0:00:04 > 0:00:09When the first pylon of Britain's National Electricity Grid
0:00:09 > 0:00:14was erected in 1928, it heralded the dawn of a new electrical age.
0:00:15 > 0:00:20One lighter, brighter and infinitely better.
0:00:20 > 0:00:23Electricity promised social liberation.
0:00:23 > 0:00:27There would be this new robotic future where everything would get done for us.
0:00:27 > 0:00:30That was going to be a quantum leap from the world,
0:00:30 > 0:00:34the old coal world, where it was hard graft.
0:00:34 > 0:00:37Through the National Grid,
0:00:37 > 0:00:41electricity was to travel from power stations across the country...
0:00:42 > 0:00:44..right into our lives.
0:00:44 > 0:00:46I never realised when I bought my electric cooker
0:00:46 > 0:00:50that those auto-timer things could give me so much more freedom.
0:00:50 > 0:00:53Fancy being out for the whole Sunday morning!
0:00:53 > 0:00:57As soon as we could, we started plugging in in our masses.
0:00:57 > 0:01:02And we've been entwining ourselves in electrical cables ever since.
0:01:02 > 0:01:06You can think of electrical systems as the heart and arteries serving the building.
0:01:06 > 0:01:10Wherever you are, you're close to an electrical system.
0:01:10 > 0:01:13But in our enthusiasm to power up,
0:01:13 > 0:01:16just where has the Grid's energy propelled us?
0:01:19 > 0:01:22I'm making the most of my electricity supply.
0:01:22 > 0:01:26I have a lamp, another lamp, a lamp in the other room,
0:01:26 > 0:01:29another lamp in the other room, my music supply,
0:01:29 > 0:01:31and charging my phone.
0:01:42 > 0:01:46By the late 1950s, homes from the humble terrace
0:01:46 > 0:01:51to the stately half-timbered were connected to the Grid.
0:01:51 > 0:01:54They were ready and waiting to be powered into the future.
0:01:54 > 0:01:56What you had in those years
0:01:56 > 0:02:01was a sudden, huge psychological uplift in this country,
0:02:01 > 0:02:03a feeling that we were out
0:02:03 > 0:02:07of the terrible economic problems of the '40s,
0:02:07 > 0:02:11and into what Churchill once described as "the sunlit uplands".
0:02:13 > 0:02:18History is made at Calder Hall, the first large-scale nuclear power station in the world,
0:02:18 > 0:02:20when the Queen arrives to throw the switch
0:02:20 > 0:02:24that will send its output flowing into the National Grid.
0:02:24 > 0:02:28Britain's optimism was expressed through the National Grid.
0:02:28 > 0:02:32Generating capacity had doubled in just ten years,
0:02:32 > 0:02:37and her new nuclear power stations were symbols of electrical potential.
0:02:37 > 0:02:41- THE QUEEN:- All of us here know that we are present
0:02:41 > 0:02:43at the making of history.
0:02:43 > 0:02:47There was a sense that the world was going to get easier and cleaner.
0:02:47 > 0:02:50It was the cleanliness of electricity which was really the big issue.
0:02:50 > 0:02:54It was going to get rid of all this horrible smelly gas stuff.
0:02:54 > 0:02:59The future was going to be bright, and the future was going to be electric.
0:02:59 > 0:03:04And the portal to this brave new world was the humble socket.
0:03:04 > 0:03:08Before the war, many homes had been wired just for light,
0:03:08 > 0:03:11but now, most had the odd plug point, too.
0:03:11 > 0:03:13I was brought up on a farm,
0:03:13 > 0:03:17and my parents had one socket on the landing to serve three bedrooms.
0:03:17 > 0:03:19When I started my apprenticeship,
0:03:19 > 0:03:23I managed to fit one more socket to try and improve the job, one more.
0:03:23 > 0:03:28The question was just what to plug into them.
0:03:28 > 0:03:30The first thing I ever bought was an iron.
0:03:30 > 0:03:34- An iron.- Mmm. Electric iron.
0:03:34 > 0:03:35The iron.
0:03:35 > 0:03:38Although my mum had an electric iron, my granny still used the flat iron.
0:03:38 > 0:03:40She insisted.
0:03:40 > 0:03:44By the mid-50s, there were over 10 million electric irons in use,
0:03:44 > 0:03:49but for the Grid, a few low-current appliances wasn't enough.
0:03:49 > 0:03:52It wanted us to plug in a whole lot more.
0:03:52 > 0:03:54Good morning.
0:03:54 > 0:03:57Wake with the comforting thought of a ready-cooked breakfast,
0:03:57 > 0:04:01an electrically cooked, automatically cooked breakfast,
0:04:01 > 0:04:04a breakfast that cooked while you slept.
0:04:07 > 0:04:10Electric cooking is now auto time-controlled cooking,
0:04:10 > 0:04:13and yours with a new, modern electric cooker.
0:04:13 > 0:04:15Once you have a national grid,
0:04:15 > 0:04:18you can really look at your load factors,
0:04:18 > 0:04:20so you can look at what people are using electricity for
0:04:20 > 0:04:22at different times of the day.
0:04:22 > 0:04:24So if you have a purely electric lighting load,
0:04:24 > 0:04:27you have a big peak in the morning, when it's dark,
0:04:27 > 0:04:31and you have a big peak in the evening when everybody switches their electric light on.
0:04:31 > 0:04:33Not a lot goes on during the day,
0:04:33 > 0:04:36and this is a bad thing from the point of view of a large-scale electricity system.
0:04:36 > 0:04:41What you want is people to be using electricity for different purposes throughout the day,
0:04:41 > 0:04:43and preferably throughout the night as well.
0:04:43 > 0:04:46Electricity is a highly capital-intensive industry -
0:04:46 > 0:04:49building power stations and transmission lines.
0:04:49 > 0:04:53You really do have to use them as much as you can.
0:04:53 > 0:04:57So the electricity boards found it useful to get into the retailing industry.
0:04:57 > 0:05:00Electricity showrooms were built,
0:05:00 > 0:05:03and they spent a lot of time trying to push
0:05:03 > 0:05:07the things which they felt had the best load characteristics,
0:05:07 > 0:05:12the appliances which they wanted to encourage the use of.
0:05:12 > 0:05:15You might have an electric washing machine...
0:05:15 > 0:05:17A really large-size family washing machine.
0:05:17 > 0:05:21Just put the washing in here, at least nine pounds of washing.
0:05:21 > 0:05:25Very efficient, simple washing machine. Saves you hours of time.
0:05:25 > 0:05:26..electric cookers...
0:05:26 > 0:05:29It has got an automatic clock control.
0:05:29 > 0:05:34You can go out to do your shopping, and come home to find a perfectly cooked meal.
0:05:34 > 0:05:36What could be better than that?
0:05:39 > 0:05:40As a demonstrator,
0:05:40 > 0:05:48I started working in 1954, and I started working at Blackpool.
0:05:48 > 0:05:51The aims of the demonstration, primarily,
0:05:51 > 0:05:54were to get more people to use electricity,
0:05:54 > 0:05:57particularly the larger appliances, like electric cookers.
0:05:57 > 0:06:00And at least twice a week, when we had demonstrations,
0:06:00 > 0:06:04we really used to get about 150 people.
0:06:04 > 0:06:06I do wonder if some of them actually had come in
0:06:06 > 0:06:11because they were likely to be offered a taste of whatever we had cooked.
0:06:11 > 0:06:15But demonstrations were very, very popular in those days.
0:06:15 > 0:06:18You always went to demonstrations
0:06:18 > 0:06:21when they were introducing new things.
0:06:21 > 0:06:23Oh, yes, of course you did.
0:06:23 > 0:06:26They showed you completely how to use the thing, how much soap to put in.
0:06:26 > 0:06:31Like, from start to finish. Everything was taught to you.
0:06:31 > 0:06:34It will take exactly an hour and 20 minutes.
0:06:34 > 0:06:37I am so sure because I follow the recipe exactly,
0:06:37 > 0:06:40and my electric oven always gives the same reliable heat.
0:06:40 > 0:06:43- Oh, she made it look so easy. - The pastry, you mean?
0:06:43 > 0:06:46No, using electricity.
0:06:46 > 0:06:51And the Grid had another weapon in its bid to get us to plug in.
0:06:52 > 0:06:55Many electrical appliances had been invented by the 1910s.
0:06:55 > 0:06:57Although costs had dropped,
0:06:57 > 0:07:01most ordinary households could never afford the full price,
0:07:01 > 0:07:03but never say never...
0:07:03 > 0:07:07Hire purchase is one of the greatest assets of the modern community.
0:07:07 > 0:07:10It enables us to fill our homes with beautiful things
0:07:10 > 0:07:12we could never otherwise afford.
0:07:12 > 0:07:17In 1954, a relaxation in hire purchase conditions
0:07:17 > 0:07:20prompted the British to throw financial caution to the wind.
0:07:21 > 0:07:25We encouraged people, then, to buy electric cookers,
0:07:25 > 0:07:29and maybe to spread the payments over as long as four years,
0:07:29 > 0:07:32and this was really very beneficial for people,
0:07:32 > 0:07:35because they could pay a very small deposit,
0:07:35 > 0:07:39and then the other instalments would come in on their electricity bill.
0:07:39 > 0:07:44I think it was very beneficial to the electrical industry at that time.
0:07:44 > 0:07:45By 1958,
0:07:45 > 0:07:49one in three households were buying something on the never-never.
0:07:49 > 0:07:53Mrs Rayner, why do you keep buying all these things
0:07:53 > 0:07:54to put in your house?
0:07:54 > 0:07:56Well, I know I shouldn't really say this,
0:07:56 > 0:08:00but I like to see all the envious looks of my friends.
0:08:00 > 0:08:04For my mother, the purchase of the latest electric cooker,
0:08:04 > 0:08:09with timing mechanisms, was something which she brought into the kitchen,
0:08:09 > 0:08:13and showed every single person who came through the house.
0:08:13 > 0:08:17This was the time when people became electricity junkies.
0:08:18 > 0:08:24Between 1957 and 1962, the number of households with fridges,
0:08:24 > 0:08:27washing machines and TVs doubled.
0:08:27 > 0:08:29I got an electric Hoover
0:08:29 > 0:08:34and after that, well, it just went from one thing to another.
0:08:36 > 0:08:39I became a connoisseur of vacuum cleaners.
0:08:39 > 0:08:42The best thing you could get was the Hoover Senior.
0:08:42 > 0:08:45Not the Hoover Junior, the Senior's much stronger.
0:08:45 > 0:08:49It had a little searchlight on it, so you could see where the muck was.
0:08:49 > 0:08:51We had electric cookers.
0:08:51 > 0:08:56We had electric fires.
0:08:56 > 0:08:59The Teasmade was a popular one in our house.
0:08:59 > 0:09:01You needed a fridge.
0:09:01 > 0:09:06You needed an electric washing machine, be it a twin tub or an automatic.
0:09:07 > 0:09:09Well, I got a mixer recently,
0:09:09 > 0:09:12and it's the grandest implement I have.
0:09:12 > 0:09:14At the moment.
0:09:20 > 0:09:25The Grid's promotion of appliances helped balance the load,
0:09:25 > 0:09:28but they also had much wider social consequences.
0:09:28 > 0:09:35In the 1930s, you might have had something between 20 and 30%
0:09:35 > 0:09:39of women's employment actually in domestic service,
0:09:39 > 0:09:45essentially, and by the mid to late '50s,
0:09:45 > 0:09:49that had virtually disappeared, so what actually happened
0:09:49 > 0:09:53over this period was that at the same time
0:09:53 > 0:09:57as all households were acquiring domestic equipment,
0:09:57 > 0:10:01so middle class households were losing their servants.
0:10:01 > 0:10:04Middle class women ended up doing a lot more domestic work
0:10:04 > 0:10:06than they had done previously.
0:10:06 > 0:10:09Have you any idea the work there is to do in this house?
0:10:09 > 0:10:11Stairs to sweep, hall to polish,
0:10:11 > 0:10:14clothes to wash, and not even a daily.
0:10:14 > 0:10:19Pushing the Hoover was harder than never lifting a finger,
0:10:19 > 0:10:24but for working class women, it beat a dustpan and brush hands down.
0:10:24 > 0:10:31I was very keen to help other people to lead a different type of life,
0:10:31 > 0:10:35not so involved in drudgery in the home,
0:10:35 > 0:10:42but rather giving them more freedom to choose whether they wanted to have leisure activities,
0:10:42 > 0:10:46or whether they wanted to go out and pursue a career.
0:10:46 > 0:10:50And they could do if they actually cut some of the jobs
0:10:50 > 0:10:53that they'd had to do in the past.
0:10:53 > 0:10:58By the 1960s, it was a much, much more egalitarian society.
0:10:58 > 0:11:01Working class women and middle class women
0:11:01 > 0:11:05were doing pretty much the same amount of core domestic work,
0:11:05 > 0:11:08that's cooking and cleaning and laundry.
0:11:09 > 0:11:13And by the 1990s, improvements in domestic equipment
0:11:13 > 0:11:18had helped halve the time spent on household chores by women of all classes.
0:11:20 > 0:11:24The washing machine, too, is a big saving, and I wouldn't be without it now.
0:11:24 > 0:11:27Bob's never learnt to switch on...
0:11:27 > 0:11:30- BOB CHUCKLES - ..and he's never learnt to iron either.
0:11:32 > 0:11:37Gender equality happens much slower than class equality.
0:11:37 > 0:11:43The difference between men's and women's unpaid work
0:11:43 > 0:11:48has probably halved over the last 40 years,
0:11:48 > 0:11:53and we're probably 40 years off - you know, two generations -
0:11:53 > 0:11:55off full equality still.
0:11:55 > 0:12:01There seem to be universal norms that prohibit male laundry.
0:12:03 > 0:12:06But if some men were wary of domestic appliances,
0:12:06 > 0:12:12then there was one electrical gadget that did hold an irresistible appeal.
0:12:12 > 0:12:13I even had an electric drill,
0:12:13 > 0:12:17thanks to my wife's insistence on home improvements.
0:12:18 > 0:12:21Rising home ownership and a scarcity of tradesmen
0:12:21 > 0:12:25kick-started a DIY epidemic.
0:12:25 > 0:12:29Do It Yourself magazine, "for the practical man about the house",
0:12:29 > 0:12:35was born in 1957, and the premier work tool was the electric drill.
0:12:35 > 0:12:42On one occasion I actually did use a power drill, and go straight through an electric wire,
0:12:42 > 0:12:46which caused mayhem, because it happened on Christmas Eve,
0:12:46 > 0:12:51and led to a whole series of domestic problems which we hadn't anticipated.
0:12:51 > 0:12:55Oh, Daddy, for Pete's sake, stop messing about.
0:12:55 > 0:12:57Never mind, dear, we'll manage somehow.
0:12:57 > 0:13:00If father wants to play about being an electrician,
0:13:00 > 0:13:03we mustn't begrudge him a little clean fun.
0:13:03 > 0:13:06They are the bane - DIYers.
0:13:06 > 0:13:09I've seen sockets wired off lighting circuits,
0:13:09 > 0:13:11and joints on cables that are buried
0:13:11 > 0:13:14in the plasterwork with a bit of insulation tape round them.
0:13:14 > 0:13:16You go down to your local hardware store,
0:13:16 > 0:13:17where they have got sockets and cable,
0:13:17 > 0:13:19and I guarantee there's always somebody down the aisle
0:13:19 > 0:13:23looking at, picking things up and putting them back down again
0:13:23 > 0:13:25thinking, "How can I wire a socket?"
0:13:25 > 0:13:27and they don't know what they're doing but they're having a go.
0:13:27 > 0:13:30More often than not, you can get a call on a Monday morning
0:13:30 > 0:13:35or even late Sunday afternoon, when somebody's tried to put a light fitting up
0:13:35 > 0:13:36they'd bought from the local store
0:13:36 > 0:13:39and got all the cables and wiring mixed up and blown the fuses.
0:13:39 > 0:13:41Usually when you get there, the wife says,
0:13:41 > 0:13:44"I told him to leave it alone, we should have phoned an electrician,"
0:13:44 > 0:13:48but of course, men being men, they never listen. They always like to have a go.
0:13:48 > 0:13:52The worse case of DIY and electricity
0:13:52 > 0:13:58is they plaster the wall all round the light switch
0:13:58 > 0:14:01and the water gets through to the light switch.
0:14:01 > 0:14:04Water's a conductor to a certain extent
0:14:04 > 0:14:08and it can short from the power, obviously, to the water.
0:14:08 > 0:14:11And you have a whole electrified wall because the wall
0:14:11 > 0:14:15has got wet plaster, so it's wet and 240 volts.
0:14:15 > 0:14:17You may just feel it and jump and
0:14:17 > 0:14:20that'll teach you a sharp lesson not to do it again,
0:14:20 > 0:14:23but if it's a fairly big shock
0:14:23 > 0:14:26and you hold something that's live, we call it,
0:14:26 > 0:14:31it makes the muscles of the hand contract so you can't let go,
0:14:31 > 0:14:36and that is a real problem because it's not just the hand that's getting the electricity,
0:14:36 > 0:14:40it travels right through the body and that will stop the heart beat.
0:14:40 > 0:14:42And you don't even need to be
0:14:42 > 0:14:45a DIYer to feel the full force of the Grid.
0:14:45 > 0:14:48HE SINGS Brrrr!
0:14:48 > 0:14:49- MAN:- 'Stop!'
0:14:52 > 0:14:54So the government and other bodies produce
0:14:54 > 0:14:57a lot of literature and films and so on, describing how to use
0:14:57 > 0:15:01electricity appliances safely and what might happen if you didn't.
0:15:03 > 0:15:08- WOMAN:- Use electricity wisely or it may kill you.
0:15:08 > 0:15:11You only need one little arc to spark, you can generate
0:15:11 > 0:15:14a fire from there and the whole building can be destroyed
0:15:14 > 0:15:15and that's not unusual at all.
0:15:17 > 0:15:20I've been investigating fire for something like 40 years.
0:15:20 > 0:15:24There's no such thing as an easy fire investigation. It all has to be done
0:15:24 > 0:15:28carefully and methodically, very much like archaeology.
0:15:28 > 0:15:31You work your way through, narrowing it down until you find out
0:15:31 > 0:15:37sometimes the particular appliance or wire that's been damaged.
0:15:37 > 0:15:40Every year there's about 40,000 accidental fires in the home
0:15:40 > 0:15:45and 60% of these involve electricity in some form or other.
0:15:45 > 0:15:49The potential for the British to blow themselves up with
0:15:49 > 0:15:54their own appliances didn't escape the attention of the authorities.
0:15:54 > 0:15:56In an attempt to improve safety,
0:15:56 > 0:16:01in 1947 the British standard plug had been introduced.
0:16:03 > 0:16:08The British standard plug is a sort of bulldog of a design.
0:16:08 > 0:16:10It's a big stubborn chunky thing
0:16:10 > 0:16:12that's not going to go anywhere in a hurry.
0:16:12 > 0:16:15It's very different from those nasty cheap continental plugs
0:16:15 > 0:16:18which flop around and wobble in the wall.
0:16:18 > 0:16:21What made a British standard plug distinctive is several things.
0:16:21 > 0:16:26First, it was a three-pin plug. Secondly, the earth pin was slightly longer,
0:16:26 > 0:16:28so that would actually go into the socket first,
0:16:28 > 0:16:31and also it had a fuse inside it,
0:16:31 > 0:16:36so that if there was a problem then the fuse would cut the current out.
0:16:36 > 0:16:40All you do is just put in the appropriate fuse,
0:16:40 > 0:16:44to suit the appliance to which this plug is connected.
0:16:48 > 0:16:51Of course, the first thing the public does when new features
0:16:51 > 0:16:54are introduced is they find a way of getting round it,
0:16:54 > 0:16:57and they find adaptors and they find other things to do
0:16:57 > 0:16:59that actually circumvent the safety procedures.
0:17:02 > 0:17:05Sockets and plugs just seem to have a life of their own.
0:17:05 > 0:17:07They seem to breed.
0:17:07 > 0:17:11If you look behind sofas, behind desks and tables at home,
0:17:11 > 0:17:14you'll find they've been growing because gradually,
0:17:14 > 0:17:16over a year, you keep getting another thing that needs
0:17:16 > 0:17:21powering up and charging up, and in the end you get this superstructure of plugs
0:17:21 > 0:17:24and it's just a little bit frightening because you think,
0:17:24 > 0:17:28how much electricity can this stuff take before it all goes bang?
0:17:29 > 0:17:32You should have one plug, one socket, that's the golden rule.
0:17:32 > 0:17:35I hate to confess this, but there's
0:17:35 > 0:17:39one place, perhaps in this room, where you could find one adaptor.
0:17:39 > 0:17:41I'm not going to tell you where it is.
0:17:43 > 0:17:45One adaptor is fine
0:17:45 > 0:17:50but never piggyback adaptors or daisy chain extension leads.
0:17:50 > 0:17:53- WOMAN:- There are more fire risks than you think.
0:17:53 > 0:17:57Your potted plants dripping water into the television set.
0:17:57 > 0:18:01After a while, as a fire investigator, you go to a shop,
0:18:01 > 0:18:04you see a new appliance, and start wondering if it will be
0:18:04 > 0:18:07a problem in the future, and maybe you have a more vivid imagination
0:18:07 > 0:18:10than some other people of how you could use it to start a fire.
0:18:13 > 0:18:14Yes, it would. Yeah.
0:18:14 > 0:18:16Very good.
0:18:16 > 0:18:19Aren't they beautiful?
0:18:19 > 0:18:21He just wants the artistic look.
0:18:21 > 0:18:23Oh, that's nice.
0:18:24 > 0:18:26- SHE SNIFFS - Gorgeous, isn't it?- Yes.
0:18:26 > 0:18:30Our homes weren't the only places being transformed by electricity
0:18:30 > 0:18:33flowing from the Grid.
0:18:33 > 0:18:36Department stores spotted its potential to do more than simply
0:18:36 > 0:18:38expand their product range.
0:18:39 > 0:18:43MAN: Regarding the electrical installation,
0:18:43 > 0:18:47this runs into between £1,100 and £1,200 per month.
0:18:49 > 0:18:52From the 1950s onwards, department stores certainly utilised
0:18:52 > 0:18:55electricity much more than they had in the past.
0:18:55 > 0:18:57They also become more modern.
0:18:57 > 0:19:00They want to, in a sense, develop their place in the market.
0:19:00 > 0:19:03They can no longer behave like Grace Brothers.
0:19:03 > 0:19:05Variety stores are grabbing much of the market.
0:19:05 > 0:19:08They have to have their own unique selling point
0:19:08 > 0:19:11and electricity and modernism is one of the ways they exploit it.
0:19:11 > 0:19:15Outside London, people's first experience of an escalator
0:19:15 > 0:19:17is in a department store.
0:19:17 > 0:19:20You'd have to go to Birmingham to try an escalator,
0:19:20 > 0:19:23you did have to be Lewis' and Rackhams.
0:19:23 > 0:19:26Those were the first people to have them.
0:19:26 > 0:19:30It was a new thing to do to go up an escalator.
0:19:30 > 0:19:32I mean, that was a wonderful sensation
0:19:32 > 0:19:37and of course, it was all a fun thing in those days.
0:19:37 > 0:19:38But I mean, they got lifts anyway.
0:19:38 > 0:19:43But it was always more fun to wander up an escalator, wasn't it,
0:19:43 > 0:19:48- so you could go up onto the next floor. It was lovely.- Modern.
0:19:50 > 0:19:53It was just a form of entertainment and fun, but of course,
0:19:53 > 0:19:57it was also a way of making those buildings animated
0:19:57 > 0:20:00for people using them and to make them feel that they were
0:20:00 > 0:20:03not just machines for selling you things
0:20:03 > 0:20:06but they were like theatres for shopping in.
0:20:08 > 0:20:14Entrancing us with their electrical spectacle, department stores rapidly
0:20:14 > 0:20:18increased their numbers throughout the 1950s to over 500,
0:20:18 > 0:20:21cementing their place on the British High Street.
0:20:22 > 0:20:26Beattie shop windows were absolutely fabulous.
0:20:26 > 0:20:29In fact, people in the evenings
0:20:29 > 0:20:33used to go to Wolverhampton because they were all lit up.
0:20:33 > 0:20:37Oh, yes, yes. They were fabulous, especially at Christmas.
0:20:37 > 0:20:39Christmas was wonderful.
0:20:39 > 0:20:41They did them really beautifully.
0:20:43 > 0:20:47There's a kind of democratic luxury about window shopping.
0:20:47 > 0:20:50Everybody can do it. Everybody can look at these goods.
0:20:50 > 0:20:52You don't need an admittance ticket.
0:20:52 > 0:20:55So that whole process of dreaming of ownership
0:20:55 > 0:20:59which is central to the modern consumer experience often begins
0:20:59 > 0:21:03on the High Street in the '60s and '70s looking at the windows.
0:21:05 > 0:21:09Christmas lights must make a difference to the Grid
0:21:09 > 0:21:10because you seen so many of them.
0:21:10 > 0:21:14We assume a fixed level of about 300 megawatts which is
0:21:14 > 0:21:16maybe a quarter of a power station.
0:21:16 > 0:21:19London's Regent Street
0:21:19 > 0:21:23first switched on its Christmas lights to attract shoppers in 1954.
0:21:23 > 0:21:27Other parts of Britain followed suit.
0:21:27 > 0:21:32And it wasn't just at Christmas that the country was getting brighter.
0:21:33 > 0:21:37Britain really lit up at the end of the age of austerity in the mid-50s
0:21:37 > 0:21:41and you could see that, not just in city centres but on the fringes
0:21:41 > 0:21:44of cities too, where whole suburbs had been lit up into the early '60s
0:21:44 > 0:21:48with gas lights and then they were transformed into electric lights.
0:21:48 > 0:21:50- MAN:- Central London's remaining gas lamps
0:21:50 > 0:21:53are being replaced at the rate of 400 a year.
0:21:53 > 0:21:55Progress has no place for sentimentality.
0:21:55 > 0:21:59The old gas mantle can't compete with the new sodium lamp
0:21:59 > 0:22:02whose illumination can be up to 20 times as great.
0:22:02 > 0:22:09Imagine a dark, grimy, sooty world, an almost Dickensian world.
0:22:09 > 0:22:10Once electric light came,
0:22:10 > 0:22:14gosh, people felt safer, the city was more pleasant, it was brighter.
0:22:14 > 0:22:17You just felt you could walk the streets at night.
0:22:18 > 0:22:23It seems to me that there are two sides to electricity in the city in terms of lighting.
0:22:23 > 0:22:26There's the functional side which is the street lighting,
0:22:26 > 0:22:30and then there's more of an aesthetic side.
0:22:30 > 0:22:32There's flood lighting of grand buildings
0:22:32 > 0:22:35and the sort of joie de vivre that's in the streets.
0:22:35 > 0:22:38Piccadilly Circus is a celebratory idea.
0:22:38 > 0:22:42Obviously advertising's included in that, but if you like,
0:22:42 > 0:22:45there's the frothy joy of electricity.
0:22:48 > 0:22:49Drawn like moths to the flame,
0:22:49 > 0:22:54we flock to city centres to trip the light fantastic together.
0:22:54 > 0:23:00The Grid even registers this, ironically, with a dip in demand.
0:23:00 > 0:23:04Both Friday and Saturday night, the demand is suppressed.
0:23:04 > 0:23:06It's lower than it would be any time
0:23:06 > 0:23:10during the Monday to Thursday period. People are out.
0:23:10 > 0:23:12They're not sitting at home.
0:23:12 > 0:23:17They're clubbing or they've gone to the pub
0:23:17 > 0:23:20or maybe the dogs or something, but they're not sitting at home
0:23:20 > 0:23:23doing what they would do during the rest of the week.
0:23:27 > 0:23:30We'd all go down into the centre of town into Sheffield
0:23:30 > 0:23:34and it was usually places like, you know, a Wimpy bar, a coffee bar.
0:23:35 > 0:23:38And you were so excited if it was somewhere
0:23:38 > 0:23:42that music was available too, cos that was the whole point.
0:23:44 > 0:23:47The jukebox was like a magic creature in the corner
0:23:47 > 0:23:50that held the secrets of our entertainment.
0:23:50 > 0:23:53It was vibrant, it was alive and it was all new.
0:23:53 > 0:24:00In the '50s, the Grid enabled the explosion of a new music culture.
0:24:00 > 0:24:05In 1945, there were less than 100 jukeboxes in Britain.
0:24:05 > 0:24:10By 1958, there were over 13,000 plugged in.
0:24:10 > 0:24:14In one of the larger machines, which offers a choice of 160
0:24:14 > 0:24:17different tunes, there is no less than 1,000 feet of wire,
0:24:17 > 0:24:21used mainly for the complicated selector button system.
0:24:21 > 0:24:24Whichever town you've come from,
0:24:24 > 0:24:27some place, a coffee bar,
0:24:27 > 0:24:31had a jukebox and it's just a fantastic sound.
0:24:31 > 0:24:34And that noise, you hear that sort of...
0:24:34 > 0:24:36HE MAKES A CLICKING SOUND
0:24:36 > 0:24:38..the arm with the record in it comes up,
0:24:38 > 0:24:41goes down and then the little scratchy bit starts.
0:24:41 > 0:24:44HE IMITATES A SCRATCHY RECORD And then it's...
0:24:44 > 0:24:47# One, two, three o'clock Four o'clock rock... #
0:24:47 > 0:24:49Whatever it is on that record, and you go, "Whoa!"
0:24:51 > 0:24:55And you're 14-years-old, or 15-years-old,
0:24:55 > 0:24:58as Hank and I were at Newcastle at school.
0:24:58 > 0:25:00Amazing. Just amazing.
0:25:00 > 0:25:04- MAN:- You can't get through your plate of egg and chips before
0:25:04 > 0:25:07some music lover with a pocketful of thrupenny bits arrives
0:25:07 > 0:25:10to share the moment with you.
0:25:11 > 0:25:14How else did you access music?
0:25:14 > 0:25:18BBC Billy Cotton Band Show on a Sunday, all that stuff? No.
0:25:18 > 0:25:22You've got the jukebox and you could control what you wanted.
0:25:22 > 0:25:25It's what one commentator has called the people's music,
0:25:25 > 0:25:29the way we take control of music by electricity.
0:25:29 > 0:25:32RECORD SCRATCHES One, two, three, four, five,
0:25:32 > 0:25:36six, seven, eight, nine, ten,
0:25:36 > 0:25:4011, 12... Twist around the clock!
0:25:40 > 0:25:43# Come on everybody, let's twist Hey hey... #
0:25:43 > 0:25:46Dancing changed totally,
0:25:46 > 0:25:49absolutely, because everybody could do their own thing.
0:25:49 > 0:25:53You weren't restricted to - this is what you have to do for a waltz
0:25:53 > 0:25:54or a two-step or a foxtrot.
0:25:54 > 0:25:58You just did your own thing and the wilder you were the better.
0:25:58 > 0:26:00I absolutely loved the twist.
0:26:00 > 0:26:04Of course I danced the twist. Everybody was dancing the twist.
0:26:04 > 0:26:06Oh, you should have seen me a few years ago.
0:26:06 > 0:26:08I was an expert at doing the twist.
0:26:08 > 0:26:11# Everybody comes around and they jam the door... #
0:26:11 > 0:26:18A bit of that, a couple of brandy and ginger ales and you're away.
0:26:19 > 0:26:23Now, the music was the same whether you were at the Club a'Gogo
0:26:23 > 0:26:27in Percy Street, Newcastle, or the Flamingo, on Wardour Street, London,
0:26:27 > 0:26:30or in the Scene in Ham Yard. Wherever you went,
0:26:30 > 0:26:34it'd be the same sort of music and the same sort of dancing that was taking place.
0:26:35 > 0:26:37Through the power of the Grid,
0:26:37 > 0:26:41a national rather than local culture was emerging.
0:26:41 > 0:26:45But electricity wasn't simply a way of distributing this new music,
0:26:45 > 0:26:47it was its very life blood.
0:26:49 > 0:26:52Having an electric guitar at your fingertips
0:26:52 > 0:26:58gave you, it felt like more power, you had more power.
0:26:58 > 0:27:01Where would we be if there was a power cut?
0:27:01 > 0:27:05We've actually had power cuts on stage in the early days.
0:27:05 > 0:27:09Now, if you're playing something like this...
0:27:09 > 0:27:12and you can't hear it, and the power goes off,
0:27:12 > 0:27:18you are absolutely...buggered, as we say up north.
0:27:20 > 0:27:22While The Shadows' red Stratocasters
0:27:22 > 0:27:25stole the limelight it was the amplifier that mediated
0:27:25 > 0:27:29between guitar and Grid and in it, new sounds were born.
0:27:32 > 0:27:35You could develop your own sound when you plugged in.
0:27:35 > 0:27:41On the AC30s you had obviously a tone control, a treble, and a bass,
0:27:41 > 0:27:46you had vib trem, they called it - tremolo, or vibrato...
0:27:46 > 0:27:47Doing-g-g-g-g-g!
0:27:47 > 0:27:51You could get that effect and you'd go, "Whoa!
0:27:51 > 0:27:55"This is really exciting," you know, especially when you're so young.
0:27:55 > 0:27:58What does that knob do? You know... Doing-g-g-g-g-g-!
0:27:58 > 0:28:00That gave us The Shadows sound,
0:28:00 > 0:28:04and the rest is history as they say.
0:28:17 > 0:28:20Today, no note of recorded music
0:28:20 > 0:28:24is left untouched by the power of electricity.
0:28:24 > 0:28:28The ability to capture sound waves and convert them into electrical
0:28:28 > 0:28:33impulses gives you then the ability to change the sound waves
0:28:33 > 0:28:36with all this electrical equipment that we've got now,
0:28:36 > 0:28:40whether it be tone controls down to the reverb.
0:28:40 > 0:28:42# So when the curtain falls...#
0:28:42 > 0:28:46So, if I play a vocal here.
0:28:46 > 0:28:48OK, so that is just completely dry.
0:28:48 > 0:28:51- Now... - # Tell your hangman to be still... #
0:28:51 > 0:28:54This is a sort of a hall sound.
0:28:54 > 0:28:57You can imagine him singing in a hall.
0:28:57 > 0:29:01And I can make that now,
0:29:01 > 0:29:04I could make it into a much bigger hall.
0:29:04 > 0:29:08# Mmmm, but you've not yet worked it out... #
0:29:08 > 0:29:11You can hear it now sounds like it's in a really...
0:29:11 > 0:29:14It's got a really, really long decay.
0:29:14 > 0:29:19- # Oh, when you know me... # - And that sounds like, you know,
0:29:19 > 0:29:23if you're in a big cathedral and you're talking to somebody...
0:29:23 > 0:29:27So, there it is without it again.
0:29:27 > 0:29:30# Cos all you people come and go... #
0:29:30 > 0:29:33The sound wave has become an electrical impulse
0:29:33 > 0:29:38and it stays that way all the way until it comes out of your headphones,
0:29:38 > 0:29:42or your loudspeakers at home. It's incredible.
0:29:42 > 0:29:46# I keep watching till the sky turns white
0:29:46 > 0:29:49# I keep fighting till the end of my day
0:29:49 > 0:29:52# But I won't let No, won't let you take away
0:29:52 > 0:29:58# I keep watching till the sky turns white
0:29:58 > 0:30:01# I keep fighting till the end of my day. #
0:30:06 > 0:30:13You have a period, really, between the immediate post-war period and certainly in the mid-60s, when
0:30:13 > 0:30:19the most magical thing people are in contact with in their daily lives
0:30:19 > 0:30:23is electricity in that way and its uses seem to be legion,
0:30:23 > 0:30:28its use in industry is massively increasing, and all these things
0:30:28 > 0:30:31conspire, although I think at quite an ulterior level,
0:30:31 > 0:30:37you could argue that Britain kind of WAS the Grid at that point.
0:30:40 > 0:30:43By the early '60s, electricity sales
0:30:43 > 0:30:49had doubled on the previous decade and the largest user was industry.
0:30:49 > 0:30:54Most of the total of 162,500 million kilowatt hours per quarter
0:30:54 > 0:30:57comes from the Central Electricity Authority.
0:30:57 > 0:31:00More work for more people.
0:31:00 > 0:31:01In the post-war period,
0:31:01 > 0:31:03up until the early 1970s,
0:31:03 > 0:31:06we still have a position where manufacturing industry
0:31:06 > 0:31:11is accounting for getting on for 40% of gross domestic product.
0:31:11 > 0:31:15It is a major source of wealth creation in the British economy,
0:31:15 > 0:31:18built around the use of electricity
0:31:18 > 0:31:21in developing mass production technologies.
0:31:22 > 0:31:25Without electricity, you don't get modern mass production.
0:31:25 > 0:31:28There's no question about that. Henry Ford was, of course, the first
0:31:28 > 0:31:32master of modern mass production and his assembly lines relied on
0:31:32 > 0:31:34electricity to make them work.
0:31:34 > 0:31:39Steam power, gas power, cannot be moved around, whereas electricity
0:31:39 > 0:31:44by definition can be moved around through cables so that designers were
0:31:44 > 0:31:49able to break down each individual component and place it accurately
0:31:49 > 0:31:53on a flow line production system with workers working on either side
0:31:53 > 0:31:55of a production line.
0:31:57 > 0:32:03Britain's most famous ones were the car production lines in Birmingham.
0:32:03 > 0:32:08I started at Longbridge in April 1957
0:32:08 > 0:32:11and it takes your breath away to see things going on.
0:32:11 > 0:32:14I mean, there's 26,000 men
0:32:14 > 0:32:17approximately, working at Longbridge
0:32:17 > 0:32:20and it was worth just standing there
0:32:20 > 0:32:25and looking at how everything fitted, from an empty painted shell
0:32:25 > 0:32:29to the finished job going off the end of the line.
0:32:29 > 0:32:33And my first job was fitting the passenger side seat brackets for
0:32:33 > 0:32:38the seats and my colleague was fitting the driving side brackets.
0:32:40 > 0:32:45Here all the latest tools for speedy assembly are in use, and time means money.
0:32:47 > 0:32:51Men worked on a track and that was the main boss.
0:32:51 > 0:32:56The tracks were moving at 22 cars an hour.
0:32:58 > 0:33:01There was no official breaks at all.
0:33:01 > 0:33:04The track ran and we ran.
0:33:04 > 0:33:07My job took me under three minutes.
0:33:10 > 0:33:12Men did have nervous breakdowns.
0:33:12 > 0:33:14The cars never stopped.
0:33:16 > 0:33:2082,000 people are at work on the assembly lines and in the offices
0:33:20 > 0:33:24of BMC each day, producing 17 times as many vehicles per man
0:33:24 > 0:33:26as their grandfathers did 50 years ago
0:33:26 > 0:33:31and drawing £50 million in wages and salaries every year.
0:33:31 > 0:33:35This was creating an economy which had unprecedentedly
0:33:35 > 0:33:41low levels of unemployment, less than two per cent of the working population.
0:33:43 > 0:33:45Full employment fuels the growth
0:33:45 > 0:33:51in real wages and what we see is a four-fold increase in real wages.
0:33:51 > 0:33:58Work is a lot easier, but I would say this, when you've finished your turn's work, you're all in.
0:33:58 > 0:34:00- Even a day.- Even a day.
0:34:00 > 0:34:02But you're earning more money.
0:34:02 > 0:34:04Well, yes, you're earning more money, but we're spending more.
0:34:04 > 0:34:07The very way that Henry Ford set up his production lines,
0:34:07 > 0:34:11his electrically-driven production lines, was to create a consumer society
0:34:11 > 0:34:14so people work hard for Ford, get well paid
0:34:14 > 0:34:17and they'd have enough money to buy a Model T Ford.
0:34:19 > 0:34:26There was more brand-new cars bought by car workers, which set the standard for the rest of the public.
0:34:26 > 0:34:29First car I had was an Austin Cambridge.
0:34:29 > 0:34:32It was tartan red and farina grey.
0:34:32 > 0:34:35The farina grey was more of a white.
0:34:35 > 0:34:39My second car was an Austin Maxi.
0:34:39 > 0:34:43After I finished with the Maxi, I bought a silver metallic Metro.
0:34:43 > 0:34:46Traded it in for another Austin.
0:34:46 > 0:34:54A Rover 200. And then I decided to buy a 400, that's a blue 400.
0:34:54 > 0:34:57They gave me my living - you've got to be loyal, haven't you?
0:34:58 > 0:35:06I was able to live with a decent standard of living on a single wage and enjoyed my free time.
0:35:08 > 0:35:13We'd see for the first time, the establishment of the weekend.
0:35:15 > 0:35:17The concept of the weekend emerged
0:35:17 > 0:35:21in association with a full-employment age of affluence.
0:35:21 > 0:35:27An age of leisure supposedly beckoned.
0:35:27 > 0:35:32The idea was abroad that somehow robots would do everything for us
0:35:32 > 0:35:35and it was a sort of Jetson world in the cartoon in the 1960s
0:35:35 > 0:35:37where you could do everything at the press of a button.
0:35:37 > 0:35:39Machinery could just do anything
0:35:39 > 0:35:42and in fact that was, you know, became a deep-seated belief,
0:35:42 > 0:35:44I think, and people were quite looking forward to that era.
0:35:46 > 0:35:52It is 08:30 hours, September 14th 1988.
0:35:52 > 0:35:55These are children of our time.
0:35:55 > 0:35:57They should live to be 100.
0:35:57 > 0:36:00They will not toil, they need never be unhappy,
0:36:00 > 0:36:04but this morning, as every morning, there is a problem.
0:36:04 > 0:36:10How to spend a golden lifetime, what to do with so much time.
0:36:12 > 0:36:16The age of leisure never came.
0:36:16 > 0:36:20Faced with a choice of even shorter working hours or fatter pay packets,
0:36:20 > 0:36:21the British took the money,
0:36:21 > 0:36:25but that could only mean one thing.
0:36:28 > 0:36:33If you keep hours of work constant, and you've got increasing
0:36:33 > 0:36:36productivity, then you have to consume more and more
0:36:36 > 0:36:40per hour in order to keep the economy ticking over.
0:36:40 > 0:36:43Consumptivity has to increase
0:36:43 > 0:36:48alongside productivity, so we're busier, therefore,
0:36:48 > 0:36:52not just in our work lives, but in our leisure time also.
0:36:52 > 0:36:56Your leisure is other people's work.
0:37:01 > 0:37:04Electrification has spun not just the wheels of industry,
0:37:04 > 0:37:07but the wheels of the entire economy faster.
0:37:09 > 0:37:12To this day, a nation's economic performance
0:37:12 > 0:37:15can be tracked by how much electricity we draw from the Grid.
0:37:18 > 0:37:24Electricity demand tracks very well the overall state of the economy.
0:37:24 > 0:37:29Our demand figures are published every day and although you can't
0:37:29 > 0:37:35just take a totally short-term view, you can see as soon as anywhere else
0:37:35 > 0:37:37what's happening to the overall economy by looking
0:37:37 > 0:37:42at trends and the demand figures over a suitable period of time.
0:37:49 > 0:37:54And there's one sector of the economy that was practically unheard of
0:37:54 > 0:38:00before the Grid powered up our work places and took the labour out of labour.
0:38:02 > 0:38:03Electricity is vital for the gym.
0:38:03 > 0:38:08Without it you couldn't use half the equipment in here, especially the cardio equipment.
0:38:08 > 0:38:13During the busy times, it's hot, it's sticky,
0:38:13 > 0:38:16especially on the treadmills, there's sweat flying everywhere and
0:38:16 > 0:38:18there's queues as well. There's queues of people waiting.
0:38:18 > 0:38:20It gets pretty full on in the cardio room.
0:38:20 > 0:38:22Today, 90% of the population
0:38:22 > 0:38:27are within two miles of a health club or leisure centre.
0:38:29 > 0:38:31You're not looking at professional athletes there,
0:38:31 > 0:38:33you're looking at everyday people.
0:38:33 > 0:38:35They come in literally on their own time, whenever they can grab an hour
0:38:35 > 0:38:38they come in, they pound on the treadmill, they go in the weights room,
0:38:38 > 0:38:40definitely to replace the fact
0:38:40 > 0:38:44that we have no manual labour any more, especially in this area.
0:38:44 > 0:38:49Well, I sit all day at a desk in front of a computer,
0:38:49 > 0:38:54so I feel like I need to do some exercise to make up for that.
0:38:59 > 0:39:07This is a step machine and this is basically replicating climbing a set of stairs.
0:39:07 > 0:39:12It's quite interesting the number of people who do stand on an escalator on their way to the gym.
0:39:12 > 0:39:16The way our lives are constructed, it's going to lead to
0:39:16 > 0:39:19long-term problems. Your muscles are going to waste away. You're going to
0:39:19 > 0:39:23pile on extra calories, so you have to get out and do something.
0:39:27 > 0:39:32The Grid can help raise our heart rate, but if all else fails,
0:39:32 > 0:39:34it's able to go one step further.
0:39:41 > 0:39:46In 1962, I hadn't been at the hospital very long when I heard
0:39:46 > 0:39:49that a patient had been resuscitated
0:39:49 > 0:39:52with a defibrillator and we were all very excited.
0:39:54 > 0:39:57At the start of the '60s, an extraordinary new piece
0:39:57 > 0:40:01of equipment called a defibrillator was appearing in British hospitals.
0:40:01 > 0:40:09Its origins lay in studies into how electricity could kill rather than cure at the end of the 19th century.
0:40:11 > 0:40:14One of the really important groups of researchers were a team called
0:40:14 > 0:40:17Prevost and Batelli, physiologists working in Geneva.
0:40:17 > 0:40:21They did a number of explorations on animal hearts and they discovered
0:40:21 > 0:40:25in the process that a low current applied to the heart
0:40:25 > 0:40:27could cause it to fibrillate, in other words to twitch
0:40:27 > 0:40:31randomly without pumping blood. Now, of course, this will cause death.
0:40:31 > 0:40:36However, they also discovered that a stronger shock applied to the heart
0:40:36 > 0:40:39in fibrillation could allow the heart to stop fibrillating and to
0:40:39 > 0:40:41begin its normal activity again.
0:40:41 > 0:40:45In other words, a dying heart could be brought back to life.
0:40:45 > 0:40:51Now, when you give a shock like that, what it does is it makes
0:40:51 > 0:40:56all the heart which is beating chaotically, it makes it all
0:40:56 > 0:41:01contract at the same time and then there's that little resting period
0:41:01 > 0:41:07you get and during that resting period, the ordinary proper control
0:41:07 > 0:41:11of the heart, the electrical control of the heart, can take over again.
0:41:11 > 0:41:13That's what happens in defibrillation.
0:41:15 > 0:41:17It took some 50 more years before
0:41:17 > 0:41:20this electrifying discovery was applied to the human heart
0:41:20 > 0:41:25and the first hospital defibrillators were in use.
0:41:25 > 0:41:31My first experience was 1962.
0:41:31 > 0:41:36I was on a ward round as a junior doctor with the chief
0:41:36 > 0:41:42and he approached one lady in her bed and she gave a strange look
0:41:42 > 0:41:44and fell back dead.
0:41:44 > 0:41:50And the chief turned to me and said "You deal with it," so I sent for
0:41:50 > 0:41:54the defibrillator but there was a problem, because it had come from the
0:41:54 > 0:41:58newly-built block that had new-fangled square-type plugs.
0:41:58 > 0:42:03We were in an old building that still had round plugs so we couldn't plug it in.
0:42:05 > 0:42:08I got my pen knife. I cut the
0:42:08 > 0:42:12plug off the end, bared the wires, two medical students, one each, I said
0:42:12 > 0:42:15"Each of you push that wire into those two holes"
0:42:15 > 0:42:20and I fiddled with the defibrillator and pushed the button.
0:42:23 > 0:42:28And after a while, the patient had a heartbeat and very quickly she began to come round.
0:42:28 > 0:42:34We got her back into the bed and then I pulled the curtains aside
0:42:34 > 0:42:39and the other patients in the ward who had been all too aware of what had happened, they applauded.
0:42:39 > 0:42:43I can't remember whether I bowed or not, but it was a very special moment
0:42:43 > 0:42:50and do you know, she lived for over 11 years after that and I had
0:42:50 > 0:42:54a Christmas card every year for 11 years.
0:42:58 > 0:43:01These men can be said to be living proof of the argument.
0:43:01 > 0:43:04A few days ago, they were on the brink of becoming victims of the
0:43:04 > 0:43:09biggest single killer of middle-aged men, the heart attack.
0:43:09 > 0:43:14I don't know how many thousands of volts he got, but he got quite a lot.
0:43:14 > 0:43:20He got a big number and then suddenly there was a great commotion and they said
0:43:20 > 0:43:21"His heart's starting."
0:43:27 > 0:43:30Electricity is a part of life.
0:43:30 > 0:43:34We wouldn't exist for half a second without electricity travelling
0:43:34 > 0:43:39this direction and that and charges positive charges and negative charges.
0:43:39 > 0:43:43We are very much a part-electrical package.
0:43:44 > 0:43:50And when our own electrical systems let us down,
0:43:50 > 0:43:53or our bodies are simply too immature to function by themselves,
0:43:53 > 0:43:58increasingly, current from the Grid has been able to carry us through.
0:44:00 > 0:44:03As you can see here, we have
0:44:03 > 0:44:05the monitoring of a patient
0:44:05 > 0:44:07within our neonatal unit.
0:44:07 > 0:44:10It shows us the heart beat,
0:44:10 > 0:44:13also respiration rates
0:44:13 > 0:44:18and that's picked up by the wires that are attached to the baby's chest.
0:44:18 > 0:44:22We've also got a selection of various pumps
0:44:22 > 0:44:27which provide nutritional support for premature babies and each one of
0:44:27 > 0:44:35the plugs is actually on all the time, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year
0:44:35 > 0:44:38and they're all colour-coded as high priority as well, so that they
0:44:38 > 0:44:43don't get disconnected, so when the cleaner comes in to clean the floor
0:44:43 > 0:44:47she knows that she can use another plug socket and we are very careful
0:44:47 > 0:44:51that we keep extra sockets available in case we need any other support
0:44:51 > 0:44:56for this baby. Because we work in an environment that requires
0:44:56 > 0:45:00things to be plugged in very quickly, we do have them on her at all times.
0:45:00 > 0:45:03Plug in and go, we do.
0:45:08 > 0:45:12I don't think there are many places in our daily lives when we would welcome
0:45:12 > 0:45:16a resonant repetitive beep,
0:45:16 > 0:45:19your neighbour's alarm clock, the sound of a car alarm from
0:45:19 > 0:45:21a long distance away,
0:45:21 > 0:45:23but in a hospital that all changes.
0:45:23 > 0:45:26When you walk into a hospital, you're standing by a bedside
0:45:26 > 0:45:29and all you long for is that repetitive beep
0:45:29 > 0:45:34that means my mother, my grandmother, my children are still alive.
0:45:53 > 0:45:59It seems to me that electricity itself has become the kind of fluid,
0:45:59 > 0:46:03a kind of amniotic fluid that we swim in, that almost permanently
0:46:03 > 0:46:09infantalises us in that way, that we remain embryonic in our culture
0:46:09 > 0:46:13because of its ubiquity and its presence in every area of our lives.
0:46:17 > 0:46:21In a way, you can read the whole history of post-war Britain through
0:46:21 > 0:46:26electricity and when everybody's got electricity and they've become blase
0:46:26 > 0:46:30about it that everybody's got their washing machine
0:46:30 > 0:46:35spinning and has got their Hoover moaning away in the background,
0:46:35 > 0:46:37then where do you go from there?
0:46:38 > 0:46:42The only way was up.
0:46:42 > 0:46:44Having shaped our lives,
0:46:44 > 0:46:48the Grid set about transforming the very nature of our buildings
0:46:48 > 0:46:51and embedding itself in the heart of their structures.
0:46:51 > 0:46:53Many more people are going up in the world these days.
0:46:53 > 0:46:57They've no alternative if they work or live in the tall buildings
0:46:57 > 0:47:02which are now transforming the face of the cities of Britain.
0:47:02 > 0:47:08Until 1962, the tallest buildings in Britain were the Blackpool Tower,
0:47:08 > 0:47:11Salisbury Cathedral and St Paul's.
0:47:11 > 0:47:15Reaching for the skies was for special occasions only.
0:47:15 > 0:47:19The electrically-powered lift was to change all that,
0:47:19 > 0:47:23when it relieved us of having to climb the stairs.
0:47:23 > 0:47:24That electric lift
0:47:24 > 0:47:28allowed the skyscrapers to develop, along with new steel technology, but
0:47:28 > 0:47:31the two went hand in hand, but once you had the lift, once you had the
0:47:31 > 0:47:34new steel, you could build a building basically as high as you like.
0:47:36 > 0:47:39For decades, conservative building
0:47:39 > 0:47:43regulations had kept a lid on Britain's skyline, but the pressures
0:47:43 > 0:47:48of a rising population were to release architects' fantasies.
0:47:48 > 0:47:51It was to be a new urban landscape
0:47:51 > 0:47:53and it expressed a kind of new...
0:47:53 > 0:47:59collectivism and also a new sense of a modern city.
0:48:01 > 0:48:05Huge-scale estates are changing the face of the country,
0:48:05 > 0:48:08maybe a bit barrack-like but pretty impressive.
0:48:10 > 0:48:13You have to recall something
0:48:13 > 0:48:18that's difficult to recall today, which was the literally appalling
0:48:18 > 0:48:22conditions in which a large part of the British population lived.
0:48:22 > 0:48:26In the mid-50s, they found that two in five
0:48:26 > 0:48:30of all the homes in Liverpool were unfit for human habitation
0:48:30 > 0:48:36and in Glasgow, it was even worse, and these had to be swept away.
0:48:39 > 0:48:43A wave of high-rise social housing erupted across Britain,
0:48:43 > 0:48:50piercing the sky from Alton West in London to Hutchie C in Glasgow.
0:48:50 > 0:48:52There was a profound vision
0:48:52 > 0:48:59at this time of a modern architecture, and that meant more than just style.
0:48:59 > 0:49:02It meant technologically driven architecture
0:49:02 > 0:49:07that was to be an ideal set of units stuffed with technology
0:49:07 > 0:49:11for a new lifestyle made possible by electricity.
0:49:13 > 0:49:16A golden future beckoned,
0:49:16 > 0:49:19but there was one spanner in the works.
0:49:21 > 0:49:24When the plumbers of this world designed high-rise flat blocks,
0:49:24 > 0:49:29the people living at the top depended on one thing, that the lifts worked.
0:49:29 > 0:49:31For the past three weeks, the lifts haven't moved
0:49:31 > 0:49:36in this 16-storey block in West Acton.
0:49:36 > 0:49:38There's nothing fundamentally wrong with the idea of
0:49:38 > 0:49:40high-rise housing in Britain.
0:49:40 > 0:49:43It's just that things were done so crudely and done so badly,
0:49:43 > 0:49:47ill thought-out in terms of pure function.
0:49:47 > 0:49:49I mean, it's one thing styling it up on a drawing board, it's another
0:49:49 > 0:49:52thing getting the plumbing to work and in particular getting the lifts
0:49:52 > 0:49:57and famously, British lifts tended to get stuck in high-rise towers,
0:49:57 > 0:49:59there's no getting away from it.
0:49:59 > 0:50:02I think these lifts should be made to work
0:50:02 > 0:50:06so that people who have angina and babies to carry up and prams
0:50:06 > 0:50:09should not have to climb the stairs.
0:50:09 > 0:50:11I have angina.
0:50:11 > 0:50:13Has it stopped you going out then when the lift's not been?
0:50:13 > 0:50:15Oh, yes. I've been out three times in a fortnight.
0:50:15 > 0:50:19And I like to get out a little way most days.
0:50:19 > 0:50:25By the 1980s, the dream of high-rise social housing was disappearing
0:50:25 > 0:50:27in a cloud of dust.
0:50:27 > 0:50:29But there was a second wave of vertical building
0:50:29 > 0:50:33determined not to be caught electrically short.
0:50:36 > 0:50:41The brutal truth of lift services generally, it's about money.
0:50:41 > 0:50:45In an office building, if the lifts aren't working, you can't operate.
0:50:45 > 0:50:46It's an office, you can't make money,
0:50:46 > 0:50:49you can't provide the services that you provide.
0:50:49 > 0:50:52I think people assume that little old ladies
0:50:52 > 0:50:55with their shopping can hang around, whereas busy bankers can't.
0:50:57 > 0:50:59In the same year that the notorious tower block
0:50:59 > 0:51:05Ronan Point was demolished in East London, just a few miles away in the City,
0:51:05 > 0:51:07the Lloyd's building opened.
0:51:10 > 0:51:13Over 80% of us in the whole country
0:51:13 > 0:51:16work in what we today call the knowledge economy, jobs where
0:51:16 > 0:51:20you can't drop anything on your toe or perhaps you
0:51:20 > 0:51:23can drop a stapler on your toe, but nothing much more serious,
0:51:23 > 0:51:27we work shifting paper or now, increasingly, electronic paper
0:51:27 > 0:51:33and this requires, very often, a lot of people to work together.
0:51:33 > 0:51:38So the pressure has always been to build higher and to build closer.
0:51:38 > 0:51:42It's interesting that the British city today
0:51:42 > 0:51:48looks very different even from the way it looked 25 years ago.
0:51:50 > 0:51:52The National Grid has made our,
0:51:52 > 0:51:56if you like, 24-hour working offices possible.
0:51:56 > 0:52:00The modern workplace is defined by electricity.
0:52:00 > 0:52:04The electrics are absolutely everywhere and they help light every part of it,
0:52:04 > 0:52:08transport systems in the building, plant, air conditioning.
0:52:08 > 0:52:12Wherever you are, you're close to an electrical system.
0:52:12 > 0:52:15This is the underfloor power system.
0:52:15 > 0:52:16It brings the Grid to your desk, essentially.
0:52:16 > 0:52:19A track system, plug into it
0:52:19 > 0:52:24and it takes power straight to your computer, laptop, whatever, on your desk.
0:52:32 > 0:52:37The computing revolution brought with it a building revolution.
0:52:37 > 0:52:41The computer floor in this building is absolutely full of wires.
0:52:41 > 0:52:48They even extend to the ceremonial space and flow underneath a Carrera marble computer floor,
0:52:48 > 0:52:51as far as I know, the only one in London.
0:52:53 > 0:52:55Most modern office buildings are dealing with data.
0:52:55 > 0:53:00The loss of that data is disastrous, therefore uninterrupted power supply
0:53:00 > 0:53:02is critical.
0:53:02 > 0:53:06If you lose your electricity, you're pretty much dead in the water.
0:53:12 > 0:53:14These generators, they are the beasts in the basement.
0:53:14 > 0:53:17If the Grid goes down outside the building, the engines will start
0:53:17 > 0:53:21immediately and within a minute or so are generating power and supplying
0:53:21 > 0:53:23the building, all the cooling and computers and so forth.
0:53:23 > 0:53:26Now, some things would notice that gap and to fill the gap,
0:53:26 > 0:53:30we have battery systems that will give a seamless changeover, so as part of
0:53:30 > 0:53:34your working day, you may not notice there's been a total Grid failure.
0:53:36 > 0:53:40You see the people running around doing their daily things,
0:53:40 > 0:53:43but underneath it all is a big dragon.
0:53:43 > 0:53:46It's the technical systems grinding away that keep
0:53:46 > 0:53:49that building in operation, powered by the Grid and in an emergency,
0:53:49 > 0:53:52powered by their own generators.
0:53:52 > 0:53:56Big buildings now have 10,000 people or more in them.
0:53:56 > 0:53:59They're towns. They're vertical towns.
0:53:59 > 0:54:03They need all that system, so they are mini-Grids in themselves.
0:54:07 > 0:54:09Electricity is an intensifier for our lives.
0:54:09 > 0:54:12It means we can live in cities, we can live in tall buildings,
0:54:12 > 0:54:15we can have Blackberries, we can be as intense as we choose to be,
0:54:15 > 0:54:18and for me that's a decision. How intense do we want to be?
0:54:18 > 0:54:20Electricity can take us there.
0:54:24 > 0:54:32The greatest demands are in the cities, so when we come to model how much the national demand is,
0:54:32 > 0:54:36we take greatest note of what is going over the cities
0:54:36 > 0:54:39because that's where most of it is going to be used.
0:54:40 > 0:54:47Not just individual buildings, but our entire city system hangs on the Grid.
0:54:47 > 0:54:51The Grid was there from the 1950s, but the points on the Grid
0:54:51 > 0:54:53were quite widely separated.
0:54:53 > 0:54:56If you like, as we go on the Grid becomes a mesh, it becomes finer
0:54:56 > 0:55:01and finer and it contours itself around our lives more and more
0:55:01 > 0:55:05and what that means is we become more and more effectively divorced
0:55:05 > 0:55:11from how we heat and power our domestic and our working lives.
0:55:11 > 0:55:14We're more and more disconnected
0:55:14 > 0:55:17by the fact of our massive levels of connectivity
0:55:17 > 0:55:20even though we have a city like London where
0:55:20 > 0:55:26nothing is generated in it and yet it depends absolutely upon electricity.
0:55:28 > 0:55:32If we were to suddenly stop the power stations, through
0:55:32 > 0:55:36some catastrophe or through some terrorist attack, we'd soon realise
0:55:36 > 0:55:39that life as we know it comes to a complete end.
0:55:39 > 0:55:46Not only would we not be able to eat because the very way we store food depends on
0:55:46 > 0:55:49electricity, we would have all our information systems knocked out,
0:55:49 > 0:55:53so we wouldn't be able to communicate, we wouldn't be able to bank,
0:55:53 > 0:55:57we wouldn't be able to do any business, so the whole structure of our lives,
0:55:57 > 0:55:59both our working lives and
0:55:59 > 0:56:04our non-working, our leisure lives, is so totally dependent on
0:56:04 > 0:56:08electricity that it's become almost a part of us.
0:56:12 > 0:56:16When you plug into the Grid you plug into that 50 hertz, that
0:56:16 > 0:56:1750 cycles per second.
0:56:22 > 0:56:25The speed of the system is something that's happening
0:56:25 > 0:56:28everywhere throughout the entire country at the same time.
0:56:28 > 0:56:31All the generators are running at the same speed. All the motors
0:56:31 > 0:56:36are running at the same speed so if the frequency falls or speeds up,
0:56:36 > 0:56:40everything in the country slows down or speeds up in sympathy.
0:56:40 > 0:56:43We're all in tune with the Grid.
0:56:48 > 0:56:51Living by myself for several years,
0:56:51 > 0:56:54a microwave oven I couldn't do without.
0:56:56 > 0:56:57My Kenwood mixer.
0:57:00 > 0:57:05I baked every day and I still wouldn't part with my Kenwood.
0:57:08 > 0:57:10My La Pavoni espresso machine.
0:57:10 > 0:57:14It has a charm and a personality which one wouldn't normally expect
0:57:14 > 0:57:17electrical appliances to have.
0:57:18 > 0:57:21What would I be able to do without?
0:57:21 > 0:57:25I'm tempted to say very little actually. My clock radio that
0:57:25 > 0:57:30wakes me up, no, my electric kettle that makes my coffee, no,
0:57:30 > 0:57:33my computer which gets switched on unless I leave it on overnight, no.
0:57:33 > 0:57:37I think I'd pretty soon come to a total standstill.
0:57:39 > 0:57:42I could not do without a hairdryer.
0:57:42 > 0:57:47My hair has become a bit of a trademark somehow cos I spend so much
0:57:47 > 0:57:55time on it so I couldn't go out the door without having had a hairdryer.
0:57:55 > 0:57:57The one electrical appliance
0:57:57 > 0:57:59I couldn't do without is the light bulb.
0:57:59 > 0:58:02That's the most basic one, that's the one that
0:58:02 > 0:58:05I, like millions of other people, switch on every dark morning,
0:58:05 > 0:58:08every dark evening and I just couldn't live without it.
0:58:09 > 0:58:13But what would happen if someone pulled the plug?
0:58:13 > 0:58:18In the next programme, find out the lengths we've gone to to keep the lights on.
0:58:18 > 0:58:24And just what price we're ultimately prepared to pay to keep powering our electric dreams.
0:58:34 > 0:58:36Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd
0:58:36 > 0:58:39E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk