Phil Griffin – Granadaland

Phil Griffin on how he joined Granada

This photo shows John Hopkins (Tech. Supervisor), Phil Griffin & Mike Short (producer) (courtesy of Barry Hairline). My first job after university was at Piccadilly Radio when commercial radio was just getting some its early evolution. In 1974 Piccadilly Radio was the second independent station outside London. BRMB was the first. So in April, April 2…

Phil Griffin on the significance of P.T. Barnum

P.T. Barnum, the image of P.T. Barnum on the wall of all the offices in both Golden Square and in Quay Street, it’s kind of the key to it, because it’s the great showman, but bear in mind that’s also transatlantic, you know, P.T. Barnum is not is not round the corner, it’s not Billy…

Phil Griffin remembers Tony Wilson

Tony and I were… he was one year my senior, and we met when we were at school because Tony was a gobby sort, and across the Irwell in Salford he went to the De La Salle School, and I went to St Bede’s Grammar, which was on Alexandra Road in Moss Side. Tony and…

Phil Griffin on commercial TV in the 1950’s

The buildings, the sort of mission hut-type buildings that went up as Ralph Tubbs was developing the studios and the studio building, was that little complex that always had… Sidney saying. “Well, if this doesn’t work we can get out of here pretty quickly,” and one forgets how uncertain all of that was, which is…

Phil Griffin on the importance of Granada to Manchester

Anybody I think who was around in Manchester in the late 60s, early 70s and through the 70s and into the 80s, just couldn’t avoid the place. The cultural imprint that Granada had particularly on Manchester, and more broadly in the northwest, has no equivalence. When the Manchester Guardian dropped ‘Manchester’ from its banner, which…

Phil Griffin on the architecture of the Granada building in Quay Street

It was the first commercial building to be completed in the city centre after the war. Its architect was a man called Ralph Tubbs, and he was selected by Sidney largely because he’d been impressed with his work in the Festival of Britain, because Ralph Tubbs’ designed the dome of discovery. So Ralph Tubbs was…

Phil Griffin on the specific geographical location of Granada

The complex is very interesting because then you have the water tower, leading onto the back of what’s now the Museum of Science and Industry site, and of course what people forget about the Museum of Science and Industry is that within the complex is the first passenger railway station in the world, and so…

Phil Griffin on Manchester as the second city

If you want to know the difference between Manchester and London, then look at World in Action and Panorama – not that World in Action wasn’t a London-based programme, it very largely was – but it took a different editorial slide, and it did something much more boldly and it didn’t… it hesitated now and…

Phil Griffin on the Granada art collection

I’ve been interested in pictures most of my life, but seeing the Francis Bacon in the Granada reception opposite the Christopher le Brun and alongside John Hoyland, and Patrick Heron on the downstairs corridor, these just sensational, mid-century, largely abstract paintings that the Bernsteins had had collected, and it was Cecil’s son, wasn’t it, that…