Thelma McGough – Granadaland

Thelma McGough describes her first contact with GTV

Well, long before I joined I was very familiar with the building, and a lot of the staff before I actually became employed there. In the late 60s, I’d done a fashion show with a friend of mine, we were students at Liverpool College of Art. I was a painter, but we decided to set…

Thelma McGough on how she got a job at Granada

To get back to your original question, how I came to work there, on… following Anthony (H. Wilson) around, it always seemed like a really vibrant, interesting job, and he made it look easy and effortless and fun. Being a Scouser, there’s a bit of that Yozzer – though that came later – [attitude of]…

Thelma McGough’s memories of The Krypton Factor

I worked on Krypton Factor with Nick Turnbull. That was the beginning of the best part of working at Granada. Pete Walker was the director on that, and Gordon and I used to travel around looking for, or interviewing, possible contestants for that. And do you know, that stood me in so much good stead…

Thelma McGough on the early days of GTV in Liverpool

Chris (Pye) and I went to the Liverpool office. It was behind the Town Hall, Exchange Flags and was a beautiful building. You went to the front door, Chris had a beautiful big office to the right and I had a beautiful big office to the left. There was no secretary, no staff, no anything.…

Thelma McGough on the day John Lennon died

Here’s an interesting story about my work at Granada Television. At some point, I was living in London but working in Liverpool. I think it was after the strike, and it was when I came back. And so my mother would travel down to London to look after my kids, and I’d travel up to…

Thelma McGough meets Graeme Souness & Bill Shankly

Oh, a funny incident in the Liverpool office, long before there was like big, proper studios. Sometimes you’d have people come in to be interviewed and there were two sound guys there, that’s all I remember. And I remember Graeme Souness came in for an interview, and he was… there was a stand mic. I…

Thelma McGough on GTV as a caring company

I found them to be very caring of their employees. I always refused a staff contract – foolishly, in hindsight – because it came with the pension and I didn’t think I would live long enough to have a pension, and I didn’t want to think about it. And here I am, two months off…

Thelma McGough on LWT and the legacy of Granada

In hindsight I’ve realised that what Granada gave me was the ability to be able to thrive in all sorts of different situations that I might not be qualified to do or not. But that really was invaluable when I came to move to produce Blind Date. I just realised your instincts are so honed…