Grady

(1970)

This trilogy focuses on the character of Charles Ian Grady, first created by Edmund Ward for the series The Main Chance. Grady finds him a shop steward not long been released from prison who is soon making waves on the shop floor.

Episodes

Diana Coupland and Anthony Bates in Grady 1970 — Diana Coupland and Anthony Bates

Somebody Else's War (24 Nov. 1970)
Agitator, trouble maker, rabble rouser, shop-floor hero. Grady is all of these things, pet none of them. The subject of this now drama trilogy is a man-individual: an ordinary working man, but with a difference. All his life he's believed in a better world, and he's taken risks to get it
Now, returning to his home town from prison, he is met by a militant committee for strike action from a local factory. They mean trouble, and trouble is what Grady is good at. Desperate For a job - somewhere they don't look too closely at the cards - he is told: join us or else.
Grady - Anthony Bate
Dorthy Manton - Anne Kristen
Joe Larson - Ralph Bates
Arnold Smith - John Comer
John Thornley - Eric Dodson
Harry Carswell - J. G. Devlin
Margaret Grady - Diana Coupland
Freddie Gort - Leon Eagles
George Drummond - Alex Ross
Peter Delfield - John Bailey
Frank Tabor - Michael Glover
Designer - Vic Symonds
Director - Marc Miller
Executive Producer - Peter Willes
Yorkshire Television Production

Pieces on a Board (1 Dec. 1970)

Look, I'm Nobody (8 Dec. 1970)
Written by Edmund Ward
Joe Taylor, a miner whose pit has closed, trains for another job and moves to avoid drawing the dole. But he goes to an area where there is too much unemployment, and the union he must join hesitates about giving him. a card.
All he wants is a living. In fear, greed and violence equalling that of the Thirties, Grady must make the hardest decision of his life if he is to help Taylor.
Grady - Anthony Bate
Margaret Grady - Diana Coupland
David Hinchley - George Waring
Charlie Booker - Anthony Douse
John Dayton - Ken Jones
John Gallagher - Anthony Webb
Joe Taylor - Malcolm Terris
George Mitchell - Patrick Jordan
Halloran - Brian McDermott
Idris Cadwallader Hughes - Artro Morris
Freeling - David Garth
Bus conductress-Kathy Staff
Designer - Vic Symonds
Director - Marc Miller
Executive Producer - Peter Willes
Yorkshire Television Production

Edmund Ward introduces Grady

It is possible to pass Grady in the street-an intent man, in clean working clothes, polite, deadly. I have talked to managing directors, trades union leaders, Ministers of State, professional agitators, industrial journalists. They all know Grady. They all have different views of him

In every crowd at factory gates, in the violent pubs, at the quiet end of boardroom negotiating tables, they have listened to Grady's voice. In that voice is passion... belief... anger... sometimes worry... sometimes heartbreak... Always concern for the human condition. There is a part of Grady in everybody who works for a living. The parts add up to a man who is, before all else, an individual. He will never wear labels. One young Communist agitator, trained in the hammer-and-sickle finishing schools, which exist in some of our big industrial towns, says to him: You're a wrecker. Just like me. Grady's reply: Sure I'm a wrecker. But I don't take orders. The only organisation worth belonging to stops its members at one.

In a mass-meeting at an inter-union dispute, there is Grady's voice, that of the individual caught between the two big millstones of organised labour and organised management. We've become numbers. umbers on a timecard, numbers on a timecard, numbers on a union ticket. I don't know about you, but I want to be more than a number.

The general secretary of his union says to Grady's wife: If he'd kept his hands down and his mouth shut, he could have been a works manager. Easily.

Margaret, Grady's wife, looks up with a touch of bitterness, and says: Easily? That's a word he's never heard of.

They call Grady agitator, troublemaker, rabble-rouser, hero, somebody who cares. He is all of these, but none of them. He will not wear the labels. As he tries to explain to his wile: It's the system, love. Work your days to get the money to live-spend your nights trying to make the living better I don't have any of the answers. I just have a few of the questions. And I've had 50 jobs in a dozen industries. All I know is this country. I can wake up in a train in the middle of the night, open the window, and I can tell you where we are by the way it smells. I've got to believe in a better living.

grady_bandaging — Grady receives a head wound during inter-union violence. Here his wife dresses it.

Margaret knows the price Grady pays for his belief. She and their two young sons are paying part of it. Graily is sometimes away for months on end. Onice in prison, twice in hospital, always fighting battles, among tactics which can be criminally ruthless.

There is a fierce love on her part for Grady. Also great deal of bitterness, resentment You've got two children. They need clothing and feeding and you can't warm up ideals and put them on a plate. If you want a better world, it's here. On your doorstep. Upstairs with the two boys. What about us? Grady acknowledges the truth and will not make excuses

He is a realist. In one play, he is forced to destroy the old trade unionist to whom he was apprenticed. He tells him: You still idealise them, don't you? The noble working man. He's groody, and stupid, and selfish. If you're going to help him, you've got to realise that. The hunger marches are over... and why you're chopped. You're obsolete. Times have changed. You're obsolete. You've got council flats and lines of new cars outside them. And the bingo halls, and the package tours to the Costa Brava. Nobody goes to fetch coal in a pram any more. A slice of bread isn't a luxury, it's a right

The words in print can give only a sketchy idea of Grady. Even in three hours of television, the complexity of the man is hardly resolved. He hates violence, but is not afraid of it. He can juggle all the golden persuasive words, and still mistrust them. He respects reason, but knows when it is not enough. And, among the talk and the ideas and the arguments, he still has to work for a living because the rent comes on Friday

The three plays show some part of Grady's world and my world, and the world of everybody reading this. Ambition, dispute, greed, takeover, inefficiency. Business consultants, itinerant Welsh labourers, automation, unemployment, job routine, the trust of men who work together. A more or less placid, day-to-day jungle that makes up an urban industrial civil ination. It erupts often.

When it erupts, Grady is there.

As a writer, I think Grady is the biggest and most ambitious project I've ever tackled. It began when Peter Willes, Yorkshire Television's unerring Head of Drama, gave me a free ticket. If that's what you want to do, go away and do it, he said.

This attitude pervaded the five months during which Grady was in production-a sense of size, ambition, importance. I can quote bits, boast about them-and feel proud.

Marc Miller-one of the few british directors to win one of America's television Oscars-prowled around sets like like an avid fox around a difficult hencoup, infinitely patient over script, nudging gently when I was launched into pompous procedural technicalities, and adding brilliant nuances of characterisation.

Anthony Bate, punctilious, bringing every ounce of classical theatrical experience to the part of Grady, gives him a feral quality of menace then a puzzled quiemens when the man is all compassins

Diana Coupland, as Grady's wife, steps on to camera with a warmth and joy, exuding the deep womanly radiance that D. H. Lawrence knew about, and which still exists in millions of homes where the pay packet lands on the table on Friday.

It would be easy to call these three plays a trilogy about industrial relations. It would not be true. These plays are about a man deeply involved in a subject which concerns us all, and gambling with his life in an attempt to resolve some of its problems. In his beliefs and attitudes, there are, I hope, some reflections of the most Important social issue of our times.

There is, I know, a lot of truth in these plays. The credit for this is due to the agitators, top management, trades union leaders, Ministers, personnel officers, and shop stewards, who talked freely to me. They were generous with their knowledge. They call the issue important

They all know Grady.

Navigation

On Topic

Grady

Episodes

Edmund Ward introduces Grady