Carol White, in the seminal 66 "Cathy Come Home" in which, she's told there's no more room at the hostel. Look over his career, and Tony Garnett can seem promiscuous. He was producer of 60s classics such as "Cathy Come Home", credited with kick-starting the homeless charity Shelter, and the 1970s "The Price of Coal", about Yorkshire miners on the Jubilee. But he seemed equally at home with "This Life", a hit BBC drama about 20-something law graduates sharing a house in the 90s. Even in the Hollywood he was at home in the 80s with films such as "Earth Girls Are Easy", although maybe he gypped to hear the American spell described in such terms. But while he may be a man for many seasons, his terrain has largely been television. BBC Television, as a retrospective at the BFI Southbank will suggest over the next two months.
Born in Birmingham in 1936, as a student in London, he did some acting, then worked on the BBC "Wednesday Players" but producer, continuing his collaboration with Ken Loach on the film "Kes" as well as much more. When we met earlier, I asked him how it felt to watch his work again for the coming retrospective.
Complicated, because it not only brings the making of the film back from three or four more decades ago, but who I was then, what I was doing then, who I was in love with, what the world was like, what my hopes were. It is a complicated matter.
