Burleydam Women's Institute

Meeting report

At the September meeting of Burleydam W I Judy Popley spoke about her life at Granada TV in the 60s, 70s and 80s, when she worked there as a secretary to producers and directors of many of the iconic programmes that were produced at that time Granada TV was born in the 1950s, out of the Granada Theatre in Doverby Sidney Bernstein (later Lord Bernstein ) and his brother. In 1954, ITA awarded Granada its first licence to broadcast in the North West and Yorkshire. This licence was restricted for weekdays only, BBC operated at the weekends! But eventually they joined forces for the whole week.
Granada Made many famous programmes, one of the early successes was World In Action, which probed more deeply into its subject matter than previously and caused many a Cabinet Minister to bluster and prevaricate when questioned closely about their departments.

1962 saw the first episode of Coronation Street, Granada’s most famous and longest running soap opera in the world, still going strong after 63 years. Two years later, another classic show University Challenge was born, and still proves extremely popular with the students who represent their alma mater. The show has also been notable for the question masters who have controlled the show, including Bamber Gascoigne and Jeremy Paxman. Judy showed us some of the many famous people who had started their careers at Granada, we saw a picture of a very youthful Colin Firth holding her little son Ben, and of course the great interviewer, Michael Parkinson. Judy married the son of ‘Stan Ogden’, (remember Stan and Hilda?) who was a cameraman on Granada, so of course her involvement with the company continued.

The competition was won by Margaret, 2 nd Jean and 3 rd Joan.

After refreshments, the business meeting continued with information about the Malbank group meeting at Nantwich, speaker Lady Dodd. The walking tour of Nantwich having been cancelled due to rain, it was decided to try again next summer. The results of the group bowling competition were announced, when Burleydam gave a very good account of itself. County items from Cheshire News were discussed.

The next meeting is on October 7 th at 7.30pm in the Community Meeting Room when Wayne Morris will talk about ‘Clocks’. Visitors and new members always welcome, catch up with us on http://www.BurleydamWI.com