Great British Railway Journeys S14 E01-E05 (1280x720p HD, 50fps, soft Eng subs)  

All aboard! Armed with his trusty Bradshaw's guide, Michael Portillo explores the UK the railways made. Uncover hidden gems and fascinating communities from across the nation.

E01 Preston to Rawtenstall
Michael Portillo strikes out to explore the Britain of his youth. He’s a 'boomer', born in the decade after the end of the Second World War, and he recalls the optimism and excitement of rebuilding a nation exhausted by conflict. He relives the agony and the ecstasy of British Rail and marvels at the new society and culture that emerged in postwar Britain. At Preston’s Fulwood Barracks in Lancashire, Michael is called up for National Service but fails to impress the drill sergeant. Two veterans share their memories of postwar military action. At the Preston Bypass, now part of the M6, he hears how the pioneering project aimed to tackle congestion and link the north of England to the south. In Blackburn, Michael investigates the town’s political heritage and its fiery red-headed MP, Barbara Castle. At Bury Bolton Street station in Greater Manchester, Michael meets the volunteers who operate the fabulously preserved East Lancashire Heritage Railway and learns how the Beeching cuts affected rail services in the area.

E02 Urmston to New Islington
Michael Portillo’s railway journey through north west England from Preston to Hebden Bridge reaches Greater Manchester, where Michael celebrates new beginnings for the nation in the years after the Second World War. At Trafford General Hospital, he investigates the birth of the National Health Service. William Roache, star of the nation’s longest-running soap, Coronation Street, meets Michael to tell him about the first episode, broadcast in 1960. At the city’s Science and Industry Museum, Michael encounters a fellow post-war 'Baby', a replica of the first computer in the world to run a stored programme and the forerunner of all modern computers. Close by at Manchester University, Michael is introduced to the latest supercomputer, a million times more powerful than Baby, the SpiNNaker machine. The tram takes Michael east to New Islington, where he admires a fresh new look for an old textile mill.

E03  Oldham to Wakefield
Greater Manchester’s Metrolink tram delivers Michael to the former cotton town of Oldham on the edge of the Peak District. In the stalls of the Oldham Coliseum, the town’s Victorian repertory theatre, Michael hears how the lifting of censorship allowed theatres to stage risqué productions from playwrights such as Tennessee Williams. Michael takes the Hope Valley Line to Edale in the Peak District with a hiking guide, who is encouraging black women to enjoy the national park. Next stop is Sheffield, where Michael visits Cutlers’ Hall and sharpens his skills at a knife-making workshop. Michael ends this part of his journey by admiring the striking postwar sculptures of Barbara Hepworth in the Yorkshire Sculpture Park

E04 Wakefield to Leeds
From Wakefield, West Yorkshire, Michael visits the National Coal Mining Museum for England at Caphouse Colliery. He pauses to admire the tall spire of Wakefield Cathedral and its resident peregrine falcons before heading to the banks of the River Calder. In a vast factory, he finds the headquarters of a shirt manufacturer, Double Two, a pioneering wartime business co-founded by a Jewish refugee from Austria. In Leeds, Michael heads for the Chapeltown area to investigate the origins of the Leeds West Indian Carnival in 1967 and try his hand on the steel drums. In the city's Harehills district, he admires the back-to-back houses once condemned as slums but now highly prized for their character and community.

E05  Bradford to Hebden Bridge
Michael Portillo continues his postwar exploration of north west England in Bradford, Shipley and Hebden Bridge. In Centenary Square in Bradford, Michael encounters Bradford’s literary giant JB Priestley, author of An Inspector Calls. In the Bradford Royal Infirmary, Michael traces the hospital's pioneering history of chemotherapy and learns how new drugs to impede the spread of cancer are being developed at Bradford’s Institute of Cancer Therapeutics. Just north of Bradford, at Shipley station, Michael discovers a nature reserve in the middle of a car park that's home to more than 14 species of butterfly and moth. And the Calder Valley Line delivers Michael to the pretty station at Hebden Bridge, once a mill town in decline but today popular with many same-sex couples.

First broadcast: June 2023   Duration:  30 minutes per episode    
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