Liverpool to Eccles Great British Railway Journeys


Liverpool to Eccles

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In 1840, one man transformed travel in Britain.

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His name was George Bradshaw, and his railway guides inspired the Victorians to take to the tracks.

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Stop by stop, he told them where to travel, what to see and where to stay.

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Now, 170 years later, I'm making four long journeys across the length

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and breadth of the country to see what remains of Bradshaw's Britain.

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Until the 1840s, travelling by rail in Britain was really complicated.

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There were already 20,000 miles of track

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and more railway companies than we have today.

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The only way you could find out the timetable was by going to your local station.

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Then, in 1841, along came George Bradshaw, a map engraver from Manchester, who put the timetables

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together and produced the first handbook of Britain's railways.

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I want to find out the extent to which the industries and the places and the types of people

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that Bradshaw wrote about still exist and whether a Victorian handbook

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can help us to understand the way that the railways made us the people that we are today.

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First up, I'll be learning the lingo in Liverpool...

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You have the Beatles - Paul McCartney, very soft, sort of, "How you doing, Michael? How's things?"

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And then you've got Lennon, with his nasal sort of twang, the adenoids.

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..then visiting the birthplace of the first steam locomotive, George Stephenson's Rocket...

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It was an absolutely astonishing event in railway and, indeed, world history.

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..and having a go at folding an Eccles cake.

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Surgeon's hands!

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Aaah!

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That's one of mine. You may have guessed.

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All this week, I'll be travelling west to east,

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starting from Liverpool, along the oldest

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passenger railway in the world,

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on the line that was built to take cotton

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from Liverpool's docks to Manchester's mills.

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After stopping at Skipton,

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I'll carry on across Yorkshire

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and eventually end up at the east-coast resort of Scarborough.

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Today, I'll be covering the first 30 miles

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via Rainhill to Eccles.

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And my first stop is Lime Street station, in Liverpool.

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I'm now in the tunnel

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that runs from Edge Hill into Liverpool Lime Street.

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It's a mile and a quarter long.

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It goes all the way under the city, and Bradshaw was incredibly impressed.

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And he said when people see this, they'll want to pay just tribute to the engineering skill

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of those people who delivered the railway to the very heart of the city of Liverpool.

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Bradshaw marvelled at the new railway line. But he was even more impressed

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by Lime Street, one of the first stations ever built.

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Morning.

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Bradshaw talks about Lime Street as having an Italian design, with many columns, and I suppose

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he must be referring to this part of the station, which is now rather run-down and tucked in a corner.

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Because when you come to Lime Street, what you're really impressed by is this enormous

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Victorian canopy of glass and iron. Magnificent.

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Liverpool has always been a vibrant city.

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In Bradshaw's day, it was a great port, second only to London.

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Today, its rich Victorian heritage sits alongside

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a shiny new Liverpool that's sprung up in the last few years.

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I love the way this brand-new glass building reflects the old Liverpool,

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the Liver Building, one of the most famous buildings on Merseyside.

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Throughout its history, the docks, more than anything else, have shaped Liverpool's character.

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Bradshaw's guide was struck by the huge numbers of people moving through the city.

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"Liverpool, as might be expected, is also a great emigrant port. As many as 206,000 people,

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"for whose use half a million tons of shipping were required in 1851."

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In the 19th century, millions of immigrants

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passed through Liverpool, leaving a mark on the city that's instantly recognisable - the Liverpool accent.

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I must admit, as a Southerner, I've sometimes struggled to understand it,

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so I've come for a lesson in Scouse with local author Peter Grant.

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-How very nice.

-Hiya, la'.

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-What did you say?

-Hiya, la'.

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-La' - lad.

-Ah. That's a good start, isn't it?

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That's a very good start. Where does this Liverpool accent come from?

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It comes from this almost allegorical big melting pot, a big pan of accents

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thrown in - Scottish, Irish, Welsh, Lancashire, Cheshire.

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Put a spoon in it, stir it all up and you've got

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little sparkles here and there, our little idiosyncratic little accent.

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I'm following a nineteenth-century guide.

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Would there have been a Scouse accent in those days?

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-They would have spoken it, but it wouldn't have been recognised till about 1890.

-Is it a single accent?

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You can actually discover different types of Scouse accent - the north and the south.

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In Maghull, you can hear a certain type of accent that is different from the one in Allerton,

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and this is reflected especially in people like some of the comedians.

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You know, Stan Boardman, "the Germans".

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He's from the north side. You have the Beatles - Paul McCartney,

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very soft, sort of, "How you doing, Michael? How's things?"

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And then you've got Lennon, with his nasal sort of twang, the adenoids.

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George talking out of the side of his mouth, "Scrotty,"

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and Ringo's "Thomas the Tank Engine".

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So all four, all from different parts of the city.

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-You're a sort of Professor Higgins of Scouse.

-I like that. I like that.

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I think I'll bring out My "Faaa-ir" Lady, the sequel.

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So, why don't you test me out on some Scouse words or phrases, and I'll see if I can follow you.

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That fella over there, he's brickin' it.

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That fella over there's brickin' it.

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-That's great. That sounded like George, yeah.

-Erm...

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That means, "That man over there is scared".

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Scared, yeah, petrified. And it could have other connotations,

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but, you know. 'Ey, la', you're doin' me 'ead in.

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'Ey, la', you're doin' me 'ead in.

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-Er, that means, "Hey, boy..."

-PETER LAUGHS

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"..you're driving me crazy".

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That's good. It's like an American pop song, that.

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-Have you heard the phrase "getting off a' Edge Hill"?

-Getting off the train at Edge Hill?

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Yeah. In Liverpool, if you're getting off at Edge Hill, it's the last stop before Lime Street,

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but Scousers tend to use it as a sort of analogy to the... let's say the sexual act

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and that you went out with a girl, or a girl went out with a bloke, and you nearly got there, you know?

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In the art of copping off, which is short for "copulation". So, "Did you cop off last night?"

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-This is going out at 6:30!

-THEY LAUGH

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'But it seems Scouse isn't only an accent in Liverpool.

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'It's also a dish.'

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-Thank you very much.

-If you like it that much, we do it in a tin as well.

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OK, great. Thank you.

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I feel really ignorant asking this, but what is scouse?

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It's very much a peasant, working-class-type dish. It comes from Norway.

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We adopted this Norwegian dish, which was a lovely big stew with beef, meat, fat, you name it.

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Throw all the vegetables in, stir it round. Very nutritious.

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And it stopped you getting scurvy.

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What do you say for "bon appetit" in Liverpool?

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Er, "'ave a good scran, la'".

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'Ave a good scran, la'.

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-What do you think?

-I think it's very good.

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The beef has been shredded so that it just gives it a kind of real...

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-kind of lovely stringy texture, doesn't it?

-Yeah.

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Yeah. But you can't beat a good, solid bowl of scouse.

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And as I say, it's got everything in it.

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So, it's a very, very good metaphor for the accent.

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Yes. Absolutely.

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So, Liverpool's signature dish comes from Norway.

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It seems everything in Liverpool originates somewhere else.

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Hello, guys. Nice to see you all.

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-Are you all from Liverpool?

-Yeah.

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-Do you like the city?

-Love the city.

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-What do you love about it?

-The way it's so diverse.

-Yes.

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-I like that.

-Everyone who's born in Liverpool is either

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of Irish, Scottish or Welsh descent, and they say that it's a combination.

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-Like, our nan's Irish.

-It's lovely to see you so enthusiastic about your city. Thank you so much.

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All right. Thank you. Bye, now!

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-What do you think of the city?

-The city's great.

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-Great? You like the city?

-Oh, yeah.

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-Is it getting better?

-Yeah, yeah.

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Lots of money coming in.

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Can't beat it.

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There was a lot of money coming in in Bradshaw's time too.

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Liverpool grew into the most important port for the cotton trade,

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with two million bales passing through the docks every year.

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Across the Mersey, on the Wirral, there's another place Bradshaw

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talks about that I'm keen to see...

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..Birkenhead Park.

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Bradshaw's a little bit iffy about Birkenhead Park.

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He says it's not one of the largest.

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But then he goes on and says but as a model,

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it's "owned to be one of the finest in England".

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And it did turn out to be a model, because it was designed by

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Sir Joseph Paxton and then an American, called FL Olmsted, came over.

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And he was inspired by this and designed Central Park in New York City.

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And with these beautiful lakes and with these rocks piled high and the trees raised up,

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it does have the feel of Central Park.

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And so you like to think of all those people leaving Liverpool,

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Birkenhead, going across to New York City and finding something very familiar at the other side.

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-Morning.

-Morning. How are you?

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In the 1850s, up to a thousand ships a year were leaving Liverpool

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for America, many carrying Irish refugees fleeing the potato famine.

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The trains brought people from all over Britain to Liverpool to board the emigrant ships.

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In the late nineteenth century, one of the largest groups of refugees

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passing through Liverpool were Jews, like Mervyn Kingston's grandfather.

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-How lovely to see you. Good morning.

-And you.

-Michael.

-How nice to see you, Michael.

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Great to see you.

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When did your family come to the United Kingdom?

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In the 1890s.

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They came sent from Riga, in Latvia.

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Now, why were they leaving Latvia?

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Probably because of the pogroms.

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They were chased all the time in Latvia and Lithuania, which was then part of Russia.

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-They were being persecuted?

-Yes.

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As anti-Jewish riots took hold across Russia,

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over two million Jews fled Eastern Europe for America.

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Between the 1880s and 1920s, many of them travelled by boat to Hull,

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then caught the train to Liverpool on their way to New York.

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They came to Liverpool, the whole family.

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There were five of them, five children.

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And when they got to Liverpool, they settled in town,

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in what was called Little Moreton Street. It's been demolished since.

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And my grandfather got a job with Cunard.

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As they passed through Liverpool,

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many decided to stay, forming one tenth of the city's population.

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These days, the Jewish community has shrunk to less than one per cent.

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What would you say the Jewish community's influence on Liverpool has been?

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We've had seven Jewish lord mayors, many councillors.

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I was a Conservative councillor once.

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And we believe we give back as much as we take, if not more.

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-A great tradition of philanthropy.

-We do our best.

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Mervyn, thank you so much. That's been really interesting.

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-Thank you for sharing those memories.

-Very nice seeing you.

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-Very nice to meet you.

-Bye-bye. Take care.

-Goodbye, now.

-Bye-bye.

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I'm now leaving Liverpool to continue my journey east to Manchester.

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My train will take me to Rainhill, along what is perhaps

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the most historic stretch of railway in the world.

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Not surprisingly, the Bradshaw guides were really keen on railway history.

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"The Liverpool and Manchester line was really the first on which was attempted the practical application

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"of locomotive power for the transit of goods and passengers.

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"And it is therefore prominently entitled to rank as the pioneer of those stupendous undertakings

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"which have not only given a new stimulus to the mechanical and architectural genius of the age,

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"but have enabled this country to take the lead of all others in these respects."

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The Victorians were immensely proud of their railways and immensely proud of their country.

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They had good reason to be.

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Before the railway, it took some 36 hours to cover the 30 miles by canal.

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This line cut journey times down to just two hours,

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a revolution for inter-city travel.

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As the line was being built, a highly innovative competition that would change the world

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took place about nine miles outside Liverpool.

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This is Rainhill, and I've come to this little place because railway history was made here.

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Christian Wolmar is an expert on the Rainhill Trials, the world's first steam-locomotive race.

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-Are you Christian?

-How do you do? Hi.

-How lovely to see you.

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Thank you very much. Why were there Rainhill Trials?

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Well, essentially, it was a very clever public-relations exercise,

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because they were building the Liverpool and Manchester railway,

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they had just about decided that they wanted locomotives,

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rather than horses or stationary engines,

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so they decided to have a big launch

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of a PR exercise, announcing several months in advance that there were going to be these trials

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for a locomotive in October of 1829.

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Set the scene for me. Were there bands? Were there balloons?

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And was there hullabaloo?

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Oh, it was an absolutely huge event.

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There were people from Europe, from the United States.

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There was maybe 10,000,15,000...

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onlookers, but also all these foreign visitors who had come to see,

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you know, was this the invention that, er,

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was going to change the face of the world?

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And they were proved right.

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It was an absolutely astonishing...

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event in railway and, indeed, world history.

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George Stephenson, chief engineer for the Liverpool to Manchester line,

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entered his steam locomotive, the Rocket.

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It won hands down, achieving a top speed of 29 miles per hour.

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The Rocket became the prototype for all future locomotives.

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It was a one-iron-horse race, because the others blew up one by one.

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He got the £500 prize, probably worth around £20,000

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these days, and, crucially, the contract to build more locomotives for the Liverpool to Manchester line.

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You paint a really vivid scene.

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I wish I'd been there!

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Christian, my train is here.

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-I'd better scoot.

-All right.

-Thank you so much.

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-Cheers.

-Bye-bye.

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Phew! Just made it.

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Well, the party atmosphere of the opening of the Manchester to Liverpool railway line

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was pretty much spoilt when, at the opening ceremony, there was what Bradshaw called...

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"a lamentable accident to the Right Honourable William Huskisson".

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Huskisson was President of the Board of Trade. He was a member of the Cabinet.

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And at the opening ceremony, he was hit

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by Stephenson's Rocket and he was injured.

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They loaded him onto the train.

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They took him to Eccles, where I'm headed now.

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But he died, and so a cabinet minister became the first...

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railway fatality anywhere in the world.

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My last stop is Eccles, towards the other end of the Liverpool to Manchester line.

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This stretch of railway is full of engineering firsts,

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like the Sankey Viaduct, built by one George Stephenson.

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Well, I'm looking forward to Eccles, because Bradshaw says...

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"this little village is prettily situated

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"on the northern banks of the Irwell

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"and environed by some of the most picturesque rambles".

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It sounds charming.

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Which way for the picturesque rambles?

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Whoops! The 21st century caught up with Eccles.

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Up to the 1860s, Eccles was barely more than a few cottages.

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But when the world's first passenger railway was routed through it,

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the village's fate was sealed.

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It was soon swallowed up into the suburbs of Manchester.

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There are still some patches of greenery left,

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like the vast estate of Worsley Hall.

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The hall dates back to the 16th century, but was re-modelled

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in Victorian times and eventually turned into a pub.

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My Bradshaw's guide says it belonged to "the celebrated Duke of Bridgewater".

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So, the notice in the pub tells me that the old hall burnt down

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and its historic owner had a great interest in engineering.

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So, tomorrow, I shall explore what was for Bradshaw

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a passion almost as great as railways, that is to say canals.

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Bradshaw started his life mapping Britain's canals,

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before he moved on to railways, and so Worsley was of great interest to him as the birthplace of the canal.

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Bradshaw's guide is interested in all great feats of construction.

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It says of this spot, "The late Earl of Ellesmere inherited the vast estates of the celebrated

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"Duke of Bridgewater, for whom Brindley, the engineer, first made the subterranean canals here.

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"They supply the coal mines below, at a depth of 180 feet,

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"and wind in and out for about 18 miles."

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That prodigious feat of engineering must have inspired the railway builders of later years, and,

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ironically, the railways were then to put the canals out of business.

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These underground waterways were part of

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the Bridgewater canal system, arguably the first in Britain.

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They were built to carry coal directly from the Duke's mines

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at Worsley without going to the expense of

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bringing it to the surface.

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This pool is browny-orange,

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telling us that this water still comes up from the mine.

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You can't see much now, but from 1761, barges laden with coal

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would have emerged from there

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and this pool would have been a hive of early industrial activity.

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Clearly, what was the village of Eccles has changed a lot since Bradshaw's guide.

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But the guide also notes that Eccles is celebrated for its cakes, and that hasn't changed at all.

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Ian Edmondson is the production director of Lancashire Eccles Cakes.

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How long has your family been involved in making Eccles cakes?

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I suppose it started in the 1920s, when my grandad went round the local

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bakers' shops buying cakes and then he'd put them on his horse-drawn cart

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and he'd sell them at the local shops on the corners of the streets of Manchester.

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And then the family decided it would be better if they actually made the cakes,

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-so they set a bakery up making the cakes.

-Can we see how they're made?

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Of course, yes. First, I'll show you the ingredients.

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As you see here, this is the most important ingredient in an Eccles cake -

0:22:480:22:51

a really, really good-quality currant.

0:22:510:22:53

These are Vostizza and they're from a place in Aeghion, in Greece.

0:22:530:22:58

You'll see it says "Protected designation of origin."

0:22:580:23:02

Now, this is just like Champagne, where they don't allow another grape to come out of that area.

0:23:020:23:07

-Yes.

-This is the same with here.

0:23:070:23:09

-A guarantee of quality.

-Yes, it is.

0:23:090:23:11

And then we've got sugar...

0:23:110:23:12

Yeah, just simple ingredients. That's all that's in the product.

0:23:120:23:15

It's sugar, more currants, brown sugar...

0:23:150:23:19

-Brown sugar.

-..a bit of salt...

0:23:190:23:20

-Salt.

-..and lots of butter.

0:23:200:23:23

Wow! It's a whole different world, isn't it?

0:23:260:23:30

I know, it's absolutely fantastic, isn't it?

0:23:300:23:32

What would it have been like here, I don't know, 50, 60 years ago?

0:23:320:23:36

The way they'd have made the cakes 60-odd years ago would have been

0:23:360:23:39

on a big, round table, a big pile of currants in the middle.

0:23:390:23:43

Everyone gets a little bit of pastry,

0:23:430:23:45

puts it in and then starts folding it into a little dolly bag

0:23:450:23:47

and then knocking it in rings and then putting them on trays.

0:23:470:23:50

So, quite inefficient, compared to how we make them now.

0:23:500:23:53

Yeah, because now, it's all coming down the process line.

0:23:530:23:56

-Hi!

-Hi.

-That looks quite complicated.

0:23:560:24:00

No, it's easy, really.

0:24:000:24:02

Just put all the four corners to the middle...

0:24:020:24:05

-Yeah.

-..and then the sides.

0:24:050:24:06

-OK.

-If you'd like to have a go, put these gloves on.

-Yeah, sure.

0:24:060:24:10

-I wish you luck, anyway.

-Yeah! Surgeon's hands! So, four corners...

0:24:130:24:19

-Aaah! ..into the middle.

-Yeah.

-And then fold the side bits in as...

0:24:210:24:26

-Oh, Lord. Oh, that's a bit of a mess, isn't it?

-Yeah.

0:24:260:24:30

And once they come off the line there,

0:24:300:24:32

they get baked in these ovens, taken out and taken into the packing room for cooling, then packing.

0:24:320:24:38

This is really where you get the strong smell of the Eccles cake, isn't it?

0:24:380:24:42

Yeah, you get that fantastic smell. It's all the flavours coming together of the ingredients.

0:24:420:24:48

How many Eccles cakes are you producing?

0:24:480:24:49

We're producing about 150,000 Eccles cakes a day.

0:24:490:24:53

In fact, it's probably in the top six most popular cakes.

0:24:530:24:57

That's about, er, 40 million a year, or something.

0:24:570:25:01

Yes! I'll take your word for that.

0:25:010:25:04

-Would you like to try a real Lancashire Eccles cake?

-I thought you'd never ask. Yes, please.

0:25:040:25:07

Lovely aroma.

0:25:110:25:13

Beautifully folded, by the way.

0:25:130:25:15

Is it one of yours?

0:25:150:25:17

No!

0:25:170:25:18

Mmm, it's...

0:25:230:25:25

It's wonderful.

0:25:250:25:28

It's wicked. It's, erm...

0:25:280:25:30

Look at the lovely row of currants inside.

0:25:300:25:34

Can you taste the butter and the sugar?

0:25:340:25:37

Are you kidding? Of course I can! Absolutely buttery and sugary.

0:25:370:25:40

I'm really pleased to have looked into this very historic cake.

0:25:400:25:43

Centuries of history in this cake.

0:25:430:25:44

Yeah, and the fantastic thing about it is that it's the only Eccles cake

0:25:440:25:47

you'll get in a supermarket that's made within five miles of Eccles.

0:25:470:25:50

-The genuine article.

-Of course, yes.

0:25:500:25:53

The delicious pastries became so popular, they were transported to

0:25:550:25:58

markets up and down the country by train and sold on station platforms.

0:25:580:26:03

They were even exported to America and the West Indies

0:26:030:26:07

and were laced with brandy to help them last the journey.

0:26:070:26:11

But that method of preservation got the cakes into trouble.

0:26:110:26:16

The apparently innocuous Eccles cake has been

0:26:190:26:23

associated with merrymaking, so much so that at one time, Cromwell banned the Eccles cake.

0:26:230:26:30

And it got into trouble again in the 19th century, because they used to put brandy in the cakes,

0:26:300:26:35

and it's thought that one railway driver

0:26:350:26:37

got so drunk on eating Eccles cakes that he fell off his footplate.

0:26:370:26:41

And thereafter, the sale of liquor and the sale of Eccles cakes

0:26:410:26:45

was banned at all the stations around Eccles.

0:26:450:26:50

It wasn't only goods like the Eccles cake that the railways transported around the world.

0:26:540:26:59

Before Britain had railways, the average Briton was born, lived

0:27:030:27:07

and died within a 15-mile radius of the same spot.

0:27:070:27:11

The railways changed people's lives, and George Bradshaw saw it happening.

0:27:110:27:16

In a single lifetime, he saw how the railways changed industrialisation,

0:27:160:27:22

and how they changed people's lives,

0:27:220:27:24

and how they brought about the exponential growth of cities like Manchester and Liverpool.

0:27:240:27:29

And Bradshaw was proud of the technology and proud that it was British.

0:27:290:27:36

Next time, I'll be discovering how Manchester came to be known as Cottonopolis.

0:27:390:27:45

By the end of the century, the Indians were getting Indian designs

0:27:450:27:49

sent back from Manchester to India that maybe came from cotton that they'd grown originally.

0:27:490:27:54

-It was crazy.

-I'll be finding out about Bradshaw the man

0:27:540:27:58

and how he helped to unify time...

0:27:580:28:02

Each provincial city, like Birmingham, Manchester and so on, had their own time.

0:28:020:28:07

And of course, this was liable to create great confusion with railway timetables.

0:28:070:28:11

..and how the railways brought fish and chips to British plates.

0:28:110:28:15

Oh, thank you very much! Lovely.

0:28:150:28:18

It was the onset of the railways that allowed all this population,

0:28:180:28:21

this inland population, to, for the first time, experience sea fish.

0:28:210:28:25

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0:28:460:28:49

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0:28:490:28:52

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