ROUND the door of the dressing-room peered a face with toothbrush moustache and dark, slicked-down hair.

“I was about to have a nap, but welcome in,” said top trumpeter Eddie Calvert, who, with singer Marion Ryan, is among the stars of Personal Appearance on Wednesday.

“Sleep?” I said.

“You can sleep after,” said Marion, my companion and guide through the studios. “We won’t keep you long.”

“O.K. then,” said Eddie, who flopped into an easy chair and prepared to be interviewed.

“I started playing a musical instrument when I was seven,” he said. “I taught myself.

“No one even knew I was learning to play a musical instrument. I used to play my dad’s cornet when he was out. He caught me one night.”

Eddie grimaced at a painful memory.

“I never learned to play a musical instrument,” said Marion. “Couldn’t even tinkle on a piano. I never had any lessons — we were too poor.”

“My father bought me my first cornet,” continued Eddie. “It was either that or putting a padlock on his own. And when I was 11 I joined Preston Town Silver Band.”

“As a mascot?” asked Marion.

“Certainly not,” said Eddie. “Lots of lads of that age play in prize bands.”

Eddie told us how he got into the Forces. “My father decided that the Army was the only place for me to complete my musical education. I joined the Territorials when I was 12. I had to lie like a trooper to convince them I was 14,” he said.

“But my military career came to a sticky end. I found myself called up and given a job as a despatch rider. In the middle of the blackout in 1941 my bike went slap into the back of a three ton truck. I was in hospital for four and a half months. When I was in hospital I did some thinking. I decided I wanted to go into show business.”

Eddie worked with many top bands — Oscar Rabin, Billy Ternent, Geraldo — eventually became musical director of a leading London restaurant.

“I booked lots of top artists,” he said. “I turned down some too. I once turned down a young fellow named Dickie Valentine who was trying to get started in show business.” Eddie blossomed out as a solo artist about that time. His first big break came in 1953.

“Sheer coincidence, the whole thing,” he said. “I was driving home in my car, arguing with my wife about a new German tune sweeping the Continent.

“Norrie Paramor, who has his own orchestra, was driving home in his car, arguing with his wife about the same song.

“Both car radios were on — and during the course of the arguments the tune was played. It was too strong a coincidence to ignore. So we decided to record the tune. Remember it?”

We remembered.

It was called O Mein Papa and sold 5,000,000 records.

The post Marion Ryan meets ‘mein papa’! appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

SCHIZOPHRENIA — believing you are two different people — is not something to wish on anyone.

But 48-year-old Jack Woolgar quite enjoys his own particular form of split personality. And he gets paid for it.

Jack is a well-established Northern repertory actor. A sensible, sane chap, busy with theatre and television work and living comfortably and quietly with his family in Huddersfield.

But when he enters the Granada studios an alarming transformation takes place. He parts his hair in the middle, dons steel-rimmed spectacles and becomes Albert Sowerby, the crackpot chicken farmer and inventor who will be making more “scientific revelations” in Granada’s People and Places on Monday.

I asked Jack to introduce me to his other self — and it was Albert who answered.

He told me he lives on a lonely, windswept farm at Salaithewaite on the slopes of the Pennines, with his Chinese wife Lotus Blossom and several hundred hens.

“We have two cottages,” he assured me, solemnly. “My wife and I live in one and the hens in the other.”

Lotus Blossom is Albert’s second wife. “My first was blown over the cliffs in a high wind at Scarborough,” he said.

He and Lotus Blossom met when he was supplying chickens to the local Chinese restaurant. They fell in love over a chicken chow mein.

Now, on the moors, they enjoy an idyllic existence, supplying eggs to the Egg Marketing Board — and dreaming up fantastic inventions to keep up payments on the television set.

Albert has a problem, though. The world still hasn’t recognised his genius.

“But they will,” he told me confidently.

His “dream-machine” had half the West Riding agog.

“It was an armchair with a bucket seat and a steering wheel,” he explained.

“There was a tape-recorder playing recordings of car noises on one side, and a packet of sweets on the other.

“You could sit in it and dream you were going anywhere. And I like sweets. Very convenient.”

The world hasn’t yet seen the best of Albert, because he is working on a system of engendering poetic inspiration in the layman.

“You lie flat on your back, gazing at the fleecy clouds,” he said.

When this has been marketed, he will be tackling the problem of runners who jump the gun in sprint races at the Olympic Games.

“I’ve got it all worked out,” said Albert — “sprung traps like those in use at greyhound tracks.”

Mercifully, Jack Woolgar never lets Albert out of the studios.

The post Egg-head among the hens! appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

MR. KRUSHCHEV’S face was split in an amiable grin — and he reached across to shake hands enthusiastically, president Kennedy accepted the handshake cordially — and slapped Mr. Krushchev on the back for good measure.

“You see,” said Chris Bryant, blandly picking up Mr. Nehru, and gingerly stepping over President de Gaulle, “we’ve been in England for only four months, and already we’re making history.”

It was the sort of crazy situation I might have expected to find, dropping in unexpectedly on satirists Chris Bryant and Allan Scott, who provide another droll commentary on life in Granada’s People and Places on Wednesday.

Allan and Chris were rehearsing. And the international gentlemen were hand-puppets they had brought with them from Canada.

“We’ve been in Canada for years,” said Chris.

“But we aren’t Canadians,” said Allan.

“He was born in Scotland — near Gordonstoun.” said Chris.

“And he was born in Bolton,” said Allan.

“Why Canada?” I asked.

“It was the strong Empire-building streaks in our nature,” said Allan.

“We were young men so we decided to go West,” said Chris.

“To seek our fortune,” said Allan.

They are still young men. Allan is 23, Chris is 26. Allan is the one who plays the guitar.

“He carries it to impress people,” said Chris.

“It helps to cover up my inferiority complex,” said Allan.

Chris is probably the only comedian in the business with three university degrees.

“He graduated from Cambridge and studied law at McGill University in Canada,” said Allan. “He graduated from McGill and studied law with the Canadian Government in Ottawa. He graduated from there and became a comedian.”

“That’s life,” said Chris.

Chris is still retained by a leading legal firm in Canada — and he does regular long-range research work for them over here.

Allan manages to keep two careers running simultaneously, too, punctuating his comedy work with what he describes as his “serious writing” — criticism and review.

The cross-talk act I had interrupted started at McGill University some years ago.

“We didn’t know each other at the time,” said Allan

“I’d heard about him and was trying to avoid a meeting,” said Chris.

The featured act of a show was the West Point Glee Club — “One hundred and forty odd American Army cadets,” said Chris. “They were on a goodwill tour of Canada.”

“As they filed into the theatre I sat in a dark corner chanting ‘Yankee, go home’,” said Allan. “Suddenly I heard a still small voice coming from the other side of the theatre chanting ‘Yankee, go home, go home’.”

“The still small voice was Chris Bryant,” said Chris Bryant. “And a mutual taste was established ”

After leaving university, Chris and Allan toured America appearing in elegant nightclubs, but returned to Montreal to do their own television show.

“It was a sort of souped-up, personalised, late-night version of People and Places,” said Allan, “with interviews, jazz, sketches, film clips and free-wheeling discussions.”

“There was that well-known Canadian gangster who was going to tell us all about his — and others’ — criminal activities,” said Allan.

“On the night of the show he turned up sporting a black eye,” said Chris.

“He had not only forgotten what he was going to talk about, but he assured us, when reminded, that he didn’t know anything about it to begin with,” said Allan.

“However, the show was eventually saved.”

“He recited some of his own poetry for us,” said Chris. “Stuff he had written on an ‘extended vacation’.”

Which, for some inexplicable reason, took the boys back to where they were when I interrupted.

“I understand you’re writing a biography,” said Allan.

“An autobiography,” said Chris.

“Your life story?” said Allan.

“No — it’s about a car,” said Chris …

So I took the hint, and left.

The post Duet for drolls appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

ON Wednesday Granada brings the spectacular modem Belgian stage show Four Brothers to British television.

I came to Brussels to see the show recorded, travelling with the 40 technicians — and three big vanloads of equipment — whose job it was to get the show for Britain.

And as the crews worked all out to convert the gigantic circular stage of the Cirque Royale in Brussels into a temporary television studio I discussed this remarkable show with some of the men responsible for it.

The story of Four Brothers? Let Herman Closson, the author, tell you.

He wrote the original play during the war, when Belgium was still under German occupation. The play went on tour but it came to an abrupt end — when some of the actors were thrown into gaol.

“It is a patriotic play, you see,” said M. Closson. ‘It tells the story of the four sons of Aymon — heroes of Belgian legend — who ride to the court of the Emperor Charlemagne to be knighted.

“The eldest of the brothers, Renaud, falls in love with a lady of the court — but has to fight a duel with a courtier.

“When he kills the courtier the soldiers of the Emperor turn on him and his brothers — but the magician Maugis sends Bayard, the flying steed, to their rescue.

“They flee to their father’s castle, pursued by the Emperor, and eventually are besieged there.

“Maugis helps them to kidnap Charlemagne as he sleeps, but they later repent and return him unharmed, and the Emperor forgives them their crimes. But Renaud has to go on a nightmare pilgrimage before he is allowed to return to his beloved.”

M. Closson spread his hands expressively.

“The German authorities did not like the play — they recognised it as a gesture of defiance.” he said. “Do you think the British will like it?”

I think they will, but having said that, my difficulty is in describing this show that really does defy adequate description. It fits into no theatrical category in my previous experience.

You like ballet? This is a ballet, then — dynamic and amusing — performed by the Twentieth Century Ballet of Brussels, one of Europe’s leading ballet companies.

“The ballet has no stars. We work as a team,” said Pierre Dobrievech, who plays Renaud. Teamwork, and no stars … but the dancers include some of the best in Belgium.

Vittoria Biaggi, Franco Romano and Jacques Saussin play the other three brothers. And Duska Sifnios and Tania Bari play the two principal female parts.

You don’t like ballet? Then don’t be put off.

Because you might like Westerns, or medieval horse-opera, or verse-speaking, or Japanese classical drama, or Edgar Rice-Burroughs, or theatre in the round … and it is all of these things as well.

Maurice Bejart, producer and choreographer, who has been a principal dancer with ballet companies all over the world, describes it this way:

“Four Brothers is not just a ballet. It is so many kinds of theatre rolled into one. With this production we have tried to do something entirely new.

“It is a fairy tale for people of all ages. We dip in and out of fantasy when the occasion demands. Our dancers dance to music — but not always to recognised music. They might be moving to 14th-century music. Or percussion. Or everyday sounds electronically distorted on a tape-recorder.”

Spectacle and surprise are the keynotes of M. Bejart’s production.

No effect is too technically difficult to achieve. Ten-foot giants stride the stage. A 40ft tower rises magically out of nowhere. A flying steed thunders into the centre of a courtyard. And, as a fitting climax to one of the court scenes, the hero and his rival, the courtier, play a game of chess with real people as pieces!

The man with one of the biggest problems in the show was Fernand Schirren, who was responsible for translating all of this into modem musical terms.

M. Schirren provides the percussion for each performance himself.

“The music has never been written down.” he said. “It is planned — but it comes out differently every performance. It is like jazz perhaps?

“I try to do with classical music what jazz musicians do with popular music. This way, it comes out fresh and exciting every night. The audience responds to the music, we respond to the audience, and everyone is satisfied.”

The post A fairy tale for all ages appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

THE three of us — Sandy, Gordon and me — stood at the bar. So I ordered halves of bitter all round.

“It has to be bitter for Sandy,” said Gordon Rollings. “He won’t look at anything else, you know.”

And before anyone could dispute the point Sandy gulped down his drink, licked up a couple of spilled drops from the counter, lolled out a red tongue hopefully and gave us a cheerful wag of his tail.

“Thirsty work, acting,” said Gordon, pushing Sandy’s nose out of his own beer. “Even for whippets.”

Gordon plays Charlie Moffitt, Minnie Caldwell’s lodger in Coronation Street.

Sandy — alias Little Tich (his stage name), alias Dauntless Star or Dauntless Satellite (his professional racing names) — is that little whippet who steals so many scenes in the Rover’s Return.

‘The thing that bothers me,” said Gordon, looking at a sign which said no drinks would be served to young persons under 18, “is how the licensing laws affect whippets.

“I mean, Sandy is five years old. Does that mean he is drinking under age?

“He doesn’t belong to me,” said Gordon. “He is owned by Syd Roscoe, who has a garage just down the road from the studios.

“It seems that Sandy started drinking at a family party by helping himself to some beer.

“Never lost the taste for it. But it isn’t a problem with him, mind you. I mean, he doesn’t drink a lot.”

Sandy looked up at him winningly, but Gordon remained unmoved.

“One half of bitter is his ration,” he said severely.

In Coronation Street Sandy is a whippet with no talent for racing whatever.

“But he’s only acting,” said Gordon. “He has won more than 30 races.

“On one famous occasion they brought a ‘world-beater’ from Stoke-on-Trent to race against him. Sandy won by yards — and went home that night covered in lipstick from women who had congratulated him afterwards.”

“A bit of a gay dog,” I said.

Sandy looked at me appreciatively. Or was he just trying to get round me?

Gordon is no stranger to animals. He worked for a long time as a clown with a French circus.

At his home in London, Gordon keeps a cat, a dog, and a hamster named Rupert.

“The cat and dog are great friends,” said Gordon. “The cat washes the dog’s face every morning.”

The post A bit of a gay dog appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

IF you are the kind of person who knows just when the Tolpuddle Martyrs were deported, and who wrote the book “John Barleycorn,” and how pumice is formed, then you are probably just the kind of person that Pat Lagone is looking for.

Because Pat is producer of Criss Cross Quiz, which returns on Wednesday. And according to her, it is the person with just this kind of flypaper memory who stands the best chance of success in this ever-popular quiz game.

“Specialists, we’ve found, don’t usually get very far,” explained Pat. “The brilliant schoolteacher, for instance, who knows his particular subject backwards, may well get annihilated by a taxi driver without a letter to his name, but with the time and the appetite for newspapers and reference books.”

The variety of occupations of the people already booked to compete in the new session certainly seems to bear out this theory. “We have everything from bank clerks to booksellers, from airline officials to housewives, from students to Customs and Excise officers,” she said.

Likely applicants for the programme are invited along to the studio to face a really stiff general knowledge test.

“But success in this isn’t enough,” said Pat. “They still have to have personality. They still have to be able to think quickly. And they still have to satisfy us that their nerves are strong enough to play this kind of noughts and crosses with cameras staring down their throats and a large section of the British public watching them.”

Also having to keep his wits about him, in the cut-and-thrust of the competition for the top prize of £1,000 [£17,000 in today’s money, allowing for inflation – Ed], will be question master Bill Grundy.

The post All you need is a flypaper memory appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

The ancient art of falconry is the subject of “The Feathers of Death” in Granada’s Another World series on Tuesday. In the programme Douglas Fisher follows the training programme of a wild young Spanish falcon. Here is the story of a young man who has already faced this several times himself — Mr. Terry Pickford of Blackpool, one of the North’s leading falconers

KING HAROLD was an expert with falcons. In medieval times no thane or noble worth his salt would have been seen hunting without them.

But the eminent early aficionados of falcons and falconry couldn’t have seemed more remote as we strode out across the featureless stretch of heathland just outside Blackpool.

The gaudy painted face of the “Golden Mile” was only a few minutes away — as the hawk flies.

And the falconer I was accompanying had already spent the best part of his day at the drawing board in the British Aircraft Corporation works at Warton.

Only the elaborately reinforced glove he was wearing conjured up any of the romantic imagery I have always associated with this most ancient of British sports.

The Goshawk, with eyes like the Angel of Death, poised rigidly on his wrist.

“Some people will tell you that their birds have a genuine love for them,” said Mr. Terry Pickford, 19-year-old junior technician and modern-day falconer.

“I think that’s a lot of poppycock myself. The only thing that binds a bird of prey like this to its owner is the food that he provides for it.

“Love doesn’t enter into the arrangement at all — as far as the bird is concerned.

“Keeping a hawk or a falcon does have its commercial possibilities. Only recently I was invited to use the bird to scare away sparrows, which were proving a bit of a problem to several factories.

“And if you’re well known you get work with your falcon in films or by providing pictures for magazines. But generally the birds cost more than they make.”

Mr. Pickford, who calls his bird Blitz, got interested in falconry five years ago after reading a book about golden eagles.

“But getting a good bird is a lot more difficult than you would think,” he said.

“You can’t go into a pet-shop and buy yourself a hawk or a falcon. You can’t buy any British birds in Britain — it’s against the law.

“You have to send abroad for them, and it can be an expensive business.”

A Goshawk like Blitz costs about £15 [£260 in today’s money, allowing for inflation – Ed]. Falcons can cost £40 [£680] or more.

And when the bird has been bought the problems are still only just beginning.

“It has to be trained to eat from you,” he said. “Trained to sit on your wrist. Trained to return to your wrist. And trained eventually to hunt.”

Food is another expensive item. A bird has to be fed freshly killed meat every day. And the traditional equipment of the falconer, the glove, the jesses, the leash and the perches all add more to the bill.

“My advice to a potential falconer is not to bother — unless he is as wildly enthusiastic as I am,” said Mr. Pickford.

“The more work you do with these birds, the more you realise what you have to learn.”

But with all its problems the sport which was originally the birthright of princes never loses its fascination for the young Blackpool engineer.

“There’s marvellous satisfaction in training a wild creature like this into such a superbly efficient hunting instrument,” he said.

A cruel sport?

“Only to the falconer,” he said. “In the course of a day’s hunting, you are likely to have to run about 10 miles through broken country and over all kinds of obstacles.”

And when I pressed the point:

“It’s much less cruel than a gun. If you shoot a rabbit and only manage to wound it, it may take days to die.

“If a falcon hits, it kills instantaneously. And if it misses, the quarry gets away unharmed.”

Falconry and a general study of ornithology doesn’t leave much time for any other kind of relaxation for Mr. Pickford. Like girl friends.

“Most of the ones I had didn’t really like the falcon,” he grinned.

“I suppose they were jealous.”

The post No love from falcons appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

LIFE was so uncomplicated for Ken Nixon and his family. His bread-and-butter was pig-iron and copper.

His address was anywhere along the silver necklace of waterways between Liverpool and London.

His only major headache was fishing the kids out of the water whenever they went overboard.

Uncomplicated.

Until a certain Spring afternoon when the sun was shining with surprising warmth, and the wind was corrugating the chocolate brown surface of the water at Weston Point Docks, at Runcorn, Cheshire

And Granada’s Travelling Eye unit moved in and took over his life for a week!

Friday’s episode of The Villains tells the story of two bargees smuggling contraband from Runcorn to London.

In the process it provides a tender and tragic glimpse of a section of the community with an attitude of mind as anachronistic as the horseless carriage — the fraternity of Britain’s waterways.

Authenticity and realism are the twin – keynotes of the series. And to obtain these, producer Harry Kershaw moved both cast and production unit down to the Cheshire waterways, lock, stock and barrel to prepare a large slice of the show on location. Which was were Ken came in.

The producer needed two real working barges. And the know-how to handle them.

Ken Nixon, a 31-year-old bargee who has been working the waterways since he was ten years old, was in a position to supply both. So he was seconded to the Outside Broadcast unit by the British Waterways Board as a sort of temporary “technical adviser.”

He turned out to be a lot more than that — particularly to the actors.

Jack Smethurst and Derek Benfield, who play the bargee brothers who fall foul of the law, spent days trying to capture his accent.

“It isn’t anything you can localise exactly.” said Jack. “A bargee’s accent seems to be coloured by every county he passes through.’’

But, more important still, Ken was a key to the extraordinary character of the men who drive the narrow boats. Because the long days gliding through the lonely, rippling reaches of Britain’s canals seem to produce an attitude to life which has never been fully reconciled with the world of television, the telephone and the washing machine.

Ken Nixon and his wife have three small children — but live in a tiny cabin that would make a gypsy’s caravan seem spacious.

His philosophical delight in Britain’s languid water highways is something he inherited from his parents, who were bargees before him

“You leave it, and you come back to it,” he said quietly, manoeuvring boats into position for next scene. “Once it gets in your blood, you just can’t get rid of it. It’s such a free life.”

For this particular barge family, however, it is an idyll that can’t last forever.

The children are approaching school age. “I could send them to the Waterways boarding school at Birmingham,” said Ken. “But we’d miss them being away for all those months between holidays.

“So I suppose eventually I’ll have to give up the barges and find myself some kind of a job ashore.

“Mind you, I want a job driving a lorry or something. You get used to moving around. And like I said, you always come back to the waterways in the end.”

The post Man of the narrow boats appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

WITH some people, it’s first editions. With others, it’s stamps, or match boxes or cigarette cards.

With Johnny Hamp [sic], host and producer of Granada’s Wednesday Pop Scene, in the Scene at 6.30 programme, it’s television debuts.

As pop-chief of Scene At 6.30 he has assembled a bundle of them since the programme was launched 14 months ago.

“When we decided we needed a pop musical item in the show every night, we had a problem,” said Johnny, behind a desk covered with new record releases.

“Most of the big names launched their records in London.

“We decided that if we were going to get the teenage audiences we wanted, we would have to start scooping the London shows.

“That didn’t only mean getting established names to come to Manchester first with their records.

“It meant digging out new talent before it had been fully recognised elsewhere.”

One of the first charttopping groups to make a television debut on Scene was Billy J. Kramer and The Dakotas.

“That was a relatively straightforward deal — a straight recommendation and transaction with the Epstein stable,” said Johnny.

But a much more zany new talent hit the television public for the first time on the programme a few weeks later — Mr. Freddie Garrity and The Dreamers.

“I was invited to see them playing at a Manchester club,” said Johnny.

“I thought their act was killingly funny. They threw everything into it in those days — including dust-bin lids and bicycle frames!

“Funny thing is, Freddie and the lads had been auditioned by Granada only 12 months before and had been thrown out on their ears because their act was considered absurd and stupid.”

The Dreamers have never forgotten their first television break. And they still launch all their new releases through the show.

About the same time, another crazy crew turned up at the studios for a first television appearance — The Hollies.

“I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw them,” grinned Johnny. “They were dressed in jeans and shirts that didn’t match, and they looked more like rough kids than musicians.

“But we put them on, because they had a new kind of talent, and they never looked back.

“I still think they’re one of the greatest groups to come out of the North.

“When The Mindbenders did their first television stint,” said Johnny, “they were directed by Silvio Narrizano – who had just finished the award-winning production of War and Peace!

“Dave Berry? The first time I saw him I thought that he was wasted on television — and I still do.

“He thrives on audiences. He can work them up into a frenzy of excitement.”

The complete opposite, in fact, of those two cool kittens of British show-business — The Caravelles. Who very nearly didn’t make their television debut on the night they were booked to appear on Scene.

“They arrived at the studio at six o’clock and went in front of their first television cameras without any rehearsal,” Johnny explained. They missed their plane from London, and had to take one to Liverpool. We rushed a car to Merseyside to get them, but by the time they got to the studios there wasn’t time for a run through.

“You’d think if anyone could catch a plane it would be them, wouldn’t you — with a name like The Caravelles.”

The problems of producing nightly musical items for Scene have been magnified ten fold with Wednesday’s Pop Scene.

“On the new show we are trying to feature stars who are in the hit parade that week.” Johnny explained.

The performance of a new record usually coincides with the disc’s general release.

But occasionally, Pop Scene jumps the gun even on this.

“Take Millicent Martin,” said Johnny, “we had her on the show singing ‘Nothing But The Best’ three weeks ago. And the disc only goes on sale this week.”

Four scalps that don’t hang from Johnny the Collector’s belt are those of The Beatles.

“But there is some connection,” said Johnny. “They made their television debut in People and Places — the programme from which Scene sprang — on October 17, 1962. They have appeared in Scene a number of times — and we expect to feature them with their new releases in the months to come.”

The post Pop collector No. 1 appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

IF Stanley Meadows ever runs out of work as an actor, he won’t starve.

He has the basic principles of half a dozen jobs at his fingertips.

And before finding his feet in the theatre he worked, among other things, as a barman, storeman, waiter and shipping representative.

“But I never worked as a theatrical agent,” said Stanley, referring to the part he plays as Laurie Frazer in Coronation Street.

“And I don’t suppose I ever shall. I just don’t have the temperament for it. To succeed in this business, an agent has to be ruthless.

“He has to be able to sell a thing really big, to project a somewhat exaggerated image of the artist he is pushing. And I just couldn’t do that.”

Smooth, polished and quietly accomplished, Stanley Meadows isn’t what you might call a conventional actor.

Many actors and actresses concern themselves almost exclusively with acting, on and off the stage. Stanley doesn’t.

“When I leave the studio in the evening, I forget all about my work. I have no special friends inside the business.

“All my close friends are doctors, or lawyers, or people like that. At home I want to meet new people — not talk shop.”

It was a lesson Stanley learned when he was odd-jobbing around London a few years ago.

“Every job I did brought me into contact with new people,” he said. “It was invaluable experience and grounding for an actor.

“There aren’t many kinds of people that you don’t get a chance to study first-hand if you’re working as a waiter in a restaurant, or serving drinks behind a bar.”

But then Stanley has always been a great one for mixing with a variety of people. He had to be.

The elder son of a sweetshop owner in one of the poorer districts in Stepney Green, he won a scholarship to Forest School in Epping Forest.

“The scholarship provided me with a double problem,” said Stanley drily. “When I was at school I was a Cockney trying to establish myself in public school company.

“When I was at home I was a public school boy trying to adjust again to life in Stepney.”

Stanley emerged singularly lacking in neuroses — which ought to prove something — and by the time he was 21 he knew the only thing he wanted to do in life was to act.

He has worked in a variety of rep. companies, under-studied Sir Laurence Olivier in “The Entertainer,” worked with Sir John Gielgud and Harold Pinter and most of the other top names in the business, and starred in a number of plays on ITV.

His direction at the moment?

“To return to the stage for a while,” he said.

The post An actor who hates shop talk – that’s Stanley Meadows appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

DO you notice people who play the small parts in television dramas? You know, the barman polishing glasses in the background, the waitress, the bus conductor?

If you don’t — spare them more than a glance next time. You might be watching a television star in the making.

It isn’t enough to be a first-class stage performer if you are going to succeed on television. You have to be trained for the new medium — and for this reason most television companies have a system of trying out promising actors and actresses with small roles.

One system was initiated, in fact, by Margaret Morris — who has just taken over as producer of Coronation Street but who was then head of casting.

“In those days all actors and actresses in our plays were imported from London,” said Margaret. “But we knew that there was a huge reservoir of virtually untouched talent in the North itself, and we wanted to get that talent onto our screens.”

The Casting Department travelled thousands of miles up and down the region, following tip-offs — visiting scores of theatres, interviewing hundreds of performers.

Margaret made a number of real television discoveries.

Peter Adamson was one of her most exciting. Peter was working at Sale Repertory Theatre when Margaret spotted him.

“He had a rugged romantic quality, and a marvellous comedy ability,” she said. “But hardly any television experience.”

So Peter was introduced through bit-parts in a number of series and made a big impression with a small part in one in particular.

“And by the time Coronation Street came along, he was more than ready for the part of Len Fairclough,” she said.

“Pat Phoenix was another actress with a first-class repertory reputation but little television experience,” said Margaret.

Pat was first seen on ITV screens in a small part in The Verdict Is Yours. And her magnetism marked her out for future stardom immediately.

Doris Speed and Arthur Leslie were both bom into the theatre business — but they, too, went through the “digestive” process.

“Doris gave a most memorable performance as a precise and businesslike lady magistrate in a court series,” said Margaret.

“Arthur used that great quality of gentleness to best effect in one of his series. And after those they were natural choices for Jack and Annie Walker.”

Bill Roache came from repertory in Oldham to play the lead of a soldier with a social conscience — “a boy very similar to Kenneth Barlow” — in a play called Marking Time, after two other tiny initiating parts.

Ivan Beavis was the greatest gamble of all — because Margaret had only seen him in a Manchester amateur production before giving him his first chance.

But by the time casting was under way for Coronation Street, Ivan was already some thing of a television “veteran” with half a dozen brief appearances in other shows.

The post Learning to live in Coronation Street appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

THORA HIRD cocked her head to one side, and registered profound alarm, as she exclaimed: “I just didn’t know what I was letting myself in for, you know, when I got mixed up with this lot.”

“This lot” referred to Friday’s edition of The Verdict Is Yours, the preparations for which were in their final stage when I arrived at the studios.

Thora plays Rose Denbigh, a Lancastrian licensee, who gives evidence for the prosecution in a dispute between two Irishmen about the mysterious blowing up of a greenhouse.

Although she was enjoying the new theatrical experience of acting without lines, Thora was finding the whole process distinctly unnerving.

“Not that I can blame anyone but myself,” said Thora, keeping an eye open for her counsel, Jack May. “There I was, in front of my television set Friday after Friday, an ardent fan of The Verdict Is Yours, wondering how it was done, and thinking that I wouldn’t mind having a shot at it myself.

“Then a letter dropped through the letter-box inviting me to be in it! And I jumped at the chance — if it was only to satisfy myself that I could do it.”

If Thora can’t do it, it won’t be for the want of acting experience for she has spent a lifetime in the theatre.

“I started, in fact, when I was 10 weeks old,” she explained, shooting information at me as only Thora Hird can.

“My mother and father worked with a travelling company.

“Money was so tight that the company couldn’t even afford a dummy-baby. And as I was the size and shape for the job, they used me instead. And I loved every minute of it. I mean, I must have done, mustn’t I? I’ve been doing it ever since!”

Thora will be 50 on her next birthday. The mother of film star Janette Scott, she and her husband Jimmy Scott live in a cottage in Surrey. She has appeared in more than 80 films, but won’t be lured into trying to count her appearances on stage and television.

“But I’ve never encountered anything like this before,” said Thora, cutting back resolutely to her course. “I mean, I knew it was unscripted, and that you had to become the character you were portraying when you were in the witness-box. But I never realised how much preparation went into it until now.”

The preparations started for Thora with a brief resume of Rose Denbigh’s character prepared by the man who devised the case.

“I studied it, worked out how Rose would react to given situations, how she would talk, the sort of gestures she would be likely to make,” said Thora. “That wasn’t so bad. That’s the usual process with a part. But when I got to the studios the pressure really started.

“I’ve since spent hours talking about Rose, talking like Rose, and acting like Rose, with the producer of the show. I’ve spent more time talking to counsel Jack May about how the case is going to be handled, and the sort of questions he’s going to ask. So much so that I’m getting to the stage where I don’t know where Thora starts and Rose finishes.”

Thora has found that although the programme’s principal aim is entertainment, it is no game to the people participating.

“I’ve already found myself getting worked up, and becoming involved in fierce arguments — and we are not even in court yet,” she said. “And it’s no game to the barristers, either, you know. It’s a real battle of wits between them, just as it would be in a proper court.”

The security which surrounds each programme in the days of preparation also surprises Thora.

“We aren’t allowed to talk to witnesses for the defence, you know,” she said. “We aren’t allowed to discuss the case with anyone beforehand. It’s not easy, if you have friends in the opposition cast that you haven’t seen for months, and might never see again for months.

“As a matter of fact,” she added, giving me a quizzical look, “I’m not sure that I should be talking to you!”

So as Jack May was heading in our direction, I made a discreet exit.

The post Thora Hird gives HER verdict appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

EDWIN RICHFIELD erupted from the posse of children in his back garden, gracefully sidestepped a rocking-horse, dropped a disdainful-looking doll at my feet and thrust a blonde, blue-eyed charmer into my arms.

“Meet my daughter Belinda,” he said, disentangling himself from the remains of a child’s bow and arrow and leading me towards the house.

Maybe not the most conventional opening gambit, but it broke the ice. In the Friday thriller serial, The Odd Man presented by Granada, 40 year-old Edwin plays Steven Gardiner, theatrical agent with an uncanny knack of getting involved in tricky situations. “But Steve never faced three trickier domestic problems than mine,” said Edwin, relieving me of my blonde burden.

Edwin, married to actress Jan Holden, lives in a big, blue, pebbledashed house in Hampstead, London.

The domestic problems he referred to were their two-year-old twin daughters, Arabella and Belinda, and five-year-old son, Simon.

Jan and Edwin have an Austrian nanny to look after the children.

But the children have a disconcerting habit of dragging their parents into their activities…

When Edwin isn’t working on a part for another play or film, he is usually tapping a typewriter — for he is blessed with twin talents as well as twin daughters.

He writes regular television scripts. In fact, his acting and writing careers have run simultaneously since he was a 12-year-old schoolboy at Andover, Hampshire.

“I read ‘The Monkey’s Paw’ by W. W. Jacqbs, and was so impressed I decided to dramatise it,” he said.

“You can imagine how diabolical it was. But my teachers were very tolerant, and eventually we staged it for the benefit of the school.

“Everything ran fairly smoothly until the climax of the play, when some clot forgot to bring down the curtain.

“The audience were delighted to hear me hissing abuse at the poor chap from the wings. It made the show.

“From that moment. I knew the theatre was for me.”

After leaving school, Edwin worked with various concert parties as an impersonator.

“My family eventually dragged me out of that, but it was wonderful experience,” he explained.

His ability as a mimic still comes in useful, for he is asked to play an incredible variety character parts.

“Two months ago I was an Egyptian courier,” said Edwin. “Before that, an Arab security officer, and going back further, a Dorsetshire farmer. In a previous television series, I played a Spanish pirate chief.” Yet Edwin might never have taken up acting as a career but for the war. After dropping his concert party act, he seemed destined for the civil service.

But the war came and, in 1940, he found himself in the Royal Air Force. For most of his time he served as a wireless operator.

During the war, Edwin had time to think about his future. And when he was demobilised in 1946, he went into repertory.

“I stayed nine months, doing the northern towns, and then sailed down to London, confident that I knew it all,” he said.

“What a rude awakening. I was down to my last 3s. 6d. before I got an understudy role in the West End. Years of bit parts followed.”

At this stage, Edwin’s writing came in useful again. “I managed to keep the wolf from the door by turning out songs and comedy dialogue for revues,” he said. His luck finally changed nine years ago, after he married Jan Holden. Since then, he has made more than 150 television and film appearances.

Today, Edwin still divides his time between acting and writing.

They are useful talents — particularly with three children to coax to sleep.

“They won’t close an eye until I’ve told them a story,” he explained, “and they all sleep in different rooms.

“It’s very wearing, rushing from room to room — telling three different stories.”

The post Odd Man Edwin counts his blessings appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

IN a clearing in the African jungle a duiker, an antelope-like animal, is cowering. Beside her is her newly-born baby, his legs still wobbly.

In the undergrowth a pack of wild dogs is scavenging. Two lives hang in the balance. If the dogs catch the scent the duikers will be torn to pieces.

A minute-by-minute account of this exciting and terrifying drama of the wilderness is one of the incidents in the first of a new series of Granada nature programmes, The Animal Story.

“Monday’s episode is entitled ’Family Circle’ and the plight of the duikers is an excellent example of the problem we are dealing with — the method of bringing up a family in the wilderness.” explained the man who will be doing the commentaries, Dr. Desmond Morris, Curator of Mammals at the London Zoo.

“If the duiker is to survive in the jungle it has to be able to outpace its natural persecutors almost within hours of being born.”

If you want to know the fate of the duikers in the film watch Monday’s episode.

Dr. Morris went on to talk about the other features of the programme — the big cats, the monkeys and the fishes.

“For the big cats, fear of aggressors isn’t a very acute problem,” he said. “But other dangers await the cubs. Until he is old enough to hunt for himself, the baby is dependent on the parent for food, and a cub that wanders away from home will not survive long.”

To illustrate the point, Dr. Morris uses some fascinating film about a leopard and her cubs in the mountains of Northern Asia.

The babies are adventurous and inquisitive, but the way in which the mother bundles them back into the cave when they wander makes it clear how well aware she is of the danger awaiting them beyond her immediate vicinity. Personal experience of danger has probably taught the snow leopard her mothercraft. But who taught it to Toli, the orang-utan who has been in captivity since she was a baby?

This question arose recently when Toli’s baby was born — the first orang-utan to be born at London Zoo in 130 years.

“Although she had no previous experience of handling young, Toli instinctively knew just what to do,” explained Dr. Morris. “It was fascinating work, watching and filming her as she washed and tended the baby as if she had been doing it for years.”

Survival for the young monkey in the wilderness depends usually on the baby’s ability to cling on to his mother’s fur when danger threatens.

For sheer novelty, so far as protection is concerned, the mouth breeder fish takes some beating.

In the savage underwater jungle of the tropics, the female mouth-breeder takes her eggs into her mouth after they have been laid — and “gargles” with them until they are hatched.

“This not only keeps them safe from aggressors — but keeps them properly oxygenated.” explained Dr. Morris.

Even after the eggs are hatched the mother’s work isn’t done. Her brood follow her through the underwater jungle in a little cloud, and the slightest hint of danger will send them speeding for safety, straight back into her mouth.

The post Babes in the Wood… appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

MARGOT BRYANT scratched Nizam’s ear affectionately. “They’ll never believe me back in Coronation Street, you know,” she told the tiger. Nizam took the news with disdain, and offered a striped flan to be stroked.

A 40st., 10-year-old Royal Bengal tiger gets used to human incredulity, I suppose.

We were in the House of the Big Cats at Belle Vue Zoo Manchester — because Margot Bryant, who plays cat-loving Minnie Caldwell in Granada’s Coronation Street wanted to see the biggest cat in the world.

Nizam, retired circus star, and the tamest of tigers seemed a contender for the title. “If you aren’t the biggest, you must be the sweetest,” Margot told him.

Praise like that from Margot is praise indeed. Her passion for cats is not restricted to her living-room on the television screen. Cats, in fact, have been padding in and out of her life since her childhood.

Her father was a doctor in Hull and his home seemed to attract cats. “Our back garden was a sort of mustering ground for them,” said Margot as we moved on to the leopard’s cage.

“One cat used to call only when she was expecting kittens. Very sensible of her, I suppose. It’s always best to have a doctor around at times like that.”

She turned her attention to Tony the leopard, who, not to be outdone by Nizam, rolled on his back playfully. “Another scene stealer,” said Margot. “Bobby’s a terrible scene-stealer. too. Most cats are.”

Bobby?

“His real name’s Toby, but I call him Bobby,” she said. “He always reminds me of another cat called Bobby I once knew, but she was a lady.”

Toby is the marmalade tom featured in recent episodes of Coronation Street. “He had an easy time of it at first,” said Margot. “All he had to do was sit around. Now he has to do walk-on parts as well.”

In the cage next to Nizam’s lives Rita the tigon. One of the rarest of all big cats, she has a tiger for a father and a lioness for a mother. She didn’t respond to Margot’s charm at all. In fact, she positively snarled.

“We mustn’t hold it against her,” said Margot. “I expect she’s all mixed up.”

Our search to find the biggest cat in the world unearthed one of the cutest.

The name was Tundra, the five-month-old lion cub belonging to lion-tamer Luigi Gerardi at Belle Vue Circus.

Tundra didn’t understand English. But that proved no problem for Margot. She faced language difficulties before — with Meeko.

“He was a French cat and a terrible flirt,” she explained.

Talk about cats with Margot and the name of the Earl of Hammersmith is certain to be dropped. “Between ourselves, he isn’t really an earl,” she confided. “His name is Sandy, but he’s such a majestic cat I felt the title was justified.’’

The earl is probably the most intelligent cat Margot has met. “He’s a bit of a bully, too,” said Margot. “Whenever I get home late at night he waits up for me, and tells me off”

The post Cats… Minnie Caldwell loves ’em all appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

THIS is the story of Mr. Robinson, and the night he was snatched from the lip of the grave by Patricia Phoenix — Elsie Tanner of Coronation Street.

You won’t know Mr. Robinson. He was just another mongrel pup of obscure parentage, scrawny, sick and starving — the sort of stray you would find wandering around the centre of any big city in Britain.

The city in Mr. Robinson’s case is Manchester, where he was picked up and taken to a home for stray dogs. Life wasn’t too bad for him for a while. He had a place to sleep and some good, solid food.

But the dogs’ home can’t afford to feed stray dogs forever. And as no one had come along to claim him. Mr. Robinson faced execution.

That was when Patricia Phoenix came into the picture.

Pat had just lost one of her own two dogs, Scamp. He had been knocked down in the road outside her home — and her pedigree corgi, Mr. Smith, was pining for him.

“At first I thought of buying another pedigree dog like Mr. Smith,” said Pat. “and then I remembered how much fun we had had with Scamp.

“He was a mongrel I found outside the studios, being led away to a dogs’ home and eventual execution, too.

“So I decided to get in touch with the home again and find out if there were any other mongrels due to be destroyed.”

There were indeed. A number of dogs, including Mr Robinson, were destined to be killed the following day.

The home closed at five o’clock that evening, and Pat couldn’t get away from the studios in time to get there.

In view of the exceptional circumstances, however, the authorities agreed to waive their rules and let Pat visit the home in the evening to choose a dog.

And it didn’t take her long to select Mr. Robinson.

Why?

“I couldn’t leave him there to die,” said Pat, when I met her the other day, exercising an exuberant Mr Smith and a regenerated Mr. Robinson.

“It was the way he looked at me — like the saddest little dog in the world.”

Mr. Robinson, I’m told, is settling down very comfortably in Pat’s elegant Cheshire home. And life, it seems, isn’t always such a dog’s life, after all. Even for stray dogs.

“It was a pity we couldn’t save all the dogs that were due to be destroyed, though,” said Pat. “You’d think there would be enough people in a place as big as Manchester to find homes for a handful of strays, wouldn’t you?”

The post It’s a (gay) dog’s life for Mr Robinson appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

SAID the voice from the snug of the Rover’s Return, indignantly: “I can’t stand traditional jazz!” An argument about traditional jazz? In the heart of Ena Sharples’ territory? It seemed unlikely. I had to investigate.

More shocks — in the snug.

The combatants turned out to be Miss Nugent (Eileen Derbyshire) and Valerie Tatlock (Anne Reid). And the argument had been raging through the lunch-break during rehearsals of Coronation Street.

The gentle Miss Nugent — actually arguing?

“People don’t realise,” said Eileen, spiritedly, “I’m not a bit gentle off the set. I like a good, meaty argument. Particularly when it comes to traditional jazz.”

Anne bristled. Any reference to traditional jazz is distasteful to her. “I’m a modern jazz fan,” she said.

“When did you decide to become an actress, Eileen?” I asked, hastily.

“On a double-decker bus,” said Eileen. “I was a drama teacher at the time.

“One night I was travelling home to Urmston when I saw the posters outside the Chorlton Repertory Theatre, Manchester. I don’t know what happened. I just got off the bus and asked if I could join the company.”

Eileen did an audition.

“They offered me a job — but told me the theatre was in danger of closing.

“Three months later the theatre shut its doors and I was out of work.

“I tramped round the repertory companies — and eventually arrived at the Century Mobile Theatre, at Nantwich, Cheshire,” she said.

They gave her a job.

Eileen worked with several repertory companies all over the North before joining Coronation Street.

Eileen leads an active, outdoor life.

She likes walking — “preferably in wild country,” said Eileen.

“I also do a lot of reading. And I go to concerts — all kinds of concerts.

“The Hallé — and jazz concerts, of course. I suppose you could say that as far as music is concerned I am something of an extremist.”

“Yes,” said Anne Reid icily. It seemed time to talk to Anne.

She was born in Newcastle upon Tyne. By her mid-teens she was a seasoned traveller. Her father is a journalist and his work takes him all over the world.

Anne told me: “I was 13 and at an English boarding school. Someone rang me to say that my father was arranging to have me flown to India to join him — in a Maharajah’s private plane.”

Anne made the trip alone — “I was terrified,” she said.

Anne studied for two years at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, and when she took part in the yearly public show at Her Majesty’s Theatre, she was awarded a bronze medal.

She got her first break when she worked in several sketches with Benny Hill.

“I did lots of different parts — but I like the part of Valerie Tatlock, Albert Tatlock’s niece, best. I think she’s a lot nearer to the real me.”

Anne Reid and Eileen Derbyshire have one thing in common. Both are mezzo-sopranos.

Eileen sang in a pantomime at Southport — and Anne sang in a pantomime at Dudley.

We were discussing that dangerous subject, music, again.

“We’re good friends, you know,” said Anne “But Eileen’s views on ‘trad’…”

Eileen was bristling again.

It was time to leave.

The post Shocks in the snug at the Rover’s Return appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

TO talk to the woman who combines motoring and acting and whose latest part is a “mum” I made a date with Doris Rogers. She switched on the ignition, put the car into first gear, released the handbrake and slid smoothly into the thick Manchester traffic.

“Lady drivers?” she said. “I think there’s a lot of nonsense talked about us. If you get a good woman driver, she’s better than a man. She takes more care.”

She pulled up gently at a zebra crossing to let a bunch of pedestrians across. Two male drivers in front of her hadn’t bothered. Doris lifted an eyebrow in my direction.

“I see what you mean,” I said, feeling that our sex had been let down rather badly.

On Thursday, in Granada’s Family Solicitor she plays a Yorkshire mum, whose daughters get into trouble with the law. With us in the car was one of her “daughters” in the play, Daisy Frisby, played by Diane Aubrey.

Driving is a passion with Doris Rogers. She uses her car extensively for her work and her busy social life.

“I’m thinking of taking the advanced driving test,” she said. “I enter rallies, you know — small ones.”

I posed a delicate question. “How long have I been driving?” she replied. “I shudder to think. I bought my first car in 1936, if that gives you a clue. It cost me £15. It was a magnificent two-seater.

“What bodywork! I used to be sore for weeks after a long drive. It was like trying to pull a bus round corners.

“I loved that car, though, I sold it eventually — for £7 10s.”

Since then Doris has had a succession of cars.

“My favourite car? I liked them all. I had one of the first baby cars in London. The buses used to terrify me. I was convinced they would run right over me. And then, of course, there were the London policemen. One told me he thought I was going to run up his sleeve!”

We passed the Manchester Albert Hall. “See that place?” asked Doris, never taking her eyes off the road.

“I remember being on stage there when I was about nine. Very odd. I was reciting poetry in French. I can’t imagine why. No one understood a word!”

Doris talked about the kind of drivers she hates: “I can’t stand those people who amble along at a snail’s pace, hogging the crown of the the road.

“Not, of course, that I’m a speed hog. I’m far too nervous to drive fast.

“My favourite drivers? Lorry drivers. Those are the real gentlemen of the road.”

The post Doris Rogers is a versatile ‘mum’ appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

IF you are planning to go to Wales next summer, here’s a phrase you must remember — “Sut Mae?”

Roughly translated, it means “How are you?” But there’s a lot more to it than that.

It’s the current catch-phrase in clubs and pubs and schools and tea-rooms from Cardiff to Caernarvon.

And the man responsible for it all is Tommy Eyton Jones.

I met Tommy the other day in his bungalow which overlooks the Conway Estuary.

Tommy announces the sport in Granada’s Welsh programme, Dewch I Mewn. He is big and cheery — and utterly Welsh. You might describe him as the Gerry Loftus of Wales.

He started the catch-phrase craze when he first used it to introduce his weekly sports item in Dewch I Mewn.

“It wasn’t a deliberate choice,” said Tommy. “It seemed the natural, friendly thing to say, that was all.”

The combination of Tommy’s bluff appearance and the phrase itself, however, caught viewers’ imagination.

“We didn’t realise just how popular it had become until Granada asked me to drop the phrase,” he explained. “They thought the programme needed to change, so I started with something else instead. We got hundreds of letters complaining — so back went Sut Mae!”

Now Tommy cannot go anywhere without being greeted by it. It has become his nickname in Wales.

“I even got it in the boat across the Channel on my way to Italy,” he grinned.

When he isn’t talking sport on television Tommy is kept busy as sports editor and news editor of the North Wales Weekly News, which is printed in Welsh and English.

He started with the paper at the age of 14 as a printer’s assistant. Before long he was promoted to the editorial department, and his journalistic talent soon emerged.

He met and interviewed the Duke of Windsor — then the Prince of Wales — when he visited Penmaenmawr. And he covered the story of the sinking of the submarine Thetis, off Llandudno, in 1939.

“I think the future of Welsh soccer is very bright indeed,” he said enthusiastically. “There are some really promising youngsters coming up.”

The post SUT MAE Tommy Eyton Jones? appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

IN mid-Atlantic a storm rages. Two men in an open biplane fight for their lives. They are caught in the flier’s nightmare — cumulo-nimbus cloud. Gales threaten to tear their plane apart. Their air-speed indicator has failed. Their radio transmitter has failed. The heating in their suits has failed.

Down, down, down — the cloud-blinded pilot can do nothing. Suddenly the clouds break—only feet above the raging sea. The plane skims the waves. Spray splashes the fliers.

Their lives — and history — hang in the balance. Then, miraculously. the plane pulls out and zooms back into the sky …

All this happened to John Alcock and Arthur Whitten-Brown in June, 1919, when they were the first men to fly the Atlantic non-stop. Today more than 500,000 people fly by commercial air line between Britain and America each year.

They travel in foam-rubber, air-conditioned, pressurised luxury. Pretty girls wait on them. They can drink champagne and enjoy a six-course meal.

The hazards of an early Atlantic flight are vividly recalled in Granada’s All Our Yesterdays on Monday, when the newsreels of a quarter of a century ago remember the unsuccessful Transatlantic flight of Merrill and Richman.

On September 14, 1936, the fliers set off from Liverpool in a Vultee II called Lady Peace. Destination: New York. They never made it.

Their plane ran into trouble over Newfoundland, and they had to put down in Musgrave Harbour.

All Our Yesterdays traces the Transatlantic story — from the pioneering of Alcock and Brown to the last days of the great airships.

The flight of Alcock and Brown, both Manchester men, has been claimed to be the greatest flying feat of all time. This is understandable.

Time and again they escaped death by inches.

Time and again only sheer courage carried them through.

After escaping from the cumulo-nimbus cloud, their plane flew into rain, ice and snow — and the port engine iced up.

Brown crawled across the wing and used a knife in his bare hand — in the freezing propeller slipstream — to chip ice away.

Brown climbed out on to the wing six more times before landing.

And even the final touchdown was dramatic.

The fliers thought an Irish bog was a landing field — and put their plane down in the middle of it!

First solo flight of the Atlantic was by Charles Lindbergh in his single engined monoplane, The Spirit of St. Louis in 1927.

After a completely uneventful journey, Lindbergh nearly lost his life — being mobbed by admirers.

When his plane landed at Le Bourget 120,000 people were waiting. They trampled down fences, broke police cordons, and hauled Lindbergh from the plane in hysterical adulation.

He was in danger of being putted to pieces until the French pilot, Raymond Orteig, came to his rescue. He put Lindbergh’s flying helmet on the head of a journalist.

Before the astonished journalist realised what was happening he had been swept upon the shoulders of the crowd and acclaimed as Lindbergh, while the flyer was smuggled away.

But if Lindbergh was the darling of the crowds, James Mollison, the first man to fly both the North and the South Atlantic solo, was the darling of the Press.

Mollison was in evening dress in a New York night club when he was told that weather conditions over Atlantic were favourable.

Mollison went to the field, climbed into his Havilland Puss Moth, and flew the Atlantic — without even bothering to change.

The post Courage in the clouds appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

THERE is a rumour going round that the wedding between Harry Hewitt and Concepta Riley isn’t coming off. All over the country people have been arguing about it and ringing Granada at all hours for the facts.

I have been down to Coronation Street to ask them. I made for “The Rover’s Return.”

Harry Hewitt (Ivan Beavis) was as usual propping up the bar. Concepta (Doreen Keogh) was polishing glasses I asked: “Ivan, is the wedding coming off?”

Concepta suddenly stopped polishing and Harry cocked an aggressive eyebrow.

“People never call us by our real names any more” said Ivan.

To save further confusion I decided to fall in with the majority — even though the career facts I gathered refer to their real-life careers.

“Did I ever tell you how I got started in this acting game?” he said. “I was convalescing at the time. I’d been ill for about 20 months.

“I wanted something to do. My brother and sister in Liverpool were winning prizes for elocution, but I didn’t fancy my chances at elocuting. so I decided to try acting …”

I interrupted. “About this wedding…” Harry grasped my shoulder. “Ask Concepta when she started acting.” he said.

“My mother told me I started the day I was born.” said Concepta.

“Yes. I was born in Dublin and studied at the Abbey Theatre school. Later I acted at The Gate Theatre.”

I nodded. “Yes,” I said. “we’ve had a lot of telephone calls about your wedding…

“Ask Harry how he turned professional,” said Concepta.

“I was an accountant,” said Harry. “Had been for years. But I didn’t like auditing. It always seemed like you were succeeding by finding other people’s mistakes.”

Harry got his break with Coronation Street after he played a northern part in Knight Errant Limited.

“Very interesting,” I said. “Now about this…”

“Ask Concepta how she got her break,” said Harry, serenely.

“I was playing the part of an Irish wife in The Citadel,” said Concepta. “It was a serial, you know. I started off with five children and ended up with about nine.”

“Never got over it,” said Harry. “There we both were at the first rehearsal we attended. I was supposed to be in love with her, and she with me, and we couldn’t even recognise each other.”

I cut in quickly. “I’m glad you mentioned that…” and prepared weakly for another attempt.

“Tell him about the wedding present,” said Harry.

“We’ve had our first wedding present, you know,” said Concepta. “A little girl gave us a tiny china figure. It was lovely.”

Harry cut in again. “There’s even a rumour that the wedding isn’t going to come off, ” he said. “Fancy spreading a rumour like that.”

The post Popping the question in Coronation Street appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

BULLETS were whining across the oasis. Bombs were being lobbed over battlements. The British were advancing remorselessly.

And the Arabs were dodging from palm tree to palm tree, making a desperate last stand.

There were all the ingredients, in fact, of a rattling good television script. Which was what made the whole thing all the more ironic. Because one of the four officers leading that real-life desert sortie was a handsome, red-haired young man destined to find fame on the television screen.

The name was Bill Roache — who plays Ken Barlow in Granada’s Coronation Street.

But Bill had no ambitions to go into television at that time.

He was serving as a captain with the Royal Welch Fusiliers in a remote sector of Oman, on the Persian Gulf — and intended making the Army his career.

“Our job was keeping down tribal warfare in the area,” explained Bill. “And on this occasion we were called in to move a band of marauders who had taken the Buraimi Oasis from Sheik Zaid. We had four British officers and about 200 Arabs.

“Rather unsportingly, we decided to attack in the morning — while the enemy were still saying their prayers.”

Bill grinned at the memory.

“It was the most confused action I’ve ever seen. You didn’t know which Arabs were friends and which were enemies.

“Men would surrender — and then suddenly produce guns and start taking pot-shots at you. Things got so confused at one stage that I thought we were going to be overcome.

“But luckily the enemy surrendered, so everything worked out fine.”

Bill, who is in his late 20’s, was with the Regular Army for five years, and saw service in Jamaica, Arabia, Germany and British Guiana.

“We moved into Guiana when there was a threat of a Communist coup,” he said.

“We arrived with loaded guns expecting anything, but the minute we turned up they pulled down all the Communist flags and ran up Union Jacks instead, so we went shooting crocodiles instead of rebels!”

While serving abroad with the Army, Bill made up his mind to try acting as a career.

After leaving the Army, he spent eight months trudging around repertory companies, looking for work. He realised that desperate measures were called for.

“So I went to an agent, lied like a trooper, and told him I had just finished two years with a leading seaside repertory company,” he said. “I got a job.”

Repertory, film and television work led him eventually to Coronation Street.

Married now, and living in a cottage in Rawtenstall, Lancashire, Bill is still looking eagerly to the future.

His ambitions of the moment?

“I want to raise a herd of Highland cattle,” said Bill. “And write a novel — just like Ken Barlow is doing.”

The post To Coronation Street – via an oasis appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

EYES that have launched a thousand glares widened in disbelief. The most famous hair-net in Britain shook in amazement.

“l just can’t understand it,” said Violet Carson, who plays fire-eating Ena Sharpies in Granada’s Coronation Street.

“I wouldn’t have believed that so many people could be so concerned about what happened to a bad-tempered, vindictive old woman like Ena.”

Violet’s surprise is perhaps understandable.

After more than a year with one of Britain’s top television programmes, she has come to accept fan-mail as routine. But even she has been taken aback by the reaction there has been to the collapse of Ena Sharpies in the Mission Hall a few weeks ago.

“There have been letters, get-well cards, flowers,” said Violet.

“People have telephoned from all parts of the country inquiring about Ena. I’ve been stopped in the street dozens of times and asked how I was.

“Two little girls even wrote to tell me that they were praying for my recovery!”

But Violet is not the only member of the cast who has found herself in this sort of situation.

The programme has taken such a hold of the national imagination that thousands of people all over the country absolutely refuse to disassociate the actors and actresses from the characters they play.

You couldn’t meet a more amiable chap than Peter Adamson, who plays Len Fairclough, for instance. “But I can’t walk down a street in Manchester now without finding people glaring at me with hatred in their eyes,” said Peter.

“It started when I thumped Kenneth Barlow in the snug of the Rover’s Return,” he explained.

“And it’s got even worse since I had a fight with Harry Hewitt about Concepta.

“Threatening letters arrive for me every day. I’ve been called everything from a beer-swilling moron to a thug. To tell you the truth, I love it. If people are reacting as violently as this, my performance must be doing something to them.”

After his skirmish with Len in the Rover’s Return, Bill Roache, who plays Kenneth Barlow, was flooded with letters.

“Two hundred schoolgirls signed one letter, telling me that they agreed with everything that I said about Len Fairclough and the people in the street,” said Bill.

“One frantic father wrote to tell me that his little girl hadn’t stopped crying since seeing me knocked down.

“She refused to be convinced that Peter and I were only acting, and the father begged me to write her a letter telling her that I was, in fact, all right.”

Bill wrote the letter.

Frank Pemberton, who plays Kenneth’s father, still receives sympathetic inquiries from all over Britain. “And many of them now want to know when I’m getting married again,” said Frank.

Wherever they go, Ivan Beavis and Doreen Keogh, who play Harry and Concepta Hewitt, can’t get away from the fact that Concepta is expecting a baby.

“People have sent us presents for the child — bootees, a matinee jacket, a lovely model of a stork with a baby hanging from its beak,” said Doreen.

“A midwife rang the studios to offer her advice and services when the time came.

“And wherever I go, I’m offered a seat for the sake of the baby.”

Minnie Caldwell’s love of cats brings in regular invitations for Margot Bryant to visit cats and cats’ homes.

“I accept as many invitations as I can,” she said.

Arthur Leslie, who plays landlord Jack Walker, could get a job as a licensee any time he wants.

And Doris Speed, who plays his wife, is constantly being asked by people to stop nagging her easy-going husband.

“I’ve given up trying to convince them that it isn’t me who’s nagging him but Annie Walker,” said Doris.

Elsie Tanner, of course, has half the country agog at present over her relationship with Len Fairclough.

“There’s nothing in it,” said Pat Phoenix, treating me to a Tanner-sized wink.

“We’re just good friends.”

The post Get well Ena! appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.