Well I grew up in a place called Kirkby, which was a big council estate on the outskirts of Liverpool. Newtown. It was where Z Cars was located. They didn’t call it Kirkby in Z Cars, they called it ‘Newtown’, but they used to shoot all their location stuff. My local pub was in the…
Read MoreSteve Anderson describes how he joined Granada
What was happening all at this same time, it was the late ‘70s, the Granada franchise was up for renewal. And Granada had got spooked by this man called Terry Smith who ran Radio City in Liverpool. Radio City had started about four or five years earlier. It had been a big success commercially.…
Read MoreSteve Anderson on the early days of Granada in Liverpool
So there was a lot of interest in the region, not just representing Manchester, and Granada had to respond to it in some way, didn’t they? They couldn’t ignore it. Correct. Yes, yes. So John and I were essentially getting at least two pieces on Granada. We normally were in the news, so we were…
Read MoreSteve Anderson on the eleven week ITV strike in 1979
It was very bruising because I was… Andy Harries and I were the joint FoCs, Fathers of the Chapel, for the NUJ. And because the NUJ was never ever particularly considered a television union, it was a print union, as far as television people were considered. There was no, certainly at national level, there…
Read MoreSteve Anderson on how he came to work on World in Action
‘79. The strike happened August, I think. July, August. Yes. Maybe slightly earlier. What we did, actually, we stumbled on what turned out to be a very big story, John and I. It was the death of this man called Jimmy Kelly who died in police custody in Merseyside. With Mike Short particularly, because he’d…
Read MoreSteve Anderson describes his early days on World in Action
What year did you start on World in Action? So, I was 22. What was your first show? The first show was about the Yorkshire Ripper. It was the time when those tapes had come out. You know, those tapes that had gone to the West Yorkshire Police, and this man claiming that he was…
Read MoreSteve Anderson on how he found the culture at World in Action
The World in Action period, what did you make of the culture of the programme and the people working there? How did you react to all that? I, sort of, loved it. And I loved it, was terrified of it, but also there was part of it I really didn’t like, as well. I think,…
Read MoreSteve Anderson remembers the Toxteth riots
It was July 4, 1981, the day I got married. I got married in Gatley. St James’s Church, Gatley. And we had the reception in Alderley Edge, cherry centre all the way, because all the money crowd had come over from Liverpool and there wasn’t just my family, but lots of journo mates as well.…
Read MoreSteve Anderson on the glamour of Coronation Street
I was fascinated by them. I mean, all the Coronation Street… I remember taking my parents around Coronation Street, one weekend. It was funny because, talk about crossing the line, that sort of added to this totally different world really. Even when I was a newspaper reporter, at least I was covering my local patch.…
Read MoreSteve Anderson describes leaving World in Action – and Granada
I left in the summer of 1984. I had nothing against World in Action. I was actually having a great time on World in Action at that time. But I’d applied for a producer’s job on Granada Reports, which I didn’t get. And I felt really upset about it. I was only 26, but I…
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