Patten's a Manc

BBC North suits put the Chairman of the Trust, Lord Patten, through a MediaCity UK "total immersion" day at the start of the week, and it's more than paid off.

In an interview for The Observer, Rachel Cooke asked him what he thought about high profile staff and talent who'd shied away from the move to Salford.

Patten begins gently by telling me that his grandparents were both headteachers in Manchester; he had Didsbury aunties and, as a boy, used to follow Brian Statham, the Lancashire fast bowler, from ground to ground, a bottle of Tizer and Sandwich Spread sarnies in his knapsack. And then… he's off! "This sort of [attitude]: 'Do they have paninis in Manchester?'… It's unbelievable. [The city has] the best Indian food, some wonderful Chinese restaurants, great music, great jazz – my cousin used to run a jazz club there. [From Salford Quays] you can see Old Trafford, Maine Road is round the corner, you can see the Pennines on two sides. I was talking to some senior executives at 5 Live yesterday. They were all moving into larger houses, the schools they were finding were terrific. I see my own kids struggling in London to afford anything, particularly near a decent Ofsted school, and I'm just amazed at the attitude of some of the media towards Salford. It is, for heaven's sake, the British Broadcasting Corporation, not the Surrey Broadcasting Corporation. There's so much talent available there. The amount of writing talent there's been in the north west!"


Mind you, the whole tenor of the interview confirms others' suspicions. It's clear Patten now adores the job and, as Rachel says, has gone native.