WHEN I first saw television, quite a few years ago now, I thought what an ideal medium it would be for presenting conversation. Supposing, for instance, there had been hidden cameras at some of Dr Johnson’s meetings with his cronies, or down at Streatham when he was staying there with the Thrales.

What a wonderful record of these occasions would have resulted! Not, of course, as good as Boswell, but an excellent supplement to him.

Or would it? Many efforts have been made to capture authentic conversation on the television screen, but, as far as I know, none has wholly succeeded.

Conversation, that most delightful of all pursuits, has, by its nature, to be spontaneous, unrestricted in its range, and based primarily on ideas rather than curiosity. The moment a topic is fixed, much of its charm is lost.

One can converse all night, but only with difficulty for a specified period of time. Ideas are inexhaustible, but curiosity about another human being is soon satisfied.

I read somewhere that once, at a dinner party, the historian Macaulay was asked by his neighbour what he thought about the novels of Jane Austen. He made no reply, and then, later, when there was a lull in the general conversation, banged the table with his fork and said: “I have been asked what I think of the novels of Jane Austen.”

Thereupon, he delivered a long, cogent and perceptive disquisition on the subject. No doubt the other diners were edified, but an effective stop was put to all subsequent conversation. Macaulay would have been quite unsuitable for the new Appointment With . . . television programmes. which are aimed at reproducing the sort of conversation two people might have on a casual encounter.

They are quite definitely not interviews. There is no intention to score points. They are discussion, not argument.

Though superficially similar, discussion and argument are as different as birdwatching and grouse shooting — the one designed to observe and study the ways of birds, the other to bring home as large a bag as possible.

When two people discuss, the purpose is to exchange and enlarge their mutual understanding of ideas; when they argue, each seeks to demolish the other’s ideas and promote his own.

Of course in discussion a point of view necessarily emerges, as does the character, the attitude of mind, of the person who holds it. Everything about human beings gives them away — the lines round the mouth, the posture in a chair, voice, expression, hands, as well as views on matters trivial and profound. No disguise is possible.

“Love’s mysteries in souls do lie,” the poet Donne wrote, “but the body is his book.” In conversation, the pages of this book can be turned over and read.

The persons chosen for Appointment With . . . are not necessarily eminent or notorious. All that is required is that they should be able, and sufficiently uncommitted, to converse freely and uninhibitedly.

It is also essential that they should interest me. Most of those set in authority over us are, by virtue of being so, bores. Being a bore is part of the price they pay for exercising power.

Thus, for instance, supposing he were available, President de Gaulle would not be suitable. Being in power, what he can or would say is predictable, and therefore uninteresting.

On the other hand, Jacques Soustelle, his former henchman and the architect of the coup which put him in power, is interesting precisely because he has been sacked from de Gaulle’s Government and expelled from the party he founded to support it.

He is also a brilliant anthropologist, a man of outstanding intellectual attainments in whom the addiction to politics is at war with the instincts and aptitude of the scholar.

Again, Lord Chandos is suitable because, like Soustelle, he is exceptionally intelligent and cultivated, as well as being a politician who, by his own wish, abandoned Westminster for the City.

By birth, upbringing and fortune, one would have expected him to be carried as effortlessly and instinctively to the upper reaches of the Conservative Party as salmon are to their breeding places. Instead, he became a tycoon.

Death of a Salesman, however one may rate it as a play, is unquestionably a valid and poignant comment on the assent society in which, for the time being, we seem fated to live. This, not marrying Miss Marilyn Monroe, brings Arthur Miller into the terms of reference of Appointment With . . . He is a deeply serious writer who, like Ibsen (whom he much admires), has sought in his writing to unravel the tangled skein of our time.

There are many others. In talking to these people I try to forget cameras, studio signals, all the gimmickry of television. The object is to converse with them, as I might if some adventitious circumstance had thrown us together, without premeditation, system, or any thought of their public faces — just with them.

The post Just talking appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

THE remarkable story of a car with an imaginary ailment will be told in Monday’s Searchlight.

Many weeks of work have been spent gathering “on-the-spot” material about “The Repairs Muddle,” the title of the second programme in this dramatic fact-finding series.

Investigators have been touring the country to get an overall picture of the kind of thing that goes on, in what, they believe, is one of the biggest money-making businesses there is — the gold-mine of “crocks.”

They have been calling on firms specialising in the servicing of television receivers. They have been quizzing electrical dealers who carry out their own repairs. And they have been visiting garages to find out exactly what goes on behind the scenes

This is where the car came in. There was nothing really wrong with it. Just a rather unpleasant noise which a minor adjustment would quickly put right. It was taken round to a number of car repairers. Each was asked to say how much it would cost to put the trouble right.

The estimates they gave — which will be quoted in Monday’s programme — provide a revealing picture of a problem many motorists are up against when they take their car in for repair. There are no actors in Searchlight. The general public appear in this programme and have genuine complaints about such things as overcharging, bad servicing and wrong diagnosis.

But it won’t be just a catalogue of grouses. The investigators have gone into this subject thoroughly and will put forward suggestions which, with the cooperation of the public, could make the repairs racket a thing of the past.

Searchlight began a fortnight ago with a forthright inquiry called “Gambling with the Law.” Among the people it introduced, were former Home Secretary Chuter Ede, and ex-Scotland Yard chief, Sir Harold Scott.

Tackling difficult subjects requires people who are expert in the art of informing the public. Because of this, the responsibility for the preparation of the fortnightly Searchlight programmes has been given to one of the strongest teams ever assembled in the field of TV journalism.

The head of research is Sydney Elliott, whose long newspaper career has included three editorships. Producer is Tim Hewat, a former deputy editor of a national newspaper. Mike Woolier is programme director.

Writer of the series, and director of the film sequences, is John Haggarty, one of the best-known names in documentary films.

Introducing and narrating the programmes is Kenneth Allsop, journalist and author, who was the first editor of ABC’s The Book Man.

The interviewer is Elaine Grand, whose sympathetic and understanding handling of programmes of this kind, has been seen in earlier ITV inquiries.

In Searchlight, which seeks to throw fresh light on Britain in 1959, they have two main aims. One is to highlight outstanding British achievements. And the other is to expose things about which Britain ought to be ashamed.

This last task is the most difficult — but may well turn out to be the most rewarding. Already they have lined up some sensational and controversial subjects.

Mechanics make minor repairs to a couple of old cars. This is the kind of work Searchlight set out to investigate

“Our purpose,” they say, “is to find out what is wrong with society. We are looking for things that are unfair, unjust, unhealthy. We are out to attack intolerance and narrow-mindedness.

“There are grave social problems that are outside party politics which we think we have a duty to bring before the public. In doing so we shall have some pretty strong things to say.

“We are not out to distress people deliberately, but some of the things we shall be showing will shock them into realising the existence of human problems. which should be troubling the conscience of the nation.

“To get people arguing about these things—to introduce more sense into the running of our affairs — they are the most important things Searchlight hopes to achieve.”

The post ‘Crocks’ of gold appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

PAMELA BROWN, the producer of Granada’s Junior Criss Cross Quiz, is becoming quite an authority on hobbies and ambitions.

She has to be — to keep up with the young participants in her popular Thursday quiz programme.

“Lots of people go around labouring under the delusion that all children are interested in these days are pop music and the Twist and that all the boys want to be engine drivers and all the girls nurses,” said Miss Brown. “If only they knew!”

“Contestants in Junior Criss Cross Quiz represent a pretty fair cross section of intelligent juvenile humanity, and the range and variety of their ambitions and interests are astonishing, to say the least.”

Fourteen-year-old contestant Stephanie Knight, from Urmston, near Manchester, for instance, ‘collects’ old buildings!

“Whenever I go on holiday somewhere and there is an old castle or a cathedral in the vicinity I make a point of visiting it,” Stephanie explained.

“I try to remember what I’ve read about the period, and imagine what life must have been like in those days.”

Not that Stephanie is an indoors girl. Her ambition at the moment is to play for England at netball or lacrosse.

Angela Owen, 13, of Hazel Grove, Cheshire, wanted to become a professional photographer.

Michael Critchley, aged 14, of Swinton, Lancashire, told Miss Brown, he intends to become an architect when he grows up. And in the meantime his spare time is spent designing and planning buildings “for his own amusement.”

He carries out most of his plans too — but in model form.

Thirteen-year-old Adrian Smith, of Peel Green, Eccles, near Manchester, wants to become a surgeon.

But 14-year-old Roger Collier, of Higher Crumpsail, near Manchester, just wants to be a millionaire!

Barry Edwards, also 14, of Byrom Street, Manchester, was more restrained. His hobby is gardening and he transformed the site of a torn-down house next door into a plot of flowers.

When the site was turned into a car park, he moved his plants into the back yard in boxes — and was rewarded for his pains with a collection of rare and valuable seeds from a London gardener who had heard his story in Junior Criss Cross Quiz.

“This sort of thing happens a lot,” Pam Brown told me. “One girl who collected picture postcards got a whole collection sent her from another part of the country.

“A boy who collected matchbox labels received a batch of them a woman had picked up in the United States.”

The post Straight from the HOBBY horse’s mouth appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

YOU are a TV producer. You have to pick a team for a discussion programme. What kind of men do you look for? There is only one answer: one-armed men!

It is no good picking someone who, when asked his opinion, says, “Well, on the one hand, you can take this view. On the other hand, you can take that. There is much to be said for both sides.”

Of course there is — about nearly every disputed idea on earth, from votes for women to the eight-ball over. But two-armed men are a bore in a TV argument.

For a lively discussion programme you need one-armed men; men who refuse to squat on the fence and who come down with a bang on one side or the other.

That is what you get in Who Goes Next?

You have seen the programme on Monday evenings, I dare say: three men marooned in separate hutches, like rabbits; each required to supply 30-second answers to questions about current events. There is no time for waffling.

The questions are framed by the producer. His name is Milton Shulman. He Canadian, a theatre critic who looks rather like a well-dressed sleepwalker.

But this is misleading. For he is a connoisseur of wrangling. He takes a genuine pleasure in pandemonium. So he concocts questions to make his team disagree.

His regular performers are Richard Crossman, Labour MP, Peter Thornycroft, Tory MP, and Malcolm Muggeridge: three kinds of one-armed men.

Crossman is 52, son of a High Court judge, a public school and University Socialist (he went to Winchester, like Stafford Cripps and Hugh Gaitskell) and a natural partisan. I doubt if he knows the meaning of the word “neutral.” If Crossman saw two flies having a race across a windowpane, he would instantly back one of them to win.

Crossman is a believer. Muggeridge is a disbeliever. He disbelieves in all sorts of things. Show him two flies racing across a window-pane and how would he react? I would expect him to say that they are overrated animals, that the idea of a race between them is absurd and that the whole thing is a put-up job.

Yet Muggeridge is an ex-partisan. His father was a Labour MP, and he himself was once a Socialist. At the age of 30 (he is now 56) he went to Russia. His close-up view of Communism made him write a book called “Winter in Moscow” — a funny, brilliant, bitter study in disillusion. Since then he has travelled across the political spectrum to the point of becoming deputy editor of a Tory newspaper. Now, he is in no man’s land.

If Peter Thorneycroft, the third man in the team, saw those two flies having a race, he would look up the stud book, decide which of them should win on form and back it, simply as an intellectual exercise.

He is a complicated Tory. At a guess, I would say that his heart is on the Left and his mind on the Right. This mixture makes him puzzling to orthodox politicians. He is very able, with a streak of what the Irish call devilment.

He became an MP at 29, a Cabinet Minister at 42, Chancellor of the Exchequer at 48. In 1958, after 12 months as Chancellor, he walked out following a dispute about Government expenditure. Now 50, he has a crowded past and a speculative future.

There is one really big difference between him and his team mates: he has helped to govern this country. He has sat in cabinets, bargained with foreign Powers, learned at first hand how men are ruled.

Widely as they vary in temperament, outlook and cast of personality, the three have something in common. All of them shrink from the stock phrase, the catchword, the formula that means nothing but sounds impressive. They all have muscular minds.

Moreover, all of them. I am sure, agree that there is one phrase in the English language which is more majestic than any other. If the Recording Angel wants to capture their attention on the day the world ends, he need not bother about his trumpet. He need only say: “For the sake of argument.”

At those words, Crossman, Muggeridge and Thomeycroft will instantly start up, forsake everything else, and join in.

The post Wanted: One-armed men! appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

BIGGEST I.T.V region – largest in Gt. Britain * population 13 million * spending £3,000 million annually

The region covered by Granada TV represents approximately 26% of the total U.K. market in the rich industrial heart of the country. You reach more people when you advertise on Granada. Write to us for further information.

Sales & Advertising Dept  149 Regent Street  London W1  REGent 8080 ・ Granada House  Manchester 3  DEAnsgate 7211

The post Biggest appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

The post Granada gallery appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

THE younger generation — often attacked — can take a bow for a change. In fact, one section — the children who appear in Granada’s Junior Criss Cross Quiz — can take several bows.

They have established a reputation for politeness, good manners and, above all, sportsmanship.

About 500 children have been in the programme since it began more than two years ago. What have the people who work on this noughts and crosses game general knowledge learned?

Pam Marsden, head of the contestants’ department at the Manchester studios, said: “Mainly that children are better at taking disappointment than adults.

“In the grown-up quiz programmes, competitors are keyed up all the time. They will retire winning a fairly large sum of money rather than risk losing it on another question or another game.

“But usually the children, who have a large number of points at stake, representing several prizes, press on to the end. They don’t mind a risk. And they are sporting when they lose.

“That characteristic shows in the early stages of the preliminary test. They are set a paper of 25 general knowledge questions.

“The producer interviews them while the papers are being marked. They are given the verdict straight away. It is amazing how matter-of-fact they are.

“I think they are philosophical because they are used to examinations at school and feel that it is not a matter of life and death; just a game.

“We find many adults who see the programme write and say when they think they have seen a particularly well-mannered child in the show.

“This sort of letter usually comes from older viewers conscious of the behaviour of the younger generation.”

Bill Grundy, quizmaster for five months, spoke of a boy in a programme who had won almost 350 points. This entitled him to a canoe or a stereophonic record player.

Said Grundy: “The lad was playing well and wanted a canoe. He accepted a further challenge, played two drawn games.

“On the third, he lost; not only the points he wanted, but those he had piled up. Instead of the canoe he went home with a book token.

“I sympathised. His reply: ‘Oh, that’s all right, Mr Grundy. It was very enjoyable.’ I was most impressed.

“People think girls are bad losers at games. But this is not true in Junior Criss Cross Quiz. I have yet to see a defeated contestant — boy or girl — be unsportsmanlike.”

Over to programme researcher Yvonne Levy. “The children seem to have a leaning towards certain interests.

“‘Pets,’ ‘Is It True?’ ‘Odd Man Out,’ and ‘Nicknames’ are firm favourites with boys and girls. Girls steer clear of engineering, fearing technical subjects. Boys shy off fairy tales. They are keen on science.

“We like letters from children suggesting new subjects, but they must cover a wide field. Pets, say, include all animals, not just one type.

“The contestants like coming to the studio. They enjoy getting stars’ autographs at tea time as much as being in the programme.

“The children, too, get fan mail after the shows. Other youngsters write to I them, and this produces pen friendships.”

The post 500 good sports appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

ALAN HINDLE grinned, and shrugged his shoulders. “It’s no secret, really,” he laughed.

“Just commonsense. Ignore the subjects and stick to plain, straightforward noughts-and-crosses … and you can’t fail.”

This kind of commonsense has meant the Junior Criss Cross Quiz championship of Great Britain to young Hindle.

Fourteen soon, Alan, a technical school boy from a terrace house in a suburb of Manchester, was 10 weeks on Junior Criss Cross Quiz collecting 1,650 points — an all-time record.

He won points, not pounds. Juniors cannot play Granada’s noughts-and-crosses game for money. They score points that are later converted into prizes such as radios, typewriters, cameras, and books.

Alan “spent” his points on a record-player, tape-recorder and collapsible canoe.

If he had been playing the senior game, where filled-in squares are worth £20 [£390 in today’s money, allowing for inflation – Ed] instead of 10 points, his 1,650 score would have been £3,300 [£64,000].

That is nearly £1,000 [£19,500] more than the game’s record champion, Glasgow journalist Rushworth Fogg, won in the last Criss Cross Quiz series.

Alan Hindle played Junior Criss Cross Quiz to an almost infallible system. Almost infallible? He was eventually knocked out by … a girl challenger. I asked him if he minded revealing his success secret. “Of course not,” he replied. “Just commonsense.”

Then he repeated: “It’s easy. Look. Ignore the subject categories on the board altogether. They only confuse the whole thing. Stick to noughts-and-crosses. Play the game that way, and you can’t fail.”

Can’t fail? What, I asked, if you give a wrong answer ? Alan said: “That’s your fault. They’re very easy questions, anyway. So long as your opponent fails one or two as well, it shouldn’t make all that difference.

“You could probably get away with one wrong answer. But fail two, and I reckon that would be fatal.”

Said Alan: “Let’s suppose, for a start, that you’re the challenger. You will be, because the champion is already in the ‘X’ box. The champion has his question, gets it right and puts his ‘X’ in the bottom left-hand-corner of the board.

“Now for the all-important move. The first one. Most challengers get their first question right and then make a terrible mistake. They put their ‘O’ in a corner box. That’s wrong. The challenger’s first ‘O’ should always go in the centre. I worked these theories out with a school pal. We both applied to go on the quiz, and were waiting a year for our turn to come round. So we spent the entire year swotting up on noughts-and-crosses.

“My pal went on before me, and was knocked-out first time because he didn’t put his first ‘O’ in the middle. He went to one of the corners.”

Isn’t the centre question always the hard one? “Yes,” smiled Alan. “That’s one of the risks you’ve got to take.

“Now you’re settled into the centre square, it doesn’t much matter where the champion puts his ‘X,’ He’ll never beat you. Every move he makes, you block him. It’s as easy as that.

“Assuming you both answer your questions correctly, you must draw the game. A few drawn games, and sooner or later your opponent makes a mistake … and you’ve beaten him.”

Right, Alan. Now let us take it from the champion’s position. Into the ‘X’ box we go.

“First thing to remember here,” said Alan, “is that you’ve got the advantage from the start. You have first go at the questions, and the challenger must follow you around the board.

“The way to win is to make for the corner boxes all the time with your ‘X’s, and you’ll never be beaten. The golden rule throughout is, make the subjects take second place on the board. Play noughts-and-crosses first and foremost. I shudder when I see grown men and women getting their answers right and then throwing the game away by not playing noughts-and-crosses properly.

“Of course, crises do crop up during the game. You’ve got to be careful, and not let too many questions slip by. It’s easy to become big-headed as your points mount up, and then you do tend to become careless with the answers.”

Alan went on: “Your opponent is probably nervous. But I found that the nervous ones were the toughest fighters.

“They seemed to be all keyed-up before they went on the air, and then they fought the hardest of all. The over-confident ones were easy. They soon fluffed their answers.

“When you’re knocking up a good total, you’re faced with the difficult decision of withdrawing or carrying on. If you drop out, you run the risk of being called a coward. If you carry on, they accuse you of grasping.”

What happens to noughts-and-crosses champions when they leave school? “I’ve not decided,” said Alan. “It depends on how things go at school. Chemistry is my best subject, and I expect there’ll be plenty of openings for scientific types in the future. Plenty of time yet to think about that.”

The post TV’s boy quiz wonder appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

NEW house … new car … even a new job. Six weeks in Criss Cross Quiz meant all these for schoolteacher Rodney Challis-Sowerby.

Just a year ago, 34-year-old Rodney was the first champion to win £2,000 [about £40,000 in today’s money, allowing for retail inflation which doesn’t include house prices – Ed] in Granada’s noughts-and-crosses general knowledge quiz.

The show is back this week for another winter run. Already hundreds of applications from viewers who want to play the game are in the files.

I spoke to smiling Rodney Challis-Sowerby in the study of his new red-brick bungalow in Newton-le-Willows, Lancashire.

Piled on the desk were 50 new books. They were for his school’s library. He was numbering them so they could go on the shelves next morning.

“I’m the head of the English Department in a new school in Warrington,” he explained. “And I’m a different man — thanks to six weeks on Criss Cross Quiz”

This is his story …

“I was born near Bolton, and went out to Africa when I was four. My father worked for Tanganyika Railways. When I was seven, we returned.

“I had a good school career, and then went on to a teachers’ training college. On initiation night we students were fooling around, and I had a bad accident. It laid me up for some time. But it did far worse for me than just that — it robbed me of my self-confidence.

“I had a teaching job, but nothing out-of-the-ordinary. I felt it was the best I could do.

“When I saw Criss Cross Quiz on TV, I wrote in, and passed the preliminary paper test.

“Why did I do it? I suppose I wanted to prove to myself that I could do something.

“I did. I went on the air, stayed in the game six weeks, and won £2,020 before I was eventually knocked out by a woman challenger.

“My experience in Criss Cross Quiz improved my morale and confidence, and everything seems to have gone smoothly for me since then. New house, new car and now this better job.

“I’m tackling things now I would never have dreamed of before. I’m doing a lot of writing. I’m producing and acting in amateur dramatics, and I travel around lecturing at evening classes.”

How does it feel to be a quiz contestant? What is it like to walk into a TV studio, a complete stranger, and be challenged on general knowledge in front of millions of viewers?

“I was fortunate in one way,” said Rodney. “I was called to the studio one week, and waited behind the cameras for my turn to come. It didn’t. I was not needed that week. The champion was still going strong.

“And I had a grand time. Everybody connected with the show — producer, quizmaster Jeremy Hawk, technicians, and the people behind the scenes — was very kind. My nervousness soon disappeared.

“The ice had been broken for me. When I went to the studio the following week, I felt completely at home. I went on the air, completely forgot the cameras, and concentrated on the game.

“Brainier men and women challenged me and lost. Not because they didn’t know the answers, but because the strain momentarily overcame them.

“They were camera-shy. One challenger was a post-graduate student of political science, a First Class Honours man. He was doing well against me until a camera moved in close to him. I saw him tremble and sway backwards away from the lens. He fluffed every question after that.”

Does knowing how to play noughts-and-crosses help? “Definitely,” said Rodney. “A Liverpool University man I know who entered for the quiz could get all the answers right, but he was no good at noughts-and-crosses. He lost.”

What about viewer-reaction? Is the champion a TV star overnight? Any fan letters?

“No begging letters, surprisingly enough. I expected a few when I reached the £2,000 mark about Christmas time, but I didn’t get one.

“I had two abusive letters telling me I had won enough and should withdraw to give somebody else a chance. I ignored them.

“I was recognised wherever I went. Shop assistants would hurry to serve me, and passers-by would stop me in the street to congratulate me. When I was on holiday at Oban, in Scotland, a woman approached and asked me if I was Rodney Sowerby. She had a 5s [25p in decimal, about £5 after inflation] bet with her husband that she was right.”

Has a schoolteacher any advantage as a contestant in Criss Cross Quiz?

“I think I had.” said Rodney, “because my special interests are history and geography. And so many of the categories in the quiz were from these subjects: kings, queens, mountains, rivers, capitals, countries, politicians.”

But isn’t it risky for a schoolteacher to chance his reputation before the eyes of the nation?

“The boys at school rarely mentioned it.” said Rodney. “One evening I failed a question on kings. I told Jeremy Hawk: ‘I’ll never hear the end of this at school.’ But not a word from anybody!

“I got into trouble one night, though. I didn’t know the name of one of Pat Smythe’s horses.

“When I got home, my daughters, 11-year-old Loraine and eight-year-old Karen, were disgusted with me. I don’t think they’ve ever really forgiven me for that!”

The post What it’s like to be… a £2,000 Criss Cross Quiz man appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

OLD Harrovian Jeremy Hawk sipped a glass of white wine in the Public Schools’ Club overlooking London’s Green Park and said: “Frankly, old boy, this is something quite new for me.

We were discussing Jeremy’s appearance on ITV as a quizmaster. For actor Hawk is now seen regularly as compere of Granada’s highly successful Criss Cross Quiz.

As the programme is screened on three evenings a week — Monday, Wednesday and Friday — Jeremy has become the most frequently televised compere on ITV.

His selection came after weeks of secret tests, before studio audiences, for which many of TV’s top personalities entered. Students from Manchester University appeared as contestants — at two guineas a show. Each try-out was studied by Granada executives.

After watching five programmes, Eddie Pola, Granada’s variety chief, announced himself satisfied, and signed up Hawk.

How does TV’s latest quizmaster like the series? “For one thing,” he says, “it doesn’t insult the public’s intelligence. Yet it still has excitement and entertainment. The contestants have a choice of nine subjects in each game, and there is no limit to the amount a contestant can win.”

After Harrow, 39-year-old Jeremy, who was born in South Africa, had a short spell in his step-father’s wool business in Yorkshire. “I hated it,” he said. “I used to stand on the bales and sing Any Old Iron. The workers loved it — but it held up production.”

His family compromised and sent him to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. His first job was assistant stage manager with Bournemouth Repertory at £3 a week. Jobs with other repertory companies followed, until revue writer Eric Maschwitz saw him at Reading and picked him for the 1940 revue New Faces at the Comedy Theatre. Here, he sang and danced with Betty Ann Davies.

Other West End producers engaged him as a juvenile lead in the early years of the war. One of these productions was for the Arts Theatre in the John Jacques Bernard classic Springtime of Others.

Although Criss Cross Quiz gives him the first chance to appear on ITV in his own show, Jeremy has contributed to the success of other programmes. George and Alfred Black engaged him to direct the comedy sequences in Get Happy, the series which established comic Arthur Haynes as a TV star. He also appeared as a performer in its successor, The Arthur Haynes Show.

Before that, he partnered Benny Hill in two Sunday Night at the London Palladium programmes.

Jeremy’s partnership with Benny, however, isn’t the first time he has worked on stage with a comedian. For three years he appeared, with the late Sid Field, in the role of Dr. Sanderson in the comedy Harvey at the Prince of Wales Theatre.

While Jerry Desmonde was compering The 64,000 Question, Jeremy replaced him temporarily as “straight man” to comedian Norman Wisdom. Now, Jeremy follows Jerry and gives up comedy partnerships for quizmastering. From Jerry Desmonde’s success, it looks as though the best training for the specialised role of a TV quizmaster comes from that seldom acknowledged yet all-important occupation … a comedian’s “straight man”.

The post Jeremy Hawk – the quiet quizmaster appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

IT is back to school again for Junior Criss Cross Quiz this week — after a fortnight’s “holiday” for Wimbledon.

Back to a new “teacher,” too. Quizzing quiz-kids in the junior version of this general knowledge noughts and crosses game will be Canadian TV personality Elaine Grand.

Says Elaine, whose mother was once a schoolmistress in Manchester: “I am thrilled and looking forward to working on the show.

“I love doing TV with youngsters. That is why I have always enjoyed myself as chairman of We Want An Answer.

“Children are far more at ease and unpretentious on TV. They are not as much affected by the cameras as adults.

“I always find with We Want An Answer that they ask far better, more searching, questions than any adults would have done. It is the freshness of the vision of youth, I suppose. Instead of asking the questions they feel they ought to ask a celebrity, they ask what they really want to know.

“They ask bluntly, and often boldly, for the facts.

“With a TV quiz like Junior Criss Cross Quiz youngsters react much better than adults. They play it as a game purely and simply, with nothing important at stake.

“When an adult is told his next question is worth £1,000 he is scared. All that money represents a new car or the down payment on a house.

“A child would not see it that way. A sum like £1,000 is beyond his comprehension — it is right outside his experience. So juniors play this as a straight game of noughts and crosses.”

Not that the youngsters get money, anyway — they play for points that are convertible into prizes.

Criss Cross producer Clement Cave likes working on the junior version.

“Youngsters are more telegenic than adults,” he says. “They are less inhibited. They react so much more naturally to things happening around them.

“Age is important, too. We restrict our contestants to the over 12 and under 15 group. And we usually find that the brightest are on the younger end of the scale. Our biggest prize-winner was a girl of 12½ years who built up 850 points. When they are coming up to 14 they are beginning to look at life almost like grown-ups. They are at that awkward between-age, and beginning to get self-conscious.

“Junior contestants seem to go into the game with a firm determination to win as much as they can. Adults tend to be more cautious. They win a few games and then withdraw. The youngsters will press on. Apart from their winnings, I think they want to make the most of being on TV.”

Cave insists on his junior contestants not being called children on the programme. “We call ourselves Junior Criss Cross Quiz. We never remind contestants or viewers that this is a show for children. We want to avoid any suggestions that we are talking down to children.”

Choosing contestants for the junior show is tougher than for the adult version. Contestant-organiser, Reg Marsh, explained: “Children from all over the country write asking to be on the programme. But we have to restrict contestants to those living in a 10 mile radius of the studios; it is important that they should not miss school to be on TV.

“We audition challengers about 20 at a time, and, by giving them a 25-question test paper, make sure they are the standard we need. Then we have to ask education authorities if they have any objection.

“We give contestants the VIP treatment at the studios. A member of the staff collects them from school in a taxi and sees them home after the show.”

Examples of the prizes that can be won: 50 points wins a pair of skates; 100 points a boy’s tool kit; 150 points a record-player; 200 points a cinecamera; 250 points and upwards a portable typewriter.

Biggest prize-winner in the programme so far is 12½-year-old Rosalind Hilson, a doctor’s daughter, from Ashton, near Manchester. Her 850 points won her two prizes — a radiogram and a bicycle. That’s Rosalind in action at the top of the page.

The post It’s fun being a quiz-kid appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

THE future shines bright for Criss Cross Quiz interrogator Jeremy Hawk. Next Friday he makes his 74th appearance in the game which he launched on television seven months ago. And both the senior and junior versions seem likely to last for a long time to come.

Criss Cross Quiz has raised Jeremy Hawk to the top ranks of TV personalities. This winter his services are eagerly sought to open new stores. And no doubt when summer is with us he will be asked to do something similar at garden parties.

Needless to say, Hawk is immensely enjoying his sudden rise to fame. He loves his work, the chance it gives him of continually meeting new and interesting people, the drama of a well-fought game, and the tension and excitement when the total in the winnings box passes the four-figure mark.

He told me in particular how delighted he is at the success of Junior Criss Cross Quiz.

“I’ve met all kinds of contestants in these two programmes,” he said. “But I can say quite confidently that the children taking part in the junior edition are far easier to work with — and I should think, from the expressions on their faces, they are often much more enjoyable to watch.

“They are not nearly so inhibited as their elders. They are bright, cheerful, confident. And they get a kick out of the game.”

Hawk himself is relieved to find there are no difficult tongue-twisters among the junior-sized questions prepared for the Wednesday game.

“I’ve had to contend with quite a few in the adult quiz,” he recalled. “The most difficult of all was when I asked a contestant to give me the common word for … sorry, but I still find the name absolutely unpronounceable. Fortunately the man was a scientist and when he saw me getting hopelessly tongue-tied with it he said, ‘Do you mean acetylsalicylic acid? The answer is aspirin.’

“Gilbert Harding, an old friend of mine, once ticked me off for mispronouncing the name of the French mixed fish dish — bouillabaisse. And mother told me off — and quite rightly, too — for not pronouncing Haydn correctly.

“In both cases I was conscious I had said it wrong, but was too late to correct myself. Of course, I never see the questions before a programme, so I have no means of checking these things.

“A number of the questions include foreign words, so it is perhaps just as well that I have a smattering of a few languages. But I still came unstuck when I had to read out Prokofiev. It is a wonderful Russian name, but I had so much trouble that in the end I had to spell it out!”

Judging by the size of his fan mail, however, viewers don’t mind these occasional slips. “Yes, I get lots of letters,” he agreed, “and they have taught me that I have to be careful what I say during the programme.”

An important part of Hawk’s work is putting contestants at their ease. “It starts when I meet them for the first time at supper,” he said.

“Then we have a run through the programme – with dummy questions, of course — to get them used to the cameras.”

Hawk has received many letters from contestants after they have been on the programme thanking him for the considerate way he looked after them when they were facing the cameras.

But on only two occasions has he met them later. “Once, I was visiting my mother in a London hospital and I bumped into one of our winners there to see his father, who was also a patient.

“Then there was an out-of-work salesman we had on the programme. I mentioned this fact in the hope that it might help him get a job. The other day I was walking down a street and just by chance saw the young man in a showroom window and now he’s a car salesman.”

The post Answers are child’s play for the kids appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

PAT McHUGH, the vivacious, 22-year-old Concentration hostess, has had a variety of jobs since she left school a little more than six years ago.

She has worked as a dentist’s receptionist, in a cocktail bar, as a policewoman, nurse, shorthand typist (with a bus company, an undertaker and an aircraft firm) and model.

“All good experience,” she says. “But right now I’m concentrating on being my own boss. I hope to be able to go into business at the end of this year. It all depends on how much money I’ve saved by then.”

What sort of business? Pat thought for a moment, then said, slowly: “Well, I haven’t quite made up my mind yet. I feel that I’m pretty good at selling things to people, and I’d very much like to own a gown shop.

“On the other hand, I may just invest my money in some property and leave it at that.”

Pat’s good looks and trim figure have won her a string of beauty titles, appearances in TV’s Holiday Town Parade — and cash prizes, too.

“Twenty pounds here, twenty pounds there … it all helps,” says Pat, who has just won a preliminary heat in another national beauty contest — for “Miss England”—and will appear at the finals in London later this month.

“When I first started on the modelling course I used to wonder if I should ever make it. I used to get up at 7am to go to my job in Chester from my home near Mold, in North Wales.

“Then I went to the modelling school in the evening. After doing all the strenuous exercises, I was almost asleep on my feet as 1 walked the last two miles home—the bus service finished hours before I got anywhere near Mold.

“My mother wasn’t so sure that I had made the right decision, but my father backed me up and now everything’s fine — I’ve no regrets.”

She added: “Of course, there are some days when I wonder whether it’s all worth it … everybody gets a fit of the blues occasionally … but then a nice job comes along and every thing in the garden is lovely.

“I manage to keep busy, and I enjoy life. It’s exciting. A model’s job isn’t a steady one by any means. There’s no wage packet every Friday. But if you like meeting people — and I most certainly do — it is worthwhile.”

Pat’s busy life does not leave her much time for hobbies. But when she is at home in her own three-room flat in Liverpool she likes to read or listen to records.

“I’ve got a very wide selection, but I enjoy the slow and easy numbers most. Music helps to release the tension after a long day.”

Occasionally, Pat goes ice skating. “I’m afraid I’m not good at it. They say it’s excellent for the figure – but I’m not so sure. I suppose it all depends on whether you can stay on your feet or not!”

There was a mischievous twinkle in Pat’s grey-green eyes as she rubbed a recently-bruised elbow.

Then Pat announced that she had just made one of the biggest changes in her life. “My hair,” she said. “I’ve changed the colour from auburn to strawberry blonde — and I have been worried to death.

“It’s a big step for a girl to take, you know. The night before I came to the studios for the show I couldn’t sleep. I kept wondering what people would say.

“A new hair-do is as good as a tonic to a girl, but a change of colour is a bit drastic.”

And do people like it?

“The verdict seems to be about 90 per cent ‘Yes’ and 10 per cent ‘No,’ so I’m quite relieved. Most of those who said ‘Yes’ were men, and I’m very glad about that, because they tell the truth when they are talking about women.

“I think women tend to be dishonest when they are asked to give an opinion about another woman, though I must admit that a hairdresser girl friend of mine said it was marvellous, and that made me very happy.”

What about men and marriage? Pat drew herself up to her full height of 67 inches, looked at me and said: “I’m not interested in men. I’m much too busy working.”

But there was a smile on her face as she said it.

The post Concentrating on Pat McHugh appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

A WELL-KNOWN phrase or saying, the name of a city or country, statesman or TV personality, the title of a popular song, a play or a book — each is a potential picture puzzle for Concentration.

No particular formula is applied in the choice of the puzzles. The only requirement is that they should lend themselves to presentation in words and pictures and that they should not be too easy, not too difficult, for contestants and viewers to solve.

George Cross, producer of Concentration, said: “It is necessary to keep a standard which reaches a general level, but you cannot put a measure on it. Some ideas are discarded because they involve long phrases which would be too unwieldy to present in the available space on the Concentration board.

“On the other hand, if the puzzles were too easy to solve, the show would be lacking in entertainment, for it depends on keen and quick competitors for its appeal.”

Cross finds that almost all his thinking is now in terms of picture puzzles. “The process is almost automatic and has become second nature to me,” he said, and added, “We aim at keeping the drawings uncomplicated so that the puzzles are not cluttered up with too much detail.”

The ideas which have been sketched out roughly as puzzles to be used in the programme are passed each week to Granada graphics artist Bert Harrop.

But the puzzles that Harrop works on are never used in the show the same week for the heavy curtain of security that shrouds the programme ensures that only one man — producer Cross — knows which will be used and when.

To ensure that this strict security is maintained, a carefully thought out routine takes effect from the moment the rough sketches arrive on Harrop’s drawing board.

He marks out the puzzle on the 30 separate pieces of cardboard bearing numbers corresponding to those on the Concentration board.

But there are never more than six pieces of the puzzle on his drawing board at any one time so that anyone looking over his shoulder would see only a small part of the complete picture.

“And that wouldn’t mean a thing to anyone,” said Harrop. “For instance, the vertical stroke of a letter T may coincide with the intersection of four parts of the puzzle and anyone seeing a mark on the corner of one section would have no clue even to the letter, let alone the word which it begins.”

When he has completed a puzzle the 30 sections go back to Cross and are locked away in his office safe … in sealed envelopes.

The steady stream of completed puzzles are stock piled so that if anyone had seen one it would still be impossible to find out when it would be used.

Two hours before the show is due to go on the air he unlocks the safe and takes out five or six puzzles.

The sections of the first puzzle to be used in the show are split into vertical columns and handed to the men who load the Concentration board, so that each has no possible chance of solving the completed puzzle.

The operation begins with only just enough time to complete it before the show is on the air.

At this stage, producer Cross is still the only man who knows the answer to the puzzle because the men work from the rear of the board and see the triangular sections — each carrying a part of the puzzle, a prize and a number — presenting to them the puzzle “face” in a series of back-to-front squares.

When the puzzle is rotated to its correct position for a last-minute check to ensure that it has been properly mounted and that no plus signs have been missed out only Cross and Harrop see it.

Cross makes the final check and Harrop does any necessary retouching.

And, as compere David Gell opens the show, Cross hands out another puzzle which is loaded into a second board. “I always have more puzzles than are needed, so there is never a chance of anyone finding out which one is being used,” he said.

Now concentrate

These four Concentration puzzles were specifically drawn for TV Times. If you can’t solve them, the answers are below.

1. Epilogue to Capricorn
2. Take Your Pick
3. Armchair Theatre
4. Concentration

The post Meet the Concentration puzzle man appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

SAID Count Basie: “So many jazzmen were being called King that I decided it was time I had a nickname”

We had just entered the Granada studio for a rehearsal of his hour-long Personal Appearance, which viewers will see on Wednesday.

The Basie group will be the first American big band to be starred in a British television show.

As the Count eased himself on to the piano stool, he told me his first name is really William.

He got it 58 years ago when he was born in Red Bank, New Jersey.

The Count rippled some fast single notes, stabbed the air with an index finger — and the entire 16 piece band swung into climactic sound.

The impact is as solid as the Rockies.

It has been that way for a quarter of a century. No matter how many musicians come and go within the orchestra — and many of the greatest names in jazz have worked under him at one time or another — the stirring Basie beat never wavers.

What kind of man is this thick-set maestro soon to be seen by ITV’s millions?

In a business which is often tough and always demanding, the Count moves around with a smiling affability and a built-in calm which few things, if any, seem able to disrupt.

Dave Lambert, the red-bearded leader of the Lambert-Hendricks-Ross singing team — you’ll see them, too, in the Basie show — told me:

“The Count is marvellous to work with. Mind you. he’s the boss all right, but he never becomes excited. If anybody gets out of line he just jerks his head sideways … and glares. I guess that’s always enough!”

There’s a story among musicians who have known him for years. Once a saxophonist, tickled by a hurriedly whispered private joke, laughed out loud during a performance, instantly, the Count slammed out a weird chord on the piano — and the saxman shot bolt upright as if his chair had suddenly become red hot.

For his television show the Count brings in a new singer whom he recently discovered in an obscure New York club.

She is Irene Reid, from Savannah, Georgia, a vivacious 31-year-old and the mother of four sons and a daughter.

Irene, who started singing at high school, is enthusiastic about working with the Basie band.

“It’s all so wonderful I can hardly believe it,” she said. “Hearing that tremendous rhythm section behind is just about the biggest thrill of my life.”

The Count learned piano from his mother. When he grew up he went on tour with a vaudeville group, finally landing in Kansas City.

“I was just a kind of honky-tonk piano player with the show and we didn’t have any big names in the cast and we didn’t do much business,” he recalled.

“When, inevitably, the show folded, I knew I couldn’t do any good sitting around feeling sorry for myself and wishing I’d never left home, so I started making the rounds to see if there might be a spot in town for a piano player.”

He found one — playing accompaniments to silent films. “I played for everything and anything, from horse operas to passionate romance films — great experience.” he said.

Then he joined the almost legendary Benny Moten band. When Moten died in 1935 the Count formed his own group — and a radio broadcast from a small Kansas City station shot him to the stardom which has never left him down all the changing years.

Unlike some musicians, he doesn’t look down on all contemporary trends. The Twist, for instance.

“I like it,” declared the Count. “It’s good, swinging music for dancing — and basically, jazz is music for dancing. Yeah, you can tell everybody I’m for it.”

British bandleader Ray Ellington had dropped in to listen to the television rehearsal. Peering down like a friendly cliff, he said suddenly: “This is gilt-edged jazz.”

It was almost time for the show to go into another full rehearsal. Cameras were re-positioned, microphones regrouped. The subdued chatter of technicians and visiting musicians faded.

There was a tense hush. Then once again the rippled single-note introduction. A split second in which time seemed to hang suspended in the hot, still air.

Then the whole band was surging, like a vast, throbbing powerhouse, into One O’Clock Jump — the number most closely linked with Basie’s name.

I predict that in addition to the band, the Lambert-Hendricks-Ross singers will make a sensational impact on viewers. Perhaps the more appropriate word is unique!

The fetching Annie Ross who appeared several years back in the London West End revue, Cranks, has lived in America on and off for many years.

The Count, by the way, is happily married and has an 18-year-old daughter. She isn’t a musician.

I suggested that perhaps one in the family was enough.

The Count chuckled.

“Sometimes,” he said amiably, “sometimes it gets to be almost too much!”

The post Count down for Basie appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

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.

PAUL ANKA, star of Granada’s Personal Appearance on Wednesday, is an agreeable youngster who seems remarkably composed by the fact that, at 20, he earns a million-and-a-half dollars a year.

Even more remarkable, he has reached this palmy income bracket in just four years. Only the tax man is likely to halt the flow of Anka dollars to any appreciable extent.

For Paul is something of a one-man band. He doesn’t have to pay a lyric writer, music writer, or even a song publisher. He does the lot himself.

Two American artists make their first appearance on British television with Paul in this hour of music and comedy — 16-year-old vocalist Linda Scott and comedian Johnny Carson.

Linda, who will sing Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off with Anka, soared to success a year ago with her first recording of the song I’ve Told Every Little Star, which sold 1,000,000 copies.

She won a Golden Disc. At 16, Paul did the same thing with his first recording, Diana.

Johnny Carson, who has had his own television show in America for the past four years, has been described by newspaper critics as “a logical successor to Bob Hope and Jack Benny.”

“In this programme,” said Irvin Feld, Paul’s personal manager, “you are going to see the new Paul Anka.

“When he was in Britain nearly four years ago. he sang his current hits which were aimed specifically at the teenagers. Songs like Diana.

“But since then, Paul has been undergoing a vast change. He has been bridging the gap between teenagers and an adult audience.

“The result is that he now appeals to audiences of all ages. We have even given him a facial change. We had a plastic surgery job done on his nose which makes him better looking than ever,” said Mr. Feld.

“His voice, too, has a fullness and a range it never had in the beginning. Even his song writing has changed. He is writing mature lyrics now.

“In Wednesday’s show he will include a 15-minute spot in which he will sing only established ballads and some of his own songs written in the same vein.

“It will be like telling the story of his life in song, a sort of potted biography.”

The story of his life is really his four-year-old career. Before Diana put him on the map, Paul was just another school kid who had dabbled at singing from the age of ten.

His family are Syrians, although Paul was born in Ottawa, where his career began to open up after a New York record company heard him singing on the radio.

He talks assuredly and frankly: “I’m not a brash kid,” he says. “You have to try and stay reasonably humble about success.

“I started out as a Rock ‘n’ Roll singer and, let’s face it, I owed my success to the teenagers. But I knew in my mind that I had to bridge the gap and get the adults to accept me, too.”

He drummed his fingers assertively on the table. “I don’t kid myself. I’m just out of the kindergarten stage. I’ve got a long way to go.

“But I figure it this way. The all-time greats, fellows like Frank Sinatra, and Bing Crosby … well, they have to retire some time. Younger people have got to take over.

“The freakish thing about this business is that you can make a lot of money. I’ve done just that, and it’s nice to have the money.

“But, honestly, the accomplishment of becoming a great entertainer means a whole lot more to me right now.”

In America. Paul has been described as a “sort of sophisticated Rock ’n’ Roller.”

“In a way,” says Paul, “that’s a compliment, I guess. It shows my development is being noticed. But really people say this about me because they don’t know yet how to describe me.

“It’s true I was the youngest among the kids like Fabian, Tommy Sands and Frankie Avalon to appear in night clubs in the States.

“This is why they call me sophisticated. Playing the plush night clubs in America is a measure of success. So in that sense I’m a pioneer.”

Paul summed up: “This is quite something, but it doesn’t scare me. At my age I suppose I should be scared by success. But I have never got into anything that I didn’t like.

“I love what I’m doing too much to be worried about it.”

The post Now for the new Paul Anka appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

A PHONE rings in the Northern Newscast office at the Granada TV Centre in Manchester. News editor David Plowright answers it, then turns to reporter Terry Dobson and says: “Four feet snow drifts on the Snake Pass. Take the radiophone car — and hurry!”

Dobson grabs his overcoat; rushes to the waiting car. The engine of the black saloon is ticking over as he slides into the seat beside the driver. Off towards the hills — and another eyewitness story.

Granada’s car was the first in the North to be fitted with the new telephone equipment. It has given on-the-spot communication in remote country districts where telephones are rare.

As the car races along slush-covered roads, Dobson makes his first call to base. “Car A102 calling exchange … car A102 calling exchange.”

Twenty miles away on Winter Hill, only a stone’s throw from the ITA transmitter, stands the GPO receiving station through which Dobson’s call passes to the new Peterloo exchange in Manchester.

Dobson, in the car, and Plowright, in the office, discuss how the story shall be treated. Then Dobson relaxes as the long climb to the snow-clad moors begins.

Another hazard lies ahead — patches of fog close in on the narrow road that twists over the Snake Pass. The car edges cautiously round hairpin bends, bumping along over rutted snow, dodging drifts which in places have hidden the low stone walls marking the roadside.

Suddenly the headlights of a stationary lorry are seen. The car stops and Dobson steps out — into a knee-deep snowdrift. The lorry driver tells him of hold-ups on his run from Sheffield. Back into the car goes Dobson to report progress — by phone.

Farther along the road are more lorries. Some are moving; some have been stuck for hours. Film cameraman Steve Stephens records the battle against the weather as lorry men help each other to dig their vehicles free from snow.

As we watch, Dobson tells me: “This is the sort of story we get right through the winter. The weather is always news.”

Dobson phones his story from the car. This way it can be quickly assessed against other news pouring in.

The typewriters of copy typists Barbara McDonald and Freda Roberts are chattering out more reports from the towns and villages bounded by Carlisle and Middlesbrough to the North and Barmouth and Grantham to the South.

Every correspondent is pinpointed on Plowright’s wall map by flags names and telephone numbers for and easy reference.

On another wall is a chart into 20-year old newsroom secretary Anne Beaty sticks coloured pins denoting the number of times cities and towns have been mentioned in the bulletins week.

“This gives us a picture at a glance of the newsiest spots in our area and the places which might yield good, off-beat stories,” said Plowright.

“We are a team which goes into people’s homes every night to tell them in a simple, but vigorous, manner what has been happening.

“The news we aim at is not all death and disaster. We try to keep a balance by using the lighter, more human items, the stories with a touch of glamour or oddity them.

“We concentrate on getting material which has not appeared in the evening newspapers so that we have a fresh and lively bulletin.

“That is why, each night, we present a tailpiece to the news that is unusual or amusing. These are items which lend themselves to a brief, humorous comment from the newscaster.

“We work to a five o’clock deadline for film and are proud that we have given pictures of an event which has taken only 45 minutes earlier.

“News stories, of course, can be accepted right up to time we go on the air.”

Keeping Northern viewers in the news picture is a tough but exciting job that has taken Dobson and his colleague, Don Kerr, thousands of miles, often in trying conditions.

Dobson and Kerr write the stories the and the film commentaries needed for the six-minute bulletin. “We always write more than are actually needed so that we can pick out the best just before we go on the air,” Dobson told me.

He has checked through the reel of film shot by Stephens on the Snake Pass and decided, in consultation with film editor Dick Thomas, the sequence and running time.

In the newsroom, urgency increases as programme time nears. Newscaster Brian Trueman arrives just as Plowright is shuffling through a wad of stories for a suitable news tailpiece.

The room is now full of people. Final checks and changes are made. Trueman sits in the tiny studio. A red light flashes … and another Northern Newscast begins.

The post Car A102 speeds the news appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

JEREMY LUBBOCK, who brings a new face and a new style of playing to Granada’s Piano Pops, is including many “oldies” from the pages of composers like Gershwin, Rodgers and Jerome Kern.

“And why not?” he said, “Their numbers may not be in the Top Twenty, but some of them are still as popular as ever. An up-to-the-minute example is Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, which is enjoying new lease of life.”

Not that Lubbock’s appreciate of music is restricted to any particular style. His musical education has ranged from harpsichord classics to the latest thing in “rock.”

It all started when Jeremy was a toddler. The Lubbock home in Berkshire was the centre of musical life in the neighbourhood. At the age of four he began to explore the keyboards of the two pianos his parents owned.

He had a strictly classical upbringing. Beethoven and Bach were his childhood heroes.

But as Jeremy grew older his taste changed to lighter compositions. “My preference,” he says, “is for tunes that are of popular appeal and yet have a lasting value … and it is my opinion that there are only half-a-dozen people who have written tunes that come into this category.”

Lubbock admits that none of the tunes he has written has reached the high standards he has set. His own contributions to music so far have included jingles for television commercials and a score for a short film.

He has also written a blues number, which had its first public hearing in Piano Pops. It took him 10 minutes to compose and is called Nameless. “It is tremendously difficult to find a title for a blues, so I just took the easy way out,” he says.

Lubbock is 6ft 3in tall and in the studios is provided with a grand piano that matches his proportions. But he tends to dwarf the miniature piano he uses for rehearsing the programme in his flat in London’s Holland Park.

This is an unusual instrument, decorated in Chinese lacquer — jet black with gilt illustrations of traditional Chinese figures with a background of rustic bridges, pagodas and willow trees.

Lubbock, now 28, was originally meant to be an architect. It was only three years ago that he decided that he wanted to be a full-time musician.

“I’d always had a hankering to move into show business, but it took me a long time to take the plunge,” he said. “Whether I took the right decision remains to be seen, but right now I don’t regret the change.”

Even so, he’s not taking any chances. On the drawing board in his flat are the plans for a shop he is designing for one of his friends. “An interesting project which I cannot resist doing,” is how he describes it.

Since his appearances in The Sunday Break last year, he has spent three months playing in a Paris night club.

“I suppose it was good experience,” he says, “but I didn’t care much for the hours. I was on duty from nine o’clock at night until four or five o’clock in the morning. Then I would have breakfast and take a swim in a floating pool moored in the River Seine before going to bed.”

The post New style old tunes appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

THE teenagers, who, after all, are the people who dictate the trend in popular music, seem to be getting a little tired of rock ‘n’ roll.

By that I do not mean rock ‘n’ roll is dying. Just that in 1960 we shall be hearing less of it. The time is ripe for something in music — a new sound, a new gimmick – something original.

The trouble is that nearly all the musical permutations have been done. The cycle has been round about 20 times already. But if someone can think up a new angle and get out just one recording I am sure it would catch on. The public is always willing to accept a change — so long as it has something to offer that is worthwhile.

At the moment the swing is towards the more melodic numbers. I think the big bands are going to return to favour, too. Proof of their unflagging popularity lies in the fact that bands like those of Ted Heath, Glenn Miller, and Joe Loss are still heard every day on record request programmes.

They set the style when melody and popular music was well into the “swing” phase.

That phase is coming back. It is under way already. I know this is true because I get hundreds of letters from the people who watch Piano Pops telling me how nice it is to hear a good tune.

I am sure that 1960 will be a year in which there will be a flood of this kind of music from Britain’s Tin Pan Alley.

There are plenty of good writers around, like Tolchard Evans, Michael Carr and Robert Farnon, who can produce tuneful music that appeals to a wide public — not just to the teenagers but to the parents and elder brothers and sisters.

There will be catchy tunes that make everybody want to sing — music that stays in the mind day after day, the tunes you can’t get out of your head, that set office boys whistling as they walk along the street and office managers singing in their baths. Everyone I talk to says the same. The number with a melody is becoming more and more popular with musicians.

At one time I refused to play rock ‘n’ roll, but I got so many demands for it that I had to play it. Now, the pattern of popular music is changing, slowly, towards the sweeter numbers. And I am pleased.

It points to a return of the romantic music that was so popular just after the war — the gorgeous tunes with words like “moon” and “June.”

The Top Twenty is going to be crammed with this kind of song in 1960, because these songs are easy to listen to and to remember.

They are the songs with a melody that lingers on — the sort of tunes I play each week on TV.

I hope that in Piano Pops I have been able to help people forget some of the cares and worries of the world for a few moments and perhaps recall, through some favourite tune, a happy occasion.

The post Catchy Tunes are catching on again appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

IN a smoke-filled Hongkong dance hall a young British Army lieutenant was persuaded to sing a number with the band. He got enthusiastic applause, and resolved then to take up a new career as a “pop” singer.

Now, two years later, the lieutenant, Gary Marshal, is established on the British popular music scene. On Wednesday, he sings with the Ted Heath Orchestra in Granada’s Bandstand. He has reached an objective.

After Sandhurst, and winning his commission, he was posted to Hongkong. There, after his military duties, he wanted something to do with his spare time, so he applied for an announcing job with the English language commercial radio station – and got it.

“They took me on as a board announcer, doing 14 hours a week of news and disc jockeying in the evenings,” said Marshal. “After a few months I was not only a board announcer, I was a bored announcer.”

The other English language station, the non-commercial Radio Hongkong, offered him more work, so he switched stations. He then found time to write two newspaper columns a week — a short story and a record review feature.

He courted and married an American girl born in China. “We now have a year-old son, Jamie, who — I swear — was born with a real cool haircut. He loves music and already looks like an out-of-work tenor sax player,” said Marshal.

How did he find the time for soldiering, married life, radio work and newspaper writing? His explanation: “I am a ‘night person’ and don’t like going to bed early.”

Marshal left the Army in August, 1958, at the end of his five-year term. A month later, a friend took him along to an agent. The agent looked up, noted his good looks, and said: “Bernard Delfont’s Sunday Night at the Prince Of Wales … The Frankie Howerd Show.”

Marshal, astounded, said “Fine.” And that was how he found himself playing a “wide boy” in a sketch with Frankie Howerd on ITV.

“After the show I dashed home and asked my wife ‘How was I?’ She said ‘I blinked and missed you!’” said Gary.

Later, he acted in TV commercials. “One of them was made at the Guards depot, Pirbright, where I found myself wearing a steel helmet, a pack on my back, and all the gear I hadn’t worn in years,” he said.

He went into cabaret, where he insisted on using his own drummer and pianist. “The extra expenditure was worth it,” he says. ITV talent spotters saw him and, as a result, he appeared in a number of shows. He also landed a recording contract.

Singing in front of the Ted Heath Orchestra in Bandstand is for Gary Marshal the realisation of a long-standing ambition. It was always his favourite band and, two years ago, hearing that Ted Heath was looking for a male singer, he took him a recording.

He said I was as good as any he’d heard, but there was a technical fault in my voice.” said Marshal. “He told me to come back when I had got rid of this fault. But I never found time to re-apply. Now, at last, I am to sing with him.”

The post Lt Marshal gains his objective appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

AS far as the money went, it didn’t matter to the 16-year-old coloured girl whether she cooked hot meal or sang hot songs. She was paid 35 dollars a week either way.

Donna Hightower, who sings as a guest in the next two Granada Bandstand programmes, “realised that sleeping all day and doing three or four hours a night in a club was better than standing in front of a stove for eight hours.”

So she threw away her apron, bought a couple of evening gowns and started singing.

For a long time she thought her voice was not good enough to take her to the top. “What, me sing professionally?” she said, and dismissed the idea as a lot of hard work with no returns.

“My father was a musician, and we were very poor,” said Donna. “He was also a farmer. Sometimes he worked his own land; sometimes he worked for others.

“It didn’t seem to make much difference; we were still poor.

“He taught music, too, and could play any instrument he could lay his hands on — harp, piano, accordion, harmonium.

“But I never saw a trumpet or anything like that when I was a kid. I reckon they were out of our class.

“He tried to teach me to read music, but I could never learn.”

Now she wishes she had. For, in addition to singing, Donna composes.

“A tune comes into my head and, as I think of the melody, I make up the words. Then I sing it over and over again until it is photographed in my memory. Then I go to sleep.

“When I wake up I find I’ve forgotten it. But it comes back and I sing it into a tape-recorder.”

It sounds a rough and ready way to compose. But she has reached the Top Twenty in America too often for her methods to be laughed away.

It all began in a Chicago restaurant when a customer asked the girl behind the counter to turn up the radio. There was no radio … Donna was singing over the stove.

The customer persuaded her she had talent, and she started singing at weekends in a club for five dollars. Then a newspaperman took her on a tour of Chicago, trying to get her a booking. They began by asking for 100 dollars a week. They ended by accepting 35.

“A woman from a record company came down and she said I had a kinda unique style,” Donna went on. “I guess I had. I could hardly keep time.”

She recorded, and waited for success to come. But nothing happened.

She went back home to Los Angeles. “I must have been pretty good, because I won a talent contest; and then I made some more records for another company.”

But they brought in little money, so New York was the next stop, “knocking around, doing practically nothing.”

Then, a year ago, she met a group of song-writers, who asked her to make some demonstration records of their songs.

They liked her voice even better than they liked the songs. “We’ll try to get you a recording,” they said.

In her smooth caressing voice Donna told what happened then. “I picked out my best tunes, and we just went in and sorta jammed something. The disc came out last January.”

It was a hit. The 35 dollars a week cook turned out to have a million dollar talent – both as singer and song-writer.

It has brought her to London and soon maybe it will take her to Paris. And though she still likes cooking she is in no hurry to get back to her home in Brooklyn.

“Things are just beginning to break for me,” she said. “I’ll be around for a while.”

Musicians say that this girl, at 24, is a singer’s singer — which is their way of bestowing high praise.

I’m no musician, but Donna Hightower is my kind of singer.

The post From Cooking to Crotchets appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

A FIVE-FOOT-NOTHING girl with dark hair and twinkling brown eyes stands in a corner of the studio, her fingers snapping and her feet tapping as the Ted Heath band rehearses.

Viewers will see her next Wednesday as a guest singer in Granada’s Bandstand. Nineteen-year-old Maureen Evans has come a long way from the school plays and concerts in which she appeared at home in Cardiff.

In fact, she has been a success ever since she got her first real taste of show business at the age of 15.

She told me: “I began appearing at local concerts when I was 12. At 15 I was asked to sing two songs at a Lord Mayor’s charity matinee at the New Theatre, Cardiff.

What happened? Maureen scored a big success. The theatre manager signed her up for a week’s variety.

“That was the most thrilling day of my life,” said Maureen, her eyes alight with excitement at the memory.

It was exciting, too. for Maureen’s mother, Mrs Lavinia Evans. She sat in the stalls watching the daughter who had blossomed in three years from just a schoolgirl soprano to “pop” singer.

Maureen switched to “pop” songs because she enjoys them more. It was a switch that led to three summer seasons at Llandudno, many TV appearances and a disc contract.

She confessed: “I suppose it is just as well that I am in show business, because I do not think I could do any other job.

“I got plenty of encouragement from my music and drama teachers at school and produced and acted in a few plays. I enjoyed producing more than acting. But I always wanted to be a singer.”

Maureen loves her work, but she is still a home girl at heart. This commercial traveller’s daughter likes nothing better than to have her family and friends around her.

Travelling about the country is something Maureen detests. She told me: “I have never quite got used to it.

“I was only 15 when I did my first four month summer season.

“Four months! It was the first time I had been away from home, and every night I rang Mother to cheer myself up.

“I love to be with the people I know, and at home I often have my friends in to parties. Sometimes we have three parties in a week.”

She also enjoys lending a hand with the household chores, decorating — “I did out my own room” — and helping her aunt make the dresses she wears on TV.

“If I had not become a singer. I might have gone in for dressmaking,” said Maureen.

For a girl who is only 60 inches high — “I wear 4in heels all the time” — clothes are something of a problem.

Said Maureen: “I have the greatest difficulty when it comes to buying new outfits. That is one reason why my aunt makes most of my dresses.”

The post Home is where the heart is appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

TOP stars of London’s jazz clubs will be seen on Thursday in Granada’s Bandstand. They are the Tony Kinsey Quartet, tenor sax player Ronnie Scott, and pianist Eddie Thompson.

Ronnie Scott recently embarked on a venture that is binding these musicians, and others who have appeared in Bandstand, even closer together: he opened his own jazz club. The Kinsey Quartet have played there and Eddie Thompson is more-or-less the resident pianist.

Eddie Thompson was born blind in 1925. At a Wandsworth school for the blind, he played a few piano duets with George Shearing, who emigrated to America.

“I think we usually played Let’s Have A Basin Full of Fun in G flat — the first key I learnt. They tried to stop me playing jazz at school because they said it was degrading. But my mother bought me records and soon I was collecting early Basies, Shaws, Goodmans and Ellingtons,” Eddie told me.

“So I grew up with the idea of playing jazz for a living. But at another school for the blind, I was trained to be a piano tuner and repairer, a job which has stood me in good stead because some club pianos are appalling. After leaving school I nearly starved for a year, tuning a few pianos, trying to get a job as a musician. Then for six months I landed a regular job as a solo pianist touring as one of Brian Michie’s discoveries.

“After that I did various jobs, including working as a Dixieland pianist with Freddy Randall’s band. Went to the States as part of an exchange scheme for the Louis Armstrong All Stars, who toured Britain.

“America was gruelling — we were put in a rock ’n’ roll show — but very interesting. A year later I went again with Tommy Whittle’s band. I had a marvellous time — even stayed a week with the great pianist Thelonius Monk.”

These days, Eddie is spending his spare time learning to play the saxophone, which he may eventually play professionally. He can read Braille music, but seldom needs to because, like most blind musicians, he has developed an exceptional memory.

He only needs to hear a piece of music once or twice to be able to play it.

Kinsey’s quartet have appeared in earlier Bandstands, but this time Tony will have a different saxophonist.

“Kathleen Stobart used to play tenor with us, but now she has three children and she has had to leave to look after them.” said Tony. “Now, we’ve got Alan Branscombe on alto. The others are Bill LeSage on vibraphone and Joe Muddell on bass.”

Drummer Kinsey told me he has recently moved to a house at Sunbury-on-Thames “where I can play all I want”.

Pianist Denis Wilson’s Trio will also be appearing in the programme. Wilson, who has often broadcast and arranges accompaniments for “pop” songs, says his music has “wide popular appeal and enough ingenuity, I hope, to appeal to musicians.”

The other member of the trio are Frank Clarke (bass) and Alan Ganley drums.

The post Jazzman Eddie keeps ’em on the note appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

BRITAIN’S best small bands will play weekly for viewers, beginning on Thursday. The series, presented by Granada, is called Bandstand and the first four programmes will star Mr Acker Bilk and his Paramount Jazz Band at one end of the studio and the Ray Ellington Quartet, with Valerie Masters, at the other.

“Each week we’ll have at least one guest. The first will be Don Lusher, the modern trombonist in the country,” director Dave Warwick told me. “The week after, it will be harmonica player Max Geldray, an old friend of Ray Ellington. Then we’ve booked a veteran star, trumpeter Nat Gonella, followed by Johnnie Gray, a good tenor saxophonist with a flair for comedy.

“We will have comedy only where it is involved in the music, as it often is with Ellington. We won’t go in for comperes with a lot of comic patter. The bandleaders will do the announcing and will be encouraged to develop their own personalities.”

Warwick, a blond, outspoken man from Southport, will book jazz and near-jazz groups of all kinds. He knows the subject well because for years he was a dance band drummer and vibraphone player, but he found the going hard as a drummer because the market was glutted — “by about 20,000 people who had learned to play in the Services, fooling around with small groups in NAAFI canteens.”

Whenever he directs a band programme – he did seven of a Humphrey Lyttelton series, Here’s Humph and a dozen Ray Ellington Shows — he does a bit of drumming, strictly for fun, by sitting in with the bands during run-throughs. He looks forward to a reunion with the Lyttelton band later in the Bandstand series.

Others he hopes to have on the show eventually are the Tony Crombie Quartet, Georgia Brown (“a talented singer who recently returned from America, where she has been making records with jazz stars”), trumpeter Kenny Baker, the Dill Jones Trio, Joe (Mr Piano) Henderson and singers Dick Francis, Rosemary Squires and Maxine Daniels.

“Ray Ellington’s original pianist, Dick Katz, has become a manager. I’d like to get him back on one programme to do a solo spot,” Dave Warwick said. “I’d also like to see Ray Ellington’s original girl vocalist Marion Ryan, come back and do a song with Valerie Masters, the girl who replaced her.”

Although there will be a good deal of jazz, Bandstand will not be aimed entirely at teenagers.

“In America, jazz appeals to an older public,” Dave pointed out. He believes Bandstand may make some adults take a stronger interest in it.

“I’ve noticed that teenagers who like jazz even “educate” their parents by pointing out some of the good things to listen for,” he said.

“If you take a well-known number — say, I’ll Be With You In Apple Blossom Time – and play the first eight bars straight you can then go into the most advanced modern jazz idiom and people will appreciate it. But if you start off playing intricate jazz, you won’t hold the audience.”

Some of the guest musicians Granada hope to feature are not necessarily big stars, but they are all well-known in the music world.

“I don’t suppose Don Lusher, for example, means much to the mass of viewers, but every serious fan in the country knows about him,” said Dave.

The programme may not be confined to jazz and dance groups. There may be a gipsy band, or a Trinidad steel band.

“Our policy is flexible,” concluded Warwick. “We don’t know yet whether to concentrate on bands of contrasting styles or groups of the same sort. We would like to hear from viewers about their musical preferences.”

The post For Britain’s best small bands – a weekly… Bandstand appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

When 15-year-old John Bratley went for his first trip on a Grimsby trawler a Granada team went with him. Deckie Learner on Wednesday tells the story of John’s tough, 22-day journey to the Arctic Circle and back with an £8,000 haul of fish. John’s 33-year-old mother MAVIS BRATLEY tells here the story of the Grimsby wives and mothers who wait and worry

I REMEMBER it so well … it was a Tuesday. Television cameramen were busy in the docks filming my 15-year-old John off on his first trawler trip to the Arctic.

But I had lived it all before. My mind went back to when I was a 17-year-old bride watching my husband sail away. This time it was my son.

As I stood on the docks. I remembered the wave of loneliness that swamped over me every time I watched my husband’s trawler diminish into a speck on that unrelenting North Sea. Was all this to happen again?

Surely I should be used to it by now. I was born into a Grimsby fishing family. When I was 14 I was a fish worker. Three years later I married my trawlerman.

I was 17 and from the moment I was married I knew what it was to be lonely.

I saw my husband for three short days every three weeks. Like thousands of other Grimsby wives I lay awake at night listening to the wind howling round the docks, worrying and waiting for the boats to come in.

Then would come the great day. My husband would be home. For three days we painted the town red. Then came that waiting again.

This went on year after year. We had four children, but they saw their father for only six weeks a year. It was a life I had to accept, for the sea was in my husband’s blood. Twice he tried to give it up, but each time he went back.

Last year, ill-health forced him to take a shore job, and for the first time we were together as a family all the time in Carnforth Crescent, Grimsby. At long last my husband was with me and the children.

My dream didn’t last long. For recently, my only son John, said: “I want to go to sea.”

My sleepless nights and days of waiting were about to start again.

One hope I had was that John would go through three weeks of seasickness wishing he had never set eyes on a trawler. Then he would go back to the safe barrow boy’s job he held in the docks.

He had never been on a boat in his life, but had grown to love the sea through hearing his father talk about it. He knew how I felt about it—he also knew I wouldn’t stop him going. He was found a job as deckie learner on board the 800-ton Ross Renown.

But I had five weeks’ grace. John had to go to Grimsby’s nautical school. It was here that he was chosen for a documentary film about life on a trawler.

I was still hoping. I didn’t believe John was really going until he came home with his brand new fisherman’s kit. I didn’t dare tell him how worried I was.

Then came the day. The cameramen lined up to film the farewell. I couldn’t remember half the things I wanted to tell him. He was upset and hurried out without looking back … Another part of my heart had gone out into the North Sea.

The weather at home was terrible. Storms, heavy rains and gale-force winds – I kept waking up at night thinking about him. It was as if the clock had been turned back.

I tried hard to stop myself thinking about the things I knew could happen to the boats out there. I just kept thinking he would be cold and tired and homesick.

I kept saying: “He will be home safe and sound and so fed up that he will never want to go to sea again.”

Then came a letter from John’s firm. I imagined all sorts of things. But it said that John would be home in a couple of days. I waited hopefully to hear that he was a one-trip sailor.

But as soon as he came home I could see he was itching to get back. He had almost grown up overnight. And he hadn’t been seasick!

But I do feel proud of the way he has settled into a tough job.

When he is older I will tell him: “Give up the sea when you marry. Don’t make your wife suffer the life I had to. A woman wasn’t made to watch the sea and wait.”

I’ll tell my daughters, Jean, who is 14, Janet, 10, and seven-year-old Sharon: “Don’t marry a fisherman. It is not worth it for three days’ happiness a month.”

FOOTNOTE. There is a focal point in our home. My husband Arthur and I often glance at the calendar. There is a red ring round the date of John’s next homecoming.

The post The Cruel Wait appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

HE eased his 24 stone weight into a chair. “The fat man will disappear from the earth in the next 30 years,” said Willoughby Goddard.

“I think it’s a certainty, because the doctors are getting far too clever at reducing people’s weight.”

Goddard, one of the great British character actors of TV and films, with a status in Hollywood, too, plays Assistant Police Commissioner Sir Geoffrey Norton in Friday’s The Man in Room 17.

He mopped his brow with a huge red handkerchief. “I’m lighter than I have been for months,” he said. “I was 30st. on Broadway last year.” He played Bumble, the Beadle, in the British musical “Oliver!”

“I had to give the part up. I couldn’t stand another New York summer.” But didn’t New Yorkers flee the city in the humid months? “They do,” he said, taking a mighty draught of lime juice from a tankard, “but the place is swarming with tourists. There is hardly room to stand on the pavements.”

Goddard, well known on TV for his performance as Gessler in William Tell, sheds up to 6st. by going on a “savage diet” every 18 months.

He said: “I punish myself for three months, then eat heartily for the next 15. My life would be miserable if I watched my figure all the time.

“I’ve been lucky, really. I earn a good living from the theatre because I’m enormously fat. It’s the only way that one can cash in on obesity.

“There are plenty of fat extras, of course, but the poor dears can’t act. We are all cast according to our physique, but fat is no use to you unless you can act.

“And even as a fat character actor you are no use until you can play a man of 50. You have to be seething with age and decrepitude. It’s ghastly.

“If you are young and fat you play Billy Bunter, and then there’s nothing else. It takes years to decay sufficiently for an agent to take interest in you.

“I’ve been fortunate in that I entered the theatre in the middle of an era of fat villainy. It started in the early part of the century, and people like myself and Robert Morley have carried it on.

“As long as we’re about, I think fat men will be reasonably fashionable on stage. It’s not a promising future for newcomers, though, because as doctors find new methods of weight reduction there’ll be few fat men about.

“The playwrights will find less work for us to do, and only period parts will be available. That won’t bother me. I shan’t need work by then.”

Goddard, who lives with his wife and six-year-old son in Barnes, Surrey, has played all the classic fat roles, and Falstaff many times.

Without padding? “No,” he said. “The real thing doesn’t look as impressive. Anyway, no fat man should ever be asked to play Falstaff. There’s too much running around.

“Fat men should always play lovers and do nothing but lounge about elegantly. But always the writer sees the fat man as a character who must dash around to make the audience laugh — much to our discomfort.

“That’s the way it is in the theatre today. Fat men run, thin men lounge.”

Would he have done so well in show business if he had not been so fat? “I think so. You’ve got to be able to act as well. I didn’t begin to put on weight until I was 25.”

Did he worry about his weight? “Not any more. I’ve come to terms with myself over the years.

“But if my son shows the slightest sign of obesity, I shall put him on a diet instantly.”

The post Willoughby Goddard sees a THIN future for FAT actors appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

Tuesday’s final programme in the action stills series Camera in Action, deals with fashion photography from Victorian times to the present day. And you’ll be seeing pictures by Anthony Armstrong-Jones, Cecil Beaton and David Bailey, the fashion photographer whose camera “made” top model Jean Shrimpton. What makes Bailey a big success?

MAGGIE FRANCE went to see him to find out

AS fashion photographers go, David Bailey has gone a lot further than most. He is just about the most successful and most sought-after of the breed in Britain.

He is essentially a with-it young man — in a world where fantasy and practicality meet head-on: where models become the raw material of the photographer’s craft. His style — tender and exotic — is unmistakable.

For David Bailey the girls he photographs become delicate, ephemeral creatures, unlike the frequent remote and angular women in the pages of the “glossies.”

This, he believes, speaks for itself and for him.

“If I think a girl is beautiful she will be beautiful in my picture. People say that models are not really beautiful, but they are — they are the most beautiful girls in the world. Usually,” he said, “I love them.

“It is impossible not to become emotionally involved with them. There they are, looking marvellous and beautiful … it is inevitable. It is the same with any lovely thing.”

Bailey is the man who made Jean Shrimpton the most famous and most copied model in the world. The frail, fey face that has launched a thousand front covers.

Bailey has an inconsequential charm. He has the face of a disenchanted cherub; brown, restless eyes; shaggy hair. He looks very young. He is 27.

He dislikes fervently being labelled a “fashionable” photographer, and rejects impatiently the idea that photography is the new art form.

“It is creative — but a photographer just creates something from the materials available. Like a skilled cabinet maker. You can’t call that art.”

Behind his camera Bailey is absorbed, concentrated. If he is arrogant it is because he knows he is good at the job.

“Sometimes,” he said, “I hate what I am doing to the girls. It turns them from human beings into objects. They begin to get fanatical about the way they look. They can’t stop watching themselves in mirrors.”

Fashion and photography. Ever since the camera was invented there hasn’t been one without the other. Above, as it must have been in early Edwardian days. Below, you see David Bailey at work creating another of the masterpieces that have made him the most sought-after fashion photographer in Britain today

Before I met Bailey a photographer colleague told me: “You’ll get on fine … you are a girl.”

Certainly it is believable that he can, if he requires it, make a girl fall in love with him across the room. But not every girl. Some react against his confidence and this unobtrusive talent for getting his own way.

“If a girl feels that way about me I just needle her until I have got the degree of aggressiveness I need. I think an aggressive woman can look very good in a picture,” he said.

He is newly married to French actress Catherine Deneuve. “This girl I’ve married is a very funny girl,” he said. “I feel that it is doomed to success. But I never want to work with her if I can help it. I think that would break it up.”

He reverted to the subject of fashion … he has just signed a new contract with Vogue magazine.

“I like what I do, but it is not my whole existence. I take fashion pictures, but I am not particularly interested in fashion.”

He prefers to take portraits, and has a book of portraits to be published soon. It is called “David Bailey’s Book of Pinups” — he is concerned that no one should hold him responsible for the title.

He plans also to direct a film — a science fiction story which he has written himself. “Funny, but sinister,” he explained. The provisional title is “The Assassination of Mick Jagger.” The star is Mick Jagger. “He’s one of my best friends,” said Bailey.

He has no intention of shinning up trees to take fashion pictures at 40.

He is crazy about furniture and wants to open an antique shop. He believes he will do this soon — he makes decisions swiftly and carries them out with jet propelled speed whether they concern making a film or going round the corner for coffee.

His three cars: a mini, a blue and black Rolls-Royce convertible which is his favourite possession; a Morgan which looks like a cherished veteran, but is in fact this year’s model, and which he drives like a bat out of hell.

He remarked that the Morgan was not very fast – only did 110 mph.

The post Cameraman in the fashion appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

FOR the first time, a British television news programme is to cover the world from the world.

In The World Tonight starting on Tuesday, an international television link-up will put on your screens a running news documentary that has never been attempted before.

It will show the world to Britain as the world sees itself — not simply as a snap report from camera crews who dash in and out from one news area to another.

In the past, as the programme’s executive producer Tim Hewat points out: “British TV has covered the world from London. This, apart from other disadvantages, has led to producing stories that are exclusively British orientated. We see things happening in, say, Tokyo, as through British eyes. We will show them happening as seen through the eyes of people in their particular part of the world.”

To achieve this global flavour The World Tonight has set up a complex network of five key bureaux where permanent representatives will compile their reports.

As in London, there will be a The World Tonight team in Rome, and Tokyo. Paris and New York, plus roving producers Dietrich Koch and Russell Spurr. We introduce to you here these highly specialised people and take you into the environments from which they work to bring you The World Tonight.

Over to Tokyo and Australian journalist John Maher. Tucked away on the ground floor of a four-storey building of Fuji Telecasting Company is the cramped but efficient nerve centre of The World Tonight‘s Japanese bureau.

Space in this building, which houses most of the throbbing soul of Japanese TV, is at a premium. But John opted for his tiny, 10ft. square, pastel green office with its duck-egg blue Venetian blinds right here next to the cameramen and technicians, rather than select a more spacious apartment away from all the action.

To New York: Imagine Wardour Street, running like a spine through London’s Soho — spiritual home of British film-makers. Now imagine it blown out, big and broad and wide. That’s 53rd Street where nearly every door leads to a film studio, a cutting room, a producer’s plush office, a script writer’s den.

Here, for the new programme, work producer John McDonald and reporter Bill Biery in a comfortable atmosphere of controlled luxury. Off-white, deep-pile carpets, a Telex machine mumbling quietly to itself in a corner, leather chairs, coloured telephones. Efficiency — American style.

To Rome: Producer on the spot is Hugh Pitt. His beat ranges from the entire Mediterranean coast to the troubled oil kingdoms of the Middle East.

London: Reporter Jo Durden-Smith is 23, one year down from Oxford. He works from West End offices with live con tradictory clocks, a massive wall chart and an ordered confusion of scripts.

Paris: Sparkling, magic, feminine city. Appropriately, a woman-on-the-spot — Producer Joan Harrison, chooses to work from her sedate apartment a stroll from the Champs Elysées. In this fashionable part of the city she sits with French reporter: Denise Fabré sifting material.

All aiming to bring the world to you.

The post Watch on the world appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

North (Mondays to Fridays)

Granada Television is the company which, under agreement with the Independent Television Authority, provides the television programmes in the North of England from Monday to Friday. From 30th July 1968 the Northern area will be divided along the line of the Pennines and served by two seven-day companies: Granada Television will provide the programmes in Lancashire (including Cheshire and parts of other counties), and Yorkshire Television will provide the programmes in Yorkshire.

Granada TV Centre, Manchester 3
Deansgate 7211
The Headrow, Leeds 1
Leeds 33231
St Martin’s House, Bull Ring, Birmingham 5
Midland 4129
36 Golden Square, London W1
Regent 8080

The post ITV 1968 appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

North (Mondays to Fridays)

Granada Television is the company which, under agreement with the Independent Television Authority, provides the television programmes in the North of England from Monday to Friday.

Granada TV Centre, Manchester 3
Deansgate 7211
The Headrow, Leeds 1
Leeds 33231
St Martin’s House, Bull Ring, Birmingham 5
Midland 4129
36 Golden Square, London W1
Regent 8080

The post ITV 1967 appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

North (Mondays to Fridays)

Granada TV Centre, Manchester 3
Deansgate 7211

The Headrow, Leeds 1
Leeds 33231

36 Golden Square, London W1
Regent 8080

St Martin’s House, Bullring, Birmingham 5
Midland 4129

Granada Television is the company which, under agreement with the Independent Television Authority, provides the television programmes in the North of England from Monday to Friday.

The post ITV 1966 appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

North (Mondays to Fridays)

Granada TV Centre, Manchester 3.
Deansgate 7211

36 Golden Square, London W.1.
Regent 8080

The Headrow, Leeds 1.
Leeds 33231

Granada TV is the company which, under agreement with the Independent Television Authority, provides the television programmes in the North of England from Monday to Friday.

The post ITV 1965 appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

The North (Mondays to Fridays)

Granada TV Centre, Quay Street, Manchester 3.
Deansgate 7211

36 Golden Square, London W.1.
Regent 8080

Granada TV Network Limited is the company which, under agreement with the Independent Television Authority, provides the television programmes in the North of England from Monday to Friday.

The post ITV 1964 appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

The North (Mondays to Fridays)

Granada TV Centre, Quay Street, Manchester 3.
DEANSGATE 7211
36 Golden Square, London W.1.
REGENT 8080

Granada TV Network Limited is the company which, under agreement with the Independent Television Authority, provides the television programmes in the North of England from Monday to Friday.

The post ITV 1963 appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

WHEN Hugh David and Wendy Williams, the stars of Granada’s Knight Errant Limited, have any free time they climb into their car and point its nose towards Wales — towards the land of their fathers.

In private life they are Mr. and Mrs. David Hughes, but David altered his name to avoid confusion in the world of entertainment with singer David Hughes.

At the Manchester studios, where they were rehearsing for the Thursday adventure series, Hugh told me: “My mother came from North Wales and my father came from the south. I was born in Aberystwyth, Cardiganshire.”

Green-eyed Wendy was born in Surrey, of a Welsh father and an English mother.

“But,” she told me, with pride in her voice, “I went to school in Colwyn Bay in Denbighshire, and I adore Wales. When I hear the anthem The Land of My Fathers it always brings tears to my eyes. My father’s family live in Anglesey and I’ve got hosts of relatives there.

“Hugh’s parents are settled in Cardiff, so it’s natural for us never to think of going anywhere but into Wales when we have time off from the studios.”

“Not always to visit our families,” Hugh added quickly. “Sometimes we go just for the scenery, for the sheer pleasure of driving through the beautiful hills and valleys.”

What is it, I asked them, that makes the Welsh so patriotic?

“Well,” replied Wendy, “I think there is a sense of belonging in all of us.

“People with Celtic blood seem to me to have this feeling more strongly than others. Welsh people seem to be even more patriotic when they are away from home.”

This brought a smile to her husband’s face. “That’s very true,” he said. “I remember a friend telling me about a Welsh stationmaster who was in Manchester a long time ago.

“He wrote beautiful nostalgic poetry about Wales while he was in Manchester, but as soon as he left England and went home he gave up writing.”

Hugh and Wendy first met in Wales. They appeared together in a television play at Cardiff, in February, 1959. A mutual friend, the Welsh actor Clifford Evans, introduced them. They got engaged on St David’s Day last year.

Their marriage service at Surbiton, Surrey, took place only six days before the beginning of the present series of Knight Errant. It was conducted by Hugh’s father, the Rev. J. Williams Hughes, a Baptist minister who was formerly principal of the North Wales Baptist College at Bangor.

I asked Wendy if Welshmen are more romantic than Englishmen. With one of her infectious chuckles she said:

“In my limited experience they are not.

“At least, not in the sense that they shower a girl with flowers and whisper sweet Welsh words in her ear. I didn’t even get a bunch of leeks on St. David’s Day.”

The post Knights errant take to the hills appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

DIRECTOR Chris McMaster was placing chessmen in position on a plan of the set for “The Conspirators,” Thursday’s episode of Knight Errant Limited, when I called to see him at the Manchester Television centre.

“I’m not playing games,” he explained. “I’m just working out some camera moves. These chessmen represent people standing round the bar in a village pub in Ireland.

“And there,” he added, indicating some pencilled squares on the plan spread over his desk, “is the village street. We’re going to have somebody riding down there on a bicycle and a couple of women with shawls and baskets and a donkey to give the place atmosphere. It’s going to be great fun.”

Not so funny, however, for publisher Stephen Drummond (Hugh David) who, with secretary Frances Graham (Wendy Williams), finds himself in an Irish seaside village trying to sort out the ownership of a piece of land and gets involved in some of the local shenanigans.

Chris McMaster is Dublin-born and theatre bred. And this is the first time in the four-and-a-half years he has spent in television that he has worked on a show with an Irish setting.

“We’re going to have a real hooley (that’s Irish for party) with this one,” said 32-year-old Chris, who joined his father’s theatre company in Dublin when he left school at 16.

“To make this as authentic as possible we are using film shot in Ireland,” he added, “and half the cast are Irish, or have a strong Irish connection.”

One is 47-year-old, Omagh-born Patrick McAlinney, who plays barman Sian Kelly. Pat, an actor in Dublin, on Broadway and in London’s West End for the past 25 years, describes Kelly as “a cynical sort of chap, typical of Irish barmen, I suppose.”

Dublin born Harry Hutchinson, who will play publican Joe O’Kelly, has not been home since 1955 when he played in Sean O’Casey’s The Bishops Bonfire, in Dublin

Says Harry, who is 68 and has lived in England for 30 years: “Irish publicans tend to be very friendly, hospitable people. They are well-endowed with the gift of the gab, too, of course.”

The other Irish members of the cast are Michael Golden, Tony Quinn, Howard Lang and Alan Barry.

The post It’s Knight Errant’s move appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

BACK to the television screen next Thursday comes Granada’s Knight Errant Limited, the firm that specialises in solving other people’s problems — and rescuing damsels in distress.

The head of the old firm, Adam Knight, had to rush off to Canada to manage his uncle’s farm after the series ended last June. The new boss is publisher Stephen Drummond, a friend of Adam.

He took over because he thought the project too worthwhile to let die. Helping him are his secretary, Frances Graham, and a member of the “old firm”— “Daily Clarion” reporter Liz Parrish.

Drummond, who, according to the scriptwriters, is 32, intelligent, observant, a ski-ing and Judo enthusiast, is played by actor Hugh David, who is 35.

He matches up well, for, like Drummond, he went to university, took a degree in physics and mathematics and is keenly interested in modern history.

Hugh, his black hair flecked with grey, has the good looks and grooming demanded by the role. He points out that there are other facets of his character which agree with those of the TV hero he will be playing.

He told me: “Ski-ing for instance. Fve been ski-ing on holiday in Austria for about four years. I think I can say I’ve got past the stage where a broken leg is imminent — though I realise it could happen any time. But I don’t fall over so much now, so I suppose I’m progressing.”

Drummond, more interested in people than in books, is the sort of person who wants to help. It was this trait in his character that led him into Knight Errantry.

“That’s me,” said Hugh. “After qualifying as a physicist I worked in industry and did some research on jet engines. But I wanted to work with people rather than machines.

“In 1946 I became a teacher. I enjoyed that very much, but gave it up after two years. I felt there was too much restriction on the individual approach to the task.”

Three years at drama school in London resulted in Hugh winning a gold medal. That was in 1951 and, after a year in repertory at Whitby, he joined the Old Vic in London for three months, then went to Bristol.

Since 1952 he has made countless TV appearances — “playing parts ranging from a Borstal boy to Lord Nelson” — and has scripted schools programmes for television and radio.

His experience of helping people? It was his wife, actress Wendy Williams, who answered that question. Wendy plays the part of Frances Graham, Drummond’s secretary, She said: “He’s a smoother-out of trouble for everybody. People are always coming to him with problems.

“He has a sympathetic approach which makes them want to confide in him.”

But when Wendy and Hugh first met, nearly two years ago, it was Wendy who did the smoothing out! She explained: “We were working together in a TV play and Hugh was playing a love-sick 18-year-old boy. I played the part of his brother’s fiancee, who helps him to come to terms with his problem.”

What sort of girl is Frances Graham? The official description goes like this: Aged 26, gay, vital impulsive, very feminine, has violent enthusiasms which don’t last long.

She looked thoughtful, then said: “Well, I’m 25 and the rest of the description isn’t so far out, either!

“I’m impulsive — most women are, it’s a more feminine characteristic than masculine — and I can’t bear insincerity or incompetence. I’m the sort who must have things right. If they’re not, I want to know why.

“I like to have good things about me — clothes, furniture, food, everything. Enthusiasms? I don’t swing about. If I become enthusiastic about something I usually stay loyal to it.”

Blonde Canadian actress Kay Callard, back in the programme to give a helping hand to the new owner of Knight Errant Limited, married actor-director Jack McNaughton two months ago.

Her role, too, ties in with her own background. Before she became an actress, Kay worked on a small newspaper in Canada as a reporter.

While the show has been off the screen she has been able to spend more time on her hobbies … sculpture, gardening and collecting fine glassware.

Said Kay: “The garden is only the size of a pocket handkerchief, but it had become a little overgrown so we had to chop down the weeds and rescue a grapevine that was being choked.”

The post A new knight for the old firm appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

OF all the things I dabble in, drawing cartoons gives me aa much fun as any — probably because of a knack I have of isolating a person’s most telling characteristic.

Now, in trying to single out a clue to my own character, I cannot do better, I think, than borrow the immortal words “Sometimes I sits and thinks; sometimes I just sits.”

There it is in a nutshell. The fact is I have an inexhaustible capacity for doing nothing. I am lazy about anything that smacks of work. But acting, because it was something I once did for fun, is excluded.

I was a member of three amateur dramatic societies while still at school in Nottingham. Since then, I have never thought of acting as anything but fun.

My family having no theatrical connections, however, (my father was in the decorating business until he started teaching), it never occurred to me to take up acting professionally.

The idea of my doing so came from Leigh Crutchley, then Drama Adviser of Nottingham Council. He started me working for my Royal Academy of Dramatic Art scholarship, giving me unlimited coaching and encouragement.

Until then, my fondness for animals had made it seem more natural for me to try to become a veterinary surgeon. But as Latin did not come naturally to me, I gave that idea up. Figures baffled me, too. Science interested me at school (and astronomy still does) but the maths involved, the theories and principles, have always been a stumbling block.

I am also rather impractical, and the combination of all these drawbacks seemed to rule out all the usual jobs.

I suppose I could have become a photographer — I have always enjoyed getting an unusual picture. The snag was that I knew I should never have the application to master the technicalities, or cope with the routine work.

Once I decided to go on the stage, though, I knew for certain that it was the only job for me — the only one where I could be wholeheartedly happy.

I realise now that long before this I had been unconsciously conditioned to my present way of life. We lived in London until the outbreak of war when my father took up a teaching appointment at the Nottingham School of Arts.

My memories of those early days are a bit disjointed, but it was undoubtedly as a child that I assimilated from my father a great deal that was to give me tremendous satisfaction. For instance, I developed a feeling for texture, and an eye for line and colour.

I like to see good design in common household things like pots and pans, tables and chairs. And — right in character – the line of a motor car means much more to me than what is under the bonnet.

Recently, however, I did paint our old cottage near Stratford-on-Avon. Mind you, it was only my anxiety to see a job finished that kept me at it. Another time I would be only too glad to hand over the interminable business to an expert.

But we would still do the designing ourselves. Thisbe and I (my wife is a Stratford girl and named after Thisbe in A Midsummer Night’s Dream) have a lot of fun with colour schemes.

The simple lines of the cottage called for white walls, dark floors and white rugs. Our soft furnishings are in plain, light colours and we like to vary contemporary furniture with what I believe to be the only antique that goes with it – Elizabethan.

For ornament I am fond of brass, particularly old telescopes. I have several 18th century ones and they make pleasant decoration. I also use them to look at the stars.

When I was working in London we used the cottage only for occasional weekends. It might happen again but Stratford will remain our permanent home.

We both know Stratford well. Thisbe was brought up here — her father was born in the adjoining cottage — and as a schoolboy I often visited the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre. Then after leaving the Academy I joined the company, and the three years I was there cemented my liking for Warwickshire — the heart of England. From Stratford I returned to Nottingham — this time as a professional actor in the repertory company. In 1955 I went to London, and later to Moscow, with Peter Brook’s production of Hamlet. I had already toured Australasia with the Stratford company.

After this came two plays in London — with our marriage sandwiched between them. One of these, No Time For Sergeants, ran for 18 months.

It was then that I did a lot of drawing. Flatteringly, people sometimes ask why I never try to sell my drawings. But, even if I thought there was a market for them, I should never have the necessary drive and ambition.

With music it is the same. I wish I played some instrument, but I know I would never practise. Oh, I tinkle away at the piano sometimes, but nothing much comes out. So I have to get my music — jazz preferably — from the gramophone.

But to make a professional job of anything one’s heart must be in it, and acting is the only thing that really counts with me — the one really constant and absorbing interest.

The post Self portrait appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

LEARNING to drive a motor car can be a nerve-shattering experience in itself but, when Richard Carpenter takes to the road with L plates, he finds he has an additional hazard to overcome.

Hazard? “Yes,” says 28-year-old Richard. “I keep hearing the Voice of Conscience. But it sounds so much like part I play of Peter Parker, Adam Knight’s assistant in Knight Errant ’60, that I could swear he’s sitting in the back seat, chunky grey sweater and all.”

Or perhaps it is just that Richard, who for six days a week is Peter Parker as he rehearses for the show at the Manchester studios, finds it difficult to forget him … Anyway I went along with Richard on one of his driving lessons to get the whole story.

As he drives away from the motoring school, he explains: “I start off brimful of confidence. But by the time I’ve turned a couple of corners and made three or four gear changes it happens.”

It? As he pulls up to allow a pretty redhead right of way on a pedestrian crossing, Richard gives a demonstration. He bawls: “Keep to the left, man! You’ll get us all killed!” And explains this is what nosey-Parker conscience says.

There is an immediate but unexpected reaction.

The redhead stops. Obviously she has heard. She stares. Obviously she is scared. She rushes on. Obviously thinking she is lucky to get away.

“See what I mean?” says Richard, looking unhappy and jerking his head in the direction of the fleeing female. “She thinks I’m a nut case. And when I’m out driving I almost convince myself.”

But there is nothing crazy about Richard when he is off duty at his flat in Hampstead, London where he lives with his actress wife Annabelle Lee.

He admits he is a handyman around the flat and enjoys painting, decorating and assembling electrical gadgets.

His collection of jazz records ranges from the early discs of King Oliver and Louis Armstrong to the latest issues of Duke Ellington. On the serious side, he likes Bach and Vaughan Williams.

There are some interesting sounds coming from the gear box as Richard juggles with the lever and returns to the subject of Peter Parker.

“It’s difficult coping with the gears when you’ve got a pest like Parker nagging at you. The trouble with him is that he knows all there is to know about the theory of driving a car, but put him behind the wheel and he would probably go speed mad or something.”

Richard glances out of the window. It is a sympathetic glance. An L driver has stalled his engine at the traffic lights and is being driven to distraction by the blast of hooters from other cars.

There is a thoughtful look in Richard’s eyes as he turns and says: “Hear that? Parker would be one of those people who are making all the noise. He regards car ownership purely and simply as a means of getting quickly from one place to another.

“My interest goes further. When I’ve passed my test — if I ever do with Parker breathing down my neck — I shall use every spare moment to drive out into the country to explore.”

Richard is particularly interested in architecture, and likes to visit churches and old buildings.

He was a painter in oils before he turned to acting, went into repertory at Chiswick, Dundee and Chesterfield, and toured the Middle East with the Old Vic. Now, he paints a word picture of the failings of Peter Parker…

“His head is like a junk shop of knowledge that needs sorting out. Each new thing he becomes interested in absorbs him completely for a time. For instance, he was writing a book on ‘What’s Wrong With Britain Today.’

“What happened? Why, it petered out, of course. Now he’s engaged on ‘An Analysis of Human Behaviour’.”

And Richard Carpenter, the motorist, gets tangled up in it?

“I don’t know about that,” says Richard as we pull up outside the driving school. “But I do know this: Parker gets tangled up in my motoring — and it’s driving me round the bend!”

The post The back seat voice of conscience appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

WHEN I met John Turner at the studios he had just finished an episode of Granada’s Knight Errant ’60, the series in which he plays Adam Knight, champion of the wronged.

“How does it feel to be a modern St George?” I asked.

I expected his eyes to shine with fervour. They did not.

“Don’t get me wrong,” he said, “but I believe it’s not a bit of use dashing to the rescue of the modern maiden in distress. For instance, if you give up your seat in a bus to a woman, the odds are that she will refuse it. You insist. She still declines. And before you know what is happening, some unscrupulous male slips into the seat.”

A good talking point. Before I could reply, we were joined by Richard Carpenter, who plays John’s assistant, Peter Parker, and Kay Callard, Liz Parrish in the series.

Said Richard, taking up the theme: “Chivalry has been dead for years. Old women tend to expect it, probably a cause they were brought up during a period when life was more leisurely and there was more time for gallantry.”

Kay decided it was time to put a woman’s point of view.

She said: “Surely, the original meaning of chivalry, if you forget the romanticism of the writers, was the strong and idealistic individual fighting the battles of the weak and oppressed and rescuing the unfortunate and wrongly persecuted?”

“But the knights of old were men who went about the country simply looking for trouble,” said John. “They fought for milady’s honour just for the sake of fighting.”

Richard backed him up. “If you tried to do that now you would find yourself in jail. Really, the knights have been replaced by the police.”

Kay agreed that there were fewer damsels in distress. But she still thought there was a lot to be said for the old-fashioned male. “He treated women as the weaker sex and was much more thoughtful than the young man of today,” she said.

John wasn’t going to let her get away with that. “That’s just a lot of nonsense!” he said as he went into the attack.

“The modern young man is every bit as thoughtful as those in the days of old. Women are always the same. They expect chivalry and then demand equality.”

Kay countered with: “Why not? There are still parcels to carry, doors to open and chairs to set to the table. Aren’t men gallant enough for these courtesies?”

Said Richard: “These courtesies, as you put it, Kay, are just basic good manners not chivalry.”

But Kay was not going to be put off. “According to my dictionary the modern definition of chivalry is ‘Gallantry of spirit, bravery and courtesy.’ Men can be chivalrous by being courteous. Aren’t you courteous at home?”

Richard retorted; “If my wife is working, I do the housework. If I’m working she does it. But let’s get back to Knight Errant ’60. We’ve done a lot in the name of chivalry in this series, John. What would you say are the modern dragons?”

John thought hard, then said: “The physical dragons are people like the blackmailers, confidence tricksters and thieves from whom we’ve rescued Sally Smith, Shirley Laurence, Carol Wolveridge and Marianne Benet in the programme. But some of the dragons were in our own minds. Or they were disguised.”

The mention of disguise appealed to the Peter Parker in Richard. He suggested that Moira Redmond, who appeared in the Mediterranean cruise episode, was an example of the dragon in disguise.

“Do you mind,” said Kay, “if I come I back into this discussion? What it amounts to is that there are still just causes to be fought, if not by knights in armour then by scientists and politicians.”

John agreed, with the reservation that there were still many dragons at large in the community, perhaps not so important, but which ought nevertheless to be put to the sword. “For instance, overbearing matrons who charge to the front of the queue at the shops,” he said. “What is a mere man do?”

Kay sympathised. “Put it down to bad manner. I‘m ashamed of my own sex I when I see things like that.”

“Good for you, Kay,” said Richard.

John was more cautious. “Not so fast,” he said. “What Kay would like to see is every man falling over himself to dance attendance. Call it the Continental touch if you like, but really, it’s just a paradeof little tricks and flattering phrases.”

“Continental men tend to put women on a pedestal more than Englishmen do,” replied Kay. “And that makes a woman feel good. But I wouldn’t say women are fooled by it.”

It was time, thought Richard, to call a halt. “How about coming down off that pedestal you’ve just been talking about? Then we can all go for a drink.”

Said Kay: “Good idea. And if I may I say so, very chivalrous of you gentlemen.”

The post Says Knight Errant ’60 – there are still dragons to slay appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

NOTHING captures the imagination of children more than playing detective. But after Granada’s It’s Wizard on Thursday at 5p.m., they will be able to play the game with much more assurance.

Twenty-nine-year-old Gordon Luck, who presents the science-with-smiles show, thought back to his own schooldays (“I always enjoyed going round the house with a magnifying glass, trying to spot fingerprints”), and decided that an edition of It’s Wizard devoted to criminology would be just the thing for his millions of young viewers.

So, on Thursday, Gordon, the scientist-turned-actor, plays detective with his schoolboy assistant, Jeremy Purser. At the beginning of the programme Gordon will appear in traditional Sherlock Holmes garb, complete in every detail from deerstalker hat and Inverness cape to magnifying glass and “curly” pipe.

The idea came to Gordon while he was spending a holiday with friends in Newcastle upon Tyne. “They arranged for rhe to have a look round the police headquarters’ crime laboratory there,” he said.

“The detectives were very helpful, and I really enjoyed my visit.” He was so impressed with his back-room research that I thought a little more on-the-spot information would not go amiss and arranged for him to see the fingerprint department at Manchester City Police headquarters — only a few hundred yards from the Granada studios.

When we arrived, CID Superintendent Frank Williamson took Gordon straight to Inspector Trevor Green, who runs the fingerprint bureau for the Greater Manchester area. His “beat” extends from Rochdale and Oldham to Stockport and Salford.

Although it was only nine in the morning, Inspector Green’s staff were already bustling about checking bottles, vases and clocks brought in from the scenes of recent crimes.

But Gordon was the first “live” customer of the day when he light-heartedly agreed to have his own fingerprints taken by Sgt. Roy Jarvis. Said Gordon: “Anything in the cause of science!”

“This won’t hurt a bit,” said Sgt. Jarvis as he placed Gordon’s fingers firmly on an inked plate.

Then Gordon got the full treatment — individual rolled impressions of each finger, plus separate thumb-prints. Sgt. Jarvis reproduced them all, with the care of a real craftsman, on an official record form — which Gordon kept as a souvenir of his visit. Inspector Green, 21 years in the Manchester fingerprint department, told me: “A fingerprint officer’s evidence is never acceptable in court until he has had at least seven years’ experience classifying and comparing prints. And, of course, in each case there is a double check safeguard.

“An officer, comparing prints on record with those brought in from the scene of a crime, must always have the independent opinion of another member of the department before he can say with authority that they are one and the same.”

What are the chances of two people having identical fingerprints? Said Inspects Green: “In practice it is impossible for two people to have identical prints. There are no known cases in the world.”

As we left police headquarters, Gordon told me of his plans for the programme.

“Now that I know just how it’s done, I shall be taking Jeremy’s fingerprints. Then, having already set up some booby traps I shall leave the laboratory for a couple of minutes and let Jeremy wander around.

“No doubt he will be tempted to take a swig from a bottle of lemonade which I shall leave for him, and he will go around opening drawers and cupboards. And he’ll pick up coins and other articles which will have been specially treated with the dye used to detect thefts.

“It should be an interesting experience for Jeremy.”

Interesting for the millions of would-be amateur sleuths, too. For apart from hints and tips on how to be a detective. Gordon will also be telling his young viewers how to avoid the attentions of burglars when going on holiday.

The last word comes from Manchester’s Chief Constable, Mr. John McKay. He told me: “With special propaganda films and programmes like this, television is doing a wonderful job in helping the police to prevent crime.”

The post A private eye on Jeremy appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

UNTIL a few weeks ago, science held little attraction for 13-year-old Jeremy Purser. But since he was chosen to ask the questions in It’s Wizard he has become more fascinated than he believed possible.

Says Jeremy: “I prefer the experiments we do in the studio to the ones we do in the school laboratory, even though they are equally interesting.

“The difference is that at school we have to draw complicated diagrams and write up notes afterwards, and that rather takes the enjoyment out of it.

Jeremy, son of a catering firm executive, ruefully confesses that though he came seventh in his form examinations, he was 24th in science. There are 36 in his form.

His science master, Mr K. H. Waterman, reports however that Jeremy does quite well in science and asks many questions during class. “Appearing on television has increased his curiosity for general knowledge in every field,” he told me.

Some experiments that Jeremy has been doing in the studio with magician Billy McComb have been covered in class. “But on the whole they are quite new to me, and it’s fun finding what happens and why,” said Jeremy.

The work he has done at school has provided a basic knowledge of the preparation and properties of hydrogen gas. How it is made and what it is used for … making oil into fat and margarine, making ammonia, and in oxygen hydrogen-welding.

In the “explosive” type of experiment, Jeremy and his form mates have prepared hydrogen gas by adding zinc to acid. The gas is put in a test tube and exploded by heating over a Bunsen burner. The exercise proves that hydrogen burns explosively when mixed with air.

One of the more spectacular experiments Jeremy has done in the school laboratory was the burning of magnesium in a jar of oxygen. This produces a blinding, dazzling flame.

Says Mr Waterman: “The boys have covered only the first stages in chemistry so far. The early work is designed to show them the use of laboratory techniques and apparatus.”

But in the studio Jeremy has already come into contact with the exciting world of space travel. This happened when McComb showed him how anything burned in liquid oxygen burns stronger, faster and brighter than it would in ordinary air — one of the principles used by scientists on rocket research.

To illustrate the point, McComb dropped a white hot ball of steel wool into a bowl of liquid oxygen.

Jeremy also took part in an experiment which simulated the eerie silence of outer space.

McComb showed this by extracting the air from a jar containing a bell. When the bell was rung it could not be heard, proving that sound needs a solid — air for instance — to enable it to travel.

In the programme dealing with balance and equilibrium, Jeremy discovered that a half-crown could be balanced edgewise on the point of a needle.

Says Jeremy: “I would like to do some experiments at home, but I have never got around to it. I haven’t got a chemistry set, but I sometimes help my friends to do experiments when I visit them.”

Away from the studio – and school — Jeremy is an outdoor boy. He sometimes lends a hand in the garden of the Pursers’ new detached house at Wilmslow, Cheshire. Said his mother, Mrs Marjory Purser: “He likes to be out of doors whenever possible.

“He’s a Boy Scout and at the moment is concentrating on getting his First Class badge. During the summer holidays he’ll be going camping in the Lake District.

“In the school holidays he plays in the woods and goes swimming with his friends. He is fond of animals and often takes our cocker spaniel, Sonny, for a walk.”

Jeremy is a keen amateur photographer and was delighted when, at school, he had to make a pin-hole camera.

“It’s a simple camera,” says Mr Waterman, “made from a cardboard tube, black paint, greaseproof paper and a pin.

“This was an exercise we did in connection with the study of light.”

Is Jeremy sufficiently interested in science to make it his career?

He said: “I am certainly interested in the subject, much more than I was before I appeared in the show, but I don’t think I could make a go of science as a career. I haven’t really made up my mind about it yet.”

The post Jeremy Purser finds It’s Wizard appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

MAGICIAN Billy McComb was sitting in a comer of the studio talking into an empty cocoa tin and writing “Yours, Ahkkx LbBnla” in an autograph book.

Even for a master of the unexpected this was an unusual performance … one that demanded an explanation. As if he read my thoughts, Billy whispered into the tin, mysteriously: “Hold on a minute. I’ve got a visitor.”

Then he turned, and said: “I’m just trying out our new studio telephone. All you need are two tins, two nails and a length of string. But it really works.”

That made sense — the tin can telephone was a trick I remembered from my own boyhood. For the uninitiated — you take two cans, bore a hole in each, tie a piece of string to a nail each end, passing it through the holes. Two people then hold the string taut, one listening while the other speaks. The sound vibrations travel down the stretched string.

But what about “Ahkkx LbBnla”?

Said Billy: “Oh, that’s my code name -just another of the things we’ve been getting up to in It’s Wizard. It’s simply Billy McComb with each letter moved a step backwards in the alphabet.”

Since this Granada children’s programme started three weeks ago, Billy McComb has been devoting his spare time to the fascinating ways of presenting science with smiles.

“It’s one of the most satisfying shows ever done,” said the veteran of 200 television appearances. “In fact, everything I have learned in my life seems to have been leading up to It’s Wizard.

“There’s been the pre-medical course I took at Trinity College, Dublin and the medical and Bachelor of Science course I took at Queen’s University, Belfast, which have given me the scientific background that is essential for this programme.

“Then my long study of magic helps me in the presentation of effects. And my experience as a cartoonist makes it easier for me to give clear blackboard demonstrations.

“It’s Wizard is one of the hardest types of show to put on,” he said. “You can either make it wildly complicated and unentertaining or extremely simple and still unentertaining. However, we feel I have found the perfect formula for presenting science to children in a way they can all understand. Everything I do in the show is tried out beforehand on my boy Sheron. He understands exactly what I’m doing and what I’m getting at, and he’s only nine.

“The main idea is that almost every experiment we do can be repeated by a child in his own home and using everyday objects. The average child cannot ask his mother for a cathode-ray oscilloscope, but he can borrow a basin of water or a packet of baking powder to try out something he’s seen on the programme.”

But whatever ingredients are required, there will never be any risk of a young viewer blowing up the kitchen after watching It’s Wizard. One important rule of the programme is that no experiment must be attempted that is in any way dangerous.

“In fact, we would like parents to cooperate with us,” said Billy, “not only by watching the programme but by helping children try out experiments for themselves.

“An interested mother or father can be of great help to a child, and they will find that It’s Wizard will also broaden their own knowledge about the workings of things around them.

“I know it’s doing a lot for me personally. Every now and then a bell rings in my mind as I relearn something I first knew about during my own schooldays 15 or 20 years ago.”

Since he gave up medicine to make a profession of his boyhood hobby of conjuring, Billy McComb has travelled widely.

He has been seen on television in seven countries. Viewers from the north of Germany down to Monaco have known him as a magician. The Italians have seen him as an illusionist, the Spaniards as a lightning cartoonist. And in America he has worked as a television producer.

But his first interest has always been magic.

He is an international authority on the subject. One of his books on magic is a standard textbook within the profession. He is one of the three examiners who test magicians for membership of the Inner Magic Circle.

And in July he will be the No 1 lecturer at a world gathering of wizards, when he flies to Boston, Massachusetts, for the International Congress of Magicians. This will be the second time he has been star attraction at the Congress.

The post It’s Wizard – but it’s safe! appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

CONFEDERATE cannons blaze a trail of death across your TV screen. Frenzied Union cavalry horses totter in the turmoil. The air is rent by the cries of the dying and the smell of burnt cordite.

The scene is Gettysburg, bloodbath of the American Civil War, the savage, heroic conflict in which brother slew brother. An indelible chapter in American history written long before the movie camera was invented.

Yet in Camera in Action, a series of programmes (starting on Tuesday) which covers aspects of life and the world in the second half of the 19th century, the scene is reconstructed as accurately and dramatically as the day it happened.

How is it done? By painstakingly piecing together a jigsaw of still photographs taken at the time. Granada have made them come to life by using the “action stills” technique which they pioneered in Britain five years ago.

The idea is to take still photographs and drawings and range a stop-motion camera over them. The cameraman will start with a shot of the entire picture, then zoom in on a detail, pan across to another corner of the picture, and so on.

The film is shot frame by frame, re-positioning the camera after each exposure. When linked at speed, the pictures from the past become a dramatic moving story straight from the pages of history.

Why is the technique so effective? said director Peter Jones: “Because the photographers of the day did their job so well. In the ‘Prospect of Whitby,’ the second programme, for instance, I think viewers will be staggered by the beauty and quality of Frank Sutcliffe’s photography.

“And in each programme we have had access to the original negatives or a new set of prints.”

The first in the series, “The Uprooted,” is the story of the vast European migration to American in the 19th century.

The “Prospect of Whitby,” is the story of the birth of the Yorkshire holiday resort; “The War of Brothers,” dealing with the American Civil War; and “Fashion Photographers,” a look at fashion photography down the years.

All the events will be seen as they happened, using photographs from museums, private collections, magazine libraries and family albums.

More than 250 photographs used in Tuesday’s programme came from pictures by Jacob Rüs and Lewis Hine. They were shot from different angles more than 90,000 times and then edited to make up the half-hour programme.

Action stills cameraman Ray Goode, who shot each one of those 90,000 frames separately, told me: “At first it was decided to write the script and then fit the photographs to it. But it was too stilted.

“Finally we decided to write the script to fit the photographs. There was a great deal of experimenting to be done.

“We have tried to make the stills come alive with the minimum amount of animation.”

The post Camera in Action brings history to life appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

THE young Army lieutenant took no notice of what was happening on the screen. Instead he watched a girl two rows in front of him.

His chances seemed remote. She was the sergeant-major’s daughter and he was a poor subaltern. But today Northern TV personality Mike Scott is married to Sylvia, the girl he saw in the two-and-ninepennies.

On Friday, he takes over the commentator’s chair in Cinema, and that early real life cinema drama sticks in his memory.

It happened in 1952 when the then 20-year-old Scott was on National Service with the Royal Army Ordnance Corps, at Bicester, Oxfordshire.

“At first,” Mike recalled, “it seemed I could never bridge those two rows between us. Then a mutual friend introduced us.

“All went well until I fell foul of the Army authorities some months later in that same cinema.

“I was orderly officer, and rather foolishly slipped off to take Sylvia to the pictures. There was a disturbance on camp and I was caught red-faced holding hands in the back row.”

Mike and Sylvia were married in 1956 and have a five-year old daughter, Julia. Scott is 6 ft. 2in. tall, angular, with classic features and has a humorous outlook on life. He’s a popular fellow, drives a 1932 vintage Lagonda, has done a “ton” in a Mini Cooper, and believes that cars are for driving and not just looking at.

Born in Earls Court, London, he has a flat in Kensington, but lives in Bowden, Cheshire. “I came North eight years ago and I love it,” he said.

“After public school I worked as a film extra while waiting for a production side union card which I never got. I wanted to be a film editor. I knew that most of the creative work was there and assumed I would rise to director.”

Mike worked for Rank for a spell and joined Granada ITV in 1956, working up to programme director within a year.

He made his screen debut on Scene at 6.30 in 1963, and made a big impact in the recent series, A Slight White Paper on Love.

Of his new charge he says: “I have been eyeing Cinema for some time. Like the previous presenters, Bamber Gascoigne and Derek Granger, I shall write my own scripts.

“I am not interested in being just a front man. My taste in films? I love Gene Kelly musicals, suspense films of ‘The Wages of Fear’ calibre, and colourful epics in the ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ mould.

“The essential thing in Cinema is dramatic entity. It’s no use showing a clip which doesn’t resolve itself. If it ends before the climax of the scene it merely frustrates people.”

I asked Scott if he would like to see any radical changes in the modem cinema. “Yes,” he said. “I’d like to see more leg room for people like me.”

The post Love in the two-and-ninepennies appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

FOR the four years Mr. Swindley puffed and huffed his imperious way around the intrigues of Coronation Street, the man who played him, actor Arthur Lowe, had a problem on his mind.

As far as he was concerned, publicity, interviews and public appearances were OUT. “I don’t want to be type-cast,” he said.

Now, with the Chaplinesque-like Swindley projected as the star of Pardon the Expression (Wednesdays) the risk of lifelong identification seems higher than ever. Why the change in attitude?

“When I was first asked to play Swindley,” said Lowe, “I hadn’t the faintest notion that the part would last for four years. We all thought that Coronation Street was a modest little cameo of Northern life which would run for seven weeks and then finish.”

Arthur Lowe left Coronation Street for a spell earlier this year, to appear in the stage version of John Osborne’s play, “Inadmissible Evidence.”

“When the invitation came to star in Pardon the Expression, I was faced with a terrible decision. It took me weeks to make my mind up,” he said.

Why did he plump for Swindley? “Because I like to think of him as a funny man with international possibilities.

“I’m hoping that he will appeal to a much broader audience than Coronation Street. If we do well enough we might crash the overseas TV market and go some way towards fulfilling my next ambition to become an international star. ”

Arthur Lowe is an agile man — mentally and physically. He has many of Swindley’s mannerisms. He beams broadly, then his furrowed brow will crease in thought as he weighs your questions.

“Having made my decision to stand by Swindley,” said Arthur, “I am now wholeheartedly in the part.”

One thing he has learned to do is leave Mr. Swindley at the studio door. “I never take him home with me. I’m very fond of Swindley but he’s just another character whom I happen to have played longer than the rest.”

The post Mr Swindley goes it alone appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

By KENNETH BELL

COMMERCIAL television entered the vault of the Wellington Inn, New Bailey Street, Salford, amid a blue smoke haze and an unbrokern buzz of conversation.

Games of darts and cribbage went on in the background, and for a time nobody seemed to notice that a new era had arrived.

The Wellington was the first Salford inn to be granted a TV licence, and landlord Arthur Marland lost no time in having the set, which stands in a corner of the vault, converted for last night’s Northern TV curtain raising.

When the landlord announced “Time, gentlemen, please!,” the customers who filled the inn were acclaiming the new force in the Northern entertainment world.

Regular customer George Eland of Melville Street, Salford, declared: “If this is ITV I’d rather watch it than the BBC any time — that’s if they can keep it up.”

FIRST-RATE

And sitting beside him, Mr. Joseph Grogan, Short Street, Salford, commented: “The variety and boxing were first-rate — definitely a better programme than the BBC give us.”

Making a wide circuit of the Manchester area to test people’s reactions to the first night of commercial TV I found these verdicts echoed in such diverse suburbs as BRAMHALL and GREENHEYS, DIDSBURY and ARDWICK.

In fact, applause came from all quarters. Criticisms were hard to find. There was just one question on everybody’s lips: “Can they maintain the standard?”

In small terrraced houses and large suburban villas TV parties heralded the beginning of commercial television in the North. Friends and relatives dropped in; cocktail parties were arranged.

Major surprise was the way in which viewers accepted the advertising sequences. Instead of being irritated by them, most of the viewers I spoke to regarded them as a pleasant novelty. Most women said they enjoyed them very much.

One or two people complained of wavering pictures but these complaints were widely scattered and seemed to be mainly due to minor aerial faults.

And in Greenheys Lane, GREENHEYS, Manchester, I found a man who was getting a first-rate picture on an indoor rod aerial — the same one which he uses for BBC reception.

He is Mr. Cyril Mundell who told me: “I think many people have been too hasty in having special aerials fitted. I am getting just as good a picture as they get.” Certainly I could find no fault with it.

While praising the first-night programmes, Mr. Mundell had one complaint: “I didn’t like the advertising between the rounds of the boxing match.”

Here is a selection of comments from people I interviewed during my three-hour tour:

EXCELLENT

Mr. Martin Fleeson, Hawthorn Road, GATLEY: “It has been a pretty good opening. The variety show was at least up to BBC standard. I shall not stick to one programme or the other but shall be selective.”

Mr. Edward Taylor, Blackley New Road, BLACKLEY: “An excellent picture and a very good night’s programme. I found the advertisements interesting and thought they were put in at the proper times.”

Mr. D. H. Harris, Church Road, NORTHENDEN: “I enjoyed the boxing and the variety show. The advertisements didn’t bother me and I thought the opening, showing the people who had done the work behind the scenes, was excellent.”

Miss Shirley Unger, Bury Old Road, CHEETHAM HILL: “It has been a splendid beginning, and if they could maintain this standard I would desert the BBC for ITV programmes.”

Mr. G. T. Pitt, Northenden Road, SALE: “My reception was of mixed quality, but the programmes were very good. The adverts slipped in between the rounds of the boxing were not too bad.”

MILES AHEAD

Mr. W. J. Woodward, Brookdale Road, BRAMHALL: “Very enjoyable indeed. We were very well entertained and, having an American wife, I think we shall probably be looking at ITV more than the BBC.”

Mr. Kenneth Coulbourn, Old Meadow Lane, HALE: “If the programmes keep up this quality the BBC will have to look up. The dancing standards of the Tiller Girls was miles ahead of the Toppers.”

Rosalina, the invisible, steals show

By MALCOLM SCRIMGEOUR

GIRL who stole the limelight INSIDE Manchster’s [sic] Granada TV centre on Northern ITV’s first night was the girl the viewers DIDN’T see.

Startling platinum blonde film star ROSALINA NERI — known as Italy’s Marilyn Monroe – arrived unexpectedly with JACK HYLTON and had the time of her life being photographed and interviewed.

Voluptuous Miss Neri, speaking excited broken English, provided the only frivolous note in the tense atmosphere of the studio.

As the studio clock hands stole towards zero hour of 7-30, technicians checked and counterchecked equipment and last minute arrangements, with outward calm and efficiency, but you could feel the nervous tension in the air.

Three worries

There were three big worries.

1 — Would ARTHUR ASKEY arrive in time? Flying up from London by chartered plane, Arthur was an hour later than expected, but still 25 minutes before the opening announcement.

2 — Would No. 2 camera burst into flames as it had done at rehearsal the night before?

3 — Would the unrehearsed interviews over-run their time, and have to be cut short for the link with London at 8 p.m.?

But nothing went wrong.

Granada chief SIDNEY BERNSTEIN, the most openly nervous man there, smiled for the first time that night, and murmured: “Well done, chaps.”

Great job

The journalists came flocking in to talk to Mr. Bernstein, Hilton, Askey, Reynolds, ITA chairman SIR KENNETH CLARKE [sic: Clark] … and, of course, Miss Neri.

“Everything went smoothly. The boys did a great job — they’re a grand bunch,” said Mr. Bernstein.

“Big Hearted” Arthur posed for pictures with Miss Neri — ” She’s just like Sabrina,” he cracked.

“I’m giving her a spot in my next ITV variety show. She may become a regular feature,” said Jack Hylton.

Quentin Reynolds was talking about the decline of juvenile delinquency in Liverpool — “It’s a great story. I’m covering it for an American magazine.”

Jack Hylton paused in front of one of the monitor sets. “That’s a Lancashire girl — great friend of mine,” he told Miss Neri. On the screen PAT KIRKWOOD was singing.

For the technicians it was all bouquets and no brickbats. But there was no celebration.

“I feel so happy I could fly right round the studio,” said 23-year-old floor manager CARL ROBERT.

So Mr. Bernstein gives two parties

By JACK OLDHAM

SIDNEY BERNSTEIN was in great form when I saw him at his Midland Hotel party after the opening night had ended.

Mr. Bernstein, in fact, gave two parties, one in the small ballroom for his advertising staff and friends and a private one for his relations and personal friends in Suite III on the first floor.

Nothing was spared while Mr. Bernstein was away supervising the actual programme at the studios. Champagne flowed, television sets were scattered around so that no one missed a single electronic moment of TV the Granada way.

And later, when Mr. Bernstein himself arrived, we walked along the corridors arm in arm and he couldn’t hide his delight at the way the first programme had gone over.

“We’ve had complaints from Germany,” he quipped, “saying they didn’t receive us very well.”

And Mr. Howard Thomas, managing director of the weekend TV contractors, ABC, seemed well satisfied with the way the Winter Hill transmitter had behaved.

Manchester viewers impressed, but

VIEWERS in the Manchester area are impressed — but they are not convinced commercial television has all the answers.

They believe that by careful selection of programmes they can get the best of both worlds — ITV and BBC.

The Evening Chronicle put several questions to viewers after last night’s commercial television opening. Here they are, with percentage replies:

The post N.-W. gives first night verdict appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

Mr Norman Somers, of 3, Craven Place, Hopwood Lane, Halifax, has been appointed senior staff announcer of the Granada TV network, which opens in the North to-morrow, and is based on Manchester.

The network provides the Monday to Friday programmes for Northern commercial TV and Mr. Somers’s will be the first voice heard when the station opens.

Mr. Somers, a London man, has lived in Halifax since 1939 and has been prominently associated with Halifax Thespians as actor and producer. He played a big part in the establishment of the Playhouse, as chairman of the reconstruction committee. He has taken part in 750 broadcasts for the B.B.C. in plays and variety, including “Have a Go.” “Club Night” and “Over the Garden Wall ”

His duties for the Granada network will include outside broadcasts, commentating and interviewing. He will, however, continue to do sound broadcasting for the B.B.C.

The post Halifax man’s post with commercial TV network appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

GRANADA has had a good year. Mr. Sydney L. Bernstein, chairman of the company, says in his annual report this week that the net profit of £242,920 [about £5.3m in today’s money, allowing for inflation – Ed] is a record, and an increase of £26,803 [£587,000] on the previous year.

He tells his shareholders that the Granada television interests will not outweigh its kinema [sic – this was the house style for the word ‘cinema’ in this magazine] interests, although TV will represent a very considerable undertaking.

In brief, Mr. Bernstein says that both in America and Britain, while television has been expanding like prarie [sic] fires, the box-office at the kinema has been increasing as well. “Show business never stands still,” he says.

Although Granada has made a record net profit, 65 per cent. of this is taken in taxation.

When all taxes, including entertainments duty and local rates have been paid, Granada has benefited the Chancellor and local authorities by over £1,000,000 [£22m] during the year.

Of the total profits tax paid, £13,500 [£296,000] relates to the fixed dividends on the preference shares.

Mr. Bernstein says there would seem to be no logic in legislation that penalises a company for operating its business on sound financial lines and, at the same time, grants benefits to those who adopt the less sound policy of financing by way of loans.

Mr. Bernstein refers to the Eady levy [a tax, notionally voluntary until 1957, on ticket sales which was paid into the British Film Production Fund between 1950 and 1985] and says that it cannot be the solution to the industry’s problems. Granada has not changed its views that a voluntary levy in support of British film production is wrong. The Government, which received £37,000,000 [£847m] in entertainments duty from kinemas in 1954 should stabilise the position.

The levy should be a statutory one, says Mr. Bernstein, rather than a series of precarious agreements negotiated within the industry.

‘Scope Tests

It is illogical that the levy should be paid by exhibitors under industry agreements, when so great a part of he industry is represented by the major kinema circuits who have considerable interests as producers.

During the past five years Granada has spent £800,000 [£17.5m] on renovating its theatres.

Its experiments with CinemaScope and four-track magnetic sound have proved the wisdom of the company’s decision, and it is equipping the rest of its theatres as quickly as structural alterations can be made and equipment obtained.

The report shows that the trading profit for the group was £372,274 [£8.2m]. Payment of dividends and provision for dividends amount to £42,625 [£934,000].

The consolidated balance-sheet shows total assets of £3,264,607 [£71.5m]. The fixed assets, freehold and leasehold properties, furniture, fittings and equipment stands at £2,039,005 [£45m].

Finally, Mr. Bernstein stated that although the exhibition of films remains the keystone of the business it is increasingly supported by a number of profitable auxiliary enterprises.

Referring to the profits of the past five years which were for 1950, £201,456 [£5.7m]; 1951, £217,661 [£5.7m]; 1952, £212,912 [£5.1m]; 1953, £216,117 [£5.1m], and last year £242,920 [£5.6m – inflation is taken from the date given, which is why these conversion figures may seem odd at first glance] he believed that the figures “indicate the consistency of our business.”

Mr. Bernstein has this to say about the company’s television development:—

“Show business never stands still. In this country and in the United States today material standards are higher and opportunities to enjoy leisure are more frequent than ever before. Thus it has proved possible for a great new form of entertainment to establish itself alongside the kinema and theatre without materially damaging either.

“During the past five years whilst the network of television stations was spreading across America like a prairie fire the gross annual revenue accruing to the eight major American motion picture companies actually increased in volume, and so did their profits.

“Since September last, when the BBC’s viewing figure of over 12,000,000 was topping for the first time the combined listening figures for all three sound programmes, our receipts have shown an upward trend. I believe there is room to develop television entertainment alongside the kinema in this country; indeed not to do so would be to deny the present logic of the show business. And at the same time I would like to reaffirm that this company’s newly declared interest in television does not affect our firm confidence in the future of kinema.

This is borne out by the fact that we have this year added three new theatres to the group, are negotiating for others and acquiring sites where we think there is demand for the type of luxury theatres we operate.

Last year I told you of our application to the Postmater-General for a television licence: this year the Independent Television Authority, appointed under the Television Act to control commercial broadcasting, awarded the Granada group one of the first three licences to broadcast, in our case from Monday to Friday from the north region station. This region, for which we applied expressly, will eventually serve a population of over ten million.

“There is little doubt that this region comprises the most closely knit section of the industrial population and that it has traditions in entertainment and culture which are unique in Britain. It is too early to announce our plans in detail, but already the prospect of working with Granada has attracted a number of intelligent and suitable people and we are rapidly building an organisation of which viewers will hear much and which we are confident will do its job to the satisfaction of the Independent Television Authority, the public — and in the best Granada tradition.”

The post Good Year for Granada – Record Profit appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

YORKSHIRE will have an Independent Television service from Emley Moor, near Huddersfield, in October. The Lancashire station at Winter Hill will open at the beginning of May, and the two stations will together serve more than 12m. viewers in the North Region, of whom nearly 5m. will receive Emley Moor transmissions.

Details of the new ITV service were given at a Press conference in Manchester yesterday by the Director-General Sir Robert Fraser, Mr. Howard Thomas (managing director. ABC (Television) Ltd., in which “The Yorkshire Observer and the “Telegraph and Argus” are minority shareholders), and Mr. James Phoenix (Northern Administrator, Granada TV network).

The primary service area from Emley Moor will extend in the North to Harrogate (about 30 miles), in the East to Hull (about 55 miles), and in the South to Newark (about 50 miles).

The secondary service area extends in most districts to places between five and ten miles beyond the primary areas, reaching Ripon and possibly Northallerton in the North and Driffield and Grimsby in the East.

IN SECONDARY AREA

Keighley and Ilkley fall in the secondary area for Emley Moor transmissions, and Earby, Skipton and Linton in the secondary area for Winter Hill.

Moot viewers in primary areas (unless in specially unfavourable positions immediately behind high ground or screened by high buildings) will get satisfactory service

In secondary areas a substantial proportion of viewers will get satisfactory service, but in some local areas reception conditions will be poor.

Outside both these zones some favourably situated viewers will obtain a reasonable service.

REGIONAL EMPHASIS

As regards programmes, emphasis will be on the regional.

At the outset the Yorkshire and Lancashire programmes will be the same, but it is expected that a logical development will be the opening of studios in Yorkshire with a different Yorkshire programme.

A.B.C. will provide the week-end programmes, in which newly-signed MacDonald Hobley will visit a “Home Town” every Saturday and present the town and its folk.

LEAGUE CRICKET

One of first places visited will be Morecambe, and the programme will include Janette Scott and her mother Thora Hird.

Lancashire league cricket is promised and the possibility of televising Bradford League cricket will be considered when the Yorkshire side of the region is developed.

Granada will provide the Monday to Friday programmes.

The post ITV for Yorks in October – with a regional “accent” appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

VIEWERS in Lancaster and Morecambe will be able to receive a television service from the Independent Television Authority (Northern Region) transmitter at Winter Hill, south of Chorley, which is expected to begin sending out programmes early in May.

The city and Morecambe are in the secondary service area which extends in a narrow belt from North Wales, through the Midlands south of Manchester to parts of Yorkshire, where it links with the other transmitter at Emley Moor, and to the Ulverston and Barrow districts. Carnforth lies on the outer fringe of this area.

Within these zones a substantial proportion of viewers will receive a satisfactory service, but there will be some local areas in which reception conditions will be poor.

The area inside the secondary service zone is the primary service area. [or, to put it in a way that doesn’t require mental gymnastics, the secondary service area surrounds the primary one – Ed]

NEW AERIALS

Reception depends on the correct type of receiving aerial being used for the various: localities and the appropriate conversion of single-channel receivers to obtain the alternative programme.

The programmes broadcast from two Northern transmitters will be provided on Mondays to Fridays by Granada T.V. Network. Ltd., and on Saturdays and Sundays by Associated British Cinemas (Television). Ltd.

The Winter Hill transmitter will have an effective radiated power of approximately 100 kilowatts and signals will be transmitted from a 16-stack high-gain omnidirectional aerial which will be carried on a 445ft. self-supporting tower. As the site is 1,450ft. above sea level the total height of the tower above sea level will therefore be 1,895ft.

VIEWERS’ SURVEY

At a press conference in Manchester recently, Mr. James Phoenix, Northern Administrator of the Granada TV Network, said that a detailed survey of what the North wanted from television had been carried out and to get the facts, research workers had been in many hundreds of homes to find out how people in the north spent their time.

Conversion of sets in the north, he said, were far higher than the figure just before opening date in London and appreciably higher than in the Midlands and it was a figure which was rising all the time. Mr. Phoenix declined to give details of Granada’s plans but he said this did not mean that they had not been laid.

REGIONAL TALENT

Sir Robert Fraser, director general of the I.T.A., stressed that programmes would be on a regional basis. One of the worst things of the past 30 years had been the over-concentration of all kinds of talent in London, but they were hoping to widen the field with television in the North.

Mr. H. Thomas [Howard Thomas], managing director of A.B.C. Television, said the local accent would be on sport, entertainment, personalities, and writers but outstanding London shows would be relayed to stations in the North. Local week-end programmes would include a “home town” show which would visit various cities and towns, a Lancashire serial and visits to repertory theatres.

The post Second TV programme to begin early in May appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

BY OUR LONDON STAFF

EVENING ITV shows in Manchester are to start earlier than in London. The reason: Northerners go to bed earlier than Southerners. Programme contractors are now working out the broadcasting hours.

Associated-Rediffusion, one of the London contractors, wants to start with a children’s hour (from 5 to 6 p.m.) and evening viewing from 7 25 to 10 30 p.m. with certain morning programmes designed for set-testing purposes.

But a spokesman for Granada Television, the Sidney Bernstein organisation, which will be responsible for Manchester midweek programmes, said to-day it was anticipating an earlier start and finish to evening viewing.

“LOST” VIEWERS

This move is expected to be opposed by the B.B.C. There is a possibility the corporation will ask the Postmaster-General to force ITV to keep to B.B.C. viewing hours.

It fears people switching on to commercial television before the B.B.C. goes on the air might be “lost” to B.B.C. programmes for the rest of the evening.

All contractors seem to be agreed that women’s afternoon programmes are not likely to start until ITV has mastered its initial difficulties.

SEARCH FOR SITE

Mr. Bernstein was in Manchester again to-day and he cleared up what he called a “misunderstanding.”

Earlier reports said he was seeking a building as a temporary home for his administrative and studio staff.

He said: “There is no question of using a temporary building. We shall build headquarters and use part of them until they are complete.

“To-day we’re looking at sites. Evaluating them. They are narrowed down now.”

The post ITV will start early in ‘sleepy’ N.-West appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

WERE you one of the viewers who last night switched over for your first look at commercial television when Granada TV, who provide the week-day programmes, opened the North’s commercial programme?

Reception, let me say first of all was excellent on my set, but not on all, I understand. There were no vision breakdowns during the evening, but some little trouble with the sound from Liverpool during the Stadium boxing.

To launch the new service Granada brought in from America commentator Quentin Reynolds, who introduced some of the men who have helped to create Granada Television.

The first commercial “plug” — a chocolate advertisement — came after 15 minutes — and was followed by Arthur Askey, who quipped: “It’s not all as bad as this.”

Few Celebrities

This opening half-hour in the Granada Studio was not particularly original, but it was casually bright and was aimed fair and square at the very ordinary viewer. Few celebrities! Just ordinary men in overalls and pullovers who told how they did their various jobs to bring the studio into being.

The lion’s share of the first programme, Parnell’s “all star” variety from London, went to comedians Bob Monkhouse and Dennis Goodwin. They played energetically to the gallery, but as laugh-raisers took second place to Sid Millward and his eccentric orchestra.

And, since it seems traditional that no big Lancashire occasion is complete without Miss Gracie Fields, there was a short film of her in Dallas. Texas, telling us a funny story with whiskers on it a foot long.

By this time the “plugs” were coming thick and fast … soap flakes, self-raising flour, tea … and, after the admirable Lena Horne, cheese, beef-extract, and a cake-mix.

Sound Defect

Liverpool Stadium maintained its reputation for always giving viewers a good fight when Granada’s “Travelling Eve” unit brought us the featherweight bout between Hogan Bassey and Aldo Pravisani. It was good television, marred only by a brief sound defect (“We’ve lost the sound” is the I.T.V. equivalent of the B B.C.’s “Normal service will be, &c.”) But it will probably take usa little time to become accustomed to seeing the fighters stagger back to their corners to be followed by some such announcement (as last night) as – “To-night you must rest. To-night you must sleep like a child. Drink so-and-so.” Then back into battle again.

I liked the Douglas Fairbanks play, “Blue Murder,” although the margarine advertisement in the middle of it interrupted the flow of the very slender plot. But even that could not spoil a typically smooth Fairbanks performance, with a good supporting cast. Our old friend Roy Rich was the producer.

Tribute To B.B.C

The most provocative programme of the evening was Granada’s tribute to the B.B.C., presented by Aidan Crawley, a man who left the B.B.C. for ITV and is now going back to the B.B.C. The B.B.C. won lavish praise in this item and in return TV’s Sir George Barnes warned ITV that the B.B.C. could compete with them on any terms.

Then came Mrs. Unsworth, of Atherton, Lancashire, to detail some of her likes and dislikes in the matter of TV entertainment. She doesn’t like opera and she doesn’t like “Look.” “It’s about birds and animals,” she remarked suspiciously.

Sir Mortimer Wheeler, who earlier in the evening had been entertaining B.B.C. viewers in “Animal, Vegetable, Mineral?” was seen on film extolling the merits of television, and Gilbert Harding, who is on B.B.C. contract, added a few encouraging

The evening ended with a rather dull news bulletin, presented by Chris Chataway, another man who is leaving ITV to join the B.B.C.

Everything considered, it was a very modest first night. Did you find the advertising spots irritating? Or did you find them entertaining? For the life of me at the end of the evening couldn’t remember more than a couple of them.

The post Opening of Commercial TV in The North appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

Adjust Sets, Say Dealers

Radio engineers on Merseyside were inundated with calls to-day from TV owners complaining about imperfect reception of last night’s opening programmes on the Northern ITV channel.

“But in nearly every case,” said a Liverpool dealer this morning, “the complaints could have been put right by a twist of a knob.”

Most of the viewers who had trouble complained that when they switched from the BBC channel to ITV, they could receive a good picture but the sound was dead.

Throughout to-day, TV engineers have been answering telephone calls and patiently explaining to viewers that when switching from one channel to another they have to make a slight adjustment to the “fine tuner” control.

This control, in most types of receiver, takes the form of an inner or outer knob incorporated in the “13-channel” switch by which the channel is selected.

NO CHANGE

A Liverpool engineer said to-day: “All this could have been avoided if ITV had put out a full strength signal earlier. By delaying it until this week, TV engineers have had no chance at all to instruct viewers on how to tune in correctly on channel nine.”

Reception of ITV in Liverpool was generally described very good. “There was much less interference in some city areas than has been the case on BBC TV,” said a dealer. “The only areas reporting ‘ghosting’ are those blanketed by very large blocks on buildings or those on the blind side of a hill.”

In many areas of Merseyside, viewers with 13-channel sets and no special aerial reported that they were nevertheless able to receive ITV fairly satisfactorily.

NOT SO GOOD

Reception in the Birkenhead area was not quite as good as that of the B.B.C. There and in other Wirral areas, particularly in Hoylake, dealers received complaints that on channel nine viewers had sound but no picture, or alternatively a picture but no sound. Some discovered that by tuning to channel eight [ATV’s transmitter in Lichfield – Ed] viewers they were able to get a fair picture but again no sound.

Bebington and Rock Ferry reported generally good reception. At Wallasey some indifferent periods were reported.

The ITV programme was seen as far away as Llandudno, when an Echo Correspondent reported: “The quality of the picture was equal to that of the B.B.C. transmitter.”

At Wrexham there were mixed comments. Within five miles radius of the town reception was good, but other places, notably in the Dee Valley, reported only “fair” reception.

In Chester and on Deeside, “fair” reception was reported but with picture quality not so good as the B.B.C.

Russ J Graham writes:

Newspapers did not welcome the arrival of Independent Television. For a start, it would be directly competing with them for advertisers. It would also directly compete on news – removing one of the main reasons for the public buying a newspaper. It might also kill the cinema industry, leaving empty space when once there were advertisements for film show times and cheap filler article on movie stars. This was particularly acute for the publishers of the large regional evening papers, like the Liverpool Echo, whose business model was based on people buying a newspaper on their way home from work to read whilst they had their tea. Now they might eat their food in front of the TV instead. Imagine the consequences.

Therefore it’s not a surprise that articles about the new ITV stations coming on air in each region were lukewarm to say the least. The papers piled on, accusing ITV of being too light or too dull or whatever came to hand as a way of bashing it.

Granada had done their homework on this, and their short first night was very carefully tailored to make sure there was something for everybody and even a programme paying tribute to the BBC.

With no ammunition available to them, the Liverpool Echo resort to saying that the picture isn’t very good, or there’s no sound, or that television sets are big, complicated things that are far too difficult for the average person to use effectively.

They don’t quite pull it off. Problems are not unexpected, and the ones here are strange: it’s very unlikely you’d get a picture with no sound – you’re far more likely with VHF television to get the sound fine but no picture; it’s quite weird to tune into the DX signal on channel 8 – the Echo seem unaware that it’s a different company, farther away – and get a picture and no sound: Transdiffusion was in Hoylake at this exact time and could only get the ATV sound, with the occasional very grainy picture in hot weather.

All in all, a good attempt at a hatchet job on the new ITV service from Winter Hill, but one that doesn’t quite work.

 

The post How ITV Was Received on Merseyside appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

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.

PAUL RYCROFT’S working day starts when most other people are thinking of having lunch, and he is often still working when they are going to bed.

The topsy-turvy world of television has turned his life upside down. But Paul would not have it any other way, for he has one of the most exciting jobs in Granada’s Manchester studios — playing host to visiting VIPs.

It is a job that calls for a great deal of general knowledge, diplomacy, tact and organising ability.

“General knowledge because people show a tremendous interest in everything they see and I have to answer a lot of questions,” he said. “Diplomacy and tact because I can’t let groups of people go barging into a studio while a programme is being transmitted. It wouldn’t do to get visitors tangled up with the cameramen and the actors while we were actually on the air.” This handsome, greying ex-actor is equally at ease and poised entertaining a Nigerian chieftain or a Russian TV technician.

He has, in fact, had experience of showing both round the studios. And people in many other walks of life, too, from peers of the realm to Scandinavian teenagers.

During the past 18 months the list of names is impressive – it includes Lord Morrison of Lambeth, the Earl of Harewood, Dame Margot Fonteyn, Peter Thorneycroft, Dr Ramsey, Archbishop of York, Dr Heenan, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Liverpool, and American TV commentator Ed Murrow.

Visitors come from every country in Europe and every part of the Commonwealth. “From all over the world, in fact,” said Paul. Then he paused and added: “Except Bulgaria. I don’t remember meeting any Bulgarians. But I suppose I will eventually.”

When Paul took on the job more than three years ago, he was looking after as many as 800 visitors a month. “They included almost anybody and everybody who wrote in, and I was nearly on my knees. Now the figure has dropped to something like 300 a month because, apart from VIPs, we confine it mainly to people from overseas and scientists, technicians and educationists.”

He meets trains and planes, arranges taxis, lays on refreshments, cigarettes and drinks, makes sure everybody is in the right place at the right time.

Paul, 43, is married to an ex-professional ice skater from Brighton, where he was born. They have a two-year-old son. He was five-and-a-half years in the RAF during the last war. “It’s a long break for an actor, and when I came back I found it tough going,” he said. “I suppose that really set the ball rolling and led to me giving up the stage for good.”

Paul glanced at his watch and said he was sorry but he really must dash off to meet Lord Montagu, who was arriving to appear in People and Places. Another personality to add to the important and distinguished names to be found on the pages of Granada’s visitors’ book.

Dramatis personæ

• Paul Rycroft (1912-1987) – his only credited role on the Internet Movie Database is in the 1938 BBCtv dramatisation of the play Libel.
• Lord Morrison of Lambeth (1888-1965) – deputy leader of the Labour Party and wartime Home Secretary Herbert Morrison.
• Earl of Harewood (1923-2011) – George Lascelles, 7th Earl of Harewood, son of the Princess Royal, an aunt of HM Queen Elizabeth II.
• Dame Margot Fonteyn (1919-1991) – Margaret Evelyn de Arias née Hookham, prima ballerina.
• Peter Thorneycroft (1909-1994) – later Lord Thorneycroft, had recently become Minister of Aviation at the time of this article.
• Dr Ramsey (1904-1988) – [Arthur] Michael Ramsey, later archbishop of Canterbury 1961-1974.
• Dr Heenan (1905-1975) – John Heenan, later archbishop of Westminster and a cardinal.
• Ed Murrow (1908-1965) – head of CBS News, later director of the United States Information Agency.
• Lord Montagu (1926-2015) – Edward Douglas-Scott-Montagu, 3rd Baron Montagu of Beaulieu, Conservative politician imprisoned for 12 months for the “gross offence” of kissing another man at a party.

 

Russ J Graham writes: The internal workings of television are just as much of a mystery to us now as they were in 1960, only now we tend to think we all know everything about how shows get to air.

Earlier in television history, people could admit to ignorance and curiosity about how studios worked. Indeed, such curiosity was encouraged, with TV companies producing book and booklets about their facilities that people rushed to buy: Rediffusion, TWW and Granada itself spring to mind.

Beyond buying the booklets, people also wanted tours of the studios, and most companies were willing to provide at least something. Granada did too but sought to limit the numbers, as the TVTimes points out. A requirement was an invite from a staff member, for the general public, but the great and the good could arrange visits – and enough visits were arranged to employ Paul Rycroft full time to do the job of marshalling them and taking them around bits of Quay Street that weren’t doing live programmes right at that moment.

The two senior archbishops’ interest was likely stimulated by them both, separately, going on ABC’s special course for priests and ministers which was mainly designed to make them all look less awkward on TV during the Epilogue or the Morning Service on Sundays. Ed Murrow would obviously be interested to see how it was done across the pond. The others listed must have known their way around television studios – Fonteyn and Morrison had both been televised before the War – but were obviously still interested.

The modern public seem not to be. After all, we know exactly how television makes it to air. If that were actually true, a trip to a television studio would comes as something of a surprise.

 

The post Poise in a topsy-turvy world appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

]]> https://granadatv.network/poise-in-a-topsy-turvy-world/feed/ 0 https://granadatv.network/this-is-the-north-here-are-my-plans/ https://granadatv.network/this-is-the-north-here-are-my-plans/#respond Thu, 25 Apr 2024 14:38:23 +0000 https://granadatv.network/?p=1720 Meet Sydney Bernstein and find out about his plans for the new Granada TV Network

The post This is THE NORTH: Here Are My Plans appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

]]>

This week in television the focus is on the North. Commercial TV, already serving London and the Midlands, now begins to cater for one third of the population in a vast new area. TV MIRROR brings you an exclusive interview…

SIDNEY BERNSTEIN, Head of Granada Television, talks to Geoffrey Kino and says, “There’s a local pride which I want to satisfy with regional programmes”

 



“GRANADA chose the North of England. It was the region we most wanted.” Mr. Bernstein impressed this on me after I’d been with him a very few minutes. “I doubt if we’d have got London even if we’d wanted it, but I want to make it perfectly clear that Lancashire and Yorkshire were our first choice.”

By then I had got used to his manner. Mr. Sidney Bernstein is a perfectionist; he is also just about the hardest man to see in television today. This is not only because he is extremely busy as Head of Granada Television but because he does everything himself. He wants to know exactly what is happening and to keep his finger on every nerve of his organisation.

When I arrived, he had to keep me waiting and I sat in his ante-room viewing a bronze bust of him. His secretary had warned me how busy he was and had asked me how much of his time I would occupy. Tentatively I said I would like about half-an-hour. Actually I was with him for more than an hour.

“Sorry to have kept you waiting,” he said as he ushered me in. “Now make yourself at home and tell me why you’ve come to see me?”

“TV Mirror wants to know how you intend to entertain the North of England,” I said. “We know you have very definite ideas and we want to know how you’re going to put them into operation.”

Slowly and deliberately, his voice keeping time with his pacing between desk and fireplace, he began to tell me about himself. He told me how he had gleaned his knowledge of Show Business; how as a young man he had travelled back and forth to America; about the films he had made with Hitchcock.

Settling at his desk, he said: “I’ve painted in my background so that you can see that I have at least a superficial knowledge about television.” It was then he told me that he’d chosen the North of England.



“There are thirteen million people in our viewing area — as many as in the London area. There is more civic pride in the North than anywhere else in England. Dad will march his son round the town when he is just old enough to walk and show him the Town Hall and the football ground and the War Memorial. That won’t happen in London. And have you studied the rainfall maps? Need I tell you the advantages of wet evenings as far as TV is concerned?

“The North appreciate the value of money and there’s more money up there to be spent sensibly — Advertisers appreciate this.”

Another interesting piece of information Sidney Bernstein had gleaned was that Monday night was peak viewing in the North — with a viewer figure of 81 per cent and Tuesday followed closely with 80 per cent.

This is a reversal of viewing figures down South where Fridays and Sundays are the accepted peaks.



I asked him if he could tell me about some of his programmes.

“It isn’t all planned yet. I want plenty of elasticity so that I can use television properly. I’ve got two OB units made specially to our own requirements by Pye. I believe in TV as a means of communication and I’ve got crews manning these that can put them up in a very short time. Wherever something is happening Granada OBs will be there. I believe the essence of TV is the outside broadcast. Again my programmes must be right for the North. Let me give you an example of what I mean. The whole country watches the Grove Family but if I gave the Groves a Wigan accent and set the action in that town, I’ll bet all the North would tune in to that programme instead of the Groves.

“Now that couldn’t happen in London. You could set it in Woolwich or Acton and no one would know which borough it was in. That’s what I mean about regional programmes and that is what I’m interested in putting out. This doesn’t mean that I don’t believe some of the programmes now showing I shan’t want for the North — I think some of them will be first-class up there.



“Variety is a big problem”

“Dragnet is fine; Gun Law first-class. I think I Love Lucy will be popular anywhere and I am sure Liberace will be as much appreciated in Manchester as he has been in London, Birmingham and New York.

“I like panel games and quiz shows provided the latter never try to make the human being lose his dignity. I wouldn’t have that sort of show, but those that dwell on general knowledge questions are excellent and I love watching them myself.”

I pointed out that he had left out light entertainment and told him that I had noticed that most of the performers were under contract to other companies and that Granada had even lost most of the shows from Blackpool this year.

“I didn’t want them,” was his reply. “Variety is a big problem over here — same acts repeated too often. In America there is only one top-flight variety show and that is the Ed Sullivan one. His deadpan manner is tremendously effective and then, over here, you can’t do what they can in America and get politicians to appear in light entertainment programmes to have fun poked at them and to be attacked. So over here we have to fall back on the same pattern and that pattern is becoming a bore.

“Then again it is only on Sundays that the best artists are available and I don’t have to worry about Sundays — as for the rest of the stuff I don’t think it’s very good. Believe me when something good comes along, that is something good for the North, I’ll take it. I see no point in competing with first-class stuff owned by other contractors — I shall want to buy that. When Hugh Beaumont has a suitable play for the North I shall want to screen it.

“We’ve got Sir Thomas Beecham under contract, as you know.”



I interrupted here saying that ARTV’s experiments with the Hallé Orchestra hadn’t been all that successful and that TV didn’t seem the best medium for serious music.

“It depends how it is presented,” Mr. Bernstein retorted. “Now this is how we’re going to do it. On a Monday for instance our cameras would take you to meet Sir Thomas at home where he’ll introduce himself to you and talk about the concert you’ll be hearing on Wednesday. He may stroll over to the piano and play a few bars to illustrate what he means. Then, on the Tuesday night, we shall take viewers to watch a rehearsal and to see how Sir Thomas works, and what it means being a conductor and what different interpretations mean. So that by the Wednesday, the night of the concert, viewers will have a feeling of anticipation.”

I acknowledged the novelty of this and wished the venture luck but I wanted to know more — more of these regional programmes.

“Let me put it this way,” Mr. Bernstein parried. “If I told you we had a panel game where a person came in and waved his arms about and then was asked questions as to what those signals meant you would say that it sounded a bit dull. Yet that formula is known now as “What’s My Line?” He sat back: “Wait and see some of our shows and then judge them and talk about them.”



I pursued this regional attitude on another tack — namely that of costs and advertising. Surely, I asked him, networking was the way in which profits were made — to stand aloof from it would be ruinous.

Mr. Bernstein smiled: “Don’t get the idea that money doesn’t interest us.

“Indeed we’re a small company and not half as rich as some of the others. We’ve got to make money unless we are going to die. But I want to put on my shows and I hope, and believe, people will come to us and ask for them.

“As for the advertiser, I feel sure that once he sees what we are doing and how we are going about entertaining the public, then he will come in and devise a method of advertising to coincide with our method of entertaining. It is possible that the advertising in the North will be quite different from that in the South; alternatively it may be the same. But one thing I do know. The Advertising agent is a sensible quick thinking chap who’ll adapt himself and his commodity to the right method of sale quickly, once we’ve proved that what we’re doing is right.”

Until I had had this conversation with Mr. Bernstein, I had felt, like so many other people in television, that the secrecy that surrounded his activities meant that he had nothing and that Granada were not prepared. Now I am sure there is plenty up Mr. Bernstein’s capacious sleeve.

The post This is THE NORTH: Here Are My Plans appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

]]> https://granadatv.network/this-is-the-north-here-are-my-plans/feed/ 0 https://granadatv.network/the-v-c-war/ https://granadatv.network/the-v-c-war/#respond Thu, 25 Apr 2024 13:48:25 +0000 https://granadatv.network/?p=1715 Can the war between North and South Vietnam be won with American help, asks World in Action

The post The V.C War appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

]]> WORLD IN ACTION ’65

In South Vietnam, a primitive backward comer of South East Asia, where Vice-President Johnson had “looked into the eyes” of the people, 20,000 American troops are engaged in an endless struggle – endless that is, unless it should end in something worse. In the past seven years 300,000 Vietnamese and 1,400 Americans have been killed and wounded.

It is a war in which, as one American lieutenant told World in Action, “you don’t know many times who your enemy is until he shoots at you. It’s hard to fight someone when you can’t see them and when a man can lay down his rifle in a rice paddy and pick up a plough after he shoots at you.”

On the night when the Tall Texan and the Man from Arizona were fighting it out at the polls — to the overwhelming victory of LBJ – World in Action presented a programme about Vietnam, a subject that looms large in American minds and one which posed President Johnson with his first major crisis after re-election.

Mike Hodges and Mike Boultbee led the World in Action team into the paddy-fields of Vietnam. Arnold Bulka did the research.



Vietnam is a country of 30 million people, part of what was once called French Indo-China. It is split in two – with the communists holding the North which borders on China. The communist leader is Ho Chi Minh, aged 74, one-time pastry cook in a London Hotel, and now known to his 16 million people as Uncle Ho.

Uncle Ho is a professional communist. He studied the theory well at Moscow’s University of the Toilers of the East, where he graduated with honours. In 1944 he was smuggled back to Vietnam to lead guerrilla partisans fighting the Japanese who had taken over the country from the French. As soon as the Second World War ended, Ho set up his own makeshift regime in the North before the French could come back in and stop him. In the months that followed, the French and Ho found that the country was not big enough to hold both of them. And they went to war.

For eight years Ho and his peasant army, supported by Chinese arms and money, fought a quarter of a million of France’s best troops and killed 94,000 of them. Then on 7th May, 1954, at Dien Bien Phu – a place the French will long remember – they tried to break the ragged communist army. But the day ended with the pride of France’s army captured, scattered, wounded or dead.

The French Empire in South East Asia was now at the mercy of Uncle Ho, the Marxist-Leninist pastry cook. For with the defeat at Dien Bien Phu, the French could no longer prevent the communists from taking over, not only Vietnam itself, but also their two other protectorates Laos and Cambodia.

The private little war in Indo-China seemed set to develop into a clash between the Big Powers of East and West. So they met together in Geneva in July, 1954 – rivals with one aim in common: to prevent each other from taking over the area. At this Conference three vitally important decisions were made:

One, that Laos and Cambodia should become independent, neutral states;

Two, that Vietnam should be divided in half, with Ho Chi Minh and his Communists taking over north of the 17th Parallel, and the French-backed anti-Communists holding on to the South;

And three, that an election would be held in all Vietnam, north and south, within two years, to decide on a single government for the whole nation.

Lord Avon, then Sir Anthony Eden, was Britain’s representative at that Conference. He told World in Action, “We were trying to bring to an end a very bloody brutal war which had been waging for some time and which was going at that time badly for our French allies who’d had a big defeat at Dien Bien Phu. In those conditions I’m sure that the agreement was the best that we could have got. The working out of it, inevitably, has had many disappointments but fundamentally the idea was sound – to try an create a protective pad between the Chinese forces in the North and to make of these three states, if we could, countries – little countries with an independent way life.”



The Geneva Agreement did not, in fact, bring peace to Indo-China. And principally this was because of the man chosen as the first leader for the new state of South Vietnan – Ngo Dinh Diem. Diem was an aristocrat, a Roman Catholic bachelor, who was opposed to both the communists and the French. His choice by the Geneva powers was by no means unanimous.

“In Vietnam, as it seemed to me,” said Lord Avon, “a wrong turning was probably taken when Diem was appointed as the Head of the Government of that country. That was many years ago. This isn’t hindsight, because the time I and the French representative to Geneva counselled against the appointment. However, it took place, and he ruled the country for many years.”

Diem became a virtual dictator, running the country with a Government that was practically a family firm. Even his sister-in-law, the beauteous and ruthless Madame Nnu, was given office – and with it access to the economic wealth being poured in by the Americans. Comfortably entrenched, Diem refused to risk an election.

From the north, Ho Chi Minh retaliated. He sent in his guerrillas, the terrorist force known as the Viet Cong, which is now harrying the Americans. This underground force opened a savage campaign of destruction and murder. Not even the children were spared.

Diem, meanwhile tried to soothe his people – handing out lollipops to the children and at the same time asking the Americans for military aid. Between 1956 and 1963, the Americans poured in 16,000 soldiers – “advisers” they called them – and enough equipment to arm the 300,000 strong South Vietnamese forces, but Ho Chi Minh continued to win. At the same time. Diem and his regime were in serious trouble from their own people. Diem became more dictatorial. Then he made his worst mistake. He refused to recognize Buddhism, the country’s biggest sect, as an official religion. Buddhist monks committed suicide in public, dousing their clothing with petrol and then setting themselves alight. Students rioted, and finally in November, 1963, the Army took over. They arrested and executed Diem and his brother.

Even then South Vietnam still failed to find a strong government. First they had General Minh – Big Minh. He was ousted by General Khanh, who gave way in turn to another temporary administration. Still, despite more and more American aid, the war in South Vietnam continued to be lost. And among the 20,000 Americans serving there the casualty list grew daily.

The Americans in Vietnam are fighting an enemy who most of the time is invisible. An estimated 30,000 Viet Cong guerrillas – the V.C.’s as the Americans call them – form the hard core of this hidden army. Some of them live in the jungles. And like the animals of the jungle they have learned how to hide well from their enemies. They even dig themselves into holes in the ground and have to be smoked out at bayonet point. Many other V.C.’s, however, live in villages where the local peasants hide them, feed them, and even finance them through an organized tax system.

The V.C.’s fight a hit-and-run war, as one wounded American Army Lieutenant described:

“The military operations are very difficult in a guerrilla type war, because you do not know where the enemy is. The guerrilla, if he sees a big force, disappears – and when he sees a small force he gets enough together to overcome this force and eliminate it. We went this one day to visit this village and everything was going pretty well, we stayed there for an hour or so talking to the people and nothing extraordinary happened and we returned. Unfortunately, the guerrillas were waiting for us. They probably saw us go in – it was about 2 kilometres or so, of undisturbed road – and they were waiting for us to come back. This was probably one of our mistakes. We had two jeeps and a 2½ ton truck with about a platoon of infantry in it. But this did not deter the Viet Cong at all. They planted a 105 round, I figure, with some extra explosive on the side of the road, and as our jeep came near he detonated it.”

The guerrillas move swiftly from place to place, and their task is made all the easier by the continued refusal of the South Vietnamese Government to stop people travelling freely about the country. An American captain explained, “Take for example the man that lives up north in some city. He gets a mission from the V.C. to go down and blow a bridge. He gets his orders, I don’t know where, but he gets them from some Communist leader. He comes down and blows this bridge, turns right round, goes back and he’s been gone only six or eight hours. Who’s missed him. Remember, people saw him walking on the road down here, or coming in a sampan, but nobody stopped him.

“If we don’t have any population controls,” he went on, “this compounds a problem that the military people have in combating these types of people. You don’t know where they are. They don’t as a fact wear uniforms, though some of their hard core units do – they’ve got a type of uniform. But as far as all of them being identifiable we don’t know who they are. This is a terrific frustration as a military type operation for a soldier.”



The main battleground in South Vietnam is the Delta of the Mekong River. This region, twice the size of Yorkshire, is flat and waterlogged, a maze of canals and rivers. It is here that practically all of the rice which feeds people of South Vietnam is grown. And whoever controls the Mekong Delta controls the country. In this flooded area, the guerrillas are hard to find and hard to get at; they are, in their own words, like fish in an ocean of peasants.

“They come down the Mekong by sampan and junk, usually at night,” said a U.S. Navy lieutenant. “When they reach the district they wish to manoeuvre in they go into the small canal. Some of these canals are so narrow that when we take our boats in we are brushing the trees on the bank. The V.C. wear civilian clothes, and they look just like a fisherman or farmer, but when you stop their junks and search them you find weapons hidden underneath, and pamphlets, propaganda material. V.C. also use the sampan and junks to attack civilians, this is another thing we are trying to stop. The V.C. in the area generally don’t appear in uniform, but they will join a hard core V.C. unit that’s been trained in North Vietnam.”

From a base in the Mekong Delta World in Action cameras travelled on one of these patrols. The U.S. Navy Lieutenant aboard explained the risks:

“We lose more boats to mines than by any other offensive means the V.C. employ. They will plant a fix mine of a 200 or 300 kilo strength in a narrow canal. This mine will be connected with electrical wires, to a lookout point on the beach. The wires are buried under the canal and run over to the beach into a grove of trees or into a hidden area. The V.C. put a lookout on the canal and when the boat they want passes over the mine they cross wires over very crude batteries.

“Two days ago we finished a salvage operation on an army personnel carrier that was sunk by a mine in a small canal down the river from here. The V.C. had fixed the mine knowing that the personnel carrier had to cross the river at this point.”

This patrol took World in Action up a small river in the Delta. The force consisted of: a monitor, armed with a heavy gun for shelling the V.C.’s on shore; two small gun boats; and two armed troop carriers with Vietnamese soldiers aboard. The patrol was under complete Vietnamese command. A Vietnamese Naval Captain and a Vietnamese Army Lieutenant gave all the orders. The U.S. Navy officer aboard could only make suggestions with no guarantee they would be accepted.

This patrol was the first to sail up the river for ten months. It was considered important to show the flag to the villagers, because large numbers of Viet Cong had been reported along the river banks.

“We usually operate within easy rifle range of the V.C.”, said the U.S. Lieutenant. “They have rifles, they have machine guns and a few Recoilless rifles. When you fight the V.C. they usually pick the time to fight. We have to look for them, and when they ambush us they usually are in a pretty firm position. So far from what I’ve seen, I couldn’t ask for a better group of fighting men than the ones on these boats because when they find an ambush they go right in after it.”

On this day the patrol did find an ambush. Viet Cong terrorists, hidden in the jungle thickness, opened fire on the patrol. The patrol boats fired back. As the gun boats and the guerrillas shot it out, the troop carrier swung downstream … and crashed into the banks. The troops jumped ashore to circle round the guerrillas and cut them off. But by the time they got there the guerrillas, as usual, had vanished.



The captain of one of the gunboats signalled that his men had killed a lot of terrorists, but not a single body was found. The Viet Cong carry their dead with them. Day in, day out, this is the war in South Vietnam.

Day in, day out, too, another war is being fought – a war for the minds and hearts of the people of Vietnam – a war of propaganda. At the 17th Parallel, the line that divides North from South, the two sides match propaganda poster for propaganda poster, word for word, flag for flag, loudspeaker for loudspeaker. Every day, Hanoi Hannah, the sweet-talking Communist Radio announcer, speaks to the peasants of South Vietnam, promising for everyone the better life.

Despite smooth words the casualty list grows. In one week alone in October, 1964, nearly 3,000 Vietnamese from North and South, were killed or wounded. As the war drags on, bitterness and hatred eat into the hearts of the Vietnamese. For this is a civil war – and civil wars are always the most brutal. North and South equally kill, maim or torture with the cold-blooded enthusiasm of brother set against brother. And as usual there are the bystanders – the people who just happen to get in the way. The American G.I. would be less than human if in the midst of all this he did not find himself downhearted. And back in the United States, the anger, the frustration and the humiliation of Vietnam is felt by the American people.

“There are soldiers over there,” said one man who was interviewed, “dying in this war without a name. We’re getting nowhere, we’re just sitting there. They’re not doing anything. There’s no sense in it. And you have to pay money to keep them there, so there’s no sense in it.”

Said another, “I think we should invade Vietnam.”

And a third, “We should just not let our men get knocked off one at a time, we should put our foot down and get out, one way or the other.”

Amid emotions like these, Senator Goldwater found willing listeners in his election campaign.

“Where has weakness brought this world since the end of the Second World War?” he demanded of his supporters at one meeting. “Twelve nations have fallen to Communism. In the past three years alone, Laos has been torn apart. Indonesia has been set afire. And South Vietnam has been soaked with American blood.”

The tough talk sometimes explodes into action. In August 1964 two American destroyers patrolling off North Vietnam were attacked by North Vietnam gun boats. As a reprisal, aircraft of the U.S. 7th Fleet bombed and strafed North Vietnamese naval bases, carrying the war over the border for the first time. China and Russia protested – but back home in America there were those who were heartened by the attack being carried into Communist territory.

Some American politicians, however, do not see this as the way to win in Vietnam. Among them is Democratic Senator William Fulbright who is Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee: “I think that this tough talk, which is sometimes called brinkmanship, is irrelevant to modem conditions and it is also very dangerous. In the days of simple gunboats and very limited weapons you could engage in this kind of psychological warfare with impunity. If you did make a mistake it was not particularly disastrous in most cases, but today with nuclear war and with the highly sophisticated world we live in, I think this kind of policy is both dangerous and is irrelevant to the problem, in the sense that it isn’t designed in any way to solve the problems or to get at a solution.”



So long as the war in Vietnam continues to go against the Americans, so long will a threat remain to Britain’s interests in South-East Asia. For if Vietnam falls to the Communists the way will be open to Laos and Cambodia, through them to the pro-western nation of Thailand, and through Thailand to Malaysia, the new federation which provides most of our tin and rubber.

The strength and morale of Communism in the Far East got a new boost on 16th October, 1964, when China exploded her first atomic bomb. Today many Americans talk tougher than ever on Vietnam.

But the American soldiers in Vietnam, the weary and the wounded, know better than any civilian that this is not a war that can be won with guns or bombs alone. As the wounded lieutenant said to World in Action: “This is a guerrilla war – a war for people’s minds, and hearts.”

The post The V.C War appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

]]> https://granadatv.network/the-v-c-war/feed/ 0 https://granadatv.network/au-h2o/ https://granadatv.network/au-h2o/#respond Thu, 25 Apr 2024 13:28:55 +0000 https://granadatv.network/?p=1711 "In your heart, you know he's right (wing)" – World in Action looks at Barry Goldwater

The post Au H₂O appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

]]> WORLD IN ACTION ’65

At its Convention in the Cow Palace, San Francisco, on 15th July the U.S. Republican Party picked the man to fight Lyndon B. Johnson in the 1964 American Presidential Election. Against all the earlier odds, the outsider who suddenly came right out in front was Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona. Goldwater represented the extreme far Right of his party. He stands for talking rough and tough to the Communists. He voted against the Civil Rights bill which aims to bring equal rights to the American Negro. Goldwater’s views have alarmed a lot of people – including many American Republicans — but his supporters, not unnaturally, are fanatically “pro-Barry”. A fortnight before the Republican Party convention. World in Action, with some prescience, went West to look at the man from Arizona who had become big news for the world.



Barry Goldwater was born and bred in the West – in Phoenix, Arizona. His grandfather, “Big Mike”, came to the territory less than 100 years ago. He came out to trade with the miners, ranchers and cowboys who were opening up the West. Like all true Westerners, even today, Barry Goldwater has built himself a homestead in the wide open spaces. He has a wife and four children – two girls and two boys.

Barry Goldwater ran the family department store in Phoenix, founded by his father, until World War II, when he served in the American Air Force. He only entered big-time politics in 1952 when he became a Senator for Arizona.



Most of Goldwater’s political henchmen also come from Phoenix. Stephen Shadegg is one of them. We asked him what he thought about Goldwater, the Westerner:

“He has an honest respect for the necessity of paying your debts. This is something we seem to have lost sight of in this country; we postpone it. He believes that every tub should stand on its own bottom, every man should sleep in his bed, and this is something that we have in the West. I think that in the more collectivized societies and in the big urban centres they’ve lost this. He has an intense interest in all people. He could not be a bystander while someone else was being involved in an unfortunate situation such as that incident we had in New York when 36 or 28 people watched while someone was being murdered. He has to be a participant, he’s an activist. Everything he does he has to do well. When he became a photographer he had to do it well enough to achieve membership in your Royal Photographic Society, and when he got in the war he had to fly an aeroplane. He was a pilot before he entered the service, but he was over age. He still managed his way round the red tape and became a service pilot and flew all during the war. In politics he’s much the same way, he s a very intense man about whatever interests him and he explores all of the possibilities – contrary to the present impression that he goes off half-cock; this is completely untrue. He’s a man who wants to examine all of the alternatives so that he can make a reasonable judgement.”

What is it about Barry Goldwater and his beliefs that appeals to his followers? Alistair Cooke, broadcaster an journalist, explained:

“I think that the appeal of Goldwater is a distortion of a very healthy impulse and it’s something that’s present in 19th century, the middle 19th century, especially out West where people who were frustrated by the congestion of cities and so on could move into open land which reached to the horizon and could stake out their own home and their own way of life and control their environment. Now the big argument inside the Republican Party is just how far you can go to control your own environment, that of your city, that of your county, that of your State, or whether the Federal Government has to move in into vast areas which are now controlled by the individual States. And I think this is a form of what you might call ‘Wyatt Earpism’. In other words, to simplify it – probably grossly – the appeal of Goldwater is the appeal of Wyatt Earp who says ‘Let me have ten minutes with Khruschev in Tombstone, Arizona at high noon and I’ll bump him off and lower taxes and everybody will be happy.’”

World in Action went with Goldwater supporters to Republican Convention in Dallas. Like many Westerners they talked about “the old frontier”. Said one man with enthusiasm, “He’s the spirit of the old frontier that we’ve always had in this country – to do something yourself rather than depend upon somebody else to do it. Like he wants to own his own business, go to his own doctor, go to his own church, take care of his own family rather than depend upon the State to do it. And this is where most people go for him because he is for the very thing that widens the frontiers of America – the reason that the English colonists came over to this country to begin with. The whole thing to me is something that goes back to the original conception of why the Constitution was first … I don’t know whether I make sense or not, but it sure feels good! I’m for him because I am in business for myself and I don’t like to be dictated to by someone in Washington on how to run my business, because I know more about how to spend my money the way I want to than someone in Washington.”

“This is the entire Goldwater concept,” said his companion, “the government is best which governs least.”

“People who make in this country 50 dollars [about $500 in today’s money, allowing for inflation – Ed] a week and are supporting a family,” went on the first man, “it’s not unusual for them to contribute anywhere from five to ten dollars [$50 to $100] a month towards Barry Goldwater’s campaign. This is how strongly they believe in individualism.”

Said a girl with them, “Well, I’m too young to vote, but I can talk loud and I can run around and call out signs and sell hats and pass out badges and do just as good even though I can’t vote.”

Those Americans who “go” for Goldwater really “go” for him all the way. One of the factors that contributed to the Senator’s surprise success has been the passionate zeal of his volunteer helpers. Eleven thousand Republicans attended this Dallas Convention – almost all of them were “Barry’s Boys” the name given to Goldwater supporters. They arrived wearing Goldwater badges and slogans “Au H₂O,” the chemical formula for gold and water.

The Republican Party, the Grand Old Party which fought the Civil War to end slavery of the Negroes, seemed suddenly to have gone to the far Right. This upheaval in the Party took many people by surprise. But it did so, Alastair Cooke explained, in a gradual way:

“What I think nobody figured on was the fact that for the first time in modern history a Republican really excited the South, and that’s because the new test of liberalism in this country is now race relations. Usually a Republican candidate isn’t going to start counting his votes in the South because they aren’t going to be any use to him the moment he starts running for the Presidency since the South is a Democratic kingdom, more or less. Now, for the first time, a Republican started with this enormous popular support – the whole of the South behind him. This gives him overwhelming power at his Convention to get his nomination. But the moment he starts running for the Presidency he’s still got to try and beat a Southerner in the White House.” At the Convention in Dallas Senator Barry Goldwater made his bid for the Southern States:

“My good friend John Tower, fellow Americans, fellow Republicans,” he said, “I’ve looked forward to this for a long, long time and I never in my wildest dreams imagined that the reception would be anything like this, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart. (cheers) If anyone wants to know why and how we’re going to win the 1964, let him come here and get his answer. We’re going to win, we’re going to win because we are now truly a national party. We are no longer a party that has to write off one great section of this nation, the South, (cheers)

“From the courthouse to Congress, we’re going to concede nothing here in the South this year. For the first time in American history Republican candidates are going to contest more than 70 Congressional districts that have always been foregone by default and for the first time in the history of this country all twenty-three Congressional seats in this great State of Texas will be contested and we’re going to win them.

“I intend to lead a united party on a platform of principles, the same platform and the same principle in every part of this nation, (cheers) I mean principles of leadership, principles which will preserve our Federal Republic, principles of respect for constitutional government, for law and order. I mean principles that look upon violence in the streets anywhere in this land, regardless of who does it, as the wrong way to resolve great moral principles. (cheers) This is the way that will destroy the liberties of all our people.

“I come before you today to make no sectional appeals. The issues now confronting our nation go beyond any one section or any special interest. They go right to the heart of our destiny as a free and constitutional republic and they involve the hopes of freedom everywhere in the world, (cheers)

“The peace of the world and the defence of this nation go hand in hand. It’s the destiny and the responsibility of this nation to keep the peace and there is no other way to do it than remain as we are today, the strongest nation on earth in all ways – spiritually, morally, economically and militarily. (cheers)

“Now those of us who live away from the coast of this country are often accused of being isolationists, of wanting to close our eyes to the rest of the world. I need not remind you Texans that nothing could be further from the truth. We are not isolationists. The real isolationists are the men who can’t see beyond the ballot box, who talk and talk… (cheers) who talk and talk but fear to act, who can only mumble when the American flag is tom down and trampled on and spat upon. (cheers) You and I and millions of Americans want to hear someone speak up for America in this troubled world. (cheers) We know that the world cannot be inspired by turning out the lights in the White House. (laughter) That’s L.B.J. now – Light Bulb Johnson (laughter and cheers), and you’ll find him out in November. (laughter and cheers) We know that the real need is to turn on some light. We need more light at the White House, not less. We need more light around the world – the light of American leadership, the light of freedom.

“I intend to speak plainly about all these matters, because I have a deep feeling of responsibility that those who are coming on after me, my children, my grandchildren, and your children and your grandchildren – I have a great feeling of responsibility for a heritage that must be passed on, and when I’m gone and there’s trouble in this country I don’t want my children to point to me and say ‘If father had only said this at the right time maybe things would have been different.’ I intend to speak as I feel because I am concerned about our country and I am concerned about our world. (cheers)

“This nation today is being dishonoured. Not a single new major strategic weapon system has been introduced in the past three years. The very strength we hold is the result of the sound, resolute planning of General Dwight Eisenhower. This Administration has nothing to do with it. (cheers) And this disarming means that America stands still while the Soviet is free to advance. As we go into the 1970s, there are plans to leave us a Strategic Air Command with no new bombers, with a damaged force of old ones and with just a minimum of the strength with which it has been able to keep the peace so far. The business of the S.A.C. is peace and if you don’t allow the Air Force and the Strategic Air Command, the Air Wing of the Navy, the Army and the Marines to make progress in the air, then we are heading for trouble, and real trouble, because this power is what the Soviets understand.

“There is no magic in winning elections. There’s no secret word. There’s no certain amount of millions of dollars that must be spent. There’s no cut-and-dried television image. There’s only one way that wins elections and that’s people like you. (applause) So I implore of you, act as adults; don’t cany your grudges into the ballot boxes: carry your hearts and carry what’s good for Texas and what’s good for the United States, whether you are a Democrat or a Republican – America is our first ballot. Thank you. (prolonged cheers, applause, and singing)”

The rise of Senator Goldwater within the Republican Party caused many people to ask if America as a nation was turning away from Liberalism and moving towards the extreme right wing in the political spectrum. World in Action put this question to Alistair Cooke. “No, absolutely not,” he replied emphatically. “I think this in fact is a proof that this whole movement of the extreme Right – which by the way is absolutely minute; the Birchites, for instance, in the California local elections have had their brains beaten out – has no power whatsoever. But I think that this movement of Goldwater’s is the last exertion of the Old Frontier. You know, this is Gary Cooper running for President, and an awful lot of people would wish it could be so. Like the devotion to the Western on television, its the last gasp of individualism.”

And so in November the Man From Arizona rode to meet The Tall Texan, Lyndon B. Johnson. It was a Presidential Election very much in the tradition of The Old American West.

The post Au H₂O appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

]]> https://granadatv.network/au-h2o/feed/ 0 https://granadatv.network/l-b-j/ https://granadatv.network/l-b-j/#respond Thu, 25 Apr 2024 13:12:32 +0000 https://granadatv.network/?p=1708 World in Action goes looking for the new president of the United States of America

The post L. B. J. appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

]]> WORLD IN ACTION ’65

On 15th April, 1865, in the last weeks of the American Civil War, Vice-President Andrew Johnson became the seventeenth President of the United States. He succeeded Abraham Lincoln who had been shot while attending a performance at Ford’s Theatre the previous evening. Ninety-nine years later a second Vice-President Johnson succeeded to the Presidency after another assassination.

The week after its programme from Dallas World in Action moved to a second town in Texas to investigate the background of the West’s new leader. Tim Hewat took the team to Johnson City.



Life for the people of Johnson City is slow. The motorist, hurrying along Texas route 281 linking San Antonio and Wichita Falls, could well fail to notice the town. Its people are typical hill folk, unhurried, with plenty of time to talk. Many of them work in the saddle, although today most cowboys drive their horses from one part of the range to the other – and some of them just drive all the time.

The people of Johnson City are modest people, like George Biars, who has been mayor for fifteen years, largely, he says, because no one else wants the job at a salary of eight shillings a day [40p in decimal, about £7 in today’s money allowing for inflation – Ed].

The biggest thing in town is, of course, Lyndon B. Johnson himself, whose grandfather gave his name to the place. Mr. Johnson was born in a two-room home and he went to school at Johnson City High School. His first job was shining shoes. Then he worked on the roads. Today, Mr. Johnson lives in his own ranch, the L.B.J., on the banks of the Pedernales River. And, partly through his marriage to “Ladybird” Johnson, he is comfortably off. Mrs. Johnson was the chairman of the television and radio station, K.T.B.C. in Austin, Texas, until her husband became President when all the Johnsons’ wealth was put in the hands of trustees.



Highpoints in Johnson City life are the barbecue parties that Mr. Johnson gives from time to time at the L.B.J. for visiting V.I.P.s. One such party was for President Ayub Khan, of Pakistan, who was showered with gifts. Another party was for thirty ambassadors from newly-independent African nations.

Naturally the people of Johnson City admire Mr. Johnson greatly. And, naturally, they are all watching closely to see how he is getting on as President in Washington. But the event they all remember, and indeed the Texas politicians in the State capital at Austin also remember, is Mr. Johnson’s speech at his old university in 1961, for that was the time, they say, when he recorded his philosophy and his beliefs.

Mr. Johnson was Vice-President at the time and he was speaking to students on graduation day at the State College of South-West Texas, near Austin, 42 miles from Johnson City.

“I have a long, well-worded, carefully-drafted speech, he began, “all of which I’m going to stand behind and none of which I’m going to read, because we are faced with the hour of decision and it is you that is going to make the decision.

“In the world today we have two great systems; strong systems competing with each other for the mind of man. One is the collective communist system. One is the democratic system. One is the system of slavery. One is the system of freedom. And each man in each country on the face of the globe is sitting up there in judgement on those systems. The average father and mother want for their children just what you want for yours – relatively simple tastes they have. They want a place to worship, a school to train their minds, food for their stomachs, clothes for their back, a roof over their head, and a little recreation now and then. And that’s about all the average man and woman, wherever he lives, desires. That’s about the extent of his ambition. And now he’s looking at these two systems to see which one offers him and his family the greatest promise for the future.

You are a product of the democratic system. Because of your sacrifices and your diligence, you are concluding a course today and going out into the world. You are some of he privileged people because a relatively small percentage of our total population has the privilege of sitting here with caP and gown on. And therefore you have a very special responsibility to the system that produced you; the system at made it possible for you to have a trained mind and a sound body.

“The three greatest friends that Communism has are illiteracy, poverty, and disease. And they’re the three greatest enemies that our democratic system has. And if you haven’t learned it, you ought to hear it now – that our nation, the richest in the world, the most powerful in the world, is out-numbered 18 to 1 in the world. And no nation can long enjoy great applause when all of its neighbours and all of its friends and all the other nations are impoverished.

“So you, as the leaders and the products of our system, have got to help us in the years ahead to find a solution to eradicating poverty, to improving the standard of men and women and children’s living, to improving their housing, to cleaning their slums, to stamping out the diseases of cancer and heart and all the other killers, so that in your time and my time when these two systems come in mortal combat with each other, you can proudly say Democracy has worked; the proof of the puddin’s in the eatin’, and the coon’s skin’s on the wall: we have educated all our young; we have provided security for our old; we have cleaned our slums; we have made home-owners of our people; we have driven disease underground. We have not sat back and lived with our selfishness and with our greed. We have not been content to be misers. We have practised the Golden Rule. We have done unto others as we would have them do unto us. Yes, we have marched forward like zealots – with a missionary zeal to try to make San Marcus and South-West Texas College and Central Texas and Johnson City a better place than we found it. We have tried to make this a better world than we were born into, and we are determined and dedicated to reward our Maker with the fruits of our labours and we are determined that they shall be made.”

Then Mr. Johnson talked of his visit to South-East Asia, to Saigon, the capital of troubled Viet-Nam.

“When I went into the dark streets of Saigon,” he continued, “my secret service men had cables from our Intelligence people saying that ‘you must be very careful and not get out of your car, you must be surrounded completely with security people, and never shake hands, because this is a very dangerous period – 14 were killed in the town last night – 4,000 mayors and city officials have been killed in this area this year.’ And I said ‘If they don’t want me to speak to them and to talk with them, then let’s don’t go.’ Because I want to know them and I want them to know me. I want to know Asia and I want Asia to know America. And I have learned in my limited experience in this world that you can usually look into a person’s eyes and see what is in his heart. And I want them to look into my eyes and into the eyes of the United States of America.



“We tore the big Air Force signs off of our plane and just painted on Old Glory. We tore the United States Military Air Transport sign down and we just put ‘The United States of America’ on our 707 jet. And we looked into their eyes and we think they could see what was in our hearts because they came in thousands and tens of thousands would surge forward like an Atlantic wave just to touch the hands of someone from America; just with the hope that maybe, perhaps, somehow, somewhere, their little child could get rid of the tape-worms in his stomach and have a chance, that only one out of ten there now have, of getting into school.

“And I’ll tell you that after three or four days we not only looked in their eyes and saw what was in their hearts, but we instilled in them a determination to climb and climb and climb until they reach the top of the hill so that their children could have a school and their children could have food and their children could have clothes on their back.

“I came back to Washington, not distressed, not discouraged; I came back strong in the belief that when people know each other, they understand each other, and if they understand each other, they don’t need to fight each other.

“So if they ask you what he said at your graduation address, you try to remember that he said that you were walking into a world of opportunity, not a world of obstacles; that you were a special missionary for democracy; that you owe freedom and liberty so much that you wanted everybody to have a little bit of it; and that you realized the principal enemies of freedom and liberty were illiteracy and impoverishment and disease; and that you in your own little way with your sheepskin, regardless of how much they paid you per hour or per day or per week, if there was enough to sustain you, you were going out to make war on these things, so that the people of the world could live in peace and prosperity.”

The post L. B. J. appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

]]> https://granadatv.network/l-b-j/feed/ 0 https://granadatv.network/seen-at-6-30/ https://granadatv.network/seen-at-6-30/#respond Wed, 24 Apr 2024 13:17:37 +0000 https://granadatv.network/?p=1643 Inside Granada's greatest regional programme, Scene at 6.30

The post Seen at 6.30 appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

]]>

When you walked through the door into Granada Television in Cross Street, Manchester you felt the place was special, certainly different from the other media temples I had worked in. The main reception area was dominated by a large compelling painting by Francis Bacon, the canteen illuminated with a challenging mural by John Bratby. In every office hung a portrait of P.J. Barnum [sic], the American circus-owner, as a reminder that we might be journalists, but never forget the razzle-dazzle.

– Michael Parkinson, Parky: My Autobiography, 2008

 

You will most likely already be familiar with stories of innovation in television, whether through technology, graphics, formats or presentation. Let me describe an early example of a regional news and entertainment programme which not only set a high standard in its field, but provided a template for what was to come later.

Granada TV was a company with drive, determination and flair – always bold whilst cautious (to quote from the coat of arms of Wallasey, within the company’s service area.). Even as the company was being formed, part of their forward-thinking attitude was that staff should not be drawn from the BBC, to prevent “contamination of the new thinking” to quote a Granada executive. Talent search took the company executives to Canada, to bring fresh blood into TV, an area that the parent, Granada Theatres Limited, had no experience in.

Most of the ITV regions put out regional news bulletins varying in length, including Granada’s Northern Newscast, but there were plans in the fifties to develop a new type of early evening news programme. It would complement the ITN news whilst providing contrast, reflecting not only topical news and regional issues, but also covering the arts, sports, and human interest stories. Derek Boulton, public relations officer said that the programme should make people feel that the North “is a good place to be, and we’ve got our own voice”.



The new show, People and Places, ran from 9 July to 20 August 1957 as a networked programme, presented by Peter Jones (comedy actor, chiefly known for In All Directions) and Elaine Grand (who later presented Thames’ Good Afternoon). From contemporary accounts, it’s best described as a miscellany, with sketches, interviews and music usually by the Derek Hilton Quartet. The programme was revived starting from Friday 23 May 1958, but this time only for the North, and presented by Bill Grundy, later joined by Chris Howland. Derek Hilton and his trio provided music (including the theme). Gay Byrne replaced Chris Howland in 1961. People and Places finally came to an end on 18 January 1963.

The Beatles were featured on later editions in 1962 and 1963, and a film shot by Granada at the Cavern in August 1962 didn’t make it onto the programme due to poor sound – but it was broadcast a year later on the show that replaced People and Places.

Launched on 21 January 1963, the Scene at 6.30 presentation and production team included Michael Scott, Michael Apted, Johnnie Hamp, Peter Eckersley, Michael Parkinson, Chris Kelly, Bill Grundy, Leslie Woodhead, Gay Byrne, Barrie Heads, Philip Casson, Brian Trueman and David Plowright: soon to be well-respected media figures not only in the North, but throughout the country and the world. TVTimes trumpeted Scene at 6.30 as “a no-punches-pulled, hard-hitting, bang-up-to-date look at today’s big talking points. And what’s new and original in music?”



Talking of which, the Beatles were not the only group featured – many other artists performed! Lulu, the Searchers, Long John Baldry, Howlin’ Wolf, Bo Diddley, Duke Ellington and hundreds of others went to Manchester to appear, and, in many cases, to chat about their music. In November 1963, the Beatles performed I Want To Hold Your Hand and This Boy on a Daily Echo newspaper set, and had a conversation with Gay Byrne and Ken Dodd – their off-the-cuff humour was so refreshing and infectious that Granada, rather than losing the sequence completely, broadcast it as a one-off Late Scene Extra on 27 November 1963 at 11.45pm. Famous quote: Ken Dodd says that he would need an earthy name to be a pop star, Paul suggests “Rock” or “Cliff”, John suggests “Sod”!



In 1976, George Harrison was interviewed by Granada Reports about his new LP “Thirty-Three and a Third”, and part of that feature was that he was seen sitting at a Steenbeck machine watching the November 1963 film of the Beatles, shaking his head in time with the “whoos”.

Michael Wale’s book Vox Pop includes an interview with former Beatles press officer Derek Taylor. In it, he said had been asked by Peter Eckersley to come and work on Scene at 6.30 after Taylor and Brian Epstein fell out whilst touring with the Beatles in 1964. Taylor, having worked for the Beatles in the US, was much in demand there and set up his own business, representing the Beach Boys and many other bands, and working on the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967, after which he went to work for Apple [the music people, not the computer people], again as Press Officer.

Recalling other guests, Joan Riley remembered a sixteen-year-old Scottish girl who was very loud, rehearsing her song Shout – Lulu – and Vanya Kewley who assisted Desmond Morris with a baby chimpanzee in a demonstration. She held the chimp up to the cameras, and it peed in her face, but she laughed it off. Joan was on the phone in her office, and discovered that there was a young lion sitting next to her – luckily she didn’t scream…



News reporting on Scene at 6.30 was more broad than the cliché of “warehouse fire in Leeds”. While accepting that, as Mike Scott said “the London end [was] dominated, not dominating”, he understood the need for a London studio, so that anyone based there could be interviewed for the programme. This had the advantage of enabling debate on issues affecting the North. David Boulton did recognise a problem within the North: “Considerable efforts were made to take the programme outside Manchester itself…particularly there was quite a lot of political pressure to do items in Liverpool because [the city] always felt left out and always second-rate compared with Manchester”. In years to come, this was a recurring theme, and at one point it threatened Granada’s ability to retain their franchise.

The London-based presenter was Dennis Pitts. By using regular inserts from Pitts in London, Michael Parkinson in Leeds and, of course, the whole team in Manchester, Scene at 6.30 invented an innovative format that would later be used by the BBC in Nationwide.

Since 1956, Granada had always been inclined to challenge the accepted wisdom. Mike Scott stated that a new type of current affairs programme was evolving, whether in programmes such as Under Fire, where MPs had to face blunt questions from the audience, or in covering the February 1958 Rochdale by-election (which Granada had been told would be illegal) to covering political party conferences. News actuality of the Ringway air crash in 1957, to the hurricane in Sheffield in 1962 had set some precedents as regards what should be reported and brought to the public’s attention. This was an approach which was a major part of Scene at 6.30.



Granada received a call on 22 November 1963 from CBS in New York, stating that President John F. Kennedy had been shot in Dallas. It was just five minutes after the beginning of the programme. The senior executive on duty, Denis Foreman, called ITN, who told him that they were “not going to break into the schedules with the story until they had it from [our] own reporter in America”… and there was a standing rule that individual ITV companies should never pre-empt ITN on big stories. Foreman impulsively went ahead, and Mike Scott broke the news to the Scene at 6.30 audience first, before anyone else in the country.

David Boulton was Granada’s Public Relations Officer based in their London office in the early sixties. By his admission, he wasn’t that good: Sidney Bernstein sent for him, told him he was useless, but sent him to Manchester to work on Scene at 6.30. Producer Mike Murphy gruffly greeted him on his first day, and assigned him the task of a three-minute profile of Frank Cousins, completed with the help of a lady who later became Mrs. Boulton. After a short while, David Boulton became the producer, taking over from Mike Murphy. There was a three-minute bulletin produced by the then little-known Bob Greaves, and David decided to put him on Scene at 6.30, where he became a welcome fixture and part of the northern identity of Granada.



Another personality who put his stamp on everything he did was Michael Parkinson. In his autobiography, Michael Parkinson was asked to come and produce the programme by Barrie Heads, who told him that he wanted the programme to be “irreverent, funny and seditious”. Parkinson also mentioned that the Scene at 6.30 ethos was that any of the production staff who could write and present an article could have a go at presenting, and he chose to go on air with Bill Grundy for his very first time in front of the camera. Grundy advised Parkinson to slow down his delivery, and lean forward as if engaging the viewer in conversation: he also said that if anything went wrong, “look pleadingly in my direction”. Grundy also reminded Parkinson, at the end of the show, that he should say thank you to the studio. Less seriously, Michael was also seen with a “From the North Granada” logo drawn on his back, as if it was a tattoo, and extolling the virtues of licorice.



There is a 1965 film from Scene at 6.30 in which he narrates the story of sixteen children living at Ockenden Venture Home for Refugee Children in Wetherby, Yorkshire, with their house parents Mr. and Mrs. Lovell. An emotionally challenging tale of twelve German children and four English orphans who are, to quote Parkinson, “not simply cared for, but grafted into the family”. It isn’t known whether it has been broadcast outside the North, but the film was donated by the charity to the Screen South East archive.

Bill Grundy was regarded as one of the best presenters, but not without his particular problems: he once slipped from the newsreader’s chair whilst reading a story, the worse for wear, although he could not be seen because of the unmanned, locked-off camera. He was an important part of the presentation team, and really came into his own during trades union congress and election broadcasts, with a direct and forensic questioning style.



A further development was the establishment of Granada In The North, a kind of news bulletin and preview of the evening’s entertainment fronted by one of the Scene at 6.30 team. It was a way of establishing the station identity from the moment viewing began, and acted as a promotional vehicle to keep the viewers tuned in throughout the night. The sequence even had its own ident. It lasted from 1964-1968.

Changes were being made to refresh the format of Scene at 6.30 to maintain its pace and vitality. A major reinvention came in July 1966 when the programme became a late-night feature called Newscene (an amalgam of “news” and “scene” coined by Brian Blake). Johnnie Hamp wanted to make it more controversial than Scene at 6.30. One of the new elements was that a studio audience of youngsters would engage in debate with the musical guests on issues of the day. (With the benefit of hindsight, the idea was very similar to BBC-1’s A Whole Scene Going – a rare example of Granada following a trend rather than leading.)

Courtesy of elenarendezvous

 

As regards archive status, the only complete edition that survives is the Scene Special shown at 10.25pm on 7 March 1967 in the North only. Entitled “It’s So Far Out, It’s Straight Down”, it focussed on the burgeoning London underground movement and psychedelic music scene. Paul McCartney was interviewed and so were leading underground figures connected to the International Times and Indica Bookshop, such as Barry Miles; a Legalise Pot rally in Piccadilly with John “Hoppy” Hopkins and Suzy Creamcheese; Pink Floyd performing at the UFO Club; and footage of the International Poetry Incarnation, which took place at the Royal Albert Hall on 11 June 1965 featuring Allen Ginsberg, Adrian Mitchell and Laurence Ferlinghetti amongst others (this became a film in its own right – Wholly Communion). It would be correct to state that Scene Special produced such a balanced and definitive picture of that time. As a snapshot of the counterculture, it’s an invaluable time capsule, and excerpts have been included in many programmes including Tony Palmer’s All You Need Is Love in 1977.

Scene made its way back into an early-evening slot in June 1967, and Late Scene was a late-night feature as before (this writer recalls that Sgt. Pepper (Reprise) was used as a closing theme at least once during the summer of that year). Change was coming though…



The franchise awards on 11 June 1967 allowed new contractors into the system: London Weekend TV, Harlech, Thames (itself a new company formed by ABC and Rediffusion jointly) and Yorkshire. The last of these was a challenge to Granada: their
franchise was now a seven-day contract, broadcasting to the North-West (“West Of The Pennines” according to the TVTimes) only. Granadaland, the proud concept driving the company’s approach, looked forlorn and defeated. However, the company was down but not out – a rethink was needed to redefine their region, and to serve the viewers with the same devotion and fervour as before.

Scene continued into 1968, with the same features and news coverage as before. According to one account, Mr. Sunshine by Barclay James Harvest was featured in a short documentary shown as part of the programme – this was the B-side of the single Early Morning which came out in April, the same month that Scene was finally laid to rest.

The replacement was Six-O-One, mostly fronted by Bob Greaves, as were the successors Newsday and Newsview – yet again, there was music, sport, news, human interest but not as vital as before. Yet, the assemblage that was essentially Scene at 6.30 was taken apart to form several strands – three examples being Put It In Writing, On Site (featuring Ray Gosling) and It’s Trueman (Brian Trueman in search of miscellany) – all of which quickly registered with the viewers. The fact was that there was so much talent in Scene that it was sometimes difficult to contain it.

There was a feeling that Granada were still trying to recapture the glory days of Scene at 6.30 in the early seventies, featuring specially shot features (I remember seeing the Flirtations perform Give Me Love on a clip shown on Newsday or Newsview in 1971). Eventually the format became one of the longest-running magazine and news programmes, Granada Reports which started on 1 October 1973.

Scene at 6.30 set a high standard in the sixties, and the team who worked on it became well-known to the viewers, and eventually a wider audience.



Michael Apted became a film producer in Hollywood, and is still highly regarded for the Up series of documentaries; Brian Trueman not only was an actor (he was in BBC radio’s The Clitheroe Kid) but wrote many children’s programmes such as Cockleshell Bay and many books; Michael Parkinson, after a time at LWT, established himself as THE chat-show host; Chris Kelly presented Junior Criss-Cross Quiz, Clapperboard and Food and Drink for the BBC; Gay Byrne went back to Ireland and RTÉ to present the long-running The Late Late Show.

Johnnie Hamp went on producing music and entertainment programmes, notably The Comedians and The Wheeltappers And Shunters Social Club, and left Granada in 1987 to form his own production company. He is now retired.

In terms of drama, Philip Casson produced or was involved in many productions from EastEnders to The Man in Room 17. Peter Eckersley was involved in production, then became Head Of Drama, commissioning Victoria Wood to write a play for Granada.

Leslie Woodhead became involved with World in Action, and is still working at 83, as a director/producer on documentaries and Hollywood films.

Bill Grundy continued in presentation and journalism of all shades, such as Afternoon Edition, A House For The Future and Thames TV’s Today – he is remembered more for the December 1976 encounter with the Sex Pistols, which led to his sacking, and a low-key career in the media until his early death in 1993.

David Plowright was Controller of Programmes 1969-1979, and then managing director and later chairman of Granada TV from 1987. Always a staunch supporter of Granada’s programming, quality and integrity, in 1992 he came up against the new Chairman of the Granada Group, Gerry Robinson who forced him out. He passed away in 2006.

In 1979, Plowright was succeeded as Programme Controller by Michael Scott. His career took him from presenting Cinema, The Nuts and Bolts of the Economy and many discussion programmes. In 1987 he returned to presenting with The Time The Place, and was warm, witty and incisive as ever. A character with many fine talents, he passed away in 2006.

Granada in the nineteen-sixties was an exciting place to be for those working there, but the face of the television channel to its public was friendly, warm, informative and Northern… all qualities that apply to every programme, but especially to Scene at 6.30.

The post Seen at 6.30 appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

]]> https://granadatv.network/seen-at-6-30/feed/ 0 https://granadatv.network/granada-tv-chelsea/ https://granadatv.network/granada-tv-chelsea/#respond Wed, 24 Apr 2024 12:36:53 +0000 https://granadatv.network/?p=1639 Practical Television in 1958 looks at Granada's branch studio in London

The post Granada TV Chelsea appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

]]> SOME INTERESTING DETAILS OF THE CONVERSION OF THE OLD CHELSEA PALACE MUSIC HALL, NOW USED BY THE GRANADA ORGANISATION



When it was announced a couple of years ago that Sydney Bernstein’s Granada group of entertainment enterprises were venturing into television, it was expected that something original, bold and adventurous would develop – in premises as well as in programmes. It did. The Granada Television Centre in Manchester quickly arose and has turned out to be one of the best-planned television headquarters in Britain. Its design allowed for extensions and additions to stage space to be made as required, without destroying the balance of the original compact layout. Long-term planning was preferred to improvisation and expedients. The extensions are, in fact, already in hand.

Policy Change?



Surprise was, therefore, my first reaction to the news that Granada was going to turn the old Chelsea Palace music hall into a television theatre. First, it seemed to be a deviation from Granada’s original policy of centralisation, and, secondly, it seemed to be following the paths of the BBC and the other I.T.A. programme contractors, which have occupied and converted quite a number of London and provincial theatres. True, Granada had used the Chelsea Palace and other theatres for occasional outside broadcasts – but now they were converting it for television use exclusively.

The Old Music Hall

Chelsea Palace was one of the London Syndicate music halls, built about fifty years ago and “booked” in conjunction with Brixton Empress (now a Granada cinema), Walthamstow Palace (closed, but in very good condition), Metropolitan Theatre, Edgware Road (still going strongly), Tottenham Palace (now a cinema) and Watford Palace (now running rep.). All of these halls, excepting Watford, now belong to the Granada organisation, which runs an important cinema circuit, a few West End and other theatres, promotes films and live plays and is interested in almost every branch of the entertainment business. The “Stage” year book for 1912 informs us that the Chelsea Palace “bars” Battersea Palace; Grand, Clapham; Granville, Walham Green and Empire. Shepherd’s Bush. That means that artistes booked at Chelsea Palace were not permitted to accept “dates” at the other named theatres within a certain period of time before or after appearing at Chelsea. So far as the Granville, Walham Green – now owned by Rediffusion and closed at the moment – and Shepherd’s Bush Empire (now belonging to the BBC) are concerned, we should not be surprised if the tradition of the barring clause for star acts was not reintroduced.



Stars

Big star names have been a feature of the shows so far put out from the Granada Theatre, Chelsea – particularly in “Chelsea at Nine” – and there is no doubt that this London outpost of the Manchester television organisation has been set up mainly to enable London and international stars to be used without having to take them up to Manchester.

Auditorium

Many years ago I had visited the Chelsea Palace and remembered its auditorium and stage facilities. It was a well-appointed music hall with a good frontage on Kings Road, Chelsea, and a seating capacity of 1,624 persons. I expected to see many changes when I took my seat for one of the television shows. The audience is now restricted to circle and gallery, which accommodate 669. From the circle there is an excellent view of the enlarged stage, which has been made level and extended over the old orchestra pit and the first few rows of stalls. The old stage area of 2,373 sq. ft. has thus been increased by an apron stage in front of the proscenium of 870 sq. ft. for camera tracking, the total stage area now being 3,193 sq. ft. Several large television monitor sets and a number of small loudspeakers are strategically placed in various parts of the auditorium, so that everyone can see and hear what is being transmitted, including the commercials during the breaks in the programme.

Stage Lighting

Major changes have taken place behind the footlights (which no longer exist) and on the ground floor. The old pit bar is now a maintenance workshop, the carpenters and paint shops are below the stage and the old band room has been turned into a dressing room. The old gallery bar is now a wardrobe. The lighting arrangements have been extenively changed. As a music hall, the total lighting load was 50 kVA. This has now been increased to 150 kVA, with 20 kW available in direct current for arcs. That famous old museum piece the liquid dimmer pot switchboard has been superseded by a Strand Grandmaster switchboard and a modern saturable reactor dimmer board. This gives a total of 60 dimmable circuits so arranged that lighting plots may be pre-set and brought up as required. The lights used are almost wholly Mole Richardson incandescent units, both spots and floods.

Television Equipment

Pye 3in. Image Orthicon cameras are used, three being operational and one spare, with a fifth retained for maintenance rota. Houston pedestal camera dollies and a camera crane are used. Sound channels are by Pye, with an assortment of different types of moving coil and ribbon microphones of various makes. There is no telecine or slide equipment. A high quality cable route is utilised (not coaxial) to the Museum Telephone Exchange for connecting vision, sound and control circuits with Granada’s Manchester headquarters and also the ].T.A. network.



The Television Staff at Chelsea

There is now a permanent staff of over 70 at the Granada, Chelsea, and the production departments have spilled over into eight additional offices at No. 5 Chelsea Manor Street, close by. The engineering staff includes Mr. T. A. H. Marshall (engineer-in-charge). Mr. R. Cumner (supervisory engineer). Mr. M. Roberts (senior sound engineer) and Mr. J. Racket (senior vision engineer). The house manager is Mr. D. Williams and a frequent visitor is Mr Simon Kershaw, the general manager of the Manchester headquarters of Granada, and Mr. R. Hammans, chief engineer of Granada Television Network. As is usual with every Granada establishment, it has the very personal attention of Mr. Sydney Bernstein, whose interest in the smallest details of organisation, presentation and facilities is famous. I suspect that the smart grey-shirted “uniforms” of the camera and floor crews are his inspiration, just as impressive in their way as the immaculate appearance of the front-of-the-house staff and the spick-and-span brightness of paint, plaster and brass of the traditional variety theatre decor.

The Conversion

Chelsea Palace was converted from a music hall into a permanent television theatre in little more than three weeks. Work still goes on with modifications and improvements, but so do daily rehearsals and frequent transmissions. The nine dressing rooms have never been occupied by so many top-line star names before. Life is hectic for the production staff and technicians. Granada producers prefer to have a variety of small sets in their programmes rather than one large permanent set-piece for each show. Consequently, the audience in the circle can watch set-pieces, large and small, silently wheeled on and off during action, with cameras pointing in various directions, property men moving furniture or operating smoke effects, heavenly choirs chanting in one corner while a skiffle group gets ready in another. It all looks quite crazy, but it winds its way to the television screen with extraordinary smoothness. The audience leave the theatre with their heads in a whirl and sticks of peppermint rock in their hands, presented to them by genial Granada commissionaires. This was just another bright idea of Master Showman Bernstein – the name printed inside the rock was GRANADA.



Costs

The cost of running an isolated single-stage television theatre must be quite high. My guess is that the local overheads of staff salaries, heat, light, insurance, etc., of theatres like the Chelsea Palace must be around £1,000. Add to this the costs of individual shows, scripts, actors, scenery, wardrobe and music and you can very quickly run up a bill of several thousands for a one-hour programme. If the output is one big show per week, then the financial returns from the commercials or from networking the show to other I.T.A. contractors must be correspondingly enormous. Of course, other programmes of less ambitious character might be worked into each week’s schedule, but it is important that these do not encroach on the rehearsal times of the big show. This, therefore, is a measure of Sydney Bernstein’s confidence in the future of commercial television. He entered the fray with his Granada Television Network at a time when the future seemed to be highly speculative. Now the tide has turned, and backed with the high rating audience figures for the Lancashire and Yorkshire areas, he can plan even bigger and better shows from the Granada Television Centre, Manchester, and also from the London branch studio at Chelsea. Programme policy is to draw on as wide a range of entertainment as possible for the enjoyment of viewers.

A typical early programme from Chelsea included Menuhin, Charles Laughton, Zsa Zsa Gabor, a skiffle group, Edgar Bergen, and Charles Macarthy, choristers, chorus and ballet. This is certainly a wide range of artistes of top-line star quality. What home viewer could grumble at such prodigality? There will be grumblers, of course – probably those viewers who think that they, too, should have some Granada Peppermint Rock sent to them by post!

The post Granada TV Chelsea appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

]]> https://granadatv.network/granada-tv-chelsea/feed/ 0 https://granadatv.network/and-the-scene-is-all-set-at-granada/ https://granadatv.network/and-the-scene-is-all-set-at-granada/#respond Wed, 24 Apr 2024 12:19:00 +0000 https://granadatv.network/?p=1627 Mike Scott celebrates 7 years of Granada in 1963 and the launch of Scene at 6.30

The post And the SCENE is all set at Granada appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

]]>


ON TO NORTHERN ITV’S EIGHTH YEAR

This weekend Northern ITV enters its eighth year. On May 3, 1956, Granada first came on the air, followed two days later by ABC. The number of viewers then was 750,000. Now the regional audience for Northern ITV programmes is 10,655,000. But topping the 10 million was only one of many ITV highlights in the past 12 months. It has been a year of continual progress, especially in programmes appealing specifically to regional tastes and interests. And there are plenty more planned for the year ahead. On this page Granada and ABC programme personalities discuss some of them, and apart from the programmes they specifically mention, many more are on the way.

Following the success of Saki, Granada are lining up a new drama series on plays that delighted Victorian theatre-goers, as well as dramatisations of Guy de Maupassant stories.The team that was responsible for The Army Game and Bootsie and Snudge will be trying out promising new comedy ideas this summer.

Also under way is a new series of religious programmes about The Journeys of St. Paul, with camera teams filming on-the-spot material in Jordan, Greece, and Cyprus.

 

 

 





The latest Granada show, Scene at 6.30, which is 2½ hours a week long, has successfully passed the dangerous early days. Now the infant is strong enough to bear some examination of its pedigree. It is a pedigree which stretches back seven years to Granada’s first days as a television station and my first assignment as a floor manager for them.

In 1956 Granada plunged into the North with, I would guess, the heaviest outside broadcast plans ever. Lifeboats at Fleetwood, docks at Liverpool, a Salvation Army hostel in Manchester, cheese in Cheshire, Guy Fawkes night in York — the Travelling Eye units hardly stopped for the whole year.

While they were working, a new type of current affairs programme was evolving in the studios. It was criticised as brash and vulgar, the studio audiences who asked the questions condemned as uncivilised. Members of Parliament who were asked to take part found a hard fight on their hands. Under Fire was on the map.

Granada’s coverage of the Rochdale by-election in February, 1958, established a new involvement of television in politics that later developed into our coverage of the last general election.

The first live TV reports of a Party Conference came from Granada. Our cameras entered the Labour Party’s conference hall at Scarborough in 1960 to record Hugh Gaitskell’s famous “Fight, Fight and Fight Again” speech. This led to the first live coverage of Party Conferences and the TUC — again by Granada.

The Ringway air crash in 1957 posed a question of television ethics. It was possible for a Travelling Eye team to get to Ringway quickly and give us live television coverage of a tragedy that would normally have been reported for us on film.

The unit went out and in a remarkably short time we were transmitting to the network pictures of the Viscount airliner that had swung off course in the last moments before landing and slashed part of a terrace of council houses into obliteration.

The pictures spoke for themselves, our talk at the scene was muted. It was a depressing job to work on and at the time I wondered if we were right to do it.



On a practical level, I was afraid that our bulky equipment might obstruct the rescue workers. On this point I was immediately proved wrong; in fact, our television lights were an aid to the rescue operation.

And, on reflection, I think we were right in principle to do it.

There have been other examples of this kind of news story. The most recent was the hurricane that swung into Sheffield at four o’clock on the morning of February 16, 1962.

It left a trail of roofless, shattered buildings and as the first reports came in, our Travelling Eye unit, by now refined into a highly mobile and compact set-up, left for the scene. By late afternoon live TV pictures from Sheffield were on the air.

The Northern face Granada has shown to the national network has not just been one of politics and news. It wasn’t our political programmes that made actors frantically try to re discover the Northern accents their drama school teachers had so carefully ironed out.

On the crest of a wave of novels about the North and films about the North came a television serial about the North. I doubt if Tony Warren, the original creator of Coronation Street, realised the full significance of the moment when he put the first sheet of paper in his typewriter.



He started a serial that rose steadily through the ratings to a consistently dominating first and second position. A programme that made people experts about the North who previously had known only that “it always rains in Manchester.” A programme that even managed to combine great popular success with unheard-of praise from some of the egg-head weeklies. A success indeed!

Now we have Scene at 6.30 – which we hope embodies all the best from what has gone before. A magazine programme for the North and of the North. But not simply about the North. We make gracious acknowledgment that there is another large city in the South of England by having a studio there.

The Scene at 6.30 London studio exists because it is foolish not to recognise that many of the people we want to talk to are for one reason or another in London. If they haven’t the time to come up here, then we. in the interests of good coverage, must go there.

But if you know Scene at 6.30 you know that the London end is dominated, not dominating. Our cameras travel farther and farther across the Granada region. If there were places that had not been visited by a Granada unit before Scene came along, their number diminishes every day. In fact, we’re beginning to hear complaints that we’re never in Manchester!

Pop artists presented in an original way, news and interest stories from the North, subjects national and international that affect the North.

I suppose the next Scene at 6.30 milestone will be when one of our camera units goes abroad to cover a story. Why not?

The post And the SCENE is all set at Granada appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

]]> https://granadatv.network/and-the-scene-is-all-set-at-granada/feed/ 0 https://granadatv.network/granada-tv-chief-on-production-problems/ https://granadatv.network/granada-tv-chief-on-production-problems/#respond Tue, 16 Apr 2024 13:27:48 +0000 https://granadatv.network/?p=1605 A Granada man addresses the Heywood Round Table in 1966

The post Granada TV chief on production problems appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

]]>

MR PETER CUFF, production manager of Granada Television, outlined some of the problems of producing a television programme when he addressed last week’s meeting of Heywood Round Table.

He began by stressing the fact that in his job he saw none of the “glamour” of television but was concerned for the most part with paper work and preparation for programmes shown six months later. Programmes were usually made in groups of 13 and each television company agreed to change their programmes at approximately the same time. The second changeover of the year was taking place at about this time.

Mr Cuff explained that the independent television companies could not survive if they did not buy programmes from one another and the four major independent companies, Granada, ATV, Rediffusion and ABC, produced only about a quarter of their own material.

He passed round documents showing floor plans and rosters to give the members an idea of the second-by-second schedule to which a programme had to work. He said the programmes were planned six months in advance and producers had to be engaged and budgets drawn up before rehearsals took place.

Videotape was a great asset to television companies as whole programmes could be bought and stored without the complicated procedure that had to be completed when a company produced its own programmes. Granada Television alone had 19 tons of videotape in store.

TAM ratings

The speaker then turned his attention to TAM (Television Audience Measurement) ratings. Granada’s system was to place a small device in a certain number of television sets each week and at the end of any week they could study these devices to discover which programmes had been seen.

To illustrate the huge number of people watching television on any evening. Mr Cuff said that when the BBC and ITV had two popular programmes showing at the same time, power stations and waterworks authorities up and down the country had to be informed. The reason for this, he explained, was that when a programme finished millions of households turned on extra lights and made cups of tea!

The speaker was thanked at the close by Mr David Wilkinson.

Transdiffusion says…

Russ J Graham writes: A charming article from a small newspaper, showing the PR job that television companies were willing to do even to the point of talking to a small group of local residents.

We’ve previously discussed how the Independent Television Authority and the ITV companies had a fear that ITV looked too complicated, with 15 companies dropping in and out of a network – a procedure that ITV viewers actually seemed to take in their stride.

Mr Cuff has gone into more detail on how this works, seemingly aware that the ITV viewers in his audience knew what networking was, but assuming, correctly, that they didn’t realise that money changed hands as part of the process. He’s also right to tell people that programmes are often made 6 months in advance of their debut, something that people even nowadays often don’t understand.

The TAM figures show us just how dominant ITV, in the midst of its golden age, was against BBC-1. Auntie scrapes in 2 entries in the national top 20, for Comedy Playhouse (The Mallard Imaginaire, which became the short-lived and now wiped sitcom The Whitehall Worrier) and This is Petula Clark, tying for 17th place with This Week from Rediffusion.

In the Westward, Granada/ABC, TWW, Southern, Tyne Tees, Grampian, Border, Ulster and ATV/ABC regions, the BBC doesn’t make the top 10 – Pet Clark squeezing in at joint 9th in the STV region and really hitting the mark with East Anglian viewers at 3rd place. The region also sees the BBC trouncing Anglia for 5th (Comedy Playhouse) and joint 7th (the cricket, Adam Adamant Lives! and Not Only… But Also).



The post Granada TV chief on production problems appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

]]> https://granadatv.network/granada-tv-chief-on-production-problems/feed/ 0 https://granadatv.network/granada-goes-to-rochdale/ https://granadatv.network/granada-goes-to-rochdale/#respond Tue, 16 Apr 2024 13:09:54 +0000 https://granadatv.network/?p=1594 How a by-election in Lancashire made all elections TV elections

The post Granada goes to Rochdale appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

]]>

From the early rumblings that a general election could be imminent to the climax of all the gee-whizzery of 21st century computer graphics, (although we’re not as ‘gee-whizzed’ as we once were), the screen on the wall or on the TV unit – and now our many mobile devices – bombards us ad nauseum with the twists and turns, the scandals and the stories and the general hullabaloo of the event. Each general election attracts even more coverage, reporters scrambling over each other, shouting, “What have you got to say about ‘X’ (add your own question), Prime Minister?” But it was not always like this. To the viewer of 1958, that was alien country.

Let me take you back, Tardis-like, to that year. Coordinates set, we materialise into a dull, wet Lancashire evening in the mill town of Rochdale in the north west of England. It’s Wednesday, 12 February and the last few voters turn up at the polling stations at the by-election for the parliamentary seat of Rochdale that has unexpectedly been made vacant following the death of Lt.-Col Wentworth Schofield, the last Conservative MP to date that Rochdale has ever had.

The election officials check their watches to the second and doors are firmly slammed shut and locked at 10.00pm precisely and the polling staff begin their journey to the count with their battered black metal ballot boxes secured with padlocks, white cotton tape and red sealing wax to protect their valuable contents. The count is taking place at the grim, Gothic-revival styled (and now Grade I Listed) Town Hall, built in 1886 and blackened by years of smoke from factories, cotton mills and coal-fired house-chimneys, although 2023, years ahead, will see it sitting on a pleasant esplanade after much renovation, a clean-up, tour guides and (naturally) virtual tours bookable ‘online’ – a phrase yet to be coined.

Rochdale’s claim to fame is that it’s the birthplace of Gracie Fields, the actress, singer and ENSA entertainer. She was born over her grandmother’s fish and chip shop in Molesworth Street, although by now she had already made her home on the island of Capri, no longer a British citizen having given that up for love when she married Italian director Monty Banks. The town is also where the modern Co-operative Movement was born in 1844 – originally the Rochdale Equitable Pioneers Society – (thank them for your ‘divi’). The Society was to be a worldwide concept and became the largest consumer in the world known now as the ‘Co-operative Group’.



Additionally, the parliamentary constituency of Rochdale was later held for two decades by the larger than life but posthumously-disgraced Liberal, Cyril Smith, but that is a whole separate story and one that is unconnected to to this piece.

But a further claim to fame and one to which this piece is dedicated (although one that is now perhaps forgotten by most except the most hardy psephologists and TV historians) is that it made history by becoming the first town in Britain whose by-election was formally covered by television. The company that arguably forged the way for all election coverage that followed was Granada TV Network, the contractor appointed by the Independent Television Authority for weekdays in the north of England.

Granada was barely 20 months old but already its roots in flagship journalism and current affairs that culminated in the birth of World in Action in 1963 were being firmly established as a benchmark in television reportage. It was under this mindset that the decision was made by Granada executives in mid-January to cover the by-election. There was no time to lose.

To its credit, the BBC had covered general election results in the early 1950s (‘50, ‘51 and ‘55) with continually improved presentation and graphics (often painted on boards by white-coated artists whose skills and pace must have been tested considerably). The BBC’s coverage, nevertheless, was not so much the path towards the elections, but more the aftermath and results after polling station doors were locked.



Associated-Rediffusion and Associated TeleVision, the first ITV contractors in London on weekdays and weekends, weren’t on air until September 1955, so missed the May 1955 general election by four months. Granada Television followed with its opening night on 3 May 1956. The next general election was October 1959, so ‘Rochdale’ in February 1958 was an unexpected gift to Granada, albeit one that arose from the demise of a sitting MP.

But how to achieve this in such a short time? How would television affect the poll, the turnout, the reaction of the candidates? It must surely be fair to all, but the regulations surrounding covering an election process by television, whilst already in place, the ink was barely dry. The Television Act of 1954 however demanded that any news given in ‘programmes (in whatever form) [are] presented with due accuracy and impartiality and that… due impartiality is preserved on the part of the persons providing the programmes as respects matters of political or industrial controversy or relating to current public policy’.

On 22 January talks were instigated by Granada with local party agents and provisional plans were drawn up. It was decided that there would be five broadcasts covering the lead-up to election day and of the count itself at the Town Hall and of course, the declaration of the result.

Two weeks before polling day therefore, the first programme – 30 minutes in length – would be aired, with all three candidates – Jack McCann (Labour), John E Parkinson (Conservative) and Ludovic Kennedy (Liberal, and also one of the original ITN newscasters), being ‘grilled’ by a chairman in the shape of Irish-born journalist Brian Inglis of The Spectator and later Granada’s All Our Yesterdays and What the Papers Say. The first programme would also include film inserts about Rochdale and various elector-in-the-street ‘vox pops’.

Programme number two was planned to air one week before polling day – again for half an hour and this was to be a public meeting with the candidates. A fifteen-minute programme would be broadcast just two days before polling day which would be a press conference with the chance for local newspapermen to ask questions and the national press would be catered for in a fourth programme. The fifth and final airing would cover the count and subsequent declaration at the Town Hall.



There followed a great interest in Granada’s Rochdale plans, even though the ITA had yet to add its blessing to the venture, however unlikely it would interfere, other than to tweak and consolidate the contractor’s intended coverage. The News Chronicle, since absorbed into the Daily Mail, having picked up the story, heralded the headline ‘Rochdale may be the first TV election’, even though the programmes would be unlikely to be seen by viewers outside of Granada’s area. The BBC seemed neither bothered or impressed and said it ‘did not intend to depart from our usual practice in by-elections that we do not influence voters nor report the campaigns in news bulletins’. However, research shows that the BBC did in fact interview many voters, although full scale coverage it was not. It is likely that they had second thoughts when Granada’s intentions were made public.

So with the local political parties in general agreement, the ITA when told of the plans felt that the arrangements were in line with ITA policy and Sir Robert Fraser, Australian-born Director General of the Authority since it was created four years previously, said the ITA would support Granada in its plans and that ‘Rochdale’ might be ‘useful as a pilot for bigger things’. Upon agreement, the ITA informed the Government Whip’s Office of Granada’s intentions.

So far, so good – but almost immediately the question of the allocation of time to each party candidate came up, with the Conservative and Labour party agents maintaining that, as they were the major parties, they should have a greater share of screen time. Granada executives however, told them that for the 15-minute programmes with the local and national press present, there would be no rigid checks on time but the chairman would ensure that the time was equally divided. The share of time for the half-hour shows though, was to be discussed with the ITA. The Conservative and Labour agents accepted the proposals but the Liberal agent, understandably, was not as happy. However, a 2:2:1 ratio in the half hour programmes was eventually agreed.



By 24 January, it was starting to sink in with party heads in London that Granada’s operations were now actively in hand – and there began some heated exchanges between them and the Granada executives. Morgan Phillips, Labour Party General Secretary, was less than happy that Granada hadn’t consulted party HQ in London first, rather than just the local party offices in Rochdale. It was Granada’s view that local associations should have been left to consult their own head offices for any advice or instructions, and was no business of theirs. Phillips, somewhat contrarily, asked Granada whether they had ‘studied the legal aspects’ of election law in programmes to which the reply was that the ITA saw no legal barriers whatsoever in the plans.

On Monday 27 January the first programme was to go ahead but at the eleventh hour, the local Conservative Association in Rochdale pulled out as it was unable to get the final green flag from London, even though the local Labour and Liberal parties and their London HQs were in agreement with Granada’s plans. Programme One was postponed.

The next day, there followed much to-ing and fro-ing. The political correspondent of The Times had cast doubts on Granada’s impartiality – citing Granada founder Sidney Bernstein’s Labour Party membership and Granada’s left-wing leanings as good enough evidence of bias in favour of Labour. ‘Election Television in Doubt’ ran its headline. The Conservative and Labour parties were still cautious and were taking legal advice, being anxious not to contravene the 1949 Representation of the People Act and the Television Act of 1954. Having been originally suspicious, the Liberal Party under Jo Grimond embraced the whole Granada project, although they preferred equal time for all. Further, the ITA, having supported Granada’s plans, felt there was no danger of any infringement of the 1949 Act and was frankly puzzled by any suggestion that there would have been. It rightly believed that the programmes were not designed to promote any one candidate – expressly forbidden by the Act – but that the programmes would consist of fair and balanced treatment for all three candidates.



Two days later on 28 January, Granada was advised by Sir Robert Frazer that, finally, all three candidates were happy to go ahead although the Macmillan Conservative government was still in consultation with the Law Officers to ensure the Representation of the People Act would not be in any way infringed.



The newspapers by now were naturally on the case, and we have already seen that The Times wasn’t fully keen on the ‘television election’. The Telegraph indicated that Granada was being permitted to pick and choose as to what by-elections it wanted to cover. The Daily Mirror in its editorial shouted, ‘Set TV Free and Let the People See’. It said the government had been thrown into a state of ‘ludicrous dither by ITV’s bright idea’. The Express noted that Conservative Central Office had sent one of its ‘TV experts’ to groom its candidate Mr Parkinson ‘for possible stardom’. You have to wonder I suppose what her advice was… maybe, (and here I muse), no dandruff on the collar? check one’s trouser buttons always? Or, (dare I suggest), never answer a question with an answer? The Express’s George Gale further said in a ‘gay, knock-about piece’ (as my 1961 source calls it), quoting the Conservative candidate Joe Parkinson that ‘all along’ he had ‘wanted to go on with this television’ [the first programme] but was ‘stopped by a ruling from London’. The Manchester Guardian supported Granada fully: ‘Granada has put forward an excellent plan for broadcasting the Rochdale by-election… There is no unfairness in it, no bias and no risk of corruption’.

Everybody had their say. Lord Hailsham, Chairman of the Conservative Party, said the issue was of great importance and that it should be confronted by all parties at national level, the BBC and ITA. The dithering over the allotted time also continued and eventually, the 2:2:1 ratio was abandoned in favour of equal time for all. The Liberals naturally supported the decision, the Labour Party seemed happy, the Conservatives non-committal.

Whilst it was agreed by the Law Officers that there would be no contravention of the Representation of the People Act, the Television Act of 1954 posed something of a problem. It permitted ‘Party Political Broadcasts’, shared out meticulously between the parties and ‘properly balanced debates and discussions’ but there was no freedom for such pieces as interviews with voters as they could not be counted as ‘properly balanced debates’ – and Granada’s plans already were to go out on the streets of Rochdale for voters’ opinions. Similarly, a press conference where only members of the press could ask questions did not fall under the remit of the Act.



More followed, and after adjustments to the planned programmes (that were in reality quite minor), and revised plans were sent to the three parties, it finally looked as the show was on the road. A week before polling day, even though the date of the first programme still hadn’t been fixed, the Granada entourage trundled its way to Rochdale.

On Sunday 2 February, technicians descended on the Town Hall, the Gothic building from which all the programmes would be broadcast. This was going to be an OB like no other for Granada. The council chamber itself was transformed into what was effectively a TV studio. The lights were hauled up, the cables, cameras and monitors were set up and the staff kitchen became a running buffet. But not only Granada personnel were present. This had attracted reporters and television men and women from all corners of the United kingdom, from France, Sweden – and even a film crew from CBS in America – arrived to film parts of the programmes that Granada was to air.



The production team went ahead with some filming after it met at Rochdale’s Wellington Hotel for lunch. There was a producer and director from Manchester, another producer, interviewer and and assistants had flown in from London and the camera crew for the filmed vox pops, were mainly from Independent Television News who drove across from Snowdonia after their last assignment. Lunch over, the team headed out into the cold Rochdale air, filming the back streets, yet to be depicted in ‘Florizel Street’ and also the shopping centre and post-war housing estates. The fire brigade agreed to provide a 120-foot turntable ladder to get pictures of the Town Hall and even the traffic stopped.



The sound camera for street interviews was set up and Manchester-born Bill Grundy, (later of Thames Television’s Today but well known to Granada viewers from People and Places, Scene at 6.30, Northern Newscast, and Granada in The North) ventured out along with Canadian broadcaster Elaine Grand, now with Granada but who remained an occasional contributor to CBC of her birth country. As with Grundy, Grand also became the presenter of a Thames show Afternoon Plus and was a trailblazer for women and daytime television in the UK.

A diverse cross-section of Rochdale’s residents were caught on the camera. From the mill workers to retired elderly ladies out for shopping, the bus conductor to the travelling salesman – all were interviewed. Some, like the old man, just ‘didn’t want to know’ and Bill would no doubt have been given short shrift from some of the more gritty, Rochdalian die-hards. Miss Grand, in her fur coat and with her Canadian lilt probably fared much better with the gentlemen…

The vox pop packages complete, the film was rushed off for processing.

All seemed ‘good to go’ – but then yet another spanner was thrown into the works before the Wednesday Programme One could be aired. This time, it was from the Liberal camp. Candidate Ludovic Kennedy felt that he had been given Granada’s revised plans ‘rather too late’ to fit into his campaign schedule. After discussions and probably some persuasion, Kennedy was 95% certain he would be available for the Wednesday show at least, but he wanted discussions with the other two candidates about the remaining programmes.



On the Tuesday (4 February) the candidates all met, together with their agents, to discuss the (now revised) planned schedule of programmes. After the meeting, the News Chronicle secured an interview with the parties and reported that Mr Parkinson the Conservative candidate was ‘prepared to do the lot’ – but said that the meeting was instigated by the Liberals. The Labour candidate Mr McCann was not happy about the proposed press conference with local newspaper men as he said that no-one had defined what the local press would be. Kennedy only wanted fairness to candidates and the electorate, but was reported as saying that TV was ‘extraneous to the election’.

In the end the candidates agreed that they would appear on the Wednesday show the following day. They then agreed to appear on the press conference based programme on the following Tuesday and following the close of the poll, they would support the televising of the count. The plans for five shows was whittled down to these three but Granada executives could do no more – if even one candidate pulled out of their plans, there could be no show at all.

Preparations continued at the Town Hall on 4 February in preparation for the first programme. Equipment was fired up in readiness to put Rochdale in contact with Manchester’s control studio and with the Winter Hill and Emley Moor ITA transmitters in Lancashire and Yorkshire respectively. With the benefit of hindsight, this was to become one of Granada’s finest moments. In fact, at an address to the Manchester University Liberal Society, the Joint Treasurer of the Liberal Party, Philip Fothergill, told delegates, ‘It [the TV election coverage] will do freedom-loving eggheads no harm to give credit where credit is due. In this case, we raise a cheer for Independent Television’.



All was set. After doubts from Labour party officials, Tory misgivings and dithering by the Liberal candidate, agreement finally ensued with the first programme less than 24 hours away. It’s hard to imagine in the 21st century media world the wranglings that took place in 1958 but new ground is never broken easily.

Granada employed a crew of thirty and there were six vehicles all parked up outside the Town Hall, cables draping through windows, snaking across the floors to the heavy, turret cameras on tripods and wheeled bogies. Booms and lights were set up and boards mounted on easels were readied for front and end-cap graphics and idents. On the night, the three candidates and their agents and producers made use of the Wellington Hotel (which by now must have been making a bob or two) for an early meal to discuss the shape of the programme but by 6.30, it was off to the Town Hall to face the cameras at seven sharp.



Brian Inglis, the ‘anchor man’ sat at a wooden table procured from the council chamber itself – the type that even now can be seen in some less progressive Town Halls. His notes and scribbles were laid out in front of him and the scene must have looked almost like a headmaster speaking to three boys who’d been called up before ‘the beak’ in true ‘Bunter’ style. A monitor was positioned to his left, out of shot and a microphone boom was above him and ready to swing round from Inglis to the three men who were sat opposite, ready for interrogation. Ashtrays on pedestals were positioned in front of the men, should any other them feel the need to smoke cigarettes. A camera behind Inglis pointed above his head at the candidates, its turret lenses ready to be switched to close ups or general views of the three contenders. Two more cameras were positioned back towards the oak-panelled walls and to the right of the candidates, one precariously on a tressle table and behind the cameras but looking on, were guest journalists, party chiefs, being told ‘please don’t talk’. This was an incredible stage, part Gothic, part evolutionary but one thing was absolutely certain. The politicians were taking to this likes ducks to water and the future was being sculpted right there in that dark, dank night in Rochdale.

A short test of sound and cameras was undertaken and with the party chiefs’ stop watches at the ready to ensure their ‘man’ was treated equally as promised. Indeed Brian Inglis said ‘We know that during the next half hour we shall be setting a precedent of importance. We shall do our utmost to give a fair, impartial and useful report’. Mr Inglis produced a paper bag to draw lots to determine the order of speaking and told the gentlemen, ‘Don’t look when you are doing so… Who’s number one?’



Programme One finally went on air. Probably only then did the candidates fully realise that whatever they said, whatever their answers to Inglis’s interrogations, could make or break their chances of success at the following week’s election. The electors of Rochdale, courtesy of their regional commercial television contractor could be swayed, or not, by what these three men uttered as they sat at home, in the working mens’ clubs or the smoke rooms of The Eagle, The Prince Albert or The Bull’s Head on the Oldham Road.

And before you could say, ‘put wood in th’ hole’, the just-less-than-30 minute show was over.

Ludovic Kennedy, the ‘professional’ of the three men seemed the least enthusiastic. It is possible that he felt his experience might have disadvantaged his two opponents. Conservative candidate John Parkinson said he loved every minute of it and called it ‘a tremendous experience’, although he admitted to some nerves waiting for the show to go on air. He also said that the hand-signalling showing he had fifteen seconds to go of his allotted time was his main problem, being aware neither to ‘over shoot’ or waste a few valuable seconds. Jack McCann also enjoyed the TV experience but earnestly hoped that the personal touch would never be lost in politics.

But what of the people of Rochdale? What was their verdict? It was reported that they thought the candidates – particularly their favourite ‘came across well’. They generally did not however, approve of the filmed inserts of street interviews, pre-introduced by the more ‘seamier’ scenes of ‘ginnels’ and back-to-backs, with references to clogs, shawls and cobbles which did not go down too well with some viewers. It is said that one elderly gent, in a bar containing half of Fleet Street and Granada people after the show, gathered people around him to give his views. Clutching his pint, he seethed, ‘not cobbles, SETTS!’



The next day, February 6th, the papers were full of it. ‘Millions see TV make poll history’ ran the Mirror. ‘Candidates on television – Rochdale sets precedent’ said The Times. ‘Rochdale politics takes to TV’ read the Manchester Guardian, but its TV critic reported on page 2 that ‘Granada’s precedent proves cold politics’. The Daily Herald sighed, ‘TV election was oh, so dull!’ but then it added, – ‘till Jack [McCann] came’, referring to the Labour candidate.

The candidates themselves aired their own views of Programme One in a Mirror piece: ‘In a programme like this, everyone starts off equally’ said Ludovic Kennedy. Jack McCann said he was ‘frightened to death at the start, but afterwards, I was so busy thinking what to say, I did not worry’. John Parkinson less dramatically said, ‘Once I got going, I forgot the cameras.’

The Mirror talked also to the Rochdale people: ‘The best thing is that you can listen to what a man has to say without his speech being drowned by hecklers’; ‘It’s just the sort of thing that makes people who don’t normally bother about politics really think’. A man named Walter Jackson said, ‘My mind is made up and no television programme of any kind could alter my views’. The News Chronicle, in a piece penned by David Willis who spoke to a Rochdale woman, reported that she said in true Lancashire style, ‘Well, it’s a lot better than opening the door on a dark night and talking to a shadow’.

Other newspaper reports generally praised Granada – ‘It [Programme One] was a privilege no other area of the land has yet enjoyed’… ‘Political history flashed on to a million northern TV screens tonight’. Roland Hurman, under the dateline, ‘The Fireside Front, Rochdale, Wednesday’ said that McCann ‘appeared in control’… of Parkinson, that he ‘looked as if he was enjoying it.’ and of Kennedy, ‘Newscasting is a very different proposition from being under fire, but Kennedy showed that he is learning his political craft fast’. The Daily Sketch wondered whether ‘this is a monster which should be put back in the bottle’. And George Gale for the Express who was in a pub during the broadcast quoted one old Rochdalian, contemplating the arguments about the H-Bomb, who said, ‘Well, you must have a detergent, even if we don’t use it!’

By Sunday 9 February plans for Programme Two on the eve of the poll went ahead and the press was still reporting the Programme One broadcast with differing views. Under the headline ‘What is Duller than Politics?’, Maurice Wiggin of the Sunday Times said that the ‘first by-election broadcast… was a feeble anti-climax’. He went on to say that it might have had some local interest to northerners but that southerners should ‘not feel deprived’. The Observer’s Maurice Richardson however said it made ‘lively television’ and that all candidates are advised to brush up on their television techniques or the electorate may vote with their bedroom slippers. For the Sunday Pictorial, curmudgeon Malcolm Muggeridge called television ‘A soapbox with knobs on’. But somewhat prophetically added that he foresaw the hustings in future invading the screen in a very big way, ending with, ‘In the end, who knows? Parliament itself may be televised’.



The Neilsen Television Index (pre-JICTAR and BARB) published that after the first programme, 42% of the possible audience (i.e. homes with two channels) watched the first fifteen minutes of the programme with 40% remaining to watch the second fifteen minutes. To summarise the findings, it said that the number of homes which actually tuned in to the show was about 680,000. Most did not switch off or were bored enough to ‘switch over’ to Tonight on BBC Television. It also reported that percentage-wise, the show was quite successful in that its ratings were higher than for Under Fire, Youth Wants to Know and What The Papers Say.

By Tuesday 11 February preparation was in hand for the Programme Two eve-of-poll programme and for the second time, the paraphernalia of television was rolled out within the venerable oak-panelled room of the council chamber at the Town Hall. This was to be the press conference-designed show and whilst there seemed to be a marked lack of enthusiasm by some of the newspapermen, Norman Shrapnel writing afterwards, felt that ‘The prospect of three orthodox would-be politicians – right, left and centre – having stock cross-bench questions shot at them by three newspapermen – left, centre and right – was not easily going to fire our hearts or stir our political consciences’. He followed up however by saying that in fact, the ‘biggest eve-of-poll meeting ever held’ turned out to be quite exciting television and it was not only the candidates who thought so.

The three lucky press men were Gerald Fay from the Manchester Guardian, Frank Machin of the Daily Herald and Roland Hurman of the Daily Mail. Before the show went on air, all were jokey as cigarettes were smoked by the three candidates and there was a fear that this might be turning into an ‘old pals act’ after all the legal wrangling of the last week or so but nothing was further than the truth. Programme Two was indeed going to be very different from the first show, with Brian Inglis at times almost having to call order. (‘I’m here to see fair play’).

Waiting for the deadline to air, Mr McCann smoothed his hair, taking a moment out from scribbling notes. Mr Kennedy, used to an on-air presence from his ITN experience, was unruffled by the make up girl dabbing his cheeks and brow. Norman Shrapnel, reporting on the events said McCann was ‘technically fascinated’ and Mr Parkinson seemed ‘coy’. A short rehearsal to check everything was in place and one impatient American press man with others behind the cameras shouted, ‘When does the shooting start?’



The show got under way and the ‘old pals act’ suddenly ceased under the watchful eye of Inglis. One wonders now could anyone of the time been a better referee. But Inglis was a professional and whilst he had no red or yellow cards in his shirt pocket, calm demeanour and professionalism were his craft.

Hotly debated were subjects such as the abolition of the death penalty and whether it really did act as a deterrent for murder. The Rent Act and the cotton industry – all important issues of the time – came under scrutiny and at times, there was furious sparring amongst the candidates and extracts from ‘the tape recording’ clearly show this:

Parkinson: ‘As far as insanity is proved, well that is a different matter entirely. But I want to see the death penalty revert back to its previous system. I want to divorce this from a political issue’.
McCann: ‘Oh no’.
Parkinson: ‘Of course I want to divorce this from a political issue. It’s a conscience matter’.

[There followed more argument – and no-one could hear what was said]

Kennedy [to Parkinson]: There’s one question I want to ask you. What evidence have you got that the death penalty is a deterrent more than imprisonment?’
Parkinson: ‘Well, of course, look at the increases in the…’
Kennedy: ‘What evidence have you got?’
Parkinson: ‘Well, you have seen…’
Kennedy: ‘What evidence have you got?’

The onlooking journalists behind the cameras were relishing the heated exchanges, even though at times there was so much snarling that the essence of the debate was quite lost in the general fury. Inglis, professional as he was, had both hands full in controlling the situation, decided to move things along with, ‘Let’s switch to another subject’.

But as the curtain came down on Programme Two and the cameras and lighting were switched off, as in many television debates since, the three protagonists became jolly good chaps again and all agreed that it was en enjoyable experience. Ludovic Kennedy, after having reservations following Programme One said that it [Programme Two] was ‘much more exciting’. No one had quite walked off the ‘set’ and all had got very hot under their proverbial collars but at the end of the day, to both the producer’s terror and joy, it was damned good television and for statisticians reading this, it was calculated that Mr McCann ‘won’ by eight seconds.

The dawn broke on Polling Day Thursday 13 February with the wind blowing across the Pennines and a temperature of 6°C. There was even a touch of thunder according to one historical weather source. Cold it might have been but the temperature was rising for both candidates and Granada Television as the doors of polling stations opened in the church halls, schools and clubs of Milnrow, Wardle, Heywood, Middleton and of course within the town itself and elsewhere across the constituency.

It was to be the television franchisee’s big day – or rather, night – as the coverage could only cover the counting of the votes and could do nothing that might jeopardise the secrecy of the vote or even report on ‘how the day was going’ with respect to turnout. It was made absolutely clear that no camera must show a picture of any ballot paper and that the secrecy of the vote must be preserved at all times. All thirty Granada crews members had to be “sworn in” before the Town Clerk – a formality that is no longer undertaken – these days, you are merely given the ‘thou shalt not’ requirements on paper and informed of the penalties for contravention of the secrecy regulations.

Cameras were positioned outside as well as in the Town Hall for the ballot paper count, with cameras and equipment to one side of the hall, away from anything but general shots of the counting process. There were smaller areas where interviews could to take place of the candidates, their wives and party delegates, and as the ballot boxes were returned to the Town Hall, the atmosphere grew tense as Programme Three, the final show, went on the air.

The election officials, the counters with banker’s ‘thumbs’, the party workers who patrol the desks where the mounds of ballot papers lay (‘that one’s in the wrong pile!’) all added to the drama of the occasion, although the real players where the candidates and their wives, ready to be encouraged before the cameras to answer to the inevitable questions. Mr McCann seemed confident as his row of counted ballots grew, and yet so did Mr Parkinson, even though his fortunes seemed to be less sizeable and Mr Kennedy looked slightly worried and yet his own personal success in the election could not be understated. The wives were brought before the cameras for interview during the count – notably Moira Shearer, who married Kennedy in 1950. She was the famed Scottish ballet dancer, actress and film star (The Red Shoes, The Tales of Hoffman, and, even later in the 70s, the BBC’s chosen presenter of the Eurovision Song Contest when it was staged in Edinburgh in 1972).



The theatre of the occasion was enhanced by an almost comical episode when the Mayor of Rochdale, as Returning Officer, appeared to be ready to announce the result announce the result at a surprising early stage in the proceedings. Rising to his feet and clearing his throat, it looked as though the announcement was imminent – then he sank back into his chair after officials hurriedly whispered that it was a false alarm.

When the result finally came, the Mayor ‘in the flattest voice’ read out the losers and winner in alphabetical order as they would have appeared on the ballot paper, so Kennedy the Liberal’s votes came first (17,603) – amid loud cheers. If Hughie Green’s clapometer had been invented then, Mr Kennedy would have been back next week. But Mr McCann’s majority was clear at 4,530 votes (22,133) and Mr Parkinson’s smile, always there throughout the campaign, suddenly disappeared as the split vote caused by Kennedy dashed his hopes of following in Wentworth Schofield’s footsteps at Westminster. He polled 9,872 votes and his downfall, it would appear, was telling the cotton traders what he thought of them (which was not much). He was greeted with boos as he stood on that balcony with his two protagonists, one who now was about the lead the constituency for Labour in Westminster.



The speeches from the balcony over, where once Miss Gracie Fields’ voice had echoed over the cobbles – or setts – of the square below, the Granada team had already started rolling in the cables, dismantling the cameras and all the other paraphernalia that goes with a television outside broadcast. Brian Inglis spoke to the viewers at home in his signing-off with, “That’s all from Rochdale. McCann goes to Westminster and we go home to bed.”

The hubbub died away, the night was suddenly calm again as reporters, columnists, observers, journalists and foreign camera units faded into the cold, Rochdale night air.

The TV critic at the Manchester Guardian praised the Granada initiative in following this by-election, although he recognised that some of the early stages of the on-screen election had been arguably ‘lifeless’ but added that ‘the excitement at the end was undeniable’. He went on, ‘Television is superb when it shows a thing actually happening: the Mayor in his chain of office reading out the … official declaration: the candidate’s kiss for his wife, the smile of the victor…’ The Daily Mail considered the reason for Mr Kennedy’s ‘spectacular’ success as runner up and answered simply “Television, which was allowed to report the by-election for the first time, may have played a decisive role.” Kenneth Allsop, who reported for Tonight and presented 24 Hours in the 1960s, reported for the Mail that ‘…the televoter is born… television is established as the new hub of the hustings.’ The Manchester Evening News said that viewers had a perfect ringside seat at the climax of the Rochdale election” and that “…Granada deserved praise for their pioneering work”.

The candidates themselves gave their own verdicts on the ‘TV Election’: Jack McCann believed that the high poll (80%) was in some way due to the fact that interest had been stimulated by TV and that ‘political parties cannot afford to ignore it.’ John Parkinson felt that there had been enormous interest created by the Granada’s coverage and that had been proved by the high poll. ‘It gives every candidate every chance to get his policy into the maximum number of homes and to the maximum number of voters.’ He was doubtful nonetheless as to whether it [television] influenced people to vote one way or another. Ludovic Kennedy was ‘fundamentally in favour of having television in an election’ although he added ‘a lot more should be done in the way of reporting’. He too, agreed with Mr Parkinson in that he didn’t think it altered the way people are going to vote, but that also it makes people conscious of their responsibility to vote.

The three shows totalled just two hours and five minutes of broadcasting. Compared to today, that is hardly a toe being dipped into water. As this piece is written, the next parliamentary general election is no more than two years away (January 2025). We will be bombarded – make no mistake – with almost round the clock coverage on the rolling news channels of the BBC, Sky, LBC, Talk TV and mainstream channels’ own news programmes. Bradby, Peston, Kuenssberg, Edwards, Mason, Marr and Ferrari et al will be in fifth gear. Vine will no doubt stride once again across digitally created graphics and even Bob McKenzie may turn in his grave, his swingometer poised.

And all due in no small part, although few will realise it, to the now almost-forgotten days of Granada TV’s ground breaking project of February 1958 in Rochdale where really, it all began.

 

★ Pete Singleton is a Transdiffusion staff editor.

The post Granada goes to Rochdale appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

]]> https://granadatv.network/granada-goes-to-rochdale/feed/ 0 https://granadatv.network/egg-head-among-the-hens/ https://granadatv.network/egg-head-among-the-hens/#respond Mon, 15 Apr 2024 13:29:38 +0000 https://granadatv.network/?p=1587 Meet People and Places' comic inventor

The post Egg-head among the hens! 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.

]]> https://granadatv.network/egg-head-among-the-hens/feed/ 0 https://granadatv.network/duet-for-drolls/ https://granadatv.network/duet-for-drolls/#respond Mon, 15 Apr 2024 13:22:25 +0000 https://granadatv.network/?p=1579 Puppet satire 20 years before Spitting Image

The post Duet for drolls 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.

]]> https://granadatv.network/duet-for-drolls/feed/ 0 https://granadatv.network/sporting-doctor-finds-a-link/ https://granadatv.network/sporting-doctor-finds-a-link/#respond Mon, 15 Apr 2024 13:11:08 +0000 https://granadatv.network/?p=1564 Granada's People and Places doctor enjoys a sporting life

The post Sporting doctor finds a link 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.

]]> https://granadatv.network/sporting-doctor-finds-a-link/feed/ 0 https://granadatv.network/in-this-wild-west-town-the-sheriff-is-20in-tall/ https://granadatv.network/in-this-wild-west-town-the-sheriff-is-20in-tall/#respond Mon, 15 Apr 2024 12:36:39 +0000 https://granadatv.network/?p=1560 Mosey on down to Four Feather Falls

The post In this Wild West town… the sheriff is 20in tall appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

]]>

STRIKING effects and fresh techniques making possible new strides forward in the art of puppetry are promised in Four Feather Falls, a series about a Wild West town of that name Granada presents next Thursday. Each 15-minute show is shot in the same way as a feature film, using elaborate sets and location shooting.

An electronic device — which I am told has never been used before in puppetry — ensures that the puppets’ lips are synchronised with the voices (of Kenneth Connor, Denise Bryer, Nicholas Parsons, David Graham and singer Michael Holliday).

The puppets’ wires are so thin (1/5000th of an inch [about 0.005mm – Ed]) as to be invisible on the TV screen. The sets at the studios of AP Films in Slough, Bucks, where the series was created, include a 30ft by 15ft [about 9×4.6m] prairie with trees, rocks and scrubland, and a main street of Four Feather Falls with a sheriff’s office, a saloon, a livery stable, stores and sidewalks.



The big man of Four Feather Falls is Sheriff Tex Tucker. Tex has a simple and effective formula for dealing villains: “Git outer town and don’t ever come back.” He is helped by his horse, Rocky; his talking dog, Dusty; and his magic guns, which he will be demonstrating in the first programme on Thursday.

It is a formidable crime busting combination; life is far from peaceful, but Tex’s methods are so successful that he never has to kill a bad man, not even such desperadoes as Pedro the Bandit, Fernando and Big Ben.

Even the Injuns are friendly, up to and including Chief Kalamakooya and his little son Makooya. As for the townspeople – they are strictly in the “hearts of gold” category; notably Martha Jones, who sells candy and goods in the general store, Grandpa Twink and little Jake.

Magic abounds in Four Feather Falls – thanks to Chief Kalamakooya, who rewards Tex for saving the life of Makooya with some inside information on Indian magic. And, moving behind and above the scenes, there is a good deal of real-life “magic” of the technical kind. At an empty hotel ballroom in Slough — to the not-so-wild West of London — the creators of the series, Gerry Anderson and Arthur Provis, started making their films with just £500 [about £9,500 in today’s money, allowing for inflation] and a lot of faith.

Their team, consisting of Reg Hill (who does the model work and special effects), Jim Marsh, John Read, Sylvia Thamm (who works the robot-like electronic switch panel that synchronises the dialogue), and puppeteers Christine Glanville, Mary Turner and Roger Woodburn, works a long, tough day.

Filming starts at 8.30 in the morning and ends at 6.30. If they get more than four minutes of film “in the can” each day they consider it good going. It takes a week to shoot one episode.

Everybody has to get used to thinking small. They work in a Lilliputan world and all the props have to be specially made — no life-size articles will fit this miniature world.

Here is how the voices are synchronised: the voice “dubbers” speak their lines in a London studio where they are recorded on tape. Then, at the film studios, the tape is played back and linked, via steel strings, to magnets inside the puppets’ heads.

Sylvia Thamm works what they call a “four-channel natterer” so that at the touch of a key-switch any of four characters can be switched into circuit and the lips made to move by the electrical impulses from the sound-tape.

Everything clear? Well, never mind — just put it down to electronic magic.

Sheriff Tex Tucker needs two voices. Nicholas Parsons does the speaking and his songs are handled by Michael Holliday, who has recorded some new numbers for the series, including Phantom Rider, Two Gun Tex and the catchy theme:

“In Four Feather Falls, Four Feather Falls,
There’s always magic in the air.
But anything can happen. Anything at all …”

And it usually does.

The post In this Wild West town… the sheriff is 20in tall appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

]]> https://granadatv.network/in-this-wild-west-town-the-sheriff-is-20in-tall/feed/ 0 https://granadatv.network/the-adam-faith-show/ https://granadatv.network/the-adam-faith-show/#respond Mon, 15 Apr 2024 11:25:12 +0000 https://granadatv.network/?p=1550 An audience programme for Adam Faith's Granada show

The post The Adam Faith Show appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

]]>

The post The Adam Faith Show appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

]]> https://granadatv.network/the-adam-faith-show/feed/ 0 https://granadatv.network/it-started-with-the-garbage-men/ https://granadatv.network/it-started-with-the-garbage-men/#respond Sat, 13 Apr 2024 15:23:55 +0000 https://granadatv.network/?p=1542 Johnny Dankworth is the man behind One Man's Music

The post It started with the garbage men appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

]]>

One Man’s Music, a new Granada series featuring songs of the world’s great popular composers, starts on Monday with the work of Jerome Kern. Cleo Laine sings each week, backed by her husband, Johnny Dankworth, and his orchestra. Here David Griffiths writes about one man’s music — Johnny Dankworth’s



THE year was 1944, the number was Duke Ellington’s Mood Indigo, the band rejoiced in the name of Freddy Mirfield’s Garbage Men … and the occasion was the finals of a national dance band contest.

At the microphone: a 17-year-old clarinet player with the lean good looks of a juvenile Frank Sinatra.

A trade paper review said of the show: “Most credit goes to the youthful clarinet player who thought out an original solo for himself instead of using the conventional one of Barney Bigard’s. (Bigard was Ellington’s star clarinettist.)

“He played with a taste and technique that would have been a credit to a professional instrumentalist.”

So began the professional career of Johnny Dankworth, who later confessed: “The truth is, I just didn’t know Bigard’s solo. I had to improvise!”





By 1949 Johnny was himself a judge at music contests, and he was described as the “noted alto sax and clarinet player of the Ambrose Orchestra.” Ambrose was then playing at a London night club.

In those five years the musical outlook of the young Dankworth had undergone a profound change.

He had become a Licentiate of the Royal Academy of Music, and worked in “Geraldo’s Navy” — the bands operated by Geraldo on Cunard liners.

Johnny worked on the Queen Mary. Between voyages he spent days in New York listening to the giants of modern jazz, particularly alto saxophonist Charlie Parker.

“I marvelled at his genius then, as I marvel now,” said Johnny.

“Everything I had heard up to that time was involved with Benny Goodman. Parker changed my thinking.”

Such thinking, in those days, was considered dangerously avante-garde among the entrenched musicians of the swing era. Dankworth found few commercial outlets for his kind of jazz.

But his big chance came. One day he had a call from Ted Heath. “I could hardly believe it,” said Johnny.

At the time Ted had a highly successful series of Sunday afternoon swing sessions at the London Palladium.

“I think Harry Parry was to be that Sunday’s guest star, but was taken ill. Somebody suggested me as a replacement.

“I was deliriously excited. I had to borrow one of my father’s suits.

“Jack Parnell — then playing drums for Ted Heath — was very kind. He offered to lend me one of his.

“Ted introduced me as ‘the young clarinet star’! Within a couple of bars I made the most ear-piercing squeak!

“But Ted was very nice afterwards, and suggested I form my own band.

“So I signed on six young musicians and asked Ted about bookings. All he had was one Palladium date! Not Ted’s fault, of course. I had been misled by my own youth and publicity.”

The Johnny Dankworth Seven made its debut at a 1950 swing session. Fellow musicians were delighted, but the paying public were apathetic.



“FANS BAFFLED BY DANKWORTH’S MASTERPIECES,” said a trade paper. A zealous agent stuck the item in Johnny’s cuttings book … leaving only the last two words of the headline.

But after 10 weeks Johnny called the boys together. “It’s all over,” he told them. “No jobs, no money.”

“We won’t let that bother us,” they replied. “We’ll stick together.”

The Seven survived, even made a little money. Then in 1953 Johnny took the step that often spells disaster. He formed a big band.

What’s more, he made money. Not much, and not often, but just when things were looking black, something always turned up. One example was Johnny’s hit recording of Three Blind Mice.

Today, a reasonably prosperous Johnny Dankworth lives with his wife Cleo Laine at Nether Hall, Bletchley — an hour and a quarter’s drive along the M1 from London’s Tin Pan Alley.

“Cleo and I always wanted to live in the country,” he told me. “And we could do so much more with our money there than we could in the centre of London, where a flat would cost as much as our Bletchley house. And we wanted to bring up our family away from our centre of business.”

It was Johnny who discovered Cleo when he reluctantly agreed to give her an audition with his Seven. He could hardly believe his ears — and his good fortune — and promptly hired her for the group and, subsequently, for the orchestra.

Though they often pursue separate careers (she as an actress as well as a vocal star) they join forces when possible, as in this series.



The post It started with the garbage men appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

]]> https://granadatv.network/it-started-with-the-garbage-men/feed/ 0 https://granadatv.network/3-swing-along-to-a-king-size-success/ https://granadatv.network/3-swing-along-to-a-king-size-success/#respond Sat, 13 Apr 2024 15:14:27 +0000 https://granadatv.network/?p=1536 Meet Michael, Tony and Dennis King

The post 3 swing along to a King size success appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

]]>

THEIR fans see them as the symbolic success story of all the boys-next-door.

Their co-stars recognise them as a slick professional trio who have been swinging “standard” pops and making feet tap since they started singing together 10 years ago.

But how do the King Brothers, featured in Swinging Along every Tuesday, see themselves?

They share the same parents, the same address, and the same friends. They bump into each other at the breakfast table, in the rehearsal room and before the TV cameras So they know each other pretty well.





And when I talked to them at rehearsal they gave me their verdicts. First on Dennis:

Dennis, the pianist, is 22 and the baby of the trio. He picked up his musical talent from his father, a planning engineer for a car firm who used to be a semi pro pianist with a dance band. At six, Dennis played the banjo. At 10, he turned to the piano. At 16 he left school to join his brothers in a professional group.

Michael: If it hadn’t been for Dennis, none of us would have got involved in show biz. He is the one with the real musical knowledge. Whatever we know he taught us.

Tony: Michael and I are just intuitive about music. We go for the regulars — Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, and so on — but Dennis has a wider taste.

Michael: Let’s face it, he has a livelier mind than we have. He gets enthusiastic over everything that directly concerns us.

Tony: All his money goes on clothes — £40 [£720 in today’s money, allowing for inflation – Ed] a suit is nothing to him. He has more suits than Michael and I put together. He’s always trying to outdo us with smart ties, striped shirts and fancy waistcoats. We let him.

Michael: He’s trying to become a man about town. It’s a phase we all go through.



Tony is 25, has fair ginger hair, a wry smile and a habit of not joining a conversation unless he has something worth saying. As a teenager, he was, musically, the odd boy out, while Michael and Dennis were winning talent contests as a guitar and piano double act. Then a friend found a double bass in a cellar, gave Tony lessons — and the trio was born.

Michael: He’s the odd one out in personality, too. He’s much quieter than Dennis or me. When he does speak, it is usually a crack against one of us.

Dennis: His habits aren’t like ours, either. He’s a real homebird. He’d rather stay in to read, or practice his golf swing, than have a night on the town.

Michael: He saves his money. We share a joint bank account out of which we allow ourselves a regular weekly amount for spending money. Dennis and I get through ours in a flash. Never a 6d. [2½p in decimal, 45p now after inflation] left at the end of the week. But not Tony.

Dennis: He’s got a thing about security. And woe betide you if you borrow 5s. [25p in decimal, £4.50 after inflation] and forget to pay it back.

Michael: His main hobby is keeping fit. He looks after himself. He goes to bed at the same time every night. Believes in plenty of sleep and plenty of fresh air.

Dennis: Take it from us — one of these days be is going to make someone a steady, quiet, responsible, healthy, wealthy husband!

Michael, the 27-year-old guitarist, is darker and more forceful than his younger brothers. He is used to speaking for all of them.

Dennis: We still regard him as the leader. A sort of leftover from when we were kids. He influences us a lot. He sees himself as the organiser. He ploughs ahead gets things started and expects us to follow.

Tony: Usually when we’re busy with something else.

Dennis: Mike’s very conscientious about our turning up for rehearsals on time, and seeing that we practice. If we don’t give in he gets upset. He gets worked up over lots of little things. I think his big fault is that he’s…

— “Sensitive?” suggested Mike, unable to keep silent.

Tony: Irritable?

Dennis: No, I was going to say excitable. If he’s worried or nervous then he picks on one of us because we’re always the nearest. Sometimes he feels he’s against us. But when he’s happy then he’s generous and gay and wants everyone to have a good time with him.

Tony: The trouble is that his idea of a good time may not be everybody’s.

Dennis: I think he’ll be the first one off us to get married. I hope it won’t split the trio if he does.

Tony: At one point we were sufficiently worried about this to take out an insurance policy against it happening. But I don’t think there’s any need now. For as long as the public want us, Mike, Dennis and I intend staying just as we are — a singing threesome.



But the three boys admitted that the idea of sticking to the image they have created of singing, swinging, homely boys down the street, has its drawbacks for all of them.

Mike feels that three joint singers can never fully become individual personalities.

Dennis feels that to continue their style of steady singing (which ensured them a safe passage through and beyond the rock age, and will guarantee them a safe voyage through the twist era) they must sacrifice the chance to experiment musically in any extreme form.

Tony feels their future as a trio will necessitate a continuance of their closely-knit life with its limitations of mental independence and privacy, which he, at least, is beginning to demand.

But when I asked them to weigh these against the advantages of their joint fame and joint income, their choice was unanimous:

The Kings see the Kings remaining the Kings.



The post 3 swing along to a King size success appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

]]> https://granadatv.network/3-swing-along-to-a-king-size-success/feed/ 0 https://granadatv.network/viewers-into-voters/ https://granadatv.network/viewers-into-voters/#respond Sat, 13 Apr 2024 14:44:21 +0000 https://granadatv.network/?p=1518 Granada and party conferences

The post Viewers into voters appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

]]>

VIEWERS INTO VOTERS

The holidays, sun-drenched or rain-soaked, are ending. It is back to work for miners and fashion models, for stockbrokers and ’busmen; and for politicians. Those who go in for politics most intensively – the 630 MPs, the active minority of the Peers – are still in recess: the Palace of Westminster slumbers, its Gothic dream broken only by the footsteps of an occasional tourist crocodile. But the MPs (and those who hope to supplant them) are already busy up and down the land; for this is the last long break before the next General Election.

For the same reason, there will be exceptional interest, not only among politicians, in the coming series of annual party conferences. It is fashionable to deplore electoral apathy; yet, in 1959, 78.7% of those entitled to vote took the trouble to do so. This time, something like forty-five million men and women will be on the voters’ registers; and several million of these will be young people voting for the first time. They will soon be starting to think not merely whether but which way to vote.

If any voter could attend all the conferences, he might be able to weigh up the parties’ claims objectively. Only political correspondents can do that (and not all newspapers are strictly objective!) The next best thing is to see and hear as much of them as possible on television – both the live transmission of the daytime sessions and edited extracts and interviews in the evenings.

For half-a-century the British people have had some sort of pictorial coverage of these conferences. But newspaper and newsreel pictures have focused mainly on the promenade rather than the conference-hall: statesmen paddling or licking candy-floss, or arm-in-arm in jocund unity, have more ‘still’ news-value than the rostrum and the delegates’ reactions.

It was for television to explore fully the human and social drama of the actual conference proceedings. This was done for the first time last year, when Granada broadcast, live and almost in full, the TUC Conference at Blackpool, the Liberal Party Assembly and Conservative Party Conference at Llandudno and the Labour Party Conference at Brighton.

The experiment was, by general consent, successful. ‘Ordinary’ viewers, as well as the keen minority, found these direct glimpses of politics in the raw unexpectedly fascinating. Nor did speakers show off to the cameras: they were far more conscious of the visible — sometimes turbulent – audience within a few yards of them than of the unseen millions.

Many who have already decided how to vote at the coming Election will want to confirm their judgment by watching as much as they can of this year’s conferences. For the uncommitted – the vitally important ‘floating voters’ – these TV dates are a must.

Granada TV will broadcast live transmissions from:

TUC Conference Brighton Sept 2—6

Liberal Party Assembly Brighton Sept 11—14

Labour Party Conference Scarborough Sept 30—Oct 4

Conservative Party Conference Blackpool Oct 9—12

Televise Parliament? Write Granada TV Manchester 3 for free copy ‘Prelude to Westminster’.

The post Viewers into voters appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

]]> https://granadatv.network/viewers-into-voters/feed/ 0 https://granadatv.network/summer-advertising/ https://granadatv.network/summer-advertising/#respond Sat, 13 Apr 2024 14:39:42 +0000 https://granadatv.network/?p=1515 Advertise on Granada in Summer 1964

The post Summer advertising appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

]]>

Why not give your whole sales force 4 weeks holiday in August?

Perish the thought. With your salesmen out of action for a month, your competition would move in. Rival products would steal a march on you.

Couldn’t the same thing happen if you leave the month of August off your advertising schedule?

Or do you still cling to the legend that “nobody looks at advertisements in August”?

The facts and figures prove otherwise. Take television for example. In mid-summer, TV viewing drops off 15% at most. But TV rate reductions then average about 33%. Granada actually reduces rates by 45% in August.*

This means that only in August can you – or your competitors – reach so many viewers for so little money.

You could hardly choose a more wasteful four weeks to give your advertisements a holiday.

*And in Granadaland you get the biggest audience in the country.



What’s happened to the gentlemen’s agreement not to advertise in August?

Once, almost nobody advertised in August. It simply wasn’t done.

So why do many leading advertisers now book as much time in August as in May, June or November?

These shrewd gentlemen agree that the facts speak for themselves. In mid-summer, TV view ing drops off 15% at most. Yet TV rate reductions then average about 33%. Granada’s reduction is actually 45% in August.*

This means that there’s no other month in the year when you can reach so many viewers for so little money.

You’ll never get a better chance to speak to them.

*And in Granadaland you get the biggest audience in the country.



On England’s hot, clear, summer nights, nobody watches TV. Right?

Wrong. (Even if it were true, how many hot nights make an English Summer?)

We’re not claiming, of course, that TV viewing doesn’t drop off a bit in August. But people don’t change their deep-rooted habits from one month to the next. For most of them, watching TV has become part of a year-around pattern of behaviour.

That’s why many leading advertisers now book as much time in August as they do in June or November.

They’ve carefully weighed the facts and figures. In mid-summer, TV viewing drops off 15% at most — at a time when TV rate reductions average about 33%. Granada actually reduces rates by 45% in August.*

This means that there’s no other month when you can reach so many viewers for so little money.

Worth considering?

*Granadaland’s audience is the biggest in the country.



This is many people’s favourite holiday resort.

Many families spend their summer holidays at home. Watching TV is the nearest they get to getting away from it all.

Because these people are taking things easy, they are apt to devote more time than ever to their favourite TV programmes.

We’re not claiming, of course, that TV viewing doesn’t drop off a bit during the hot weather. Overall figures show that it does. But never more than 15% in August — just when TV rate reductions average about 33%.

Granada’s August rate reduction is actually 45%.*

If you are an advertiser, this means there is no other month in the year when you can reach so many viewers for so little money.

It’s hardly surprising that many leading users of TV now book as much time in August as they do in June or November.

*And in Granadaland you get the biggest audience in the country.



Bet you can’t guess in which month advertisers reach the most TV viewers for their money?

□ January?
□ February?
□ March ?
□ April?

□ May?
□ June?
□ July?
□ August?

□ September?
□ October?
□ November?
□ December?

Unless you know, you’ll never name it.

It’s a month when many people are away on holiday.

It’s the month when, back in the old days, hardly anybody advertised at all.

That’s right. August.

Surveys show that during August TV viewing drops off 15% at most. At the very time when TV rate reductions average about 33% – and Granada actually reduces rates by 45%.*

Many leading advertisers have weighed these facts and figures. Finding there’s no other month when they can reach so many viewers for so little money, they now book as much time in August as they do in June or November.

It’s not too late to join them.

*And in Granadaland you get the biggest audience in the country.

The post Summer advertising appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

]]> https://granadatv.network/summer-advertising/feed/ 0 https://granadatv.network/they-buy-your-product-in-the-summer-too/ https://granadatv.network/they-buy-your-product-in-the-summer-too/#respond Sat, 13 Apr 2024 14:26:29 +0000 https://granadatv.network/?p=1513 Advertise on Granada in Summer 1957

The post They buy your product in the summer too! appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

]]>

THEY BUY YOUR PRODUCT IN SUMMER TOO!

TV YOUR NEW EFFECTIVE FORCE IN SUMMER SELLING

You do not traditionally advertise your product in summer? Maybe you have been right — but now television advertising is available — think again.

This summer ITA Northern audiences will actually be larger than ever before — larger even than in November, December and January

Viewing hours in high summer average 84% of the winter level. On present trends the number of ITA homes in the Granada area should be half as many again by midsummer.

This means that the cost per 1,000 viewing homes will this summer be lower than you will ever achieve again. Purchasing habits are influenced on TV as much in summer as in winter.

DRAW THE RIGHT CONCLUSION*

*Summer time buying on Granada TV Network is wise, long term planning. To draw the right conclusion, take a pencil and mark this advertisement as a reminder to send for full facts about summer viewing in the North

The post They buy your product in the summer too! appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

]]> https://granadatv.network/they-buy-your-product-in-the-summer-too/feed/ 0 https://granadatv.network/first-in-striking-achievement-for-world-television/ https://granadatv.network/first-in-striking-achievement-for-world-television/#respond Sat, 13 Apr 2024 14:22:37 +0000 https://granadatv.network/?p=1509 Granada gets the pictures to CBS

The post First in striking achievement for world television appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

]]>

On November 4, 1958, American television viewers to the evening programmes of the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) saw the Coronation of Pope John XXIII which had taken place in Rome that morning.

For the first time in television history new equipment developed by Granada TV and the availability of BOAC Comet and Pan-American Boeing 707 jet airliner service to New York made it possible for recordings of the ceremony made by Granada TV at their Manchester TV Centre to be flown to New York for transmission by CBS the same evening.

This remarkable speed in the exchange of television programmes between countries thousands of miles away results from Granada TV’s development of *special equipment on which television pictures and sound recordings can in a matter of seconds be converted into the television lines system of any country. The recording can then be transmitted without further processing immediately it is received by the overseas television broadcaster.

The television coverage received from Rome through the Eurovision link was recorded and converted by Granada TV from 7.30 a.m. and the first recordings were put aboard the Comet leaving London at 11 a.m. due New York 4.35 p.m. American time. The final edited recordings were flown to Paris to catch the Pan-American Boeing 707 jet clipper leaving at 6 p.m. – due New York 9.30 p.m. American time.

Granada TV have thus opened up vast new possibilities in me international exchange of television programmes — we hope for the benefit of the people of the world.

*Used with the ampex recorder.

The post First in striking achievement for world television appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

]]> https://granadatv.network/first-in-striking-achievement-for-world-television/feed/ 0 https://granadatv.network/granadaland/ https://granadatv.network/granadaland/#respond Sat, 13 Apr 2024 14:15:23 +0000 https://granadatv.network/?p=1506 This is Granadaland

The post Granadaland appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

]]>

More ITV homes than any other region

More ITV-viewing housewives and children

More ITV-viewing teenagers

More than 30% of Britain’s retail outlets

More than 30% of Britain’s national personal income is spent in Granadaland

Over nine million viewers

The post Granadaland appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

]]> https://granadatv.network/granadaland/feed/ 0 https://granadatv.network/victoria-regina-four-plays/ https://granadatv.network/victoria-regina-four-plays/#respond Sat, 13 Apr 2024 14:12:13 +0000 https://granadatv.network/?p=1504 Victoria Regina on Granada

The post Victoria Regina: four plays appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

]]>

Victoria Regina: four plays

Laurence Housman wrote 30 short plays¹ about Queen Victoria. They comprise a biography of her reign, from her accession in 1857 to her Diamond Jubilee in 1897.

Out of these 30 plays, Granada has produced four hour-long programmes which cover the ‘seasons’ of the Queen’s life. They will be shown on successive Fridays.

¹Published by Jonathan Cape.

The post Victoria Regina: four plays appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

]]> https://granadatv.network/victoria-regina-four-plays/feed/ 0 https://granadatv.network/ten-tall-candles-for-a-first-birthday/ https://granadatv.network/ten-tall-candles-for-a-first-birthday/#respond Sat, 13 Apr 2024 14:08:09 +0000 https://granadatv.network/?p=1500 A print advertisement for Granada's first year

The post ten tall candles for a first birthday appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

]]>

GRANADA TV NETWORK IS ONE YEAR OLD TO-DAY

Both the leading television audience research organisations† have made this a more eventful day by reporting that the ten programmes with the largest audiences in the Northern Region were all broadcast by Granada TV Network — week ending 21.4.57. The rate of growth of audiences to Granada TV during the first year is the fastest in the country, and today Granada programmes in the North reach more viewers than is achieved in any other single ITV Region. Viewers have made this a happy first birthday for Granada.

†T.A.M., Nielsen Television Index

The post ten tall candles for a first birthday appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

]]> https://granadatv.network/ten-tall-candles-for-a-first-birthday/feed/ 0 https://granadatv.network/a-fairy-tale-for-all-ages/ https://granadatv.network/a-fairy-tale-for-all-ages/#respond Sat, 13 Apr 2024 11:22:01 +0000 https://granadatv.network/?p=1474 An unusual outside broadcast for Granada – ballet from Brussels

The post A fairy tale for all ages 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.

]]> https://granadatv.network/a-fairy-tale-for-all-ages/feed/ 0 https://granadatv.network/my-life-with-father/ https://granadatv.network/my-life-with-father/#respond Sat, 13 Apr 2024 11:12:14 +0000 https://granadatv.network/?p=1470 Granada's Head On looks at Randolph Churchill, who here looks at growing up with his father Winston

The post My life with father appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

]]>

Head On, the first of an occasional Granada series this Wednesday, uses television to present living portraits of people in their own image … and out of the candid opinions and recollections of friends and others. The subjects can reply to criticism and, in so doing, enrich their own portraits. The first subject is Randolph Churchill. Lord Birkenhead and John Spencer Churchill recall Randolph the boy; Sir Fitzroy Maclean recalls Randolph the soldier; Michael Foot recalls Randolph the political opponent. Whatever Randolph Churchill is today he was moulded by happenings in his early years. Here he writes of those happenings



I WAS born in London on May 28, 1911, at 33, Eccleston-square, of poor [sic: the Churchill family were anything but poor – Ed] but honest parents. Born within sound of Bow Bells, I was a Cockney and, until I was 40, was destined to spend more than half my life in London.

I have no recollections of Eccleston-square where my father and mother had lived from their marriage in 1908. When I was born my father was Home Secretary in Mr. Asquith’s famous Liberal administration, and when I was only a few months old my father became First Lord of the Admiralty and we all moved to Admiralty House overlooking the Horse Guards Parade. “We all” were my father and mother and sister Diana, who was nearly two years older than myself.

I remember looking out of a window at Admiralty House and seeing a large parade of soldiers on the Horse Guards Parade. I asked where they were going and was told: “The Dardanelles.” This must have been in 1915 when I was four.



I didn’t know where the Dardanelles were or what the war was all about, but the Dardanelles hung like a storm cloud over Admiralty House, and I used to end my nightly prayers: “God bless Mummy and Papa. God bless the Dardanelles and make me a good boy. Amen.”

I also used to pray for a Mr. Jones at this time. I was taken, I suppose by my father, to the House of Commons. Among other sights I was shown the pegs on which Members hung their hats. Pointing to the first peg I saw, I enquired who hung his hat there. I was told “Mr. Jones.” He rated almost as highly in my prayers as the Dardanelles.

One other thing I remember at Admiralty House, Diana and I used to be taken for a daily morning airing in the Green Park in a double pram. This must have been just before World War One.

There were people called Suffragettes who wanted to get the vote for women, which I later discovered was a proposal to which my father and Mr. Asquith were strongly opposed; so the Suffragettes tried to kidnap me in the park.

I have a memory of being pulled out of the pram and of the nursery-maid catching hold of me and pushing me back.

More strongly etched in my memory is the detective who thereafter discreetly accompanied us on our morning outings lest this half-hearted attempt should be repeated.

I think I remember the coming of the war in August 1914. We were staying at the seaside. I think at a place called “Pear Tree Cottage.” There was a lot of excitement and my father had to keep driving to London and coming back.

One day when he was in London we were told that war had come. We looked out to sea expecting to see German ships approaching the coast, hut nothing happened except that we all had to pack up and go hack to London. We children were rather disappointed.

When we were turned out of Admiralty House we all went to live at 41, Cromwell-road. We doubled up with my Uncle Jack and my Aunt Goonie and their two children, Johnnie, who was two years older than me and Peregrine who, I suppose, had just been born.

The house was almost opposite the Natural History Museum. On wet afternoons Diana, Johnnie and myself would be taken there.

We did not spend much time looking at the exhibits. We preferred to run along the corridors playing hide and seek and since hardly anybody seemed interested in the specimens which had been collected in this fine building, we seldom got into any trouble. While we were at Cromwell-road there were Zeppelin raids on London. These were tremendously exciting, since we children would be woken up in the middle of the night, wrapped in blankets and carried down to the basement where there would be a lot of grown ups having supper and drinking champagne.

We liked Zeppelins very much indeed and thought it a great treat to mix with grown ups in the middle of the night.

Another memory of Cromwell-road is of one of my father’s birthdays. We children had our luncheon up stairs and were always brought down to see the grown-ups finishing theirs.

One day, when it was my father’s birthday (November 30, St. Andrew’s Day), we came down, and for some reason or other the grown-ups had only just started eating.

My mother had arranged a treat for my father — oysters. When we children came in there was only one left. My father said: “Would you like to try one?” I naturally said: “Yes.”

The oyster was put into my mouth. I was horrified and went and spat it into the fire. I suppose this was in 1916 with food rationing so very strict.

Everyone was aghast at my act.

I am glad to record that this episode left no permanent scar on my palate, for I have eaten scores of dozens of oysters in later years, with the greatest enjoyment.



A little later, I suppose at the end of 1916 or the beginning of 1917, my father bought a little place in the country, Lullenden, near East Grinstead. I imagine to get us away from the air raids.

We were very happy there and used to go to school at a place called Dormansland in a pony-trap. I think we went there only in the morning.

The lessons ended with a short religious service and the final hymn was always O God Our Help in Ages Past.

It was at this time that I first discovered in a rather macabre way that my father was different from other fathers and was a great man.

I was about five years old at the time and I said to a little boy at school (it makes me blush to recall the episode): “Will you be my chum?”

He said: “No.”

I said: “Why not?”

He said: “Your father murdered my father.”

I said: “What do you mean?” He said: “At the Dardanelles.”

So when I got home I told my mother who was naturally distressed and explained to me about the Dardanelles.

I am sorry to say it made me feel immensely proud and I realised my father was a boss man who could order other fathers about. My discovery that my father had exceptional powers was reinforced in a more mundane matter.

Often my mother and father were not at Lullenden tor many weeks. He was making munitions and she was running canteens for munition workers.

One day we heard that my father was coming down that afternoon at tea time. We had run out of jam. My father has never had tea as a meal in his life. He always said: “I don’t believe in eating between meals.” However, we thought he would come and sit with us while we had our tea.

So with a precocious sense of propaganda I collected 10 or 12 empty jam pots and put them on the tea table. My father is not particularly observant about these sort of things, but a collection of 12 empty jam pots caught his eye. He was horrified to learn that we had no jam. The next day several jars arrived.

He seemed to me a very powerful man. He could order the fathers of other boys into battle and could produce jam.

Under my father’s encouragement I learnt by heart “Ye Manners of England who guard our native shores…” When my father and mother and their important friends came down for the weekend. I was invited to stand on a stool and recite this poem.

I particularly enjoyed the last verse: “The meteor flag of England shall yet terrific burn, till England’s troubled night be passed and the star of peace return.”

I remember this vividly and I always thought that I had enjoyed these recitations.

But it seems that I bore some resentment against my father in the matter. For my mother has since told me that I used to refer to my father as the “meteor beast.”

One last recollection of Lullenden. A splendid old man with a white beard who looked like King Edward VII came to stay. He was Sir Ernest Cassel and I understood that he had been a great friend of my grandfather’s as well as being a friend of my father and mother; also that he was rich.

On the morning he was due to leave, my sister Diana was summoned to see him and came back with a £1 note.

The nanny said: “Now Sir Ernest wants to see you.” I said. “Do you think he is going to give me £1 as well?” “No,” said she, “I think he’s going to give you something bigger.”

I was not aware that there was anything bigger than a £1 note so I approached Sir Ernest with lively excitement.

He gave me a £5 note. I did not know that such a thing existed. It seemed more than all the money in the world.

I saw him once more about a year later. Again he gave me a £5 note. I have seldom been solvent since.

I discussed Sir Ernest’s generosity with my governess, Miss Kinsey. She said: “Well, you see, he is a millionaire.” This was the first time I had heard the use of this magic word.

She explained to me as best she could what a millionaire was. I asked whether we knew any other millionaires. She said: “Yes. Colonel and Mrs. Spender-Clay who live nearby at Ford Manor. I used to work for them. They are certainly millionaires because Mrs. Spender-Clay was an Astor.” “Don’t we know any other millionaires?” I asked.

“Well, your father’s friend Sir Phillip Sassoon is certainly a millionaire.”

I had not then met Phillip Sassoon; later I often did, but neither he nor the Spender-Clays ever gave me a fiver.

Shortly before I was eight I went to a boarding school, Sandroyds, which was then at Oxted in Surrey.

There was a gang of bullies at the school organised by two boys who held the whole school in awe.

They would send their minions to arrest any small boy like myself whom they did not like, and frighten him by swinging and cracking whips around their heads.

Many other small boys less uninhibited than myself were terrorised and enslaved by this process. So I formed a counter-gang to resist these outrages.

My gang consisted of a very tough boy called Benn, who I think was a nephew of a Member of Parliament called Sir Arthur Shirley Benn, and three Spanish princes, Alvaro, Alonzo and Atalfo of Orleans-Bourbon.

Benn was my chief of staff and the three Spanish princes were my bodyguard. We got the better of the old bullies and demoralised them.

My greatest friend at Sandroyds was a boy called Rattigan. He was a member of my counter gang and in the holidays he would ask me to lunch at his mother’s home and we would go to see a matinee, usually a Conan Doyle about Sherlock Holmes.

In the next holidays my mother would ask him back and we would go to see another play.

When we left Sandroyds he went to Harrow and I went to Eton, and I didn’t see him again for 25 years. Meanwhile in the early thirties I began to read in the papers about a clever young playwright called Terence Rattigan who had written a play called French without Tears.

I wondered often whether it could have been my boyhood friend but it was not until many years later, just after World War Two when I met him on the liner Queen Elizabeth in Beatrice Lillie’s cabin, that I discovered he was.



One of the things I remember very well about my four years at Sandroyds was that Queen Marie of Rumania came down to inspect the school.

We were all drawn up in two lines on the cricket field. Accompanied by Mr. Hornby, the headmaster, she inspected all of us.

She naturally embraced her three nephews, the Princes Alvaro, Alonzo and Atalfo; she also embraced me.

I was flattered but surprised, and supposed that she had done this because I was the son of a famous man. I had been indicated to her by Mr. Hornby as the son of Mr. Churchill.

What made us giggle very much was when she also embraced Rattigan, for this could not have been due to relationship or the fame of his parents, but to his charm and good looks.



When I was about 12 my father asked me whether I would like to go to Eton or Harrow. I thought it was very civilised of him to give me the option.

We had been an Etonian family for many generations. My father was sent to Harrow only because it was quaintly thought at the time that he suffered from lung trouble and that Harrow on the Hill would be better for him than Eton in the smog.

Lack of lung power has never subsequently been detected in my father, but perhaps it was the climate of Harrow which rid him of this complaint.

My father had not been happy at Harrow. I doubt if he would have been much happier at Eton, but I was greatly complimented that he gave me the choice.

I inspected both institutions. It seemed that there were many fewer rules and much less discipline at Eton than at Harrow; accordingly I opted for Eton and joined Colonel Sheepshanks’ House in October 1924.

I remember very little about Eton except that I wanted to escape as soon as possible and get to Oxford, an ambition I achieved well before I was 18. When I got to Oxford, much as I enjoyed it, my ambition was to escape into the outside world, which I did after four terms, by going on a seven-month lecture tour of the United States, at the age of 19. Now I was grown up. So this concludes the story of my childhood.

The post My life with father appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

]]> https://granadatv.network/my-life-with-father/feed/ 0 https://granadatv.network/royal-pageantry-comes-north/ https://granadatv.network/royal-pageantry-comes-north/#respond Sat, 13 Apr 2024 10:47:36 +0000 https://granadatv.network/?p=1466 The Queen visits Manchester in 1961

The post Royal pageantry comes North appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

]]>

At 11.50 a.m. on Wednesday Granado presents a live out-side broadcast of the opening by the Queen of Manchester’s new Courts of Justice. On Wednesday and Thursday the Northern newscast will include film of other highlights of the two-day tour.

Here TV TIMES looks at some of the Northern Royal tours of the past.



MILLIONS of Northerners will be able to see the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh being received on the steps of Manchester’s new £1,250,000 [£23.5m in today’s money, allowing for inflation – Ed] Courts of Justice by the Lord Mayor of Manchester, Alderman Arthur Donovan, on Wednesday.

Among the people they will see in Court dress, robes, or ceremonial uniforms, will be the Earl of Derby (Lord Lieutenant of Lancashire); Dr. Charles Hill (Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster); Lord Parker (the Lord Chief Justice); a number of High Court judges; Col. W. M. Musgrave-Hoyle (High Sheriff of Lancashire), and civic heads from many parts of the North.



It will be a brilliant occasion as the long procession moves to the great hall inside the building, where the Queen will unveil a commemorative tablet.

Granada cameras will be strategically placed to bring viewers close-ups of the Queen and other members of the Royal party as commentator Bill Grundy describes the ceremony.

This will be a vastly different Royal visit to those made by the Queen’s ancestors.

Until Queen Victoria’s visit in 1851, the year of the Great Exhibition, Manchester — and Lancashire generally — had been sadly overlooked by England’s monarchs.

True, Manchester can claim to have had a visit from King Ina of Wessex and his Queen, Ethelburga, in 689 (he made it his headquarters for several months while repelling Irish and Welsh foes) and Canute the Dane marched in on his way to Cumberland in 1031, but the first real visit as such by a reigning sovereign was that of Henry VII in 1495.

James I passed by on his way from Edinburgh to London and Charles II is said to have slept at a house just off Market Street, Manchester, in 1651 while journeying to battle at Worcester.

But these were only fleeting glimpses of Royalty and it was Queen Victoria’s memorable visit that set the pattern of Royal visits as we know them today.

Queen Victoria was most impressed, too, for she wrote in her diary: “The day was fine and mild. The mechanics and workpeople dressed in their best were ranged along the streets with white rosettes in their button holes.

“We went into Peel Park before leaving Salford and saw a most extraordinary and, I suppose, unprecedented sight — 82,000 schoolchildren.

“All the children sang ‘God Save The Queen’ extremely well together.

“The streets were immensely filled and the cheering and enthusiasm was most gratifying.”

When the Queen wrote of the 82,000 children in Peel Park singing the National Anthem she was not quite correct. It was intended that they should and they did, in fact, get through the first verse.

But at that point their surging enthusiasm broke free and, completely ignoring the conductor, they cheered the Royal party until they were hoarse.





It was the sort of enthusiasm, affection and loyalty that has marked every Royal visit since and for which Lancashire is now famous, for since the turn of the century, Manchester has many times welcomed Royal guests and can no longer complain of feeling neglected.

Now excitement is in the air again as Lancashire prepares for next week’s two-day tour by the Queen and Prince Philip, a tour that has links with visits made by the Queen’s grandfather, King George V, and her great-grandfather, King Edward VII, at the be ginning of the century.

The Queen’s first engagement when she arrives in Manchester on Wednesday will be to present a new guidon to the Duke of Lancaster’s Own Yeomanry at a ceremonial parade at Belle Vue Stadium. This replaces the old guidon presented to the regiment by King Edward VII at Worsley Park in 1909.

Another link is provided by the Queen’s visit on Thursday to a vast glassworks at St. Helens, for King George V toured the plant in 1913 and in the powerhouse started the 6,000 H.P. turbo generator which was named the King George.

These events, the opening of the new Royal Technical College and the Dockers’ Social Centre in Salford and the Royal visit to a charity theatre performance of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs on Ice in Liverpool, will be covered in special Northern newscast reports.

The post Royal pageantry comes North appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

]]> https://granadatv.network/royal-pageantry-comes-north/feed/ 0 https://granadatv.network/the-continent-comes-to-chelsea/ https://granadatv.network/the-continent-comes-to-chelsea/#respond Sat, 13 Apr 2024 10:09:16 +0000 https://granadatv.network/?p=1448 Chelsea at Nine goes French

The post The Continent comes to Chelsea appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

]]>

HENRI SALVADOR’S formula for show business success is lots of sleep. “I like nine hours sleep a night plus another three hours in which to wake up properly,” he said.

Stocky, dynamic Henri is one of two French acts giving a Continental flavour to Granada’s Chelsea at Nine on Thursday. He has been a top-liner on the continent for more than 10 years, and a star in South America before that.

It is only in the last couple of years that he has become known in this country but the Queen saw him in Paris a long time ago.



“When she was Princess Elizabeth,” said Henri, “she came to the Carrere club. I ran the band and was the cabaret. She must have enjoyed herself. She was to stay half an hour. She left after five hours.”

Everything Henri does is polished. He sings romantically or skittishly, dances expertly, and has few equals as a mime comedian (usually with a background of noises he has made and recorded beforehand).

Henri, aged 42, is a native of the French West Indies [French Guiana – Ed]. When he was three, his parents moved to Paris. He spent his childhood in a poor neighbourhood. Often the family moved — suddenly. He made money at an early age, shining shoes or selling newspapers (“usually second hand ones”).

At school he could not concentrate. He decided to learn to play an instrument and become an entertainer.

“I liked drums, but they were too bulky to carry round. Clarinet tickled my lips. Trumpet bruised them. Guitar. I fell in love with the shape — like a woman! Light to carry, too.

“Soon I found I could play the guitar well, and got a job with Ray Ventura, a leading French orchestra leader.

“I used to fool around at rehearsals and make everyone laugh. Some of the boys suggested I become a comedian. I worked up some “business” and Ray Ventura let me do it when we went to South America on tour.

“I became a star there. I left the band,” he told me in his breathless, enthusiastic way, using good English, which he says he learnt phonetically.

“When I got back to Paris, I went to a music hall owner and told him I was a star in South America. He said so what. I said I could become a star in Paris. He shrugged. I asked him for a chance — only 30 minutes to close the first half. He laughed. But in the end he gave me my chance.

“I kept my promise. I became a star overnight. That was in 1946. Since then, my job is to stay a star. That is why I work 12 hours a day, rehearsing and thinking up new material.” Unusual sounds inspire his songs and comedy. He memorises them easily (“That’s how I learn languages”).



His noisy diner sketch was a product of keeping his ears open in a restaurant, and imitating what he heard on a sound recorder.

English audiences have thrilled him. “So quick, so complimentary. They feel like flying over London without an aeroplane.”

When he can sneak away from business for an hour or two, he likes fly fishing. “I am a natural lazy man, coming from the Indies,” he admits. “Sitting by a river is fine with me. If I catch a trout, I’ll be so happy. If not, maybe I catch a tan.”

Actually, Henri is not lazy as he tries to make out. He burns up a great deal of energy when he is entertaining and replaces it with plenty of sleep and by sucking glucose and sugar.

“I wouldn’t be able to get on a stage without a sugar lump,” he told me.





Also from France come Les Ballets Modernes de Paris with one of their hits, Dans la Rue. It is the tale of a night in a big city, complete with a street-corner fight applauded by “shady ladies” and high-spirited night clubgoers returning home.

The ballet is run by a married French couple, Francoise and Dominique Dupuy. Last year they triumphed at the Edinburgh Festival with the ballet The Seventh Sacrament.

Francoise says: “That was a serious ballet but this time we will give a lighter show.” She adds: “I am very happy to go to London, since I like the town and I know the people appreciate good dancing. Also, I want to buy a lot of cardigans and cashmeres. And have a good time.”

The seven dancers in the troupe come from all over the world. A new recruit is an 18-year-old Swiss, small and shapely Marie Aubert. From Germany there is Karin Waehner; from Uruguay, Paul Darnot, and from France, Michele Andren and Roger Ribes.

Their choreographer is British — Deryk Mendel who worked in English ballet before the war and afterwards settled in Paris with the Champs Elysées Ballet before joining them.

Says Mendel: “Our technique will be new to British audiences, it may shake a few old people who are not used to modern dancing.”

Music for Dans la Rue comes from America composed by jazz genius Duke Ellington. It is part of his A Drum is a Woman which he recorded, and presented on US television, in 1957. One singer was Margaret Tynes, and she is coming to Chelsea at Nine next week to recreate her part.

Margaret Tynes has had a distinguished career both as Broadway show singer and serious operatic soprano. She was in more than 200 Broadway performances of Finian’s Rainbow and was leading lady to Harry Belafonte in another show, Sing, Man, Sing. She has sung in Moscow in a show presented by Ed Sullivan, played Lady Macbeth in Verdi’s Macbeth with the Montreal Opera Company in Canada, worked for the NBC TV Opera Company, and had five and a half years with the New York City Centre Opera Company.

Two other Americans, both comedians, also appear in Chelsea at Nine: Orson Bean (a return engagement) and Jack Wakefield who was born in Brooklyn, New York, but who made his name in Canada before returning to triumph in New York

Talking of Canada, the show will be compered by Canada’s Bernard Braden.

The post The Continent comes to Chelsea appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

]]> https://granadatv.network/the-continent-comes-to-chelsea/feed/ 0 https://granadatv.network/keep-dancing-for-a-happy-marriage/ https://granadatv.network/keep-dancing-for-a-happy-marriage/#respond Sat, 13 Apr 2024 09:51:05 +0000 https://granadatv.network/?p=1444 Xavier Cugat and Abbe Lane appear on Chelsea at Nine

The post Keep dancing for a happy marriage appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

]]>

SONG-WRITERS have been making music and romance synonymous for thousands of years. And three people in Granada’s Chelsea at Nine week provide excellent evidence that the two really go together.

Xavier Cugat and Abbe Lane have happily married for seven years. Tony Martin — here on his own while his wife, Cyd Charisse, rehearses for a new spectacular in America — is heading for his 12th wedding anniversary.

“You can say,” Xavier Cugat agreed, “that rhythm was responsible for our romance. I was looking for a vocalist and I saw Abbe in a Broadway show. She was everything I had in mind. That was nine ago and we have been together ever since”



Abbe was not quite 17 at the time, and they were married two years later. More than 30 years difference in their ages has not mattered in the least.

“The trouble with so many married couples,” said Abbe, “is that they go dancing before marriage, but they don’t dance together after marriage. I believe they ought to go on the dance floor as much as they can. Cugie and I are always seeking out places where we can dance together and forget about everything else.

“You can’t quarrel when you’re dancing. And if you have been out of tune, you soon find yourself in harmony again.”

Cugie chuckled. “When I was at the Waldorf in New York recently,” he said, “someone said my music must have been responsible for a lot of marriages — but one fellow added that it was also responsible for a lot of alimony!”

Barcelona-born Cugat and American-Spanish Abbe Lane might not quite add up to A to Z of show business, but at any rate they represent from A (for Abbe) to X (for Xavier), and that’s quite a lot. Theirs is an ideal combination, with Cugat providing the music and his wife providing the visual and vocal appeal.

The last time Cugie worked in this country was as a violinist with the Vincent Lopez orchestra at the old Kit-Kat Club in London, in the early 1930’s.

“I was learning rhythm with one or two bands before setting up on my own,” he explained. “Up to then, I was a classical musician.”

When he did strike out, he set a new pattern in dancing by forming the first big-time dancing orchestra in America and popularising Latin-American music.

He would have been back to London more often — but for our quarantine laws. His love of chihuahua dogs is well-known.

When I saw them, both he and Abbe were anxious to get back to Paris, where they left their chihuahua, Pasquilina, and their French poodle, Susie. “We hate to go anywhere without them,” Abbe said.

The association of Cugat and chihuahuas began when he made his first film, Holiday in Mexico, and carried one around with him.

“The chihuahua received far more fan mail than I did,” he said. “Since then, I have had one with me in all my 14 films, and the same thing has happened every time.”

Tony Martin, the singer who married the dancer, is always more willing to talk about his wife and two sons than about anything else.



He and Cyd Charisse, of course, work independently, “but TV is bringing us together,” he told me. “We are going to co-star for the first time in a spectacular.”

Tony has been a singing star for nearly 25 years — with the accent on the word “singing,” using a good, straight, no-gimmick voice.

“A fellow asked me for my advice on how to keep going as long as I have,” he said. “I told him: ‘Sing good, make a series of come-backs, and don’t let people down.’

“Those of us who have managed to stay at the top for a long time — Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Perry Como and Frankie Laine — have two things in common. We’re singers, and we always try to give a good show.

“Good singing will always outlast freak performances. When I think back on the equivalents of today’s rock n’ rollers 20 years ago, I can’t even remember their names. They’ve disappeared completely.

“I might never have caused quite such delirious fan-worship, but I am earning more today than at any time in my life.”

The post Keep dancing for a happy marriage appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

]]> https://granadatv.network/keep-dancing-for-a-happy-marriage/feed/ 0 https://granadatv.network/pardon-the-expression-thats-business/ https://granadatv.network/pardon-the-expression-thats-business/#comments Sat, 13 Apr 2024 09:19:39 +0000 https://granadatv.network/?p=1431 The comedy spin-off of Coronation Street

The post Pardon the Expression… that’s business appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

]]>

HUFFING, harassed Mr. Swindley of Coronation Street has always tickled viewers pink. Only right, therefore, that he should be given a comedy show of his own – the Wednesday programme Pardon the Expression. Arthur Lowe’s portrait of a funny little man reminds us of Charlie Chaplin of old-always coming to grief. Still, Swindley is Swindley, upon my soul. And setbacks in business – whether in the small-time shop of Gamma Garments or the big-time store of Dobson and Hawks just spur him on … if you’ll pardon the expression



The post Pardon the Expression… that’s business appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

]]> https://granadatv.network/pardon-the-expression-thats-business/feed/ 1 https://granadatv.network/spy-catching-by-remote-control/ https://granadatv.network/spy-catching-by-remote-control/#respond Sat, 13 Apr 2024 09:15:29 +0000 https://granadatv.network/?p=1428 The Man in Room 17 begins

The post Spy-catching by remote control appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

]]>

A COUPLE of super-intelligent master sleuths are caught up in a web of international espionage, violence and corruption in The Man in Room 17 which starts on Friday.

The series runs the gamut between comedy thriller and pure adventure. “What it definitely is not,” director-producer Dick Everitt told me. “is neurotic or kinky.”

“The Man” is an immodest ex-Oxford type with a superior IQ whose mind is trained to devour information like a computer. He rose to eminence during the planning of the Allied invasion of Europe on D-Day. His name is Oldenshaw.

His partner — a man in his forties — is Dimmock. Dimmock is more direct — Oldenshaw’s red-brick equal. Together they pull the strings which make the undercover world dance.

Answerable only to the Prime Minister, they use their power ruthlessly and are generally accepted as infallible in the held.



Room 17, situated somewhere in Whitehall, is the secret centre of operations for the Department of Special Research. Oldenshaw and Dimmock handle cases which have baffled the security services.

Each case is treated by Oldenshaw as an intellectual problem. It is purely mental deduction that allows the two men to reach their conclusions. But they can also call on a legion of friends on the “old boy” network.

Richard Vernon, who plays the bearded Oldenshaw, told me: “We’re a couple of sparkling English amateurs. Our reasoning powers are almost limitless, and our knowledge is like two halves of a vast reference library ”

Dimmock is played by Michael Aldridge, and another regular in the series will be Willoughby Goddard, as Assistant Commissioner Sir Geoffrey Norton.

Because Oldenshaw and Dimmock are never seen outside Room 17, the series has been made using a split drama technique. One team of actors, writers, directors and designers produced the stories outside the Room, and a second team produced the scenes inside it.

Dick Everitt said: “There arc two distinct ingredients in the series — Room 17 and the world outside. Therefore, the mood has to be different.

“The most effective way to sharpen the contrast between the two was to separate them. The Room is fantasy. It is the remote, analytical centre of operations which exerts its influence on the outside world.

“The action takes place out side the Room, but I think viewers will come to relish the humour in Room 17 as much as the colour outside.

“Men like Oldenshaw and Dimmoek could not exist in real life, but the outside scenes certainly could.”

The post Spy-catching by remote control appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

]]> https://granadatv.network/spy-catching-by-remote-control/feed/ 0 https://granadatv.network/fine-day-for-a-sail/ https://granadatv.network/fine-day-for-a-sail/#respond Sat, 13 Apr 2024 09:09:39 +0000 https://granadatv.network/?p=1425 All Our Yesterdays on the Dunkirk evacuations

The post Fine day for a sail… appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

]]>

I WOKE up in a hammock in the middle of a funfair wondering where I was that lovely May morning. Nearby, my 15-year-old son Joe and other Ramsgate boatmen were preparing for a normal day’s work.

But it was a bit of a mystery why we had suddenly been told, the day before, to “kip” at the funfair, instead of going home as usual.

And I wondered even more when an Admiralty messenger arrived, as we were unloading mail from a foreign ship, and warned us: “Stand by for a special job after lunch. Have your boat at the east pier.”

We were told to lay in extra fuel, although we were going to be towed out.

There was a tug out front with a Naval Commander on board, and four or five drifters, each of them making ready to tow a boat like ours.

“Take as much drinking water as you can,” someone said.

Another puzzle. The Navy boys brought us stacks of tinned corned beef, biscuits and cocoa, so I knew now we must be going on a long trip. But no one told us where.

The next thing they produced properly foxed us … a batch of ladders.



Along with the mystery was the suspense. It was now four hours since the “stand by” order, and I sent Joe briefly back to his mother, telling her that we might not be home that night.

Then, at 4.30, we got the signal, and the “mystery” trip started. The tug led the way, the drifters left the harbour with our 23 ton boat, and others like her, in their wake.

The tug led us steadily on, until it grew dark, and the Kent coast had vanished.

Finally, well past midnight, we anchored near a destroyer. In the distance there were heavy rumblings. Yet our “patch” of sea seemed still and quiet and, a bit tired, we wondered what the next day would bring.

It was not until dawn broke that we had an inkling of the mission we were on. For, on the beach, barely 150 yards away, there were thousands of khaki-clad soldiers.

They were waiting, helpless, starving, bewildered, for our little convoy to take them home.

My boat, the New Brittanic, is licensed to carry 120 passengers. But the tug sent out a row-boat, we threw those ladders across; and, in half an hour or so, about 200 tired, hungry men made us look like a floating sardine can.

We gave them all the food we had — then transferred them to the destroyer.

Again and again, we ferried survivors to the waiting warship, and we saw screaming bombers dive so low you could pick out their swastikas.

Our rescue operation lasted two long days.

Then, in the early hours of Friday, May 31, 1940, we rounded the Goodwins and anchored back in Ramsgate.

We were home safe. And, thanks to our boat, so were nearly 3,000 soldiers.

– WALTER READ, as told to Bill Evans



That was one man’s view of the miracle of Dunkirk, 25 years ago this week. Monday’s edition of All Our Yesterdays will show film of those history-making days between May 27 and June 4, 1940, when 299 British warships and 420 other vessels brought off 335,490 officers and men, despite constant enemy attacks. Here now is another man’s view of the great life-saving operation



… but first — ‘Find the boats’

THE finding of the little ships for the Dunkirk armada is one of the little-known sides of the story.

The operation was code-named Dynamo — and caught up in it was Mr. Ian Christie, now landlord of The Oak at Surbiton, Surrey.

He told me: “I was working for a boat firm at Teddington when, one May evening, I — and others — were summoned to the private office.

“We were handed a list of river craft to be commandeered immediately, and told it was top secret. There wasn’t written authority for seizure, but we were not to take ‘No’ for an answer.



“We started at Maidenhead and worked downstream. I was amazed how smoothly it went. Some people were aghast — but no one argued about giving their boat. No one asked for authority. We stripped the boats bare, took them to the assembly point, formed a convoy of up to 30 craft and started for our destination, Sheerness.

“At Gravesend, we stopped to pick up iron rations. At Sheerness, the Navy took over, and we went back by train to Teddington to assemble another convoy. It went on, round the clock, for about 15 days. I think I made eight journeys. The round trip took about two days.”

During this time Mr. Christie received three sets of call-up papers — but was told to ignore them until Operation Dynamo was completed. “It is that important,” he was told.

Mr. Christie continued his story: “The most extraordinary thing about the whole operation was the way people just gave up their boats.

“There was a wonderful spirit from everyone. One man left a bottle of whisky on the cabin table with a note: ‘To the future commander of the Scheda — best of luck, and may he have as good a time as I have had!’

“But one ship I took — the Barona – broke my heart. The owner had just finished painting her. She looked spanking new.

“Sometime later, I saw her off Brightlingsea — burnt out. I could have cried my eyes out. But it was nothing to do with Dunkirk.

“I learned that the crew had started to make a cup of tea and were then called away suddenly. They left the gas on — and she blew up.”

– RICHARD POLLOCK

The post Fine day for a sail… appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

]]> https://granadatv.network/fine-day-for-a-sail/feed/ 0 https://granadatv.network/instant-news-for-yorkshire/ https://granadatv.network/instant-news-for-yorkshire/#respond Sat, 13 Apr 2024 08:57:12 +0000 https://granadatv.network/?p=1422 Granada opens a remote studio in Leeds

The post Instant news for Yorkshire appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

]]>

GRANADA Television have opened a news studio right in the heart of Leeds.

And that means a vast improvement in news coverage in an area where reporters and cameramen have previously had to race the clock to get material back to Granada’s Manchester TV Centre.

The accent is very much on speed and efficiency. Granada are right now installing automatic equipment which will enable them to control the studio from Manchester.

A programme director sitting at a control panel 40 miles away in the TV Centre, will be able to operate the studio lights and a remote-controlled camera by the flick of a switch.

Then, by pressing one of 10 buttons, he can control the position of the camera during an interview or news bulletin. This will give him 10 different camera shots ranging from a close-up to a profile or a shot of two or three interviewees.

This studio, in Headrow House, is part of Granada’s national TV link-up. They have a similar automatically controlled studio in London, which is operated from Manchester.

The Leeds team will contribute directly to programmes like Scene at 6.30, and Granada in the North.

It will improve election coverage from Yorkshire and be available for national use.

Executive producer David Plowright told me: “The Leeds project is something which we have wanted to launch for a considerable time.

“It will enable us to bring news and interviews from Yorkshire at any time of the day, instead of sending outside broadcast crews there, or having to rush film back to Manchester.

“We have always attempted to give Yorkshire comparable coverage with Lancashire. But in the physical sense, the people of Lancashire have been much more aware of our presence because of the Manchester TV Centre.”

Granada’s robot eye in Leeds is watching Yorkshire closer than it has ever done.



The post Instant news for Yorkshire appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

]]> https://granadatv.network/instant-news-for-yorkshire/feed/ 0 https://granadatv.network/pictures-from-the-past/ https://granadatv.network/pictures-from-the-past/#respond Sat, 13 Apr 2024 08:52:34 +0000 https://granadatv.network/?p=1418 Inside the All Our Yesterdays postbag

The post Pictures from the past appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

]]>

FOR at least 10 people out of the millions of regular viewers, All Our Yesterdays will become a heartbreak programme on Monday.

Ten more widows, mothers, sisters, brothers and friends will see their loved ones wave farewell and give the thumbs-up sign in one of those cheery newsreel films of 25 years ago. Laughing troops who were later to die in action.

Every week on average, 10 people write to the All Our Yesterdays office asking for pictures of their dear departed.

Brian Inglis and producer Bill Grundy are aware of the heartbreak this weekly peep into the past can bring. They have weighed the cost and decided that this is one of the penalties that must be paid for the privilege of telling the story of Britain’s part in the Second World War.

Bill Grundy told me: “People are always writing to say I got a terrible shock last night when I saw my husband. Please try to let me have a picture of him. After that newsreel shot he was never seen again.’



“And, of course, within reason, we try to satisfy these requests. We have to confine ourselves to outstanding cases. Widows who ask for photographs of their husbands naturally get priority.

“It calls for a weekly picture hunt and a bit of detective work. We have to identify the face, track down the exact frame from thousands of feet of film, and get the picture enlarged.”

As the programme bites deeper into the war, Bill and company are preparing for more photo requests.

Going through the All Our Yesterdays postbag, I found the letters strange as well as nostalgic. A Welshman living in Oxford wrote to say that the war years were the happiest of his life.

He asked for a newsreel picture of his friends singing in the N.A.A.F.I. He wrote: “I am an invalid who has been desperately unlucky in life as a child and as a postwar adult.”

One of the most moving newsreel sequences showed a British European Forces platoon tramping through the snow in France. All Our Yesterdays received a request for pictures of every man in the platoon.

Not one of them had survived. But not one had been forgotten.

An infantryman wrote for a picture of a French farmyard near Gorre. “While I was sheltering from an air-raid,” he wrote, “a jagged chunk of shrapnel ricochettcd off the cobblestones and killed the man next to me.

“He was a Roman Catholic padre from Birkenhead. I want the picture to send to his sister.”

Often, it’s an innocent, cheery looking newsreel shot that brings the memories flooding back. Former RAF Flight Lieutenant Harold Perry, of Thornber Grove, Blackpool, saw himself and his crew clamber out of a battered bomber at Villeneuve, France.



The film was shot in March, 1940, after a typically hair-raising war incident. Mr. Perry takes up the story: “I was a wireless operator in the Whitley Mark V bomber. We had been on a fact-finding mission over Warsaw and landed by mistake at Saarbrucken, 15 kilometres behind enemy lines.

“The bullets began to fly as we tried to take off again on a very short runway. Luckily a drainage trench had been dug across the fields, and when the old Whitley hit it, we literally bounced off the ground.

“The Germans threw everything at us, but we managed to get away by some very fine ‘grass-cutting’ 3ft. above the ground.

I wrote because I am the only survivor of the crew of Old Queenie. We got back safely, but the rest of the boys were killed or reported missing on subsequent missions.”

And so the letters go on. Behind almost every incident and every face in the crowd featured in those newsreel films of 25 years ago is another story to match it in courage or sadness.

The post Pictures from the past appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

]]> https://granadatv.network/pictures-from-the-past/feed/ 0 https://granadatv.network/henpecked-but-happy/ https://granadatv.network/henpecked-but-happy/#respond Sat, 13 Apr 2024 08:44:58 +0000 https://granadatv.network/?p=1414 A documentary series on heterosexual relations gives TVTimes the chance to claim how husbands are bullied by their wives

The post Henpecked, but happy! appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

]]>

Wednesday’s third programme in the series A Slight White Paper on Love is titled “Honouring the Contract”. The programme will examine some of the eccentricities of marriage and a divorced couple will meet again for the first time to discuss what went wrong with their marriage. (Male escape mechanisms from the pressures of marriage include a New York Club where men throw crockery at female effigies and a British Henpecked Husbands’ Club.) TV Times invited
ARTHUR DICKSON WRIGHT
noted surgeon and wit, to cast his analytical eye at the whole subject



HE is the man pitied by all, except his wife, who is deterred by none, least of all by the object of her nagging.

It is one of the strangest developments of the married state where the lady stands before a minister and makes declarations of loyalty and obedience to the man of her choice.

Then almost as soon as the ceremony is over and the covenant signed and sealed, starts on her life’s work of making the life of her husband as miserable as possible.

She starts upon his premarital behaviour, especially any slight straying from the paths of virtue or courteous behaviour during the period of engagement. But she was cunning enough not to complain before the final capture of her victim.

She planned to start as soon as the ceremonies were completed and even to mar the honeymoon with discordancies which the unfortunate man never expected in the idyllic days of his engagement.

The nagging generally works up in intensity — even the arrival of children does not mitigate — and very soon he gets accustomed to it.

If the psychologists are to be believed, it shatters personalities and leads on to neurosis.



The illogicality of it is not apparent to the lady, because, as a rule, the object of her jealousy is quite well behaved morally, otherwise he would leave her.

It may be said that he behaves himself because of his wife’s behaviour and she believes this to be so and keeps it up.

The picture of the henpecked husband walking slightly be hind his mate and listening to her remarks over her shoulder is a great gift to the cynical playwright.

Especially to French authors, who have taken great joy in this truly English spectacle, because I believe that only in England and America does this phenomenon exist and the pathetic, bedraggled figure of the henpecked husband is so well known.

The passage of the years does not ease the burden and her reproaches and recriminations do not cease when baldness, grey hair or fatness place him in a less dangerous situation vis-a-vis the opposite sex.

She seems to have no sense of the ridiculous as she continues to upbraid him when he is long past active wanderings. She will recount stories of so-and-so, who ran off with his secretary at the age of 70. No gifts, no flowers seem to be of any service in stemming the torrent of words.

Indeed, they often seem to be a stimulus to more nagging on the part of the lady, who feels they are a camouflage to cover other clandestine activities.

The really bad man, with drunkenness or immorality in» his nature, seems to escape the nagging.

The lady feels that it is hopeless to alter him and resigns herself to it and turns a blind eye to his shortcomings.

I feel that it is the good man who is henpecked. He settles down to his life in harness and becomes punch-drunk with the abuse constantly showered upon him.

He seeks the joy of his life in the company of friends outside his own home, not daring to bring them home for fear of losing them after they have witnessed him “catching it” from his wife’s tongue.

The victim sometimes comes to accept the constant abuse and will miss it when it stops. This is a great psychological mystery, because in the strife of daily malediction the husband finds a sort of happiness?

This was brought home to me once in a remarkable way. There was a wealthy, childless couple who never had a kind word for each other and had nothing in common except the front door.

The wife, whose nagging exceeded anything I have ever heard, had to have a minor operation and, while going under the anaesthetic, she died.

The husband was inconsolable and within seven days had committed suicide.

When, after years of persecution, the nagged husband gives up the struggle and leaves his troublesome partner, then the lamentation that breaks out has to be endured by all around her.

Her description of the departed husband to the Bournemouth boarding house makes one puzzled to know if there ever was such a wicked man in the world and makes one wonder why she ever married him.

I suppose that murder may enter the head of the nagged man as a way out of his desperate position.

An example is the wife thrown into the sea by her irate husband at the height of a fierce argument as to which was best to use for a certain purpose, a knife or scissors.

As the wife came up for the third and last time, the last thing the husband saw as she sank were her two fingers making a scissors movement.

The queerest thing of all is the fact that the henpecked husband may come to enjoy the nagging as much as the wife enjoys giving it—and the two are not as unhappy as they seem.



SSSH! THEY’RE OFF TO THE CLUB…

by RAY JOWETT
who visited Britain’s most secret society
— the Henpecked Husbands’ Club

IT’S the most secret society in Britain. For sheer “Sssh” it makes M.I.5, Mau Mau and the Mafia look like specialists in public relations. The society is the Henpecked Husbands’ Club.

For one day a year its secret meeting spells freedom for men who have reached the end of their tether; men exhausted under the weight of dog walking, dish washing and decorating.

They meet in secret to talk about their tormentors and plan and scheme for a better deal. The meeting place, changed every year to avoid detection, is nearly always in a remote part of Yorkshire, where the movement began.

“You see,” said the club’s vice president, Mr. Fred X, of Halifax, “we must have this one day away from our wives. It not only means a day without chores, it means we can swop ideas on how to make life more bearable in the next 12 months. Why, at the last meeting, I found out about instant mashed potato. An’ y’know, the missus still doesn’t suspect. She just thinks me cooking’s improved.”



President and Mayor are resplendent in fur-trimmed regalia. The Keeper of the Peace stands by the door to look out for marauding wives. Newcomers are dealt with first. The Medical Officer (a retired chimney sweep) checks their physical condition. “Got to be sure they’re suffering from housemaid’s knee or dish pan hands.” he said.

As the day goes on, the henpecked exchange recipes and other culinary information. One or two, driven to the brink of despair by nagging wives, have been known to throw all caution to the winds and sneak out to the local pub.

The annual bolt from domestic tyranny began 70 years ago. Six Methodist ministers (all henpecked, it seems), decided to get away from it all and spent a whole day together in a disused cottage in Yorkshire’s Cragg Vale.

Soon, the local laymen got wind of the retreat. Now the club has over 70 members including an Austrian languages professor.

What is a woman’s view of the club? “It’s just an excuse for dressing up.” said a wife, “a little bit of make-believe while they wallow in their self pity. They’re just like sheep.

“They don’t seem to realise that we wives encourage them to play their silly games for one day in the year.”

Only once has the conclave been disturbed. A Yorkshire lady, particularly adept with tongue and rolling pin, discovered her hubby’s intention of joining his downtrodden brethren. She followed him to the meeting and, just as he was about to take the oath, burst in on him.

“Thar’s no ’enpecked,” she roared. “Thee can coom on ’ome.” He went.

The post Henpecked, but happy! appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

]]> https://granadatv.network/henpecked-but-happy/feed/ 0 https://granadatv.network/drama-break-through/ https://granadatv.network/drama-break-through/#respond Fri, 12 Apr 2024 13:43:52 +0000 https://granadatv.network/?p=1412 Granada's new play series Six Shades of Black

The post Drama break-through appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

]]>

A SERIES of six one-hour plays, each with savage undertones and a bitter twist in its sardonic tale, starts on Friday under the over-all title Six Shades of Black.

The plays are based on an intriguing new drama technique exploited by author-producer Peter Wildeblood. The hero of one play will be the villain of the next.

You will see the character’s good and bad sides and be able to draw your own conclusions on which is the dominant side of their personality.

The first play, “The Good Woman of Chester Square,” at 9.40 on Friday, shows social reform worker Lady Masterman (played by Pamela Brown), being toppled from her public pedestal.

Lady Masterman, a parliamentary beauty, is celebrated for her humanitarian principles. A leading Queen’s Counsel, she refused to become a judge because of her opposition to capital punishment.

But young reporter B. J. Skipwith (played by Barry Warren), thinks her reputation is too good to be true.

You’ll have to wait until next week to see Wildeblood’s new drama technique at work. Then it will be the reporter’s turn to face moral disapproval.

In Friday’s play, Thorley Walters plays Lionel Sparrow, an ex-prisoner looking for a job, and Fredric Abbott plays Swithin, Lady Masterman’s chauffeur, who holds the key to this week’s intrigue.



The post Drama break-through appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

]]> https://granadatv.network/drama-break-through/feed/ 0 https://granadatv.network/living-with-modern-art/ https://granadatv.network/living-with-modern-art/#respond Fri, 12 Apr 2024 13:37:24 +0000 https://granadatv.network/?p=1409 The paintings from Granada's corridor walls go on display at the Whitworth

The post Living with modern art appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

]]>

Eighty modern paintings from the combined Granada and Bernstein family collection, are on exhibition at Manchester University’s Whitworth Art Gallery. Normally, the Granada collection, comprising 25 paintings, hangs in the corridors of the TV Centre in Manchester — accepted by the staff as part of the surroundings. Here
JOHN WHITE
Professor of the History of Art, and Director of the Whitworth Gallery, tells how this unusual form of art patronage is catching on



Television is both an industry and an art. In both capacities it aims at bringing pictures — moving pictures — to the family at home.

Its profit lies in interesting and entertaining the leisure man. It is therefore revealing to find that Granada also finds it worthwhile to bring pictures — still pictures — to the office.

This is becoming a common practice in many of the great commercial enterprises on both sides of the Atlantic.

The exhibition of modern pictures from the Granada collection shows some of the paintings seen by everyone who works in, or who visits, the studios and offices of Granada in Manchester.

Next to them, on the exhibition walls, are the results of a much more familiar type of art patronage. These are pictures from the private collections of four members of the Bernstein family.



The two sections of the exhibition are a sign that art is about to become what it once was. It will again be part of life as a whole.

It will not just be something clinging precariously to the edges of existence, a sort of fringe benefit.

Banks and factories, shops and businesses, all over the world, are finding that it is not enough merely to put up fine buildings.

It is a waste to enliven a city skyline and then face men and women with blank walls and bare corridors throughout their indoor working day.

The Inland Steel building in Chicago; the Pilkington Glass Works in St. Helens; the Granada studios themselves, are all signs of the future.

The business and industrial world is already a major patron of modern architecture. Design in packaging and advertising, as well as in the goods themselves, is, of course, a major concern.

Progressive firms encourage the best of every kind of applied art in furniture and fittings, carpets and fabrics.

It will not be long before they begin to challenge private and municipal patrons in the so-called fine arts of painting and sculpture.

This, after all, is only sensible. Automation or not, we still spend the greater part of our waking lives at work.

If life is worth living, and art is part of it, it seems ridiculous to confine painting and sculpture to our homes and public buildings and museums.

If good surroundings matter, they matter most where we are most intensely occupied, and for ffie greatest length of time.

A TV company has special reasons for making modern art part of modern working surroundings. I am, for instance, often lost in admiration for the ingenuity with which period settings of every kind are reconstructed for TV dramas.

This is all the work of expert researchers. But what about the innumerable modern interiors, tycoons’ offices and rich homes that continually appear in plays and serials?

We far too seldom see in them the kind of fine contemporary sculpture and painting which is increasingly to be found in the real thing.

A couple of prints of vintage cars is not enough.



The set of It’s Dark Outside (Friday) is one of the exceptions. Have you noticed the very modern-looking painting on wood, hanging in reporter Fred Blane’s (John Stratton) flat?

This is not a studio prop. It’s an original painting by Harry Thuron, called “Japanese.” One of the Granada collection of paintings, it was “borrowed” by set designer Roy Stonehouse for the duration of the series. You can see it in the Whitworth Exhibition.

There is a townscape by Utrillo; there is a nightmare study for a Pope by Francis Bacon. There are pure abstract paintings by Ben Nicholson and Alan Reynolds. There is something for everyone who enjoys today’s modern art.

In the end, it will only be when people have grown used to seeing art as part of life, and working life at that, that we shall automatically glimpse such works on our screens in the background of the TV office or down the TV corridor.

In real life, at Granada, they are there already.

The post Living with modern art appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

]]> https://granadatv.network/living-with-modern-art/feed/ 0 https://granadatv.network/the-genius-behind-pop/ https://granadatv.network/the-genius-behind-pop/#respond Fri, 12 Apr 2024 13:27:25 +0000 https://granadatv.network/?p=1407 Burt Bacharach is celebrated in a Granada special

The post The genius behind pop appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

]]>

BURT BACHARACH… the name is almost certain to mean nothing to you. Yet I’ll wager his works have been buzzing around in your brain for the last 10 years.

Bacharach is one of the most talented and prolific songwriters of our time. A few hawk-eyed pop pickers may have spotted the name in fine print on the label of their latest record.

But outside Tin Pan Alley, few recognise this 34-year-old New Yorker for what he is — one of the greatest one-man influences on popular music this century. He is hailed by international artists, musicians and composers as a trend-setting genius.

On Wednesday night at 9.40, Dionne Warwick — Burt writes all her numbers — heads a star-studded cast who pay tribute to America’s Mr. Pop in The Bacharach Sound.

Bacharach “winners” include “Anyone Who Had a Heart,” “I Just Don’t Know What to do with Myself,” “Message to Martha,” “Tower of Strength,” “Twenty Four Hours from Tulsa,” and dozens more.

There to sing them with Dionne Warwick will be Dusty Springfield, Chuck Jackson, The Searchers and The Merseybeats.



Bacharach, who began to learn piano at 10 (“I hated it, I wanted to be a baseball player”) wrote his first hit number “Magic Moments” for Perry Como, in the mid fifties.

He wrote the “Story of My Life,” for Michael Holliday, and never looked back. Four years ago he teamed up with lyrics writer Hal David.

But it was not until early last year that the Bacharach Sound was born — a lush sound created with an exciting orchestral backing like 15 strings, a drummer plus two percussionists, and brassy French horns.

Immediately arrangers, composers and singers rushed to copy him. Artists such as Dusty Springfield, Cilla Black and Sandie Shaw have been deeply influenced by Bacharach.

From his luxury suite on the 18th floor of a New York apartment block, Bacharach told me: “If I have helped to make pop music a little better I couldn’t be more delighted.”

I asked him if he thought today’s pop was worth preserving. “No,” he said, “the average song is so very fragile — 2½ minutes long — it is exposed to saturation. I don’t think any of my numbers will survive the next three years.”

There’s a legend in the music business that Marlene Dietrich won’t work without Bacharach. “Not strictly true,” said Burt modestly. “But whenever I can, I fly to her anywhere in the world. We work well together.”

The post The genius behind pop appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

]]> https://granadatv.network/the-genius-behind-pop/feed/ 0 https://granadatv.network/woman-in-waiting/ https://granadatv.network/woman-in-waiting/#respond Fri, 12 Apr 2024 13:21:48 +0000 https://granadatv.network/?p=1402 Meet Anne Reid

The post Woman in waiting appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

]]>




This is Anne Reid (left), a carefree, eager little girl with her mum. And the hasn’t a worry in the world. The woman above it also Anne Reid. An actress now. But as Valerie Barlow in Coronation Street she looks a little anxious, a little worn. And no wonder. As Valerie, she’s waiting for a taxi to take her to the maternity home. Which would be reason enough for her to look anxious … she’s expecting TWINS … and on Monday a tired stork flies over Coronation Street

The post Woman in waiting appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

]]> https://granadatv.network/woman-in-waiting/feed/ 0 https://granadatv.network/woman-behind-the-headlines/ https://granadatv.network/woman-behind-the-headlines/#respond Fri, 12 Apr 2024 13:14:59 +0000 https://granadatv.network/?p=1400 The editor of The Headliners on her greatest scoop

The post Woman behind the headlines appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

]]>

A WOMAN whose actions would echo round the world in a few hours’ time, drove her car up to the gates of Wakefield prison.

“Friend or relative?” asked a warder.

“Friend,” she replied.

“OK,” he said and led her to a visiting room.

Inside, a pale man sat at a bare table. His face had been prominently featured in newspapers and magazines throughout the world. He wore a navy-blue, battledress-style uniform and white shirt. He fingered round-lensed, steel-rimmed spectacles. He had been “inside” for eight years.

They exchanged pleasantries and she handed him the book he had asked her to bring. Boris Pasternak’s “Doctor Zhivago.” They talked earnestly for half an-hour, the woman memorising everything he said. A warder stood stolidly a few feet away.



Daily Express reporter Esther Rose had become the first journalist to interview Dr. Klaus Fuchs, after the atom scientist had been sentenced to 14 years’ imprisonment in 1950 for revealing atom secrets to the Russians.

Next day, Esther’s paper splashed a banner headline across its front-page: “FUCHS SPEAKS IN JAIL”. That headline went round the world. It was printed in nearly every language except Russian.

Esther, now editor of Granada’s The Headliners (Wednesdays), recalled: “They raised hell in the House of Commons. Everybody wanted to know how I’d got away with it. It was dynamite. It’s still a trade secret. They never even asked me why, if I was a friend, I’d suddenly shown up after eight years. They never examined the book. For all they knew, I might have been someone from ‘the other side’.”

Corridors of power buzzed with speculation. The Fuchs’ case had been one of the biggest spy trials of the first half of the 20th century and British security services hoped that the fuss was all over. In fact, it had begun again.

Fuchs told Esther: “I am going to East Germany when I am free.”

A year later, he did so. Esther Rose remains the only reporter to have spoken at length with him. Her persistence at Wakefield paid off.

Similar application stamps her work as editor of The Headliners. She retains her flair for inspiring confidences and obtaining colourful material. She defined the art of editing: “It’s a sort of seventh sense about what can be done about what will make compulsive viewing. It’s a question of picking the right stories, hammering them into shape and presenting them in the best way.

“Television and newspaper editing are equally difficult but in different ways. In television you must explain to the eye — you must let people see as much as possible. What you do must be seen to be done.”

Esther is amused by the fact that she had to leave newspapers to become an editor. Her uncle was Henry Rose, Northern Sports Editor of the Daily Express, who died in the Munich air crash, and her husband, Harry Whewell, is News Editor of The Guardian.

But she consoles herself with the thought that it was an ex-newspaper man, Tim Hewat, formerly of the Daily Express, who made her editor of The Headliners.

“He proved himself equally at home with the Press and television,” she said.

There are two other Tims in this energetic woman’s life: Tim Thomas, the young graduate who introduces The Headliners, and, most important of all, her three year old son Tim. “Mine’s called Tim-Tim to distinguish him from the others,” she said.

Esther manages to preserve a nice balance between her home life and work with The Headliners — proving that “editing can be a woman’s world, despite what some of the men say.”

The post Woman behind the headlines appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

]]> https://granadatv.network/woman-behind-the-headlines/feed/ 0 https://granadatv.network/rose-blooms-when-its-dark-outside/ https://granadatv.network/rose-blooms-when-its-dark-outside/#respond Fri, 12 Apr 2024 13:08:58 +0000 https://granadatv.network/?p=1398 The Odd Man returns in a new series

The post Rose blooms when it’s dark outside! appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

]]>

IT was a moment that few but the brave would have relished. I was face to face with that impregnable fortress of the law, Chief Inspector Rose, in his own den.

“Why,” I began boldly, “are you such a swine to your subordinates?”

Expecting something like the lash of a kid glove across my cheek, I stepped back a pace. I needn’t have bothered.

The Rose mirage faded quickly and I was left with the actor. Jolly, home loving, family man William Mervyn.



Only similarity between William and the iceberg-cool Rose he portrays so majestically in Friday’s new series of the twilight thriller, It’s Dark Outside, is his careful attention to dress.

“Don’t be too hard on Rose,” he said. “He’s really quite an amiable fellow when you get to know him.

“People are always telling me to take it easy on those poor old sergeants of mine, but Rose niggles with a purpose — to draw people out.

“You have to needle some folk to find out what they’re really like. With policemen, you’ve got to see if they can take it.

“Rose is a pompous old thing, but he’s not a fool. He’s impeccably honest and on top of his job. His verbal duels are really for sharpening the wits.”

Well, Rose may not be the ogre we suspected, but he’s parted company with Sgt. Swift.

In the new series we find him searching for a new assistant and he has earmarked Det. Sgt. James McKenzie Hunter, played by 29 year old Anthony Ainley, a newcomer to television.

Will he get his man? Well, he doesn’t get off to the best of starts, because Hunter, a sort of wild colonial boy from Kenya, detests Rose and his pomposity.

New female lead in the series is Veronica Strong, a bubbling, vivacious redhead, who plays Claire Martin, a 24-year-old fabric designer.

Claire is engaged to Sgt. Hunter, but has a weakness for lame dogs like Fred Blanc (played by John Stratton), a hard-drinking, wild-living newspaper reporter.

Veronica, who started in rep 10 years ago at the age of 16, sees Claire Martin as a very “with it” bachelor girl, rather like her own life, I gathered.

She comes from Brighton, has a flat in London, drives a mini, but would love a big Bentley. Veronica has a passion for classical music and spends most of her money on records and going to concerts.

The post Rose blooms when it’s dark outside! appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

]]> https://granadatv.network/rose-blooms-when-its-dark-outside/feed/ 0 https://granadatv.network/meet-the-new-mike-sarne/ https://granadatv.network/meet-the-new-mike-sarne/#respond Fri, 12 Apr 2024 13:02:50 +0000 https://granadatv.network/?p=1395 The host of Junior Criss Cross Quiz and his other job

The post Meet the new Mike Sarne appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

]]>

PRESENTING a new face of Mike Sarne. Smeared with shaving lather as he is here, is not exactly the face mean.

I’m talking about Sarne the photographer. There is little difference between the new Sarne and Sarne the actor, author, journalist, quizmaster, pop singer, poetry enthusiast, and former student at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies.

Except, perhaps, that here he is a little more curious. Look at our pictures again. These were taken, believe it or not, by our specially commissioned photographer, Mike Sarne.

The portrait of the artist as a young man with a camera strung round his neck was accomplished by the grace of what is known in dark-room vernacular as a “mirror.”

The picture of Mike “through the looking glass” was a little more difficult. No mirror was used, but it required a delayed-action exposure, and a deft fleetness of foot to get round the other side of the lens and into position before the thing went off.

He is certainly a keen cameraman — with an eye for the colourful as well as the unusual. Mike helps control a fashion photography studio in Chiswick.

Apart from regularly compering Junior Criss Cross Quiz on Thursdays, he has recently finished making a film. “Everyday’s a Holiday” — which is now on release.



The post Meet the new Mike Sarne appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

]]> https://granadatv.network/meet-the-new-mike-sarne/feed/ 0 https://granadatv.network/panic-stations-for-world-in-action/ https://granadatv.network/panic-stations-for-world-in-action/#respond Fri, 12 Apr 2024 12:58:03 +0000 https://granadatv.network/?p=1387 What happens when a World in Action story falls through

The post Panic stations – for World in Action appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

]]>

THE six-seater “Dove” aircraft that whisks the World in Action team across Europe is once more standing by, ready to fly off at a moment’s notice.

For World in Action returns to your screens on Tuesday.

The pilot is Capt. Jack Walters — a 34-year-old veteran of some 7,000 flying hours in 50 different types of aircraft. He has been conveying World In Action for the last four years and has taken them as far north as the Faroe Islands, east to Copenhagen, and south to Rome.

But to come down to earth — to London’s Golden Square, to be exact. It is a Tuesday: the World In Action team are in real action—preparing one of their “panic” editions for transmission that night.

Directing operations as smoothly as a master mariner is Alex Valentine — a broad, forceful 41-year-old Scotsman in a black crew-cut sweater. He smokes incessantly, and fortifies himself with endless cups of coffee.

He told me: “There have been, and I’m afraid will be, many ‘panic’ programmes. They’ve become part of our life. Some programmes come out sub-standard, so we scrap them. Or topical programmes fall down overnight — like the time Cassius Clay had a hernia and couldn’t fight.

“So then, we have to think and act quickly. We have to do a week’s work in two days. It’s impossible, of course, but somehow it gets done.”

He pointed to two camp beds in the office. “Those,” he said, “are the most important properties here — and coffee!”

He went on: “Physically, this job is a backbreaker, for all 32 of us. I’ve never seen so many dawns in my life, I don’t mind telling you.”

Basically, World In Action has four producers with four units working on four different programmes, here and abroad. When “panic” time comes, everyone who is available drops whatever he is doing and comes to Golden Square.

World In Action has been in existence for 764 days. They have screened 80 programmes from 24 different countries, and shot over three-quarters of a million foot of film.

“The thing is,” Alex said, “that you’ve got to be prepared to shoot two programmes, to get one on the air. On any ‘panic’ story, you’ve got to get at least 5,000 foot of film out of our library as an insurance, as a stand-by, in case what you get on the spot doesn’t work. You may never use a foot of it. Like the ‘Man In The Trunk’ case — the suspected spy who was about to be flown, doped, to Egypt.

“When this story blew up, I decided it was big enough to justify a ‘panic.’ We scrapped what we were working on, and I took the first night flight to Rome.

“The co-operation I got from the Italian police was fantastic. In less than two days they had built me an exact replica of the trunk and they used all their resources to make up a complete and detailed reconstruction of all aspects of the crime.”

Assistant to Alex Valentine on World In Action is Peter Heinze. He is one of three “fixers” — the back-roomers who do anything from obtaining £500 [£8,100 in today’s money, allowing for inflation – Ed] in Vietnamese money at the flick of an eyebrow to getting 10,000 toy soldiers delivered by the next post.

For “The Great Train Robbery,” for example, they hired the privately-owned Bluebell Line in Sussex for two days.

The biggest “panic” of all?

“John Bloom, I should think,” said Peter. “At the time of his empire’s collapse, we didn’t start on the programme until Sunday, for Tuesday transmission. Somehow, we managed to recall all our four producers and camera crews.

“We shot ‘around it,’ as best we could. We had to think of every possible background angle, in case we didn’t get Bloom himself. Once we had committed ourselves to it, we had no alternative.

“We kept ringing Bloom day and night. He kept saying … ‘Well, I’ll think about it. I’ll think about it …’ We never got him. Well, that’s the way it goes.”





ABOVE is the team which brings you World In Action. Below is a key to the jobs they do.

1 and 6, Assistant cameramen; 2 and 9, Cameramen; 3, Recordist; 4, Driver; 5, Assistant recordist; 7, Co-pilot; 8, Pilot; 10, Assistant editor; 11, Editor; 12, Librarian; 13, 14 and 15, Production office staff; 16, Secretary to executive producer; 17, 18, 22, 26, Four researchers; 19, 20, 27, 28 Four producers; 21, Executive producer; 23, Projectionist; 24, Assistant dubbing editor; 25, Editor; 29, Dubbing editor; 30, Assistant editor; 31, Production assistant; 32. Commentator.

The post Panic stations – for World in Action appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

]]> https://granadatv.network/panic-stations-for-world-in-action/feed/ 0 https://granadatv.network/gairmany-calling/ https://granadatv.network/gairmany-calling/#respond Fri, 12 Apr 2024 11:32:56 +0000 https://granadatv.network/?p=1383 Lord Haw Haw is remembered by All Our Yesterdays

The post Gairmany calling! appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

]]>

WILLIAM JOYCE was brought up as an Irish country boy but by the time of his death at the age of 39 he had become — next to Hitler — the most hated man in World War II.

The grotesque mouthpiece of the Third Reich (as far as England was concerned, he was the only ‘German’ who spoke directly to us), was known as Lord Haw-Haw. His story is told in Monday’s All Our Yesterdays.

Joyce, an insular, home-loving traitor and the voice behind the “Gairmany calling” propaganda broadcasts to Britain, got under the skin of the British nation as few other men have done this century.

At first, no one took him seriously. His peak audience of 6,000,000 regular listeners and 18,000,000 casuals was achieved on pure entertainment value.



The Press urged the British public to listen “for light entertainment.” Another reason why he had an avid following was that radio played a far bigger part in the nation’s life in 1940, with no TV and the blackout keeping people indoors.

But after the Blitzkrieg and the fall of France, people began to take Lord Haw-Haw more seriously.

William Joyce, born in America of Irish-American parents on April 24, 1906, moved to Ireland with his mother and father when he was three. He came to England about 12 years later.

He joined the English Fascist movement under Mosley, but when faced with conflicting loyalties in 1939, went to Germany with his wife Margaret.

When war broke out he found employment as a broadcaster in the English language section of the German propaganda ministry.

In his first broadcast on September 11, 1939, he accused the British of hypocrisy and colonialism and scoffed: “England will fight to the last Frenchman.”

A poll showed that more than a quarter of the British public had heard him, and that he reached his radio peak 25 years ago this week.

Jonah Barrington, a national newspaper reporter, wrote: “A gent I’d like to meet is moaning periodically from Zeesen. He speaks English of the haw haw-damit-get-out-of-my-way variety.” A few days later Barrington bestowed on him the title Lord Haw-Haw and it stuck.



By May, 1940, the Germans were themselves using the title Lord Haw-Haw, but his “popularity” was already on the wane.

His last broadcast to Britain, the Commonwealth and America was in April, 1945. With Germany on her knees he described Hitler and Goebbels as “barricaded heroes in Berlin.” His broadcast ended: “You may not hear me for a few months. Heil Hitler and farewell.” He was captured in a wood while trying to escape to a neutral country, convicted of high treason at the Old Bailey and hanged.

The pompous propaganda peddler of the Third Reich was dead.

The post Gairmany calling! appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

]]> https://granadatv.network/gairmany-calling/feed/ 0