Summer Keeping Britain Safe 24/7

If you can't speak, could you tap on the phone?

64 million people, 365 days

and 31 million calls to 999.

SIREN WAILS

That's the scale of the task faced by Britain's emergency teams.

And for one exceptional year,

we'll be following their front-line workers.

Not just our police, our firefighters and our paramedics.

We've been with our other critical emergency teams as well.

Teams we rely on, sometimes without ever noticing.

The specialist teams that keep our railways moving

despite the dreaded leaves on the line.

Notting Hill binmen with just seven hours to clean up

after our liveliest carnival.

National Grid controllers

responsible for powering 20 million homes,

24 hours a day.

The Greater Manchester Police Dog Unit,

controlling 75,000 fans at the height of the football season.

FANS CHANT

Lifeboat crews at Britain's busiest station,

with just 90 seconds to respond.

We'll show you how these specialist teams work under pressure

to protect us from danger on their most demanding days.

This is the story of one year with our emergency teams.

A year with the heroes keeping Britain safe.

OVERLAPPING CONTROL ROOM VOICES

-'Fire brigade.

-London connecting.'

It's summer. Let the Great British getaway begin.

JET ENGINES ROAR

We're behind the scenes with the safety teams

at the world's busiest runway.

..turn right into...

And the world's busiest shipping lane,

as they're overrun by holiday-makers.

And as tented villages size of towns

pop up all over the country,

how do you control festival crowds like these?

And when the party's over at our biggest street carnival...

we'll meet the army of workers left to clean up the mess.

We had it easier out here, I thought, until I'd seen this lot.

But first...

ROCK MUSIC PLAYS

Now there's one scene that in recent years

has become synonymous with British summertime.

Thousands of people jumping around in a field,

wearing wellingtons all caked in mud.

It is of course the Great British summer festival.

Three quarters of a million of us

go to the top five music festivals that take place

right across the summer here in the UK,

including Reading and Leeds, where we are right now.

In fact there's 80,000 people...

Across the summer months, there are over 900 music festivals in Britain.

-CROWD SINGS: # Want to be an American idiot...

-#

And one of the most popular is Leeds. This weekend,

75,000 people will descend on these fields.

And they all need somewhere to sleep, to wash, to get food.

They'll need toilets and medical facilities.

To provide that requires an army of 4,610 workers.

It's like the neighbouring town of Harrogate popping up overnight,

and with it come some familiar problems - crime.

When it comes to thousands of carefree, music-loving youngsters,

how do you maintain law and order?

Almost the last thing you want to see at a music festival

is a police officer. It's not that they're not wonderful people.

It just kind of spoils the free and easy feeling of the place.

However, it's still their responsibility

to make sure this place is safe.

So how do you strike a happy medium?

# The boys are back in town the boys are back in town... #

Detective Inspector Phil Jackson's beat

is normally the streets of Leeds,

but today he is responsible for making sure that this event

is fun and crime-free.

To do that, Phil relies on the people working inside this tent

on the outskirts of the festival grounds.

They're watching for trouble on CCTV monitors

but these people aren't police, they're civilians.

And inside the festival, you won't find bobbies on the beat.

It's a very different approach to the job of policing.

What I didn't see in there is your guys in hi-vis

being a police presence. Is that a conscious thing?

Is that something you're trying to avoid?

What happens is the festival,

they don't want us in there for that reason

because they can police it themselves.

It's like a mini village that gets set up every year.

75,000 people come here, have a good time and leave again.

And any crime that happens, we're there to help out

and make people safe and feel safe.

From the CCTV tent at the festival,

a live feed is then sent back to the police operation centre at Wetherby.

Festivals can provide easy pickings for criminal gangs.

And it's Silver Commander

Chief Supt Andy Battle's job

to stay one step ahead of them.

We have a very effective network

of sharing intelligence between festivals.

So we get a briefing from the V Festival that was last weekend

about what problems they encountered,

what troubling criminals arrived,

and we can then use that intelligence to brief staff on site.

Does it work that during certain bands, you're more likely to have

-problems of one sort or another?

-That's right.

We have a facility where we grade individual acts to tell us

what sort of level of risk they are in terms of acquisitive crimes.

So we know that some bands

will attract crowds that are very buoyant,

which is a great environment for thieves to operate in.

So we identify those bands early, so that we can put the appropriate

tactics in place to identify and spot pickpockets and the like.

So we take an intelligent view of that.

-3:45 we have...

-Modestep.

I am none the wiser.

Try and get them to tilt camera around when Johnny Marr comes on.

-Are you a Smiths fan?

-I've seen them four times.

-Have you?

-Yeah.

Back at the festival,

and police officers have spotted two people acting suspiciously.

We've just arrested two people for drugs offences,

proceeds of crime offences, money-laundering.

They suspect they're not simply here to enjoy the music.

We've got three bags,

which had been now sealed, of what we believe is MDMA.

And we've got, just behind it, the cannabis.

And then if we look inside the bag, we have a large bundle

and we believe that's in excess of £500-£600.

The quantity of drugs with the cash, and we've got to search

the house, where we'll find other drugs paraphernalia etc.

It might well us to a charge of possession with intent to supply.

For these two lads, the festival weekend ends here.

For everyone else, it's just getting started.

# I don't care, I love it

# I don't care

# I love it... #

Festivalgoers carrying illegal drugs have the opportunity to get

rid of them with no questions asked.

These red trucks surrender bins were designed to try and test the resolve

of festivalgoers and make them aware that

if they enter the event carrying, they could be arrested.

There's a lot of cannabis, a lot of ecstasy tablets,

which is MDMA.

A lot of cocaine and amphetamine.

And this is a strange one.

It sort of goes to show the concealment methods that

people go to, to get controlled drugs within a festival.

We got a Tic Tac box.

There's a couple of orange and lime-green tablets,

which probably are real Tic Tacs,

but also within there is a red tablet which has a Nintendo logo.

We had some of these in the last few days

and these also tested positive for MDMA, which is ecstasy.

These haven't been tested as yet

but visually I would properly say that's a couple of grams of cocaine.

# Yeah, I got a good heart

# I was born on beat that's a good start... #

-Are you a music fan?

-I am, yes,

but I don't think I'm a festival fan to go slumming in some tent.

-I think I'd be in caravan park.

-OK.

But ultimately, I'm a parent, I've got kids,

and I'd be quite happy for my children to come here.

People will come out of here enjoying themselves

and had a really good time.

# ..They follow us... #

As you might expect from any town with 75,000 inhabitants,

there's been one accidental death

and one birth over the last three days.

But unlike a typical town,

there were only 28 arrests for public order and drug offences.

Thanks to the efforts of the emergency teams and volunteers,

a wet and muddy Leeds Festival has passed off largely crime-free.

# ..Unorthodox

# We call our own shots. #

Summer is a time when lots of us jet off on holiday.

Over half a million passengers take to the skies every day

from one of 41 international airports in Britain...

..creating this extraordinary pattern.

These are just the flights over a single day in our airspace.

But when it comes to traffic,

there's one stretch of airport tarmac that outdoes them all.

This is Gatwick Airport, home to the world's busiest single runway.

Every year, more than 244,000 planes take off and land right here.

That's almost one take-off and landing...

JET ENGINE ROARS

..every minute!

In summer, Gatwick is pushed to its absolute limit.

Before a single aircraft takes off...

there's a small army of engineers

and inspectors making sure each one of them is safe to fly.

Today, it's the turn of this Boeing 747.

After every 800 hours in the sky,

it comes into a maintenance hangar

to receive a thorough inspection from Matt, Barry and the team.

With over six million parts, there's plenty of work to do.

But every minute that an aircraft is on the ground it's losing money.

Lead engineer Matt Watson

has just 24 hours to complete a long list of checks

before this aircraft needs to be ready once again for take-off.

They waste no time at all getting to grips with the engines.

Each engine costs in the region of £7.5 million,

and examining such complex pieces of engineering

requires some expensive and hi tech equipment.

MUSIC: "Mission: Impossible Theme"

Matt is using a state-of-the-art inspection tool called a borescope.

It's quite a nifty little bit of kit, the borescope,

because it's fully rotational

so that you can look all around the engine.

Anywhere you need to go.

Fully articulated.

And a little camera on the end.

There's a light in-built.

And a little video camera, basically, in the end.

We can look inside the engine and then, on this screen, it will show us

the blades that we need to look at.

And Barry, at the front, is going to turn the gearbox,

which allows the engine to turn

and the blades to rotate.

So we can look at each and every blade, as it passes by, for wear

or any corrosion that's happened. Or if we've had a bird strike,

we'll be looking for bits of the blade missing.

Jet engines can be vulnerable to birds,

which are sucked into the turbine blades.

At the point of take-off, those blades can be rotating

at nearly 8,000 revolutions per minute.

We've always got safety in mind

because these aircraft need to be safe.

Yeah, it's looking good.

A nice, clean engine.

The turbine blades have been given the all clear.

But the engineers also have spotted a problem with

the exhaust housing on one of the engines.

They were changing an exhaust sleeve -

which is the exhaust for the engine - which had a crack in it.

So it was found and new spares ordered and replacing that,

which is probably an eight hour job.

So just changing that over. It's a straight swap - nut and bolts.

And then the new exhaust sleeve will be fitted

and no further tests carried out after that.

Despite the problem with the exhaust they still have

lots of routine jobs to complete that are just as important

and all within that 24-hour window,

such as replacing the emergency oxygen supply.

Everything's got to be done right.

It's not like doing a bit of DIY at home. You've got to do it right.

It just rubs off on you so consequently then I'm doing

DIY at home I tend to be a bit of a perfectionist.

Everything gets a thorough inspection.

From the escape slides...

..to the reclining seats.

Even the in-flight entertainment system is given the once over.

I watch about ten seconds of each film at various seats.

I get a very jittery view of a film.

At 32,000 feet you can't just pull over if something goes wrong.

-Clear air.

-Clear air.

That's why aircraft have back up systems.

The flaps on an aircraft help to control the airspeed

and the angle of descent.

On a 747 there are three separate ways of controlling them.

-That's good for me.

-And each one needs to be tested.

Yes, it's all fine now. It's all back within tolerance.

So the flaps stop when they're supposed to now.

Which is good.

Yeah, it's good when it goes out of the hangar, it's on time and serviceable.

It's hard work when they check trim

because there's a lot of man-hours to do, so it's quite a relief

when it's done and everything's serviceable

and it goes back to the line ready for departure.

In just 24 hours Matt, Barry and his team have

completed their checks and repaired the broken exhaust.

All in time for this aircraft to take off for Antigua right on schedule.

It's just one of 2.2 million flights that take place in Britain every year.

The job of looking after some 200,000 square miles of Britain's

airspace is the responsibility of 2,000 air traffic controllers.

Turn right onto Juliet...

Making sure everything runs smoothly is Steve Anderson,

air traffic general manager at Gatwick.

-What is the busiest time of the year?

-Definitely during the summer.

In a couple of weeks' time we'll be moving 900 movements a day,

we'll be moving 55, 56 an hour on the runway,

and at the start of the next school holidays really we'll be

looking to move 130,000 passengers each day.

August 2013 saw an increase of some 200,000 passengers

compared to the same period last summer.

That's the equivalent of over 700 extra jumbo jets in a single month.

We've got three control positions and two support positions.

Tower controller who is sat here and he is controlling all the aircraft

that are landing, taking off and flying over the top

at a couple of thousand feet, so he's responsible for all the ups and downs.

The controller in the middle, he's the ground controller

so he's taking all the planes from the runway to the stands

and from the stands to the runway so he mixes everything up in the middle.

And the third control position is the planner position which

regulates traffic onto the airfield,

so he looks at flight plans making sure everybody is departing

at the right time, making sure there's not too many planes

going out where these guys get overloaded.

I can see that some of the guys are using binoculars. I wasn't expecting that.

-I was expecting computer screens and blips across the screen.

-We do have the blips.

We do have the computers, but the way the guys control most of all

is just through looking out the window.

By law every 90 minutes air traffic controllers must

take a 30 minute break.

A chance for me to catch up with watch manager Stuart.

Do you ever feel a burden of responsibility?

We do have a lot of responsibility as you say.

There are a lot of people in aeroplanes out there,

but probably bizarrely they don't think about that.

To us it's just an aeroplane that's flying on a particular route

and we have lots of aeroplanes to deal with everyday

and so that's what most of the guys up here will be thinking about.

When you're at a party, you meet people and you say, "I'm an air traffic controller,"

what's the first thing people ask you?

The very first question is always, "Is it a stressful job?

"It must be stressful with all of those people."

And to be honest I've never experienced a stressful day.

..230 degrees...

Next time you catch a flight from here it's worth

bearing in mind there are over 25,000 people working

behind the scenes to help get us safely on our way.

Still to come - the August bank holiday weekend is

when 16 million of us take to the roads.

So we're at one of the busiest junctions on the M5 near Bristol...

Is your vehicle in a lay-by...?

..with the people whose job it is to keep the traffic moving.

And much of that traffic will be heading for the coast

so we are on the beach near Swansea with the RNLI lifeguards

keeping us safe at the seaside.

This is Notting Hill in West London,

famous for its market, that film with Hugh Grant,

and three days in August when almost a million people

hit the streets for the mother of all parties.

Every August bank holiday weekend the streets of Notting Hill come alive

with an incredible array of sights, sounds and dazzling costumes.

It's the culmination of ten months' planning

and on the day will involve 40,000 volunteers and some 7,000 police.

The hordes of people who line this 20 mile route

leave in their wake a mountain of rubbish.

This is disgusting.

Although it's quite nice that people have piled it up.

At least it's all in one place, but it's grim.

There's no bins so we don't know where to put our litter.

Someone will be clean it after so it's fine.

We heard that someone will clean it after.

You'd think they'd have lined this route with litter bins,

but in fact they take them all away before the Carnival begins

because it's feared they could be used as missiles.

So with all this rubbish and nowhere to put it who's left to clean up

when the revellers have gone?

I think by the time people have gone they can just get on with their job no matter what.

I don't envy the person who has to clean it up.

I feel for those people. Who's going to clean it up?

With the party still in full swing

legions of binmen are clocking on at a nearby depot

for their busiest night of the year.

30 lorries, 200 men and only seven hours to get the job done.

And before they hit the streets they're briefed by their manager Stephen Kelly.

Be extra vigilant tonight because there's a lot more people

under the influence of drugs and alcohol.

If you do come under any trouble just contact me or go to a safe place.

But a big effort tonight

because we don't want to be out there all night.

-Thank you everyone.

-Thank you very much.

It's 10:30pm and as they get to work the capital will soon be waking up

and its residents will expect their streets to be spotless.

Because these are not just any streets.

The Carnival makes its way through one of the richest boroughs in London -

Kensington and Chelsea.

Kensington and Chelsea, the streets have to be spotless.

Literally 24 hours we get complaints for dog fouling.

A resident will call

and say a dog's done something outside their house, we've got to do it within an hour.

Very high standards.

So there's an added pressure for Stephen and his team.

This is Stephen's 13th Carnival.

For some of the street clearers it's their 14th or 15th.

I'll come back off my holidays now.

I just come here for the weekend then I'll go back tomorrow.

For some newer members of the clean-up squad it's an eye-opener.

First time I did it was last year. I was totally shocked.

I'm getting used to it a bit now.

It's eight men per team and generally you'll get two or three men going

up ahead sweeping all the stuff off the pavement into the main road,

another few guys getting that into bundles,

and then the other guys then getting those bundles into what we've

nicknamed the bathtub and throwing that into the back of the truck.

Then we just clear that area carry on

and before you know it the whole route's done.

For 53-year-old John, first impressions suggest that

there's not as much rubbish as previous years.

Normally this is the busiest bit, this turning, the park

around the right here.

That's why they put us on it because we are the busiest lot.

The police cordon off the streets to allow the street cleaners

through, but with partying continuing later and later

it makes the job of these binmen even more difficult.

We always have a laugh. If you don't have a laugh you crack up.

Especially down here, you have got to have a laugh.

There was a coat in there just now. Rucksacks, cardigans, knickers.

You find everything here.

We are on track. The guys are working hard.

It would be good to finish before six o'clock.

For the last two years we've been finished in record

time which is usually about half four, five o'clock.

It's one in the morning and just

when they thought they'd be heading home in record time...

..they turn a corner to find this.

A street that normally escapes unscathed is the worst

they've seen all night.

We had it easy up there I thought, till I've seen this lot.

It's terrible down here tonight.

It's mostly cans and bottles, but it's a mixture of kebabs,

goat curry, pizzas, all sorts.

It smells pretty horrible by the end of the day.

I don't bring these clothes with me

because they stink the place out too much, so I just put them

in a separate bag in the locker and then I bring it all home

and wash it all, but this stuff, unfortunately you can pick up

a lot of oil and fat and that kind of stuff, and that would stink your

house out, so you've got to make sure you keep these separate.

It's 3:30am and the 200-strong team have broken

the back of the major clean up.

It's endurable. It's only two nights a year.

It's good to come out and see everyone working as such a team.

It's the pleasure of when it's finished.

On an average weekend the street cleaners will lift just

under 12 tonnes of rubbish from these streets.

This Carnival they've picked up a backbreaking 270 tonnes,

nearly 50 times more than they'd normally have to deal with.

We're full. The blade is literally all the way to the back

and we are going to be going straight to the tip.

Everything gets recycled.

But our story of rubbish doesn't end here.

All across Britain are lots of ingenious ways of turning

rubbish like the stuff collected here in Notting Hill

into something valuable.

Matt has been visiting a state-of-the-art

facility in South London that just loves litter.

This is an energy recovery facility in Southwark.

Raquel is its head of technology.

By studying how other countries deal with their waste Raquel

helped design this facility.

In here the black bags we throw into the bin

get turned into fuel to feed our power stations.

What's happening to them exactly?

Everything starts with this big machine that you can

see behind us. It's called a Terminator 5000. It's a big

piece of machine which effectively opens the bags up.

So it gets shredded in the Terminator?

Yes, extract anything that doesn't burn, metals,

then remove the water content.

-It's almost like it's a valued commodity now?

-Yes.

Your local recycling centre needs your rubbish

to power our factories and homes, to light up the country.

-It's fine if I have a go on one of the diggers isn't it?

-No way.

They're all right with that.

Three quarters of the litter

cleared off the streets of Notting Hill was sent here

where much of it is converted into fuel to be burnt in a nearby

power station.

That electricity is then fed back into the National Grid.

And this is mission control for our power supply.

Here they juggle our fluctuating demands for electricity and try to

match them to the combined output of Britain's numerous power stations.

Can you drop us 100? Lovely.

By that, Bernard means 100 megawatts - enough power to supply 100,000 homes.

Bernard is a demand forecaster - the gatekeeper controlling

the amount of power coming onto the grid.

As power can't really be stored,

Bernard has to match exactly the input of energy onto the National Grid

with variations in Britain's minute-by-minute energy use.

The problem is, because this changes on a second-by-second basis,

very often you make your final decision in the final few seconds

before you either have to make the decision or it's made for you.

Too little, and the lights go out.

Too much, and there could be a catastrophic systems failure.

It can go very wrong very quickly.

It's tea-time, a critical time for Bernard,

because there's an overlap between commercial and domestic use.

Right, I think we need ITV for the commercial break in Emmerdale.

Incredibly, Bernard relies on a TV guide to try and stay ahead of spikes and dips in demand.

Commercial break today in Coronation Street is at 19:42 and 47 seconds.

So we'll get a reasonable return of demand

caused purely by people's habits.

When people do pop out of their chairs just to make

a cup of tea or microwave something,

they'll all sit down again in two or three minutes' time.

Erm... I've got about 30 seconds to decide.

I've just asked a generator in Scotland to provide me with

120 more megawatts, which they will do within the next minute.

It's like this every night. It does make the time pass very quickly.

As the people of London wake up,

the power they depend upon will be there.

Thanks in part to a TV guide, some split-second decision-making

and a load of their own rubbish.

Still to come, the Dover Straits is the busiest

waterway in the world, reaching its peak in the summer.

For ships captains unfamiliar with these waters,

they rely on the harbour pilots to guide them safely into port.

Come to 260.

And scorching August temperatures trigger a rush to the coast.

I love these things!

So we're in Skegness with the medical teams stretched to the limit

by a tenfold increase in the town's population.

Last summer was the warmest, driest and sunniest in seven years.

As a result, we all headed to the coast in our droves,

and keeping us safe when we get there are teams of RNLI lifeguards.

Britain has just over 11,000 miles of coastline, and during the

summer months, around 1,000 RNLI lifeguards patrol over 200 beaches.

One of the most popular is here at Langland Bay on the South Wales coast.

Langland base, Langland flags, Langland flags, over.

INDISTINCT RADIO RESPONSE

Yeah, mate, will you get on the binos and just keep an eye on the kids

on the right side of the bay jumping off the rocks, please? Over.

Watching over the holiday-makers is lifeguard supervisor, Chris Vaughan.

Because we're not used to having this gorgeous weather

that we've got at the moment, I think people just go a little bit mad,

and they ran out and they don't think about safety.

They drop everything and just try and make the most of the weather.

In our enthusiasm to have a good time, we sometimes forget that this

can be a dangerous place, and not all the hazards are easy to spot.

Potential dangers are these rocks.

when the water does come over the rocks,

it can be quite hard for people to understand where the rocks are.

They can go into lovely-looking blue water without realising there's rocks underneath.

When we get surf on a mid-tide,

usually it comes in along here, over this reef, and a lot of surfers

will surf it to the right, and when they turn to the right,

there's all the rocks that are covered over here if they're not used to the area.

And that's where they pick up their scrapes and bumps,

and at worst quite nasty cuts and potentially spinal injuries

and things like that, which you pick up diving headfirst into water.

Serious accidents are thankfully rare.

It's the more routine injuries that tend to keep the lifeguards busy.

On a day like today we'll get a lot of minor first aids,

so children might be walking over pebbles, rocks,

just picking up little minor bumps and scrapes,

so we will be kept busy ticking over throughout the day with those.

Today the sun has brought out the crowds along with something else

that's not so welcome - the weever fish.

During the day, weever fish bury themselves

just below the surface of the sand, but on their backs are

poisonous spines, and it's never too long before somebody steps on one.

I thought I'd stepped on a rock, but there was no rock, so...

What we've got, I think he stood on a weever fish,

so the way to solve the weever fish sting is you put water

as hot as you can bear in a bowl and put the sting in the bowl,

and draws the poison out, then.

Heat breaks down the structure of the proteins that form the poison.

A bowl of steaming hot water will help to relieve the pain.

-That really stings.

-Yeah, it will sting a little bit.

Just keep your foot in there for ten minutes. How's that feeling?

-Starting to feel a bit better?

-Yeah.

-Yeah? Cool.

The hot water is working,

and soon young Oscar will be back on his feet again.

Down on the beach, the other lifeguards are trying to keep

holiday-makers between the flags and away from the rocks.

We have to stay in between the red and yellow flags.

Am I able to ask you to move over that way just a little bit?

Just to inside the flags, sorry to be a pain.

A while ago she was a little bit far, and the lifeguard did say, "come back in."

And so it's lovely having that as well, especially with three of them to keep an eye on.

Guys, if you're going to go in, could you go over here little bit? Just in between the flags.

Guys, do you mind going over that way?

-I think they're really good looking.

-ALL LAUGH

Well, if you fancy becoming a lifeguard,

you'll need to be able to swim 200m in under 3 1/2 minutes

and run 200m on sand in under 40 seconds.

It is a good job, I really enjoy it. Yeah, it is awesome.

Yeah, it's all right. It's not too bad. It beats an office.

If you're heading for Europe this summer, you can fly

or go by train, but every year 12 million of us come here.

The Port of Dover, an iconic British landmark, and also the

defining symbol of the separation between Britain and France.

But did you know that this stretch of water,

the narrowest part of the English Channel between Kent and the continent,

is also the busiest shipping lane in the world?

And keeping it safe is a major job.

The Dover Strait is regularly used by up to 400 commercial vessels a day,

but during the summer it gets even busier,

because then you've got to throw passenger ferries,

cruise ships and pleasure boats into the mix as well.

Two million lorries and nearly three million cars pass through here every year.

It's a massive logistical task for Kevin Richardson, the chief harbour master.

This is obviously an incredibly busy port. Tell me exactly how busy you are.

In ferries alone, up to 65 a day, so if you take in and out,

that's about 130 movements a day in ferries alone.

The thing about boats, as well, of course,

they go in every direction, there is no straight line, really, is there?

That's right. We're looking at the Dover Straits,

and there is traffic separation scheme operating in the Dover Straits,

and all of the eastbound vessels keep to the French coast,

all the westbound vessels are keeping to the English coast.

But, of course, our traffic is cutting directly across those lanes.

-Which makes it interesting!

-Which makes it very interesting.

On the other side of the Channel,

leaving port and heading for Britain is the DFDS Seaways.

She's captained by Steve Cockrell,

and today he's responsible for the safety of almost 800 people.

I think the captain's job involves driving the ship,

watching out for other boats, making sure everyone is safe on the boat,

and I think making announcements.

Very good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, this is the captain speaking.

For some passengers,

sailing across the English Channel doesn't seem that difficult.

I think in some ways it's pushing a button

and it's automatic pilot, that's what I think.

It might not look busy, but once you edge out into the Channel,

there are ships of every shape and size to contend with.

They are all using the same stretch of water at the same time.

And they all need to follow the same rules.

Shipping lanes are basically a motorway on the sea.

A motorway for ships.

It is very organised.

We've got a lot of ferries, a very concentrated number of ships

that are crossing the lanes at 90 degrees.

The crew of this ship make this crossing every day.

They know the port and its waters inside out.

But for a ship's captain arriving in Dover with less experience,

there is another safety team on hand to help.

Simon Moore is one of seven harbour pilots based at the port of Dover.

Simon is an experienced mariner

with a detailed knowledge of these waters.

Dover is a tricky port to come in to.

There are strong currents off the entrance

and it is a very exposed port.

This morning he is heading for a rendezvous with the Saga Sapphire.

A 37,000 tonne cruise liner with 500 passengers on board.

Simon's understanding of the tides and the unique geography of this

port will help the captain navigate the ship safely into harbour.

But before he can do that, he has to get on board the ship -

while it's still moving.

-Morning, guys. ALL:

-Morning!

-Captain Hyde, how are you?

-How are you?

-Nice to see you again. Welcome back.

Normal entry, captain, we'll head up to the north little bit...

Piloting ships is one of the oldest professions,

as old as sea travel itself.

The pilot and the captain work together

to agree on the best course of action.

The passage plan has been agreed with the master.

The passage plan we have is crude, if you like,

but it has all the information we need.

Things like the tide, the wind,

what heading we're going to come in on, where we are going

to make fast the tide and then we both agree the plan

and we both sign the plan to say that we agree,

and then our job now is to stick to that plan.

-So if we can come to port now, please, to 260.

-Port 260.

The stopping distance of a ship like this is typically measured in miles.

So even a small mistake could be disastrous.

That is why the local knowledge of the pilot is so important.

We've just gone through a cross tide where the tide was going north

and it is now going south. So the tide is now set in right to left.

Going at about one knot.

So we're just going to keep aiming for right of centre

and allow the ship to drop down into the entrance there.

Having navigated inside the harbour,

they now have to carefully guide the ship onto its berth.

We pop outside because all the manoeuvring controls are out here

so get a view down the ship's side.

100m, thank you.

Just 15 minutes after Simon came on-board...

40m, thank you.

..the ship is safely tied up at the quayside.

-OK, Captain, nicely done. Nice to see you again.

-Good to see you, Simon.

-We'll see you next year.

-Absolutely.

The Port of Dover is a 24-hour operation.

I've been on all night

so this is the end of my shift now so I will go home,

sleep for a few hours

and then come back in tonight for another 12-hour shift.

From navigating the busiest shipping lanes in the world,

to keeping our most congested roads moving during the holiday season.

The summer getaway doesn't just impact on our ports

and waterways though.

Our roads are also out the most congested during the holiday season.

I've got the ambulance crew on their way.

When you go back to your wife, if you would stand next to

the passenger side and talk to her through the window.

That's right, keep talking to her.

She is now breathing.

HE TYPES AS HE SPEAKS: She is breathing.

OK, best of luck, Richard.

There are people whose job it is to keep us safe on the roads.

They don't use flashing blue lights or sirens,

but they still play a vital role in keeping our roads flowing freely.

Britain has over 245,000 miles of motorways and A-roads.

And during August, the south-west is one of the most congested

places on the road network.

From this regional control centre in Bristol,

the Highways Agency monitors almost 900 miles of road network.

We are the control centre

and therefore we liaise with many different people

and organisations and agencies, as well as our own people on the road.

OK, so, it is a coach you are in, yes?

The Agency has seven regional control centres in England,

and they are in constant communication

with around 1,500 traffic officers on the ground.

When we're stranded by the side of the motorway,

we can summon help from our mobile phone or from a roadside telephone.

14 to 13 M5, we've got some debris on the carriageway, over.

If a member of the public was to pick up an emergency roadside

telephone, they would come through to somebody in the control room here.

From here we are able to speak to the police,

if the police are required, or the ambulance,

if an ambulance is required, and equally the fire services.

We can help you arrange your recovery with a recovery agent.

So in picking up an emergency roadside telephone,

you have got access to a whole load of other services

and information that you may require

while broken down or involved in an incident at the side of the road.

It is a Friday afternoon in August.

As lots of us take to the roads on holiday,

this is one of the busiest days of the year for traffic officers

John and Dave, patrolling the M5.

If we weren't here then the impact would be far greater on the other

emergency services, ie the police, to deal with people stuck in traffic.

The hard shoulder is designed to be a safety zone but it's still

a dangerous place to be, as it is next to such fast moving traffic.

My colleague is just going to find out if he's broken down,

what we can do to help him get back on his way again.

Every year in Britain, more than 250 people are killed

or injured on hard shoulders and in lay-bys.

This is a noisy, unfriendly environment.

You don't want to be here any longer than you have to.

With HGVs and fast moving traffic passing just inches away,

the patrol car gives some protection,

as a pregnant woman and her son are taken to a nearby service station.

Got another unit to turn up to take the woman

and child off to the next junction.

I'm now sorting out the breakdown cover.

And hopefully, I won't be here too long!

41, go ahead.

-OK, sir, thanks for your call.

-OK.

You never know what you're going to get. It could be anything.

And we have had all sorts of things to deal with.

Yes, press the green tick.

There's a green tick, keep pressing the green tick.

We had pigs once, a load of pigs that were being taken,

probably taking them to market, I don't know.

Certainly, a farmer was transporting them

and they were in the back of a trailer. The trailer overturned,

the pigs escaped. It was on the M32 and we were trying to round up pigs,

which were going every which way but the way we wanted.

Since starting this job it has changed the way

I drive dramatically.

Seeing what can happen if you drive quickly,

too close to the car in front.

You get to see what happens when it all goes wrong.

The family of those affected.

You can hear me? OK, right, your vehicle is in a lay-by.

I think the best I can bring to it is calm and coolness and confidence,

that I know what I'm talking about, that I can sort their problem out

and get them to a place of safety or home or whatever, and that's it.

Yeah, 31, go ahead. Yes, yes, what type of vehicle is it? Over.

Yeah, can you set a lane divert prior to us getting there, please?

The control centre has taken a call from a family off on holiday

who've broken down at one of the most dangerous places to

stop on the entire road network.

Their car is on the hard shoulder of the Avonmouth Bridge,

an eight lane stretch of fast moving motorway.

It's not a place where you would want to be stranded for very long.

If you can take the family in your vehicle,

I'll pilot the Land Rover and my colleague here will drive us through.

The Highways Agency has a clever way of controlling the flow of traffic.

It's called the Matrix System.

The Matrix System is the system we have that allows us

to set signs that motorists can see as they travel on the network.

At points along the M4 we have sensors on the road that can

detect the flow of traffic at any one time.

At the moment, we are picking up there is some

congestion on the M4 between junctions 18 and 19.

So, as a consequence, we've set some signs

and some signals to advise the approaching traffic

that the speeds are slower in the cars in front,

and therefore they may wish to take a note of advisory speed limits

to slow down, to calm the traffic before it reaches

the very slow moving traffic that's in front of it.

Yes, you've still got matrix set on northbound,

southbound's now been cleared.

Traffic Officer Barry Thomas has asked the control centre

to switch on the matrix system,

so he can get this family and their car off the bridge.

The matrix above should show,

and it does now right on cue, that we've got a lane closure.

That makes it doubly safe for us because the lane closure

means do not enter, so no vehicle should be in that lane.

With the nearside lane closed to traffic,

they can now safely tow the car off the bridge.

Wherever we are on the motorway network,

there is always someone keeping an eye out just in case we need help.

We are watching CCTV and some of our other screens 24 hours a day,

every day of the year.

Nothing says British summertime like amusement parks, donkey rides

and caravan holidays.

With 20 miles of Blue Flag beaches

and home to the first-ever Butlins holiday resort, welcome to Skegness.

The town has a population of 20,000

but during the summer months, that population can increase tenfold.

Sunshine, sand, sea, what more can you ask for?

Amusements!

Donkey rides. Eating, fish and chips, drinking.

-It's got everything!

-Fantastic, it's lovely.

Everything for the young and old.

Yeah, lovely.

We're here during the busiest time of the year for the town,

to see how it copes with the influx of thousands of holiday-makers.

When the schools break up for the holidays,

the traditional thing to do is to head for the seaside.

Young and old come here to enjoy the sun,

the sea and the amusements, but what happens when the good times go bad?

Who picks up the pieces?

This is Skegness and District General Hospital.

A rural community hospital that deals with every minor injury imaginable.

Generally speaking, these are the busiest six weeks of the year for us.

It is a holiday destination.

Located on the Lincolnshire coast, Skegness is 20 miles

from the nearest major hospital, so this is the first stop

for injured or unwell holiday-makers,

and in the summer, it's swamped.

My name's Nick, I'm one of the nurses. How can I help you?

-I've trapped my finger in the door.

-What sort of door? Car door?

-No.

-Ordinary door?

-Yeah, caravan door.

The local population I would guesstimate to be

around about 40,000, but during the summer,

certainly on a bank holiday,

you get an increase of up to 3-400,000 people.

Through the winter, we might see 40 patients a day.

Through the summer holidays, that's going to be at over 100.

-Why are you here?

-My foot.

Wow, what happened to it?

I stood on a bit of glass?

Yes. Glass?

We have two doctors on as well through the summer.

The winter we just have the one,

so it is quite full-on through the summer for everyone.

Just excuse me a moment.

Hello, Skegness Urgent Care.

PHONE RINGS

Where were you staying? At Butlins. What was your chalet number?

A lady's come in who fell off some attic steps

and fell down 14 stairs and hit her head on a radiator.

I went round to my next-door neighbour's

and said, "Do you think I ought to go to hospital?" She said yes.

I weren't even going to bother coming. They're so busy, aren't they?

We're going to get an X-ray just to check she hasn't broken her neck

because sometimes you can walk around with a broken neck

and you feel fine and you just turn and...it's pretty bad.

On the roads of Skegness, there are two ambulances,

one of which is a mobile trauma unit.

Part of Paul Bramwell's job is to help take

the pressure off the community hospital during the busy season.

I got to a holiday camp just several miles up the road

and when I got here, there was two or three people waiting for me

and they were all injuries that were sustained yesterday

but were wondering about going to hospital today..

In the ambulance today, I've hitched a lift with Dave Williams

and Lisa Riesen to experience their day-to-day work

on the streets of Skegness.

I am surprised to tell you, thinking about it,

that this is the first time I've been inside an ambulance,

and I'm pleased that it's in this capacity as well!

Control, 7111, proceed priority outside HSBC Bank, Lumley Road, Skegness.

Reports of a 66-year-old female fallen.

Where are they, Dave?

Just down the main shopping street to the left.

How does the process work from the moment you get the call?

From the moment the call goes in to our control room,

the system automatically finds the nearest available vehicle

and allocates the job to that vehicle,

so before anybody's even spoken to the person that's ringing 999,

we're already mobile.

SIREN

Over here.

Can you move that all right?

Super! Anywhere else? Any other aches and pains?

My face and my knee. This knee.

Oh, aye. That's going to be bruised and quite sore.

She's quite shaken and she's hurt her knee and her shoulder.

From what I can overhear so far, Dave is quite positive.

I don't think it's anything too serious.

We'll probably up to the hospital just so they can have a quick look.

Watch how you go just here.

It's a little bit rough just here. That's it. Good girl.

As we head back to hospital, the waiting room is getting busier.

What's happened?

My fishing pole broke and it was made of carbon fibre.

-He's bust two fingers wide open.

-OK.

Nick Brumpton, one of the nurses, is examining a boy

who trapped his finger in the door of a caravan.

Ow!

'David. What a character!'

-Do you have to do it so tight?

-It's not tight.

He turned out to be quite fortunate in the end.

He didn't break any of the bones. He'll have a bit of a sore thumb

for a few days then shrug it off, I'm sure.

Look after yourself.

-Yeah.

-Goodbye.

-See you.

Relax your foot for us.

Just going to give it a little squeeze, all right, sweetheart.

Just going to squeeze it slightly.

SHE SOBS

Sorry, darling. I won't do any more if that's sore.

That's all done. There is no glass or metal foreign body,

there is no need for us to dig in and take the foreign body out.

Most will come out anyway.

Everywhere, junior doctor Chris Larry examined Paula Hill

after she fell down the stairs.

He X-rayed her shoulder but needs further advice from the radiologist

at the neighbouring hospital.

No fracture. Brilliant. Thanks very much. Bye.

Paula? I've come to release you from your prison.

Yes, it's normal, there's no fracture.

Thank you! Goodbye!

As night falls in Skegness, many of the thousands of holiday-makers

who took to the beach now fill the night clubs and pubs.

The kind of incidents that Dave and Lisa have to deal with after dark

are often very different to those they face during the day.

Ay up, mate.

They are called to a nightclub in the centre of town

where two men have been fighting.

The police have been called and the men have been separated

so Dave and Lisa can see to their injuries.

During the summer months, incidents of antisocial behaviour go up.

Dave's patience goes down.

My tolerance is quite low for pissed people.

But we all do it, we all like a drink occasionally.

I try not to judge.

His injuries are not something the local community hospital can deal with.

Dave will need to take him to a larger hospital out of town.

We are off to the Pilgrim Hospital.

This gentleman is going to need some X-rays on his ankle

and probably on the bones in his face.

A 22 mile journey. That'll maybe let him sober up a wee bit.

By the end of the summer season,

the Skegness Community Hospital has treated over 7,000 patients.

40% of them were here on holiday.

Tourists, bless 'em.

The world's made up with lots of different sorts of people

and they all come through here.