THE Northern magazine programme People and Places little show that features the big names – stars of stage and film as well as top personalities from the worlds of music, art and sport.

The list of people who have appeared in the programme, which comes from Granada’s Manchester studios and is one of the company’s longest-running shows, is peppered with celebrities.

Here are some of the names: Lord Harewood, Henry Sherek, Katherine Dunham, Sheila Buxton, Tessie O’Shea, Dickie Henderson, Alfie Bass, Ted Lunee and Bill Fraser.

It is the sort of programme which presents the people who produce it with a never-ending streams of problems.

A phone call – sometimes just 10 minutes before the programme is due on the air – tells the producer that one of the artists has been held up and cannot get to the studio on time.

That is the kind of situation the presents a challenge to researchers like Jim Coburn, who are continually at the producer’s elbow.

The last time it happened he grabbed a taxi and drove three miles from the studios in the City Centre to the lodgings of comedian Freddie Earle. Freddie was making an omelette when Jim rushed in and said: “You’re on TV.”

Freddy [sic] dropped his fork, climbed into the taxi with Jim, and rushed to the studio as fast as traffic-choked roads would allow. He faced the cameras on an almost empty stomach and without a touch of make-up. There had been no time even for that.

“This sort of thing has happened a number of times,” said Jim. “We have had people rushing through the studio doors even during the 10-second count down to ‘on the air’ – and you can’t get much later than that!”

It happened again when Michael Holliday missed his train. The result was a frantic telephone call to jazz singer-trumpeter Leslie (Jiver) Hutchinson, who was appearing that week in Manchester.

Leslie was asked to jump into a taxi and head for the studios immediately!

Last-minute illnesses, late trains and planes, mechanical breakdowns. These are hazards which face the team that bring People And Places to the screen.

Under the heading of breakdowns comes the story of the luxurious taxi – the last word in comfort – that was sent to Blackpool to bring Dickie Henderson to Manchester for an appearance on the programme.

In Blackpool, the car developed engine trouble. So Dickie had to make the trip in an old-fashioned “boneshaker”.

The story of People And Places is not without its lighter moments, for the programme has always been liberally sprinkled with humour.

Interviewers Bill Grundy and Chris Howland started a gag with ran for weeks. It was the now-famous joke of long series of incidents carefully contrived to prevent Chris Howland singing on the programme.

It began, almost by accident, when Chris was given a singing spot – right at the end of the show. But because times ran out, the singing spot had to be cut. And on each occasion afterwards, something happened to prevent Chris being heard.

Letters began to roll in demanding that Bill should let Chris sing. But the joke went on.

Lord Harewood, who was in the programme to talk about the opening of Harewood House to the public, helped to keep it running. He told Chris: “You be down at Covent Garden at 10 am tomorrow for an audition.”

Later, Gary Miller, who was also in the conspiracy, asked Chris to sing with him in the show, but he said Chris would have to have a straw hat and cane if he wanted to take up the invitation.

Everybody thought that Howland would at last be heard. He dashed away for the vital hat and cane. But when he got back – breathless, and consequently unable to sing – only two bars of the number remained.

Chris continued to “campaign.” In a demonstration in which he was seen accompanied by about two dozen girl supporters, he carried a large board bearing the demand: HOWLAND MUST SING.

And Howland did. Standing beside a fountain in the studio grounds, he sang The Rain Falls On Everybody. It certainly on Chris, for Bill was seen busy at a tap. Chris got drenched.

There have been moments of unintentional humour, too. One of these came when the Spanish guitarist Pepe Martinez had to be coached to answer two questions in his very limited English.

The questions were: How long have you been in England and how long does it take to become a good flamenco dancer?

The answers, in the correct order, were six weeks and 25 years. Pepe gave them the wrong way round!

The People And Places team recall the time, too, when things got really hot, at the end of a demonstration of action painting. Part of the action was to set fire to the painting. The artist did. And because the show was under-running its time limit, the cameraman had to hold the shot as the flames leapt upwards.

A studio fireman stood by with an extinguisher, powerless to act because if he had done he would have put himself between in the line of the camera.

Said producer David Main: “Though we like to be up to the minute with items of interest to our viewers, we do not aim to be quite so hot on the trail as we were on that occasion.”

The post Getting people and places together 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.

IN the surgery of the People and Places doctor, not a stethoscope was in sight. His desk was covered with photographs of sporting celebrities — and some of them you can see here.

“These are for Granada’s Evening Surgery next Friday,” he said. “I shall be giving a doctor’s eye view of some of the giants of the world of sport. All have in common one remarkable quality, which I think will be a surprise to many viewers.

“I don’t want to say what it is in advance, but these pictures might suggest the link they have between them.”

As we went through the photographs, discussing the achievements that have made world headlines, I discovered the doctor is a sportsman.

Since he was given his first cricket bat at the age of five, he has tried his hand at most sports. But, as the picture of Ben Hogan reminded him, golf is the one he took up late.

All the same, he has done well at it. In two years he got his handicap down to three, and then went on to win a top Northern tournament.

Sam Langford’s photograph recalled his interest in boxing and the time he was President of Manchester University Boxing Club. That phase came roughly between the lacrosse period, when he was picked to play for Lancashire schoolboys, and the rugby period, when he played for the university. But of all the sports stars we talked about, Fleetwood-Smith, the Australian bowler, was obviously the one admired most by the doctor, and cricket the game he loved above all the others.

By the time he was a medical student he was captaining the combined English Universities team. At 42, he has just stepped down as captain of his local eleven.

Today his sport is divided between cricket — he plays once and sometimes twice a week throughout the summer — and golf — two or three rounds a week in the winter.

“Golf,” he said, “is particularly suitable for a doctor, because it can be played at any time. Cricket is different. Someone has to be found to look after things for me.

“Fortunately, I have a good arrangement with another doctor who likes football just as much as I like cricket. In winter I stand in for him so that he can go to his football matches. In summer he stands in for me so that I can go to my cricket.”

And the result of all this exercise? Well, the doctor may be going rather bald on top, but he can still put in a half hour session on his bagpipes without losing his breath and he hasn’t had an illness since his schooldays.

Which isn’t bad for a man on the wrong side of 40.

The post Sporting doctor finds a link appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

CONGO, London Zoo’s three-year-old chimpanzee, known to millions as a TV personality, has retired from the public eye to settle down to the more serious and less public problems of married life. He shares a nice, semi-detached cage with his wives, Diane and Jenny.

In the past, many viewers will have seen him at work and play with Desmond Morris, who will shortly take up his new appointment as Curator of Mammals at the Zoo.

As an artist, Congo often painted pictures when appearing in Zoo Time, and today his name is almost as well-known internationally as that of Picasso.

In fact, Picasso himself has bought a Congo painting, and examples of his work are in the possession of the renowned biologist, Sir Julian Huxley, and the Director of London’s Natural History Museum, Sir Gavin de Beer. I, too, am the proud possessor of a “Congo.”

What is so special about the paintings of a young chimpanzee which has won both the interest and admiration of such great men as Picasso and Sir Julian, and the ridicule and condemnation of Sir Charles Wheeler, President of the Royal Academy? And what are his pictures all about? After all, there doesn’t seem to be much in them except a series of bold slashes and strokes of gay colour.

The fact remains, however, that Congo’s paintings are almost unique in world history. Only two or three other chimpanzees have ever done anything comparable, while none has produced such a sustained and progressive series of drawings and paintings as Congo has turned out during the past three years under the guidance of Desmond Morris.

It was soon evident to Morris that Congo possessed a highly developed sense of pictorial composition. Although the strokes of colour did not, of course, represent anything in particular, the overall effect of a completed Congo painting was one of a vigorously painted, brilliantly coloured design.

Just what I mean will be seen, at least so far as composition goes, if one considers our reproduction of a Congo painting. See how the dark strokes in the righthand corner balance the cluster of dark strokes on the left. That’s composition, and not even a President of the Royal Academy could do better!

On Thursday, in Granada’s People and Places, I’ll be showing some brand new film of Congo at work. In this, the obvious concentration and control which he puts into his painting will be seen. In the same programme. I will be discussing with John Cohen, Professor of Psychology in the University of Manchester, my exhibition, The Lost Image, which is on show at the Crane Gallery, Manchester, this month.

Why is it called The Lost Image? Until recent times the most important thing in painting was the image — a recognisable subject. That doesn’t mean that a painting should look like a photograph. But it does mean that you should be able to see what the artist is getting at — even if you don’t like it!

During the past few years a type of painting called Tachisme — from the French word “tacher,” meaning “to spot, splash or stain” — has arisen. Tachiste painters are at liberty to dribble and drip their paint on to a canvas laid flat on the floor; to throw it at a canvas and then, if they wish, to ride over it on bicycles, stamp on it, or set fire to it.

In fact, they can do anything at all that might help to produce, accidentally, some sort of interesting or attractive effect, devoid of any recognisable image. The Lost Image sets out to shame and explode the whole idea of Tachisme — or Action Painting, as it is also known — by showing how absurd, even lunatic, it is that an adult artist should try and work without an idea in his head, when even Congo and young Timothy Vaughan, aged three, whose “train” I also reproduce, appear to have something quite definite in mind. Timothy’s train is certainly no photograph, but the idea of the carriages and the engine puffing up its smoke, are quite clear.

The post It’s Chimpicassoesque appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

A TEAM of People and Places researchers and correspondents are scouring the north for interesting people who collect unusual objects. Each week the owners of articles ranging from handcuffs to cricket caps are being brought to the studios to tell viewers the story behind their hobby.

Programme producer David Plowright said: “People who collect unusual items have appeared in the show many times, but during the past two months we have been presenting one collector each week.

“We are looking for people who not only have an unusual collection but can tell an interesting story about it as well. We have in mind people who are well-known in some walk of life and have a hobby of which the public know little or nothihg.

“Many people have written in teiUng us about their collections, but few are suitable for the programme because they are the sort of things thousands of people collect — like foreign stamps.

“For us, it must be something out of the ordinary.”

The programme researchers did not have far to go for four people who have appeared in the show in the past few weeks.

Ernest Thompson, who is a technical editor with an engineering firm, went to the Manchester studios from his home four miles away to talk about his collection of religious figures.

Antique dealer Harold Gilbert and his collection of handcuffs were found at a shop only half a-mile from the studios, and David Drummond, who appears in the Biggies series as Lord Bertie, walked in from the studio next door, where he was rehearsing, to show his collection of walking sticks.

Drummer Amos Smith left his place in the People and Places Derek Hilton Trio to go before the cameras and discuss his coin collection.

Thirty-year-old Amos, who started his collection of more than 1,000 English and Roman coins 10 years ago, said: “I have had many letters from other numismatists since my collection was seen in the show.”

Has he been able to obtain any rare coins as a result?

“No.” Amos told me. “But I’ve heard from two dealers who want to buy the collection, which I insured for £2,500.

“The only coins I’m really interested in are about half-a-dozen English crowns. They are held by people not prepared to sell. But even if the crowns came on the market I wouldn’t be able to buy them. They would probably cost as much as my whole collection is worth “

The post People and Places collects collectors appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

AS a television personality Chris Langford is rare indeed. For she says: “I would not have minded too much if the chance to get into show business had not come my way.” And: “I have no particular ambition to get to the top.”

Two-and-a-half years ago Chris was a secretary at a modest salary in a Manchester office. Then “just for a lark” she entered a talent competition and won first prize.

That led to a job in television and, 15 months ago, to the regular singing spot in Granada’s People and Places.

Chris, 21, told me at the Manchester studios that despite her show business life she still enjoys “all the simple things in life, such as lying in bed late, listening to records, reading, knitting, shopping and an occasional trip to London.”

Chris must be television’s only singer who uses dancing lessons to help her singing technique. She said: “Although I don’t dance professionally, the dancing lessons and the daily limbering-up exercises I do at home help tremendously with arm movements when I’m singing.”

A year ago Chris married Jim Goldby, a television sound engineer. They settled down to a quiet life in an eight-roomed flat in Tynemouth, near Newcastle.

Said Chris: “It’s in a Georgian type house with French windows looking right out over the sea. We have wonderful views for landscape painting. Jim is a good painter and now I’ve decided to take it up.”

Chris added: “We are also both keen on Continental cooking and we love to experiment with French and Italian dishes.

“Jim is the better cook. He creates some wonderful meals.”

Visitors to the Goldby flat usually find Chris lounging in slacks and silk shirts, though she has between 50 and 60 smart dresses.

Some of these dresses she designs herself, but she admits that she spends a great deal of money at shops. “Clothes,” she said, “are one of my weaknesses.”

Chris has an impish sense of humour which, during rehearsals for People and Places, leads to much banter with interviewers Bill Grundy and Gay Byrne and the Derek Hilton Trio.

But she has no plans to become a comedienne. She said: “I love singing too much to think of anything else. All I want is to go on singing in People and Places and live quietly with my husband.”

The post Chris Langford doesn’t seek stardom appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

WATCH out … People and Places is coming your way. From next week, thousands of Northerners on holiday at seaside towns in the region will be able to see how this Granada show goes on the air.

Twelve on-the-spot editions, under the title “Pier to Pier,” are planned for a four-week tour of the resorts.

The tour begins on Tuesday at Skegness. There, the 50 strong production and technical staff will work at top pressure to set up their mobile studio and put over the show before moving on to Mablethorpe and Cleethorpes on Wednesday and Thursday.

Then on to Bridlington, Filey, Scarborough, Morecambe, Blackpool, St. Annes, Rhyl, Colwyn Bay and Llandudno.

This meet-the-people series of outside broadcasts aims to provide something for everyone.

Holidaymakers will see and hear the programme personalities — interviewers Bill Grundy and Gay Byrne, singer Marion Keene and the Derek Hilton Trio — as the show goes on the air.

Viewers will also see show-business stars appearing in the seaside summer shows, a film of the town from which the programme is transmitted and they will meet some of the interesting people who live and work in the towns.

Cameras will be perched on piers and promenades, in pleasure grounds, on harbour walls and beside boating pools.

Interviews by Bill Grundy and Gay Byrne will present current news stories against a background of yachts, sand, sea and fairground bustle.

Marion Keene gets a num her of unusual settings for her songs. At Mablethorpe they pop her on top of a helter-skelter and at Morecambe on board the schooner Moby Dick, the one that was used in the film.

Producer David Plowright told me: “The content of the show will be the same as it is in the studios. The difference is that all the items in ‘Pier to Pier’ will have a holiday flavour.

“We shall be doing all the shows out in the open — whatever the weather!

“We intend looking at the main sport in each resort — water ski-ing, sand yachting, and so on — and see some kart racing.”

The double decker, open-topped People and Places bus, which will be heading Granada’s Travelling Eye fleet, will become a familiar sight to holidaymakers.

Last year the People and Places team faced a number of hazards — including the bad weather — that they hope they will not have to cope with this year.

One was the gremlin that turned up at Bridlington in the shape of a gust of wind. It blew the programme caption cards into the sea minutes before the programme was due to go on.

They were retrieved, dripping wet, with only seconds to spare, by three men in a small boat.

When the show visited the Quarry Hill Flats, at Leeds, some of the intended camera shots were obscured by an army of children.

Closer and closer came the children until the camera crews and artists — among them singer Marion Ryan — were surrounded.

And at Carr Mill, near St. Helens, the Derek Hilton Trio went adrift. The anchorage of the raft on which they were playing broke and they began to float out into the lake as hydroplanes whizzed past them at speed.

The post People on the pier appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

THE trim, white-painted motor cruiser chugged in from the open sea and made for its home buoy. When it had been safely tied up, its owner, tanned and weather-beaten as from a lifetime in the open air, disappeared down the hatch.

Minutes later he was back on deck, his shorts replaced by a well pressed suit. Shore was only a few powerful oar-strokes away, and soon he was in his car and starting on the 85-mile trip to Manchester.

The purpose of his journey was to go in front of a television camera and tell viewers how to make friends with their ulcers.

The boat’s owner was the People and Places doctor, whose homely chats about the more popular aches and pains are becoming a regular feature of the programme.

Because of the BMA restrictions on publicity, the name of this twinkling-eyed doctor with the manner so suited to television cannot be given.

He is a 42-year-old general practitioner with a bigger-than-average practice, a wife and two children (a third expected in November).

He is a keen believer in as much outdoor life as possible. In the summer he captains his local cricket team. His winter sport is golf (he has a handicap of four) and he likes to sail the boat he keeps moored beneath the ancient walls of Conway Castle.

It was during his summer holiday that he drove to Manchester to give his talk on ulcers — and he went off to Wales again as soon as he could. The 30ft Bendigo, which was a Rhyl pilot boat before he bought her four years ago, gives him the holiday relaxation his busy life demands — far from the incessant ringing of the telephone, from the midnight knocks on the door.

And a holiday afloat is a natural choice, for he is no stranger to the sea. Before the last war, as a 17-year-old waiting to go into medical school, he became a deckhand in a Hull trawler and knew the sea in its wildest moods while riding out gales in the Icelandic fishing grounds. During the war he served in the Mediterranean in a luxury liner which had been turned into a hospital ship.

His breezy television approach to medicine has developed from his earlier appearances in Granada’s People and Places, when it was a late-night show.

“Who,” the doctor asked himself, “is going to sit up and listen to a public health lecture at 11 o’clock at night?”

Now he makes a practice of treating his subject in the most lighthearted way possible. He says: “I don’t believe illness is necessarily a matter for solemn faces. Everyone is concerned about health in one way or another and I try to talk about different aspects of it in a way that is easily understandable.

“The fact that it’s a serious subject doesn’t mean it has to be dull. For instance, when I discussed disabilities I thought it interesting to instance famous athletes, among them Olympic gold medallists, whose disabilities did not prevent them from making great physical efforts.”

The doctor had his TV baptism in an interview with Douglas Warth in Granada’s Sharp at Four nearly four years ago. A doctor was needed who was capable of standing up to Warth’s hard-hitting arguments, and this general practitioner, former president of Manchester University Union and a noted debater, was picked for the verbal battle.

“It very nearly developed into a standup fight,” he recalls, “but it was great fun.”

Since then he has been called on to appear in This Week, What the Papers Say and Under Fire. It was in the last that he led the doctors’ protests about their promised pay increases.

“The MP I was attacking said it was most unfair of me to accuse the Government of delaying tactics and assured us that there was going to be no delay at all in doing something about our pay. That was more than three years ago, and it is only now that we are going to get our increases.”

How does the doctor’s family view his TV appearances?

“My four-year-old boy saw me in one programme recently,” he says, “and when I got home he told me he liked Yogi Bear better. I must say that is a point of view with which I have every sympathy.”

The post The sailing doctor makes it breezy appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

RUSH. That’s what it is. All rush. From the minute I set of for Manchester every Monday morning to the minute I get home to Birmingham 10 hours later.

Jump off the train at Manchester and into a speeding taxi. I wonder why Manchester has such comfortable taxis? But there isn’t lime to enjoy it. I’m there before I know it. And up the steps into the Granada Television Centre.

A quick chat with the producer. I tell him what Bloggs is doing this week. Bloggs is my favourite cartoon character. He’s based on my father, but don’t tell him. will you?

And then it’s off to the studio for a brief camera rehearsal.

What a chaotic jumble! Can they really produce a programme out of this maze of wires and cameras and microphones? We haven’t lost one yet, says one of the cameramen.

Things are already under way. Gay Byrne is casually awaiting the start of the programme. Bill Grundy is having an amiable chat with a fellow he’s going to interview. You have to keep the chap happy, don’t you?

So we go through the motions of the programme to get the camera angles ironed out. I think of all the things that can go wrong.

Like me falling through a piece of scenery. Or ruining one of those expensive cameras. Or getting hit on the head by a microphone.

What do you say when that happens? Even worse — what would Bill Grundy say? Worse still — what would the producer say?

Goodbye?

Camera rehearsal’s soon over. Time to relax a bit, I think. But Gay gives me a word of advice. If you want some food I’d snatch a bite now, he tells me. We’ll be starting again any time.

So I dash down the corridor to the canteen. Was that Ena Sharpies I just side-stepped? I haven’t the courage to find out. Or the time!

I never can get used to eating in this canteen.

You never know what nationally famous face is going to be facing you over the table. And you know what?

They eat and drink — just like real people.

My next stop is the make-up department. This is the pleasantest part of the day, being made-up by all those pretty girls. I’m surprised they don’t get on television themselves. And they’re so understanding, too. They don’t even object to my three day beard

But the rush is soon on again.

I whirl back to the studio. Everybody knows what he’s doing. Except me. I feel like a piece of luggage standing about. The Derek Hilton Trio are behind me — chatting nonchalantly about music. Nice to see artists working together in harmony.

I’m on any time now. Evelyn Rose is just finishing her recipe. That woman can talk even faster than I can draw. Will my chalk break? Will I knock over the floor manager?

The cameras move in. I’m on. Idiot thought — as I, go down for the last time … why do they make up all my face, when the viewers only see half of it?

Maybe if I had only half a face to make up, I could snatch a crafty smoke before going on.

It’s all over before I know it, I put down my chalk thank fully. I’m suddenly very hungry. Evelyn Rose’s recipe! If I can get my hands on that bowl of stew without being seen.

But Grundy and Byrne are there ahead of me. And all I get is an apologetic smile from Evelyn. You have to move fast in this business.

The post Chalk this page up to lightning Larry appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

FOR one week in the year, the Yorkshire spa of Harrogate puts on a French accent. Out come the tricolours, the bunting, the pavement cafe tables and the striped umbrellas. There are wine tastings and cookery demonstrations, French cabarets and French films. Even a French poodle show.

But for French Week 1960, which opens on Monday, there will be an added attraction — an on-the-spot visit by the entire People and Places team, led by those celebrated Francophiles Bill Grundy and Chris Howland.

“What’s a Francophile?” asks Howland.

“Don’t show your ignorance,” says Grundy. “It’s Latin for a Spanish rasp. You need educating. And if we re going to give the right touch to Wednesday’s programme from Harrogate, the sooner we start teaching you a thing or two the better.”

And that is how they came to be raiding the Granada wardrobe department (for Basque berets and Marseilles type T-shirts), the make-up room (for waxed moustaches and goatee beards), ending up over a cooker opening a tin of snails.

“Of course, eating snails is nothing new to me,” says Bill, spearing them from the tin and lovingly placing them one by one into the shells that come with them.

“Remember when you nipped over to visit me in Germany at the end of last year?” asks Chris, who is a top disc jockey on Cologne radio. “It was the time we went for a trip on a Rhine steamer.”

“Ah, yes,” muses Bill. “I remember getting off at the village of Unkel and buying two plates of snails and seven bottles of champagne. What happened next?”

“You spent the rest of the journey imitating an excitable Frenchman in front of a boatload of 600 puzzled passengers,” says Chris.

“It got rather embarrassing because most of them knew who I was but couldn’t understand how I had got mixed up with this ‘nana’ who was threatening to hit me over the head with a champagne bottle and screaming at me in a language he couldn’t speak.”

“I could,” objects Bill, who by now is filling the shells with a butter parsley-garlic mixture. “I’ll have you know that I can say My grandmother’s ear-trumpet has been struck by lightning without the trace of an accent.”

“Say it,” commands Chris.

“My grandmother’s ear-trumpet has been struck by lightning,” recites Bill in English, without batting an eyelid.

As the snails go in the oven to sizzle away in their aromatic sauce, the bitter friends, as they are known to the People and Places team, sit back to debate the form of Wednesday’s programme, which will come from the gaily-decorated, open-air market in the centre of Harrogate.

“I’m getting excited about meeting Maria Léa, the girl who heads the French cabaret,” says Bill. “She looks a peach.”

“I’m more interested in the French can-can girls,” says Chris.

“Sorry to disappoint you,” says Bill, pleased to air his superior knowledge, “but it’s only the can-can that’s French, not the girls. They’re as English as you are.”

“Let me tell you I have French blood in my veins,” protests Howland. “My ancestors came over during the French Revolution.”

“In that case, we ought to try you out with the French folklore group that’s coming to Harrogate,” says Bill, licking his lips as he lifts the snails out of the oven. “They dance a polka on stilts.”

“Is that possible?”

“Of course it’s possible. Their ancestors were shepherds who took to wearing stilts to keep an dye on their straying flocks. What did your ancestors do?”

“They were troubadours. They sang — and no one ever tried to stop them. People were nicer in those days,” says Chris, recalling the long standing feud about the exercise of the Howland vocal chords.

They move to the dining table, with Grundy instructing Howland in the gentle art of snail-eating as it is done in the better French families.

“Very clever,” murmurs Chris, admiring the swift manipulations of the Grundy fork as it probes shell after shell. “You must know France very well.”

“True,” says Bill. “I once spent a whole week there. In Paris. That was when I was a geologist. And the whole time was devoted to discussing a project for drilling oil in the Sahara.”

“In what language?” asks Chris.

“French,” says Bill.

“And what was the result?” asks Chris.

“We lost the contract,” says Bill.

“Oh,” says Chris, and tactfully changes the subject to his favourite topic of conversation — Chris Howland.

“Perhaps,” he says, “the producer will let me sing my current German hit record, because it’s very appropriate. It’s called Das Hab’ Ich in Paris Gelernt, which means ‘That’s what I learnt in Paris’.”

“But you’ve never been there,” says Bill.

“That’s where you’re wrong,” answers Chris. “I admit I only stayed 20 minutes between trains, but I proved a fast learner.”

“Then you’re out of practice tonight,” smiles Bill as he scoffs the last plump snail, leaving Chris nothing but a pile of empty shells.

“I don’t wish to be cruel.” says Chris, “but sometimes you make me wish that your grandmother’s ear-trumpet really had been struck by lightning.”

The post Howland v Grundy – c’est la guerre appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

WITH his incredible exposé of the activities of “The Organisation” in Granada’s new People and Places, Peter Jones is at last beginning to shake the complacency of the Great British Public.

His tingling allegations about the ramifications of this octopus-like movement are intended to shock viewers into believing that there really is some guiding force behind the seemingly-inexplicable misfortunes of daily life. And he is succeeding.

Already people are starting to wonder whether it is possible that such an “Organisation” actually exists. I know that was the question I asked myself after the first edition of People and Places, only to dismiss the whole affair as just a figment of Jones’ brilliant imagination.

But now I’m not so sure… I began to have my doubts when I heard from Jones and fellow-investigator, Peter Moore, how they discovered the insidious way “The Organisation” operated.

Said Jones: “It began two years ago when we were thinking of doing a radio serial about a man who was trying to get a telephone for his house and who at every turn faced with some obstruction.”

“We felt,” added Moore, “that this was organised obstruction. That all the difficulties were there by design, not accident.”

“Since then we have carried out detailed research,” continued Jones. “There have been hazards, of course, but they have been bravely faced. We have suffered like martyrs to a cause. But we have secured evidence to show that “The Organisation” does exist, and that its aim is to make life intolerable for those who are not members of it.”

He opened his safe and let me see some examples of the more everyday activities of “The Organisation” which have already been shown to viewers. The banana skin that had been placed where someone was bound to step. The fish knife with the hollow decoration in which bits of food could lodge and cause poisoning. The tomato sauce bottle in which a lump of sauce had been wedged so that an attempt to coax it out flooded the plate.

The two Peters were making it sound horribly real. I tried to argue with myself that it was all too far-fetched, that they had conjured up a mythical “Organisation” because it was a paying proposition… until I found the cheques they are getting from Granada for telling viewers about it are being ploughed back to finance further investigation.

Peter Jones may have made a name as a comic, but I found that in this crusade he is deadly serious.

Some of the examples of “The Organisation’s” work he takes from his files may appear amusing. But, as he grimly pointed out, they were far from funny to their victims.

Already they have secured a mass of evidence. They have films, tape recordings, affidavits. Many witnesses have been interviewed. Some are being persuaded to appear on the programme.

But their main catch is a deviationist who has seen the light. Said Peter Jones: “We cannot divulge his name, not only for his own sake but for that of his wife and family, who are still in “The Organisation.”

They have pieced together some of the history of “The Organisation.” From revelations associated with the Mopungo Fragment, they have evidence that it was operating as long ago as 4,000 B.C. And they have frightening news of the way it has been building up its membership, particularly since the war.

“Watch your neighbour closely,” said Peter Moore. “It is quite likely he is in ‘The Organisation’.”

“Be warned if one of your family tries to switch off this programme,” said Peter Jones. “He is obviously trying to suppress evidence.”

As may be expected, these disclosures are worrying “The Organisation” and strenuous efforts are being made to plug the leak. There have been several attempts to stop the programme going on the air.

Said Peter Jones: “When we were engaged to come to Manchester for People and Places we were put on the wrong sleeper-train and woke in the morning in a siding at Rugby.”

This, and later occurrences they told me about, were in themselves convincing proof of “The Organisation’s” existence.

But any remaining doubts I might have had vanished as a result of things that happened while I was interviewing the two Peters.

On three occasions my photographer’s negatives were spoiled because the flash mechanism refused to operate, although it had worked without a hitch when he tested it. Then my pen ran dry.

Finally, after the photographer had managed to take the pictures on this page, he found the viewfinder of his new camera had mysteriously shattered.

And even now, back in the office and typing this story, I have horrible suspicions that I am being watched and that evertsya ghrбspo wijiity woooots.

The post It’s ‘The Organisation’ that does it appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.