:00:20. > :00:24.Hello and welcome to the One Show with Matt Baker. And Alex Jones.
:00:25. > :00:28.With us is a man who, after swimming the channel and the Strait
:00:28. > :00:33.of Gibraltar for charity hasn't had enough of the water. He's back for
:00:33. > :00:37.more, this time swimming down the Thames. It's half man, half fish,
:00:37. > :00:44.David Walliams. Half man half fish, never been introduced as that
:00:44. > :00:48.before?! Half man half fish, makes me a mermaid. I know. We are indeed
:00:48. > :00:52.going to be following you through the the week on the One Show. We
:00:52. > :00:56.have brought you a few things that might help you on your journey.
:00:56. > :01:00.survive pack. Do you want me to put those on now? You can do whatever
:01:00. > :01:07.you want. Are you going to grease me up as well? We have a lovely
:01:07. > :01:11.little float as well. That's a 30 inch waist, mine's a 40 inch!
:01:11. > :01:17.Lovely, thank you very much. I could sign that and put it on eBay.
:01:17. > :01:22.Let's do it. And raise 10p. David's done some amazing things in the
:01:22. > :01:25.water. We want to see you with your badges and anything else you have
:01:25. > :01:29.won in the pool. Don't be shy and send them in. Hope the challenge
:01:29. > :01:34.goes well and that you won't have to sample the delights of your
:01:34. > :01:40.first story this evening. Hospital food. Chef James Martin is
:01:40. > :01:45.determined to do something to improve it.
:01:45. > :01:49.Every year, the NHS spends around �500 million of taxpayers' money on
:01:49. > :01:53.hospital food. But what worries me is nearly half of the food that's
:01:53. > :01:59.served ends up being thrown away. I appreciate that it's difficult
:01:59. > :02:04.cooking for all these people. I would just like it to be better and
:02:04. > :02:09.taste better. The potato is just... I don't like it at all. As a
:02:09. > :02:14.package, it's pretty poor. Vegetables wet and soggy. Mash
:02:14. > :02:17.potato that you could walk across. Custard's the same, you know. Lumpy
:02:17. > :02:20.and you could walk across that as well.
:02:21. > :02:24.Scarborough General Hospital is up for a change and over the next few
:02:24. > :02:28.month, I'm going to be working with them to achieve it.
:02:28. > :02:35.For the last two decades, the kitchens here have been run by
:02:35. > :02:39.catering manager Pat Bell and her head chef Sharon Ellis. This is
:02:39. > :02:44.Sharon my head chef. Nice to meet you. How many meals come out of
:02:44. > :02:51.here a day? Over a thousand. decides the menu, you? Yes.
:02:51. > :02:57.much have you got to spend? We have a patient meal aloufpbs of �3.49
:02:57. > :03:01.per patient per day -- allowance. lot? Yes. Three main meals, all the
:03:01. > :03:05.beverages and biscuits that we give them throughout the day.
:03:05. > :03:09.The financial challenges faced by the kailtering team at Scarborough
:03:09. > :03:12.are shared by chefs at every NHS hospital in the country -- catering
:03:12. > :03:17.team at Scarborough. There have been a series of
:03:17. > :03:22.Government initiatives aimed at raising the standards, yet in 2007,
:03:22. > :03:25.50,000 people within the NHS were still dying with malnutrition.
:03:25. > :03:29.Despite calls for compulsory standards for hospital food, the
:03:29. > :03:33.Government says that the responsibility lies with each
:03:33. > :03:36.individual NHS Trust. I want to find out what the chefs at
:03:37. > :03:42.Scarborough general are currently using in their cooking. Pat is
:03:42. > :03:47.giving me a gieded tour of her store cupboards. -- guided tour. A
:03:47. > :03:51.lot of soup here? We have to use 14 flavours of soup a week because we
:03:52. > :03:57.have one on at lunch and one at supper every day. What is wrong
:03:57. > :04:03.with home-made soup? It's got to be better for you than this? We have
:04:03. > :04:06.canned fruits this side. The reason why we have tinned fruit, is that
:04:06. > :04:11.for any reason? We have to have fruit on the menu every day, but we
:04:11. > :04:17.use tinned fruit, only tinned fruit in natural use, not syrup because
:04:17. > :04:21.then it caters for the patients who're on special diets. Whips,
:04:21. > :04:26.cold sweets, they'll supplement the menus. They're suitable for diets
:04:26. > :04:31.as well. I've not seen one of these since I was a kid. So are the
:04:31. > :04:37.dietitians happy with this? Yes. Really? Yes. If they weren't, it
:04:37. > :04:42.wouldn't be on the menu. Next stop, Pat's deep freeze. My freezer.
:04:42. > :04:47.Looks like an air-raid shelter. Look at it! What's up here?
:04:47. > :04:55.Omelettes up here. Omelettes? Omelettes. In a freezer? In a
:04:55. > :04:59.freezer. Never seen... Never seen a frozen omelette? No. How much are
:05:00. > :05:04.these? About 25p. Surely that's more than they'd cost to make fresh.
:05:04. > :05:09.Everything's out of a tin or a packet. Everything. All the veg is
:05:09. > :05:15.frozen. All the soup's ready made, all out of a packet and apparently
:05:15. > :05:18.they put two packets in to make it taste better. The NHS doesn't throw
:05:18. > :05:22.money at catering departments like a lot of the hotels and big
:05:22. > :05:27.restaurants do so I think it's been an eye opener for him this morning
:05:27. > :05:30.to see what we have to work with. Have I got my work cut out then?
:05:30. > :05:34.You sure have. We think you have. That VT throws
:05:34. > :05:39.up so many questions. What happened next then? How did you start
:05:39. > :05:44.solving the problem? First of all, we got rid of this, frozen omelette.
:05:44. > :05:47.Never seen a frozen omelette before and frozen food is OK in moderation.
:05:47. > :05:51.So I look at it as a business so transform the restaurant so we put
:05:51. > :05:57.on things for the customers and the patients and above all else, the
:05:57. > :06:03.staff who work in the hospital, Cowes Cowes, shoulder of pork, a
:06:03. > :06:08.cheap dish to create, all manner of different things sothe restaurant
:06:08. > :06:11.would become profitable so all the profit could be fed back into the
:06:11. > :06:16.kitchen to help buy new equipment. All manner of different things we
:06:16. > :06:20.looked at right the way through. Ice-cream, old age pensioners
:06:20. > :06:22.wanted ice-cream. We couldn't do it in the kitchen so put vending
:06:22. > :06:29.machines on the wards which were free and free to maintain and free
:06:29. > :06:34.to look after. So looking at all sections, now we have got fresh
:06:34. > :06:37.soup on the menu, fredge veg is in the soup on the menu, they're
:06:38. > :06:42.cooking again -- fresh veg. The blueprint of it is hopefully it
:06:42. > :06:46.works because they're going to roll it out to another hospital soon.
:06:46. > :06:51.There will be so many people out there willing you to succeed. But
:06:52. > :06:58.there will be sceptics, Loyd Grossman had a go in 2000 and it
:06:58. > :07:01.didn't work? When I was approached, the first thing was to try to
:07:01. > :07:04.change one. Each hospital's different and are treating
:07:04. > :07:07.different patients, so the ability here is to create one blueprint
:07:07. > :07:12.that other people could use, but fundamentally, but not asking any
:07:12. > :07:17.more money. This can be done still for that �3.49 per day. That is an
:07:17. > :07:21.amazingly small amount though isn't it? Tiny, but still can be done.
:07:21. > :07:23.It's close to your heart. What is your inspiration behind it?
:07:24. > :07:28.family members have been in hospitals. Everyone has an
:07:28. > :07:32.association with hospitals. Seeing the food, one family member that I
:07:32. > :07:38.had, having to see her there, it inspired me to cook in the first
:07:38. > :07:42.place after seeing the food she had in hospital. I had a plaster in my
:07:42. > :07:45.jelly once when I was in hospital. I was in hospital ten years ago for
:07:45. > :07:52.a week and a woman come round in the morning and asked what I had
:07:52. > :07:57.for breakfast and she said she had everything. I said, poached eggs,
:07:57. > :08:01.baked beans, mushrooms and bacon. She went "toast or Cornflakes?".
:08:01. > :08:05.She was creating the illusion of everything but really if you asked
:08:05. > :08:11.for Cornflakes, it would have been fine. You are burning 4,400
:08:11. > :08:14.calories a day? Yes. How are you going to refuel? Eat like a pig.
:08:14. > :08:23.This is one great thing about a physical challenge. You can eat
:08:23. > :08:28.anything you like, so it will be cakes, cheese, ice-cream. No
:08:28. > :08:34.omelettes. How many calories are in your bread and butter pudding?
:08:34. > :08:38.2,800 a day. Will you come along one day. I could throw stuff at you
:08:38. > :08:45.while you are swimming. No, cook a nice meal. What are you doing next
:08:45. > :08:50.week? Obviously cooking for you. You can see how James got on all of
:08:50. > :08:54.next week, Operation Hospital Food starts on Monday morning at 9.15,
:08:54. > :08:58.BBC One. David's swim also starts on Monday morning, as part of the
:08:58. > :09:03.Big Splash campaign, all about getting more of us into the
:09:03. > :09:07.swimming pool. Learning to swim is a right of
:09:07. > :09:13.passage in most people's lives and a viz to it the local swimming
:09:13. > :09:17.baths can bring back nostalgic recollections.
:09:17. > :09:23.Swimming, diving, having fun, laughing, joking, playing with the
:09:23. > :09:27.kids. Drown your friends, I suppose, pull their costume down, to be fair.
:09:27. > :09:31.I'm being honest. There was always a rumour at school that if you weed
:09:31. > :09:35.in the pool, it would go a funny colour. Remember all the notices
:09:35. > :09:45.about all the things you weren't allowed to do? No diving. No dive
:09:45. > :09:47.
:09:47. > :09:52.But, of course, not everyone has these memories. It's thought that
:09:52. > :09:58.almost ten million people across the UK can't swim. But why have
:09:58. > :10:03.they never learned? If you have a bad experience, often you find with
:10:03. > :10:08.adults, that'll put them off for years and years. You say recently,
:10:08. > :10:10.how old were you? Probably about 34. I had a bad experience with my
:10:10. > :10:14.friend. He thought he was indestructible and jumped in off
:10:14. > :10:18.the side and he couldn't swim. He had to get saved and he nearly
:10:18. > :10:23.drowned. Your parents couldn't swim. You can't swim. But you've taken
:10:23. > :10:28.the effort to bring your kids down so they can learn to swim? Swimming
:10:28. > :10:33.is such a good sport to do and it would be really upsetting for me to
:10:33. > :10:43.come to the pool and not being able to see my children get in there and
:10:43. > :10:44.
:10:44. > :10:49.It's not just a sport, it's a life skill. How much do you like
:10:49. > :10:55.swimming? That much?! What's the best bit about swimming? You tell
:10:55. > :11:00.me? Splashing people. I like your style, gimme five! However you look
:11:00. > :11:04.at it, swimming is a great source of exercise and a whole lot of fun
:11:04. > :11:08.as well. I'll tell you something, swimming baths are miles cleaner
:11:08. > :11:13.than what I remember them as a kid. In fact, I think I'll drop a
:11:13. > :11:16.plaster in the filter right now for old times' sake. Very versatile
:11:16. > :11:22.isn't he, Dom, brilliant, underwater swimming and everything.
:11:22. > :11:31.You wouldn't be here if it wasn't for a swimming pool? Is that fair?
:11:31. > :11:35.Yes, my mum and dad met in Tooting Bec Lido. It would have been their
:11:35. > :11:42.anniversary today, but my dad died three years ago. Your mum must be
:11:42. > :11:47.so proud of you at the moment. all the things I do but... The
:11:47. > :11:52.swimming, yes. Lots of foe toes of youngsters isn't in. This is Andrew,
:11:52. > :11:58.aged eight. Look at all the badges there. He's doing well. More than
:11:58. > :12:06.me! This here is Hannah from Gosport with a the swimming badges.
:12:06. > :12:10.She swan 1,000 freestyle for her last badge. How old is she? Doesn't
:12:10. > :12:14.say, probably about six. You've swam the channel, an amazing feat.
:12:14. > :12:17.Thank you. Lots of people jumping up and down at that one, now you
:12:17. > :12:23.are swimming eight times further, the Thames? Yes, this is 140 miles,
:12:23. > :12:28.the length of the Thames from the start in Lechlade all the way to
:12:28. > :12:31.the Houses of Parliament, so that's 140 miles. Incredibly dangerous?
:12:32. > :12:36.is. I would say don't try this at home. It really is a dangerous bit
:12:36. > :12:39.of water to swim, so really don't get in the Thames. This is all for
:12:39. > :12:44.Sport Relief which is in March, but I didn't really want to do it in
:12:44. > :12:49.March because it's going to be cold so I said can I do it in September.
:12:49. > :12:53.How far do you aim to swim each day in preparation for the challenge?
:12:53. > :12:56.I'm going to do 20 miles a day each day and I've been doing lots of
:12:56. > :13:01.training, swimming aibt eight hours a day, doing as much as I can in
:13:01. > :13:05.the Thames -- about eight hours a day. How does 20 miles a day make
:13:05. > :13:08.you feel? It's kind of just short of the channel so it's like doing
:13:08. > :13:14.the channel every day for eight days. What do you think about
:13:14. > :13:18.because you can't wear an iPod? think mainly about you. Do you?!
:13:18. > :13:23.I'm very touched. Sometimes about Matt but mainly you.
:13:24. > :13:28.I think about all kinds of things, mainly about what I'm going to eat.
:13:28. > :13:32.Do you go through Abba songs and pet shop boy bands? Some other
:13:32. > :13:36.bands as well. Anything that makes you happy and takes your mind off
:13:36. > :13:40.it because you're boring, your face is in the water, you can't speak to
:13:40. > :13:46.anyone or see anything so I go off and think about my favourite songs,
:13:46. > :13:50.lyrics to a song or my favourite James Bond film. You've been doing
:13:50. > :13:56.these endurance challenges for the last five years. Would you PE
:13:56. > :14:01.teacher have seen you as this type of thing? I would be last in the
:14:01. > :14:05.cross-country runs. I met somebody from school a few weeks ago and he
:14:05. > :14:09.said, to think you would be the Sports Personality of the Year
:14:09. > :14:13.person. But it's not a race, at school it's all about who is the
:14:13. > :14:20.fastest but I can stay in the water for a long time. You are in the top
:14:20. > :14:23.50 of those swimming 2t channel? Yes, which is amazing, can't
:14:23. > :14:27.believe it. Can you vary your strokes? I think I'll do some
:14:27. > :14:31.backstroke to kind of open up my shoulders. Do you regret not
:14:31. > :14:35.swimming more when you were younger because I'm sure there are loads of
:14:35. > :14:42.Olympians who couldn't swim 20 miles a day for eight days? Yes,
:14:42. > :14:45.but I was too lazy. I just liked watching TV and eating crisps so
:14:45. > :14:49.yes, I don't think I would have ever been an athlete, I'm good
:14:49. > :14:53.built for swimming with my long arms. Wide shoulders. And big hands
:14:53. > :14:56.and feet so not a bad shape for it. You said you were doing it for
:14:56. > :15:00.Sport Relief. Is there a cause in particular that you've found you
:15:00. > :15:04.want to raise money for? Yes, I went to Kenya and met kids who live
:15:04. > :15:09.on the streets. One little boy called Phillip is 12 he's lived on
:15:09. > :15:14.the street for four years, his mum and dad are dead. Sport Relief
:15:14. > :15:19.funds a project that gives him health care and education,
:15:19. > :15:23.somewhere safe to sleep. So I'll be thinking of him when doing the swim.
:15:23. > :15:27.We hope you raise loads of money. You got a million didn't you for
:15:27. > :15:30.the channel? Yes and that was amazing so I don't know how much
:15:30. > :15:34.I'll raise this time, but money can go a long way in helping people.
:15:34. > :15:38.course it can. For all the information about David's Big
:15:38. > :15:43.Splash swim for Sport Relief can be found through the website.
:15:43. > :15:47.We'll follow every stroke and splutter of David's swim next week
:15:47. > :15:49.here on the One Show. Not sure you will get a lot of time to enjoy the
:15:50. > :15:54.wildlife around you as you are swimming so we've got Mike here to
:15:54. > :15:58.tell you what you could be missing out on. For starters, there'll
:15:58. > :16:02.probably be lots of ducks and Miranda Krestovnikoff has been to
:16:02. > :16:05.Gloucestershire to discover the secret life of an unhatched
:16:05. > :16:10.duckling. Bird song. Beautiful to our ears
:16:10. > :16:15.but a vital way of communicating for all birds.
:16:15. > :16:19.So vital in fact that for some it begins while they're still in the
:16:19. > :16:23.egg. Most bird species communicate with
:16:23. > :16:29.the outside world before they hatch. But for ducklings and little
:16:29. > :16:33.Goslings like this one, it's especially important
:16:33. > :16:37.Ducklings are born on land but to avoid predators, they need to get
:16:38. > :16:42.to the safety of water as soon as possible. Mother ducks won't wait
:16:42. > :16:46.for stragglers, the ducklings need to stick to her like glue so must
:16:46. > :16:50.hatch at the same time. They do this by calling to each other from
:16:50. > :16:53.inside their eggs. Those sounds are so quiet that
:16:53. > :16:58.they're difficult for us to hear. I've brought wildlife sound
:16:58. > :17:01.recordist Chris Watson to Slimbridge to give it a crack. I'm
:17:01. > :17:06.sure you have the right mic for the job, but how are we going to do
:17:06. > :17:10.this? We need to use a personal microphone so it's unon intrusive
:17:10. > :17:19.and won't disturb the bird. Phoebe is going to help me. If you could
:17:19. > :17:24.get that right in amongst the eggs, if that's possible.
:17:24. > :17:31.How is that sounding? Really good, yes. Just settling down on the nest.
:17:31. > :17:36.A bit of rustling going on. Is that her heartbeat? It's fantastic.
:17:36. > :17:42.Really never expected to hear that. That is amazing isn't it, really
:17:42. > :17:46.fast. It's fascinating, but it's not the sound we came to hear. In
:17:47. > :17:51.fact, the pond is such a noisy place, it's a wonder the ducklings
:17:51. > :17:56.can hear each other from inside their eggs at all. Well, they can.
:17:56. > :18:00.And they've evolved a very clever trick to do so. A duckling in this
:18:00. > :18:04.egg rests its head against the inside of the shell and it uses the
:18:04. > :18:08.shell as a sounding board so that when it makes a chirp, that sound
:18:08. > :18:11.travels through the shells of all the eggs to the duckling in this
:18:11. > :18:18.egg. Chris, I can't chirp, but I can tap
:18:18. > :18:22.and scratch. So if I just make a little sound... Can you hear that?
:18:22. > :18:28.Clearly, yes. Really? It's going right through all the eggs, right
:18:28. > :18:33.down to the contact mic at the other end. Working well? Excellent.
:18:33. > :18:38.Beautiful. I want to hear the real thing so I knead to go somewhere
:18:38. > :18:42.much quieter. In the duckery, there are eggs in
:18:42. > :18:45.incubators ready to hatch and, away from the noise outside, we should
:18:45. > :18:50.have a better chance of hearing what we came here for. Put your
:18:50. > :18:55.hands on the top gently and you can feel them tapping away. Nice and
:18:55. > :19:00.warm. Hang on, that one ice moving. Just like us, in order to make a
:19:00. > :19:10.sound, ducklings first need to take a breath and for that, they need
:19:10. > :19:14.air. If we could turn the lights off. You can really see that air
:19:14. > :19:18.space. It's a lot bigger than I imagined it would be. By the time a
:19:18. > :19:24.chick is due to hatch, the chick only covers one third of the egg,
:19:24. > :19:31.so there's a particularly good egg here. Look inside! Is that its beak
:19:31. > :19:35.that we can see? Yes. Gorgeous. bit of foot there as well and some
:19:35. > :19:38.webbing. That's his little foot. Would it be possible to fix the
:19:38. > :19:48.contact microphone on the outside of the shell to hear what's
:19:48. > :19:56.
:19:56. > :20:03.happening inside? Certainly, yes, I CHIRPING
:20:03. > :20:12.It's going. That's the first time we've heard it call.
:20:12. > :20:17.Oh, my God. That's brilliant! You can hear them tapping and squeaking.
:20:17. > :20:23.That's absolutely brilliant. That tiny air space vocalising. This is
:20:23. > :20:29.the start of the hatching process. And, in a day or so, all the
:20:30. > :20:39.ducklings will emerge together ensuring nobody is left behind.
:20:40. > :20:40.
:20:40. > :20:45.Incredible. Mike, while David is swimming the Thames thinking about
:20:45. > :20:50.Matt Baker... And Alex Jones. are doing it at the right time. The
:20:50. > :20:53.rivers are in fantastic nick. The weir where you are is fantastic,
:20:53. > :20:57.the Dee is super clean and the Thames is clean. Clean rivers mean
:20:57. > :21:02.lots of wildlife teeming back. As you start up in Lechlade, if you
:21:02. > :21:05.are on part of the rufr with loads of soft banks, you will see this
:21:05. > :21:11.little critter, the water vole -- the river. You won't see that
:21:11. > :21:18.because that's you. There is the water vole below you. Don't worry
:21:18. > :21:23.about these, they're totally vegetarian. Slightly further down,
:21:23. > :21:27.you need to be slightly more worried about the largest predatory
:21:27. > :21:33.fish, the pike. Now, these are got huge teeth and the reason why they
:21:33. > :21:36.do well in the Thames is because there's roach, minnow, so many fish
:21:36. > :21:42.because it's clean I don't think for a minute these will go for toes
:21:42. > :21:46.and fingers. They have a set of Nashers on them. How big are they?
:21:46. > :21:50.Over a metre long. Look down and you might catch one. Further down
:21:50. > :21:55.and by Richmond Park as you come into West London, you may see the
:21:55. > :22:00.Chinese mitten crab. Crabs in the Thames?! A fresh water species that
:22:00. > :22:02.came in, yes. You can tell them because they have a furry boxing
:22:03. > :22:08.mitten and they may well nip something, I wouldn't like to say
:22:08. > :22:15.for a second who they might be, but you know what I mean. Finally when
:22:15. > :22:21.you get to the em - Thames, you may see a whale. Not a bicycle whale,
:22:21. > :22:26.but a whale. A whale? A bottlenosed whale. It's not inconceivable that
:22:26. > :22:30.you could hitch a ride if you are tired. Unlikely? But possible. Jie
:22:30. > :22:34.I've already been attacked by a swan because they're very
:22:34. > :22:41.territorial and had about ten goes at me. I had to get out and walk
:22:41. > :22:46.for about half a mile. Some can brake a man's arm with their wing.
:22:46. > :22:56.Steer clear of the swans, the pike and the crabs. The voles are fine.
:22:56. > :22:59.
:22:59. > :23:04.The voles are sweet. Just plough on and think of Alex. Dan Snow knows
:23:04. > :23:09.that heroes come in all shapes and sizes.. We found one in the most
:23:09. > :23:13.unlikely of places behind the bars of Peterhead Prison in
:23:13. > :23:16.Aberdeenshire. In World War II, the bulk of the fighting involved the
:23:16. > :23:19.allies using traditionally trained soldiers, airmen and soldiers
:23:19. > :23:23.against their German counterparts. There were times when officers
:23:23. > :23:26.needed to think unconventionally when they needed tos cape the
:23:26. > :23:30.narrow confines of accepted military doctrine. That gave us
:23:30. > :23:35.some of the most extraordinary stories from the Second World War
:23:35. > :23:40.and one of them started right here in what's traditionally one of the
:23:40. > :23:49.hardest areas of Glasgow, the globals. It was here in 1916 that a
:23:49. > :23:54.man called Johnny ra men ski began a criminal career -- Ramensky. He
:23:54. > :23:58.was more than just a vale lain. He became a soldier who joined the
:23:58. > :24:03.elite commando's unit. Remarkably, his criminal skills were an
:24:03. > :24:07.integral part of his military service. Johnny was a safe breaker.
:24:07. > :24:16.John Mitchell was a safe expert who worked for the police and crossed
:24:16. > :24:20.paths with Johnny. How did Johnny ra men ski learn his trade?
:24:20. > :24:24.Ramensky? I understand he learned its from fellow prisoners in
:24:24. > :24:32.Peterhead, particularly scotch Jimmy who was a real old hand. He
:24:32. > :24:37.started way back in the 1800s. Ramensky demonstrated the same
:24:37. > :24:40.skills as the police. If you can put the right charge of explosives
:24:40. > :24:49.through the keyhole to take the lock off, the handle should turn
:24:49. > :24:52.and the door should open. Ramensky was also an accomplished escape
:24:52. > :24:58.artist and managed the break out five times. He was a thorn in the
:24:58. > :25:02.side of the authorities and a public enemy, until Britain
:25:02. > :25:08.declared war on Germany. He began a long campaign of letter-writing to
:25:08. > :25:12.his prison governor, pleading to be allowed to join the Army. An an
:25:12. > :25:20.extra reads "I beg you to overlook my past record and give me a chance
:25:20. > :25:27.to serve my country, I'm willing to make a supreme sacrifice". A book
:25:27. > :25:34.has been written on him. How did he end up being a good one in the end?
:25:34. > :25:37.There was a letter writing about the skilful safe breaker. He did
:25:38. > :25:41.serve his sentence. He was immediately met outside the gates
:25:41. > :25:46.by the Secret Service agents in West London. He was put in the
:25:46. > :25:51.commandos, the ideal unit for him. Created in 1940 with the express
:25:51. > :25:54.intention of breaching enemy lines on secret missions. His skills in
:25:54. > :25:59.explosives fitted the bill perfectly. One of his achievements
:25:59. > :26:04.was to invent a method of blowing up railway lines to thwart German
:26:04. > :26:08.attempts to minimise repair time. The Germans put wagons in front of
:26:08. > :26:12.the local motors to blow them up and then they just repaired the
:26:12. > :26:17.track. But he detonated the explosives underneath the
:26:17. > :26:21.locomotive, a much better act of sabotage. He more or less invented
:26:21. > :26:25.that delayed fuse technique. What else did he do in the war? He went
:26:25. > :26:29.to Rome and it was quickly realised that there would be a lot of
:26:29. > :26:33.valuable information in German safes and he was the guy to open
:26:33. > :26:37.them. He did actually break into the German Embassy and open safes
:26:37. > :26:42.there. Johnny returned from his wartime exploits with some
:26:42. > :26:47.extraordinary souvenirs of top secret missions. These two banners,
:26:47. > :26:55.they were brought home from Rome. In fact, the suggestion is that
:26:56. > :27:01.these came from the top office. In his lust for excitement, he was
:27:01. > :27:06.very, very driven to do something for Britain in a time of war. One
:27:06. > :27:12.of the most remarkable Scots of the 20th century. An unsung hero whose
:27:12. > :27:16.story deserves to be told. Despite his wartime heroics, after he was
:27:16. > :27:19.demobbed, Johnny slipped back into a life of crime and died in prison
:27:20. > :27:25.in 197 2. His life was a fascinating one that shows how in a
:27:25. > :27:35.battle for survival, deprat times called for desperate measures.
:27:35. > :27:35.
:27:35. > :28:19.Apology for the loss of subtitles for 44 seconds
:28:19. > :28:23.You have three days to go before you start? 8.30am Monday morning?
:28:23. > :28:27.Yes. How will you prepare over the weekend? I'm in the Thames tomorrow
:28:27. > :28:32.at 7am doing some training there. I've got a wedding on Saturday, a
:28:32. > :28:37.friend of mine is getting married. A spanner in the works? No, that's
:28:37. > :28:40.good because I can think of something else. I'll go to Lechlade
:28:40. > :28:44.on Sunday, then I'll start on Monday at Lechlade. Anyone who
:28:44. > :28:48.wants to say hello, please come and say it. What will you be having for
:28:48. > :28:54.breakfast that morning? Cakes probably. I'll probably eat
:28:54. > :28:57.porridge, that's what I ate slimming the channel. That's slow
:28:57. > :29:00.release carbohydrates. I have got to carb up. What is the deal with
:29:00. > :29:07.people coming to see you? Please do. You will be letting people know
:29:07. > :29:12.where I am each day so lovely to have support. I have eight days of
:29:12. > :29:19.swimming ahead of me. Good luck with it. One more photo before we
:29:19. > :29:24.go, Mrs Greene sent this in of her son, Dai Greene, he's won the gold