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 think had such a sort of fast ride. And people like Mike Short, and others, had been World in Action researchers and then become Granada Reports’ producers. And I loved Granada Reports, actually loved the show. I really wanted to produce it. And, frankly, I could have produced it, but they didn’t give it to me. And I was upset about that, really upset. Because I was actually making a load of World in Action’s by that time, and more or less producing them as well. Because, the way it was, there were no reporters. The producers of the programmes were, essentially, producer/directors. George Jessie Turner often sort of directed himself. But as a researcher in that sort of unit you had a lot of power; you shaped the programme. So I felt I was, essentially, already producing World in Action. Why couldn’t I be producing Granada Reports? Anyway, for one reason or other I didn’t get it.
It just so happened, at that time, I’d done a lot of work with a man called David Taylor, who was a former BBC producer who’d come to Granada. He was a friend of Ray’s. He never quite settled at Granada, and he got a job at BBC Manchester running the radio programme File on Four. But then moved back into television and was given a big project on the Ministry of Defence. And he, at the same time Granada was not offering me a producer’s job, he was offering me an assistant producer’s job at BBC Manchester. And I thought, “I’ll go. I’ll go, two years. It’s the BBC. It’s nice to have the BBC on our CV anyway. And I’ll be back.” And I never came back!
