Eye On Manchester blog by Aidan O’Rourke Tutor Photographer

Personal & professional diary on photography, languages, Français, Deutsch, local interest, art, music, travel and more

A ‘SALUTE TO LANCASHIRE’ will be one of the first programmes on the Granada Network’s first night of commercial tv, which begins this coming Thursday.

Produced by Val Parnell, the programme will include Pat Kirkwood, Lena Horne, Bob Monkhouse, Denis Goodwin, Sid Millward and his Nitwits and the Tiller Girls.

The opening night surprise item also features a Gracie Fields film, to be flown in from America.

The Surprise Time number two feature presents Gilbert Harding, Sir Mortimer Wheeler, Benny Hill, Arthur Askey and Jack Hylton.

Granada TV have been running trials of the programme at the Granada TV studio.

The Evening Chronicle’s Jack Oldham, in his ‘Round and About’ column, reports that some staff have come back from London to work in Manchester. One of them is Pauline Shaw, now a ‘vision mixer’ with the Granada TV network.

Still unmarried, she has only just returned North and is staying with her parents in Clifton Rd, Prestwich. She worked previously at the BBC’s Lime Grove studios. Thanks to Granada, people who thought they had to go South to make good are coming back to Manchester.

A mobile programme which looks at traffic problems on the Barton Bridge on one day and visits an old peoples’ home the next, is part of Granada TV’s campaign to give a Northern flavour to the new service.

‘The Travelling Eye’ will report on Northern stories 5 out of 6 nights a week from May 3, 1956, visiting Barton Bridge on May 4th and Lawnhurst old peoples home, Didsbury, Manchester the following Monday.

The quiz show ‘Take Your Pick’, with quiz inquisitor Michael Miles. will be shown in the Midlands and North from next week.

Mayors and mayoresses of many Lancashire and Cheshire towns will be among 200 people attending private preview of the new Granada TV studios in Deansgate, Manchester this evening.

Sir Albert Richardson, architect, teacher, writer and President of the Royal Academy, has paid a visit to Manchester and expressed strong views on the city, its architectural features, and how it should be developed in the future.

Sir Albert had travelled from London to give an address at the B.B.C.’s 51 Society. The distinguished septuagenarian was recently knighted and is known for his love of Georgian architecture.

He was taken on a tour of Manchester. Ever enthusiastic, waving his umbrella in characteristic style, he expressed some strong opinions. Here is a selection:

On the recently-completed interior of the FREE TRADE HALL he had this to say: “A Brilliant conception. Quite brilliant. A contemporary design on a classic basis.” He did however recommend replacing the green colour scheme with red.

The OPERA HOUSE, which Sir Albert designed himself in 1911: “Not bad for a boy of thirty, eh ? The first theatre in England without pillars. Never got paid for it of course.”

RYLANDS LIBRARY: “You’re looking at the last of the very great buildings, my dear boy! Where are they all, those budding young architects ? Go out into the street. Bring them in before it’s too late!”

ST ANN’S SQUARE: “Don’t ever change the colour of Manchester. Black velvet it is and always should be. Let us have no more whited sepulchres”.

In front of Strangeways Prison, stand the remains of the war-damaged ASSIZES COURTS. When told they were to be demolished, he replied: ” Blasphemy! All it wants is a roof. You must save that façade. You’ll never get anything so good again.”

PICCADILLY: “Good heavens boy, do you know what you’ve got here? A piazza! The greatest open space, the biggest city square in Britain! A great civic forum.”

Sir Albert was not impressed with the telephone exchange on the south side overlooking the blitzed site between York Street and Parker St Bus Station. “And that hideous red building? What is it? A telephone exchange? Get rid of it. Build a new one. Tack the post-office onto it, if you like. But give it a graceful colonnade. This is the city centre boy! A place for walking and talking!”

He a sktech of his plan for a new Piccadilly – A wide European style piazza with statues, a new GPO stretching the full length of York Street and the bus station moved underground.

Summing up what needs to be done, his comments were as follows:

• Tidy up the mainfront of Central Station
• Re-roof the Assizes Courts
• De-pedestal the statues to pavement level and above all…
• open up Piccadilly Gardens into the great piazza it should be. Plant it with fountains and groups of statuary by local artists.”