0:00:03 > 0:00:07In 1956, a gauche young man appeared on BBC television
0:00:07 > 0:00:11to warn us about the soulless destruction of Britain
0:00:11 > 0:00:12by post-war planners.
0:00:14 > 0:00:17Subtopia in a nutshell means making the same
0:00:17 > 0:00:19sort of mess of the whole of the countryside
0:00:19 > 0:00:22we've already made of the edges of our towns.
0:00:22 > 0:00:24Over the next two decades,
0:00:24 > 0:00:28the gauche young man turned into an angrier, older one.
0:00:28 > 0:00:31I'm a travelling man. I see most of Britain in the course of a year.
0:00:31 > 0:00:32I'm always amazed at the way
0:00:32 > 0:00:35people would try to put words all over the landscape.
0:00:35 > 0:00:39I suppose the epitome is the pile of grit on the side of a road,
0:00:39 > 0:00:41the pole sticking up out of it and then the word "grit".
0:00:41 > 0:00:44What do they think it is, passion fruit?!
0:00:46 > 0:00:49Travelling all over the country to report on the places that
0:00:49 > 0:00:53moved him most, Ian Nairn's appearances on television
0:00:53 > 0:00:55were by turns passionate...
0:00:55 > 0:00:57I've used a lot of superlatives about Newcastle.
0:00:57 > 0:01:02Yet each time, when I see it for the first time coming over the Tyne,
0:01:02 > 0:01:04the whole excitement of the place gets me
0:01:04 > 0:01:07just as though it was the first time I'd ever seen it.
0:01:07 > 0:01:09..angry and indignant...
0:01:09 > 0:01:12This isn't a beer festival, it's a convulsion.
0:01:12 > 0:01:15They'll probably get through more alcohol in a week
0:01:15 > 0:01:17than most of those bastards get through in a year!
0:01:17 > 0:01:18..pleading...
0:01:18 > 0:01:23If you've got a view as splendid as this, please don't build houses
0:01:23 > 0:01:27like those over there, because a view is a two-way responsibility.
0:01:28 > 0:01:32..and, towards the end of his tragically short life,
0:01:32 > 0:01:36full of disappointment and quiet despair.
0:01:36 > 0:01:41Bolton. St Saviour, Deane Road, and one of their noblest churches.
0:01:41 > 0:01:43And now look at it!
0:01:45 > 0:01:47Pews flattened.
0:01:47 > 0:01:50I don't quite know how you would characterise
0:01:50 > 0:01:53the vandalism of the yobbos who did this.
0:01:55 > 0:01:58But, though he might have felt the battle to save Britain's soul
0:01:58 > 0:02:03was beyond him, and saw out his days through a glass, darkly,
0:02:03 > 0:02:08Nairn inspired a new generation to take up arms against the second-rate
0:02:08 > 0:02:10and did perhaps more than anybody
0:02:10 > 0:02:13to make us look afresh at the world around us.
0:02:27 > 0:02:32Flying, not architecture, was Ian Nairn's first love.
0:02:32 > 0:02:34As a young boy growing up in the Home Counties,
0:02:34 > 0:02:38he'd hang around the airfields, cadging rides off pilots and
0:02:38 > 0:02:42dreaming of the day he could take to the skies as a pilot himself.
0:02:43 > 0:02:47That day came in 1950, when, having scraped through
0:02:47 > 0:02:51a maths degree at Birmingham University, he joined the RAF.
0:02:51 > 0:02:56And flying his Gloster Meteor jet over the countryside
0:02:56 > 0:02:59was to provide Flight Officer Nairn with
0:02:59 > 0:03:01a unique perspective on Britain.
0:03:01 > 0:03:03His love of flying gave him
0:03:03 > 0:03:07this aerial perspective, the singular perspective a pilot has.
0:03:07 > 0:03:10You look down from this detached height with a rather cold eye
0:03:10 > 0:03:14on the landscape below you, but you see it very clearly.
0:03:14 > 0:03:16Here is the mess they've made of the following towns.
0:03:16 > 0:03:18You can see the towns stretching out
0:03:18 > 0:03:21with their tentacles of junk housing everywhere.
0:03:22 > 0:03:26From flying, he could already see what was happening
0:03:26 > 0:03:30to this idea that the town was no longer the town
0:03:30 > 0:03:32and the country no longer the country,
0:03:32 > 0:03:35that they were melding together in an uncontrollable way,
0:03:35 > 0:03:40and it was that overhead view that drove his first campaign.
0:03:42 > 0:03:46In 1954, Nairn's life took an abrupt turn.
0:03:46 > 0:03:48Determined to do something about the mess
0:03:48 > 0:03:52he had witnessed from the air, he resigned his commission from
0:03:52 > 0:03:56the RAF and joined the ranks of an altogether different establishment.
0:03:57 > 0:04:00The Architectural Review was the country's leading
0:04:00 > 0:04:03campaigning journal on architecture and design,
0:04:03 > 0:04:06that only employed the elite of the profession.
0:04:06 > 0:04:10But though he had no architectural qualifications to his name
0:04:10 > 0:04:13Ian Nairn was undeterred.
0:04:13 > 0:04:16He doorstepped the architectural press.
0:04:16 > 0:04:18I think he was a tidal wave, he just...
0:04:18 > 0:04:22He sent in material, he bombarded everyone with letters,
0:04:22 > 0:04:27he turned up on the doorstep, in their very elegant premises just
0:04:27 > 0:04:30round the corner from Westminster Abbey, Queen Anne's Gate,
0:04:30 > 0:04:36this very young, very gauche, very, very passionate person,
0:04:36 > 0:04:42and Hubert de Cronin Hastings, the extraordinarily eccentric
0:04:42 > 0:04:45editor/proprietor, saw he'd got something quite special here.
0:04:48 > 0:04:51It was through the seemingly genteel auspices
0:04:51 > 0:04:53of the Architectural Review
0:04:53 > 0:04:56that Nairn was to drop his bombshell on the rarefied
0:04:56 > 0:04:59and rather self-satisfied world of British architecture.
0:05:02 > 0:05:06Outrage was his deadly weapon.
0:05:06 > 0:05:10Published as a special edition of the Review in June 1955,
0:05:10 > 0:05:12its impact was incendiary.
0:05:14 > 0:05:17Outrage was just saying something that had
0:05:17 > 0:05:20absolutely not been said in that form.
0:05:20 > 0:05:24I mean, before the war there was a lot of campaign
0:05:24 > 0:05:28about the spread of suburbia but nothing like this.
0:05:28 > 0:05:33Many people have said that, you know, the Luftwaffe did less damage
0:05:33 > 0:05:35to British cities in the Second World War
0:05:35 > 0:05:36than post-war planners did
0:05:36 > 0:05:39in the first 20 years after the Second World War.
0:05:39 > 0:05:41It's a cheap jibe in many ways, of course,
0:05:41 > 0:05:44but there is a lot of truth to it!
0:05:44 > 0:05:48Ian just drew it all together and said, why did planners, architects,
0:05:48 > 0:05:52politicians, why did they do this to the British landscape?
0:05:52 > 0:05:53Why did they concrete over it?
0:05:53 > 0:05:56Why did they knock down historic towns?
0:05:56 > 0:05:59Why are we damning Britain to a kind of visual hell?
0:06:01 > 0:06:04Outrage was based on a car journey Nairn took from Southampton
0:06:04 > 0:06:08to Carlisle, gathering photographic evidence along the way.
0:06:10 > 0:06:13These were not photographs of loveliness,
0:06:13 > 0:06:17these were photographs of grimness, awful photographs.
0:06:17 > 0:06:19Hideous lamp standards, wirescape,
0:06:19 > 0:06:24undisguised industrial buildings, endless sprawl of little houses.
0:06:24 > 0:06:29It's like a stamp album full of horrible photographs.
0:06:29 > 0:06:32NAIRN: Before I started on that journey I made a prophecy, which was
0:06:32 > 0:06:36the end of Southampton will look like the beginning of Carlisle.
0:06:36 > 0:06:38Well, here is the end of Southampton
0:06:38 > 0:06:42and here really is the beginning of Carlisle.
0:06:42 > 0:06:43That's the thing in a nutshell.
0:06:43 > 0:06:46They're both the same and they're neither worth looking at.
0:06:48 > 0:06:52These days, opinionated journalists are two a penny.
0:06:52 > 0:06:55But back in the 1950s Nairn was seen as a radical,
0:06:55 > 0:06:58in tune with a rising chorus of Angry Young Men.
0:07:00 > 0:07:03Ian is the architectural, er, member
0:07:03 > 0:07:06of the club of Angry Young Men.
0:07:06 > 0:07:08You know, there were the films,
0:07:08 > 0:07:10there were the plays, Look Back In Anger,
0:07:10 > 0:07:12there were the books, Room At The Top,
0:07:12 > 0:07:15Saturday Night And Sunday Morning,
0:07:15 > 0:07:18and there was Ian writing Outrage.
0:07:18 > 0:07:21I think Nairn was part of a generation
0:07:21 > 0:07:25who were bolshie as a matter of pride.
0:07:25 > 0:07:31They liked, erm, sticking a finger up to virtually everyone.
0:07:31 > 0:07:36Ian Nairn's able to write a bombshell, which Outrage was,
0:07:36 > 0:07:38because he didn't really have any...
0:07:38 > 0:07:43he didn't have any favours to pay back, he didn't have any...
0:07:43 > 0:07:46He wasn't an Establishment figure, he didn't have to tread carefully,
0:07:46 > 0:07:50he could be as rude as he wanted, he could be as frank.
0:07:50 > 0:07:53It's really rebarbative stuff.
0:07:57 > 0:08:01With Outrage, Nairn became an overnight sensation.
0:08:01 > 0:08:04And the BBC was first in line to get the man of the moment
0:08:04 > 0:08:09into their studios to explain an intriguing new term he'd coined.
0:08:09 > 0:08:12They call it Subtopia, and here's Ian Nairn
0:08:12 > 0:08:15of the Architectural Review, who coined that word.
0:08:15 > 0:08:18Subtopia in a nutshell means making the same
0:08:18 > 0:08:20sort of mess of the whole of the countryside
0:08:20 > 0:08:23we've already made of the edges of our towns.
0:08:23 > 0:08:26I compounded the word out of suburb and utopia.
0:08:27 > 0:08:31The term quickly became a national talking point.
0:08:31 > 0:08:33- NEWSREEL:- Now, there's no denying that the new property isn't
0:08:33 > 0:08:36built in the style of the rest of the village.
0:08:36 > 0:08:37But is it any worse for that?
0:08:37 > 0:08:41Is it an asset to the village or just another piece of Subtopia?
0:08:43 > 0:08:46And there was even a travelling exhibition to warn people
0:08:46 > 0:08:49up and down the country about the dangers of Subtopia.
0:08:51 > 0:08:56Every house we build changes the appearance of the surroundings
0:08:56 > 0:08:57in which we live.
0:08:57 > 0:09:00And nobody would choose to live in ugly surroundings.
0:09:03 > 0:09:07Encouraged by the amount of press attention generated by Outrage,
0:09:07 > 0:09:10Nairn followed up a year later with Counter-Attack,
0:09:10 > 0:09:11a rousing call to arms
0:09:11 > 0:09:15and an attempt to galvanise the general public into action.
0:09:16 > 0:09:19He started to write pieces which came from something called
0:09:19 > 0:09:21the Counter-Attack Bureau.
0:09:21 > 0:09:26Now, the Counter-Attack Bureau in all reality was his desk.
0:09:26 > 0:09:31But the point was that people were encouraged to start waking up
0:09:31 > 0:09:35to their own responsibilities, people saying, you know,
0:09:35 > 0:09:39this corner of our town is too grim to go on like this.
0:09:39 > 0:09:43What, Councillor Bloggs, are you going to do about this?
0:09:43 > 0:09:45Nairn was writing for people.
0:09:45 > 0:09:50You know, have you seen something horrible? Send us a picture of it.
0:09:50 > 0:09:51Tell us where it is.
0:09:51 > 0:09:56You know, it's like sort of saying, you know, tweet us your response.
0:09:56 > 0:09:58It's absolutely extraordinary. And of course people did,
0:09:58 > 0:10:02and then they had sackfuls of stuff coming in.
0:10:03 > 0:10:06Faced with this rising tide of public protest,
0:10:06 > 0:10:09the government had no choice but to act.
0:10:09 > 0:10:11In 1957, Duncan Sandys,
0:10:11 > 0:10:13the Housing Minister in Harold Macmillan's
0:10:13 > 0:10:17Conservative government, launched The Civic Trust.
0:10:17 > 0:10:21Its remit was to financially support local communities in tackling
0:10:21 > 0:10:26the Subtopian eyesores that Nairn had so graphically exposed.
0:10:27 > 0:10:30Nairn was asked to join the Trust, but refused.
0:10:32 > 0:10:36People read it and thought, we must do something, you know.
0:10:36 > 0:10:41But Ian himself could never organise anything, he was utterly...
0:10:41 > 0:10:44He was not just anti-bureaucratic,
0:10:44 > 0:10:48he was himself utterly un-bureaucratic.
0:10:48 > 0:10:52One of the great things about this man was that he was not a joiner.
0:10:52 > 0:10:56He would not do anything at anyone's bidding.
0:10:56 > 0:10:58He liked to keep his distance.
0:10:58 > 0:11:01And also he realised that the...
0:11:01 > 0:11:06greatest corruption is friendship, much more than money.
0:11:06 > 0:11:10You know, acquaintanceship, which goes into friendship, and so
0:11:10 > 0:11:16you can't really say what you mean, so, yeah, he kept his distance.
0:11:16 > 0:11:18Ian was a libertarian.
0:11:18 > 0:11:22He, erm, wanted people to express themselves,
0:11:22 > 0:11:25people of all kinds to express themselves.
0:11:25 > 0:11:28But he found it quite difficult to communicate in person.
0:11:28 > 0:11:33He was so shy, so diffident, so self-deprecating,
0:11:33 > 0:11:35so uncomfortable, awkward.
0:11:37 > 0:11:40But, though he found it hard to connect with people
0:11:40 > 0:11:43in his professional life, Nairn was twice married.
0:11:43 > 0:11:47After a short-lived first marriage, he met Judy Perry,
0:11:47 > 0:11:50who shared his intense love of buildings
0:11:50 > 0:11:53and was prepared to give him the freedom he needed in a marriage.
0:11:56 > 0:12:00She was working as a copy editor at Penguin on The Buildings Of England,
0:12:00 > 0:12:03the exhaustive catalogue of the nation's best buildings,
0:12:03 > 0:12:07compiled by the architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner.
0:12:08 > 0:12:12- NEWSREEL:- At Penguin's, the book is assembled by Judy Nairn - layout,
0:12:12 > 0:12:16illustrations, design, indexes, references, details.
0:12:18 > 0:12:20Well, I can remember the first time I met her,
0:12:20 > 0:12:23because I was working in Bloomsbury Square,
0:12:23 > 0:12:28just round the corner from here, where Pevsner had his office.
0:12:28 > 0:12:30She was good fun but she didn't take time to talk
0:12:30 > 0:12:32when she should have been working.
0:12:34 > 0:12:35This is how I remember Judy.
0:12:35 > 0:12:38I think that's in her office,
0:12:38 > 0:12:42with her Tippex and her... her Players!
0:12:42 > 0:12:44Awful Players!
0:12:44 > 0:12:48Oh, and Ian next to a plane, looking young and windswept.
0:12:49 > 0:12:52I do remember Judy having a photo on her desk
0:12:52 > 0:12:53and it may have been this photo.
0:12:53 > 0:12:57It's the sort of thing she'd have liked, because it's sort of, erm...
0:12:57 > 0:13:02He looks roguish, and that would have appealed to her.
0:13:02 > 0:13:06She spent, as far as I know, all her time with him
0:13:06 > 0:13:09when she wasn't at work.
0:13:09 > 0:13:14She was incredibly loyal and I think probably they shared
0:13:14 > 0:13:18confidences that they probably didn't share with anyone else.
0:13:20 > 0:13:21New beginnings with Judy
0:13:21 > 0:13:24signalled a new chapter in Nairn's professional life.
0:13:26 > 0:13:28In 1962, he left the Architectural Review
0:13:28 > 0:13:32to become a freelance journalist and writer
0:13:32 > 0:13:34and soon after embarked on a work
0:13:34 > 0:13:36which many acknowledge as his masterpiece.
0:13:38 > 0:13:42Nairn's London is one of the great, great books about London,
0:13:42 > 0:13:47without any question. I mean, it's a wonderful piece of writing.
0:13:47 > 0:13:49The writing is much, much more interesting
0:13:49 > 0:13:52than the buildings that are described in it.
0:13:52 > 0:13:55And...I think this is very important.
0:13:55 > 0:13:58He shouldn't be thought of as some kind of architectural guide,
0:13:58 > 0:14:02he should be thought of as a poet of place.
0:14:02 > 0:14:04He had a nose, you know,
0:14:04 > 0:14:09for hunting down amazing places, amazing buildings
0:14:09 > 0:14:13and then conveying what was wonderful about them
0:14:13 > 0:14:15in an extraordinarily vivid way.
0:14:19 > 0:14:23When it was published in 1966, Nairn's London quickly became
0:14:23 > 0:14:27a bible for a new generation of architecture lovers.
0:14:28 > 0:14:32In the early '60s I made my first visit to London
0:14:32 > 0:14:38and, priced 8/6, this was my first bible to discovering London.
0:14:40 > 0:14:43"The way to come on St Paul's is along Fleet Street,
0:14:43 > 0:14:47"and the way to go along Fleet Street is on top of a bus.
0:14:47 > 0:14:51"That way, the dip down to Ludgate Circus and up again seems sharper.
0:14:51 > 0:14:53"The railway viaduct, ugly in itself,
0:14:53 > 0:14:57"does the same thing as the Ludgate, which stood on the site.
0:14:57 > 0:14:59"It provides a check to the eye,
0:14:59 > 0:15:02"indicating that the city centre is beyond.
0:15:02 > 0:15:05"Whether the view would be better without it is a nice point.
0:15:05 > 0:15:08"Probably it would, because the sight of St Paul's at the end
0:15:08 > 0:15:11"is so grand that nothing should blur it."
0:15:14 > 0:15:17This was the book which gave you that rather unusual take
0:15:17 > 0:15:20on whatever it was you were seeing.
0:15:20 > 0:15:23It was infused with passion, a passion which I already had
0:15:23 > 0:15:27but needed directing, and this was a book which sort of helped to channel
0:15:27 > 0:15:30that passion into understanding what it was I was looking at.
0:15:33 > 0:15:35The appeal of Nairn's London has endured,
0:15:35 > 0:15:38picking up other admiring passengers along the way.
0:15:41 > 0:15:45The book is of course an amazing idiosyncratic insight
0:15:45 > 0:15:47into one man's view.
0:15:47 > 0:15:50I really love the cover and we can read a lot into it, you know,
0:15:50 > 0:15:53Nairn as bus driver is telling you something about the man.
0:15:53 > 0:15:56You know, he wants to identify with the kind of people
0:15:56 > 0:15:58who are bus drivers, you know, ordinary occupation.
0:15:58 > 0:16:00His preface, too, where he says,
0:16:00 > 0:16:04"This guide is simply my personal list of the best things in London.
0:16:04 > 0:16:07"The objects selected will make clear that the book has
0:16:07 > 0:16:10"no barriers. I just don't believe in the difference between high-
0:16:10 > 0:16:13"and lowbrow, between aristocracy and working class,
0:16:13 > 0:16:15"between fine art and fine engineering.
0:16:15 > 0:16:18"My book is a record of what has moved me
0:16:18 > 0:16:20"between Uxbridge and Dagenham.
0:16:20 > 0:16:22"My hope is that it moves you too."
0:16:22 > 0:16:24For someone of my generation,
0:16:24 > 0:16:27who was brought up in a world of post-modernism, where the gaps
0:16:27 > 0:16:31between low and high culture are not so evident, you know,
0:16:31 > 0:16:34Nairn seems to be a kind of seer.
0:16:34 > 0:16:36He re-read, if you like, bits of the city that had
0:16:36 > 0:16:39dropped off the radar of mainstream architectural criticism.
0:16:39 > 0:16:42You know, the pub is just as valuable as the church.
0:16:42 > 0:16:45I mean, for me, that just spoke volumes.
0:16:47 > 0:16:49Clearly there's a bias in the book
0:16:49 > 0:16:51towards the buildings of the past,
0:16:51 > 0:16:54and probably 100 years before he was writing,
0:16:54 > 0:16:57that's the stuff he seems to enjoy the most,
0:16:57 > 0:17:01but he's extremely kind of incisive about modern architecture.
0:17:03 > 0:17:05"The Royal College of Art, Kensington Gore,
0:17:05 > 0:17:08"by HT Cadbury-Brown, 1961.
0:17:08 > 0:17:11"This is a very good place to feel the husky,
0:17:11 > 0:17:14"direct temper of young British architects.
0:17:14 > 0:17:16"It is the opposite of a firework.
0:17:16 > 0:17:19"It smoulders through to your consciousness
0:17:19 > 0:17:21"with a quiet intensity.
0:17:21 > 0:17:24"Seven storeys of classrooms, the staircase coming where it needs to,
0:17:24 > 0:17:26"a lecture theatre on the ground floor,
0:17:26 > 0:17:29"and bolshie paired roof lights on top
0:17:29 > 0:17:32"nudging the sky along with the Boeings and Caravelles."
0:17:32 > 0:17:34A building like the Royal College of Art,
0:17:34 > 0:17:38you know, his description of it is so fantastic.
0:17:38 > 0:17:42He talks about it as if it were almost a kind of, you know,
0:17:42 > 0:17:46working-class, proletarian gesture in a place like South Kensington
0:17:46 > 0:17:50which is full of sort of rather stuffy Edwardian high culture.
0:17:50 > 0:17:52And he frames it in a way that would have been really familiar to
0:17:52 > 0:17:55a class-conscious reader in the '60s.
0:17:56 > 0:17:58"Purple brick and concrete aggregate,
0:17:58 > 0:18:03"humped up against the Albert Hall like a gruff egalitarian greeting.
0:18:03 > 0:18:05"All if it done with feeling for the students.
0:18:05 > 0:18:09"All of it is troubled, asking, questioning, scrutinising."
0:18:17 > 0:18:18By the mid-'60s,
0:18:18 > 0:18:22the London skyline was facing a revolution of its own.
0:18:23 > 0:18:25High-rise blocks were fast filling the holes
0:18:25 > 0:18:28left by the slum clearances of the Blitz.
0:18:28 > 0:18:31And as modernist buildings shot up
0:18:31 > 0:18:34Nairn looked on with cautious optimism.
0:18:34 > 0:18:38As a young man Ian had been thrilled by modern architecture.
0:18:38 > 0:18:41It was seen as part of the student revolution in social life.
0:18:41 > 0:18:43Everything was going to change, everything was going to be better.
0:18:43 > 0:18:47And as he started to watch new buildings going up in England
0:18:47 > 0:18:50and Britain he thought, oh, dear, they're not very good, are they?
0:18:50 > 0:18:53In fact, some of them are second-rate, some just dreadful.
0:18:53 > 0:18:56And if you combine the buildings with the planning,
0:18:56 > 0:19:01with the way towns are laid out, my God, this just awful stuff...
0:19:01 > 0:19:03We're actually making things worse.
0:19:05 > 0:19:10He watched with, I think, initially vague disappointment,
0:19:10 > 0:19:16then incredulity, then absolute anger at what was happening.
0:19:16 > 0:19:19Great historic buildings were being demolished,
0:19:19 > 0:19:22the Euston Arch famously, the Coal Exchange in the City of London.
0:19:22 > 0:19:24These were wonderful things.
0:19:24 > 0:19:26Georgian terraces were being knocked down as if they were
0:19:26 > 0:19:30skittles in a bowling alley, it was dreadful, dreadful stuff.
0:19:33 > 0:19:37By 1964, Nairn had become the Observer's architecture critic
0:19:37 > 0:19:39and used his position to fight back
0:19:39 > 0:19:43at the havoc being wreaked on his beloved London.
0:19:43 > 0:19:46Ian wrote a very powerful piece in the Observer,
0:19:46 > 0:19:49great big long piece, really saying everything he wanted to
0:19:49 > 0:19:53about what was wrong with modern architecture and town planning.
0:19:57 > 0:19:59And basically he says, mostly he says,
0:19:59 > 0:20:02it's the fault of the architects, because they can't do things right,
0:20:02 > 0:20:05they can't build properly, they don't understand materials,
0:20:05 > 0:20:08they don't understand landscape, they're not very subtle.
0:20:11 > 0:20:14Their education's wrong, they're a load of toffs basically.
0:20:17 > 0:20:20They're remote from society... God, he goes on and on.
0:20:20 > 0:20:23It's bloody good, actually, it's a rattling good read over 3,000 words.
0:20:28 > 0:20:30With opinionated articles like this,
0:20:30 > 0:20:34Nairn was once more making waves - and it was only a matter of time
0:20:34 > 0:20:36before the BBC came looking for him again.
0:20:38 > 0:20:41I read his pieces and I was very...
0:20:41 > 0:20:44Not so much impressed by them as startled, really.
0:20:44 > 0:20:46It was a unique voice, I felt,
0:20:46 > 0:20:51looking at the way Britain was, its landscape and its society.
0:20:51 > 0:20:55And I decided that I'd like to do a television series with him.
0:20:56 > 0:21:00With his first series for the BBC, Nairn had the opportunity
0:21:00 > 0:21:04to broaden his scope and report on the massive redevelopment changes
0:21:04 > 0:21:07affecting cities all over Britain.
0:21:07 > 0:21:11First on his itinerary was Bradford.
0:21:11 > 0:21:16After the war, the city decided to rebuild, and on a scale which is
0:21:16 > 0:21:19without parallel except in the Blitz towns of Britain.
0:21:19 > 0:21:22It was a deliberate act of recreation
0:21:22 > 0:21:24and a very adventurous thing to do.
0:21:25 > 0:21:27Has it succeeded?
0:21:27 > 0:21:30Meself, I don't think so, and I want to try and show you why.
0:21:32 > 0:21:36He wasn't a natural performer, but there was something about
0:21:36 > 0:21:40the force of his words and his passion that broke through that.
0:21:43 > 0:21:47This is Horton Old Hall, 17th-century and stone-built.
0:21:47 > 0:21:50If it was in the Cotswolds it would be beautifully kept up,
0:21:50 > 0:21:53people would come 50 miles to see it,
0:21:53 > 0:21:55but it's in Bradford, and look at it.
0:21:56 > 0:22:03It makes me burn, this throwing away of every vestige of the past.
0:22:05 > 0:22:07Although people liked to claim him as one,
0:22:07 > 0:22:10Nairn was never simply a conservationist.
0:22:10 > 0:22:14For him, the essential quality of buildings lay in how they
0:22:14 > 0:22:19shaped people's lives rather than in any innate architectural value.
0:22:19 > 0:22:24And he saw evidence of that quality in the most unexpected of places.
0:22:30 > 0:22:35Wigan is an absolutely typical Ian Nairn target town.
0:22:35 > 0:22:39He likes places that are being done down, so he likes the northern towns
0:22:39 > 0:22:46and he's particularly like to defend them if they're being done down.
0:22:46 > 0:22:51Wigan Pier is the one thing that everybody knows about Wigan.
0:22:51 > 0:22:53It's the butt of a thousand musical jokes
0:22:53 > 0:22:55and it was in the title of George Orwell's
0:22:55 > 0:22:58famous book on social conditions in the 1930s.
0:22:58 > 0:23:03It makes handy copy as a journalist might say, but it also makes a handy excuse
0:23:03 > 0:23:06for not going to see what the real Wigan is,
0:23:06 > 0:23:10and whether it's changed in 30 years, whether it ever was like that.
0:23:10 > 0:23:15Londoners who don't come up here still tend to think that savages start north of Barnet.
0:23:15 > 0:23:21So as a kind of Southerner's apology for what the south has thought of Wigan for too long,
0:23:21 > 0:23:24I'd like to show you some of the things I like about it.
0:23:26 > 0:23:31The point about Wigan, he says there's a richness to it and he likes the scale of it.
0:23:31 > 0:23:35And he like the common sense of the place and the people.
0:23:36 > 0:23:41Common Sense, well I think the best example of that is the main street itself,
0:23:41 > 0:23:45not too long, not too wide, all the shops there.
0:23:45 > 0:23:49Common sense again, down in this little alley, which is really like
0:23:49 > 0:23:51a very long outdoor room.
0:23:51 > 0:23:53All the little shops open on to it.
0:23:53 > 0:23:57There's one, there's two, there's three for a half a crown.
0:23:57 > 0:24:00Ian Nairn is crazy about markets and he likes the chat.
0:24:00 > 0:24:04In the film there's one particular salesman and he's built like a rugby league forward.
0:24:04 > 0:24:09If you went to London, China or Hong Kong, you wouldn't get them any cheaper than that...
0:24:09 > 0:24:11Nairn really revels in that sort of thing.
0:24:11 > 0:24:16And he likes markets, partly because they're companionable,
0:24:16 > 0:24:19but also because they're spontaneous.
0:24:19 > 0:24:23That spontaneity and easiness and informality
0:24:23 > 0:24:25which is what he really enjoys about these places.
0:24:25 > 0:24:30Who'll give me three and 11 for that? It retails in the chemist, any shop you want to go to
0:24:30 > 0:24:32seven and five, it's a seven and five size.
0:24:32 > 0:24:35Ian could see the beauty underneath the grime.
0:24:35 > 0:24:38I mean, those northern city television programmes of his
0:24:38 > 0:24:43are very much about alerting people to the beauty underneath the grime.
0:24:43 > 0:24:46But not just the beauty of the buildings,
0:24:46 > 0:24:50but the beauty of the communities that lived in those buildings.
0:24:50 > 0:24:55And it wasn't just old buildings that Nairn felt captured this spirit.
0:24:55 > 0:24:58I'm very struck at the end of Ian Nairn's Wigan,
0:24:58 > 0:25:01he goes to a pub which is called the Ball And Boot
0:25:01 > 0:25:04and you would think he wouldn't like it.
0:25:04 > 0:25:08It certainly nothing like the Victorian fairy palaces which he's talked of.
0:25:08 > 0:25:11But the pub has something which is more than architecture,
0:25:11 > 0:25:14more than chandeliers more than great guilt mirrors,
0:25:14 > 0:25:17it's got a pub atmosphere.
0:25:17 > 0:25:20There is a friendliness about it, he's a great believer that
0:25:20 > 0:25:25a place is valuable as a community rather than as something to look at.
0:25:26 > 0:25:29Most modern pubs don't work properly, but this one does.
0:25:29 > 0:25:35It's a Lancashire pub, designed by a Lancashire architect, selling Lancashire beer.
0:25:36 > 0:25:39and it hasn't tried to ape the Victorian style
0:25:39 > 0:25:42but it has got the Victorian qualities.
0:25:43 > 0:25:47which is robustness and vitality and above everything else...
0:25:47 > 0:25:51..the ability to create spaces which people are happy using.
0:25:52 > 0:25:56So if you want a real town, come out from your Hampsteads
0:25:56 > 0:25:59and your Wimbledons, come out from your Wirral
0:25:59 > 0:26:01and your Wilmslows, come to Wigan.
0:26:03 > 0:26:07But Nairn's love of pubs could play havoc with the filming schedule.
0:26:07 > 0:26:14I think the main challenge was licensing hours, really.
0:26:14 > 0:26:17Ian's day, I can't remember now,
0:26:17 > 0:26:20because the pubs are open all the time,
0:26:20 > 0:26:26but Ian's day was governed by breaks from 11:30 until 3:00
0:26:26 > 0:26:30and then being up again perhaps at seven.
0:26:31 > 0:26:36Occasionally we would adjourn to the pub at 11:00 or 11:30.
0:26:36 > 0:26:39By the end of the afternoon session, Ian would feel he wanted to
0:26:39 > 0:26:43say something quite different to what he'd said in the morning.
0:26:43 > 0:26:48Not quite different, but the nuance of it, you know.
0:26:48 > 0:26:51- REPORTER:- Was it any better? - Rarely.
0:26:53 > 0:26:59Despite being a bit of a loose cannon, Nairn's television work was getting noticed.
0:26:59 > 0:27:03In 1970, the Central Office of Information poached him from
0:27:03 > 0:27:08the BBC to make a promotional film about Pimlico, where he then lived.
0:27:08 > 0:27:11I'm a city man, I really enjoy living in cities,
0:27:11 > 0:27:14but I also enjoy living on a human scale.
0:27:14 > 0:27:19So here in Pimlico in London I'm living in a village,
0:27:19 > 0:27:22right in the middle of the biggest city in Europe.
0:27:23 > 0:27:27In the film, Nairn talked to people on camera for the first time...
0:27:27 > 0:27:29It was a bold new step.
0:27:29 > 0:27:33Doctor, how do you feel about this scheme, you must see the rough end of it?
0:27:33 > 0:27:35I think it a marvellous idea.
0:27:35 > 0:27:38But one that didn't perhaps play to his strengths.
0:27:38 > 0:27:43Thanks very much, Doctor, I am delighted it really does work for you as a professional,
0:27:43 > 0:27:47but it might make your life much harder.
0:27:47 > 0:27:50The curious thing about Ian Nairn was
0:27:50 > 0:27:52he wanted to be a man of the people.
0:27:52 > 0:27:56But he was so shy and awkward and uncomfortable,
0:27:56 > 0:28:02he talks in quite a stilted, artificial way.
0:28:02 > 0:28:05It's not relaxed, it's not conversation.
0:28:05 > 0:28:10Your most relevant next-door neighbours in this terrace facing the Thames.
0:28:10 > 0:28:13Ian was all right at relaxing in the pub
0:28:13 > 0:28:18but was not really good talking with you ordinary people, whom he identified with.
0:28:20 > 0:28:25Those ordinary people were residents of two pioneering post-war
0:28:25 > 0:28:29council estates in Pimlico, which for Nairn had successfully
0:28:29 > 0:28:33tackled the issue that exorcised him most.
0:28:33 > 0:28:35The thing about Pimlico, the great
0:28:35 > 0:28:38thing about it is that there is a mixture of people and incomes.
0:28:38 > 0:28:40And it's a mixture that has been deliberately
0:28:40 > 0:28:43encouraged by the council.
0:28:43 > 0:28:49Churchill Gardens, which started this was good for its time, I don't think it's perfect
0:28:49 > 0:28:52but I do think the council have made good some of the mistakes of Churchill Gardens
0:28:52 > 0:28:55in the newer estate they are building in Lillington Street.
0:28:56 > 0:29:01Here in Lillington Street everything's closed in, integrated
0:29:01 > 0:29:06and all the things that were separate ideas in Churchill Gardens are built in here.
0:29:06 > 0:29:09for example, there's an old people's home.
0:29:09 > 0:29:13Quite a lot of old people, not shunted off idly into a separate building
0:29:13 > 0:29:18but actually built into the fabric of Pimlico, living together, not in isolated units.
0:29:18 > 0:29:21It was quite a breakthrough in post-war architecture,
0:29:21 > 0:29:25this estate and it is an evocation of the working-class community
0:29:25 > 0:29:31in which people of all kinds live cheek by jowl.
0:29:31 > 0:29:35It's all mixed up, it's got a school, it's got a church
0:29:35 > 0:29:39and for Ian, absolutely crucial to community life was the pub.
0:29:45 > 0:29:48I'm at my office desk. Or one of them.
0:29:48 > 0:29:53This pub is at the bottom of the estate
0:29:53 > 0:29:57and I find that in three-quarters of an hour in a pub like this
0:29:57 > 0:30:01I can work much better than I can in my home or my office where the
0:30:01 > 0:30:03telephone is ringing all the time.
0:30:03 > 0:30:09This kind of background buzz of conversation gives a real internal privacy
0:30:09 > 0:30:12but it doesn't mean it's indifferent.
0:30:12 > 0:30:15There's friendliness there, it's not the...
0:30:15 > 0:30:18trumpeted indifference of big cities.
0:30:18 > 0:30:22And this for me is exactly what city living, living in Pimlico is.
0:30:24 > 0:30:26Somebody said to me who knew Nairn well,
0:30:26 > 0:30:28"Although Ian liked the beer,
0:30:28 > 0:30:31"in a strange way, he liked the pubs even more."
0:30:31 > 0:30:34And the more I reflect on this, the more I think it's probable true.
0:30:34 > 0:30:36I mean, he couldn't stop drinking the beer
0:30:36 > 0:30:39but he does love the feeling of a pub.
0:30:40 > 0:30:42I mean, he obviously, he was...
0:30:42 > 0:30:45he had a tremendous weakness for alcohol but he also...
0:30:45 > 0:30:49I think that it was more that pubs offered him
0:30:49 > 0:30:51a great deal of comfort and home, really.
0:30:51 > 0:30:56I mean, Ian was driven by demons and he assuaged them.
0:30:56 > 0:30:59Pubs seemed to assuage them for him, really.
0:30:59 > 0:31:02And erm, he was at home in a pub
0:31:02 > 0:31:06in a way that he wasn't at home anywhere else in the world.
0:31:12 > 0:31:16Travelling and being constantly on the move, was another way
0:31:16 > 0:31:18Nairn could leave his troubles behind.
0:31:21 > 0:31:23This is Ian's passport.
0:31:23 > 0:31:26It has a very unflattering passport photograph
0:31:26 > 0:31:31but what's really remarkable about it is the number of stamps,
0:31:31 > 0:31:36passport, visa entries which come in all shapes and sizes.
0:31:36 > 0:31:40It shows you what a compulsive traveller he really was.
0:31:40 > 0:31:42It's awe-inspiring.
0:31:45 > 0:31:49In 1970, Nairn took to the road for his next BBC series,
0:31:49 > 0:31:53Nairn's Europe, which was to take him far from home and provide him
0:31:53 > 0:31:55with a much needed tonic.
0:31:56 > 0:32:00I remember going to research Nairn's Europe with Ian
0:32:00 > 0:32:05and we were driving around Europe in this Morris Minor convertible
0:32:05 > 0:32:07and he turned to me at one point and he said,
0:32:07 > 0:32:11"Do you know, John, we're actually getting paid for doing this."
0:32:11 > 0:32:14And I thought yes it's marvellous. What a marvellous job to have.
0:32:16 > 0:32:20Nairn's Europe saw him travelling all over the continent, exploring
0:32:20 > 0:32:24the architecture and culture of the cities he loved the most.
0:32:24 > 0:32:28And you could be sure with Nairn, it would be no ordinary travel log.
0:32:28 > 0:32:31For me, Belgium is the most exciting country in western Europe.
0:32:31 > 0:32:35As soon as I cross the frontier from France or Holland or Germany,
0:32:35 > 0:32:37odd things start happening.
0:32:37 > 0:32:39I suppose the oddest and nicest thing that I ever saw in Belgium
0:32:39 > 0:32:42was in a suburb of Brussels.
0:32:42 > 0:32:45Where a military band marched smartly up the street,
0:32:45 > 0:32:48turned smartly right and played itself into a pub
0:32:48 > 0:32:51and here for example, is the only place I've ever seen
0:32:51 > 0:32:53cows tethered to a bus stop.
0:32:53 > 0:32:57Things like that are going on all the time and they add up to a wonderful
0:32:57 > 0:33:00collective portfolio of excitement.
0:33:00 > 0:33:03You see, I think, Ian's...
0:33:03 > 0:33:05feeling for idiosyncrasy, really,
0:33:05 > 0:33:08which comes through again and again.
0:33:08 > 0:33:12He see's in circumstances and situations
0:33:12 > 0:33:16something so different from what anybody else would have seen
0:33:16 > 0:33:18and it highlights them.
0:33:18 > 0:33:21You feel you know more about Belgium than you'd
0:33:21 > 0:33:23get from a 100 guidebooks, really.
0:33:29 > 0:33:33But Nairn's wanderlust and his keen eye for the extraordinary
0:33:33 > 0:33:36was all too often accompanied by a roving eye
0:33:36 > 0:33:41and another sort of restless wandering altogether.
0:33:41 > 0:33:45Ian's dying wish was to die rolling in the arms
0:33:45 > 0:33:48of a fat, Walloon tart.
0:33:48 > 0:33:51A Walloon being a French speaking Belgian.
0:33:51 > 0:33:56And Ian had a particular fondness for Belgian...
0:33:56 > 0:34:00- Go on...- Which says it all really, perfectly.
0:34:03 > 0:34:06He had affairs of the heart and affairs of the wallet, I think...
0:34:06 > 0:34:08would be one way of putting it.
0:34:08 > 0:34:10I remember having a row with him.
0:34:10 > 0:34:13A rather serious row with him about using prostitutes but I mean,
0:34:13 > 0:34:15that was a sort of.... It was a sort of erm...
0:34:16 > 0:34:21He was very much - again, very much what he felt, very much
0:34:21 > 0:34:23the demons that were driving him.
0:34:23 > 0:34:26That he felt that that's
0:34:26 > 0:34:30the sort of solus comfort that he wanted.
0:34:30 > 0:34:32He wasn't a happy man at all.
0:34:32 > 0:34:35He didn't have any of the sort of
0:34:35 > 0:34:40rounded certainties that go with family or kinship.
0:34:44 > 0:34:46Nairn's series on Europe promoted him
0:34:46 > 0:34:51from a regional to a networked, BBC ONE primetime slot.
0:34:51 > 0:34:53He may not have been to everyone's taste
0:34:53 > 0:34:56but he was becoming a familiar face on television.
0:34:56 > 0:34:58In 1970, Harold Evans -
0:34:58 > 0:35:01the recently appointed editor of the Sunday Times -
0:35:01 > 0:35:06was on the lookout for exciting new talent and Nairn had caught his eye.
0:35:07 > 0:35:10Well, he wanted the best and Ian was.
0:35:10 > 0:35:13You know, whatever the category, he wanted the best practitioner
0:35:13 > 0:35:15and you know, Ian was.
0:35:15 > 0:35:18He was unique and nobody I'd ever met before that
0:35:18 > 0:35:22and nobody I've met since worked in the same way as Ian.
0:35:22 > 0:35:25I mean, Ian didn't have a type writer, Ian had a notebook
0:35:25 > 0:35:28and into that notebook went Ian's text.
0:35:28 > 0:35:30And if you asked him to
0:35:30 > 0:35:34extend it or shorten it or change it in any way, he couldn't.
0:35:34 > 0:35:37Because it was an almost sort of poetic
0:35:37 > 0:35:40distillation of what he thought.
0:35:40 > 0:35:43And, you know, you might as well have asked him to...
0:35:43 > 0:35:45change a line in Paradise Lost or something
0:35:45 > 0:35:49as change a line of his own text. He simply couldn't do it.
0:35:51 > 0:35:53Well, this is typical.
0:35:53 > 0:35:55Not many mistakes in that.
0:35:55 > 0:35:59This is a piece he wrote about Wigan in longhand.
0:35:59 > 0:36:04Beautifully legible, page after page without even any changes in,
0:36:04 > 0:36:07so I just had to sit there and type it.
0:36:07 > 0:36:10Mostly he just looked after himself and, you know,
0:36:10 > 0:36:13he wasn't like a normal sort of journalist.
0:36:13 > 0:36:17He spoke about what happened to be in his head at the time and
0:36:17 > 0:36:19if it was unfashionable or,
0:36:19 > 0:36:22you know, off the wall a bit, fine.
0:36:22 > 0:36:25I think of him as a...
0:36:25 > 0:36:27Lots of words beginning with S, really. He was a...
0:36:27 > 0:36:29sort of shy, solitary,
0:36:29 > 0:36:31sincere,
0:36:31 > 0:36:36self-conscious man who spoke senior service.
0:36:36 > 0:36:39But at the same time, he could often be so sort of quirky and strange.
0:36:39 > 0:36:42He'd pick up the phone and shout,
0:36:42 > 0:36:44"Weasel, stote and polecat!"
0:36:44 > 0:36:46As if it was some firm of provincial solicitors.
0:36:46 > 0:36:50Or another time he'd just bark down the phone, "Woof, woof!"
0:36:50 > 0:36:53When he was depressed, he'd pick it up and say,
0:36:53 > 0:36:58"This is Chartres Cathedral, south aisle, Death speaking."
0:36:58 > 0:36:59Which...
0:36:59 > 0:37:02disconcerted the person on the other end, no end.
0:37:05 > 0:37:08TRAIN HORN BLARES
0:37:08 > 0:37:10Never one to be desk-bound,
0:37:10 > 0:37:13Nairn accepted every opportunity to travel.
0:37:13 > 0:37:15And in the same year he joined the Sunday Times,
0:37:15 > 0:37:19he journeyed north to report for the BBC on a place that was
0:37:19 > 0:37:21particularly close to his heart.
0:37:24 > 0:37:27I've used a lot of superlatives about Newcastle over the past
0:37:27 > 0:37:29ten years or so.
0:37:29 > 0:37:31Each time I think, "Oh, it can't be that good,
0:37:31 > 0:37:34"I've overstated the case again." And yet each time,
0:37:34 > 0:37:37when I see it for the first time coming over the Tyne, the whole
0:37:37 > 0:37:40excitement of the place gets me just as though it was
0:37:40 > 0:37:42the very first time I'd ever seen it.
0:37:44 > 0:37:48Newcastle expressed all sorts of things to Ian Nairn
0:37:48 > 0:37:51about who he wanted to be.
0:37:51 > 0:37:54He just had this huge desire to be a Northerner
0:37:54 > 0:37:59and to be working class, which he wasn't, he was middle class.
0:37:59 > 0:38:02But Newcastle was a place where he felt that
0:38:02 > 0:38:07he fitted as this person, you could say, he invented.
0:38:07 > 0:38:10The great thing about Newcastle is that all the parts are acting
0:38:10 > 0:38:13together, all the layers of history are mixed up.
0:38:13 > 0:38:18The bridges, the tangled roads and railways, the skyline beyond
0:38:18 > 0:38:22and the great chasm, precipitous slopes down to the river below.
0:38:25 > 0:38:28This is an essential Nairn view.
0:38:28 > 0:38:34The fact that life is interweaving and history has come together,
0:38:34 > 0:38:35so we're standing in the medieval.
0:38:35 > 0:38:38You know, the new castle.
0:38:38 > 0:38:40Which he always pronounced with and "ah"
0:38:40 > 0:38:42even though he came from Bedford.
0:38:42 > 0:38:47And then the railways come and they're brave and they do it,
0:38:47 > 0:38:49you know, with conviction.
0:38:49 > 0:38:51When the railways came,
0:38:51 > 0:38:54they did what should have been a barbarous thing.
0:38:54 > 0:38:56They ran a railway right through the castle between the castle
0:38:56 > 0:38:58gatehouse and the main keep.
0:38:58 > 0:39:02If you thought about it in the abstract you'd think, what a terrible thing to do,
0:39:02 > 0:39:06but it works because now you've got the two levels of Newcastle there at once.
0:39:06 > 0:39:09Medieval Newcastle and railway Newcastle.
0:39:09 > 0:39:12He looked at the city as somewhere that had just...
0:39:12 > 0:39:17each time something new happened, it just took it on the chin.
0:39:17 > 0:39:20So you know, when you've got to punch your train lines
0:39:20 > 0:39:24through your medieval castle - I mean, whoever did that?
0:39:24 > 0:39:26But they did it, they managed it.
0:39:26 > 0:39:29And you know, it made a wonderful bit of theatre and there we are.
0:39:29 > 0:39:32The train is going through the castle, here we stand.
0:39:32 > 0:39:34Isn't that good?
0:39:37 > 0:39:42I mean, no city planner would have come up with this wonderful
0:39:42 > 0:39:44layer cake of history.
0:39:45 > 0:39:46And of course, the irony is that
0:39:46 > 0:39:51when the real big city plan came, that's when it went wrong.
0:39:51 > 0:39:53And he was very saddened by it.
0:39:55 > 0:39:57In the mid 1960s,
0:39:57 > 0:40:00the charismatic new leader of Newcastle City Council,
0:40:00 > 0:40:03T Dan Smith, had a vision.
0:40:03 > 0:40:06To turn Newcastle into a modern Mecca.
0:40:06 > 0:40:10But his grand plans for streets in the sky would eventually turn out
0:40:10 > 0:40:12to be pie in the he sky.
0:40:16 > 0:40:19By the time he makes the film in 1970,
0:40:19 > 0:40:24a few strong moves were made to sort of remodel the city
0:40:24 > 0:40:26but a lot of it was sort of left halfway,
0:40:26 > 0:40:30which in some ways was the worst of both worlds.
0:40:30 > 0:40:34The part of Newcastle that most needs something doing to it quickly,
0:40:34 > 0:40:38is the area that slopes steeply down to the river.
0:40:38 > 0:40:40The part that's got the chairs running through it,
0:40:40 > 0:40:43these great sequences of narrow staircases
0:40:43 > 0:40:45running between walls.
0:40:45 > 0:40:48Formerly running between walls that belong to the houses.
0:40:48 > 0:40:50It was already in a bad way...
0:40:50 > 0:40:52oh, well before the war.
0:40:52 > 0:40:58In about 1960, when they were first talking about revitalising Newcastle
0:40:58 > 0:41:01there were still just one or two people clinging on living,
0:41:01 > 0:41:05one or two shops. There was a little hairdresser shop on one chair.
0:41:05 > 0:41:08But in spite of all the good intentions,
0:41:08 > 0:41:11absolutely nothing new has been built here in the last ten years.
0:41:11 > 0:41:13There are plans, there are plenty of them,
0:41:13 > 0:41:15but nothing has actually gone up.
0:41:16 > 0:41:22When he comes to film in 1970, he's looking at a very,
0:41:22 > 0:41:25very crumbling old fabric.
0:41:25 > 0:41:29So he's looking at the chairs and he's thinking something must...
0:41:29 > 0:41:31He's pleading for them.
0:41:31 > 0:41:34Well, 1970 wasn't a good time to plead for very old buildings.
0:41:34 > 0:41:39There wasn't much strategy for that sort of thing in a brave new world.
0:41:41 > 0:41:45I'm sitting in the Royal Arcade in Newcastle. It's another slice
0:41:45 > 0:41:49of Granger and Dobson. It was put up with a very formal entrance at the
0:41:49 > 0:41:53end of Moseley Street and Pilgrim Street. It never really worked
0:41:53 > 0:41:57because it was intended to connect up with more of the town's eastern end
0:41:57 > 0:42:01and that never caught on, so it was always a kind of dead end.
0:42:01 > 0:42:04It was always in trouble.
0:42:04 > 0:42:07And now it is in real trouble because,
0:42:07 > 0:42:08look at it!
0:42:08 > 0:42:10See, what happened was...
0:42:11 > 0:42:13..that...
0:42:13 > 0:42:15Newcastle said,
0:42:15 > 0:42:18"Fine. The Royal Arcade's got to go.
0:42:18 > 0:42:21"We've got to have a roundabout in Pilgrim street
0:42:21 > 0:42:26"but we'll take it down carefully, store the stones,
0:42:26 > 0:42:30"number them and then put it up again somewhere else."
0:42:30 > 0:42:31But not like this!
0:42:31 > 0:42:34This is just like a bomb site, it's a bit of slum clearance.
0:42:34 > 0:42:38the stones are anyhow, anyone can get at them.
0:42:38 > 0:42:41So we've been conned, Newcastle's been conned, I've been conned myself.
0:42:44 > 0:42:47I think he thought that things had gone terribly wrong
0:42:47 > 0:42:51and that the car had overtaken everything.
0:42:51 > 0:42:54The man-hating car, he called it.
0:42:54 > 0:42:59The way in which the road system came in and went without
0:42:59 > 0:43:03let or hindrance through some of the sites that he loved.
0:43:05 > 0:43:07Where the arcade used to be in Pilgrim Street there is a new
0:43:07 > 0:43:09office block and a roundabout.
0:43:09 > 0:43:11It's meant to be the set piece you see as you
0:43:11 > 0:43:14drive across the Tyne into Newcastle.
0:43:14 > 0:43:17When you get there, the long journey up and across the Tyne,
0:43:17 > 0:43:19you think, urgh.
0:43:19 > 0:43:22What was rising, such as Swan House,
0:43:22 > 0:43:26and all this complexity of underpasses
0:43:26 > 0:43:29and separating people from traffic and nowhere pleasant to walk,
0:43:29 > 0:43:32that wasn't what he thought was coming.
0:43:32 > 0:43:35I mean, call him naive. In a way, he was.
0:43:35 > 0:43:37He wasn't after all an architect or a planner,
0:43:37 > 0:43:42he just believed, you know, he believed the best of what they were
0:43:42 > 0:43:46aspiring to and what they actually got was definitely not the best.
0:43:55 > 0:43:58Despite his general disappointment with modern architecture,
0:43:58 > 0:44:02Nairn did occasionally come across new buildings that he felt
0:44:02 > 0:44:03were worth celebrating.
0:44:05 > 0:44:08This is a multi-storey car park with a difference.
0:44:08 > 0:44:13If you think that concrete exposed always has to be mean and messy,
0:44:13 > 0:44:16then look at the grand sweep of this.
0:44:16 > 0:44:20Strength and also the elegance.
0:44:20 > 0:44:21It's a splendid job.
0:44:23 > 0:44:25He loved bold statements.
0:44:25 > 0:44:29What he hated was the ordinary, the bland, the mediocre.
0:44:29 > 0:44:31He liked small buildings, he liked big buildings,
0:44:31 > 0:44:33he hated medium sized buildings.
0:44:35 > 0:44:37There should be far more buildings like this.
0:44:37 > 0:44:40We sometimes go in for odd shapes
0:44:40 > 0:44:43but dead serious about them like some of the new university buildings.
0:44:43 > 0:44:46This is just having a lark and a good thing too.
0:44:49 > 0:44:51He hated the medium rise
0:44:51 > 0:44:54and he would say they suck the life out of the environment.
0:44:54 > 0:44:56They take everything and they give nothing back.
0:44:56 > 0:45:00I love his ability to, you know, pull up the best
0:45:00 > 0:45:02and push out the worst.
0:45:02 > 0:45:04He goes to Huddersfield and there's just a little boring
0:45:04 > 0:45:07little bank on a corner and he gives it sort of...
0:45:07 > 0:45:11He just wither it with three words.
0:45:11 > 0:45:16Just across from here is a bank - the biggest yawn of all - which has been
0:45:16 > 0:45:19constrained into this idle grid.
0:45:19 > 0:45:21Oh, come on, you know?
0:45:24 > 0:45:27FRENCH TRAIN ANNOUNCER
0:45:31 > 0:45:34Quintessential Nairn on television for me, was something a little bit exotic.
0:45:34 > 0:45:37Places I hadn't been to as a child.
0:45:37 > 0:45:40I like it when he goes off to Germany and Austria and he goes on
0:45:40 > 0:45:44the Orient Express and then he gets involved in the he Munich Beer Festival.
0:45:44 > 0:45:46This is a man that loved beer more than anything by this time and he's
0:45:46 > 0:45:49pushing through the crowd saying, "I think this is all horrific!"
0:45:49 > 0:45:52This isn't a beer festival, it's a convulsion.
0:45:52 > 0:45:55I hope that most of the people here, are here genuine Munichers,
0:45:55 > 0:45:59not just tourists coming to watch a spectacle...
0:45:59 > 0:46:02"This is just a load of nonsense, like a punch and Judy show."
0:46:02 > 0:46:04That sort of thing. "This is just Disneyland, really."
0:46:04 > 0:46:06Or, "It's a ridiculous way of using cities."
0:46:06 > 0:46:09and starts pushing people out of the way to talk to the camera
0:46:09 > 0:46:12and he's getting really angry on camera.
0:46:12 > 0:46:15..because it's disgusting and I'll probably get through more
0:46:15 > 0:46:19alcohol in a week than most of those bastards get through in a year!
0:46:19 > 0:46:22For Nairn, the function and flavour of a building or a place had
0:46:22 > 0:46:26to be genuine. Just like real ale
0:46:26 > 0:46:31and anything short of that left him with a bitter taste in his mouth.
0:46:31 > 0:46:33Excuse me, mate.
0:46:34 > 0:46:38As an expression of a collective, Germanic force, it's fine.
0:46:38 > 0:46:42As something which just happens and tourists cash in on it,
0:46:42 > 0:46:43it hits me. I hate....
0:46:47 > 0:46:51As Nairn continued his whistle-stop tour through seven countries,
0:46:51 > 0:46:54his passion for travel was tested to the limit
0:46:54 > 0:46:56and the cracks began to show.
0:46:58 > 0:47:00Well there it is, the end of the line.
0:47:00 > 0:47:02The buffers at Istanbul station.
0:47:05 > 0:47:07My impression of the whole journey?
0:47:07 > 0:47:09Well, frankly, I'm so physically shattered at the moment,
0:47:09 > 0:47:12it's hard to sort them out.
0:47:12 > 0:47:16Kind of shock therapy right through Europe, this one.
0:47:16 > 0:47:19Punch, punch, punch, out of one place, into another.
0:47:21 > 0:47:24And that's about all I can say because, shish, I'm shattered.
0:47:24 > 0:47:27I'm going to go for a very long bath and quite a long sleep now.
0:47:30 > 0:47:33But there was to be no let-up in his filming schedule
0:47:33 > 0:47:36and once back in Britain, Nairn embarked on another
0:47:36 > 0:47:39mammoth journey for the BBC.
0:47:39 > 0:47:41Nairn Across Britain saw him
0:47:41 > 0:47:45retracing the journey he'd taken in 1955 for Outrage.
0:47:45 > 0:47:49From London, right up to Carlisle and the Scottish border.
0:47:49 > 0:47:53And the Britain he now reported on was a very different place.
0:47:55 > 0:47:58When Ian made his TV programmes,
0:47:58 > 0:48:02he could see tremendous amounts of destruction all around him.
0:48:02 > 0:48:06He would speak in front of, or inside buildings that had been demolished, just about to
0:48:06 > 0:48:08be demolished and he would rant and rave quite rightly.
0:48:08 > 0:48:12I mean, real vitriol, you don't often see that on television.
0:48:14 > 0:48:18I watched his programmes and the one that really moved me
0:48:18 > 0:48:20quite a lot was when he went to Northampton.
0:48:20 > 0:48:23And Northampton has a very good market square
0:48:23 > 0:48:25and in the corner of the market there's an arcade.
0:48:25 > 0:48:29And he said, "This arcade is not an architectural masterpiece
0:48:29 > 0:48:32"but it's a really... It's something that works.
0:48:32 > 0:48:35"It's something that people are happy in and it is threatened."
0:48:38 > 0:48:40It's a bit difficult to talk about the arcade at the moment,
0:48:40 > 0:48:43because by the time the programme goes out,
0:48:43 > 0:48:45its fate will probably have been decided.
0:48:45 > 0:48:49So if this turns out to be an obituary I am very sorry
0:48:49 > 0:48:51and meanwhile here's the reason's
0:48:51 > 0:48:54given by the council for demolishing it.
0:48:54 > 0:48:58First, the success of the new scheme depends on running a service
0:48:58 > 0:49:01road at roof level through this place.
0:49:01 > 0:49:06Well, my answer to that is, change the scheme.
0:49:06 > 0:49:09Number two, the arcade has no real architectural value.
0:49:09 > 0:49:11No architectural value?!
0:49:11 > 0:49:14With this great cupola here and the balconies
0:49:14 > 0:49:18and the arches down there? Arches with a perspective effect
0:49:18 > 0:49:21because this arcade is on a quite a considerable hill
0:49:21 > 0:49:25and that in my experience - which with respect is rather larger than
0:49:25 > 0:49:29that of Northampton councillors - is architecturally unique.
0:49:29 > 0:49:32If they really do pull this place down, it'll be a diabolical shame.
0:49:32 > 0:49:36He really made you feel it was a very important thing that this
0:49:36 > 0:49:39building should not be demolished and this was a repeat.
0:49:39 > 0:49:42And just as he finished almost tearfully saying how important
0:49:42 > 0:49:46it was, a little caption went out saying this building was demolished.
0:49:46 > 0:49:48And you really thought, "Gosh, I mean,
0:49:48 > 0:49:51"if I feel so badly about it, how did he feel?" Cos to him,
0:49:51 > 0:49:57buildings were almost like people sometimes and he regarded it as a...
0:49:57 > 0:49:58as a...
0:49:58 > 0:50:00as a death in the family.
0:50:02 > 0:50:05I think he was terribly emotional about it.
0:50:05 > 0:50:08He felt things almost ridiculously.
0:50:08 > 0:50:11I mean, if they were to knock down one of my favourite buildings
0:50:11 > 0:50:13I would feel sad about it and I would feel it was wrong
0:50:13 > 0:50:19but I wouldn't feel clinically depressed at the prospect.
0:50:19 > 0:50:23But it did seem to affect Ian like that, which is very, very rare, I think.
0:50:25 > 0:50:30Bolton, St Saviour Dean Road, and one of the their noblest churches.
0:50:31 > 0:50:33And now look at it!
0:50:34 > 0:50:36Pews flattened,
0:50:36 > 0:50:38the font in pieces.
0:50:40 > 0:50:45The spirit of God still here, not gone with the congregation.
0:50:45 > 0:50:50He writes like someone who was doomed from the start.
0:50:50 > 0:50:52He spoke like someone who was doomed
0:50:52 > 0:50:56and I think he had a wonderful voice.
0:50:56 > 0:51:02And there's something infinitely sad about the way these inflections,
0:51:02 > 0:51:06where even when he's being...
0:51:06 > 0:51:08lorditary and things,
0:51:08 > 0:51:13you just know that it's all going to disappear into rubble eventually.
0:51:14 > 0:51:16You talk about football vandalism...
0:51:17 > 0:51:19I don't quite know how...
0:51:21 > 0:51:26..you would categorise the vandalism of the yobbos who did this.
0:51:35 > 0:51:38Wherever he turned, the story was the same.
0:51:45 > 0:51:48and as he ventured further north to his spiritual home,
0:51:48 > 0:51:51he discovered destruction on an industrial scale.
0:51:54 > 0:51:58In his guts, he was a Northerner and his North
0:51:58 > 0:52:01was packing up and leaving.
0:52:01 > 0:52:03BANG!
0:52:05 > 0:52:10While Ian was filming, old industry was collapsing and DR Beeching,
0:52:10 > 0:52:14the chairman of British railways was in enacting his famous cuts.
0:52:14 > 0:52:17He was wielding his axe, Beeching's axe, which was chopping
0:52:17 > 0:52:21the railway to bits to make them somehow profitable and modern.
0:52:27 > 0:52:30But Ian of course, like many people in Britain loved the railways.
0:52:30 > 0:52:33And it wasn't just the romance of steam or romance of travel,
0:52:33 > 0:52:36it was the beautiful infrastructure.
0:52:36 > 0:52:39These wonderful bridges, viaducts, that rather anonymous
0:52:39 > 0:52:43Victorian architects working with railway engineers had built.
0:52:43 > 0:52:45And they were the very buildings being knocked down.
0:52:49 > 0:52:52This is one of the wildest parts of the border
0:52:52 > 0:52:54between Carlisle and Hawick.
0:52:54 > 0:52:59There's just greenery, me and the railway junction.
0:52:59 > 0:53:03This is Riccarton, and it really was a junction
0:53:03 > 0:53:07because not only does the Carlisle-Edinburgh come through here
0:53:07 > 0:53:10but also a line which went down to Bellingham,
0:53:10 > 0:53:12down the Tyne Valley to Hexham.
0:53:12 > 0:53:14So, you could quite literally go from here
0:53:14 > 0:53:18to both King's Cross and St Pancras. Now gone, all gone.
0:53:23 > 0:53:26As Nairn witnessed his beloved Britain
0:53:26 > 0:53:30and all that he'd fought for disintegrating before his eyes,
0:53:30 > 0:53:33he himself hit the buffers.
0:53:34 > 0:53:37And with no fight left in him, the very last series
0:53:37 > 0:53:41he made for the BBC saw him turn in on himself
0:53:41 > 0:53:44and retreat into a world of whimsy and folly.
0:53:44 > 0:53:46The last programmes he made, Finding Follies,
0:53:46 > 0:53:48are deeply poignant.
0:53:48 > 0:53:51I mean, first of all, the man is a human wreck.
0:53:51 > 0:53:55I mean, you can see he is pretty much drunk the whole time.
0:53:55 > 0:53:58That is no good for anyone - for himself,
0:53:58 > 0:54:01for television producers or the audience.
0:54:03 > 0:54:06This is a sort of temporary halt between follies.
0:54:06 > 0:54:08This, in fact, is my favourite scrap yard.
0:54:08 > 0:54:11It's right in the middle of the country...
0:54:11 > 0:54:13You can see he's bruised and battered
0:54:13 > 0:54:18and if you do fight continually against things that make you angry,
0:54:18 > 0:54:20you get exhausted. There's no question.
0:54:20 > 0:54:22Exhaustion not just physically
0:54:22 > 0:54:24but exhausting your mind
0:54:24 > 0:54:26and exhausting your heart and exhausting your soul,
0:54:26 > 0:54:30and so I think what you see there is a man at the end saying,
0:54:30 > 0:54:31"I am exhausted.
0:54:31 > 0:54:34"But do look. This is where I come from
0:54:34 > 0:54:36"and this is what I really love."
0:54:37 > 0:54:40Folly Park at Stowe was an act of love...
0:54:42 > 0:54:45..and this is an act of love of a different kind.
0:54:45 > 0:54:49If you like, this is another kind of folly park,
0:54:49 > 0:54:50all acts of love are folly.
0:54:52 > 0:54:54It's the Shuttleworth Collection at Old Warden.
0:54:57 > 0:54:59Follies, follies, follies.
0:54:59 > 0:55:02What folly to try and restore this to flying condition,
0:55:02 > 0:55:03and what a marvellous folly.
0:55:05 > 0:55:08I feel this very much, because I was a pilot myself
0:55:08 > 0:55:11and I learnt to fly on that thing over there,
0:55:11 > 0:55:13like hundreds of thousands of others.
0:55:15 > 0:55:17That's what, for me, life is all about.
0:55:20 > 0:55:23It's deeply, deeply moving to see someone going back,
0:55:23 > 0:55:26in a way, to what they loved and what they knew,
0:55:26 > 0:55:29having fought so hard for a quarter of a century
0:55:29 > 0:55:32so well and so powerfully,
0:55:32 > 0:55:35but in the end, he's seeking comfort in what he knew.
0:55:41 > 0:55:44On the evening of August 11th 1983,
0:55:44 > 0:55:47Nairn was admitted to the Cromwell Hospital in Kensington,
0:55:47 > 0:55:51where he died a few days later of cirrhosis of the liver.
0:55:53 > 0:55:56He was just 52 years old.
0:55:56 > 0:55:58By the time that Ian died,
0:55:58 > 0:56:00I wasn't working at the Sunday Times any more.
0:56:00 > 0:56:05I got a note from Dick Girling
0:56:05 > 0:56:09saying... He said, "I thought you'd want to know
0:56:09 > 0:56:11"Ian died on Sunday.
0:56:11 > 0:56:15"It was apparently an abrupt switch-off
0:56:15 > 0:56:17"minus the Walloon tart..." -
0:56:17 > 0:56:22which was an old joke amongst us -
0:56:22 > 0:56:25"..but otherwise much as he would have wanted.
0:56:25 > 0:56:27"Don't be sad.
0:56:27 > 0:56:30"As he would say, 'It's not quite like that.'
0:56:30 > 0:56:33"Not bad, was he?"
0:56:33 > 0:56:35It's quite sad, actually.
0:56:40 > 0:56:43I haven't thought about it for years.
0:56:46 > 0:56:49You know, it's a long time since he died
0:56:49 > 0:56:52and it would be foolish for me to try and say
0:56:52 > 0:56:55that I think of him every day, anything like that.
0:56:55 > 0:56:59Quite, quite the contrary. But there are times
0:56:59 > 0:57:03when a sudden view comes into sight.
0:57:03 > 0:57:07I mean, like walking down here, down the quayside in Newcastle,
0:57:07 > 0:57:11or I go into pubs that he liked,
0:57:11 > 0:57:16then, yes, then I think of him and I miss him.
0:57:22 > 0:57:25Though he ended up being buried in Ealing,
0:57:25 > 0:57:27the queen of subtopian suburbs,
0:57:27 > 0:57:31Nairn was to have to have the last laugh.
0:57:33 > 0:57:37Well, I'm looking here at Ian Nairn's death certificate,
0:57:37 > 0:57:42which is very terrible, but one odd thing jumps out.
0:57:42 > 0:57:45Date and place of birth -
0:57:45 > 0:57:4824 August 1930,
0:57:48 > 0:57:50perfectly true,
0:57:50 > 0:57:51Newcastle.
0:57:51 > 0:57:54He wasn't born in Newcastle.
0:57:54 > 0:57:58But he so wanted to be, wished he was.
0:57:58 > 0:58:02Right to the very end, he was a Newcastle man.
0:58:02 > 0:58:05By desire if not by reality.
0:58:08 > 0:58:10Well, to Ian.
0:58:10 > 0:58:12ALL: To Ian.
0:58:16 > 0:58:18That is the right stuff.
0:58:18 > 0:58:20It's lovely, that, isn't it?
0:58:20 > 0:58:24You could see how you could drink lots of it if you got addicted.
0:58:24 > 0:58:27- It's a big lump of drink, that is.- Yes.
0:58:27 > 0:58:30- It's a nice pub.- I'd love to read a piece about this pub.
0:58:30 > 0:58:32Wouldn't that be nice?
0:58:32 > 0:58:35- I think he'd have liked it. - I think it's OK.- Yeah.
0:58:35 > 0:58:38It's just sort of shabby enough, isn't it?
0:58:38 > 0:58:40I'd like to read a piece about him
0:58:40 > 0:58:43eavesdropping on what we've been saying about him.