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'The area forecast for the next 24 hours. | 0:00:02 | 0:00:04 | |
'Viking - westerly six to gale eight backing south-westerly four or five, occasionally six later. | 0:00:04 | 0:00:10 | |
'Rain or showers, good. | 0:00:10 | 0:00:12 | |
'North at zero, south at zero, Forties, Cromarty Forth, Tyne, Dogger, Fisher, German Bight. | 0:00:12 | 0:00:19 | |
'Westerly backing south-westerly, 5 to 7...' | 0:00:19 | 0:00:22 | |
On a small stretch of shingle on Suffolk's North Sea coast, | 0:00:22 | 0:00:26 | |
a handful of people have gathered. | 0:00:26 | 0:00:28 | |
It's a pilgrimage of sorts. | 0:00:28 | 0:00:32 | |
A line of cars, | 0:00:32 | 0:00:33 | |
a scattering of cameras, binoculars and notebooks. | 0:00:33 | 0:00:39 | |
These are the ship-spotters. | 0:00:39 | 0:00:41 | |
Most days, it's chock-a-block with people coming down. | 0:00:43 | 0:00:47 | |
Photographers take an interest, people listen to ships. | 0:00:47 | 0:00:50 | |
That is a new ship. It's just a fascination of the ships, where they come from, what they carry, | 0:00:52 | 0:00:59 | |
where they're going next... | 0:00:59 | 0:01:01 | |
I like to come and watch the container ships because they are... | 0:01:01 | 0:01:07 | |
big! | 0:01:07 | 0:01:09 | |
They ARE big. | 0:01:11 | 0:01:13 | |
Larger than any battleship or passenger liner, | 0:01:13 | 0:01:17 | |
container ships are some of the greatest moving structures ever made by man. | 0:01:17 | 0:01:22 | |
They are built to carry as many as 14,000 containers of cargo. | 0:01:23 | 0:01:28 | |
Boxes that have changed our world. | 0:01:31 | 0:01:34 | |
You try and guess amongst yourselves what's actually in each box. | 0:01:36 | 0:01:39 | |
It could be paper, it could be ornaments, it could be food. | 0:01:39 | 0:01:44 | |
The interest just goes on and on and on and on. | 0:01:44 | 0:01:46 | |
These daily deliveries sustain our modern lives. | 0:01:48 | 0:01:51 | |
Yet the boxes have been arriving at our shores for little more than 40 years. | 0:01:51 | 0:01:57 | |
The shipping container turbo-charged world trade | 0:02:06 | 0:02:09 | |
and kick-started the modern age of consumerism, | 0:02:09 | 0:02:12 | |
bringing value, choice and luxury beyond our wildest dreams. | 0:02:12 | 0:02:18 | |
It has changed the face of industry and altered our communities and coastlines forever. | 0:02:20 | 0:02:26 | |
This is the story of how a simple metal box has transformed our lives. | 0:02:28 | 0:02:34 | |
The British have always looked out to sea. | 0:02:44 | 0:02:46 | |
It's at the heart of our identity and our culture. | 0:02:48 | 0:02:51 | |
In the days of the Empire, it was also the provider of our prosperity. | 0:02:52 | 0:02:57 | |
At the turn of the 20th Century, Britain was the maritime power in the world. | 0:03:00 | 0:03:05 | |
Britain had 50% of the world tonnage | 0:03:05 | 0:03:09 | |
and carried 60% of ocean-going cargo. | 0:03:09 | 0:03:12 | |
-ON FILM: -'The city of ships is the heart of our trade. | 0:03:17 | 0:03:19 | |
'The dock roads and railways its arteries, | 0:03:19 | 0:03:22 | |
'which circulate our vital commerce to and from every corner of Britain. | 0:03:22 | 0:03:26 | |
'500 million pounds weight of tea. | 0:03:26 | 0:03:29 | |
'Wool for the baby's jacket. | 0:03:29 | 0:03:30 | |
'Bananas for small boys. | 0:03:30 | 0:03:32 | |
'Saturday's picnic or maybe the monkeys at the zoo.' | 0:03:32 | 0:03:35 | |
Before the invention of the shipping container, the millions of tonnes of cargo arriving in Britain | 0:03:37 | 0:03:43 | |
were unloaded by hand. | 0:03:43 | 0:03:45 | |
It could take weeks for dockers to move one ship's load of cargo. | 0:03:45 | 0:03:50 | |
In Liverpool, as many as 50 would be in port at one time. | 0:03:50 | 0:03:54 | |
In them days, you're talking a hundred people working on it. | 0:03:57 | 0:04:00 | |
You've had six gangs of men, you've got 18 men in a gang | 0:04:00 | 0:04:04 | |
and then you had the shore gang, the carpenters, | 0:04:04 | 0:04:07 | |
the office staff, the plan men, checking.. | 0:04:07 | 0:04:10 | |
all being in involved in one ship, | 0:04:10 | 0:04:12 | |
more or less floating factories coming into the port. | 0:04:12 | 0:04:15 | |
The whole port area would be thousands of people. | 0:04:15 | 0:04:19 | |
In the 1960s, Britain's biggest docks - Liverpool and London - | 0:04:31 | 0:04:35 | |
were still major world ports. | 0:04:35 | 0:04:38 | |
But their international standing was fast coming under threat. | 0:04:38 | 0:04:43 | |
For while ports in America and Europe were adopting new technology, | 0:04:43 | 0:04:48 | |
Britain's had seen little investment since the Second World War. | 0:04:48 | 0:04:52 | |
Here, dock workers relied on rather more traditional equipment. | 0:04:52 | 0:04:58 | |
Well, you've seen it, haven't you? Curvy thing with a big handle on. | 0:04:58 | 0:05:02 | |
That hook was your help. | 0:05:02 | 0:05:04 | |
You'd be lost without it. | 0:05:04 | 0:05:06 | |
You'd be putting your fingers into a bag trying to lift it up, you know? | 0:05:06 | 0:05:09 | |
Dock work was a family affair and older practises were passed down the generations, like hooks. | 0:05:11 | 0:05:18 | |
This is actually me granddad's one. | 0:05:20 | 0:05:21 | |
Because me dad was still working in there, I couldn't have his one. | 0:05:21 | 0:05:25 | |
They always used to carry them about and get on buses and trains. | 0:05:25 | 0:05:28 | |
Whereas it might be called a dangerous object now | 0:05:28 | 0:05:31 | |
so they might not let you walk about with them. | 0:05:31 | 0:05:34 | |
This antiquated way of working was slow, labour intensive and tough. | 0:05:39 | 0:05:45 | |
Very, very hard. | 0:05:45 | 0:05:46 | |
Physically very hard. I mean, I can remember the first time I got home | 0:05:46 | 0:05:52 | |
and I worked on the West India Dock then, | 0:05:52 | 0:05:54 | |
and I'd been working on bags of sugar, | 0:05:54 | 0:05:57 | |
and I got home and me dinner was put in front of me | 0:05:57 | 0:06:00 | |
and I fell asleep on the table | 0:06:00 | 0:06:02 | |
and it was as simple as that. | 0:06:02 | 0:06:05 | |
The worst loads? | 0:06:05 | 0:06:07 | |
The bird's mess, so to speak, and it's used as a fertilizer. | 0:06:07 | 0:06:11 | |
And the smell was unbelievable. So if you was on that, you didn't get a bus home or that, you walked, basically. | 0:06:11 | 0:06:19 | |
You go home stinking. | 0:06:20 | 0:06:22 | |
No, you've go the right word. We've got nowhere, you've got one little lavatory up there, you go in there, | 0:06:22 | 0:06:27 | |
there's no soap, there's no towel, there's nothing to use at all. | 0:06:27 | 0:06:31 | |
When it's pouring rain you stand there all day long | 0:06:31 | 0:06:34 | |
and you work hard and what do you get for it? Nothing. | 0:06:34 | 0:06:38 | |
The hard work and poor conditions took their toll. | 0:06:40 | 0:06:43 | |
Dockers' life expectancy was among the shortest in the country. | 0:06:43 | 0:06:47 | |
Sickness and accidents slowed work even further | 0:06:47 | 0:06:51 | |
and built deep resentment between dockers and their employers. | 0:06:51 | 0:06:55 | |
They were young men and they were old | 0:06:55 | 0:06:57 | |
because of the effects that this had on their health. | 0:06:57 | 0:07:01 | |
You know, rheumatism, | 0:07:01 | 0:07:03 | |
arthritis, lung infections, asbestos | 0:07:03 | 0:07:08 | |
and all this sort of thing. | 0:07:08 | 0:07:11 | |
These poor conditions helped turn Britain's 130,000 dockers | 0:07:11 | 0:07:16 | |
into one of the most unionized workforces in the world. | 0:07:16 | 0:07:20 | |
But their jobs remained unpredictable and insecure, | 0:07:20 | 0:07:25 | |
exacerbating their grievances. | 0:07:25 | 0:07:28 | |
Each morning, employers waited inside the dock gates. | 0:07:28 | 0:07:32 | |
They lined up for the so-called free call to select workers. | 0:07:32 | 0:07:36 | |
The men paraded themselves for hire. | 0:07:36 | 0:07:38 | |
It was called the cattle market. | 0:07:38 | 0:07:41 | |
The young, the brawny, usually had no difficulty in getting a job. | 0:07:41 | 0:07:44 | |
If there was no work, they received a fall-back wage of £9 a week, | 0:07:47 | 0:07:51 | |
but few knew if they would make £9 or £20 in a week. | 0:07:51 | 0:07:55 | |
Your fathers fought for work. | 0:07:55 | 0:07:58 | |
Your mum didn't know whether that week she'd be borrowing money or lending it. | 0:07:58 | 0:08:03 | |
By the 1960s, revolution was in the air. | 0:08:06 | 0:08:09 | |
Relations between the dockers and their employers had hit rock bottom and frequent strikes and stoppages | 0:08:09 | 0:08:15 | |
brought Britain's ports to a standstill. | 0:08:15 | 0:08:18 | |
The cocktail of industrial deadlock and crumbling infrastructure | 0:08:18 | 0:08:22 | |
was now earning Britain's once-great ports a new reputation | 0:08:22 | 0:08:26 | |
for being the slowest in the modern world. | 0:08:26 | 0:08:29 | |
But the stalemate was about to be broken by a box from across the sea. | 0:08:29 | 0:08:35 | |
The era of modern containerization began with Malcolm McLean who was a | 0:08:40 | 0:08:44 | |
trucker from North Carolina | 0:08:44 | 0:08:46 | |
who'd made a fortune with McLean Trucking Company, | 0:08:46 | 0:08:50 | |
a company he founded in the Depression | 0:08:50 | 0:08:52 | |
and built up into one of the largest motor carriers in the country. | 0:08:52 | 0:08:56 | |
In post-war America, dockers called "longshoremen" also lifted cargo piece by piece. | 0:08:58 | 0:09:05 | |
Known as handball or break-bulk cargo, this slow process frustrated trucker Malcolm McLean. | 0:09:05 | 0:09:13 | |
One long autumn day in 1937, he had an idea that would change the world. | 0:09:13 | 0:09:21 | |
Malcolm had driven from North Carolina | 0:09:29 | 0:09:33 | |
to Hoboken, New Jersey right over here. | 0:09:33 | 0:09:36 | |
And he had to sit all day in his truck, | 0:09:36 | 0:09:40 | |
watching, waiting for the longshoremen | 0:09:40 | 0:09:42 | |
to get around to unload his cotton. | 0:09:42 | 0:09:45 | |
There was maybe 40 bales... | 0:09:47 | 0:09:50 | |
of cotton. | 0:09:50 | 0:09:52 | |
40 bales of cotton yarn. | 0:09:52 | 0:09:54 | |
And they weighed about 400 or 500 pounds a bale, | 0:09:56 | 0:09:59 | |
and I rolled 'em off one by one, and they picked it up with a hook and put it on the ship. | 0:09:59 | 0:10:04 | |
I said to myself, "Why don't we put that whole thing on the truck?" That was my first thought. | 0:10:07 | 0:10:12 | |
I just... | 0:10:12 | 0:10:14 | |
knew that if you picked it up 40 bales at once, | 0:10:14 | 0:10:17 | |
it would be a lot cheaper than picking it up one at a time. | 0:10:17 | 0:10:20 | |
HE CHUCKLES | 0:10:20 | 0:10:22 | |
Over the next 15 years, Malcolm McLean grew his family trucking business | 0:10:23 | 0:10:29 | |
into one of the biggest in the country. | 0:10:29 | 0:10:32 | |
But his ambition was to work out a way of getting a whole truck's cargo onto a ship in one go. | 0:10:32 | 0:10:38 | |
Malcolm knew what he wanted to do with the container. | 0:10:40 | 0:10:44 | |
He didn't know how the heck to get it on the ship, how to lock it on the ship, | 0:10:44 | 0:10:48 | |
how to handle it on and off the chassis. | 0:10:48 | 0:10:50 | |
After a number of failed designs, the breakthrough came in 1955 | 0:10:57 | 0:11:01 | |
when he began to work with an engineer called Keith Tatlinger. | 0:11:01 | 0:11:05 | |
Together, they drew up the blueprint for what would become the modern shipping container. | 0:11:05 | 0:11:10 | |
It's simplicity is its genius. | 0:11:13 | 0:11:16 | |
A corrugated steel box, | 0:11:16 | 0:11:18 | |
around eight foot wide, and eight foot tall. | 0:11:18 | 0:11:21 | |
Today, it comes in two main sizes - 40 foot | 0:11:21 | 0:11:25 | |
and 20 foot. | 0:11:25 | 0:11:28 | |
The walls are just 25mm thick, | 0:11:28 | 0:11:31 | |
yet the box can carry upwards of 25,000 kilograms of cargo. | 0:11:31 | 0:11:37 | |
That's the equivalent of 22 Mini Coopers. | 0:11:37 | 0:11:42 | |
The container is lifted using a twist-lock system | 0:11:42 | 0:11:45 | |
that allows the crane to grip and release the box securely and quickly | 0:11:45 | 0:11:49 | |
from its four corners. | 0:11:49 | 0:11:51 | |
It's kind of amazing to me | 0:11:53 | 0:11:56 | |
to look at all these boxes here | 0:11:56 | 0:11:59 | |
and these were all designed by Keith Tatlinger back in 1956 | 0:11:59 | 0:12:02 | |
and they had patents for all of these and he convinced Malcolm McLean to give the patents to the industry, | 0:12:02 | 0:12:09 | |
so that meant everybody could come in the thing with the same twist-locks, same corner posts | 0:12:09 | 0:12:14 | |
and it was an amazing system. | 0:12:14 | 0:12:17 | |
By giving up his patents, McLean made it easier for rivals | 0:12:29 | 0:12:32 | |
to copy his design than to develop their own ones. | 0:12:32 | 0:12:36 | |
This encouraged standardization, meaning that today any container | 0:12:36 | 0:12:39 | |
can be handled at any of the world's major ports without any problems of compatibility. | 0:12:39 | 0:12:46 | |
In April 1956, the first of these containers was lifted onto the deck | 0:12:48 | 0:12:54 | |
of a modified World War II aero tanker called the Ideal X. | 0:12:54 | 0:13:01 | |
The service would quickly assume the name of McLean's original concept - | 0:13:01 | 0:13:06 | |
Sea...Land. | 0:13:06 | 0:13:09 | |
The Ideal X ran from Port Newark with 58 containers to Houston | 0:13:09 | 0:13:17 | |
in the first trial run and that was the start of cellular container ships. | 0:13:17 | 0:13:21 | |
MUSIC: "Somewhere Beyond The Sea" by Bobby Darin | 0:13:21 | 0:13:24 | |
# Somewhere beyond the sea | 0:13:28 | 0:13:33 | |
# Somewhere... # | 0:13:33 | 0:13:34 | |
The Sea-Land service went from strength to strength. | 0:13:34 | 0:13:37 | |
By the mid-1960s, Malcolm McLean's container ships had become so popular | 0:13:37 | 0:13:42 | |
that many other shipping lines had begun to offer services of their own. | 0:13:42 | 0:13:47 | |
Dedicated container terminals were springing up around America. | 0:13:49 | 0:13:53 | |
The next step was to take on the Atlantic. | 0:13:53 | 0:13:56 | |
The customers who used us in domestic | 0:13:58 | 0:14:01 | |
and realised what the savings were were waiting for us to go to Europe. | 0:14:01 | 0:14:06 | |
So, the first ships that we put out to Europe were over-booked the very first week. | 0:14:06 | 0:14:11 | |
In 1966, Sea-Land unveiled a fleet of trans-Atlantic all-container ships. | 0:14:11 | 0:14:17 | |
The first would leave New Jersey fully loaded, but in order to make a profit, | 0:14:17 | 0:14:23 | |
Sea-Land would have to find customers in Europe | 0:14:23 | 0:14:26 | |
willing to take a leap of faith into the containerized world. | 0:14:26 | 0:14:30 | |
The first European port of call was Rotterdam. | 0:14:31 | 0:14:35 | |
The ship later went to Bremen, Germany and on the way back, | 0:14:35 | 0:14:38 | |
stopped in Grangemouth in Scotland to pick up, among other things, whisky. | 0:14:38 | 0:14:44 | |
# Oh, whisky is the life of man | 0:14:44 | 0:14:47 | |
# Whisky | 0:14:47 | 0:14:48 | |
# Oh, I'll get whisky where I... # | 0:14:48 | 0:14:52 | |
In the days before the shipping container, scotch importers were | 0:14:52 | 0:14:56 | |
accustomed to losing up to a third of their shipments in transit. | 0:14:56 | 0:14:59 | |
Carried in wooden crates, the glass bottles were easily broken, | 0:15:01 | 0:15:06 | |
often on purpose by thirsty dockers. | 0:15:06 | 0:15:09 | |
Don't mention whisky! | 0:15:09 | 0:15:11 | |
Don't mention whisky! We loaded a lot of whisky. | 0:15:11 | 0:15:15 | |
And drank a lot of whisky. | 0:15:15 | 0:15:17 | |
You can imagine when they're knocking off at seven o'clock, | 0:15:17 | 0:15:20 | |
everyone's got a smile on their face, yeah. Very good. | 0:15:20 | 0:15:24 | |
The shipping container cut theft and breakages, | 0:15:29 | 0:15:32 | |
slashing insurance premiums, sometimes by as much as 90%. | 0:15:32 | 0:15:37 | |
It allowed whisky to be shipped in cheap thin cardboard boxes instead of expensive sturdy crates | 0:15:37 | 0:15:45 | |
and it could be loaded in a fraction of the time. | 0:15:45 | 0:15:48 | |
For the industry, it was one major step change in the whole business. | 0:15:48 | 0:15:55 | |
You've one lift, your container's off and you've got 20 tons of whisky | 0:15:55 | 0:15:58 | |
onto a vessel, whereas before, you'd probably have about maybe | 0:15:58 | 0:16:02 | |
30 dockers involved to get that same 20 ton on. | 0:16:02 | 0:16:05 | |
You've one man doing it now, so a huge cost saving. | 0:16:05 | 0:16:08 | |
When the first box loads of whisky arrived in America 100% intact, the container doubters were won over. | 0:16:10 | 0:16:18 | |
They can be stubborn until price comes along and then they're | 0:16:20 | 0:16:23 | |
the most cooperative people in the world. | 0:16:23 | 0:16:27 | |
They got a better price. | 0:16:27 | 0:16:29 | |
While whisky distillers set about making their factories container-ready, | 0:16:29 | 0:16:33 | |
shipping agents were employed by the American container lines to spread the word and convert the masses. | 0:16:33 | 0:16:40 | |
Premises were a bit antiquated so we had to educate them | 0:16:40 | 0:16:44 | |
on how to load containers. | 0:16:44 | 0:16:47 | |
They had to knock walls down | 0:16:47 | 0:16:48 | |
and put in loading bays to be able to load them. | 0:16:48 | 0:16:51 | |
So yes, it was a very interesting time. | 0:16:51 | 0:16:53 | |
The container revolution had arrived in Britain. | 0:16:56 | 0:16:59 | |
It was extremely exciting because we had something new. | 0:16:59 | 0:17:03 | |
It must have been like going from sail to steam. | 0:17:03 | 0:17:05 | |
Ships were in port for hours instead of days. | 0:17:05 | 0:17:08 | |
Big difference. | 0:17:08 | 0:17:10 | |
For sailors used to long periods in port while they waited for their cargo to be loaded, | 0:17:10 | 0:17:15 | |
it was a rude awakening. | 0:17:15 | 0:17:18 | |
Our peaceful existence suddenly changed. It was all go. | 0:17:20 | 0:17:24 | |
And whereas before it was, "Shall we have a game of golf?" | 0:17:24 | 0:17:27 | |
it became, "Have we got time to go ashore for lunch?" | 0:17:27 | 0:17:30 | |
They were marvellous ships to drive, they were very manoeuvrable and fast | 0:17:31 | 0:17:37 | |
and I think most of us eventually grew to love them. | 0:17:37 | 0:17:40 | |
They were ugly damn things. | 0:17:40 | 0:17:42 | |
You cannot say a container ship is any way a pretty object. | 0:17:42 | 0:17:47 | |
Ports interested in bringing these new container ships in needed two things, | 0:17:49 | 0:17:54 | |
open space and open minds. | 0:17:54 | 0:17:57 | |
Liverpool and London's docks offered neither. | 0:17:57 | 0:18:01 | |
Crammed in the centre of busy cities and hamstrung by poor labour relations, | 0:18:01 | 0:18:06 | |
they were not attractive to the new container lines. | 0:18:06 | 0:18:09 | |
Instead, Malcolm McLean chose to base his British operations elsewhere - | 0:18:09 | 0:18:14 | |
in a little known port called Felixstowe. | 0:18:14 | 0:18:18 | |
This berth two years ago was no more than a strip of shingle. | 0:18:23 | 0:18:26 | |
Now it's the port of the future. | 0:18:26 | 0:18:28 | |
It uses modern machines, gives its dockers security and makes money. | 0:18:28 | 0:18:33 | |
Ten years ago, their headquarters | 0:18:33 | 0:18:35 | |
was this quaint little clap-board building. | 0:18:35 | 0:18:38 | |
Today, the company has an impressive new office block. | 0:18:38 | 0:18:41 | |
Felixstowe has become one of the most successful independent ports in the country. | 0:18:41 | 0:18:46 | |
Felixstowe's rural location didn't worry Malcolm McLean. | 0:18:48 | 0:18:52 | |
He knew that he could unload five ships' worth of cargo in containers | 0:18:52 | 0:18:56 | |
and drive them all the way from Felixstowe to Liverpool | 0:18:56 | 0:18:59 | |
in less time than the Merseyside dockers would take to unload one ship. | 0:18:59 | 0:19:05 | |
Felixstowe's proximity to the main shipping lines was the important thing. | 0:19:06 | 0:19:10 | |
Roads and railways would do the rest. | 0:19:10 | 0:19:14 | |
The local workers, drawn mostly from surrounding farms, were glad of the work brought by the containers, | 0:19:20 | 0:19:26 | |
and their employers rewarded them well for their enthusiasm. | 0:19:26 | 0:19:31 | |
Here at Felixstowe, the dockers proudly tell you that they've never had a strike. | 0:19:31 | 0:19:35 | |
A recent productivity deal negotiated directly with the company | 0:19:35 | 0:19:39 | |
gave them a minimum weekly wage of £21 ten shillings | 0:19:39 | 0:19:43 | |
but most of the 400-odd ship workers, as they prefer to be known, | 0:19:43 | 0:19:48 | |
take home between £40 and £50. | 0:19:48 | 0:19:50 | |
In Liverpool and London, it was a different story. | 0:19:58 | 0:20:00 | |
The dockers were reluctant to accept containers. | 0:20:00 | 0:20:04 | |
But as they watched their cargo begin to flow to Felixstowe, they had no choice but to concede. | 0:20:04 | 0:20:11 | |
They weren't happy to handle them, but they had to handle them | 0:20:12 | 0:20:16 | |
because it was their work, it was cargo, | 0:20:16 | 0:20:20 | |
but you done it with a bit of a heavy heart. | 0:20:20 | 0:20:23 | |
The unions turned their focus to negotiating for better pay and conditions | 0:20:26 | 0:20:30 | |
in return for handling containers. | 0:20:30 | 0:20:33 | |
Dockers are not Luddite-minded. We welcome machinery | 0:20:34 | 0:20:38 | |
but in having machinery, we want the benefit to man of a shorter working day | 0:20:38 | 0:20:45 | |
and not at the cost of a reduction in labour. | 0:20:45 | 0:20:48 | |
As usual, the more profit made | 0:20:48 | 0:20:50 | |
wasn't put down to the workers, | 0:20:50 | 0:20:52 | |
it was put down to other people. | 0:20:52 | 0:20:54 | |
As regards an easier job, all they done was extend your hours anyway. | 0:20:56 | 0:21:00 | |
So it was never any better for the people working down there in the end. | 0:21:00 | 0:21:04 | |
Those men who did make the transition | 0:21:04 | 0:21:06 | |
found the atmosphere in the container terminals was very different | 0:21:06 | 0:21:10 | |
to the one they had been used to. | 0:21:10 | 0:21:12 | |
It was a lot different. | 0:21:12 | 0:21:14 | |
Basically, you're on your own up a crane for X amount of time, loading, discharging, what have you. | 0:21:14 | 0:21:21 | |
So, all the... | 0:21:21 | 0:21:23 | |
fun, if you want to call it, | 0:21:23 | 0:21:24 | |
had gone out of the job in that time. | 0:21:24 | 0:21:27 | |
Industrial action continued for many years. | 0:21:34 | 0:21:37 | |
Containers were routinely "blacked", meaning that they would not be moved | 0:21:37 | 0:21:42 | |
by dockers in dispute with their bosses. | 0:21:42 | 0:21:44 | |
When a group of men say that container is staying there, in them days, it stayed there. | 0:21:44 | 0:21:50 | |
It wasn't going anywhere. | 0:21:50 | 0:21:52 | |
The dockers of Hull have been blacking cargos from two of the area's | 0:21:52 | 0:21:56 | |
30 container companies for the past eight days. | 0:21:56 | 0:21:59 | |
It's no longer a case of wildcat strikes making news. | 0:21:59 | 0:22:03 | |
If a few days go by without a stoppage of some sort, then that's an event worthy of comment. | 0:22:03 | 0:22:08 | |
Desperate to reduce costs and keep their freight moving, cargo companies began to think | 0:22:10 | 0:22:16 | |
"outside the box", setting up new container depots inland where non-unionised men could work. | 0:22:16 | 0:22:23 | |
This provoked a furious response and the conflict came to head | 0:22:23 | 0:22:28 | |
in the autumn of 1972, when dockers picketed the new depots. | 0:22:28 | 0:22:32 | |
Shop Steward Vic Turner was among their leaders. | 0:22:32 | 0:22:36 | |
The picket was about | 0:22:36 | 0:22:39 | |
stopping the inland container ports doing our work. | 0:22:39 | 0:22:44 | |
But the men working inside called on the police to intervene. | 0:22:45 | 0:22:49 | |
Five weeks ago, these dockers come down here and said that this was their work. | 0:22:49 | 0:22:54 | |
This firm has been open three-and-a-half years. | 0:22:54 | 0:22:57 | |
Feelings here in the new look dockland or "containerland" as some people call it | 0:22:57 | 0:23:02 | |
are that a new chapter in the long history of British trade unionism may soon be written here. | 0:23:02 | 0:23:08 | |
As the picketing intensified, Vic Turner and four other | 0:23:10 | 0:23:14 | |
shop stewards were arrested and taken to Pentonville Prison. | 0:23:14 | 0:23:17 | |
Outside, an angry mob of dockers demanded their release | 0:23:22 | 0:23:26 | |
and called on the support of every worker in the country. | 0:23:26 | 0:23:29 | |
We are recommending that a complete withdrawal of labour | 0:23:29 | 0:23:34 | |
to commence at 9 o'clock tonight | 0:23:34 | 0:23:37 | |
until all proceedings are dropped | 0:23:37 | 0:23:40 | |
against dock workers protecting his living. | 0:23:40 | 0:23:45 | |
With support growing across the country, Britain was on the brink of shutdown. | 0:23:47 | 0:23:52 | |
It was going to turn into a national strike if | 0:23:55 | 0:23:57 | |
them men hadn't been released and the government of the day took it to | 0:23:57 | 0:24:02 | |
the wire and eventually, they could see what was going to happen and the next minute, the men were released. | 0:24:02 | 0:24:09 | |
Behind the scenes, an obscure act of Parliament was invoked | 0:24:11 | 0:24:16 | |
to speed their release and the men walked free to a heroes' reception. | 0:24:16 | 0:24:21 | |
This was a rare victory won in a 30-year fight to stop men being replaced by metal boxes. | 0:24:28 | 0:24:35 | |
But it was a war they were destined to lose. | 0:24:40 | 0:24:43 | |
One by one, London's docklands were closed. | 0:24:46 | 0:24:51 | |
London, King George, Albert, | 0:24:51 | 0:24:57 | |
Victoria, East India, | 0:24:57 | 0:25:00 | |
West India, | 0:25:00 | 0:25:02 | |
Tobacco, | 0:25:02 | 0:25:04 | |
Regent's, | 0:25:04 | 0:25:05 | |
Surrey, | 0:25:05 | 0:25:07 | |
St Katharine, Millwall. | 0:25:07 | 0:25:11 | |
It's like seeing your best friend die. | 0:25:16 | 0:25:19 | |
My last day...in 1984... | 0:25:22 | 0:25:29 | |
My last day. | 0:25:32 | 0:25:34 | |
My last time on the dock. | 0:25:34 | 0:25:36 | |
I woke up the next morning and... | 0:25:37 | 0:25:39 | |
..I looked at me hook behind the door and I thought, | 0:25:41 | 0:25:45 | |
you're redundant, that hook. | 0:25:45 | 0:25:47 | |
CHANTING | 0:25:51 | 0:25:54 | |
Liverpool's docks survived. | 0:25:55 | 0:25:58 | |
But they went through a painful transition to containerization. | 0:25:58 | 0:26:02 | |
In 1995, a dispute on overtime turned into Britain's last major dock strike. | 0:26:03 | 0:26:10 | |
This time, however, the dockers were not supported by their trade union | 0:26:12 | 0:26:18 | |
and Mersey Ports simply sacked them. | 0:26:18 | 0:26:21 | |
Everyone that was locked out, | 0:26:24 | 0:26:27 | |
that was it. For two-and-a-half years on a picket line and we never went back to work down there. | 0:26:27 | 0:26:32 | |
On that spring day in 1966, when the first container ship | 0:26:35 | 0:26:39 | |
arrived at our shores, there were 129,000 dockers in Britain. | 0:26:39 | 0:26:46 | |
30 years later, on the day the Liverpool dockers gave up their fight, just 11,000 remained. | 0:26:46 | 0:26:53 | |
The dockers may have gone from the docklands but the cargo hasn't. | 0:27:04 | 0:27:09 | |
Felixstowe moved over 27 million tonnes of cargo last year, | 0:27:09 | 0:27:14 | |
about 40% of Britain's total container freight. | 0:27:14 | 0:27:18 | |
The ships docking here today are so laden with boxes that they have to | 0:27:23 | 0:27:27 | |
be guided into port by specialists who know the local waters. | 0:27:27 | 0:27:31 | |
I'm a marine pilot | 0:27:34 | 0:27:35 | |
and my job is to bring the ships | 0:27:35 | 0:27:39 | |
either from the sea into port safely | 0:27:39 | 0:27:42 | |
or take them out from the berth to the pilot station. | 0:27:42 | 0:27:47 | |
These ships are so deep that ports around the world have had | 0:27:48 | 0:27:52 | |
to dredge channels to make estuaries big enough for them to come in. | 0:27:52 | 0:27:57 | |
Basically, we navigate in a ditch. | 0:27:57 | 0:28:00 | |
It's a man-made ditch, and we drive these things through a ditch. | 0:28:01 | 0:28:06 | |
-Cheers! -OK, Bob. Have a good one. | 0:28:10 | 0:28:13 | |
-See you. -Cheers. | 0:28:13 | 0:28:15 | |
This ship is one of more than 4,500 vessels carrying upwards | 0:28:22 | 0:28:27 | |
of 10 million containers around the globe each year. | 0:28:27 | 0:28:31 | |
As the number of boxes has increased, | 0:28:33 | 0:28:36 | |
shipping companies like Maersk have built bigger and bigger boats. | 0:28:36 | 0:28:41 | |
Boats that, in the last decade, have more than doubled in size, | 0:28:41 | 0:28:47 | |
to the delight of ship-spotters. | 0:28:47 | 0:28:50 | |
This is the Emma Maersk. | 0:28:50 | 0:28:52 | |
This is one of the largest container ships in the world | 0:28:52 | 0:28:56 | |
and as far as I know, it still is the largest ship. | 0:28:56 | 0:28:59 | |
If you imagine a 400-metre athletics track | 0:28:59 | 0:29:01 | |
stretched out longways, it'll give you some idea of the size and scale. | 0:29:01 | 0:29:07 | |
I like how many containers they have. | 0:29:07 | 0:29:11 | |
But the ships are now so big, they are reaching technical and physical limits. | 0:29:11 | 0:29:16 | |
A 5,000 TEU ship, | 0:29:16 | 0:29:17 | |
built to carry 5,000 20ft containers, won't fit through the Panama Canal. | 0:29:17 | 0:29:25 | |
The biggest container ships are more than twice that size | 0:29:27 | 0:29:31 | |
and there are plans for a new class of vessel almost double the size again. | 0:29:31 | 0:29:36 | |
The next major constraint might be the Straits Of Malacca off Singapore. | 0:29:39 | 0:29:43 | |
It's estimated that maybe a 22,000 TEU ship would be the maximum | 0:29:43 | 0:29:48 | |
that would fit through the Straits Of Malacca. | 0:29:48 | 0:29:50 | |
I think history has taught us that it's a very dangerous game | 0:29:50 | 0:29:54 | |
to predict how big container ships might get. | 0:29:54 | 0:29:57 | |
With so many boxes on board these ships, | 0:30:00 | 0:30:04 | |
their tiny 13-strong crews can have no idea what they contain. | 0:30:04 | 0:30:08 | |
We do not know, it's too much. | 0:30:10 | 0:30:12 | |
I mean, um... | 0:30:12 | 0:30:15 | |
if you make all the papers available for us, I mean, | 0:30:15 | 0:30:18 | |
we would not have time for reading it. | 0:30:18 | 0:30:21 | |
-0-0-5. -0-0-5. | 0:30:22 | 0:30:25 | |
Each person working in the global container supply chain | 0:30:31 | 0:30:35 | |
concentrates solely on doing their job to move the box as quickly as possible to its next destination. | 0:30:35 | 0:30:42 | |
It's so efficient that this ship may be gone by tomorrow. | 0:30:42 | 0:30:47 | |
You bring in 700, 800 containers. | 0:30:51 | 0:30:54 | |
A few hours afterwards, you leave again. | 0:30:54 | 0:30:56 | |
Felixstowe receives shipping schedules from its customers just a few hours in advance. | 0:30:58 | 0:31:04 | |
Planners then work out where to dock the ships and which order to load and unload all the boxes. | 0:31:04 | 0:31:11 | |
It's a huge, logistical jigsaw puzzle. | 0:31:11 | 0:31:14 | |
Unsurprisingly, they have computerized assistance. | 0:31:14 | 0:31:18 | |
All the work sequencing is automated now so each piece of equipment has a computer screen in its cab. | 0:31:22 | 0:31:29 | |
The computer will look forwards. | 0:31:29 | 0:31:31 | |
It will decide which is the next best job for that | 0:31:31 | 0:31:34 | |
piece of machine and allocate that machine to a particular job. | 0:31:34 | 0:31:38 | |
What that does is it makes much more efficient use of our equipment, it means that nobody's delayed unduly | 0:31:38 | 0:31:45 | |
and that we can better allocate resources to the urgent jobs. | 0:31:45 | 0:31:49 | |
In the past, this work would have needed tens of thousands of men. | 0:31:49 | 0:31:54 | |
Today, the smooth running of the whole quayside operation is overseen by just one man. | 0:31:54 | 0:32:01 | |
I think on a good day, we could be talking about 7,000 boxes in a 24-hour period. | 0:32:01 | 0:32:08 | |
About a week of 40-44,000 boxes. | 0:32:08 | 0:32:11 | |
That's a lot of boxes. | 0:32:13 | 0:32:15 | |
It doesn't always go to plan. | 0:32:16 | 0:32:19 | |
The supervisor has been called out to a problem with one of the cranes. | 0:32:19 | 0:32:24 | |
It can be a difficult place to drive around because | 0:32:24 | 0:32:26 | |
you've got traffic coming from every angle, including above your head. | 0:32:26 | 0:32:30 | |
You have to just look absolutely everywhere all the time. | 0:32:30 | 0:32:34 | |
A crane sensor has warned that one of the containers it lifted from the last ship was overweight. | 0:32:34 | 0:32:41 | |
It means the crane now has to be tested to check it's safe to continue work. | 0:32:41 | 0:32:47 | |
But that could delay unloading by up to 20 minutes. | 0:32:47 | 0:32:51 | |
It doesn't seem like a lot, 20 minutes, | 0:32:51 | 0:32:54 | |
but when you're talking about a 14,000 TEU cargo ship, running that for 20 minutes costs a lot of money. | 0:32:54 | 0:33:01 | |
You know, I think about 30,000 an hour is about an average for something like that. | 0:33:01 | 0:33:07 | |
So if you put it in monetary terms... | 0:33:07 | 0:33:10 | |
Like they say time is money and down here, time is a lot of money. | 0:33:10 | 0:33:14 | |
We're doing a crane shuffle. | 0:33:22 | 0:33:24 | |
We're taking the crane which we have a potential problem on and we're just | 0:33:24 | 0:33:29 | |
moving it off the ship and we're going to bring on another two cranes. | 0:33:29 | 0:33:33 | |
So, instead of using 12 and 13 which you can just see moving off, | 0:33:33 | 0:33:37 | |
we'll use 10 and 11 instead. | 0:33:37 | 0:33:40 | |
Modern container ports work to such tight timetables that solving problems quickly is vital. | 0:33:41 | 0:33:48 | |
Each ship, crane and lorry is crucial | 0:33:48 | 0:33:50 | |
to keeping the global conveyor belt of container cargo moving. | 0:33:50 | 0:33:55 | |
It means any small problem has the potential to turn into a big one. | 0:33:57 | 0:34:02 | |
It just starts a kind of chain of delays which at times can be impossible to get out of. | 0:34:02 | 0:34:09 | |
We don't want a ship to sail with some cargo on it that should | 0:34:09 | 0:34:12 | |
have come off at Felixstowe and actually ends up having to go back to China or wherever it came from. | 0:34:12 | 0:34:18 | |
To see why this is so important, you only need to look a bit further up the supply chain. | 0:34:23 | 0:34:28 | |
Retailers like ASDA no longer have big depositories or shop storerooms. | 0:34:34 | 0:34:38 | |
Instead, they use shipping containers as mobile warehouses. | 0:34:38 | 0:34:43 | |
We very much have a supply chain that's about flow rather than | 0:34:46 | 0:34:50 | |
keeping stock in various different places. | 0:34:50 | 0:34:53 | |
Our focus here is on how accurately can we predict | 0:34:54 | 0:34:57 | |
what sales are going to be in the next few days to make sure | 0:34:57 | 0:35:01 | |
we have only the right amount of stock at each point of the chain. | 0:35:01 | 0:35:05 | |
This distribution centre is one of 26 used by ASDA | 0:35:08 | 0:35:12 | |
to keep its stock moving as quickly as possible around Britain. | 0:35:12 | 0:35:17 | |
The maximum length of time any one item would normally be kept here is two weeks. | 0:35:19 | 0:35:25 | |
Some of these products will stay for just a few days. | 0:35:25 | 0:35:29 | |
The shipping container is absolutely fundamental to this process. | 0:35:34 | 0:35:38 | |
It gives us speed, it gives us efficiency and it gives us security. | 0:35:38 | 0:35:44 | |
So dramatic is the step change in efficiency brought by the shipping container that it has | 0:36:07 | 0:36:13 | |
unleashed powerful economic forces, | 0:36:13 | 0:36:17 | |
accelerating world trade and helping ignite a modern consumer revolution. | 0:36:17 | 0:36:23 | |
In the days before containerization, | 0:36:26 | 0:36:29 | |
a small vessel, maybe a tenth the size | 0:36:29 | 0:36:32 | |
of an average container ship today, would have 200,000 separate items. | 0:36:32 | 0:36:37 | |
Just think for a minute about the dock workers | 0:36:37 | 0:36:40 | |
loading each one of those 200,000 separate items by hand. | 0:36:40 | 0:36:43 | |
Think of the volume of trade we have today. It's not conceivable | 0:36:43 | 0:36:47 | |
that we would have trade on this scale without the container. | 0:36:47 | 0:36:50 | |
It couldn't happen. | 0:36:50 | 0:36:51 | |
In the 1960s, freight costs often accounted for 30% of the price of foreign goods. | 0:36:53 | 0:37:01 | |
The shipping container reduced those costs to less than 1%. | 0:37:01 | 0:37:06 | |
It caused a boom in global trade and a revolution on the high street. | 0:37:06 | 0:37:12 | |
I can remember when you would go into a shop in Britain and there were | 0:37:14 | 0:37:18 | |
damn few products to buy, there wasn't much on the shelves. | 0:37:18 | 0:37:21 | |
When the container came in, the British diet was famously dull - | 0:37:23 | 0:37:28 | |
you couldn't buy garlic, people didn't drink fresh fruit juice. | 0:37:28 | 0:37:32 | |
Everyday households had very few consumer goods. | 0:37:32 | 0:37:35 | |
The television was a major luxury. | 0:37:35 | 0:37:37 | |
Few people had it and it was shared, like a swimming pool would be today. | 0:37:37 | 0:37:41 | |
You would want to go round and use your friend's. | 0:37:41 | 0:37:43 | |
The container has brought products that were once the preserve of the rich within the reach of the masses. | 0:37:43 | 0:37:51 | |
We sell something like 350,000 items. | 0:37:52 | 0:37:54 | |
You can pick off the shelf, probably, a quarter of a million of them. | 0:37:54 | 0:37:58 | |
Years ago, some of those items - bringing a rug from India or a piece of furniture from Brazil - | 0:37:58 | 0:38:05 | |
would have cost an enormous sum of money | 0:38:05 | 0:38:08 | |
and taken a long time to get here. Whereas today, they can be here | 0:38:08 | 0:38:12 | |
in five or six weeks and they can be here relatively cheaply. | 0:38:12 | 0:38:15 | |
Take a walk around your local department store | 0:38:19 | 0:38:21 | |
and you can instantly see the influence of the shipping container. | 0:38:21 | 0:38:26 | |
Amazing stuff. Incredibly good value. | 0:38:29 | 0:38:32 | |
In China, there are entire towns and cities that only make socks. | 0:38:32 | 0:38:36 | |
There's Sock Town in China, | 0:38:36 | 0:38:39 | |
and they have enormous factories with 20,000 employees each, | 0:38:39 | 0:38:42 | |
and they make socks. | 0:38:42 | 0:38:43 | |
And they make them quicker, cheaper than anyone else in the world. | 0:38:43 | 0:38:47 | |
The guy we know as Buzz Lightyear, | 0:38:48 | 0:38:51 | |
but he's also Buzz L'Eclair for the French market | 0:38:51 | 0:38:56 | |
and Karatekampfer Buzz Lightyear in Germany. | 0:38:56 | 0:39:01 | |
Karateka, Faz Karate, and he's even in Greek here. | 0:39:01 | 0:39:06 | |
I'm afraid my Greek isn't up to it, but he's for the full European | 0:39:06 | 0:39:10 | |
market here and you can imagine a 40ft container | 0:39:10 | 0:39:14 | |
absolutely jam packed with collectables from Toy Story. | 0:39:14 | 0:39:19 | |
All perfect standardized commodities that can be very easily packed into a container, you can get hundreds | 0:39:19 | 0:39:25 | |
and hundreds of these TVs into one container and they'll all arrive in good condition, ready to be sold on. | 0:39:25 | 0:39:31 | |
Containerization is so efficient that it costs less to ship goods to Britain from China than it does | 0:39:33 | 0:39:40 | |
to drive them up the motorway to the nearest town or city. | 0:39:40 | 0:39:43 | |
The economics of this are really incredible because the delivery cost | 0:39:45 | 0:39:50 | |
of shipping a flat-screen TV from halfway round the world from Asia to the UK | 0:39:50 | 0:39:56 | |
is less than the delivery cost of taking it from the store to your house in the UK. | 0:39:56 | 0:40:00 | |
The more products the shipping container has delivered | 0:40:05 | 0:40:08 | |
to our shores, the less visible the process of delivery has become. | 0:40:08 | 0:40:13 | |
Because most container ports are outside our main towns and cities, | 0:40:13 | 0:40:17 | |
these huge ships slide in and out of our shores without most of us ever noticing them. | 0:40:17 | 0:40:24 | |
Even if we did, it's hard to appreciate the volume | 0:40:24 | 0:40:27 | |
and variety of goods being delivered | 0:40:27 | 0:40:30 | |
when they are concealed in anonymous steel boxes. | 0:40:30 | 0:40:34 | |
It's changed our relationship with the sea | 0:40:34 | 0:40:37 | |
because the cargo is no longer seen, we just don't see what comes and goes | 0:40:37 | 0:40:43 | |
by sea and how important sea transport is to Britain. | 0:40:43 | 0:40:46 | |
Three years ago, when the container ship Napoli was beached off | 0:40:47 | 0:40:51 | |
the coast of Devon, we got the chance to take a rare peak inside the boxes. | 0:40:51 | 0:40:56 | |
With the storms and the weather, containers were thrown | 0:40:59 | 0:41:03 | |
onto the shore, were broken up and contents were spilled. | 0:41:03 | 0:41:08 | |
People began to see that and all of these people came rushing down | 0:41:08 | 0:41:12 | |
and as there was more of it shown on television, yet more people rushed down to help themselves. | 0:41:12 | 0:41:19 | |
-REPORTER: -All day it's been a cross between Whisky Galore | 0:41:19 | 0:41:23 | |
and the January sales. | 0:41:23 | 0:41:25 | |
Locals ignoring the listing Napoli in the bay | 0:41:25 | 0:41:27 | |
to fill up with whatever they could find. | 0:41:27 | 0:41:30 | |
Most plan to sell it on the internet, | 0:41:30 | 0:41:33 | |
from Lyme Bay straight to eBay. | 0:41:33 | 0:41:36 | |
This man found a brand-new BMW motorbike among the wreckage and he wasn't the only one. | 0:41:36 | 0:41:41 | |
It took about eight, ten of us to lift each one out and as each one | 0:41:41 | 0:41:45 | |
came out we put the front wheels on | 0:41:45 | 0:41:47 | |
and then they were taken over the cliffs and away. | 0:41:47 | 0:41:49 | |
The pictures beamed around the world sparked fierce debate | 0:41:53 | 0:41:56 | |
over the morality of the modern-day wreckers, | 0:41:56 | 0:41:58 | |
but also wonderment at the bizarre array of products contained within the boxes. | 0:41:58 | 0:42:04 | |
It really did bring home to people just what is carried | 0:42:04 | 0:42:08 | |
in these anonymous containers on these great big anonymous ships. | 0:42:08 | 0:42:13 | |
Shipping containers are sealed after packing. | 0:42:16 | 0:42:20 | |
Once en-route, the only way to find out what's inside the box is by referring to its unique code. | 0:42:20 | 0:42:26 | |
Every container in the world has one and it is used as a reference by the shipping company, | 0:42:28 | 0:42:33 | |
the sender and the customer, so that boxes don't get lost or mixed up. | 0:42:33 | 0:42:38 | |
This code can also be used to find out what's inside the box. | 0:42:41 | 0:42:44 | |
Although most of the time, it's not necessary | 0:42:44 | 0:42:47 | |
for the people moving it to know, unless the cargo is hazardous. | 0:42:47 | 0:42:51 | |
The anonymity of the shipping container is at the heart of its efficiency. | 0:42:51 | 0:42:56 | |
But it can cause problems, too, for the contents aren't always what they claim to be. | 0:42:56 | 0:43:02 | |
We believe criminals see containers as an excellent way of smuggling because of the high volumes. | 0:43:07 | 0:43:12 | |
They all look the same and it's not too difficult | 0:43:12 | 0:43:15 | |
to bring them through the port | 0:43:15 | 0:43:17 | |
without the smuggled goods being recognised. | 0:43:17 | 0:43:20 | |
The UK Border Agency has the job of policing the boxes. | 0:43:20 | 0:43:25 | |
With more than 40,000 containers travelling through a port | 0:43:25 | 0:43:29 | |
like Felixstowe at any one time, they can't check them all. | 0:43:29 | 0:43:33 | |
Unfortunately, all containers tend to look the same. | 0:43:33 | 0:43:37 | |
Apart from being a different colour, they all look the same so there's nothing you can do visually | 0:43:37 | 0:43:42 | |
from the outside of a container. | 0:43:42 | 0:43:44 | |
So we have to use our profiles, our knowledge of smuggling routes and risks and we use intelligence | 0:43:44 | 0:43:50 | |
and information that comes to us in order to select the relevant containers for scan and examination. | 0:43:50 | 0:43:58 | |
Giant X-ray machines are used to monitor suspect containers. | 0:43:58 | 0:44:03 | |
We're trying to detect Class A drugs and we're trying to detect | 0:44:03 | 0:44:06 | |
cigarettes and tobacco products | 0:44:06 | 0:44:08 | |
and, particularly, counterfeit goods coming very much | 0:44:08 | 0:44:11 | |
from the Far East and we find many counterfeit goods coming in from the Far East to this port. | 0:44:11 | 0:44:16 | |
Sometimes, the X-ray images immediately show that the box contains things it shouldn't. | 0:44:18 | 0:44:24 | |
But smugglers often try to disguise their cargo so officers | 0:44:24 | 0:44:28 | |
are trained to spot tell-tale signs and send suspicious containers to be checked the old-fashioned way. | 0:44:28 | 0:44:34 | |
You may get a few rows of legitimate goods and then it's cigarettes, counterfeit goods, drugs, whatever. | 0:44:39 | 0:44:44 | |
But also, we find goods that may be smuggled in the floor | 0:44:44 | 0:44:47 | |
or in the ceiling of the container and we find goods that are actually hidden within a product itself. | 0:44:47 | 0:44:53 | |
As an example, we had one just a couple of weeks ago | 0:44:53 | 0:44:56 | |
in Felixstowe and it was some electric fans | 0:44:56 | 0:44:58 | |
and the cigarettes were inside the fans themselves. | 0:44:58 | 0:45:01 | |
Protecting the shipping-container supply chain is vital because we are so utterly reliant on it. | 0:45:07 | 0:45:13 | |
Not only do containers deliver many of the consumer products we now take | 0:45:14 | 0:45:18 | |
for granted, they also transport the parts needed to make them. | 0:45:18 | 0:45:23 | |
In modern manufacturing, people talk about supply chain. | 0:45:24 | 0:45:27 | |
And the supply chain is a chain of containers going from one place to another. | 0:45:27 | 0:45:31 | |
Many factories are now completely dependent on the shipping container. | 0:45:34 | 0:45:37 | |
Its speed and reliability have given rise to an innovation which has transformed manufacturing - | 0:45:40 | 0:45:47 | |
just-in-time production. | 0:45:47 | 0:45:49 | |
Developed by Japanese car manufacturer Toyota, | 0:45:50 | 0:45:54 | |
this philosophy has now been widely adopted around the world. | 0:45:54 | 0:45:58 | |
Instead of stockpiling components on production lines until they were needed, | 0:46:00 | 0:46:05 | |
Toyota developed a system whereby each car part was made and supplied just in time for it to be fitted. | 0:46:05 | 0:46:12 | |
This reduced factory floor space, released capital previously | 0:46:14 | 0:46:19 | |
tied up in components and dramatically cut waste | 0:46:19 | 0:46:22 | |
on the production line. | 0:46:22 | 0:46:23 | |
The container added another powerful dimension... | 0:46:23 | 0:46:27 | |
It used to be that you had car makers with all their component manufacturers under one roof. | 0:46:30 | 0:46:37 | |
With containerization, it wasn't necessary to do that any more. They were able to break this process up. | 0:46:37 | 0:46:42 | |
Some things they make close to their factory, some far away, | 0:46:42 | 0:46:45 | |
some things they can make across the ocean and they can bring all the pieces together | 0:46:45 | 0:46:50 | |
on a fairly reliably schedule to make the finished vehicle. | 0:46:50 | 0:46:53 | |
Today, shipping containers carry many more unfinished goods than finished ones. | 0:46:54 | 0:47:00 | |
Each part of a product can be made in the cheapest or best place, then shuttled across the sea | 0:47:02 | 0:47:08 | |
to the next factory and the next one until complete. | 0:47:08 | 0:47:12 | |
Complex electronic goods are often made in a production line spanning five or more different countries. | 0:47:12 | 0:47:19 | |
Even seemingly simple products have gone global. | 0:47:19 | 0:47:24 | |
# Barbie, you're beautiful... # | 0:47:24 | 0:47:27 | |
Barbie used to be made in one place. | 0:47:27 | 0:47:29 | |
But with the container, Barbie was broken down into components - | 0:47:29 | 0:47:33 | |
you had pigments, you had plastics, | 0:47:33 | 0:47:36 | |
you had hair, | 0:47:36 | 0:47:38 | |
you had clothing. | 0:47:38 | 0:47:40 | |
All of these things could be made in different countries, | 0:47:40 | 0:47:43 | |
wherever they could be made most cheaply, | 0:47:43 | 0:47:45 | |
and then all shipped to one location for final manufacturing. | 0:47:45 | 0:47:48 | |
This ended up being China. So even Barbie has her own supply chain. | 0:47:48 | 0:47:53 | |
The container has played its part in a 50-year overhaul of global industry. | 0:47:55 | 0:48:00 | |
A revolution that has seen many of the world's factories | 0:48:01 | 0:48:06 | |
moving en masse from Europe and America to Asia. | 0:48:06 | 0:48:09 | |
When the first container ship arrived in 1960s Britain, | 0:48:09 | 0:48:14 | |
almost half of the country's workforce was employed in manufacturing. | 0:48:14 | 0:48:17 | |
Today, it's less than 15%. | 0:48:17 | 0:48:21 | |
Manufacturing workers have been pretty serious losers. | 0:48:22 | 0:48:25 | |
Nobody thought of this when the container came, but the people who worked | 0:48:25 | 0:48:29 | |
in all of those factories, they're sort of the secret losers, | 0:48:29 | 0:48:33 | |
they simply had to go away and find a new world. | 0:48:33 | 0:48:35 | |
In the years since the arrival of the container, | 0:48:37 | 0:48:40 | |
Britain's industrial heartlands have changed beyond recognition. | 0:48:40 | 0:48:44 | |
It's difficult to believe today but 50 years ago, | 0:48:49 | 0:48:52 | |
Manchester was the world leader in the manufacture of raincoats. | 0:48:52 | 0:48:56 | |
The cotton would have been woven in Lancashire, | 0:48:56 | 0:49:00 | |
brought to Manchester, rubberized, | 0:49:00 | 0:49:03 | |
made up into coats, and they would have been exported | 0:49:03 | 0:49:08 | |
all over the world as the very best cotton you could buy. | 0:49:08 | 0:49:12 | |
-REPORTER: -Although machines are used to produce the vast amounts of cloth needed each year, | 0:49:15 | 0:49:21 | |
what eventually appears depends very largely on the skill of those people who can sew | 0:49:21 | 0:49:25 | |
one piece of cloth to another to produce anything from a ball gown to a balaclava. | 0:49:25 | 0:49:30 | |
Raincoat factories employed more than 70,000 people in the North West of England. | 0:49:32 | 0:49:38 | |
Textiles was the industry in this area and all the people | 0:49:40 | 0:49:43 | |
who were rich and famous were all raincoat manufacturers. | 0:49:43 | 0:49:48 | |
And at the time, there were hundreds of them. | 0:49:48 | 0:49:50 | |
The step-change in costs brought by the shipping container made it possible for factories in | 0:49:52 | 0:49:57 | |
the Far East to manufacture goods for markets in the developed world for the first time. | 0:49:57 | 0:50:02 | |
Their cheaper labour costs gave them an immediate advantage over their British competitors. | 0:50:04 | 0:50:12 | |
In the early years of containerization, | 0:50:12 | 0:50:14 | |
governments protected British industry by levying | 0:50:14 | 0:50:17 | |
heavy duties on foreign imports, but when Margaret Thatcher came to power, she pursued a new policy. | 0:50:17 | 0:50:24 | |
When she came in, she took import duty off so that imports could come in without any duty on, | 0:50:26 | 0:50:31 | |
encouraged imports and put the VAT up which squeezed the retailers to wanting to look further afield. | 0:50:31 | 0:50:38 | |
Britain's textile houses had once been powerful economic players. | 0:50:40 | 0:50:44 | |
But now the market was flooded with cheap foreign imports, retailers held the trump cards. | 0:50:44 | 0:50:50 | |
They could afford to cut prices AND take a higher profit margin at the same time. | 0:50:50 | 0:50:56 | |
When I started, the retailers were working on doubling up, | 0:50:58 | 0:51:02 | |
so if I sold something at £9, it would be £19.99. | 0:51:02 | 0:51:04 | |
Now something at £9 from China might be £130. | 0:51:04 | 0:51:08 | |
They've just taken the view of buying ever cheaper and selling ever dearer. | 0:51:08 | 0:51:12 | |
Manchester's coat-makers simply couldn't compete in the new containerized world. | 0:51:14 | 0:51:20 | |
Some relocated to Asia, taking their skills and machines with them. | 0:51:20 | 0:51:26 | |
Others simply went out of business. | 0:51:26 | 0:51:28 | |
We've probably got just less than 70 people now | 0:51:30 | 0:51:33 | |
and I think we're the very last in the area doing what we do. | 0:51:33 | 0:51:36 | |
And I think we've survived on a little bit of determination and a little bit of luck over the years. | 0:51:36 | 0:51:42 | |
To keep going has been very difficult. | 0:51:42 | 0:51:45 | |
Many British car, motorbike and electrical manufacturers have suffered similar fates. | 0:51:47 | 0:51:52 | |
With fewer goods going out than ever before, the shipping container has contributed to Britain's biggest | 0:51:52 | 0:51:59 | |
industrial trade deficit since records began. | 0:51:59 | 0:52:02 | |
The UK now has an import-led economy. | 0:52:04 | 0:52:07 | |
Virtually all of the containers that we're discharging | 0:52:07 | 0:52:10 | |
that come into the country are coming in laden with goods. | 0:52:10 | 0:52:13 | |
Of those going out, something like a half are going out empty. | 0:52:13 | 0:52:17 | |
Our biggest single export through here is fresh air. | 0:52:17 | 0:52:20 | |
Through four decades of containerization, Britain changed | 0:52:24 | 0:52:28 | |
from a nation of manufacturers to a nation of office workers. | 0:52:28 | 0:52:33 | |
Today, our modern service economy is headquartered on the site of London's once famous docks. | 0:52:33 | 0:52:40 | |
This redevelopment swept away years of decay and helped London become | 0:52:41 | 0:52:47 | |
one of the world's financial centres, creating tens of thousands of new well-paid jobs. | 0:52:47 | 0:52:52 | |
If you know where to look, you can even find a few of the old dockers among the bankers. | 0:52:57 | 0:53:02 | |
But they're a dying breed. | 0:53:04 | 0:53:05 | |
As progress moved on, the only thing that changed was the cost of the land | 0:53:08 | 0:53:14 | |
so in other words, my children can't afford to buy it. | 0:53:14 | 0:53:19 | |
So when they got married, they had to move out. | 0:53:19 | 0:53:22 | |
A lot of the people that I grew up with have | 0:53:22 | 0:53:27 | |
either died or moved on, their families have certainly moved on. | 0:53:27 | 0:53:31 | |
Liverpool has clung onto its port, but it too has been changed by the container. | 0:53:38 | 0:53:44 | |
Well, you can see the port is still busy, | 0:53:46 | 0:53:48 | |
the port is still doing a lot of business, but it's containers now. | 0:53:48 | 0:53:54 | |
Before, there was loads of character, loads of people and you just don't | 0:53:54 | 0:53:59 | |
see them any more, it's like a ghost road compared to how it was. | 0:53:59 | 0:54:05 | |
The changes have left visible scars on Liverpool's Dock Road. | 0:54:06 | 0:54:12 | |
Over here is the Sandon Lion, | 0:54:12 | 0:54:15 | |
and at this time of the day, it would be heaving. | 0:54:15 | 0:54:20 | |
It used to do really good business. | 0:54:20 | 0:54:22 | |
Well, I hope you don't fancy a cup of tea. | 0:54:25 | 0:54:28 | |
I think this cafe's closed as well. | 0:54:28 | 0:54:31 | |
Few here celebrate the invention of the shipping container. | 0:54:38 | 0:54:43 | |
I know you can't stop progress, but it depends on your perception of progress. | 0:54:45 | 0:54:51 | |
From a capitalist's point of view, containerization, | 0:54:51 | 0:54:55 | |
because he can make more money, is progress. | 0:54:55 | 0:54:59 | |
But to the working class where you lose your job, | 0:54:59 | 0:55:02 | |
your livelihood and not much prospects of anything else, | 0:55:02 | 0:55:06 | |
it isn't progress, is it? | 0:55:06 | 0:55:08 | |
You've taken a backward step. | 0:55:08 | 0:55:10 | |
But not all on the Mersey believe that the metal boxes have wrecked the area. | 0:55:14 | 0:55:19 | |
When you were in the port of Liverpool in the '80s, you couldn't | 0:55:19 | 0:55:23 | |
see the future as being as bright as what it was in the 1960s. | 0:55:23 | 0:55:27 | |
But in time, those areas that were previously handling general cargo | 0:55:27 | 0:55:32 | |
that at one point became redundant | 0:55:32 | 0:55:34 | |
because the cargo had moved into containers and moved to the South | 0:55:34 | 0:55:38 | |
have actually now turned into other berths handling other cargos. | 0:55:38 | 0:55:42 | |
They've given the port of Liverpool an even brighter future. | 0:55:42 | 0:55:45 | |
I've got to admit, it's got to be a good invention. | 0:55:48 | 0:55:51 | |
It's done away with a lot of work but they're carrying more cargo, | 0:55:51 | 0:55:55 | |
aren't they? Than what when they had the general cargo. | 0:55:55 | 0:55:58 | |
After years of decline, Liverpool's port is growing again. | 0:56:01 | 0:56:06 | |
Its owners are investing in a new container terminal that they hope | 0:56:06 | 0:56:10 | |
will help win back business from the world's biggest shipping lines. | 0:56:10 | 0:56:14 | |
We have the permission to do it, the business case is now being drawn up for it and I would hope that | 0:56:15 | 0:56:20 | |
within the next three or four years, we'll see the terminal in operation so that we can see ships | 0:56:20 | 0:56:25 | |
coming in from China and the Far East now coming back in to their traditional port, Liverpool. | 0:56:25 | 0:56:31 | |
The Port of Felixstowe is investing too so it can handle more of the world's biggest ships. | 0:56:33 | 0:56:39 | |
Both in Felixstowe and in the UK as a whole, we only have a limited | 0:56:41 | 0:56:44 | |
number of berths that can accommodate these bigger ships. | 0:56:44 | 0:56:48 | |
As more and more of these ships come on stream, we're going to need bigger facilities to ensure the UK | 0:56:48 | 0:56:53 | |
retains its status as a main line call for the big intercontinental container ships. | 0:56:53 | 0:56:59 | |
Last year, the global recession caused the first fall | 0:56:59 | 0:57:03 | |
in world trade since the invention of the shipping container. | 0:57:03 | 0:57:08 | |
But the box is weathering the storm. | 0:57:08 | 0:57:12 | |
Once again, trade routes are beginning to thrive | 0:57:12 | 0:57:15 | |
and the containers are moving, supplying the lifeblood of a modern economy. | 0:57:15 | 0:57:20 | |
There are millions of containers out there travelling around the world. | 0:57:22 | 0:57:25 | |
Nobody even knows the exact number, there are so many of them. | 0:57:25 | 0:57:30 | |
I don't think we could do without the container for more than about a day. | 0:57:30 | 0:57:34 | |
It's progress, you can't stop progress. | 0:57:34 | 0:57:38 | |
That's it. | 0:57:38 | 0:57:40 | |
Day and night, | 0:57:40 | 0:57:43 | |
week after week, the lorries load, the cranes heave | 0:57:43 | 0:57:47 | |
and the ships come and go. | 0:57:47 | 0:57:50 | |
The metal box is always on the move. | 0:57:50 | 0:57:53 | |
And we move with it. | 0:57:53 | 0:57:55 | |
The container has delivered Britain into the modern consumer society. | 0:57:57 | 0:58:01 | |
Because of it, our world seems smaller and our aspirations are ever greater. | 0:58:03 | 0:58:09 | |
The box has changed our lives for ever. | 0:58:10 | 0:58:16 | |
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd | 0:58:27 | 0:58:30 |