Newark-on-Trent to Stockton Great British Railway Journeys


Newark-on-Trent to Stockton

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For Victorian Britons, George Bradshaw was a household name.

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At a time when railways were new,

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Bradshaw's guidebook inspired them to take to the tracks.

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I'm using a Bradshaw's guide to understand

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how trains transformed Britain,

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its landscape, its industries, society, and leisure time.

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As I crisscross the country 150 years later,

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it helps me to discover the Britain of today.

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I'm continuing my trip along the tracks of the Flying Scotsman.

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Today, I hope to have a singsong amongst holy innocents as my journey

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stretches into industrial Nottinghamshire, to discover how

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a novelist writing in Yorkshire prompted a Victorian concern

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for animals, and to meet my match as I strike into County Durham.

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My journey is taking me up the East Coast Main Line from

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London King's Cross through Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire,

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and on via Nottinghamshire to where a steam locomotive

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first hauled wagons in County Durham.

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I'll progress along the North Sea coast, crossing the Scottish border,

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to finish in the capital, Edinburgh.

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Today I start at Newark-on-Trent,

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a town dubbed the Key of the North.

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I'll continue on to Retford before stopping off in Thirsk and finishing

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in Stockton-on-Tees, the cradle of the modern railway.

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'On this journey, I rally a crowd of choristers...'

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Has your chanting ever been atrocious?

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No.

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'..become friends with a prickly chap...'

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Hello, Charles. Charles is certainly not lacking in energy or strength,

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-is he?

-He is quite a character.

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'..and get fired up with a Victorian chemist.'

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Let there be light.

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My first stop today will be Newark. Bradshaw's says, "the parish church

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"of St Mary is one of the finest in the kingdom.

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"A grammar school founded in Henry VIII's reign with a song school

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"attached is near the church."

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Children singing - a choir of new archangels, perhaps.

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Beside the River Trent,

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Newark's old castle provided the focus for a town

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where roads and railway lines converge.

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Its church steeple has long towered over the hustle and bustle

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of this market town.

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The Bradshaw traveller would already have recognised it as a hub.

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I'm meeting Andrew Fern,

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clerk at the charity that founded the choir school.

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Andrew, Bradshaw's mentions the very distinguished

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St Mary Magdalene Church, and mentions too that the grammar school

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from Henry VIII's time had a song school attached.

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For what purpose was there a song school?

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The song school was to enable the young men to learn to sing

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and to further their religious education at the same time.

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How was such a school funded?

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Thomas Magnus was a loyal courtier of Henry VIII,

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and because he was faithful to his king he was rewarded

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with emoluments and decided to endow the schools here

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with some of that wealth.

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Thomas Magnus was Henry VIII's chaplain.

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At a time when religion and power went hand in hand,

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Magnus left his mark on Newark.

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He bequeathed land that generated revenue for the trust to fund

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the grammar school and the song school.

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I think of funded choirs attached to Oxford and Cambridge colleges,

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to cathedrals, and so on,

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but it's quite unusual, isn't it, for a parish church?

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It's very unusual. We're enormously lucky.

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We're just one of the few parish churches in the whole country

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to have an endowed choir. And it gives a great opportunity

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to youngsters of all backgrounds, and sometimes different talents,

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to come together and make music. It's fantastic.

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Today's choir echoes the voices of generations of children

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who attended the school over the past five centuries.

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The choirmaster is Stephen Bullamore.

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Choir, what a splendid sound.

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Thank you very much. You must be Stephen.

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-Yes, thank you very much.

-It's great to see you.

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What a range of ages.

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And what does it feel like to sing with this choir?

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Well, it feels quite cool because it feels like it's a chance to be you,

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and it feels like you can express yourself.

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That's very nice indeed.

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So, has this choir pretty much been singing since 1530?

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Not necessarily each individual member, but as a body

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we've been going for a very long time, yes.

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I've been digging into the archives and we have a list of music which

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was sung in the 19th century, kept by one of my predecessors.

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And he also comments on quite how well the singing was or was not,

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so we have a rather nice comment: "All the music went well tonight."

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That's good.

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"Chanting in the morning simply atrocious.

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"As bad in the evening, and the anthem murdered entirely."

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Now, let's check with the choir.

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Has your chanting ever been atrocious?

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-ALL:

-No.

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And have you ever murdered an anthem?

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-ALL:

-No!

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Before leaving Newark, I'm going to visit a special display

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celebrating a time when train travel was still an adventure.

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The London North Eastern Railway ran to some beautiful places -

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York, Scarborough, Berwick-upon-Tweed -

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but how were those attractions to be illustrated?

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Posters were the answer,

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and writer Edward Yardley has a passion for them.

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Edward, I'm Michael. How lovely to see you.

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-Lovely to see you.

-What a great collection of railway posters.

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-Yes.

-When does the railway poster start life?

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The poster starts in the Victorian period, Michael, but it starts as

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a rather muddled set of images with some overstated letterpress.

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It really gets going in the Edwardian period,

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and by 1923, we were in the heyday of the poster period.

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Illustrated by artists,

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these posters transformed platforms into open-air galleries,

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and Frank Henry Mason was one of the masters.

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Born in 1875, he'd been a marine life painter when the LNER

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lured him into the advertising world.

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He demonstrated his talent for everything from the Flying Scotsman

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to the most intricate industrial scenes,

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and the east coast seaside destinations.

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Well, that speaks for itself.

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I mean, that is the classic, isn't it?

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Inviting us to the broad, open beach.

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Yes, this is what we think of as a typical railway poster,

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designed to entice the holiday public to the resort.

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It's Scarborough in this one.

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And it's alluring after all this time.

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-Yes.

-But, now, this is quite different.

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This is NOT buckets and spades at all.

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No, but this was the advertising manager coming up with

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a different slant on enticing the public to the Great Britain

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in terms of its industry as well as coastal resorts merely being

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for the holiday-maker.

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A tribute to what's actually going on in Britain.

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-Absolutely.

-And then up the east coast we go.

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Berwick-upon-Tweed, the famous bridge.

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And at last we arrive in Scotland, and that's a beautiful piece too.

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Indeed, and this is a series of six, Michael,

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showing the different types of fishing boats that in those days

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were very much at work in the harbours up and down the east coast.

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These posters...

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-Yeah.

-..remain very popular and you're obviously extraordinarily

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keen about them. Why are we so attracted still to

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the work of Frank Mason and others all these years later?

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Well, I think you can sum it up in the word "nostalgia".

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These are images of a bygone age.

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Yes.

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I'm leaving Newark to press northward.

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My next stop will be Retford in Nottinghamshire.

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According to Bradshaw's, the inhabitants manufacture hats,

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sail cloth, and paper, in considerable quantities.

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The Chesterfield Canal from the Trent has been of great advantage

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to the town. In Victorian times they discovered a new industrial plant,

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proving that the manufacture of the town was highly flexible.

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Retford has kept the traces of its industrial splendour,

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with fine Victorian frontages adorning the town square.

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The Northern Rubber Factory was founded here during that boom era,

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and has been on this site since 1871.

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Its product was destined to become indispensable.

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Mike Heslop has worked here for nearly 40 years,

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and knows about the history of rubber at the time of my Bradshaw's.

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In the Victorian times, the only rubber that was available

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was natural rubber, which was taken from trees,

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and that was sourced from Brazil

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because that was the only place that they grew,

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and it was illegal to actually export seeds or plants from Brazil.

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But in the 1870s, a chap called Henry Wickham

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smuggled 70,000 seeds from Brazil to Kew Gardens,

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where they were propagated and the resulting plants were

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distributed throughout the Empire.

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So to Ceylon, Malaya, at the time, India,

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all of which had the correct climate to grow rubber plants.

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When those rubber trees had grown in those colonial regions, their gum

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was a cheap commodity readily available to imperial Britain.

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Back in America, in 1839, Charles Goodyear had discovered that

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by heating rubber with sulphur, one was able to harden

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the amorphous mass into a material which would hold its shape.

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This process would be called vulcanisation.

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Alfred Pegler saw the potential,

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and founded the factory as a family business.

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His great-grandson would go on to look after the company,

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and put his name down in railway history.

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Alan Pegler is well known for his activities in the rail industry.

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In the early '60s, he purchased the Flying Scotsman and he then spent

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a large amount of his fortune restoring the train.

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We owe to him the fact that it has now been restored

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-and is available for us to ride.

-Yeah, absolutely, yes.

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Inside the factory's Victorian walls,

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the activity is resolutely modern.

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The old vulcanisation technique has evolved to produce army tank wheels,

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while synthetic rubber is used by 21st-century aerospace.

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Manufacturing manager, Tom Wagstaff, takes me behind the scenes.

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So, Michael, this is a fire test and what we're going to do is we've got

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a silicone rubber seal in the test rig. This particular seal,

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a safety-critical engine component for an aircraft. The point

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of the fire test is we are going to hit it

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with 1,100 degrees C of flame.

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We're going to do that for five minutes to make sure that

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the seal stays intact, and it will be safe on the aircraft.

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So that looks pretty metallic,

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but actually it is...

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-Silicone rubber.

-Silicone rubber.

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Whoa!

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Excuse me.

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Silicone rubber is the perfect material for this aircraft seal,

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because it can survive very high temperatures, as in this fire test,

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and extremes of cold, down to -60 Celsius.

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I can feel the heat radiating from here.

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A pretty powerful flame.

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It really is an aggressive flame, for the worst type of fire.

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I'm just going to have a look at what's happened to the seal.

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And the answer is nothing.

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With contracts with NASA and the British Ministry of Defence,

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the company is accustomed to manufacturing critical

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pieces of equipment, such as this in-flight refuelling hose.

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Imagine a fighter plane coming in at 300, 400mph,

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to the back of a tanker plane.

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It's got to be able to connect onto this.

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It's got to be strong enough to be able to take that force

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without breaking loose from the aircraft.

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And how on Earth does this thing find its way towards the fuel tank?

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So, it's a good question.

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These can be up to 120 feet long,

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and today the pilot will fly in,

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home in to the back of the tanker, and try and hook the end of it.

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I couldn't do it. I'm sure you could, Michael!

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But what we're actually doing as well -

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a really interesting piece of technology - is for drones, so UAVs.

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We're actually running data fibres within it, so an unmanned aircraft

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can clip onto the back, get fuel on board, download mission parameters,

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uncouple, and it allows those to stay in the sky 24 hours a day.

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And so, really, you're working on an intelligent hose.

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Oh, absolutely, yeah. This is the cutting edge of technology

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-across the world.

-Can you imagine what a gardener could do with that?

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-Thirsk, please. Senior.

-£27.05, then, please.

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To make my journey from Retford to Thirsk, I've had to change trains

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in York, but who needs an excuse to come to this magnificent station?

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When it was built in 1877,

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York was the largest station in Britain, and many perceived it as

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a monument to extravagance.

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The whole station was constructed on a curve,

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making it all the more striking.

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My next station will be Thirsk.

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Bradshaw's says, "that it cannot lay claim to any feature

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"worthy of attention." Oh, dear.

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I'm sure the people of Thirsk would not agree.

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"A few miles on is Byland Abbey, a fine ruin,

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"in going to which Laurence Sterne's house may be observed."

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Sterne, although a man of the cloth, wrote satire and comedy,

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and so his surname was not particularly appropriate.

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Despite Bradshaw's giving Thirsk the brush-off,

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it's actually a charming town,

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with a picturesque town clock and a cobbled market square.

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Just outside, in a pastoral haven, a man penned a series of books

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that shook the literary world.

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Patrick Wildgust is curator of the Laurence Sterne Trust.

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Well, Patrick, Bradshaw's recommended that I come to see

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Laurence Sterne's house, and I must say, it is highly attractive.

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But let's begin with - who was Laurence Sterne?

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Laurence Sterne was a clergyman, and he was the clergyman of two villages

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to the south of here, but he had ambition.

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He said, "I write not to be fed, but to be famous."

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And he produced a book called

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The Life And Opinions Of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman,

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one of the most extraordinary books that's in the English canon.

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-And why is it extraordinary?

-Because it's funny.

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It's a genuinely funny book, but it's also very clever.

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It begins with a rather strange way of referring to the hero's

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conception, which is dictated by the winding of the clock,

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and as a result of this, it was scandalous.

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That, presumably, is the book.

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Well, this is the first volume.

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This is a first edition, a copy of the first volume,

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which was published in 1759, and here is the title page.

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Shandy's a North Yorkshire dialect word,

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meaning a bit strange or a bit odd.

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And then, beneath that, we have two lines in Greek,

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so that's appealing to the intellectual,

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and it means something along the lines of,

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"It's not what things are that men fear, it's his opinions of them."

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How was it received at the time?

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It was a huge success, but it was also quite controversial,

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because the book, although funny and bawdy,

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when it was discovered it was written by a clergyman,

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that altered its reception to some degree.

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How was he regarded in Victorian times?

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In Victorian times, they chopped off the first five chapters

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in some editions, to make sure that this didn't offend.

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If a vicar in a parish today brought out a slim volume of erotic verse,

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how would it go down with the parish?

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-It had that sort of effect?

-Yeah, certainly.

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Sterne both provoked and influenced his readers.

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One of his best-known characters, Uncle Toby,

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made an impact on Victorian society.

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This painting here shows two characters from

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The Life And Opinions Of Tristram Shandy -

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Uncle Toby and the Widow Wadman.

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Uncle Toby is a kind and genial man.

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In volume two of Tristram Shandy, if I can show you here, on page 79,

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there's an account as to why we should look at this man because

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Tristram thinks that he owes 50% of his understanding of philanthropy

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because of this action, "where my Uncle Toby had scarce a heart

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"to retaliate upon a fly which had buzzed about his nose

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"and tormented him cruelly all dinner time.

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"Get thee gone, why should I hurt thee?

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"This world surely is big enough to hold both thee and me."

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And this must have been very unfashionable at the time.

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-People didn't care about animals.

-It's an unusual perspective.

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Tristram is affected by this, and so they were in Victorian times

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as well, because the Newcastle Weekly Chronicle decided that

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there should be a society organised for the young child

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to try to encourage the idea of not killing sparrows and birds.

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The editor used the pen name Uncle Toby to promote

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the Dickey Bird Society. Within ten years, 100,000 people had pledged

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fealty to feathered friends, and parades were held in Newcastle

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in celebration.

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Dear Uncle Toby, we owe you such a lot.

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Indeed.

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Uncle Toby and the Victorians sowed the seeds for the nation of

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animal lovers that the British have become.

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On the outskirts of Thirsk,

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Krista Langley has a wildlife centre funded entirely by donations.

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Since its opening in 2008,

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the centre has taken care of over 5,000 animals.

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Wow, cages all around.

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So, which animals are in residence at the moment?

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We've got a little owl. We get quite a few in.

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-Ooh!

-Looking very bright.

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Hello, little owl. What a lovely bird.

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They're full of character, little owls.

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Looking me directly in the eye.

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This little owl was brought to the centre after being found concussed

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on the roadside. It couldn't feed itself, but is recovering,

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and will soon resume its life in the wild.

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Cygnets, rabbits and other animals have found shelter and care,

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including this hedgehog, Charles.

0:21:370:21:39

At only 142 grams, he's in need of a feed.

0:21:390:21:43

Nice soft blanket for him.

0:21:450:21:48

Hello, Charles.

0:21:480:21:50

Come on, Charles. Come on, Charles.

0:21:500:21:52

Charles is certainly not lacking in energy or strength, is he?

0:21:560:21:59

He's quite a character.

0:21:590:22:00

Charles.

0:22:020:22:04

That's better. Here we go.

0:22:040:22:06

You're doing really well, because he's quite difficult.

0:22:060:22:08

He's always had a habit of pulling on the teat.

0:22:080:22:10

Yeah, he does pull a lot.

0:22:100:22:11

Although he's started to eat solids, he still enjoys his milk.

0:22:110:22:15

How's that, Charles? Is that nice?

0:22:160:22:18

My next stop will be Stockton.

0:22:260:22:28

Bradshaw's tells me it's a market town in the county of Durham,

0:22:280:22:31

employed in the coal and shipping trade, situated on the River Tees,

0:22:310:22:36

and celebrated for the manufacture of rope.

0:22:360:22:39

The first bar of the railway line to Darlington was laid here in 1825.

0:22:390:22:45

It's also the birthplace of the man who gave us heat and light

0:22:450:22:50

at our fingertips.

0:22:500:22:51

Stockton has a special place in the heart of all train lovers.

0:22:570:23:01

Here ran the world's first public railway to use steam locomotives.

0:23:010:23:06

Today, the town proudly commemorates the famed Locomotion No 1

0:23:060:23:11

with a modern sculpture that moves on the hour.

0:23:110:23:14

The 19th-century town residents were true pioneers,

0:23:150:23:18

and when it came to inventions, the railways were about to be matched.

0:23:180:23:23

This enormous work of art celebrates the achievement of a

0:23:250:23:29

Stockton-on-Tees chemist.

0:23:290:23:32

Just a little invention,

0:23:320:23:34

but one that simplified our lives,

0:23:340:23:36

and helped to fuel the Industrial Revolution.

0:23:360:23:39

To find out about that discovery, I need to step back in time to 1895,

0:23:430:23:48

in the Victorian street of the Preston Park Museum,

0:23:480:23:52

just in time for my appointment with the local chemist.

0:23:520:23:56

John Walker was a 45-year-old pharmacist

0:23:560:23:59

when he invented the striking match.

0:23:590:24:03

His shop stocked products ranging from cosmetics to leeches.

0:24:030:24:07

Historical interpreter John Sadler has stepped into Walker's shoes.

0:24:070:24:11

Mr John Walker.

0:24:130:24:14

-Good afternoon.

-Inventor of the striking match, I believe.

0:24:140:24:18

Well, I must confess that I was not intending to create the match.

0:24:180:24:23

I was inspired by The Reverend Alexander Forsyth,

0:24:230:24:26

and he had invented a new firing mechanism called the percussion cap,

0:24:260:24:32

which was an improvement on the flint mechanism,

0:24:320:24:35

and all one has to do now is literally pull the trigger.

0:24:350:24:38

So that's at half cock, go to full cock...

0:24:380:24:42

I feel a bit like Dick Turpin.

0:24:420:24:43

Ha! Take that, you blaggard.

0:24:450:24:47

So, why was it that that led you to the match?

0:24:470:24:51

I was working with a particular compound, which was sulphur-based,

0:24:510:24:55

and I had coated the solution onto a stick and then, purely by mischance,

0:24:550:24:58

I struck it against the fireplace, and it ignited.

0:24:580:25:02

John Walker promptly sold his matches,

0:25:040:25:06

and their success spread like wildfire.

0:25:060:25:10

Scientist Dr Joe McGuinness and artist Sarah Pickering

0:25:100:25:15

are keeping Walker's flame burning.

0:25:150:25:17

Sarah, hello, I'm Michael.

0:25:170:25:19

-Hi, Michael.

-Now, you have done an art piece,

0:25:190:25:23

an artwork around the invention of the match.

0:25:230:25:26

That's correct. It's a 38-metre photograph,

0:25:260:25:29

a massive enlargement of a John Walker replica match.

0:25:290:25:33

The commission that I had was to celebrate something

0:25:330:25:36

about the Stockton area. John Walker's invention in 1827

0:25:360:25:40

seemed really perfect subject matter for me.

0:25:400:25:43

And how did you, as it were, generate a Walker match?

0:25:430:25:46

Well, I came to the museum here and did some research.

0:25:460:25:49

They provided me with an original recipe, and this is where

0:25:490:25:52

Dr Joe McGuinness came in and helped me out.

0:25:520:25:54

-Joe.

-Michael.

0:25:540:25:56

Very good to see you.

0:25:560:25:57

So, a difficult task to remake a Walker match?

0:25:570:26:00

Not really. The compounds involved are relatively common.

0:26:000:26:04

You need an oxidising agent, which is potassium chlorate.

0:26:040:26:07

You can think of that as a bit like concentrated oxygen.

0:26:070:26:11

-OK.

-We need a fuel, which is antimony sulphide,

0:26:110:26:16

which is not the nicest compound,

0:26:160:26:19

but, you know, don't drink it, you'll be OK.

0:26:190:26:23

And then we need some plant gum.

0:26:240:26:27

That's just gum arabic and that is required to get the match head

0:26:270:26:31

to stick together and adhere.

0:26:310:26:34

-How do we do it, then?

-The first thing to do is to put a pair

0:26:340:26:36

of safety glasses and a lab coat on.

0:26:360:26:38

I've got a face shield, if you prefer,

0:26:380:26:40

and a pair of gloves will be advisable too.

0:26:400:26:43

This is clearly going to be more dangerous than I thought.

0:26:450:26:48

The mixture obviously is shock sensitive, so you can't do it in

0:26:480:26:52

a mortar and pestle and grind them all up together,

0:26:520:26:55

because it might go bang.

0:26:550:26:56

Despite hiring people to help him make matches,

0:26:570:27:00

John Walker never allowed anyone to do the last part of the process.

0:27:000:27:04

Some suspect that it had a special ingredient that he kept secret.

0:27:040:27:10

That's fine.

0:27:100:27:11

One thing is certain - its result was akin to a miracle.

0:27:110:27:15

Let there be light.

0:27:180:27:19

The steam engine is the icon of the 19th century,

0:27:280:27:32

but other inventions of the period also loom large in our history.

0:27:320:27:36

Vulcanised rubber, and the striking match, invented here on the banks of

0:27:360:27:40

the Tees, bringing illumination to our homes and fire to our hearts.

0:27:400:27:46

But humanity is not just about technology.

0:27:460:27:49

Laurence Sterne's character, Uncle Toby, suggested that a concern

0:27:490:27:53

for animal life was also a badge of a civilised society.

0:27:530:27:58

'Next time, I step through the looking glass...'

0:28:010:28:04

Michael, are you all right?

0:28:040:28:07

I've gone mad.

0:28:070:28:09

'..prove there's no smoke without fire

0:28:090:28:11

'when it comes to Northumbrian delicacies...'

0:28:110:28:14

Right, quite enough of that, I think.

0:28:140:28:16

Bye-bye, kippers.

0:28:170:28:19

'..and rock the boat on Scottish waters.'

0:28:200:28:23

My thoughts on the coracle -

0:28:230:28:25

possibly the most impractical thing I've ever set eyes on.

0:28:250:28:27

Whoa!

0:28:270:28:29

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