British Towers Brushing up on...

Good evening. Towers.

Do you spend all your days dreaming of spires?

Do you like tall stories?

Do you believe that when it comes to high-rise blocks,

the clouds should be merely the mezzanine?

Then welcome to the club, Rapunzel.

Because like you, I understand that when it comes to architecture,

the only good bungalow is a 50-storey bungalow.

Height is right. Size the prize.

All hail the tower of power!

For cometh the penthouse, cometh the hour.

We've eerily combed the BBC's highest archive

for the loftiest footage about this country's most soaring structures.

Bean-pole buildings, so high and mighty

they can look down their nose at the man in the moon.

Move over, Everest! Mankind is coming through.

So come on, get in on the ground floor

because this TV show is going up right now.

Yeah. Mark, sorry, I'll get the show going in a minute.

But that's great, the opening sequence, that big build up.

-But there's one shot, there's all vest and pants in the front.

-Really?

Mainly pants. Look.

-There it is.

-You're right. We'll lose that in the edit.

All right. Make sure you do.

The passion for building to the heavens

has been deep within the British people for a thousand years.

It would have been longer, but for centuries, man held the plans upside-down

and dug holes instead.

Thus arrived the happy accident of chalk and flint.

Once they got it right, though,

they decided to ring it from the rooftops.

BELLS PEAL

REPORTER: We hear church bells everywhere,

whether we like them or not.

But who rings them?

Treble's going. She's gone.

Ralph Wenman's job as conductor is two-fold.

To teach beginners, and to help a ringer learn his part in the intricacies

of the different methods of change-ringing.

To learn the order in which his bell should strike among the others,

following its own path

whether the method being rung is Grandsire Doubles,

Stedman Triples

Double Norwich Court Bob Major

or any of the other traditionally named methods.

The story of how this bohemian duo joined the clangers is typical.

Clive and Jean Simpson are another husband and wife who ring together.

I learnt when we got married

because I came to live in Yorkshire.

I found that my husband went out ringing so much,

I came to the conclusion that if you can't beat the ringers, you must join them.

It's ringing with good ringers.

It's the rhythm you get when the bells are going really well.

It's the music you get in all the different methods and compositions.

And of course it's the social life as well.

You can go to any part of the country, go up a tower which is ringing

and meet the ringers and you're welcome straight away. It's a great brotherhood.

But will the brotherhood make room for the sisters?

Pull your hands right down and put your hands behind you.

I'll tell you to put your hands behind you and leave them there.

Down she comes. Don't look up!

She's away.

Stand still.

Good. Try again.

Pull your hands straight down.

-Straight down.

-Now?

-Yes.

Straight down in front of you. Hands away!

The poor woman! She only wanted to help out on the cake stall!

Watch her terrified reaction again

and this time note her pleading helpless look to the camera crew.

"For the love of God, get me out of here!"

This is a Martello tower, one of 11 along the Essex coast

which were put up in a panic during the Napoleonic Wars.

Put up in a panic? Really?

"Darling, what's that thing you built on the beach?"

"I don't know. I put it up in a panic!"

And today, this particular tower, which is on Beacon Hill, a few miles from Clacton,

is once more an observation post.

Only this time, its attention is not directed across the narrow seas

but towards much wider horizons.

Towards outer space.

Yes, kids, in 1961, this place, along with a dustbin and a giant catapult,

was Britain's space programme.

Others led the way while we listened in.

I suppose my most exciting moment was the first Sputnik.

Every time I play the recording,

I get the same feeling of excitement and achievement.

Wasn't everybody tracking this Sputnik?

Quite a lot of people, but I did it in a particular manner which others didn't do.

Mostly, people are used to the bleep bleep.

But I didn't do that at all. The way I did it was the actual signal

from the Sputnik itself without any frills put on on the ground.

And it sounds like this, if you'd like to hear it.

CRACKLING WITH BLEEPING

I take it you're receiving radio signals from Jupiter.

We're receiving radiations from Jupiter.

Is it possible to hear Jupiter now?

Not at the moment because Jupiter hasn't risen above the horizon yet.

So it's not with the beam of the aerial.

And I have, in fact, got a recording

of this sort of noise

which surges like the sea on the sea shore.

Can we hear Jupiter surging?

CRACKLING

And so on. By the way, all that ambient noise must have impressed the presenter.

Know who he went on to be? Brian Eno!

# There's a new sensation #

How's it for you so far? Getting giddy?

Want more? What do you want to do? Lower? Higher? Higher or lower?

Higher or lower? What are you saying?

Higher! Higher!

REPORTER: The Post Office tower of London

is 620 feet high.

There are 36 floors open to the public.

I'm going up myself to inspect it.

When I get to the top, I'll be able to tell you exactly how many steps there are.

So far, so good.

Mind you, I've lost count of the steps!

Oh!

Excuse me...

PANTING

..while I catch my breath.

I think the...young lads

of London and Edinburgh

will do it much quicker.

Go!

Right!

-32.

-Well done.

-What was your time?

-Five ten, I gather.

-I'd do anything for you.

-Good lad.

-OK?

-Yeah, fine.

And now, Phil Tufnell reports.

Tuffers on towers. Tuffers on the cause of towers.

-What actually is it?

-It's a testing tower for lifts.

It was built by a lift company

because they needed to develop high speed lifts

and there were no shafts in the country that were long enough to start, run and stop.

And we had one very special guest. The Queen of England.

Ooh, the Queen? What a privilege.

It was wonderful. Absolutely fantastic.

Any small talk?

She joked about was the lift automatic

and if so, why did I need to be there and press the button?

No, seriously. Why did you need to be there?

Of course, expert is a slippery term.

For a while, cricketer Phil Tufnell

was the BBC's go to man about towers.

Even if he did appear to be just a page ahead of the rest of us.

Emley Moor mast is now a listed building.

The people who did that said it showed "perfect technical performance

"combined with architectural elegance

"in its supreme slenderness."

How about that?

But at the end of the day, it's just a big concrete pole, mate.

It's much more than a concrete pole.

It's an amazing thing. It's a fantastic engineering feat. A lovely piece of architecture.

Technologically, it really tells us a lot about the past

and what we thought in the late '60s.

The predecessor fell over.

They had to make sure that the next one didn't

or there would have been a lot of embarrassment.

How interested does Phil Tufnell look right now?

..on this exposed spot.

They decided to make it out of concrete.

But particularly to give it the strength

it's made in a concrete process

so they just kept pouring concrete all the time.

They didn't go home on a Friday night and knock off, then come back on Monday.

They kept continuously pouring.

To Blackpool.

REPORTER: In the Tower Bar, the finest methods of interior decoration have been applied.

Following a disastrous fire in 1956,

the Tower Ballroom was restored at a cost of half a million pounds.

The Tower Circus is internationally famous.

This box of chimpanzees

is the "bring the house down" part of the show.

This is just dreadful!

But, you know, the one in the blue hat!

Ladies and gentlemen, Charlie Berserk's Amphetamine Big Top!

That's the tower.

Inside it now are 5,000 people,

2,000 fish,

three lions, four tigers,

and a vivarium containing crocodiles, turtles,

water lizards and a skink.

A skink?!

Did you know that the famous tower is nearly 600 feet high,

and is visited by almost half a million people every year.

Among that half million are the painters perched like flies above the promenade.

They keep at it every day of the year,

but when they reach the bottom after finishing the job,

it's time to start at the top again.

But the job has its moments.

"I say, George, there's a couple down there worth looking into.

"So bring out the old telewag and let's have an eyeful!"

OK. Look, if we can just park the telewag for a second,

I need to confess something.

Here I am, fronting a programme about towers

and I cannot bear heights.

I have genuine vertigo.

I don't like wasps, lightning and high places.

You know why? Because they can all kill you!

So giving me this next package to introduce

is like giving Morrissey a steak sandwich.

Oh, no.

Oh, sweet mother of mercy!

Oh!

Oh, for the love of God!

Oh, let it end!

For me, no sane person should ever want to climb any higher

than, I don't know, Paloma Faith's hair at the BAFTAs.

Therefore, my psychological Kryptonite in this matter

is Mr Fred Dibnah.

FRED: It's not so pleasant on a Monday morning

when it's cold and the wind's blowing and you look up and think,

"Oh, good God" and so on.

Some days it might be bloody awful on the floor.

And then you set off up the ladder

and go through the fog

and it's like being in an aeroplane.

You can see all the chimney stacks

and towers and church steeples

and hills outside of town

sticking up through all this cloud

and the sun's shining up above.

Beautiful!

There's something strange.

Once you've started, you get like addicted to it.

You just live it.

Day or night, think about it, talk about it.

I've never fell off a big chimney.

You only fall off one of them once!

One day, I fell off a pair of steps in my little girl's bedroom

and landed on her drumming machine

and knocked myself unconscious.

I don't remember much about it

but the morning after, I couldn't get out of bed.

Now, that just doesn't look safe, does it?

It doesn't even look official!

It's like they're building a monument to Boris Johnson's hair!

'You've got to have a stout heart to take it on on your own.

'On the top, like on your own,

'you get a bit lonely, like.'

Is it wise to lob that cigarette down there, Fred?

Probably not!

To make sure everyone knows the tower's about to fall,

Fred sounds the alarm that can be heard across five counties.

Parp-parp!

I don't think he even heard it himself!

Run that bit backwards

and it's the Olympic opening ceremony!

Done it!

Listen, you can hear the cheers of children, safely watching from about ten feet away!

Did you like that?

Of course we did.

And because nothing could possibly go wrong with such shenanigans,

we demand you do it again!

Anything else we can knock down while we're here?

Sadly, it turned out Fred was now just show-boating

and this building was still occupied.

Still, any concern at seeing the library demolished

was soon forgotten as Fred gave the kids a toot on his klaxon again.

Parp-parp!

I know. Times really have changed at the BBC!

And in the culture.

How much? Watch this.

SIRENS, ALARMS, KLAXONS SOUND

'A rope had been thrown down into the boiling sea.

'The only way to get onto the Bishop Rock lighthouse

'is to be hauled up by a winch.'

OK. All right.

Still, at least Lesley's surrounded by experts

and they're not panicking.

This is one moment I'm glad the experts are in charge!

-Hang on, Lesley!

-OK!

I've got Mike at one end, Larry at the other.

I'm not looking down, I can tell you that!

'It wasn't until several seconds later that I realised what everyone else already knew.

'The harness that should have held me had slipped round my feet

'and only the strength of my arms had held me on.'

Christ, she did exactly what we expected...

It's nice to see you, Larry.

I'm all right.

..the headline.

-I don't want to...

-Literally above your head.

It's very nice to see you, Larry, believe you me!

Of course, who we're looking at here is the intrepid Lesley Judd

who, for my money, and possibly because she's a woman,

isn't given half the credit she deserves

for actively seeking out dangerous situations. She seemed to have a nose for it,

like a cross between Evel Knievel, a human cannonball and Skippy, the bush kangaroo!

He was doing his housework when I arrived.

Can't see any sign of Mike and the boat, yet.

No, you're looking towards America at the moment, that's why!

Lower!

'I knew I had to get off the lighthouse the same way I'd come on.

'But I wasn't looking forward to the return journey

'because I was worried that if the harness slipped off again,

'this time I wouldn't be able to hold on.'

I want it right up.

-Can you feel your body in the harness?

-Yep.

-Right?

-Yep.

The rope's feeling pretty wet

and it's all dripping on my face.

'All I had to do was to try and keep calm.

'But ten metres below, the crew were struggling to keep my rope taut

'to stop me crashing back into the lighthouse.

'Mike needed all his skill and nerve

'to keep the heaving boat in position

'only just off the rocks.'

And to think these days we make all that fuss

about Richard Hammond!

I've no idea whether I'm near the boat yet.

I'm not going to look and see, either!

I can feel myself lowering down now.

I seem to be getting lower.

I don't know where I am.

But I'm looking forward to some human hands grabbing my feet, I can tell you!

Seems to take longer going down than going up.

Much longer.

'Mike just couldn't get the boat any closer in.

'Although the crew struggled to haul me across the last few feet,

'the rope didn't seem to be long enough.

'If I fell in here, I'd be smashed on the rocks beneath the surf.

'Suddenly, I felt myself drop.

'I was more frightened than I've ever been in my life.

'I was glad I'd visited the Bishop Rock.

'It was an experience I'll never forget.

'But I was deliriously happy to be waving them goodbye

'from the safety of the boat.'

Oddly enough, some women still find lighthouses attractive.

You know that song, "I Want To Marry a Lighthouse Keeper"?

Careful what you wish for!

REPORTER: Larry and Brian are two of the keepers

of the Longships Lighthouse.

These are resourceful men.

It will take more than a mile and a half of water

to silence the love that Larry and Brian have for their wives.

At two o'clock precisely, they're going to bridge that gap.

Yes, kids, even before mobiles,

the only place you could get a good signal was hanging out the window.

"Buy...

"..me...

"..an...

"..iPhone."

Few people know semaphore nowadays

but Sally has polished up what she once learnt in the Girl Guides

so now she and Brian can flag their own form of two-way Family Favourites.

Flag?

"Can't get to flag right now.

"Please leave message after the flare."

"Stop texting while you talk to me!

"Damn!"

It's Mimi's turn.

She doesn't know semaphore, so she and Larry have learned another system.

Mimi has no signal lamp, so she can't send words across the water,

only receive them.

"Is...everything

"..all right?"

"Do you like...

"..my hat?"

"See...

"..you..."

Yes, I think we'll leave it there.

We seem to have drifted from our promised narrative,

the history of British towers.

And as far as historic towers go,

there's one structure that ticks all the boxes

like Eric Pickles ordering a room service breakfast.

The Tower of London.

And when you want to know about that baby, you go to its number one source.

The woman who works in the ladies' bogs!

REPORTER: In her own little room in the tower sits Sandy O'Cunliffe,

doing the same job her mother did for 20 years before her.

Knitting beards for Beefeaters!

The English are nice people.

They're nice as people, but as tourists, they're useless!

They want all the attention, and they're arrogant.

They push up the front. They just want to be noticed in general.

-The English?

-Yep.

-Us?

-Yes, us!

Us.

Then you've got the French. They run in, do what they've got to do and run out.

Then you've got to go and clean up behind them!

Then the Japanese. They're very quiet. They come in and bow.

Do whatever they want to do.

The last political prisoner to be held in the Tower of London

was in May of 1941.

Herr Rudolf Hess, the Deputy Fuhrer of Nazi Germany.

100%.

But you upset one of the Yeomen Warders

then we stand back to back and fire outwards.

In other words, I've got 38 mates if I'm in trouble

at the Tower of London, and I mean mates.

We laugh together and we cry together. It's as simple as that.

-That's your bus pass, is it?

-You've got to be 65.

To be one of the Yeoman Warders of the Tower of London...

Excuse me, I don't think you're part of this group.

Where's the keys?

Have they gone? The keys to the Bloody Tower?

When I was at school, saying "The Bloody Tower" gratuitously

was a big thrill. Risky word, bloody, back then.

And the teachers couldn't touch you for it

because it was its name, like Ed Balls!

NEWSREEL: The BBC's 700-foot television tower

at Crystal Palace has been given an unusual stability test.

Rockets, each exerting a thrust of half a tonne,

are being used to simulate strong wind pressure.

They're fitted 625 feet up,

three times as high as Nelson's Column.

Light blue paper and retire!

These pictures from 1955,

show the BBC declaring war on ITV.

ITV hit back by attacking the BBC's weather centre at Tring,

as part of Cilla Black's Surprise, Surprise!

Like the show, it was only partly successful.

The controlled explosion left 12 of the 21 storeys still standing.

The tower with a ten-degree tilt.

And the demolition contractor himself,

embarrassed perhaps?

Not at all.

One has to take into account the local environment here.

There's a canal just behind us.

It's 29 feet from the building.

There was a main road with a bridge over the canal.

Elevated flyover over a motorway.

Services going through the building such as electric cables,

a main sewer, a brick-built sewer, at that.

There were residential units very close by.

No damage whatsoever was caused to any of those structures, services or units.

I'm very proud of that.

A ceasefire was eventually declared

after the BBC targeted a secret factory making nerve gas

based on the failed X Factor fragrance

Simon Cowell's Hubris.

In turn, ITV retaliated by bringing down Bruce Forsyth's joke warehouse.

But this was later revealed to be empty.

Posing for photographers, Sally James and one of the Teletubbies

signed the armistice.

All nonsense, you say? Claptrap? Poppycock?

Well, if it is, it's of a piece with these absurd gangly edifices.

I'm no Freud, but I think I know why men throughout history

have insisted on erecting ever more thrusting shafts onto the landscape.

They're compensating for something.

Dreaming of a skyscraper while being in possession of a bungalow,

if you know what I mean!

And typically, having talked themselves up,

the can't deliver when the time comes.

REPORTER: Slushy fields and grass farms.

Then, out of the mist, arose Sir Edward Watkin's dream.

An Eiffel Tower for London.

Sir Edward Watkin, chairman of the line.

Thousands, he thought, would pay to climb the tower

which would be higher than the one in Paris.

He announced a competition -

500 guineas for the best design.

Never were such flights of Victorian fancy seen.

Civil engineers from Sweden and Thornton Heath,

Rochdale and Constantinople,

entered designs.

In 1890, the lucky winner was announced.

It had Turkish baths, arcades of shops

and winter gardens.

Designed by a firm of Scots with a London office,

Stewart, McLaren and Dunne.

It was to be 150 feet higher than the Eiffel Tower.

But when at last it reached above the trees,

and the first stage was opened to the crowds,

the crowds weren't there.

They didn't want to come.

Money ran out.

The tower lingered on,

resting and rusting,

until it was dismembered

in 1907.

This is where London's failed Eiffel Tower stood.

Watkin's Folly, as it was called.

Here, on this Middlesex turf.

And since then, the site has become quite well known!

ROAR OF CROWD

So, great big buildings,

like men themselves, ridiculous, competitive, dangerous,

often vacant and sometimes utterly magnificent.

These days, of course, you're just as likely to find women architects

insisting upon size above all.

That doesn't surprise me.

Sometimes, a gal has only got one thing on her mind.

As you can see, it's a model of the Post Office Tower,

complete with restaurant at the top

and windows all the way down.

What's it like to wear, Val?

It's a bit unsteady, actually, John!

It's been made for an Easter Bonnet competition,

made by Janet Whiteside of Highgate.

It's fabulous, isn't it?

-Marvellous.

-Take it off gently.

-It's safer if I don't wear it.

I've got some other strange headgear here. I'll just pop it on.

It's a hand-knitted sort of snow helmet!

It's the latest thing for skiing.

Good night!

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd