I was with Anglia Television in Norwich and I had gone there straight from… not quite straight and leaving Cambridge, but I taught French for a couple of terms at a very bizarre establishment in Sussex. And joined Anglia, got a job as an announcer initially, did that for about three months, moved over to the newsroom and then became kind of an anchor of the evening magazine. Then one day I got a call from Michael Apted, who had been a mate at university, and then at Granada of course, and he said, “Michael Parkinson is leaving and we need somebody to replace him, so why don’t you apply for an interview?” which I did. I went to Golden Square with a little film I’d done. I can’t remember what it was about, I think it was about a greyhound track or something, and I remember Barry Heads said, “We would have interviewed the greyhound.” But anyway, I got the job and that was it. That was the start (in about 1965-66)
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So you joined Granada. What was the first programme they put you on? Did they send you into local telly?
Yes, I mean, it was all very rapid. I could not have seemed very grown up after Anglia, which was a delightful but sleepy little station, you know, which was quite keen on farming and horse brasses, and that sort of thing. And I was struck by the fact that it seemed more adult. I mean, people had been in the Army, you know? And they were experienced. A lot came from the Yorkshire Post – David Plowright and Barry Heads, along with Parkinson – and I’d just been a telly hack, really.
