Was it a good company to work for?
Yes, I… well I worked in quite a few, although Granada mainly, yes, I found it good. I didn’t have any problems there, you know… we had a few union problems much later, but up to that point, no. I enjoyed working there actually, but I had the joy of actually working for other companies as well at the time, and I could compare – and none of them came anywhere near Granada in the sort of output we did. It was good. And I’ve said here, it was the best company I worked for out of the eight I’ve worked for, yes.
And was that because of the output or because of the way you were treated?
Yes, it was a good… presentation was a really good close-knit department. It was really good. Perhaps it was a bit too close-knit, because other people couldn’t sort of understand why we were so close. I mean, we had some great shifts, working shifts, and yes, some really nice characters working in that department. I think we were treated very well actually, you know, but I don’t know whether the whole of Granada was like that. All I know is that I had a good time at presentation. It was good. It was good fun, because we not only worked together, we socialised outside as well. So that’s always a good sign that you get on. Yes, it was good…..
I worked in a lot of areas and I think Granada had a very strong connection with the north west. I mean, the north west is a big area anyway, and it has a very strong connection. When you when you sort of… and Granada were mavericks in a way, they didn’t follow suit with all the other companies, especially the London-based companies – they considered themselves the northern BBC in many ways in the early days, they thought of themselves as the northern equivalent of the BBC. Whether that’s a good thing or not, I don’t know, but that’s what they thought of themselves. Well, the fact that they were the one company that wasn’t taken over and wasn’t actually… apart from the fact that it’s now ITV1, but I mean, we all know it’s Granada, isn’t it, at the back of it. They’re the only one that survived really.
