British Factories Brushing up on...

Good evening. Tonight, we're going to look at factories.

Isn't that lovely?

For example, this TV studio I'm in right now is a factory.

A factory of dreams.

Since the advent of moving pictures, documentary makers have always

had a ready appetite for revealing the working populace in situ.

Busily filming the proletariat, sometimes even as they created

the very television sets on which the programme would be shown.

Which strikes me as a bit of a waste of time.

The point is, in honest toil

and in the great cathedrals of manufacturing,

television traditionally seeks to illuminate

the very qualities it sees in itself - integrity, diligence, dignity.

-GLASS SMASHES

-There you go.

All that stuff being made.

We were really good at making stuff in this country once.

All sorts of stuff. It used to say so as you came in at the airports.

'Welcome to the United Kingdom, makers of various stuff.'

But now, this is what the modern generation in Britain

think of on hearing the word factory.

Abandoned fortresses of long forgotten ambition.

Eyesores awaiting the wrecking ball.

Creepy, gutted mausoleums

in which are buried the promise of gainful mass employment.

This was R Davey and Sons, Preston,

which once made toothbrushes for the Empire.

At its peak, it turned out over two million toothbrushes a week.

Though one feels the local sign makers

might have done a better job branding the plant.

Hopton's Rubble Work, Leeds. Once Britain's leading rubble provider.

And SAFTENG in Liverpool, whose air raid siren factory crucially

opened for business just as the Second World War came to a close.

It's hard to envisage any of these places

as they were but a century before.

Cacophonous beehives providing society with tall ships masts,

quill pens, chimney sweep accessories

and bustles for ladies' skirts.

And yet somehow, they all went out of business.

But this programme is not a lament to vanished industry,

but rather to see how these industries were reflected

back at us through documentaries.

Documentaries often made by university graduates who had never done a day's work in their lives!

Take this noise for instance.

SIREN WAILS

Play that to kids today

and they won't recognise it as the call to the daily grind.

No. They've been brought up to believe that this...

SIREN WAILS

..is simply the noise of a cartoon cat being surprised.

Smiling employees skipping joyfully into work.

A dead giveaway that this is a state-controlled film.

Though, not so fast, ladies.

Before you are allowed into this workers paradise, you are required to pass a little test.

We give all people who come to work in the factory

for the assembly departments or the manufacturing departments,

a dexterity test.

I must tell you before we start

that you can either pass or fail this test.

Now, you see this board, it's got two sets of holes.

What I want you to do is concentrate on the small holes first.

Take the tweezers, pick up one of these pins

and put it in one of the holes like that.

Then, take one of these little caps and put it on top.

I'm going to give you three minutes and I'd like to see how many you can do in that time.

We like to think we've moved on from such mind-numbing drudgery,

but what you are looking at here is basically The Apprentice

meets Philip Schofield's The Cube.

Happily, big business today realises you can't treat adults like

menial drones and so now give such work to small children in Indonesia.

That said, the real action was always out on the production line.

Ah, cream. Now, doesn't that look good?

Well, you know how the apple gets into the dumpling.

But I bet you never guessed how these creams are made. Now, watch closely.

Or better yet, listen closely.

It's hard to fully absorb the information in these early films

because the band behind the voice-over always sound so completely drunk.

OUT OF TUNE MUSIC PLAYS

This ingenious machine works so fast.

First, the lower half receives just the right amount of cream

and emerging, passes under the hopper which supplies the other half.

No waiting though.

And here we see the biscuits taking shape.

We have been watching the famous Crumpsall cream cracker in the making.

By the 1950s, production line film supporting orchestras

were really starting to get it together.

There is nothing like a dame and at John Waddington's,

no machine has yet been found to do this work more efficiently

than the gentle sex.

Did I say gentle sex?

Well, yes. We can play it back for you, if you want.

The gentle sex.

MUSIC PLAYS

Listen to it.

A simple doc about thrashing packaging

elevated to the status of a Broadway show.

Yes, sonically, things are really starting to cook now.

And by the '70s, no accompanying soundtrack would be considered too brash.

BIG BAND MUSIC PLAYS

You are looking at a Gripper Jacquard Weaving Machine.

Gripper because the yarn is gripped by a mechanism,

which looks like the neck, head and beak of a bird.

I say, belt up, mate. We're all trying to dance over here.

BIG BAND MUSIC PLAYS

Swing it, fellas!

We're a long way from Crumpsall cream crackers now, eh?

Here's something that always divides people.

When you cook, say, a turkey,

what side of the tinfoil should you have facing outwards?

Most people say shiny. Some insist dull.

The right answer is it doesn't matter.

Shiny or dull has no significance. Fact.

It's purely cosmetic and just how it comes off the machines.

Machines like this.

These 20th century wonders give an output in each eight hour shift

of enough oil to cover the road from London to Inverness and back.

A distance of over 1,000 miles.

It is fascinating to watch

and one marvels at the ingenuity of those who created it.

The machine operators would no doubt be at home

pulling out the stops of a cinema organ.

They call the tune. The machine obeys.

What's he talking about? Plainly bored by the provided script,

he's suddenly taken this foil saga way off-piste.

Like Old Man River, the strip keep... Just keeps rolling along.

Now they're even leaving in mistakes. Listen to that again.

Like Old Man River, the strip keep... Just keeps rolling along.

They must have been up against a deadline to go with that take, eh?

It is hard to believe that what we are now looking at is to become

the colourful and attractive wrapping we know so well.

Now he's suggesting that tinfoil is colourful!

Yes. It's available in silver, metallic grey

and reflective rocket ship!

From this furnace, the metal cools and solidifies

as it falls into the casting pits.

-Casting?

-Casting pits.

Oh, casting pits. For a moment there, I thought he'd gone completely nuts.

Still, we shouldn't chastise our vocal sherpa to hard there.

It's difficult sometimes to whip up enthusiasm for these processes.

The voice-overs can be hard work. Tell me about it!

And when you're dealing with workmen, you're bound to get, well, workmanlike.

That said, at least make an effort.

The plaster is coated with plumbago,

Sprayed with silver nitrate and immersed in an electroplating bath.

A hard coat of nickel is deposited on the cast,

followed by a coating of copper.

Any attempt to thrill the audience here is spurned as our host appears

simply to read from the instructions that came with the equipment.

After the plaster has been stripped from the electrotype copy,

the rough metal edge trimmed and the surface polished,

it is mounted on the reducing machine.

As it revolves, the details are followed by a tracer,

mounted at the free end of a bar.

At a suitable point, depending on the size of dye required,

the revolving cutter cuts into a block of steel,

the main features of the original.

With scripts like he's riffing on here, it's ironic we are told

not to operate heavy machinery while drowsy.

And now watch the fascinating processes

of half crowns being minted.

The first step is the making of the blanks.

Just show us the half crowns being minted.

Engage the punters, my friend. Tease them, even.

This is a factory where the workers have to have regular manicures

because soft, smooth fingers are essential

and yet the machinery doesn't look particularly fragile.

On the contrary, it's solid enough to turn out nuts and bolts, but it doesn't.

So what does it do? Well, look at another part of the operation.

No, it's nothing to do with brewing beer, making detergents,

or testing foam baths.

For a further clue, try eavesdropping on two of the workers.

-What's the matter then?

-The draw is slipping.

-Oh, God.

It's been banging away all morning.

-I tell you what we'll have to do, we'll have to put a new cooling can on there, I reckon.

-Oh, crikey.

I reckon that's slipped out once before.

Still haven't guessed what they are making?

Well, it's not combine harvesters, bulldozers, wheels for railway engines,

boilers for fuel tankers or turbines for hydroelectric stations.

No, this factory makes nothing more complicated than nylon stockings.

Huh! Top three unlikely factories - mirrors, balloons, nylon stockings.

Now, that looks like a lot of fun, as does...

# You've got to use it up Before it sits

# You lift it with a scraper but it's heavy, you bet

# You slap it and you bang it and you roll it so

# Drop it on the floor and go man go. #

Now, everyone always gets a kick out of this.

The inner workings of a seaside rock factory.

We are actually watching here the making of your classic 12 inch

cylindrical pinks with integrated greetings message and or resort ID.

But just think, elsewhere in the plant they must be creating

the other design classics, peculiar to this most coastal of candies -

the baby's dummy, the lady's leg and the full English breakfast.

# Momma will you look At the long red snake

# Raised bow and arrow Just look at the break. #

You couldn't ever have the hump working at a seaside rock factory, could you?

You're a heartbeat away from being a munchkin or something.

They must show the staff Willy Wonka as a training film.

I'll bet their kids haven't got a tooth in their head.

Suck it and see, as they used to say. Yes, I can't think of a better factory in which to work.

Oh, hang on.

Ah, look at this. Heaven.

Or more accurately, Hayes, Middlesex.

Living the dream, as far as I'm concerned. All that precious vinyl.

Worth fortunes today.

This place forged music by the Beatles, Pink Floyd,

the Sex Pistols and Wout Steenhuis' Hawaiian all-stars.

Why, and there's old Wout himself

with a hands-on approach to his genius.

At one of the biggest record making factories in the world,

the EMI plant at Hayes near London, production of five million records

and tapes a month goes on around the clock to meet a booming

worldwide demand for music at the touch of a button.

The factory ends up with the nickel discs they call a stamper.

The stamper does exactly what its name indicates.

It stamps out hundreds of plastic copies of a quality good enough

to please the most discriminating hi-fi enthusiast.

Wait a minute. Hundreds of copies? That's not going to trouble the top ten, is it?

I think even Victoria Beckham's records sold more than that! Speaking of which.

Paddy Dooley has one of the most satisfying scientific jobs - destroying rejects.

He's broken more records than any sportsman!

But the Duke refrained from asking, "Was this a record?"

It turned out that Paddy Dooley didn't even work there.

He just really, really hated music.

Paddy Dooley - music hater, disgruntled employee.

The man who made Prince Philip momentarily forget the burdens of Empire.

And in saluting this forgotten court jester,

it is perhaps fitting to at last step back from giant corporations,

mass production and heavy machinery and asked the age-old question.

What about the workers?

My job is very monotonous and hot but I think the worst part about it

is not being able to get off your bench when you want to.

You have to get a supervisor to relieve you

if you want to go to the toilet or to get a drink

or if you're not feeling well.

I think that makes you feel as if you are really chained to your job.

Our job is very boring and of course, it's very tiring.

I tend to find that now,

after the amount of years I've done on the job, I can cope with it.

Some days, the boredom gets so bad

that I have to walk away from the machine

because I tend to get angry when I really go over the top with boredom.

Now, you can't be flippant about material like that.

To me, those women were noble, honest and astounding.

My mum did something similar.

So let me stay with the intended mood of this show

and just say the next line with a smile.

How come we've never had a revolution in this country?

And just when you thought conditions couldn't get any worse...

Del Perry is a Gateshead groover

who daily turns on 400 fab and lovely factory birds.

Hello, hello, hello, hello.

-Are you all right?

-Yes.

-Smile. That's lovely isn't it?

Hello. It's Joan, isn't it?

He's got his own studio on the boss' floor,

£6,000 worth of gear and that doesn't include his shirts,

and virtually a free hand from the management to do his own thing

in setting the pinstripe business to music.

With a blast on the harmonica.

HARMONICA PLAYS

Yep, Del was the works' DJ.

The man who makes the factory floor fun.

A cheery voice amidst the chores. In other words, a right nuisance.

Hey, hey, hey, don't drag David Bowie into this!

# I walk an empty street

# And somehow we meet. #

Note how the slippery old ham is leaning into shot,

hijacking her moment.

And why, in that era of Bowie is he still rocking the summer of love?

Look at him. Gateshead's answer to the Marrakesh Express!

And sometimes, management would double the DJ threat.

-Emily.

-Yes, papa?

-Let me see your hands.

-Yes, papa.

Emily, your hands are filthy and nails are dirty.

Emily, I've told you about this before.

Hamish, give him a riding crop.

Mercifully, not a word of this can be heard above the roar of the machinery downstairs.

MUFFLED RADIO

The boss' idea of what peps up the proles on their payroll

is traditionally a bad fit.

In this factory,

where clearly no-one could find the button to turn off the chip-maker,

the staff are served up a scintillating Harley Grenade.

We have a birthday request for Brenda. Brenda Smith.

Come on up, Brenda.

Almost no-one cares as underpowered salutations are paid

on a stage that could comfortably house the Berlin Philharmonic.

-What department are you on, Brenda?

-The assembly.

-The assembly.

Anyway, from the girls on the C70, we are playing Indian Reservation.

Edgy stand-up over, the film's director then convinces

half a dozen frankly unwilling girls to party like it's 1959.

MUSIC PLAYS

Workers crowded the canteen to feast their eyes on a special mannequin display while eating.

In a 20-minute show, the workers can dream about swimming pools.

A one-piece swimsuit with Cubana sandals.

Blimey!

Look at that bloke eating. He couldn't care less about the show or the cameras.

A swimsuit in brightly-coloured octopus print.

Might be all right for some folks but I'd rather have a good drop of tea.

If people want to take part in activities,

they are very welcome to do so.

Such as what?

Social clubs, cultural activities, sports clubs.

Quite a number of things.

-Do you take part in any of these things yourself?

-Yes, rather.

I've always been interested in cycling

and I've been elected the president of the local cycling club.

It gives me great pleasure.

The problem is, these discerning factory folk

don't want to be fobbed off with amateur hour.

They want proper big-time talent to illuminate their ho-hum schedules.

Guess where I've rode to today?

Well, it's not a million miles from home.

A sweet little place. Follow me.

I'm at a chocolate factory today

and I'm very pleased to introduce you to Valda and John.

-Hello, Valda.

-Hello, Rusty.

-What are you doing?

-I am a knot straightener.

-A what?

-A knot straightener.

-You're a knot straightener?

-I'm a knot straightener.

John, how long have you been working here?

-31 years this year.

-31 years!

Goodness gracious! You should know how to straighten your knots by now!

I hope so.

Rusty! Rusty! Get your elbow out of the chocolate, Rusty.

As more and more companies fell under foreign ownership,

so alternative methods of workplace stimulation crept in.

You might think that was a bit of a factory joke

but I know a factory joke when I hear one.

From the Two Ronnies 1981 Christmas special.

Good evening. There was an explosion at a ball bearing factory this morning.

One man lost his bearings while another man was completely unharmed.

You see? No, obviously, you've got to take health and safety very seriously.

Good morning. This is your first day at the factory

and before you go on the factory floor,

I need to give you a short talk on safety.

When we get on to the factory floor the instructors will tell you

about the individual machines and the safety factors you must comply with

while you are operating these machines.

To start with, at the front here is a welding mask.

This pair look like they wish that the suffragettes had kept their traps shut!

This mask has got a very dark glass in it to protect the operator's eyes.

It's fair to say that these tough young women would need

all the help they can get under such conditions.

This is perilous, dangerous work.

And only one thing could make it worse.

-Emily?

-Yes, papa?

-Let me see your hands.

-Yes, papa.

Emily, your hands are filthy, your nails are dirty.

Emily, I've told you about this before.

Hamish, get my riding crop.

# Safety shoes

# Go down to personnel and get yourself a pair

# Then you'll across slippery floors and never have to care. #

In 1970, the generous length of women's skirts

was worrying the hell out of the Midlands.

The accident prevention officer for Birmingham has described

the maxi as a potential killer on the factory floor.

A series of fashionistas were quizzed about it.

The environment of any factory,

particularly where you have a great deal of machines,

is such that the area is congested and in this particular case

we felt that the girl's skirt was right down to ground level

and there was a serious danger that she might catch her heal.

It seems to me to be a pretty strong case against the maxi.

Look at the bloke on the South TV behind.

He's furious they are not coming to him.

She was there saying what a marvellous way to dress it was.

I'm sure the gentleman is quite right to err on the side of safety

but how come gentlemen with long hair have to wear hairnets in case it gets caught in the machinery

and girls not be allowed to wear long skirts?

Also, it can be so very long since ladies actually went down the mines wearing long skirts

and they didn't seem to make that much fuss about it.

Anyway, once workers were armed with a mask and apron

and the correct length skirt,

they were considered fully protected and a caring factory would

expect to lose no more than 35% of its workforce in any given week.

Actually, that sequence contains my favourite employee of the programme.

The bloke in the goggled mask who turns to camera and says,

"What do you want from me?"

However, we shouldn't think that every boss is riding a gravy train with biscuit wheels.

With great office comes great responsibility.

Ici Stephen Roper, Churchill.

Avez-vous recu las assiettes blanc?

Stephen Roper, the middle brother is managing director

and an adventurous salesman.

Although he is always keen to find new markets,

it can be a problem making the leap.

We've been notified by the time desk that you've been absent

or late quite a number of times recently.

Have you any excuse for this?

Well, this morning I got up late, you know.

And it was the traffic as well.

Anyway, you realise another twice

-and you'll be sent home for the day without pay. All right?

-Yes.

Your work is all right.

But it isn't just your work that counts, it's your timekeeping.

Please ensure in future you do get here early. Do you realise this?

Yes.

And these two ladies, do they do nothing but that?

-They do nothing but that.

-Doesn't that drive them up the wall?

-No. They sing.

Of course they sing. They are happy to work for you!

You know they are saying, "We love you, boss."

Senior foreman is commonly known as Hitler or Little Hitler.

There is no way I'm paying five hours and only getting three hours' work.

I'll pay you 10 hours and put five hours' allowance in. It's not that far out.

He's very arrogant. He's got a terrible attitude towards people.

Basically, it's the way he talks to you.

And you've got to watch him because he twists...

He twists everything you say.

I want to know what I'm getting off you.

Work and you'll get it.

-BLEEP

-Come on!

-BLEEP

Straight enough?!

With so much rancour and division between the two sides,

it's no wonder so many management take up golf or something similar.

Len is a supervisor at a metal factory in the Sussex town of Crawley

and here he also prepares to defend his championship.

Right now, Len has got something on his mind.

An important event will soon take place.

He's preparing for another championship final.

Lavatories have helped Len to hold the world championship

longer than any other man alive.

Len lovingly hammers his piece of lavatory into shape.

Grinding down the toilet has taken years of training to perfect.

Finally, it is a piece of lavatory no more.

Len puts the finishing touches to what is now a marble.

A marble in the hands of a champion

who is better at playing with marbles than anyone else on earth.

He has won the World Marbles Championship more times than anyone

since marbling first came to Britain in the days of good Queen Bess.

You are basically the Muhammad Ali, Denis Compton,

-the Stanley Matthews...

-Joe Davies, all of them.

-..of marbles.

-Yes.

I know I'm the greatest at marbles.

Cass knew he was the greatest at boxing.

The only differences, I don't go shouting it around.

Good for him.

You know, there's a quiet dignity in being a 50-year-old man whose a giant at marbles.

Not like that jerk down the road who runs the mattress factory,

always going on about how great he is at conkers.

SIREN WAILS

Yes! Knocking off time. The wheels of industry stop.

Workers, shake off the grey yolk of subjugation

and don the rainbow hues of hard-won leisure.

Yes, even you.

Your time is at last your own. Let's take to the streets.

Not only that, but it's the holiday break.

Tools are downed in factories all over the North of England.

Somebody roll call these suddenly silent places.

Bolton, Burnley, Nelson, Colne, Blackburn,

Darwen, Horwich and Todmorden.

Accrington, Blackburn, Chorley,

Haslingden, Bacup, Rawtenstall and Waterfoot.

We all think it's so much better in life to have one day

away from everything when we haven't got to meet for work.

Then one of the girls said, "Why not have an outing?"

ACCORDION MUSIC PLAYS

SINGING

I know, you wonder if the Beatles ever saw this.

SINGING

# Hanging around

# Our driver wants to

HORN BEEPS

# Our driver wants to...

HORN BEEPS

# Everyone wants to...

HORN BEEPS

ACCORDION MUSIC PLAYS

# Ee-ay-ee-ay-oh... #

THEY SING KNEES UP MOTHER BROWN

Well done, girls. You've hard earned every one of those tiddly giggles

through days of repetitious industry

and laborious toil.

Management can keep their clunky callisthenics,

dodgy DJs

and their rotten toilet-quarried marbles.

The nation's heart lies with you.

And it does, or rather it did.

That way of life, that social framework

so clear cut by class divisions

has all but vanished.

It's still there, but now blurred,

more tacit and insidious.

At one time at least there was a pretence of us

all being in it together.

In 1968, the British Government launched an initiative to get

everyone to work a little harder, a little longer

and for free.

I'm Backing Britain they called it.

Spearheading this appeal to British workers and management alike

was none other than Bruce Forsyth.

It failed, of course, bound to.

But somehow it had the right spirit,

hinting at the now dormant heart of UK manufacturing.

You tell 'em, Brucie.

And good night.

# In offices and factories

# Up and down the country

# An extra half an hour is all we need each day

# In shops and supermarkets

# Everybody's started to work a little more

# Without the pa-a-ay

# I'm backing Britain yes, I'm backing Britain

# We're all backing Britain today

# The feeling is growing so let's keep it going

# The good times are going our way

# I'm backing Britain yes, I'm backing Britain,

# We're all backing Britain today

# The feeling is growing

# So let's keep it going

# The good times are going our way

# I'm backing Britain, we're all backing Britain

# I'm backing Britain, we're all backing Britain... #

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd