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For Victorian Britons,

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George Bradshaw was a household name.

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At a time when railways were new,

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Bradshaw's guide book inspired them to take to the tracks.

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I'm using a Bradshaw's Guide

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to understand how trains transformed Britain -

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its landscape, its industry, society and leisure time.

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As I crisscross the country 150 years later,

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it helps me to discover the Britain of today.

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I've embarked on a new railway adventure -

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from Blackpool to Harwich.

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From resort to port, from sea to shining sea

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on a gentle slope from north western to eastern England.

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There will be some poetry as I traverse,

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and my Bradshaw's Guide will help me to glorify

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Victorian civil engineering and science.

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But my journey will also reveal some spectacular infrastructure

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being built now

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and transformational discoveries being made

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in Britain's present-day laboratories.

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My route will take me south-east across the country to East Anglia.

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It begins in Lancashire and heads across to

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the mighty northern conurbations of the industrial age.

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In Manchester, I'll join the route of

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the North Country Continental rail service

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and descend through the Fens to arrive in Essex,

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gateway to continental Europe.

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The first leg of my journey starts in Blackpool

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and takes me to neighbouring Fleetwood.

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From there I'll head south-east, stopping off near Bolton, before

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finishing in the manufacturing power house of Manchester.

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'On this trip...' Oh!

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'..there's terror on the tracks.'

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Only a skeleton staff today!

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'I play a small part in a monumental project...'

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Looks like you're a natural at this, Michael.

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Do they do it "weld done".

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'..and pay tribute to the ultimate sacrifice

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'that was made by thousands of rail workers.'

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And so it is perhaps understandable that when the call came in 1914

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that railwaymen were so prominent and so numerous in stepping forward.

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My first stop will be Blackpool,

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which Bradshaw's tells me is, "A pretty bathing place,

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"situated on a range of cliffs, much frequented by visitors,

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"possessing an excellent library and sea-bathing at all times of tide."

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Well, I don't know how many books

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have been borrowed in the last 150 years,

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but vast amounts of rock and candyfloss and fish and chips

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have been devoured - some of it unwisely -

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before taking the scariest of rides at Blackpool's Pleasure Beach.

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FAIRGROUND ORGAN MUSIC

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Like so many others, I'm here to experience the Pleasure Beach,

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a 42-acre cornucopia of edge-of-the-seat excitement

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that has entertained thrill-seekers for over a century.

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Andy Highgate, Assistant Operations Director at the Pleasure Beach,

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has agreed to help me explore the delights on offer by train.

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Hello, Andy. Hello.

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What a lovely station, a beautiful little train.

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Would you like to take a ride? I would love to.

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HORN SOUNDS

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How long have you had a railway?

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Well, the original Pleasure Beach Express was built in 1933.

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Beginning to hear the screams of people on your rides.

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MICHAEL CHUCKLES

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What makes it great is there's not that many railways

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where you get to see so many roller-coasters,

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ten roller-coasters on your route, and also dinosaurs as well,

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so that makes it a little bit unusual.

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The opening of a rail line to Blackpool in 1846

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gave manual workers in the Lancashire cotton mills

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an opportunity to enjoy seaside leisure.

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By the turn of the century, around two million people visited annually

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to experience the traditional British seaside pleasures

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of piers, donkey rides and fortune tellers.

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How did Blackpool Pleasure Beach start?

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There was a guy called William Bean,

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and in 1896, he ran a small collection of rides on the beach.

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And he had visited America

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and was inspired by a park called Coney Island near New York.

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It was his vision to bring some of the rides and attractions

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and that type of amusement park to the UK,

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which is what he did over the next 30 years.

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The amusement park was officially named

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Blackpool Pleasure Beach in 1905

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and grew quickly to include new rides

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such as the water chute and a wooden roller-coaster.

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Here we are passing some absolutely enormous structures.

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Tell me about these.

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Well, this one is the Big One, which, at one point,

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was actually the tallest and fastest rollercoaster in the world,

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and it's 235 feet tall.

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In 1928, William Bean's daughter, Lillian, married Leonard Thompson,

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and when his father-in-law died in 1929, he took over the park.

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Today, it's still run by the Thompson family.

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What have been the other important firsts

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during the history of Blackpool Pleasure Beach?

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Well, we had the world's first ghost train.

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The ghost train was basically introduced

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as what's called a pretzel ride - named after the layout of the track.

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Pretzels don't really mean anything to people in the UK.

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The suggestion of one of the ride operators

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that had seen a play called The Ghost Train,

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they changed the theme to a scary ride,

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and the ride was an instant success, and then copied all over the world.

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So every other ghost train that you see

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has come from our original ghost train here.

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I am about to experience the most incorporeal thing on tracks,

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the most ethereal of all railway journeys,

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the most phantasmagorical of all choo-choos.

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Shudder!

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Only a skeleton staff today.

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Ooh, very nasty things!

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GROWLING Argh! Didn't expect that one.

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Oh!

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SIREN WAILS

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An oncoming train!

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Argh!

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TRAIN HORN BLARES

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Ah!

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Definitely the most scared I ever want to be on a train.

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It was brilliant.

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From Blackpool, my journey takes me nine miles

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up the coast to Fleetwood.

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The railway between the two towns closed in 1970,

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but I can still make tracks

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by boarding the much-loved Blackpool tramway.

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Blackpool had one of the world's first electric tramways from 1885,

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and unlike any other city in mainland Britain,

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it's kept its trams ever since.

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Hello, Bill. Good afternoon, Michael.

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You must be a happy man driving this wonderful historic car.

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It's an absolute thrill to be able to

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drive something over 100 years old and making the passers-by smile.

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As a frequent visitor to Blackpool, at least in the old days,

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what surprised me on this visit

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is to see the absolutely modern, brand-new trams.

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How do you feel about them?

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They're fast, clean, efficient, very well-run.

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I still prefer the old ones, Michael. I bet you do!

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Fleetwood was the first planned town of the Victorian era.

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Its sheltered river mouth location

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was ideal for a port and holiday resort.

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Work on the town and a rail link to Preston began simultaneously,

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and in 1840, the line opened.

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Fleetwood Harbour became the starting point

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for journeys across the Irish Sea,

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and its port grew to be one of the country's largest.

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"Fleetwood, on the mouth of the River Wyre,

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"built on what was formerly a rabbit warren.

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"A modern town which had no existence before 1836.

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"Now a commodious harbour from which steamers go to Belfast."

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"On my arrival, I'm greeted by a salty breeze."

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HE SNIFSS

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"Wonderful for clearing the sinuses!"

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Today, the town's sea-faring legacy lives on in its most famous export -

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Fisherman's Friend lozenges.

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I'm meeting Tony Lofthouse,

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the great grandson of founder James Lofthouse.

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Tony, how does the story of Fisherman's Friend begin?

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It started 1865

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when my great grandfather moved down from Lancaster to Fleetwood

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and opened an apothecary shop, and he traded from there.

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And as the trawlers went further and further from Fleetwood,

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they went into colder and colder weather,

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and the trawlermen got infections of the chest.

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So he created menthol and eucalyptus lozenges for them.

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No name on it at all,

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but it was given the name by the people of Fleetwood.

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The trawlermen would come in and say,

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"Could I have some of my friends, please?"

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And the public would say,

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"I want some of those lozenges the fishermen have."

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So, you're making it sound like a very local product... Yes, it was.

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..for trawlermen in Fleetwood. Yes.

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My grandfather, father, uncle were

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only interested in the chemist shop side of it, really.

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They weren't bothered about marketing at all.

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It was only when we opened the, what we call the summer shops,

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on the promenade in Fleetwood,

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we used to get the holiday workers coming from the cotton towns.

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They'd buy the product, go home and couldn't find it,

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so they'd write to us.

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And my wife collated the letters into towns

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and then set off with a box full of loose packets

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and picked a post office or another chemist shop

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and said, "Look, if you will stock this product,

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"I will go home and write to these people

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"to say they can get them from you," and that's how it started.

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It seems to me that, in the history of your company,

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you owe quite a lot to your wife, Doreen. Absolutely.

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She's always full of ideas and bringing something new in.

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And what position does Doreen occupy now?

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She's chairman of the company - and quite rightly so!

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The company has grown to employ 380 people in Fleetwood.

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96% of their lozenges go abroad,

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and they've won three Queen's Awards for export.

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How many lozenges do you make? We make about 23 million a day.

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MICHAEL LAUGHS

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Gosh, that's a lot of sore throats being dealt with. Yes!

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Hello, Duncan. Hello, Michael.

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Another member of the family shows me the factory floor

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where the lozenges are made.

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Duncan, a beautiful, pristine environment.

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It's as though there's a mist in the air,

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I feel my eyes watering slightly and the smell penetrating my nose.

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Yes, I think that's probably the menthol

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that's causing that sensation for you.

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A rather surprising sight to me, Duncan -

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these lumps of brown product.

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What's happening at this point?

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Well, once the ingredients have been mixed together,

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the product then comes along this conveyer belt

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and goes into a moulder.

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The moulder makes the shape of the lozenge,

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which are then transferred onto trays.

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The trays are then onto palettes

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and they go into a drying oven for anything up to seven days.

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We have two identical lines to this,

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each producing five tonnes of product every day.

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How similar is this to the first product

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that was produced by your ancestors?

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It's very, very similar indeed.

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The only difference is now we do a moulding process,

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where, previously, the product was stamped out.

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That's the only difference.

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I think your ancestors, though, would've been just amazed

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by this degree of production and automation.

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I'm sure they would, yes.

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Hello. Have you worked for Fisherman's Friend long?

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Coming up to three years this year.

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Anyone in your family work for the company?

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Yeah, my grandma. She's been here 23 years.

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Do you ever get used to the sensation

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in your eyes and your nose?

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You get used to it now, yeah. Now that I've been here for a while.

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Very nice to talk to you. Yeah, you too. Bye-bye. Bye.

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The smell of menthol and eucalyptus is pervasive.

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But the range of tastes around the world demands additional flavouring.

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Which one is the original? That is the original, there.

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Thank you very much.

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Quite a strong smell, but of course,

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nothing by comparison with the factory floor.

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Quickly it begins to release eucalyptus... Yes.

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..and menthol.

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Mm. Very effective.

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I'm sure, if I were on a trawler, I would find that very efficacious.

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And what else should I try? I'd like you to try this one.

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This is a rather unusual one.

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This is a salmiak variant

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that sells particularly well in Scandinavia.

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It's liquorice!

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I hate liquorice!

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I think you must be in the minority

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because it's one of our bestselling variants, actually.

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With head cleared, I seek out my bed for the night.

256
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Why have I chosen the North Euston Hotel

257
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for the first night of my journey?

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I'll give you one guess.

259
00:15:12,000 --> 00:15:13,000
It's in my Bradshaw's!

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The hotel's grandeur illustrates railway history.

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When it opened in 1841,

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there were trains from London, but not onwards to Scotland.

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Passengers would therefore overnight in Fleetwood

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before taking the ferry to Ardrossan for the train to Glasgow.

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In 1846, a direct line to Scotland opened,

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so the North Euston's heyday was brief.

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I'm ready to resume my journey east to Manchester.

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George Bradshaw often marvelled at

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the triumphs of the civil engineers of his day

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in both canals and railways.

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But they did leave some gaps,

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for example, between Victoria and Piccadilly stations in Manchester.

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I want to see how modern-day engineers cope with those issues

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and how they live up to the standards of their forebears.

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I'm travelling 40 miles south east to Lostock near Bolton,

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where I will see a railway bridge taking shape.

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When complete, it will be part of an ?85 million project

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called the Ordsall Chord.

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300 metres of new track will allow trains to run

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between Victoria and Piccadilly stations in Manchester.

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It's part of an investment of more than ?1 billion

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in the railways in the north of England.

283
00:17:07,000 --> 00:17:10,000
Project manager Jarrod Hulme shows me the bridge

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that will form a vital part of the Ordsall Chord.

285
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For whatever reason, the Victorians did not link

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Piccadilly and Victoria stations in Manchester.

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What advantages do you have over the Victorians?

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I'd say the biggest key factor is the technology

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that has come about over the last 20 years or so.

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We design everything within a 3-D world, and then we transmit

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that onto the shop floor for the guys to actually use.

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They'll measure things with laser-guided technology,

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rather than spirit levels and plumb bob that the Victorians used to use.

294
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To extraordinary levels of accuracy. Yes.

295
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You're looking at between one and two millimetres.

296
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Have you developed any Victorian engineering heroes? Yes, I have.

297
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I'd say Brunel's probably one of my favourite heroes.

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Some of the structures he's done,

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in the timescale and the tools that they had,

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I find absolutely unbelievable.

301
00:17:58,000 --> 00:18:00,000
The Ordsall Chord development

302
00:18:00,000 --> 00:18:02,000
crosses the world's first modern railway line,

303
00:18:02,000 --> 00:18:07,000
built by George Stephenson between Liverpool and Manchester in 1830.

304
00:18:10,000 --> 00:18:14,000
Jarrod, it looks like Meccano on the mega-scale.

305
00:18:14,000 --> 00:18:16,000
Yeah, this is a full-scale trial erection

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00:18:16,000 --> 00:18:20,000
of one of the structures on Ordsall Chord called Trinity Way.

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00:18:20,000 --> 00:18:22,000
Basically, what you're looking at here is how we make sure

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that the actual items fit together before they get to site.

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The main span girders that you can see on the left and the right,

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they're fabricated in another area of the bay.

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Then they're brought to this particular area

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where they're assimilated into the final span position.

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The centrepiece of the Ordsall Chord will be the network arch bridge,

314
00:18:42,000 --> 00:18:45,000
which some have compared to a squashed tennis racket,

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00:18:45,000 --> 00:18:48,000
with a distinctive swoosh at one end.

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The ground-breaking design is destined to become

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a Manchester landmark.

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How do you feel, being in your case,

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00:18:56,000 --> 00:18:59,000
a very significant part of this extraordinary transformation

320
00:18:59,000 --> 00:19:01,000
in the middle of Manchester?

321
00:19:01,000 --> 00:19:03,000
I'm a local boy, so having the fact that you can actually see this

322
00:19:03,000 --> 00:19:05,000
on a daily basis when you go into the city,

323
00:19:05,000 --> 00:19:08,000
it's going to be an iconic structure that everybody gets to see,

324
00:19:08,000 --> 00:19:11,000
so, yeah, really proud to be part of it.

325
00:19:11,000 --> 00:19:13,000
The Victorians would be amazed to see

326
00:19:13,000 --> 00:19:15,000
the technology at Jarrod's disposal.

327
00:19:15,000 --> 00:19:18,000
But they'd be very familiar with the skills involved

328
00:19:18,000 --> 00:19:19,000
in constructing the bridge.

329
00:19:21,000 --> 00:19:23,000
Hello.

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00:19:23,000 --> 00:19:26,000
My name's Michael. This is Steve.

331
00:19:26,000 --> 00:19:28,000
How do you do, Steve? Fantastic.

332
00:19:28,000 --> 00:19:31,000
What's going on here, then? OK, so this is the welding process.

333
00:19:31,000 --> 00:19:34,000
This is a main span girder for a River Irwell arch.

334
00:19:34,000 --> 00:19:36,000
Must be operating, obviously, at a very high temperature

335
00:19:36,000 --> 00:19:38,000
cos, actually I can feel that there's heat

336
00:19:38,000 --> 00:19:41,000
all the way through this vast piece of metal.

337
00:19:41,000 --> 00:19:45,000
Steve is using a process called submerged arc welding.

338
00:19:45,000 --> 00:19:48,000
This produces slag as a waste material.

339
00:19:48,000 --> 00:19:51,000
I may as well make myself useful.

340
00:19:51,000 --> 00:19:53,000
Steve, my mother taught me to vacuum clean.

341
00:19:53,000 --> 00:19:57,000
Can I have a go at that? Certainly. Thank you very much.

342
00:19:57,000 --> 00:20:00,000
Let me have that dooberry as well. There we go.

343
00:20:02,000 --> 00:20:06,000
Sucking up all the bits of flux here. Perfect.

344
00:20:06,000 --> 00:20:08,000
Keep the place nice and tidy.

345
00:20:09,000 --> 00:20:12,000
And then the other thing you do is you chip these bits off...

346
00:20:15,000 --> 00:20:17,000
Looks like you're a natural at this, Michael.

347
00:20:17,000 --> 00:20:19,000
My mother taught me well.

348
00:20:19,000 --> 00:20:21,000
Do you think it's "weld done"?

349
00:20:24,000 --> 00:20:27,000
When, in decades to come, I travel along the Ordsall Chord,

350
00:20:27,000 --> 00:20:30,000
I shall think back to Steve and the vacuum cleaner.

351
00:20:31,000 --> 00:20:34,000
I'm re-joining the train at Lostock

352
00:20:34,000 --> 00:20:37,000
and travelling 60 miles to Salford station,

353
00:20:37,000 --> 00:20:39,000
close to where the bridge is to be assembled.

354
00:20:42,000 --> 00:20:47,000
The plan to build a new link across Manchester has been controversial

355
00:20:47,000 --> 00:20:50,000
because it interferes with George Stephenson's bridge

356
00:20:50,000 --> 00:20:56,000
across which Robert Stephenson's rocket locomotive has so often run.

357
00:20:56,000 --> 00:20:59,000
And certainly we need to preserve our old heritage,

358
00:20:59,000 --> 00:21:03,000
but what better tribute to those railway pioneers

359
00:21:03,000 --> 00:21:06,000
than that today, nearly 200 years later,

360
00:21:06,000 --> 00:21:10,000
their technology of metal wheels on metal rails

361
00:21:10,000 --> 00:21:13,000
is still being used, refined and developed?

362
00:21:20,000 --> 00:21:23,000
When finished, the new bridge will be taken to Manchester

363
00:21:23,000 --> 00:21:24,000
and assembled on-site.

364
00:21:24,000 --> 00:21:26,000
I've come to meet Alan Parker,

365
00:21:26,000 --> 00:21:30,000
programme manager for Network Rail, at the construction zone,

366
00:21:30,000 --> 00:21:32,000
just south of Salford station

367
00:21:32,000 --> 00:21:34,000
and to the west of Manchester's city centre.

368
00:21:37,000 --> 00:21:38,000
It's an amazing sight, isn't it?

369
00:21:38,000 --> 00:21:42,000
Railway line, canal, river, several bridges - complicated!

370
00:21:42,000 --> 00:21:44,000
Where are you going to put your new railway line?

371
00:21:44,000 --> 00:21:46,000
Directly over where we're standing now.

372
00:21:46,000 --> 00:21:49,000
We've already done quite a lot of work to link Piccadilly with Victoria

373
00:21:49,000 --> 00:21:51,000
in earlier stages of the job.

374
00:21:51,000 --> 00:21:54,000
This is the final link which takes two existing viaducts,

375
00:21:54,000 --> 00:21:57,000
which one comes from Victoria to Liverpool,

376
00:21:57,000 --> 00:21:59,000
the other one links Piccadilly through to Liverpool as well.

377
00:21:59,000 --> 00:22:02,000
This is a link which joins the two together,

378
00:22:02,000 --> 00:22:05,000
allowing the railway to run from Victoria to Piccadilly

379
00:22:05,000 --> 00:22:06,000
for the first time.

380
00:22:06,000 --> 00:22:09,000
When the Ordsall Chord is completed,

381
00:22:09,000 --> 00:22:11,000
there will be two new fast trains per hour

382
00:22:11,000 --> 00:22:14,000
between Manchester Victoria and Liverpool.

383
00:22:14,000 --> 00:22:16,000
A new direct service will run

384
00:22:16,000 --> 00:22:19,000
across Manchester city centre to the airport

385
00:22:19,000 --> 00:22:23,000
and faster journey times to Hull, Newcastle and across the north

386
00:22:23,000 --> 00:22:24,000
will be possible.

387
00:22:26,000 --> 00:22:28,000
Where is the famous George Stephenson bridge?

388
00:22:28,000 --> 00:22:30,000
Stephenson's bridge at the moment is hidden away,

389
00:22:30,000 --> 00:22:33,000
behind this bridge, behind a further bridge.

390
00:22:33,000 --> 00:22:36,000
And if you look closely underneath the bottom of the bridge,

391
00:22:36,000 --> 00:22:39,000
it's two stone arches with a central pier in the river.

392
00:22:39,000 --> 00:22:42,000
We're going to reveal the whole of Stephenson's bridge

393
00:22:42,000 --> 00:22:45,000
for the first time since round about the 1830s, 1840s.

394
00:22:45,000 --> 00:22:48,000
So we're going to fully refurbish the external faces of the bridge

395
00:22:48,000 --> 00:22:50,000
and bring it back to an original condition.

396
00:22:50,000 --> 00:22:52,000
A bit of a renaissance going on for the railways in the north?

397
00:22:52,000 --> 00:22:55,000
I think so. It's a good time for the railway in Manchester.

398
00:22:55,000 --> 00:22:57,000
Exciting? Very exciting, yeah.

399
00:22:59,000 --> 00:23:03,000
Bradshaw's says that, "The Liverpool and Manchester line

400
00:23:03,000 --> 00:23:07,000
"is pre-eminently entitled to rank as the pioneer

401
00:23:07,000 --> 00:23:09,000
"of those stupendous undertakings

402
00:23:09,000 --> 00:23:11,000
"which have given a new stimulus to

403
00:23:11,000 --> 00:23:15,000
"the mechanical and architectural genius of the age."

404
00:23:15,000 --> 00:23:20,000
Mechanical and architectural flair are key today.

405
00:23:26,000 --> 00:23:28,000
All my rail journeys using my Bradshaw's guide

406
00:23:28,000 --> 00:23:31,000
are really about historic memories

407
00:23:31,000 --> 00:23:34,000
but I'm now on my way to Manchester Piccadilly station

408
00:23:34,000 --> 00:23:37,000
for a very special act of remembrance.

409
00:23:41,000 --> 00:23:44,000
Railways and their workers played a vital role

410
00:23:44,000 --> 00:23:49,000
in the Great War of 1914 to 1918.

411
00:23:49,000 --> 00:23:53,000
Over 19,000 railwaymen lost their lives.

412
00:23:53,000 --> 00:23:56,000
Manchester Piccadilly used to have a memorial honouring

413
00:23:56,000 --> 00:24:01,000
87 fallen railwaymen of the London And North Western Railway.

414
00:24:01,000 --> 00:24:04,000
It was dedicated in 1920

415
00:24:04,000 --> 00:24:09,000
but mislaid when the station was redeveloped in the 1960s.

416
00:24:09,000 --> 00:24:13,000
Train managers for Virgin Trains Andy Partington and Wayne McDonald

417
00:24:13,000 --> 00:24:17,000
decided to rectify the loss with a new monument,

418
00:24:17,000 --> 00:24:19,000
and after many hours of research,

419
00:24:19,000 --> 00:24:24,000
they've discovered the biographies of 75 of the 87 men listed.

420
00:24:24,000 --> 00:24:29,000
What gave you the idea, not only of recreating the memorial,

421
00:24:29,000 --> 00:24:33,000
but actually investigating the people whose names were on it?

422
00:24:33,000 --> 00:24:36,000
I think it's important that they're not just a name on a memorial.

423
00:24:36,000 --> 00:24:38,000
They were somebody's father, son, brother,

424
00:24:38,000 --> 00:24:40,000
and they were individuals.

425
00:24:40,000 --> 00:24:44,000
It's interesting, as railwaymen, to learn.

426
00:24:44,000 --> 00:24:47,000
Although the railway is different today than 100 years ago,

427
00:24:47,000 --> 00:24:49,000
it's more or less getting to know them personally,

428
00:24:49,000 --> 00:24:53,000
that's how we've felt as we've progressed through this project.

429
00:24:53,000 --> 00:24:56,000
How did you set about your researches?

430
00:24:56,000 --> 00:24:58,000
Mostly through sites like the Commonwealth War Grave site,

431
00:24:58,000 --> 00:25:00,000
family tree sites.

432
00:25:00,000 --> 00:25:03,000
And then, obviously, the release of the headstone registers

433
00:25:03,000 --> 00:25:05,000
by the Commonwealth War Graves last year.

434
00:25:05,000 --> 00:25:08,000
Answered a lot of questions and let us narrow down

435
00:25:08,000 --> 00:25:11,000
that that's definitely the person we are looking at.

436
00:25:11,000 --> 00:25:14,000
I'm deeply honoured to have been asked to give a speech

437
00:25:14,000 --> 00:25:16,000
at the unveiling ceremony.

438
00:25:16,000 --> 00:25:21,000
Lord Mayor, Deputy Lord Lieutenant and ladies and gentlemen.

439
00:25:21,000 --> 00:25:25,000
The men who joined the railways during the 19th century

440
00:25:25,000 --> 00:25:28,000
and in the first years of the 20th century

441
00:25:28,000 --> 00:25:32,000
were typically brave and resourceful people

442
00:25:32,000 --> 00:25:34,000
because the railways were dangerous.

443
00:25:34,000 --> 00:25:36,000
And they were also people

444
00:25:36,000 --> 00:25:39,000
who were strongly dedicated to public service.

445
00:25:39,000 --> 00:25:43,000
And so it is perhaps understandable, that when the call came in 1914,

446
00:25:43,000 --> 00:25:49,000
that railwaymen were so prominent and so numerous in stepping forward.

447
00:25:49,000 --> 00:25:52,000
I want to say how very delighted I am that

448
00:25:52,000 --> 00:25:55,000
the First World War memorial here at Manchester Piccadilly station

449
00:25:55,000 --> 00:25:57,000
is now to be restored.

450
00:26:00,000 --> 00:26:03,000
APPLAUSE

451
00:26:22,000 --> 00:26:24,000
TRUMPETER PLAYS LAST POST

452
00:26:28,000 --> 00:26:33,000
Who is in this photograph? It's our grandad. Joseph Daly.

453
00:26:33,000 --> 00:26:35,000
A day you'll remember? Absolutely, yes.

454
00:26:35,000 --> 00:26:38,000
Fantastic. It's very nice.

455
00:26:38,000 --> 00:26:41,000
The memorial includes the name of my late husband's uncle.

456
00:26:41,000 --> 00:26:44,000
A couple of years before my husband fell ill,

457
00:26:44,000 --> 00:26:48,000
he came in to Manchester to see if he could find the memorial

458
00:26:48,000 --> 00:26:50,000
and he was really upset to find it had gone.

459
00:26:50,000 --> 00:26:52,000
So I'm here to represent my husband,

460
00:26:52,000 --> 00:26:54,000
and I'm so sad that he's not here today.

461
00:27:09,000 --> 00:27:14,000
George and Robert Stephenson left their mark on Manchester

462
00:27:14,000 --> 00:27:18,000
when the world's first trains ran to and from the city

463
00:27:18,000 --> 00:27:20,000
while Queen Victoria was still a child.

464
00:27:22,000 --> 00:27:26,000
Today, Manchester is being transformed by new lines,

465
00:27:26,000 --> 00:27:29,000
proving that this 19th-century technology

466
00:27:29,000 --> 00:27:33,000
can still be exploited in the 21st.

467
00:27:33,000 --> 00:27:36,000
The railways attracted a particular sort of man -

468
00:27:36,000 --> 00:27:40,000
tough, resourceful and duty-bound.

469
00:27:40,000 --> 00:27:41,000
And from amongst their ranks,

470
00:27:41,000 --> 00:27:45,000
there stepped forward some of the most effective volunteers

471
00:27:45,000 --> 00:27:47,000
for the First World War.

472
00:27:47,000 --> 00:27:50,000
Britain owes them a debt.

473
00:27:53,000 --> 00:27:57,000
'Next time, I discover Victorian grandeur deep underground...'

474
00:27:58,000 --> 00:28:00,000
This is known as the cathedral,

475
00:28:00,000 --> 00:28:02,000
which has this vaulted cast-iron arch.

476
00:28:02,000 --> 00:28:04,000
This is a monumental piece of work.

477
00:28:04,000 --> 00:28:07,000
'..find my travels lit by starlight...'

478
00:28:07,000 --> 00:28:10,000
Lift it, please! Let there be light.

479
00:28:10,000 --> 00:28:13,000
Bravo. MICHAEL APPLAUDS

480
00:28:13,000 --> 00:28:14,000
'..and take a miniature detour.'