The post Granada gallery 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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“But they will,” he told me confidently.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Why Canada?” I asked.

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

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

“To seek our fortune,” said Allan.

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

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

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

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

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

“That’s life,” said Chris.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“However, the show was eventually saved.”

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

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

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

“An autobiography,” said Chris.

“Your life story?” said Allan.

“No — it’s about a car,” said Chris …

So I took the hint, and left.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

IF the supply is anything to go on, the demand for medical information grows and grows. Documentary medical programmes, fictional medical programmes — seldom even a straight play on radio or television without the intrusion of the doctor.

If you switch off to read the paper there it is again. You sometimes have a job to find the Test Match scores among the clinical details of players’ injuries.

And now, for 20 minutes each week, I’m at it myself!

What’s it all about, this apparently insatiable curiosity about illness and health? Are we a nation of neurotics or are we genuinely anxious to learn about things that can affect us and things that can help us? I’m afraid it’s a little of both. Were it only the former I would not be undertaking this present series nor would the British Medical Association have chosen “Health Education” as its Subject of the Year.

It is true that interest in matters of this sort is not always healthy, and that in some cases it may even have dangers. But I believe, as do most of my profession, that these dangers are nothing to the menace of ignorance, with its inevitable accompaniment of superstition and fear.

Indeed it is for this reason that doctors and hospitals are now so ready to assist with programmes like Emergency — Ward 10.

The old days of secrecy and mystery are over. The witch doctor is dead. So, if people are to he informed, then the more fully and accurately it is done, the better.

In the Evening Surgery series we will deal with all sorts of medical matters. Not merely illnesses, though there’ll be plenty of those, no doubt, but health as well, both from the individual and the community point of view.

Smoking, clean air, sport, food, feet — in fact anything affecting my profession which the public ought to know or which would be interesting or even amusing for them to know — and amusement isn’t as out of place as all that in matters of health.

Indeed, one of the first steps in cultivating a healthy attitude to illness is surely to learn to talk about it in other than hushed tones.

I shall make no attempt to talk as a “high-priest” and I hope viewers will not listen to me like a congregation.

Some people might wonder whether 6.40 p.m. is the best time for this sort of programme. Well, I suppose there are some things that children shouldn’t hear, but one can never be too young to learn sense.

It is in childhood above all that health education can really help. It is at this time that wrong thinking, false attitudes and fears begin. And they begin with ignorance, not with hearing “unsuitable things.”

Every child is aware of illness and even of death, and the more they are shrouded in mystery the more frightening they become. In other words, the problem is not “are they too young?” but “are they too old?” Are their prejudices and superstitions too firmly fixed to be dislodged?

Incidentally, don’t be misled by the title of this new programme. In Evening Surgery, I am not inviting viewers to take a peep at my patients or my prescription book, nor am I trying to diagnose or treat ailments.

I am not trying to be a Sister X or a Doctor Y of the women’s magazines, nor am I a means of dodging your own doctor’s waiting-room queue.

But I do hope that I may make your own doctor’s work easier. Not by teaching you to treat yourselves, but by helping you to heed and to understand what he tells you — and even to understand his problems as well as your own.

Finally, you won’t have only me to look at. As a general practitioner, I can hardly claim to be a universal genius in the medical field, and I shall bring along my “experts” and question them.

Patients, too, will have their say from time to time, both on film and in the studio.

The post Take a doctor’s advice… appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

PEOPLE who know how long I’ve known Bill Grundy often ask me what the man is really like.

Has he always been as aggressive and dogmatic as he is in front of the television camera, they want to know. Is that hard-bitten exterior something that has grown on him in recent years? And does a heart of gold beat under it?

Well, a heart of gold he may have. But Grundy doesn’t change much, on or off the screen. He’s been that way ever since I first met him 15 years ago. And I expect he always will be.

It’s fatal, for instance, to be in a car with him.

If you’re driving, I’ll guarantee your driving will disintegrate within minutes. He won’t say anything. He’ll just sit there, watching you. He has a naturally critical presence, I suppose.

It’s even worse when he’s driving — if you’re one of those normal, sane, sensitive souls who hates scenes that is. He’s a good driver, but there’s nothing he enjoys more than a raucous argument with another driver in the middle of a traffic jam.

Just let someone turn right without giving a signal, or stop without warning, or cut in front of him! Down goes the window, and within seconds Grundy is in full flood.

Dinner with Grundy is another perilous experience. He’s an expert on wine, you sec. Pity the wine-waiter who doesn’t know his wine when he’s dealing with Grundy! He’ll argue for hours about it, completely oblivious to your rapidly cooling dinner. I think he would rather argue about it than drink it.

He’s mean, too.

Not about big things, of course. He will spend pounds buying a present for someone, but he can get positively delirious with delight if he thinks he’s got something twopence cheaper than the market price.

And then, of course, there are the children. He has five — four boys and a girl.

They all adore him. I can’t think why. He’s a real Victorian father to them.

I think he gets round them by taking them for long walks, and telling them about soil and things. That’s one advantage of being a geologist, I suppose.

He buys them things, too. He bought eight-year-old Nicholas a microscope the other day. Poor Nicholas. I could have told him what would happen. Now he can’t get near the thing when his father’s around.

I shudder to think what’s going to happen when he buys them the electric train set he is promising them this Christmas. I expect that within minutes of its assembly, the household will be subjected to dissertations on railway technique by Station Master Grundy.

He’s hopeless around the house, by the way.

He won’t admit it, but he is. His family don’t bother asking him to do odd jobs any more. Get him to knock a nail in the wall? Bill will be happy to do it. But no one can guarantee the result.

Shattered plaster, bent nails, bruised thumbs and frayed tempers — take your pick. They’re all equally likely. And whose fault do you think it will be that things go wrong?

You’ve guessed it. The children’s, or the manufacturers of “inferior” nails. Even the hammer isn’t above reproach.

Mending the fuse is a positive adventure with him. He understands the mechanics of the thing, of course. He does with most things.

But he’ll probably lose the screws, and everyone within range will be enlisted to crawl round the floor looking for them. Never mention wallpaper to him. He’s liable to be rude.

He decided to paper his own bathroom some time ago, you see. He got four lengths on the walls, and then found that he couldn’t match them up.

He wouldn’t admit defeat, needless to say. He spent 12 months pretending to his friends that he hadn’t time to get down to the job, before finally getting a professional decorator in to finish it off.

All the handywork around his house is done by his father, the older Bill, who carries it out with a sort of scornful Grundy-like urbanity which must annoy Bill considerably.

It was Bill’s father, for instance, who turned the tennis court at the back of the Grundy home into a miniature football pitch. As soon as the work was done, the young Bill took charge of it.

Now, every Sunday, he organises a football match with the children.

He’s captain, of course, and he refuses to play in goal. He used to play on the wing for the Navy and for Manchester University, you know, and he insists on playing in that position now. He fancies himself as a sort of latter-day Bobby Charlton, I suppose.

Yes. Grundy’s pretty insufferable, on and off television. And what makes it worse is that he is really quite soft underneath it all.

You have to know what makes Bill tick, you see. Argument is a disease with him.

He’ll argue about anything. He’ll even argue when he knows he’s wrong — just for the hell of it.

I think I’ve got the best way to deal with the man when he gets like that, though, I just put out my tongue at him. It works like a charm.

Still, I suppose that tf anyone ought to know how to deflate the man, I should — for my name is Grundy, too — Jean Grundy.

I’ve been happily married to Bill for 15 years.

The post Grundy by name… appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Goodbye?

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

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

I never can get used to eating in this canteen.

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

They eat and drink — just like real people.

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

But the rush is soon on again.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What’s a Francophile?” asks Howland.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Say it,” commands Chris.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Is that possible?”

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

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

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

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

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

“In what language?” asks Chris.

“French,” says Bill.

“And what was the result?” asks Chris.

“We lost the contract,” says Bill.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

THERE is no place like the North for plain speaking. Argument thrives here as it has always done. Can it be something in the air?

I ask because the top brass of the BBC, who but for the flick of a switch would be called “tycoons”, seem to find it particularly heady.

It begins to loosen their tongues as soon as they step off the Pullman from London.

This is quite understandable, of course. They are never here long enough to get used to breathing it as the rest of us are. Nevertheless, we at Granada are still sometimes surprised at the things they say.

There was, for example, that remarkable speech by Mr. Hugh Carleton Greene, the BBC’s Director General, when he paid one of his infrequent visits.

What else but the Manchester air could be blamed for his unhappy attempt to prove that only the BBC can provide worthwhile regional broadcasting in the North — when all the evidence pointed in the exactly opposite direction?

We do not mind being attacked by the BBC, but we believe that deliberate distortion of the facts should not be shrugged off. Television is at too crucial a stage in its development for misinformed comment to be left unanswered.

The BBC television service claims to be regional, but their vast acreage at Shepherd’s Bush is evidence of an overwhelming focus of effort and resources in London.

In fact, their headquarters in this part of the world are a somewhat cramped studio in a back-street — a converted church.

Recently, Mr. Greene’s programme controller, Mr. Stuart Hood, told a Manchester audience: “Britain is not centred on London, but has strong local life.” How right he is!

But if he really wants to be regional, he should try to get the BBC’s architects on his side and divert some of the bricks and mortar from London to the North.

For the truth is that their paper plans for building new television studios in the North have remained — on paper. Granada, in contrast, has cut away from the South and built all its new studios here.

Does it make much difference where a television company has its studios? Of course it does!

The first essential of good regional television is an iden tity of interests between the people producing the programmes and the people who watch them. The programmes acquire a natural and sustained vigour from this.

But how can that kind of identification be achieved if the studios and the audience are separated by a gap of hundreds of miles and several counties? Could Coronation Street have been produced by Granada from the South? Or People and Places?

Isn’t it significant that the BBC did no Northern news bulletins and Northern sports programmes on television until Granada led the way?

Of course, most Granada programmes are seen all over the country, just as we here in the North see programmes produced from other companies. This is called networking.

But our five acre TV Centre in Manchester is the focus of many more programmes designed for the North alone. We believe we have now become part of the life of the North, and our TV Centre is tangible evidence of our honouring the original concept of independent television.

Derek Meakin writes…

ONE observation made by Mr. Stuart Hood, in the speech referred to by Mr. Bernstein, has become a top talking point among BBC and ITV personnel in the North.

He said: “In regional terms we give insufficient attention, and insufficient time, to the coverage of local affairs, which is, I believe, the field in which regional television has still got a long way to go.”

The general reaction to this remark was summed up for me by a man who has worked for both channels — Ronnie Taylor, now ABC Television’s Head of Light Entertainment, who started with the BBC in 1949 and moved to ABC two years ago.

He told me: “This is an unexpected admission by a member of the BBC hierarchy. As far as the North — which is the largest region of all — is concerned, it has taken them 11 years to get around to this way of thinking.

“I well remember the unique opportunity the BBC had to pioneer regional television when the North’s first TV transmitter was opened at Holme Moss in 1951.

“But what happened? The transmitter became little more than an automatic relay station re-broadcasting programmes received from London.

“Then, when ITV began in the North just six years ago, we all expected that the BBC would react to competition by giving a fair measure of autonomy to its Northern operation.

“But the grand hopes held by Northerners working for the BBC were not to be realised. In fact, they have continually met with frustration and opposition.

“People at the London end of the BBC have gone out of their way to see that the regions have not had the chance to develop.

“ABC and the other regional companies are in business to provide regional television. And this is why I am now so happy working for ABC.”

According to Mr. Hood, local affairs is the field “in which regional television has still a long way to go.”

But it has gone far already — on the independent channel. The facts speak for themselves.

For instance. Granada pioneered regional news bulletins and now gives two every weekday. With its Saturday-night Northern News Desk ABC is the first company to provide a regional weekend news bulletin.

In People and Places, Granada brings before the cameras a constant stream of interesting personalities who belong to the North or who are visiting the region.

ABC at Large is regularly praised by the authorities for its courageous treatment of regional problems.

That viewers like these programmes is graphically shown by audience figures.

People and Places is seen in 671,250 more Northern homes than its BBC equivalent, Tonight. And ABC at Large, although it is shown very late in the evening, attracts a Northern audience that is greater by 242,000 houses than the one that watches the BBC’s peak-hour Panorama.

The post Plain speaking appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

STARS twinkle in the night sky, and the light from the full moon makes the snow glisten high up on the mighty Rockies. From the brilliantly illuminated ranch-house, constructed of local stone and timber from the encircling forests, comes the gay music of a square-dance. And a rough wooden sign nearby proclaims that we are exactly 5,993 miles from London.

It could be Alberta, Canada. But. in fact, the stars are sequins, the mountains cardboard. And the ranch-house, made from matchwood and paper, is in a television studio only a stone’s throw from Manchester’s muddy Irwell.

But if the scaled down model screened at the opening of Melody Ranch is only make-believe, the atmosphere inside the full-size ranch-house built on the studio floor is 100 per cent authentic.

The place itself has been designed by a Canadian, Tom Spaulding. The moose’s head on the wall may have been borrowed from a Salford museum — but it is, after all, a genuine North American moose.

And most of the artists appearing in the show are Canadians, too. Bill O’Connor, the host, and comedy-singer Libby Morris, who have both appeared in a similar show on Canadian TV, tell me: “This is just like the real thing.”

It was in a building something like the Melody Ranch set that Libby started on her show business career. “It was back in Winnipeg,” she said. “There was a stable, and a man bought it and made it into a night club, while maintaining the Western setting. I was 17 and working my way through college, and I used to sing there at night.

“After that I moved to Toronto, broke into radio and television, and then came to Britain.”

Libby is no stranger to the Manchester studios. She used to sing in Two’s Company until she had a breakdown and flew back to Canada to recuperate.

Melody Ranch also brings diminutive Jackie Lee back to the studios where she scored so much success in magazine programmes like Sharp at Four and People and Places. Since she was last in Manchester she’s had a busy time. Much of it has been taken up with troop concerts in Cyprus, Germany, North Africa and Malta.

But she also found time to get engaged. Her fiance is Len Beadle, one of The Four Others singing group. They plan to be married in August.

Jackie is one member of the Melody Ranch team who has no connection with Canada. She is Irish, and proud of it. “But,” she told me, “I wouldn’t have missed this for anything. There is such a happy atmosphere, and everyone is so friendly and helpful.”

The leader of the Melody Ranch group of musicians is Danny Levan, whose “talking violin” has a lot to say during the show’s 30 minutes. “I like to specialise in the novelty jazz type of fiddle playing,” he said, “but for some years now I have been typed as a Western-style fiddler. I don’t mind. I love this kind of music.”

He was introduced to “this kind of music” when he came out of the Army after the war and teamed up with the late Big Bill Campbell.

It was a post war meeting that created the Maple Leaf Four. This singing group consists of Al Harvey, brothers Norman and Johnnie MacLeod and Joe Melia. None of them had any show business experience before the war. They came to Britain as Canadian servicemen, and met after the war.

Of the four, only Al Harvey, tall and immaculate in his black and white cowboy outfit, can claim any knowledge of real ranch life. “I have ridden in the Calgary Stampede,” he told me. “It’s the biggest in the world — an unforgettable experience.”

Melody Ranch should make Al feel at home. According to the script its location is in the foothills of the Rockies, midway between Calgary and Banff.

Derek Meakin

– And Bill O’Connor ties the show together

BILL O’CONNOR stopped shouting “Mr Props, Mr Props,” and gave me an engaging smile. “I’m looking for a piece of string,” he explained. “I’ve just had this Western outfit made and the belt’s too long. It looks untidy. A piece of string would tie it nicely.”

This he said in an accent that was born in Sault Sainte Marie, Canada, where Bill grew up. As an actor he has used many others, but his home-town accent has come out again for Melody Ranch, where square-dances and songs from the guests set the style.

I met him at a rehearsal to talk about his role as “the owner of this spread.” He is tall — almost 6ft — has dark brown curly hair, hazel eyes and a welcoming smile.

His figure is athletic, which is hardly surprising, for he lists baseball, squash and ice hockey among his leisure activities.

He looks a real rancher in his Western outfit of brown and white leather boots, brown and white checked trousers, yellow ochre embroidered shirt and ribbon tie with a matching waistcoat.

“I’m certainly enjoying this show,” said Bill. “I think it’s fun. I hope it’s popular. We have the same sort of show in Canada. That’s been running for more than five years and is so popular that viewers won’t let it be replaced.” He has just returned from Canada, where he is known as Larry O’Connor. ” There’s another Bill O’Connor in Canadian show business,” he explained.

Bill, who is 38, came to England with the Canadian Navy and stayed on to become a well-established leading man in West End musical comedy. He played in Cage Me A Peacock, Brigadoon and Love From Judy.

His films include They Made Me A Fugitive, Meet the Navy, No Orchids For Miss Blandish and The Happiness of Three Women. He has had two weekly radio programmes, and taken part in variety broadcasts and straight plays, but he plays host for the first time on television in Melody Ranch.

Bill does more than introduce the other artists; his easy-going, relaxed personality welds the show together He welcomes the viewers to the timbered, wide-windowed ranch house. He cracks the jokes that lead from song to song, and, of course, he sings.

“I like the happy atmosphere of Melody Ranch,” Bill told me. “I like the gay songs we sing.”

There was no more time to talk, for the last rehearsal was due to begin. Director Philip Jones walked on the set to give his last-minute instructions.

Bill was saying goodbye to me when a blue-sweatered character who had heard his appeal for string arrived with a piece. Bill tied his belt tightly. “I think that looks better,” he said. And he slipped back to the set in time to join the rest of the cast in the welcoming song that introduces Melody Ranch.

Pamela Hodgson

The post They’re real pardners at Melody Ranch appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

A TELEVISION studio is the crossroads of the world — a meeting point of people from every nation. Here, for instance, Chinese, Indians and Africans meet to life and movement to the sets of Skyport and Knight Errant ’59.

They have no lines to speak, these silent part-time actors.

They earn the £3-a-day fee by merely hovering in the background or pacing unobtrusively across the set, giving the show the all-important stamp of a authenticity.

The task of finding them falls to Jose Scott, assistant to Margaret Morris, who is head of Granada’s casting department in Manchester.

Said Jose: “Some of the people I find are professionals, but many are part-timers specially engaged at short notice. I get them through an agent or our contacts in various schools and colleges.

“There are plenty of professionals available who have the facial characteristics of Europeans and most other whit-skinned foreigners.

“But when we need coloured people we run into difficulty in the North, because normally we can get hold of only a handful. Recently we needed 30 coloured men and women for a play. In desperation I rang Manchester University and asked them to put up a notice saying that any interested students should contact us.

“We didn’t have to wait long. Soon the phone was ringing — and it went on ringing and ringing and ringing. We had more than needed in the end.

“When we met them in the reception lounge, we found some of the men who had promised to come had brought their wives, too. And a woman who could not turn up at the last moment sent along her next-door neighbour.

“Although they speak English, many have a strong accent which we had difficulty in understanding and caused chaos when it came to getting their names correct.

“And when we asked them to write down their names, we couldn’t read their handwriting. But we got it sorted out eventually.”

Researchers for Granada’s People And Places magazine programme often provide leads to foreigners available for walk-on parts “And,” Jose told me, “once someone has made an appearance, he usually says ‘I have a friend who would be able to help…’ So the whole business works on a sort of snowball principle.

We have never been asked to find a Japanese, an Eskimo or a dwarf, but I’m sure we could. In the case of an Eskimo, we probably use a person with similar features, then dress them up. It’s amazing what a few clothes will do.”

Talking of clothes reminded Jose of an incident during rehearsals for a play. A group of Indians wearing saris were told the producer to turn up the next day in their “everyday” clothes.

So the next day they left their best saris at home and arrived on the set in their week-day saris! They didn’t that they were meant to wear Western dress.

At the studios, everybody speaks highly of the co-operation and friendliness of future doctors, lawyers, secretaries, teachers and engineers.

Said Jose: “The students are able to get a couple of days off without much difficulty, and they are always glad to do this sort of work. They have a reputation for being conscientious and hardworking.”

Akitoye Akiwumi, 24-year-old engineering student from Sierra Leone and Ali Mazrui, who has come from Kenya to study philosophy and politics, both appeared in a Granada play.

Said Akitoye: “We spent three days at the studio and found it very interesting to see things from the other side of the camera.” Ali told me: “I have done radio broadcasts in Mombasa, but this was he first time I had been inside a TV studio, a thrilling experience.”

Clarice Boyle, who is 25, and 22-year-old Marjorie During, both from Sierra Leone, got time off from their secretarial studies to become Skyport “travellers.”

When Jose was asked to find a Chinese family for Skyport, she called on a Chinese couple who run a Manchester restaurant, Maw Man and his wife Ah Sing. But their children, Ken, 13, and Linda, 12, were not able to appear because of restrictions concerning the employment of child actors. So Jose asked a London agency for two Chinese children.

When Ah Sing and her husband met the children from London in the studio, they discovered they were their niece and nephew — children of Maw’s elder brother.

The post The Silent Shadows appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

TAKE a pianist, guitarist, bass player and drummer. Give them a tune. Pick a rhythm that has an exciting beat. That’s the style of the Derek Hilton Quartet, which has been presenting a new sound on some Granada programmes.

Viewers have heard it in The Youngsters, People and Places, Sharp at Four and even in a Shadow Squad night club scene.

Welsh viewers hear it even more frequently. For Derek adds something new to traditional Welsh ballads for Granada’s Welsh programme Dewch I Mewn, seen on Channel 9 only in the North.

The quartet’s clear, haunting style reminds me of another group – the Modern Jazz Quartet. So I was hardly surprised when Derek said: “They are my favourites. I have many of their records, and like their style.” Derek admitted that this kind of music was not yet very popular. “But it will be,” he prophesied, confidently.

Certainly Derek’s modern jazz interpretations are keeping him busy, and his quartet is used in many Granada programmes. Derek himself used to play the piano in Spot The Tune!

He does the arrangements which are played by drummer Red Carter, guitarist Les Beavers, bass player Bob Duffy and Derek on the piano.

Derek Hilton, who is married to a Dutch girl he met when he was in the army, does not have a piano at home, so I was interested to know how he works.

“A piano would be no help,” he explained. “Arrangements that are good on a piano do not always sound well when played by a quartet. A piano would be a hindrance, and that is why I do not have one.”

Derek has a keen knowledge of music, gleaned since he began learning to play at the age of seven. “I read the music and can hear the tune in my mind,” the tall, bespectacled band leader told me.

Derek has to work quickly, for he spends so much of his time playing. Since his quartet first began broadcasting on the Welsh programme, he has arranged more than 30 Welsh ballads to suit his team’s style.

“I find Welsh songs are easy to arrange. They have a clear melody, and I enjoy playing them much more than some of the new songs which are being published today,” he said.

Derek explained: “The scope for arrangements in modern tunes is limited, but I can do a lot with Welsh tunes.”

He has the music for 60 Welsh ballads. “I think that most of the country’s folk songs have been published,” said Derek. “but I am on the lookout for some more.

“I would be glad if viewers would tell me of any lesser known Welsh songs which we could play in the programme.”

The post Modern music from bardic ballads appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

RHYDWEN WILLIAMS is the sort of man who is never stationary for more than two minutes. To hold a conversation with him or longer than that it is necessary to follow him round.

So I did. For a whole day. I followed Rhydwen, producer Granada’s Welsh-language programme Dewch I Mewn and company’s representative in Wales, on one of his whirlwind research trips.

Hs cream saloon car headed out of Manchester towards the hills of North Wales on a fresh journey of discovery. It was the beginning of a new chapter in the story of Rhydwen’s constant seach for talent for his own programme and for the Northern magazine, People And Places.

It was only 8.30 am. But 40-year-old Rhydwen had already had breakfast and done an hour’s writing.

Rhydwen, born a miner’s son in the Rhodda Valley, believes in keeping fit. So he weight-lifts.

“Wherever I happen to be,” he told me. “Even by the roadside, sometimes.”

Rhydwen’s first call on the 233-mile trip was in Mold to see an old friend, Dr Haydn Williams. He is the man who just won his two-year battle to bring National Eisteddfod of 1961 to Rhos, Wrexham, the place they call “the biggest village in Wales.”

After another call in Mold and a hasty lunch in Denbigh he was off again. Into the hills.

The car hummed along A543, which crosses Hiraethog mountain. It halted by county council roadman Bill Roberts.

Bill, 43 and a bachelor, has been keeping tidy his section of A543 since he came out of the Army in 1946. He told Rhydwen: “I can’t imagine being happy in any other sort of life.” A few miles further on Rhydwen stopped again. This time he talked to 12-year-old Gwenda Williams, who sat astride her pony, Goldie. With her on Goldie’s back were her brother, Eryl, four, and schoolfriend Haf Davies.

Farmer’s daughter Gwenda is likely to find herself in the TV studio playing the harp, sending Christmas good wishes to the children of Wales and talking of her life on the farm at Bylchau.

Later, the car left the main road and edged carefully along a rock-strewn path to the farmhouse home of 16-year-old Ann Roberts. The sound of singing came to our ears as we walked to the porch. Ann was at the piano, singing a traditional Welsh air. Rhydwen was impressed.

We visited several more places and saw several more people.

But even after we returned to Manchester it was not the end of Rhydwen’s day. There was more writing to do. Songs, poems, children’s stories. Rhydwen has written about 400 in three years.

The post Going places, meeting people appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.