Episode 2 The One Show - Best of Britain

-Hello, from West Wales. I'm Cerys Matthews.

-And I'm Gyles Brandreth.

This is the best of Britain as seen on The One Show.

# One

# One

# One

# One. #

Croeso i rifyn arbennig o'r One Show o Ardd Fotaneg Genedlaethol Cymru, Sir Gar.

Welcome to this special edition of The One Show, coming to you

from the dazzling National Botanic Garden of Wales, near Carmarthen.

We're going to be celebrating our favourite films,

those fertile stories so lovingly tendered

and deserving of a chance to bloom again.

See what we have sprouting for you tonight.

Hankies at the ready for the extraordinary

story of Christian the lion, London's coolest cat.

Here he is up in the flat, you see.

-My gosh. I mean, he was a lion.

-Yeah.

-Were people right to be a bit wary?

-They were right to be wary.

Craig-y-Nos Castle.

Welsh tuberculosis survivors return to the sanatorium which once

chilled them to the bone...

This is what the children lay in,

not just for five minutes or ten minutes,

but all day, every day, for a year at a time.

Plus, Britain's new love affair with hot tubs. What's all the fuss about?

It does involve men and certainly no football or cars.

..and the day of aphids.

George McGavin psychs out the gardener's enemy.

It's one of these.

But first, where better to introduce a film about The Green, Green Grass Of Home

than in a Welsh garden that boasts 8,000 plant varieties?

It's absolutely perfect.

So, yeah, this next film is when I catch up with my friend,

Tom Jones, and take a closer look at a country song which became

a global hit for him.

# The old home town looks the same... #

In 1966, a fresh-faced lad from the Valleys released a quirky

country song which went on to become a number one hit all over the world.

Called The Green, Green Grass Of Home,

people naturally assumed it was about his home town in Pontypridd.

# Down the road I look

# And there runs Mary... #

"Down the road," he said, "and there comes Mary."

Well, it might be a coincidence, but my wife's name was Mary.

# Of that old oak tree... #

The tree in the woods over there,

and that's where, more or less, The Green, Green Grass came out of that tree.

# The green, green grass of home. #

So the definitive pop song about Wales? Well, not quite.

Home, of course, depends on where the heart is.

The song was actually written in Nashville, Tennessee,

by Claude "Curly" Putman, and has been covered by over 100 artists.

'To explain the song's worldwide popularity,

'I've got a date with a musical legend.'

-Good to see you.

-Good to see you.

-Come and have a seat right there.

'It was a smash hit for Tom Jones, but I'm taking him back in time

'to a version which inspired him to record the song in the first place.'

-I bought this album, and I'm going to play you this song on it.

-OK.

And you're going to recognise it.

I hope so. SHE LAUGHS

-RECORD PLAYS

-# They'll all come to meet me

# Arms a-reaching

# Smiling sweetly

# It's good to touch... #

-So, where were you when you first heard that song?

-In New York.

I was doing an Ed Sullivan Show in 1965.

I went in this Colony record shop. It was a famous record shop.

So I asked, did they have anything new by Jerry Lee Lewis?

Because I had always been a Jerry Lee fan since Whole Lotta Shakin'.

And they said, "Well, he's made a country album."

-Which figures, because he's from Louisiana, isn't he?

-Yeah, exactly.

# Yes, they'll all come to meet me

# Arms a-reaching

# Smiling sweetly... #

So I bought it and I took it back to the hotel,

and I played it and thought, "This is great, this is great."

And a lot of the songs I knew.

But when the Green, Green Grass Of Home came up,

I had never heard that song before.

I thought, "My God, what a great song." It's different.

-And new.

-Why different? What made it so different?

-A lot of songs, they say the names of cities.

-Yeah.

But the Green, Green Grass Of Home doesn't.

The more I thought about it, I thought, you know,

what a great idea, because we all have a green, green grass of home.

# The green, green grass of home. #

The thing that got me about it, because when you listen to it,

you just think you're singing about the green, green grass of home.

And then in the middle section, it says, "Then I awake

"and look around me at four grey walls that surround me."

-So he's in prison?

-Yeah.

-And people don't really clock that sometimes, do they?

-No!

I thought, my God, that's unbelievable, that this

man was only thinking about it and he's going to get hung.

So I did it on the TV show.

I used to have a 30-minute TV show, and I did it on there,

-you know, inside a jail.

-Yeah.

But you don't know I'm inside the jail until the camera pulls back.

'And there I am.'

# And there's a sad old padre Arm-in-arm... #

'And it had a big effect.

'People were asking, "What was that song when you were in jail?"'

It makes it even deeper, though, doesn't it?

People identify with it on a deep level

not just as a sugary, sentimental song, it's much deeper.

-The soldiers of the Vietnam War loved it as well, didn't they?

-Yes.

-Elvis loved it.

-Elvis loved it.

I think he was kicking himself that he didn't pick up on it earlier,

so, thank God, it became my song.

# Down the road I look

# And there runs Mary... #

'Happily for us, Tom's version did get there first, and when you're

'in the same room as "The Voice" and a guitar, you've got to, really.'

-BOTH:

-# ..Grass of home

# Yes, they'll all come to meet me

# Arms a-reaching

# Smiling sweetly

# It's good to touch

# The green, green grass of home. #

Well, that's lovely.

What a great song. Really unusual, that song. Did you like that?

I do like that, and I like Tom Jones.

And you, of course, have some sung a duet with the legendary Tom Jones.

-What's the man really like?

-He's gorgeous, a great singer,

a great music collector, not such a keen gardener.

Ah, that's the difference between him and Harry Secombe.

Harry Secombe taught me all that I know about gardening,

which isn't a great deal.

-But he never gave me a gardening hat, and you've got one for me, haven't you?

-I do.

You promised me a gardening hat.

-You call this a hat?!

-SHE LAUGHS

What is this, a druid's crown? I'm not surprised you're walking off!

She's walking off because she's frightened of the aphids.

Beware of the aphids.

George McGavin, our colleague, will show you why.

We don't associate Britain with plagues,

but in living memory, we have been under attack...

from massive swarms of marauding insects.

1979, the opening of an oil rig, and emergency services had to step in.

But this wasn't a one-off.

In 2011, even Wimbledon was besieged. FLIES BUZZ

And what is this monster?

Well, it's one of these - the common or garden greenfly, or aphid.

Singularly, they aren't that frightening a prospect,

but each one is a prodigious breeder, giving birth to young

who are themselves already pregnant with another generation inside them.

This sparks an exponential process that one scientist has

calculated could, over the course of just one year,

result in enough ravenous bugs to cover the earth 150 kilometres deep.

Now you have cause for concern.

Traditionally, the people you think of as most fearing

the aphid would be rose gardeners.

So just imagine being responsible for 14,000 individual plants.

'Andy Godley is the head gardener at the Royal Rose Society.'

Now I imagine you're not a great fan of aphids, are you?

The trouble with aphids is, one day you can have one aphid, the next day you've two or three.

Within a week, you can have a biblical population of aphids.

What do they actually do to the rose?

What injury can they cause a rose bush?

They suck all the sap, they cause new buds to be deformed,

they cause the leaves to be deformed.

They can be bad news for roses.

And not just roses.

In a normal year, most gardeners will be troubled by aphids,

but in a plague year, everyone has serious cause for concern.

It's not just the fact that aphids suck sap that harms crops, is it?

No, it isn't. In fact, much worse than that, they are extremely

efficient at pumping viruses into plants

that can be quite devastating.

So, potentially,

how much could you lose in this field through aphid-borne virus disease?

In a worst-case scenario, you could lose 60% of it.

60% of this yield could potentially go?

In the worst case, it could potentially go.

Dr Richard Harrington and has calculated that a bad aphid year

could cost agriculture up to £100 million.

Luckily, Richard and his team are on constant watch for aphid invasion and

employ an early-warning system of 15 of these 12-metre vacuum traps

that are whirring away across the country

to protect our crops against this airborne threat.

From Inverness to Exeter,

this is Britain's last line of defence from airborne invasion.

This is basically just an upside-down vacuum.

-That's exactly what it is, yeah.

-VACUUM WHIRS

-That's better.

-Whoo!

So, all the insects get sucked down that tube and then end up in this...

-They do, that's right.

-..in this bottle here?

-Yes, that's right.

Right, well, there's all sorts of stuff in there -

midges, flies, beetles, spiders, and, of course, aphids -

and somebody has the job

of wading through all that

and finding out exactly

what's in there.

That's correct. Great fun.

-Rather you than me.

-Thank you.

Of the 600 native aphid species in Britain,

only around 30 have the potential to carry dangerous crop viruses.

And it's these that Richard and his team are counting

and recording every day.

Now, what is the real practical value of this work?

By giving farmers warnings as to where and when they're likely

to be a problem, then they only need to spray

if there's likely to be a problem in their particular area.

'Richard and his team's research also point to

'when we might next expect an aphid plague like in 1979 and 2011.

'Both those years were preceded by a cold winter...

'..and followed by a dry summer.'

So there we have it, the aphid -

a prodigious breeder reviled by gardeners

and likely to invade whenever next we have a long, hot summer.

Unlike this year's exceptionally wet one.

HE EXHALES SHARPLY

And thankfully, continually monitored by a team of scientists and

their early-warning system, keeping the nation safe from invasion.

That film really bugged me, Gyles.

I have a man who's good enough to deal with your problems.

He's Simon Goodenough, and he's the head gardener

here at the National Botanical Garden of Wales.

-Aphids do bug you, don't they?

-They do, and they are horrible things.

If you have an infestation, you cannot get rid of them easily.

But you've managed to. Not totally, cos there's some here, aren't there?

Yes, there are few, but this isn't a bad year for aphids, luckily.

But for every one of those aphids, within a week, you've got 50

from one and then within a month, you've got six million.

-Six million?!

-In a month.

-Oh, my goodness! That's incredible.

-What a statistic!

-They're worse than rabbits!

And if there was an aphid infestation today,

what would it do to a garden like this?

Well, in the vegetable plot, it's a disaster because it reduces all of your productivity,

it stops things from flowering properly, so fruits don't set and you've got to do something about it.

What would you do? Would you turn to chemicals?

I'd rather not, we believe in being as organic as possible,

so we actually use the old washing-up-liquid method - spraying

with soapy water is a really good way to cut down your numbers.

That and actually getting the things between your fingers and squashing them.

-You are an aphid murderer!

-Oh, I am! Yes!

-And are you proud of that?

-Very!

-Because it's necessary.

-It's absolutely necessary if we want to eat.

But as it is, you've just got a handful of aphids

-and everything in the garden is looking lovely.

-Thank you.

People should come to Carmarthen to see it. Hurry down to Carmarthen while the stocks last!

I saw some stocks in another of the gardens! That's rather good.

-Truly wasted. Wasted.

-It looks absolutely lovely.

Thank you very much, Simon.

My pleasure.

Now, back in the 1950s,

tuberculosis was still a serious problem here in the UK and the

treatment administered to children was daunting to say the least.

Here's Ruth Goodman to take up the story.

Today, Craig-y-Nos Castle is a hotel in the picturesque

Welsh Brecon Beacons, but it was once a tuberculosis sanatorium.

Between 1922 and 1959, hundreds of children

and teenagers were treated here and today, some of them have returned.

And The One Show has invited them to share their memories

and to discuss a time when the medical establishment was

going to quite extreme measures to fight a truly terrible disease.

'With no cure for TB at the time, centuries old

'treatments like exposure to cold, fresh air were the only option.

'At Craig Y Nos, many children were actually made to live

'outdoors on a balcony, sometimes for years on end.'

-This is where the balconies were, is it?

-Girls were at the top.

-Girls were along that window, there.

-The second one up.

-And the boys were here.

-I was three years up there.

-Three years?

-Yes.

I was told I was coming for a fortnight

and I was here for 17 months.

The idea of you being out in all weathers, rain and snow, wind,

-the lot.

-My mother came up one winter's day and made me

put a vest on and Sister came out and gave her a row.

And I had to take it off.

Exposure to the cold wasn't the only treatment.

Immobilisation was also common.

And to ensure children didn't move,

they were sometimes placed in plaster beds -

rigid casts of their bodies that kept them still on their backs

for years.

This is the cast, or plaster bed, that many of the patients speak of.

It was moulded from a child's body and once it had been moulded,

this is what the children lay in.

Not just for five minutes or ten minutes,

but all day, every day, for a year at a time.

This one was made for a three-year-old.

'Not all of Craig Y Nos is open to the hotel's guests.

'Some floors have been preserved almost

'exactly as they were in the sanatorium days.'

-So three along here?

-Three there, one there.

-I was here.

-Right next to the window?

-In front of the window, yes.

Dr Hubbard used to come out of the lift,

come up along the corridor and just stand there and say, "Lie down!"

Separation from parents and siblings was often the most difficult

part of being in the sanatorium.

With parents only able to visit once a month,

many of the children felt cut off.

I missed the place I grew up because it was by the sea,

so missed the sea. I missed my dog.

So when I told my mother this, she was coming back up again,

she told me to look out of the window, that window there.

And standing by the fountain was my uncle, holding the dog

and I had a whistle for him. I whistled and he recognised it.

And then later on, she opened her bag and she took a bottle out

and she said, "Smell that." She'd brought me a bottle of seawater.

So she couldn't do anything else, really.

That was the way, I suppose, she tried to help me.

But the children weren't neglected here.

Nurses like Glenys Jones became their surrogate family.

Today, she's returned with them.

-I was here for almost 40 years.

-Good gracious!

-What was it like, nursing these children?

-Plenty of fun.

It was hard, mind. Especially during visiting.

They never had visitors, only once a month.

And then, of course, they didn't know their relatives,

-they didn't know their parents at all.

-And how cold was it for the nurses?

Oh, it was bitterly cold. But you weren't allowed to wear a cardigan in the ward,

only on the veranda.

Isolation from their families

and the sometimes incredibly harsh treatments were difficult,

but for many TB survivors, going home after years in the sanatorium

was the biggest challenge of all.

My friends had moved on and I hadn't. I was still seven, going home, after three years.

I was seven coming in and seven going home. My friends were saying, "I don't want to play with that."

I was playing with my dolls! "No, we don't play with dolls at our age!"

My mother was more concerned about how the parents would take

to me going back and playing with their children. She said to me, "Don't tell anyone you've had TB.

"Just say it wasn't TB, it was a bad chest complaint."

I tell people now I had TB because I'm quite proud of it now!

My scars, isn't it? My medals!

The story of tuberculosis is one of history's more harrowing tales,

but I can honestly say that the children of Craig Y Nos are some

of the bravest and most inspiring people that I have ever met.

-What an incredible film that was.

-Yeah, that's the reality of tuberculosis.

Do you remember when you were at school, you had those BCG vaccinations?

I do remember. I've still got the marks from mine.

-We're so lucky now that it's been kept at bay.

-We are. We're blessed.

-I've got a film now that I hope will make you feel quite good.

-OK.

This is a film that when we first showed on the One Show, Alex Jones, in the studio, shed a tear or two?

-Really?

-Yes. Live on TV.

So hankies at the ready, this is one of my films that may make you

weep, but today, for the right reasons.

The '60s were exciting times.

The days before tedious stuff like the Dangerous Wild Animals Act

of 1976.

And if you fancied buying yourself a lion, there was nothing to stop you.

You simply popped down to the shops.

'In 1969, Harrods was offering a lion cub as the ultimate Christmas present.'

You could not resist loving this animal.

We just looked at it and thought, "My heavens! We've got to do something about this."

'Stumping up the equivalent of £4,000, John Rendall

'and Ace Bourke bought the Harrods lion.

'Naming him Christian, they took him home to SophistoCat,

'a London furniture shop.

'It's still trading, but in new premises.'

Seriously, it was in a shop like this, amidst all the furniture.

Literally, the lion, the sofa and the wardrobe!

That is exactly right. This was Christian's jungle.

And he used to sneak around between all the chairs, stalking people.

-There he is.

-Here he was...

-This is your Christian gallery here.

-Sitting on the stairs.

-What did the customers make of him?

-They loved it.

-How old is he in this picture?

-He's about eight months old there.

-And obviously, he looks as if he was happy to be handled.

Yes, he had complete trust in us.

It's impossible to assess what Christian thought we were.

All he knew was that we just loved him unconditionally.

-And here he is up in the flat. You see.

-My gosh! He is a lion.

Were people right to be a bit wary?

They were right to be wary, but he never attacked anybody.

How wonderful! And this is before the age of health and safety, so there was nobody

-coming along to the shop and saying, "You can't do that, mate."

-Absolutely not.

'Christian became the focus of John and Ace's lives, but the

'growing lion needed space, which was in short supply on the King's Road.'

So this is where you would come. It's a graveyard.

It's a graveyard and a perfect safe walled garden for him to come

and play football.

And you persuaded the vicar to let you bring a lion in your car.

He was a marvellous man. He was an animal lover.

He said, "Of course you can bring your lion here."

And did you have a pooper scooper?

-No! I'm afraid not.

-Standards were different in the 1960s.

Very different, yes. But it was a scooper shovel!

-It's amazing, a lion running free in West London.

-I know.

Despite their close bond,

John and Ace knew Christian couldn't stay in London much longer.

But putting him back into captivity would be betrayal.

It was quite distressing as to what was going to happen to him.

And so I was quite please when Bill Travers walked into the shop,

looking for a desk, and I thought, "Ah, I know who you are.

"I've got something to show you!"

Bill Travers and Virginia McKenna, stars of the hit film Born Free,

instantly joined Christian's fan club.

That moment was absolutely wonderful

and I thought as I looked at him that he

was one of the most beautiful young lions that I had ever seen.

There was just something about him.

With Bill's help, the Harrods lion was given a chance of freedom.

He was flown to Kenya, where conservationist George Adamson

attempted to integrate him into the wild.

I felt confident that Christian would have a fulfilled life

in the wild for however long or short that might be.

Even if it was a year, it would be better than a lifetime in a zoo.

Christian had left a massive gap in John and Ace's lives.

A year later, they flew to Kenya with a cameraman, hoping to film him.

But the lion was wild now and potentially dangerous.

Had he forgotten his human friends?

You can see him thinking it through. Is it them? Is it them?

And that is when he started to run.

When he actually jumped into our arms and was rubbing against us,

that was an extraordinary feeling, this huge animal now.

It was an unique privilege to be there.

The sheer just excitement that he hadn't forgotten us.

It's remarkable that a lion from Harrods should manage to

adapt to the wilds of Africa.

John and Ace will never forget the cub they released into freedom.

But what's more remarkable is that Christian didn't forget them.

What did you make of that, Cerys?

I thought it was mad to think you could buy

a lion in a shop in the 1960s. Absolutely mad.

You could buy amazing things in shops in the 1960s.

I bought this hat in 1967. It's my favourite.

It's very dapper, but you're not going to need it cos we're going to look at hot tubs now.

-Hot tubs?!

-Yes, hot tubs. They used to be the domain of the international playboys

and the footballers, but not any more. Did you know that over 150,000 people have bought themselves

-a hot tub?

-I'm going to watch this. My way.

We purchased the hot tub two Christmases ago.

We thought it would be a nice idea to have something that

involved family and friends.

My son does his studying in the hot tub for A-levels.

He attempts to float his exercise books on the bodyboard.

I don't think a lot of studying happens,

but he's got a fabulous tan.

I've a regular group that come on a Thursday, ladies only.

We like to discuss things that happen in the village.

And yes, generally, it does involve men

and certainly no football or cars.

My husband and I and the two children, 16 and 18,

to watch a movie, we have to set it up onto the laptop.

The most arguments happen as to what movie we're actually going to watch.

What could be two hours sitting in the hot tub

turns into five-hour arguments about whether it's action, adventure or a romcom.

As all women, I am partial to a gadget and a novelty game.

I bought a floating backgammon and numerous ducks. Ducks that light up.

We've even started playing duck jenga cos we have that many.

I first bought a hot tub six years ago.

Sadly, two years ago, I lost my wife to breast cancer.

And I kept the hot tub going, I got in it every day, like we used to.

I get my little toys out.

I've got a speedboat, a little electronic jetski.

I have a submarine.

Lovely. We first got in the habit of the hot tubs when we were skiing in America.

She always wanted it to snow in this country

while we were in the hot tub and it never really happened.

Just before she passed away,

I had this idea to go off and I bought a snow machine

and I set it up the night before and this

noise in the quiet of the night just started humming away

and she woke me up and said, "What's that noise?"

I said, "Why don't you go and have a look?"

When she looked out of the window, all the garden was covered in snow.

There was snow falling down.

And needless to say, Christmas morning,

we were sat in the hot tub, with snow falling.

Got the hot tub about a year ago.

No matter what the weather, we will be out here first thing

in the morning before breakfast with a cup of tea.

-We have the iPad in the hot tub.

-Well, you use it.

It's really good cos I have an app that tracks planes.

-You can tell me what's going on and where they are.

-He gets very excited.

I also have another app that plots the night sky.

We have increased our knowledge of the stars and the other night,

we were sitting here and I saw what we can describe as a yellow

-cylinder shape just hanging in the sky.

-Your brain takes over. Ooh!

We are being invaded by aliens. And we're in the hot tub

and we're probably the only people on Earth that know we're doomed.

What we thought was an alien was a street light.

And once we'd realised what it was, we felt incredibly foolish.

-Maybe that's what hot tubs do to your brain. I'm not quite sure.

-Pickles them!

Have you ever had a hot tub, Cerys?

I have once, on top of a roof in LA, Sunset Boulevard.

I often think that it's in the cold countries it's best, in the snow.

Hark at you! I once actually enjoyed a cold shower in Swansea.

-That's more my style. Hot tubs are not my scene.

-Don't knock it, though, until you've tried it.

I am not knocking anything. After a glorious day like today, how could you?

You know what I'm going to say? Hats off to the National Botanic Garden of Wales.

-It's absolutely blooming marvellous here.

-It is.

-How do I say goodbye in Welsh?

-Hwyl fawr.

-Who?

-Hwyl fawr.

-Hwyl.

-Fawr.

-Hwyl fawt, everybody. Hwyl fawt. I got it right, didn't I? Yay!

-R-r-r.

-Hwyl Fawr.

-Hwyl fawr. Hwyl fawr.

-Yes. Hwyl fawr.

Goodbye, ladies and gentlemen. Goodbye.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd