Great British Railway Journeys S15 E01-E05 (1080p, soft English subtitles)

E01 Denham to Swindon
Beginning at London Marylebone, the last great Victorian railway terminus to be built in the capital, Michael Portillo embarks on a postwar exploration of Britain’s southern counties.
He travels to Denham in Buckinghamshire, where engineers are constructing a striking new viaduct, High Wycombe, a historic centre of furniture-making thanks to its abundant of beechwood forest, and Oxford, where he discovers the postwar origins of the charity shop.
In the Wiltshire countryside, Michael meets the head of the Soil Association and some of her saddleback piglets to hear how the organic movement was founded after the Second World War in reaction to the intensification of farming.

E02 Chippenham to Yeovil
Michael Portillo joins Navy Wings pilots for a spectacular close formation flight in the skies over Royal Naval Air Station Yeovilton. He also visits the magnificent Elizabethan mansion of Longleat, seat of the Marquesses of Bath, to find out about the estate’s remarkable survival after the Second World War. At Chippenham in Wiltshire, Michael pays a call on a signalling manufacturer that has been at the heart of British railway projects for decades and has a go on the centre’s simulator, driving the Elizabeth Line train to Paddington.

E03  Swanage to Portchester
Contains Discriminatory Language
Michael Portillo reaches England’s south coast to continue his exploration of postwar Britain. He begins in Dorset on the Swanage Railway, riding a glorious 1940s steam locomotive on the trail of one of Britain’s most popular children’s authors, Enid Blyton. In Poole, Michael discovers an icon of the Swinging Sixties – the lava lamp, invented in the town by an eccentric accountant. At Romsey, Michael heads to the magnificent Broadlands Estate, once home of Louis Mountbatten, first Earl Mountbatten of Burma. Michael’s last stop on this leg of the journey is Portchester, on the northern edge of Portsmouth Harbour, where he visits a factory manufacturing a marine craft pioneered in the 1950s – the hovercraft.

E04 Havant to Guildford
Michael Portillo reaches Havant, a town that rapidly expanded after the Second World War and attracted new manufacturing, including a factory making a new and exciting toy – Scalextric. Further north, at Rowlands Castle, Michael visits Britain’s oldest commercial vineyard, Hambledon, established in 1952. Crossing the county border into Surrey, Michael heads to Haslemere, the surprise birthplace of a musical phenomenon – the plastic recorder. And the last stop on this leg of Michael’s journey is Guildford, where he discovers a cutting-edge facility at the forefront of the British space industry.

E05  Wokingham to Heathrow
Michael begins the final leg of his journey at the Transport Research Laboratory in Wokingham, where they have been keeping Britain’s roads safe for 90 years. From Reading, Michael boards a new Elizabeth Line train to Southall, where he visits the largest gurdwara outside India.
Continuing on the Elizabeth Line to Heathrow Airport, Michael hears how it began as a private aerodrome. He is given special access to an enormous concrete box beneath Terminal 5, takes an eerie walk around the mothballed Terminal 1 building and ends his tour atop the iconic 87.5 metre control tower.


First broadcast: March 2024  
Duration: 30 minutes per episode      

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