Granada Studio's trip

Being a Lakeside student as I mentioned in a previous blog had a number of privileges with one being certain trips that we could go on that mainschool students weren't allowed to do as they were either too young or it might not be appropriate that some went on the trip but others were left out. Around late 2010 (Nov I believe it was) one such trip would be planned as part of Wargrave & Lakeside's special themed week which this time was gonna be Media Week.

The week in question alongside themed sessions and a photo competition also involved a number of trips which differed per departments. For mainschool the primary students went to the Liverpool Empire theatre, while the transition department & the majority of Lakeside students went to MOSI (Museum of Science and Industry) which is located in Manchester. For a select handful of Lakeside students there was to be a visit to the old Granada Studio's, it had been hoped to have both all of FE1 & FE2 visit the studios but unfortunately they would only allow 1 group to visit the site and it would be maxed at no more than 8 people to visit (this was therefore restricted to a max of 6 students alongside 2 members of staff). When it came to choosing the students for the trip for those who weren't chosen there was a lot of friction between them and those who had been picked with some claiming it was down to favouritism and others claiming it was because they favoured the higher ranking classes (Transition students being extremely jealous alongside some Lakeside students who didn't take the decision well). It was basically like that time in the Goblet of Fire book where the other three houses took a dislike towards people in Gryffindor as Hufflepuff rarely got anything good happen and Gryffindor would likely take the limelight away from them. The two staff who would be going on the trip after looking at who would be best suited to going on the trip was eventually decided and they settled on: Myself (David), Hannah, Claire, Callum O, Daniel & Alistair (James now). The Lakeside trips to MOSI & Granada would take place on the same day as each other with our group going on one minibus to Granada Studio's while the remainder would travel on other minibuses to MOSI. Once at the studio's the first job was to sign in and then meet our tour guide who would be showing us around the studios aswell as showing us some of the sets used in TV programme's & what goes on behind the scenes.

Compared to when the Granada Studio's tour attraction was open between 1988 & 1999 where the public only got to visit certain locations we got to visit the whole site properly which included the original Coronation Street set before it's eventual relocation to MediaCity which took place a few years later. It was a brilliant feeling to be able to walk along the cobbles that a lot of famous people have done over the years both past and at the time present cast members had walked along also. These included actors/actress's like William Roache (Ken Barlow), Helen Worth (Gail Platt), Jack P Shepherd (David Platt), David Neilson (Roy Cropper), Anne Kirkbride (Dierdre Barlow) & Lloyd Mullaney who was played by Craig Charles (also famed for playing Lister in Red Dwarf & also from 1998 to 2004 the presenter of Robot Wars). None of these actors or actress's we would meet that day but while we were on the corrie set we did get to meet three female cast members (two of which were the ones who played my favourite characters in the series). These three actress's being Helen Flanagan (Rosie Webster), Brooke Vincent (Sophie Webster) & Sacha Parkinson (Sian Powers). While Helen was in a rush and wasn't able to stop for too long we did all get to have a chat with her about her character in the series and what it was like playing Rosie in the series. Eventually she had to leave us but Brooke and Sacha managed to stay for a little longer with us asking them questions about their characters and what it was like staring in the series aswell as plans for their characters (some of which we were forbidden from sharing to our classmates as it was to be a secret). Brooke and Sacha even managed to join us for a group photo (picture above), with Sophie Webster being one of my fav characters in the series I decided to stand next to Brooke for the photo. Eventually we sadly had to leave Brooke and Sacha & we continued our tour of Granada Studio's exploring a number of the sets inside the studios including visiting some of the studio's which had once featured programme's like both versions of Stars in Their Eyes and even some had been used for the sets in Life on Mars. A number of present day programme's were also there which we got to have a look at which included Countdown & even the set of The Jeremy Kyle Show (we even did a little scene of our own on this set for the camera's). Was good being able to sit down in the seats where the people would sit and discuss their problems to Jeremy OR in some cases fight aswell as have a wander around the set.

The big one though that we got to visit was the Granada Reports set. At the time we actually visited the set they were actually getting ready to broadcast the news which I think in this case was at 12pm so it was the lunchtime news. The presenter of the news on this day in particular was the late newsman Tony Morris who sadly died in August 2020 from Kidney Cancer. The weather girl on this occasion being Kerrie Gosney, It was basically a quick hi to them both before we went upstairs to the editing suite where we would get to watch them broadcast the news. Surprisingly it turns out that they do a practice run first before they go live for the real thing. Now we obviously had to stay quiet when they were doing the practice run aswell as when they were broadcasting live on ITV but when Tony was introducing the practice run of the news he even gave us a shoutout by saying hello to the students at Wargrave House, not responding to him after a brief pause he then went on saying we were a quiet group before we all responded back saying hi. Infact the practice run of the news was recorded on one of our cameras, sadly I dont have a copy of the film. After this came the real thing which involved no shoutout and like the practise run went off successfully. Just imagine what it might have been like had the 6 of us been allowed to be seated on the sofa with Tony when they were actually broadcasting the news, now that would have been a special moment.

After this was finished we went back down to the set to meet both Tony and Kerrie properly and we even got to have a go at presenting the weather ourselves in groups of two. Callum was alongside Claire, Alistair was with Hannah & I was with Daniel. Sadly the day went by too quickly and eventually it was time for us to head back to Lakeside College, although Tony couldn't join us we managed to get a group photo of us on the Granada News sofa with Kerrie before we had to leave.

To me and my fellow classmates that day this was by far one of the best trips we ever went on. We'd shown that day that they could plan similar trips like this in the future & that we could be trusted as they knew we would behave ourselves and set a good example. Sadly such a type of trip wouldn't be done again during our time and with this studio now gone such scenes like these cannot be repeated again & now it's just memories. Although it was long after we'd all left for pastures new another studio trip took place in the late 2010's to one of the BBC's studios in Manchester by Lakeside's next generation of students.

As of 2022 the site of the old Granada Studios has since been demolised, being replaced by the new ITV studio's around MediaCity. If time travel ever could be made possible it would be brilliant to re-live this trip as it was just so much fun and it's one that will always live in our memories, well for 6 of us that is.

Stay tuned for future posts

Mr Moyle