So I left school and went to work for a computer company in Southport called ICT out at Crossens, which bizarrely was where my father worked during the war when it was Brockhouse, making bits of guns, shells and all kind of things. And after about ten months there I got a call from Peter (Wheeler – Granada newsreader), or my mum and dad did, saying there was a job going with a company called Mancunian Films, and why didn’t I come and have an interview. So I came over on the Thursday and met the late Bill Lloyd, and John Blakeley, in the Wheatsheaf on Deansgate. I was smartly dressed in my Burton’s suit and all those kind of silly things that you did in those days. And they said, you know, “We’d like you to start.” So they said, “When can you start?”
And I said, “Next Monday.” So that’s what I did. I went back home and said to my mum and dad, “I’ve got a job. Do you know anybody I can stay in digs in Manchester with?” Which they did, and I started on the Monday.
This is about June 1963. Granada at that time did not have any film units at all. They had two freelance crews, one which was Mancunian Films, famous because of the old George Formby films, Frank Randall films, and they’d had film studios at Dickinson Road which subsequently became part of the BBC. They had good credentials to be working for ITV, or working for Granada. And then they had a company called Windsor Films that came up from London, and that was it. They did have a bit of a film unit that worked at London Zoo, but actually in Manchester there was nothing at all.
There is more information about Mancunian Films here
