granada who knew less about computers than I did, I’d have been interested…
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David Boulton on how he contributed to the rise to power of Margaret Thatcher
It was Linda MacDougall, the wife of a Labour MP, who was the producer on World in Action who came to me and said, ‘Look, Margaret Thatcher is challenging Ted Heath for the leadership of the Conservative Party.’ We all thought this was a great joke that this woman, who had not made a…
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David Boulton describes what he thinks is his personal legacy through his programmes
You were talking about how you aimed to be impartial and I was interested that you were somebody, I think, who came to television with strong political and ethical principles and I wonder if there are examples that you felt that through your programme making you had perhaps changed or influenced peoples’ perceptions of issues…
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David Boulton describes the ethos of Granada
Granada was built on the fact that there was a very, very close editorial connection between the people at the top and the people at the bottom. I mean the people in the middle, the producers worked directly to Dennis Forman, Sidney Bernstein and you made your decisions in accordance with what you felt they…
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David Boulton remembers his final years at Granada and how the company changed
The late ’80s things really began to change in Granada. I suppose the biggest manifestation of the change was that for all the years I had been working there I’d been vaguely aware that up on the top floor there was a whole lot of accountants you occasionally saw coming through the door in their…
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