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You have to wonder about the childhood of a man who has spent so much time and creative energy in dramatising the dark side of experience. Did he undergo some Dickensian privation that scarred him for life? He was born in Liverpool in 1949, the son of an Irish bus driver, and grew up on a council estate in nearby Huyton. He recalls the freezing winters: "I had a path from my bedroom to the kitchen which involved avoiding the cold slabs on the floor." Although he passed the 11-plus and could have gone to grammar school, he was sent instead to one of the first comprehensives in the UK, St Kevin's in Kirby. It was too big and it didn't work. He left with only four O-levels and one A-level.
"The system failed me," he said later. "The idea was that big is beautiful, so you had 2,500 boys together in a kind of detention centre. I admit I enjoyed it. But the whole concept was a mistake." For five years he trained as a quantity surveyor, before deciding to try writing for a living. He entered Liverpool University, to read social studies rather than English, and began his new career writing gags for Mike and Bernie Winters. Contributing scripts for anodyne TV comedy shows such as Doctor in Charge and episodes of Z Cars did not fulfil him: the memory of the failed experiment that was his own education nagged in his mind. For two years from 1976, he hawked his idea for a series set in a comprehensive school around a dozen producers before it was picked up by Anna Home at the BBC. When it took off, he formed Mersey Television in 1981 to produce his future projects. It flourished and was sold to Lime Pictures in 2005, two years after Brookside ceased operations.
A lesser man might feel as if his life were winding down, but Redmond is both stoic and energetic in a recognisably Liverpudlian way. He is immensely proud of his home town, and regularly chews up London journalists who fail to appreciate its cultural bone fides. He will have his work cut out this year, as deputy chair of the Liverpool Culture Company, responsible for delivering the cultural programme for the European Capital of Culture. He will be responsible for matchmaking hundreds of cultural projects with potential business sponsors. He will also be responsible for bringing some esprit de corps to the LCC after a year of political infighting, resignations, and a budget shortfall of £20m.
Redmond's arrival on the scene, last September, was greeted with sighs of relief all round. One of his first acts was to announce that 70 per cent of the year's cultural events would be free to all, and that there would be much interaction between artists and communities all over the city.
Dealing in communities has, of course, been his life's work. Few other writers in any medium have contributed, or overseen the production of, so much drama based in the interaction, both benign and hostile, of people thrown together – in school, community college or council estate. In dragging so many taboo subjects to the surface and inspecting them on prime-time TV, Phil Redmond may have upset our moral guardians; but his long-term confrontation of his youthful demons has changed television history, and changed the way successive generations of children have come to view the world.
A Life in Brief
Born 1949, Liverpool.
Early life After leaving school, began to train as a quantity surveyor. Gave up to try to forge a career in writing. Returned to education, gaining a social studies degree from the University of Liverpool.
Career After early work writing for shows such as Z Cars, created the BBC's Grange Hill in 1978, writing for it for two years. Set up Merseyside Television in 1981, becoming its chairman, and developed soap opera Brookside, which first appeared on Channel 4 in 1982. Wrote Hollyoaks for Channel 4 in 1996. Became professor of media at Liverpool John Moores University in 1989. Made a CBE in 2004. Deputy chair of Liverpool Culture Company, 2008, as the city becomes the European Capital of Culture.
He says "Just like the end of Brookside I want to quote the late Beatle George Harrison ... 'all things must pass'."
They Say "Part of CBBC's reputation for reflecting contemporary Britain back to UK children has been built upon Phil Redmond's brilliantly realised idea."
CBBC controller Anne Gilchrist
Source:
The Independent
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