I wouldn’t call it a family. I would say it was a really brilliant and vibrant place to work, full of really exciting, interesting people. It felt… we believed in ourselves as a company, we believed we were the best company, and we were the best company – we made the best in everything. Jewel…
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David Bernstein talks about the penthouse at Granada.
Yes. So if there was a board meeting or something happening up there, he wouldn’t be with us in London, he wouldn’t be with us in Kent – Jane and I went to school in London from the age of seven or eight. So I was both in 1955, so… 1963, we would have been…
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Dorothy Byrne on unions at Granada
I went in as an NUJ member, and then I became… I moved over onto an ACTT membership – I was amazed at some of the rules. So when I arrived, I was told that under union rules, the crew had to be guaranteed a choice of two or three starters for their lunch and…
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Dorothy Byrne remembers the Granada canteen
Well, you were always seeing the most fantastic people in the canteen, and you would find yourself sitting next to some famous actor munching his grub. What was nice about Granada was… it wasn’t like a family but it was lacking an ‘us and them’ mentality, and I think that was partly because it was…
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Andrew Serraillier on how he joined Granada
I saw an advert in the Guardian, as I’m sure lots of people did. They had a page of media and creative jobs on a Monday and it was for a promotions scriptwriter, whatever that was, I’d no idea. I’d been looking for jobs and I wanted a real gold-standard company to work for. I’d…
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Andrew Serraillier on his role as a promotions scriptwriter
Promotions is a bit like a little advertising unit in Granada. Our products were the programmes. So we were there to explain them to people and to hopefully be alluring and encourage people to watch them. So we made trailers. We produced and edited them. They were scheduled throughout the week. “Coronation Street, tonight at…
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Andrew Serraillier on working with continuity announcers
The other thing about promotions is that the promotions scriptwriters worked with continuity announcers. There were four in my time. There was Charles Foster, Jim Pope who was the voice of World in Action and I think University Challenge, Graham James, and a guy called Malcolm. All these men – women came later – these…
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Andrew Serraillier on working on This England and Celebration
So I did a lot of entertainment, but I think going into local programmes was much more my thing because I was working on half-hour films, so everything was longer-form. This England was a series that I think had enjoyed quite a reputation as a network series. But it wasn’t a network series when I…
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Andrew Serraillier recalls producing This Morning
Coming up to around 1988, that’s when Granada was commissioned to make This Morning, which was a 2 hour 10 minute live middle-of-the-morning programme. I don’t know if it’s just because I wasn’t doing anything at the time, but they made me the producer on that. Probably technically acting producer, but producer none the less.…
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Andrew Serraillier on Granada as a company
What I did find is that all the individuals I met might be divided into people who would encourage young people and others who’s kind of rough them up or resent them a bit. There were very few of the latter. I only met people who I thought were trying to help me. And the…
Read MoreBrian Park biography
Brian Park joined Granada TV as a promotion scriptwriter in April 1980, becoming a researcher in 1982. He worked on a variety of programmes including entertainment and the Emmy award-winning documentary Sword of Islam. He then worked at Tyne Tees for two years re-joining Granada as a producer in 1990. After producing the drama series…
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Brian Park describes how he came to join Granada
I was at Edinburgh University. I had started a life as a perpetual student; I had done two degrees and was starting a PhD, but then I thought maybe I should try and get a proper job. In those days, the Guardian on a Monday had a strange thing called “Creative & Media Recruitment” and…
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Brian Park on the role of the promotion scriptwriter
So when you went for the Manchester interview for the promotion scriptwriter, what did they ask you and how did that go? It was very casual. I think in those days they prided themselves on- they wanted to see a sparkle of personality or individuality, someone who’d fit rather than… Because you couldn’t really… you…
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Brian Park remembers some of the programmes he worked on as a researcher
I was a researcher from 82 I think to 88, when I went up to be a producer at Tyne Tees for two years. So I had a gap in my long career at Granada for two years when I went up to join Trish Kinane and then I came back in 1990 to be…
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Brian Park on returning to Granada as a Light Entertainment producer
So you’re back in 1990. What did you do then? I did a number of shows. I did Remote Control, I remember, with Tony Wilson. I’d forgotten. Well remembered, that, because nobody’s mentioned that show. It’s a forgotten show. It’s a forgotten show that we did for Channel 4. And it was an American format,…
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Brian Park on moving into drama, producing September Song
And so I gave up entertainment and I did a show called September Song with Russ Abbot and Michael Williams. And then, again, the great thing about Granada was – I ended up, because the producer of Prime Suspect, Paul Marcus, also late, wanted to, he got given a chance to direct, so they needed…
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Brian Park describes the ethos of Granada
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…
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Brian Park on Granada’s legacy
I think Granada’s legacy as a television company… you were very aware of its history and its achievements. ….I think it imbued a certain esprit de corps that… you certainly were proud to have gone through the ranks, and you know, I was there for 18 years, so this was quite a long time. Again,…
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Brian Park’s move to produce Coronation Street
After September Song, I did Prime Suspect. And then I spent a year with Granada Film trying to do strange set-ups. I remember shooting around Australia and Korea of all places. We tried to set up a film, but… and it was in the midst of that that the call came – and I think…
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Brian Park recalls the changes he made to Coronation Street
I do remember when I went in December before I took over in January, when I went to the first story conference… now it may be because it was very cold, but having been – this would be quite contentious, but having been told that the story conference was almost like the pantheon of the…
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Brian Park on ‘shaking up’ Coronation Street
I’ll put it this way. As with all these things, and you learn these things as you go, it’s like, “Oh right Brian, we want you go in and shake it up a bit” and when you start shaking it, they’re like “well we don’t want you to shake it too much though…” So you…
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Brian Park on why he was called “the axe man”
You mentioned that sometimes you had to be slightly ruthless. I remember the phase “the axe man” in the papers. Does that apply to both scriptwriters and cast? The thing that’s probably changed from then to now is that in those days, the huge interest that the papers – particular tabloids, the Sun and the…
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Brian Park on how he left Coronation Street and Granada
Did you enjoy it? Did I enjoy what? Working on Coronation Street? Oh, yeah, I really loved it. It was great having that amount of… it was like having a toy box and you just… yeah, we took risks, but… inevitably, with any job you do, I discovered, you have to stick your head above…
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Stewart Darby on how he started work at Granada
Ray Green (a photographer at Granada) tipped me brother off saying, “There’s a job going, tell your Stew to write in”, which I did. I wrote in, got an interview and there’s a guy called Vic Adeley who I was at the Mail with who got the job. Anyway about 3 month later I got…
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Stewart Darby remembers some of the Coronation Street characters
Vi (Violet Carson who played Ena Sharples) was lovely! Oh God! She was a very good actress, Vi. I will tell you a couple of stories. There’s a couple of pictures, I don’t know if you remember it, but she’s like that grinning at me at the camera on one of the pictures from the…
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Stewart Darby describes his role taking photographs of Coronation Street
What your role was would be taking photographs that could be used in the TV Times and… For press and publicity generally. So when I photographed Coronation Street – in those days they were only a fortnight in front – those we would try and get in the Daily Mirror, the Sun, the News of…
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Stewart Darby’s memories of Sidney Bernstein
Let me give you, while it’s on my mind, a few Sidney stories, can I? This is fairly early days and Jack Smith (producer) had come across a very rare stamp and I was going to photograph him with this stamp with a glass, you know the sort of thing. The stamp die would be…
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Stewart Darby remembers going to India for Staying On
I used to go to work in the morning, shirt and tie, suit, smart because often the phone would go at five to six – David Plowright – “Stew, got some visiting the Penthouse, can you whip up and do a quick pic?” “Absolutely.” And produce them before they went. You know what I mean?…
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Stewart Darby on his friendship with the actor, David Hemmings
They were wonderful days when I think back. I say it was always my intention to get on with everybody. We did a thing in the Lake District called Clouds of Glory, Ken Russell directed. And David Warner and Felicity Kendal. And Ken Russell he used to be a stills-man in these early days and…
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Esther Dean describes how she came to join Granada
This is going to be quite a long story! I was always very stage-struck. I was brought up in Manchester. Even during the war I can remember going to the Robert Atkins, the open-air theatre from Regent’s Park coming up to the Whitworth Park. I think I was six and I saw Merchant of Venice…
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