This is Coast.
All around us, every day, bustling and bursting with activity, our shoreline never sleeps.
The coast is in a state of constant commotion, kept moving by an army of unsung heroes.
This is their story, not only workers of today, but also the hard grafters of yesteryear.
Ajourney to celebrate those who helped build Britain.
We'll discover the secrets of our sea power.
Can Tessa cast perfectly round cannonballs like the workers of old?
So, the moment of truth. No pressure.
ln great shipyards on the Clyde, when workers fought to save their community,
their leader became a legend.
He stood up to proclaim a manifesto for the workers' resistance.
- There will be no bevvying. - Hear, hear!
ln the grand tradition of our life-saving services, Miranda volunteers for an animal rescue squad.
We're constantly learning more about how to protect our valuable sea life.
And to reveal how resorts were built on hard work, lan stages a remarkable show,
booking superstar performers from a hundred years ago.
For one night only, Edwardian Britain's Got Seaside Talent.
Welcome to the Workers' Coast.
Our East coast is ideal to explore working endeavour, past and present.
l'm heading for the Humber, but beginning on the Tyne.
Newcastle upon Tyne prospered thanks to its coastal connections.
The early workers who built the wealth of Newcastle shifted countless tonnes of coal,
but coal's no longer king.
These days the traffic is different.
For most of us, parking up at the coast is the end of a journey.
But for these brand-new cars, it's the beginning of a global adventure.
Every two weeks on the Tyne, a massive car conveyor arrives.
Then time is money. The port's workers go into overdrive.
The challenge is to park a couple of thousand of these cars on that ship
as fast as the drivers can get them on.
To get a steer on the challenge, l'm cadging a lift with Derek Lay.
lt's like an aircraft hanger, isn't it? lt's absolutely massive.
l've been on cross-channel car ferries but this is in a league of its own.
Vast.
With 1 4 decks, there's room for almost 8,000 cars, if packed very tightly.
Parking must be swift and exact.
l've got to ask you, have you ever dinked a car, Derek?
ln the past.
Mysterious hand signals appear to be more important than mirrors.
And it's my turn next.
With some 700,000 cars a year on the move, l can't stop the traffic.
So before l'm let loose, they've got a lesson lined up for me.
Even though l'm more of a walker than a driver, l reckon l'm pretty handy behind the wheel,
but this is going to test my parallel parking to the limits.
My instructor's Jonathan Small.
- That's really accurate, isn't it? - Yeah. Yeah.
- So what are the main hand signals? - The hand signals are straight ahead,
full-lock left-hand down, full-lock right-hand down,
and when it's only small movements, we'll just use a finger, you'll turn half a turn left or right.
He's coming in, and as soon as he gets close in, l take over control,
bring the car in tight, which is 1 0cm between the cars.
- Each time he's stopping dead. - Ooh. That's close, isn't it?
lt is close. A little bit nerve-wracking getting used to it at the time,
but as long as you put your faith and trust in me, we'll have no problem.
- l tell you what, Derek... - Just take it nice and easy.
l feel more nervous now than l did when l took my driving test.
Just follow his signals all the time. Don't look at anything else, just watch his hand signals.
Straight back, straight back. Stop.
That's it.
l've got to turn...
And just keep going straight back.
That car next door's, like, a hair's breadth away.
lt's OK. You've got plenty of space.
That's it.
Well, l think l've got the hang of precision parking in a car park,
but now l've got to do it on deck seven of a gigantic car-carrying ship.
Up the ramp.
Now, where's my leadsman?
- You went a bit too far. - l did.
Right. Stop.
He's pointing left now. Can you see his hand?
Keep going left. Watch his hand, don't watch what's on the left. He can see that.
l've stalled. What about that?
Now l've got a queue building up because l've stalled.
Straight back. Concentrate.
That's it.
Phew. The eagle has landed.
This is pretty stressful.
Those flashing lights mean the taxi's waiting to take me back to pick up another car.
When l'm not holding it up, a stream of steel flows from our shore.
Four out of five cars we make, we ship overseas.
That's well over one million motors a year.
These precision parkers have helped put the Northeast into pole position for vehicle exports.
But the Tyne isn't our only car port.
There's queuing traffic all around the British coast.
ln an age of instant communication at our fingertips,
bulk cargo is still very much a hands-on business.
Driven by the tides, the wealth of Britain washes through our ports.
We'd all be poorer if it wasn't for our coastal workers
keeping us connected to the wider world.
The sea brings great benefits, opening up new markets.
But business can also seep away overseas.
Mighty coastal enterprises have suffered spectacular falls.
But one gang of shipbuilders threatened with the scrapheap vowed to carry on regardless.
ln 1 97 1, a proud industry was brought back from the brink on the River Clyde.
Neil's exploring how ordinary folk become legends.
NElL: 40 years ago, it seemed shipbuilding here was sleepwalking into oblivion.
But the workers thought otherwise.
The Clyde once gave birth to the world's greatest ships.
There's big Tom O'Hara with his burning gear
The plumber and the painter and the engineer
There's young Willie Wiley with his welding rod
They're waiting at the ready for the backroom nod
But by the early 1 970s, shipbuilding on the upper Clyde was in crisis.
There was competition from the Far East, poor labour relations, and bad management.
So Clydeside had to go cap in hand to successive governments for cash.
Until, in 1 97 1, a shock announcement.
Public funding was to be axed.
6,000 shipbuilders stood to lose theirjobs.
Then, one worker made a speech that shook the world.
The man was shop steward Jimmy Reid.
He stood up in front of a mass meeting of shipbuilders
to proclaim a manifesto for the workers' resistance.
There will be no hooliganism, there will be no vandalism, there will be no bevvying.
Hear, hear!
Because the world is watching us.
Jimmy Reid wasn't calling for a strike. The big idea was exactly the opposite.
Not a walkout, but a work-in.
Keep working whatever the bosses said,
shame the government into saving the shipyards.
We are taking over the yard because we refuse to accept that faceless men,
or any group of men in Whitehall or anywhere else,
can take decisions that devastate our livelihoods with impunity.
They're not on.
So, was the work-in that Jimmy Reid announced the saviour of shipbuilding here on the Clyde?
ls the legend of that heroic struggle all that it seems?
There is power in a union
When Jimmy Reid passed away in 201 0, shipbuilders stood to pay their respects,
and so did famous sons of the Clyde.
l loved Jimmy Reid, and he loved me back and he told me, and l am going to miss him terribly.
Reid's reputation on Clydebank was immortalised
by his ''No-bevvying work-in'' speech in 1 97 1.
By his side was fellow shop steward Bobbie Dickie.
Whose idea was the work-in?
l would credit Jimmy Reid for introducing the work-in.
The joint shop stewards are utterly unanimous we're going to fight this.
Jimmy didn't feel there was any alternative.
lf we went on strike there was a possibility of them just shutting the gates
and putting a padlock on it.
And if we'd had a sit-in they would just leave us sitting in.
So it was important that the work continued in the yard
and that was the reason why we decided on a work-in.
Their revolutionary plan?
Start a fighting fund and pay those made redundant
to carry on building the ships already ordered.
The workers claimed they were in charge of the shipyards.
Nobody and nothing will come in, and nothing will go out without our permission.
Redundancies began, but most were still being paid by the yards to work normally,
building ships, even in receivership.
So what did the man who was actually running the shipyards make of ''power to the people''?
Hello, Sir Robert.
They were all my employees, including, of course, the senior shop stewards.
Jimmy Reid, of course, was the visionary and a gifted orator, obviously,
who commanded the huge public support for the whole exercise.
Acting as the liquidator, Robert Smith plotted a rescue plan, working with the union.
lsabel Dickie was one of those made redundant but paid to work on by the fighting fund.
When l saw all the letters coming in and the support we were getting,
l mean, it was fabulous, it really was.
£450,000, and that was 40 years ago. lt was wonderful.
With the work-in in full swing, ships were still taking shape,
while Jimmy Reid spoke up for the workers.
There's a terrible philosophy flying about now,
that men and families and communities should follow work
and that work shouldn't be brought to communities.
Did you think you would win?
Yes, yes, we thought we would win because we were getting support from all over the country,
and even support from countries abroad.
Oh, the red roses and the cheque for £500.
That come from John Lennon and Yoko.
And one of the shop stewards said, ''That's £500 from Lenin.''
They said, ''l thought he was dead.''
''No, he's no dead. This is John Lennon. You know? The singer?''
''Oh! l thought it was Lenin. You know? The Russian?''
- That Lenin. - That Lenin. The Russian.
After some eight months of struggle, the publicity paid off.
ln February 1 972, there was a startling announcement.
More money would be made available to keep the yards going.
There is power in a union
lt was seen by some as a government climbdown,
that the work-in had been a success.
lt was the making of a Clydeside legend.
John Brown's, the yard that built The Queen Mary and the QE2,
was reprieved after the work-in,
sold to an American oil-rig company.
Does the man who helped broker that deal, liquidator Robert Smith,
think the work-in won the day?
l don't think so. l believe that the solution that was eventually achieved
would actually have been achieved six months earlier without the work-in.
The solution Robert and the unions arranged,
to sell John Brown's shipyard, lasted for nearly 30 years.
lt closed in 2001.
Even so, there are still around 4,000 people busy making warships on the Clyde,
and it's become received wisdom they owe theirjobs to the work-in.
The first of a new tactic on behalf of workers.
But there's a problem with the popular account
that the work-in saved shipbuilding on Clydeside.
The two surviving large yards weren't under threat of closure in the 1 97 1 announcement.
Job losses, yes, but closure no.
How do you account for the legend, the way that it has been perceived?
There was a huge popular appeal in the work-in movement.
A lot of people agree that it was a myth, but it was a marvellously successful myth.
l don't dispute that.
How are we to untangle the twists and turns of the work-in?
To me, it's a story about ordinary people finding a voice
to argue that communities should count for something on the balance sheet.
And that's why this story will always matter to the folk who live beside this river.
NlCK: Traditional jobs have ebbed away from our coast.
Generations dreamt of the isolated life of the lighthouse keeper, a profession lost to history.
But the automated lights and their houses still need the human touch.
As they know on the lsle of Wight.
lt's not just the light beam that sailors spy out.
The house itself is a navigation aid.
So they need a splash of colour to stand out.
To take on the towering task, a specialist team of daredevil decorators is led by Alan Brooks.
l've been painting lighthouses now for about 1 0 years.
What we usually do is load the stuff onto the boat.
The water jetter, the paint, brushes, rollers, the ropes, blocks, grinders.
We bring it over and then getting it off the boat is a bit of a problem sometimes.
Humping it up the steps,
and we've got the same problem when we finish, getting it all back.
Bit of a nightmare sometimes, unless you've got the weather.
Norfolk was the first one. l'd done a little bit of work at Strumble Head.
Bardsey, that's an island one. Trwyn Du, Point Lynas, Nash.
There's a few more dotted here and there but only little ones.
l can't remember them all, like.
What we've got to do is apply two coats of paint to a job.
Where it's blistered we've got to water jet it off and apply four coats of paint to it.
When it's rusty, we've got to put a primer on and another four coats,
just to bring it all up to scratch, really.
lt's a special formula, this paint. You couldn't buy this off the shelf.
No, it's got to be specially made for this.
You see? l can't even rip it. lt doesn't go on that thick, but it is real strong stuff.
You've got to sweep the brush on, then another dip.
The thicker the better to allow for protection, really,
with the elements getting at it all the time.
And it's like a landmark for ships,
as well as tourists come here to look at the thing all the time, like.
We decided to use abseilers for all the outside
and all the inaccessible areas we can't get at.
Got a width of 8ft, 9ft to swing, you see.
So it's OK.
They're all right. Funny, some of them. Especially the Scousers, like.
Am l allowed to say that?
- l'm on one of your windows. - Good job l done there.
What?
Paint the glass, miss the frame.
Yeah, they're funny. Good bunch of boys they are.
Alan, he's Welsh, grumpy, he doesn't know what he's doing really.
No, he's all right, Alan.
The biggest problem we've got with lighthouses is weather.
lt's been cancelled a few times because the sea conditions haven't been right.
We wouldn't have been able to land. Waves are too high.
lt's nice to do a good job on it, get on the boat and look back
and see you've done a nice job, like.
And it does give you a bit of satisfaction when you finish it.
Coastal workers turn their hands to many trades.
That's the way to do it!
Sometimes it's a struggle to scratch a living on the margin.
Even so, a generous spirit thrives.
A noble tradition of life-saving volunteers.
And the rescue services don't only save people around our shore.
As day breaks at Exmouth, a strange sight.
An emergency is unfolding.
These bags are pretend dolphins and whales.
They aren't being laid out for fun, this is planning for the worst.
A specialist marine SWATteam is summoned to the beach.
Could you put a text out, please, to all Devon and Cornwall medics?
Thanks a lot. Cheers, bye.
Miranda is responding to the distress call.
By day l'm a trained zoologist, but l've also volunteered for another part-time job.
For the last five or so years, l've been signed up to help save sea mammals in distress,
and as you can see, there's a small army of us marine mammal medics around the coast.
MlRANDA: ln fact, there are around 2,500 of us, constantly on call for a stranding emergency.
And we're a varied bunch.
- l'm a chartered surveyor. - l work in care, l've got a care home.
- Carpenter. - Veterinary nurse.
A production assistant.
British Divers Marine Life Rescue train some 400 volunteers a year.
This is a mass-stranding exercise, keeping the creatures alive
until the tide comes in to get them back to sea.
These pretend dolphins are the exact weight and size of the real thing.
Now, they may just look like a bag filled with water,
but for the purposes of the exercise we have to treat them like real animals.
And you can immediately see how heavy they are and how difficult they are to handle.
Getting to grips with dolphin and whale strandings is a big issue.
Around 600 of these mammals a year need help.
Some make headline news, like the whale discovered in the Thames in 2006.
And in 201 1, a pod of around 60 pilot whales was floundering on the Scottish coast.
Rescuers managed to save over 40 animals.
One of the team leaders is organising our exercise.
Stephen Marsh.
Whales and dolphins have always stranded,
but are we just more aware of it now or are numbers on the increase?
We think that some strandings may well be increasing
but animals will strand naturally, as well.
You could have one animal that is ill and because they're all very very gregarious,
they may well bring the whole of the pod in.
So we work from the bottom up, if you like, sort of saying, ''What's wrong with this animal?''
ls it in a fit state to go back?
Let's give it first-aid until a vet can come along and make that decision.''
Time is of the essence. The longer a dolphin's out of the water, the less likely it'll survive.
lt might seem a bit comical,
but training for a marine mammal rescue is a serious business.
The animals'plight begs a simple question. Why are dolphins so utterly helpless on land,
when being out of the water doesn't pose a problem for other marine mammals like seals?
To find out we need to strip the animals to their bare bones.
This is the skeleton of a seal. We've got the skull, quite a long neck,
and then these front limbs which are very powerful, strong front flippers,
and these are what it uses to manoeuvre itself on land.
And when it's lumbering up and down the beach,
the seal's internal organs are protected by quite a strong ribcage
and the breast bone is quite strong and thick, as well.
This is the skeleton of a common dolphin.
The ribs are much more fragile,
and the breastbone here is much thinner than that of the seal's.
lf a dolphin or whale finds itself stranded on the beach,
often it can't bear its own weight and it can suffocate.
And the front limbs have been modified to make these pectoral fins,
which are great when the dolphin's moving through the water
but absolutely useless if it's stranded on a beach.
The differences between dolphins and seals evolved millions of years ago.
The fins and tails of whales and dolphins have become so perfectly adapted to the sea
that they need a hand from volunteers like us when stranded.
We've got two dolphins that we're ready to refloat, but because of the sun and the wind...
We've got tarpaulins to protect them from the sun,
we've got a windbreak to protect them from the wind,
just trying to keep them as cool and as calm as possible before we get them down to the sea.
Now the tide's turned we can try to master the delicate operation
of returning a distressed animal to its home.
Wow. There you go. lt's that easy.
Now discard... One person hold on to that, form a line.
Form a line straight across here now.
Try and discourage them. Go on, off you go.
Go away. We don't want to see you again.
Strandings are obviously really sad events,
but thanks to the great work of teams of volunteers and professionals,
we're constantly learning more about how to protect our valuable sea life.
And off they go.
NlCK: We're celebrating the workers of our shores.
The East coast of Britain is dotted with industrious communities.
They strike out across the sea to earn a crust.
Men who know the price to be paid for landing fish.
But this harsh life on rolling seas relies on the support of those back on land.
l'm in search of forgotten workers who kept our biggest fishing fleet afloat.
We've arrived in Grimsby.
This harbour used to be crammed with trawlers.
At the high watermark of the North Sea Fleet,
some 300 fishing vessels worked out of Grimsby.
Magnificent vessels like this were a floating workplace,
doing business in the wild North Sea.
The crew scoured the seas for cod and haddock,
fish that had to be kept fresh for weeks.
They needed ice, lots of it, a challenge the early trawler men had to crack.
We take ice for granted these days,
but go back 1 50 years and refrigeration as we know it didn't exist.
To preserve fish in the mid-1 9th Century,
Grimsby had to rely on ice collected in winter from frozen ponds.
For the trawling fleet to expand, they had to look further afield to chill their catch.
Boats were dispatched to Norway's frozen north.
But man-made ice on demand would be even better.
This grand building houses a freezing machine constructed on a massive scale.
This is an ice factory.
Built in 1 901, the Grimsby lce Factory supplied the port's trawlers for nearly a century.
My guide is Mike Sonley, who was the last man out when the factory closed its doors in 1 990.
This precious film was shot just two weeks before production ceased.
Today it looks very different.
This is Mike's first visit back to his old workplace.
Heartbreaking.
l just can't believe it.
A lump comes in your throat, definitely. A real shame.
How did that finish up there?
lt was immaculate. You could just eat your dinner off the floor. lt was spotless.
NlCK: l suppose the ice factory was totally essential for the port for the trawlers.
MlKE: We'd come out there at four o'clock in the morning,
there'd be 20 wagons out there waiting for 20 tonnes of ice each.
lt was a fantastic company to work for.
When this machinery sprang into action, the ice palace came alive.
These massive engines were used to compress ammonia gas.
How did that compressed gas produce up to a thousand tonnes of ice a day?
Chemist Mark Lorch has the answer.
The first step is really just to get a gas and compress it.
Now, you can feel that's cold.
As it comes out it expands and in the process cools down
because all the molecules are much further apart now,
they're not able to bash into each other quite so much.
That chilling effect is the principle behind all sorts of refrigeration
including your domestic fridge and freezer.
The next step is to show you how we can make ice with this simple setup.
Pour this briny water into here,
and what we need to do is to squirt some of this pressurised liquid,
which will be very cold when it releases,
through this coil here, and in so doing this whole coil will cool down,
the salty water will cool down, but salty water will go below zero degrees centigrade
before it freezes, so if we then take our tube of freshwater, put that in there,
this tube will freeze.
Because the brine has a lower freezing point than fresh water,
it will cool this fresh water in here pretty quickly and that will turn to ice.
That's the hope, yeah.
So we just need to wait for that to freeze.
We're minus two, heading for minus three degrees in there now.
- There you go. - lt's solid.
- Fantastic. - There you go. lce on the dockside.
This cooling method, scaled up to an industrial process, powered the ice factory.
lt started with piping in the fresh water to be frozen.
That there came down.
- All these nozzles... - Came down all in one go.
So they filled every pan with water.
So the fresh water came out of these pipes, filled those pans.
That's correct.
So these metal boxes was where the ice actually formed.
That's it, the same as when you put your ice cubes in a fridge.
But where was the brine that chilled this fresh water?
Below the pans. lf you took all the pans out it would be just one gigantic swimming pool.
So you've got hundreds of these metal pans full of fresh water,
they get filled up here and they get pushed by gigantic rams through the brine
from one end of this hall to the other.
- You've got it. - By the time the pans have got to the far end,
the water's turned to ice.
lt took 27 hours for the pans to reach the far side of the building,
gradually being chilled on their journey
through the super-cooled brine beneath the floorboards.
So the pans have travelled the full length of the hall,
and they've emerged this end and turned into ice.
That's correct. Then, of course, the crane comes along with the hooks, picks it up,
drops it in the thaw tank, which is warm water.
Your ice pops up out here in the moulds, it's into the cradle then.
The cradle's balanced with 71/2 tonnes of ice,
it tips over, slides down, all onto the floor, like, you know?
Then you fed the ice onto the conveyor, into this crusher in the far end here.
For the ice factory, this is the end of the process.
What's falling out the bottom of the crusher is crushed ice ready for the trawlers.
That's it, and it takes it up there and onto that conveyor out there and onto the ships.
The empty trays travelled back to the start of the cycle to be filled again with fresh water.
But as Grimsby's fishing fleet dwindled,
fewer workers were waiting at the end of the line for ice.
The factory doors closed in 1 990.
And what was it like that day that you left here,
the last man to be in here and lock the door for the last time?
Well, l can't explain it. lt was like if you'd lost somebody, you know, in your family, really.
And... Oh, it was heartbreaking. l mean, and now to see it like this...
There's not much market for ice these days in Grimsby Harbour,
but it's still doing brisk business.
The busiest boats now
are those coming and going to service offshore wind farms in the North Sea.
Workers adapting to our changing coast.
New technology driving new opportunities. lt's an old, old story around our shores.
The Royal Navy has often been at the vanguard of innovation.
Fine ships have always needed skilled workers.
Those backroom boffins have given our sailors the edge in battle
since the days of wooden warships.
Back then, the Navy's cannonballs flew truer than those of our enemies.
Their deadly accuracy was largely due to a secret ingredient we used
to make our shot perfectly round.
A rare mineral used to manufacture precision cannonballs was mined near Whitehaven.
Tessa is on the mineworkers'trail.
l'm going back over 200 years to the time of Nelson's Navy.
At the Battle of Trafalgar, HMS Victory alone fired over 2,500 rounds of heavy iron shot.
At war with Napoleon, the Navy needed lots of ammunition.
Maritime historian Gareth Cole knows the numbers.
l have a couple of receipts which show just how many cannonballs were sent
to the ordnance by various companies.
- We've got one here for 1 00,000 cannonballs. - 1 00,000?
1 00,000 in one delivery, which cost about £8,500.
Considerable amounts of cash are being parted.
lt was. Over the course of about a 30-year period,
over the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars,
the ordnance spent about £1 0 million on the Navy, which is about £1 billion in today's money.
Foundries could make a mint from government contracts.
But they had their work cut out. The Navy wasn't easy to please.
There's more to cannonballs than meets the eye.
To fly true and hit the intended target, they have to be as round and as smooth
and as perfect as possible.
Making cannonballs in large quantities and of high quality pushed the limits of early engineers.
But Britain had a secret ingredient for success.
ln the lofty hinterland beyond Whitehaven Harbour lay a precious mineral,
with a purity unmatched anywhere else on Earth.
Miners working in the hills near here discovered a very very rare substance called plumbago.
The plumbago mines were so valuable to the military,
they had them protected by an Act of Parliament in 1 752.
This is the act and it says, ''Plumbago has been necessary for diverse useful purposes,
and more particularly in the casting of bombshells,
round shot and cannonballs.''
To appreciate why the plumbago miners were so important,
we need to find out what plumbago actually is and how it helped cast cannonballs.
So we're going to make our own, old style.
The trade secrets of cannonball casting were lost as the industry dwindled.
But foundryman Andrew Laing is trying to turn back time.
The plumbago was a bit of a secret process.
You coat the mould with the plumbago to make it nice and smooth when the casting is removed.
lt allows what we call casting strip. There's no sand sticking to the actual casting.
The effect it has in the mould is a bit like buttering a baking tray.
- lt can do, yeah. - lt slips out at the end.
Plumbago powder stopped the cast iron cannonballs sticking, even when red hot.
Nothing else was such a good lubricant, and only we had the best.
- You're smoothing it in with your finger. - Yeah, we're just sleeking it up.
And that's to help it ease out.
And again, to make the ball as smooth as possible.
When it's being fired. So will l have a go at doing that?
Fill in the gouge.
Plumbago is common today. We know it as graphite, or pencil lead.
But some 200 years ago, high-grade plumbago was rare.
Whitehaven was close to the only mine for the precious element...
..hidden in the surrounding hills.
A treasure map of Borrowdale points the way
to what was for centuries the world's purest source of plumbago.
This land conceals that secret of our sea power.
A silver-grey substance workers clawed their way underground to extract.
l've got permission to explore their labyrinth of tunnels
in search of an abandoned plumbago seam.
My guide is Paul Witheridge.
Let's go and explore.
And every day you're in this place you're two days nearer death
But you go
Well, a process man am l and l'm telling you no lie
l work and breathe among the fumes...
l'm glad l've got Paul. l wouldn't have a clue how to get back.
All around me, and there's poison in the air
There's a lousy smell that smacks of hell and dust all in the air
OK. We're here. This is it.
You can see how it's been cut away.
Yeah, imagine, this is a big place that we're stood in here.
This would have been a real bonanza find for them.
So if l touch that, it's going to be like the surface of a pencil, is it?
Pencil lead. Give it a rub and you'll find...
- There you go. - Oh, yeah. Look at that.
There you have it. Plumbago. A pretty ordinary-looking grey mineral,
but once a precious commodity of the British Empire,
key to the success of our navy, and vital for the men who made cannonballs.
And every day you're in this place you're two days nearer death
But you go
Plumbago was hard to get, and working with it was a closely guarded commercial secret.
We haven't a manual for casting cannonballs, and we're nowhere near a foundry.
Can we manage it on the quayside?
- Which one? - Any one. That one.
Go on. Go on. Go on. That's it.
So, the moment of truth. Will our graphite lining, in other words the plumbago,
have delivered a perfectly formed smooth cannonball?
No pressure.
Oh, it's a disaster.
- There isn't one! - There isn't one.
lt's not run, the metal's chilled.
The sea breeze cooled my molten iron so quickly it didn't flow into the mould.
Of course, you did cast it.
But these wily lads have left nothing to chance.
They've brought cannonballs cast in their foundry,
half the mould with plumbago, half without.
You can see from the surface finish on that one, the effects of the plumbago.
Yeah, you can immediately. This is smooth, and on this side it is very sandy-feeling.
A real magic ingredient, and quite sobering to think we didn't even get off step one today.
Clearly l wouldn't make a living from cannonballs.
But then the bottom fell out of the market a while ago.
Early in the 1 9th Century, plumbago from near here started to fall in value
as other sources were discovered overseas.
Local miners had to find new uses for their graphite, in other words plumbago,
and turned it into pencil leads.
Swords into ploughshares, cannonballs into pencils.
NlCK: Heading south from the Cumbrian Mountains, rock rolls into sand.
We've reached the pleasure palace of Blackpool.
Fun for some meansjobs for others.
This is the shoreline with the largest concentration of workers dedicated to leisure.
The resort owes its existence to entertainers.
From the earliest days, stars of stage and screen treading the boards
brought in the crowds, and their cash.
Those performers with mighty pulling power have lan intrigued.
''Garlic bread, it's the future. l've tasted it.''
That's Peter Kay. He's as northern as Blackpool rock.
''l'm playing all the right notes, but not necessarily in the right order.''
Eric Morecambe, of course.
Blackpool honours the stellar names of the stage with this comedy carpet,
but they're not just being nice, it's good business.
Booking the best talent meant that Blackpool was booming a hundred years ago,
and those hard-working entertainers from a century back
were true superstars of the Edwardian era.
But how would they get on today?
When Ma said, ''Percy, fie, for shame...''
lAN: To put their material to the test, we've engaged our own troupe of top talent.
l'm following in Father's footsteps...
Tribute acts to performers who once packed in the punters,
and commanded a King's ransom to perform.
Now appearing 1 00 years on, Coast presents, at great expense, the vivacious Vesta Tilley.
The lovable Little Tich.
- For one time only... - Edwardian Britain's Got Seaside Talent.
To draw tourists into the growing resort,
Blackpool needed to attract the best talent working in Britain.
That meant building lavish theatres to lure the stars away from the London stage.
Nothing exemplifies the ambition and glamour of Blackpool's theatre land better than the Grand.
This is the venue where we'll stage our century-old talent show
to see if those performers can still work a crowd today.
And to tell me more about our Edwardian acts, we've booked a Blackpool legend.
By jove, folks. What a beautiful day!
What a beautiful day for jumping off the top of Blackpool Tower,
holding your granny's corsets over your head and saying, ''How's this for skydiving?''
What a beautiful theatre! What a plumptious place!
What a grand theatre!
- Get to Barnsley! - l'm being heckled. l'll sort him out.
- Who are you? Where are you from? - lan McMillan from Barnsley.
Not Barnsley. Oh, Barnsley! Remember The Good Companions?
''Never again to Barnsley.'' Are you really from Barnsley?
- l am. - lt's nice of you to take the blame.
(Laughs)
- This is a fantastic theatre. - Probably the most beautiful theatre in Britain.
This was a Frank Matcham theatre. He was the great theatre architect.
He did about 1 20 theatres all over Britain.
But this is the most beautiful and it has been absolutely lovingly restored to its magnificence.
And what do you think it is about Blackpool? Why is Blackpool such a great place?
Blackpool is the greatest show town in the world.
lt was in Edwardian times and it is today.
l was always very lucky. l lived up the road here in digs.
Mrs Diggen's dignified digs. No dogs, 30 shillings a week, all in, one bed.
- She used to change the sheets every...spring. - (Laughs)
Some of those old stars like Vesta Tilley and Little Tich,
what was it about them that made them so attractive to audiences?
There were no films, no television, no radio.
Entertainment was really in the music hall, in the theatre, and they were the superstars.
They all had great, wonderful personalities. That's what really makes an artist.
lt's not what they do, it's how they do it.
So, let's see how they do do it.
(Cheering and applause)
Let's begin with the diva of drag. l'm talking about Vesta Tilley.
The ladies, heaven bless them, now we love them, every one
We praise them and we toast them...
Vesta Tilley dressed up as a masher,
and a masher was a dandy or a man about town.
That was sort of probably her most famous act.
Angels, angels, angels without wings
She was a woman wearing trousers.
Now, you didn't very often get the opportunity to see a woman wearing trousers,
so l'm sure there was an element of excitement at her silhouette.
Angels, angels...
l would say her act was very much directed towards the men in the audience,
but she got a lot of love letters from women,
married women, who really did convince themselves that she was a young man.
(Cheering and applause)
l want to find out more about this cross-dressing star of the Edwardian era,
and more about her Blackpool audience.
l'm meeting historian Fern Riddell.
- Hello, Fern. - Hi, lan.
Now, she portrayed toffs and swells,
so why would this have appealed to this working-class audience?
Well, it was this whole idea of seeing how the other half lived.
That was why they went to the music halls.
For the glitz and the glamour.
They didn't have access to the gossip magazines
that we have today, that's why they got so excited by it, and especially by Vesta.
She really was paid a vast amount of money, wasn't she?
She really was. You can see here in the admissions book from 1 91 2 that she's paid £300
for her weekly performance,
which in comparison to the male comedian underneath her, he only got £45.
lf we think of this in terms of modern day, it was around £20,000.
The equivalent of 20 grand a week elevated Vesta Tilley to the premier league of performers.
Our other hardworking Edwardian entertainer was a little guy
whose remarkably big boots take some filling, and polishing.
Will his novelty act still shine today?
Let's imagine we're in the Grand Theatre Blackpool a hundred years ago.
Please welcome a man small in stature but with a big heart.
Let's have a big round of applause for Little Tich.
(Cheering and applause)
Little Tich was a 4'6'' music-hall performer who became one of the biggest live stars.
He had a number of acts
but was best known for the big-boot dance where he'd wear 28-inch long boots.
l've always had the mania since the day that l was born
To study in the art of Terpsichore
l was always dancing mad and l would practise night and morn
To jump and shuffle on our kitchen floor
Little Tich appealed to the working classes
because it was a little guy taking the mick out of the upper classes.
He'd dress up as gas inspectors, politicians and even royalty.
(Cheering and applause)
Putting bums on seats by booking the biggest stars to perform in palatial surroundings.
lt was a business model that proved just the ticket for Blackpool.
Year in, year out, workers wanting a break from the mill towns nearby would flood in
with holiday cash burning a hole in their pockets.
They would get on an early train, arrive at 7 am,
and they'd go straight onto the beachfront and start dancing.
So was anything allowed, then?
Drunkenness, yes, was accepted.
lt was taken that when you get large groups of working-class people,
they would want to spend their money on beer and have a good time and be able to be free.
Once they'd done the seafront and downed a few ales,
generations of workers loved to end the day with a singsong.
So let's finish with a great seaside anthem, written almost 1 00 years ago.
l Do Like To Be Beside The Seaside.
Oh, l do like to be beside the seaside
Oh, l do like to be beside the sea
Oh, l do like to stroll along the prom, prom, prom
Where the brass bands play tiddly-om-pom-pom
So just let me be beside the seaside
l'll be beside myself with glee
And there's lots of girls beside l should like to be beside
Beside the seaside
Beside the sea
(Cheering and applause)
NlCK: Being beside the seaside wasn't a getaway for many hard-pressed coastal folk.
lt was a harsh life for manual workers in the docks.
But there was dignity in labour, with splendid surroundings.
The port of Grimsby marked its workers' achievements with a mighty tower.
Close up, it's quite a sight.
lt was completed in 1 852 and it's a copy of a beautiful tower in the ltalian town of Siena.
But like everything else in this port, their tower had to work for a living.
The pretty brick facade conceals the building's true function.
lt's a giant water tower.
Wow. This is even more monumental on the inside.
This pipe here used to pump water way up the tower to a huge holding tank.
The water was then released down this pipe here,
which fed hydraulic pumps that worked the lock gates and the cranes in the harbour.
One thing that's missing from the tower, though, is a lift.
That means walking up the biggest spiral staircase l've ever seen.
The workers'coast is hard work.
A million bricks built the tower and it takes 450 steps to climb it.
l hope the view's worth it.
The mammoth efforts of labourers to remodel our shore unfolds below.
The Grimsby Tower doesn't disappoint.
This monument in brick may have been paid for by the great and the good
but it was built by ordinary folk.
The skills, the endeavours of such unsung heroes, are written all around our shores.
This is the workers' coast, it's our coast.
Let's celebrate it.