0:00:02 > 0:00:09A magnificent town hall like this one here at Bolton is a grand example of Victorian civic pride.
0:00:09 > 0:00:13The success and prosperity the industrial revolution
0:00:13 > 0:00:18brought to towns like this left us with some magnificent buildings.
0:00:18 > 0:00:20Just look at the fancy work on there.
0:00:20 > 0:00:26They loved to have everything ornate and quite beautiful to look at, you know, pleasing to the eye.
0:00:26 > 0:00:31The actual ornamentation were almost as important as the building itself.
0:00:31 > 0:00:35It definitely was the great age of Victorian splendour.
0:00:57 > 0:01:02Fred Dibnah was by his own admission a man born out of his time.
0:01:02 > 0:01:06He always said he should have been born in the Victorian age.
0:01:06 > 0:01:11It's the age he admired, the time he would like to have lived and worked.
0:01:11 > 0:01:14His appreciation of the architectural
0:01:14 > 0:01:18and decorative skills of the age went back to his first job.
0:01:18 > 0:01:22I first became interested in buildings when I were about
0:01:22 > 0:01:2715 years old, and of course I lived here in this small terraced house.
0:01:27 > 0:01:30This wall is one of the first things I ever built.
0:01:30 > 0:01:33The thing is me mother and father wanted me to be an undertaker
0:01:33 > 0:01:38and I didn't fancy that, you know, so I got on me bicycle and I pedalled
0:01:38 > 0:01:43off to the youth employment bureau where they fixed me up with a job as a joiner.
0:01:47 > 0:01:50Me work as a joiner got me into some of the splendid
0:01:50 > 0:01:54mansions that the cotton mill and bleach works owners have built.
0:01:54 > 0:01:57This actual house were built by a bleach works owner.
0:01:57 > 0:02:03The thing is I couldn't help but notice, I mean, coming from an house that hadn't got any skirting boards,
0:02:03 > 0:02:06the quality of the woodwork and the height of the skirting boards,
0:02:06 > 0:02:1118 inches up the walls, and the beautiful panel doors and architraves
0:02:11 > 0:02:17and best of all the fancy plastered ceilings, made me wonder however did they do it.
0:02:17 > 0:02:23Of course it's a pub now so really everybody can enjoy it.
0:02:23 > 0:02:24He did have Victorian values.
0:02:24 > 0:02:28I think the biggest emphasis on what he appreciated
0:02:28 > 0:02:30about Victorian values was the quality.
0:02:30 > 0:02:35Everything was made to a very high standard, most things were made by hand
0:02:35 > 0:02:41and that is what he appreciated the most, everything looked the part and everything was built to last.
0:02:41 > 0:02:45Everything had a job and it did it for generations.
0:02:45 > 0:02:51What you see in here, though, you know, it really all done just to be looked at.
0:02:51 > 0:02:54Things like the smallest details had to be beautiful.
0:02:54 > 0:03:00I mean, even if it were a great big thing like a civil engineering piece, they still made a fuss of it.
0:03:00 > 0:03:09But in houses, the minute detail right down to things like window catches were always quite beautiful.
0:03:09 > 0:03:13For Fred it was these high standards that made Britain lead the world.
0:03:13 > 0:03:17Fred was proud to be British and he was proud of the achievements of
0:03:17 > 0:03:22Great Britain and I think that really this country has gone through
0:03:22 > 0:03:25huge changes, two devastating world wars
0:03:25 > 0:03:28which bankrupted the country and the loss of empire.
0:03:28 > 0:03:33There's an awful lot of psychological adjustment necessary to build the new Britain that we all live in now
0:03:33 > 0:03:38and I think that maybe people were abashed to talk about those great days when Britain was so confident
0:03:38 > 0:03:41and really was the premier power in the whole world.
0:03:41 > 0:03:47It's good that Fred was able to say that and not only say it but to say it with pride and enthusiasm.
0:03:47 > 0:03:52And associate with the Victorian age in everything he did.
0:03:52 > 0:03:57Nowhere can this be seen better than in his own house in Bolton.
0:03:57 > 0:04:01John Gorley was Fred's boiler inspector and in
0:04:01 > 0:04:06the course of his work he became a regular visitor to the house.
0:04:06 > 0:04:10He was a great admirer of Victorian architecture
0:04:10 > 0:04:14and he liked to look at it and talk to people about it.
0:04:14 > 0:04:20He was very good at that type of brickwork, obviously it's an extension of chimney repairing.
0:04:20 > 0:04:27But even his house, the extension to it, he got the bricks from demolished terraced houses
0:04:27 > 0:04:34that were in Bolton of the same vintage as the rest of his house and he did a lot of extra stonework
0:04:34 > 0:04:41on that house which is quite beautiful to behold, so yes, he had quite an interest in architecture.
0:04:41 > 0:04:45It's this that I like about the Victorian era, you know.
0:04:45 > 0:04:49That's why I've got so much of this sort of stuff here in me house,
0:04:49 > 0:04:56I mean this wonderful bit here came off the front of a shop somewhere and you couldn't see it for the paint,
0:04:56 > 0:05:04the detail, so I boiled it up in caustic and all the paint come off revealing all this lovely fancy work.
0:05:04 > 0:05:07It's made of pot actually, terracotta.
0:05:07 > 0:05:12And then like the wonderful age of Victorian gas lighting
0:05:12 > 0:05:17like this magnificent thing here which...
0:05:17 > 0:05:22The trouble that they went to, you know, and of course you can swing the thing about,
0:05:22 > 0:05:27there must have been lots of gas leaks from all the various joints and taps.
0:05:27 > 0:05:33Some of them I've seen were three arms on so you could more or less move the thing anywhere you wanted.
0:05:33 > 0:05:36If you look at Fred's house, there was a lot of Victoriana about.
0:05:36 > 0:05:40You know, like the old way of doing things.
0:05:40 > 0:05:44He was very much a perfectionist in everything that he did
0:05:44 > 0:05:48and I think all of us that play with steam engines we all live in
0:05:48 > 0:05:54the past a bit but Fred, everything to do with the Victorian era, he was interested in,
0:05:54 > 0:06:02all handmade by craftsmen and nothing was machine made, and that's why he liked it so much.
0:06:18 > 0:06:25It is an age, the Victorian age, when engineers and mechanics were looked up to a bit.
0:06:25 > 0:06:29I think I'd like to have lived then when we made things like this.
0:06:29 > 0:06:32The modern equivalent wouldn't be as beautiful as this.
0:06:32 > 0:06:39I can imagine going to work every morning and making these, it would have been quite a pleasurable do.
0:06:39 > 0:06:47I suppose they got a bit sick, but I think I'd sooner make these than hinges for car doors or something
0:06:47 > 0:06:53on that score, you know, you don't even know which bloody car
0:06:53 > 0:06:55they're going on.
0:06:55 > 0:06:59Something about it when in the great age of steam
0:06:59 > 0:07:04we led the world and made all the beautiful bits for these things.
0:07:04 > 0:07:08I think he was very good because although we now think
0:07:08 > 0:07:11it's a the good thing we don't have an empire
0:07:11 > 0:07:16and going round the world telling everybody what to do, but the other side of that was a very great
0:07:16 > 0:07:19generosity by the Victorians, a sense of civic pride which Fred always brought out,
0:07:19 > 0:07:26whether he was looking at the town hall or a park, all those things the Victorians gave us.
0:07:26 > 0:07:29As well as town halls, he talked about mechanics institutes but they gave us
0:07:29 > 0:07:32the swimming baths, the libraries, the public open spaces,
0:07:32 > 0:07:37the things we're letting go again and he was good at emphasising that.
0:07:37 > 0:07:42And Fred never missed an opportunity to show us the glories of the Victorian age.
0:07:42 > 0:07:46So when he went to visit the Lloyds Building in London he made sure
0:07:46 > 0:07:51he showed us the beautiful Victorian market next to it.
0:07:51 > 0:07:57Right in the shadow of this great stainless steel and glass and concrete construction
0:07:57 > 0:08:04there's a Victorian market, Leadenhall Market, all made of cast iron and timber and what have you.
0:08:04 > 0:08:10The Victorians went to great lengths to make things very beautiful as well as functional.
0:08:10 > 0:08:18The whole place is an iron founder's dream, all the beautiful columns and the ornamental corbels
0:08:18 > 0:08:23and the flowery bits bowled me over and inside, behind where nobody
0:08:23 > 0:08:26can see, there'll be big rectangular-shaped holes,
0:08:26 > 0:08:29joining the ends together there'll be millions of nuts and bolt holes,
0:08:29 > 0:08:32and the whole thing will be held together with nuts and bolts.
0:08:32 > 0:08:38It's quite a wonderful thing, really, when you think about it.
0:08:38 > 0:08:42All these lovely wrought iron bars would once have had sides of beef
0:08:42 > 0:08:44hanging down and all of that.
0:08:44 > 0:08:48Must have been an interesting place then, I rather think.
0:08:48 > 0:08:53I think he would have done very well in the Victorian age, he had that absolutely Victorian mixture
0:08:53 > 0:08:58of being very keen on progress, very keen on getting things done, very keen on thinking through problems
0:08:58 > 0:09:02and at the same time this complete fascination with the past and great sympathy with the past
0:09:02 > 0:09:07and the Victorians were always looking to the Middle Ages, building new buildings in the Gothic style.
0:09:07 > 0:09:10But, as Fred showed, all full of cast iron,
0:09:10 > 0:09:13all full of the latest technology, and I think his enthusiasm,
0:09:13 > 0:09:18his ingenuity, his way of thinking things through would have made him a very successful Victorian.
0:09:18 > 0:09:22Eastnor Castle in Herefordshire was built for the first Earl Somers
0:09:22 > 0:09:26in the first half of the 19th century.
0:09:26 > 0:09:32Its architect, Robert Smirke, designed it to look like a great medieval castle.
0:09:32 > 0:09:38When Fred visited it, he was able to show us this marriage of Gothic style and modern technology
0:09:38 > 0:09:43as he raised the questions we all want to ask when we visit a great building like this.
0:09:45 > 0:09:47How could they make the archways so big?
0:09:54 > 0:09:59How could they vault such a large cavernous space like this
0:09:59 > 0:10:04without using massive structural timbers?
0:10:04 > 0:10:07I could think of several television presenters who would go
0:10:07 > 0:10:09and visit somewhere like Eastnor Castle
0:10:09 > 0:10:13because it's a large posh country house, but Fred's the only one
0:10:13 > 0:10:18who'd go and look in the roof space because it had some of the earliest large cast iron
0:10:18 > 0:10:21roof trusses which are fantastically interesting and of course
0:10:21 > 0:10:27he's right, they're the most important thing about that house but it would take Fred to see that.
0:10:27 > 0:10:34So Fred, this is the biggest cast iron beam we've got in the house and this was fitted in 1818 just as
0:10:34 > 0:10:38the castle was being topped out and you can imagine in a much older building
0:10:38 > 0:10:42there'd have been a huge stone vault to support the super structure.
0:10:42 > 0:10:48We do know who the people were who reckon they did the job, Mr Penn and Mr Worth, the joiners,
0:10:48 > 0:10:52and it's amazing there's only two of them, they must have been fantastic men.
0:10:52 > 0:10:54Yeah, they'd be the ones who were literate, maybe.
0:10:54 > 0:10:59There'd be a big army of labourers as well!
0:11:00 > 0:11:06Mr Smirke made clever use of cast iron, not only in the structure
0:11:06 > 0:11:09or for structural purposes but the ornamental side of it.
0:11:09 > 0:11:16If you look at this staircase it looks as though it's made of wood, but in actual fact
0:11:16 > 0:11:21if you look more closely you can see this that looks like carved wood is actually cast iron
0:11:21 > 0:11:26and the way that they would do this is to make a wooden pattern
0:11:26 > 0:11:31and bury that in the sand in a moulding box and then pour in the molten iron.
0:11:31 > 0:11:38The great beam that we looked at up in the rafters would be made in the same way but on a mightier scale.
0:11:38 > 0:11:42When you think about it, when you're having building work done,
0:11:42 > 0:11:48the plasterers and the tillers and the joiners are as important as the men who actually built the place.
0:11:48 > 0:11:54Once Eastnor Castle has been built, they proceeded with the interior work and it was all pretty lavish.
0:11:56 > 0:12:02This is the Gothic drawing room, which was redecorated in 1849,
0:12:02 > 0:12:07and for me this is the height of Victorian splendour and embellishment
0:12:07 > 0:12:13and it's a very fine example of how good they were at decorating places back in them days.
0:12:15 > 0:12:23The man responsible for the roof was the architect and designer Augustus Welby Pugin.
0:12:23 > 0:12:27I think the great impression you get from Fred's programmes
0:12:27 > 0:12:28is his enthusiasm
0:12:28 > 0:12:33and that was a very strong Victorian idea that if you put enough energy
0:12:33 > 0:12:38into something, if you really worked hard at it, if you really loved it, then you would succeed.
0:12:38 > 0:12:44And I think that there's a great sense nowadays that you can do things without a lot of effort,
0:12:44 > 0:12:50and he knew that it did take effort to produce these amazing machines and buildings that he loved so much.
0:12:50 > 0:12:56What Fred tells us about Pugin is not just to look at the outside of the building but to
0:12:56 > 0:13:01look on the inside of the building, that it is a complete design space.
0:13:01 > 0:13:05Pugin was having to deal with very new technologies in many ways.
0:13:05 > 0:13:09I mean, how do you make a gas fitting, how do you make
0:13:09 > 0:13:11a whole suite of tables for example.
0:13:11 > 0:13:15You know, 100 tables all in different designs, how do you deal
0:13:15 > 0:13:21with these design problems but yet keep them within a consistent style, so he's asking questions
0:13:21 > 0:13:28about how do you apply style to function and I think this is the key to Victorian architecture,
0:13:28 > 0:13:35it's not just about the ornament on the outside, it's about what holds it up, what it's used for.
0:13:35 > 0:13:43Nowhere can this be seen better than at one of our greatest monuments of the Victorian age, Tower Bridge.
0:13:43 > 0:13:49Inside that great castle-like exterior there's a great big steel
0:13:49 > 0:13:54frame that were constructed by the same men who built the Forth Bridge.
0:13:54 > 0:14:03It took eight years to build and five different major contracting companies and the relentless labour of 500 men.
0:14:03 > 0:14:11And there's about 11,000 tonnes of steel in the towers and the walkways and the roadways.
0:14:11 > 0:14:15On the completion of the steelwork, it was clad in Cornish granite
0:14:15 > 0:14:21and Portland stone to protect the iron work and give it the beautiful appearance it has now.
0:14:21 > 0:14:29When you come inside one of the towers, you can see its great steel skeleton, that's all riveted
0:14:29 > 0:14:35together, the whole thing would stand up really without the fancy stonework or the beautification on the outside.
0:14:35 > 0:14:38It's a wonderful bit of ironwork really, you know.
0:14:38 > 0:14:42Let's do some riveting you know, brrrr!
0:14:42 > 0:14:45Fred was very good at looking at things which were very famous.
0:14:45 > 0:14:49He'd look at Tower Bridge and make you feel you'd never seen it before.
0:14:49 > 0:14:54People have heard of Pugin, of the Palace of Westminster and he showed us the House of Lords
0:14:54 > 0:15:00but for most people Pugin is just a name, a name associated with some very expensive wallpaper recently,
0:15:00 > 0:15:05but because he went off and he looked at Eastnor Castle, he looked St Giles Cheadle.
0:15:05 > 0:15:08St Giles Cheadle is a wonderful church but it's in a small
0:15:08 > 0:15:11town in Staffordshire and a lot of people don't realise that
0:15:11 > 0:15:17they might have a world-class work of art in their own town just round the corner, 20 minutes drive away,
0:15:17 > 0:15:21and that kind of programme makes people feel that they can go and see these things.
0:15:24 > 0:15:29Pugin called St Giles his gem, the finest church he ever designed,
0:15:29 > 0:15:35and I'm inclined to agree with him in some ways, because he's really gone to town with the fancy work,
0:15:35 > 0:15:41something about artists and designers like him, you know, you can't get away from the same
0:15:41 > 0:15:45squiggly bits that keep cropping up everywhere in the House of Commons,
0:15:45 > 0:15:48Eastnor Castle, everywhere.
0:15:48 > 0:15:55These beautiful tiles, even the same designs transferred over into the central heating grating,
0:15:55 > 0:16:02and when you look behind me, this lovely screen and its fan vaulting reminds me of the wood holding
0:16:02 > 0:16:06the lantern up at Ely Cathedral and sort of...
0:16:06 > 0:16:09Everywhere there's all this wonderful Gothic ornamentation.
0:16:09 > 0:16:14Even up on the roof, you know, the ridge tiles are made of cast iron
0:16:14 > 0:16:18and they're almost identical to the ones on the Houses of Parliament.
0:16:18 > 0:16:22It's as though he's constantly going back to the Middle Ages.
0:16:27 > 0:16:33I'm always astonished at the way in which he moves from the very grand scale of buildings
0:16:33 > 0:16:39or engineering projects, right down to the small scale of the details of the decoration.
0:16:39 > 0:16:45And what he shows us is that these are all part of the same system that the Victorians had set up,
0:16:45 > 0:16:49so they were interested in getting things to work wonderfully smoothly
0:16:49 > 0:16:52but they also wanted them to be beautiful.
0:16:52 > 0:16:55And Fred shows us through a number of things that he's got
0:16:55 > 0:16:59in his own collection, something like a lavatory cistern bracket,
0:16:59 > 0:17:06that's a small scale object, it's nothing fancy but it's something that somebody took some care about.
0:17:06 > 0:17:13Even these humble brackets, started life off holding the cistern up in a toilet in the spinning mill,
0:17:13 > 0:17:17and I've just remembered there's another pair there. I think I'll go back for them.
0:17:17 > 0:17:21Cos they're rather elegant, aren't they, beautifully made, cast iron.
0:17:21 > 0:17:24They don't seem nowadays, reproduction cast iron
0:17:24 > 0:17:29never seems as nice and fine as when the Victorians did it.
0:17:29 > 0:17:34And it's this idea of wanting to put effort again into
0:17:34 > 0:17:40what you're making, what you're doing, making it special, making it individual, making it personal.
0:17:40 > 0:17:43And I think that that is the key to...
0:17:43 > 0:17:48Both to the Victorians in many ways but also to how Fred talks to us.
0:17:49 > 0:17:56And what he related to best was the sort of small-scale domestic architecture like all the Victorian
0:17:56 > 0:17:59features here in the houses of Beamish Open Air Museum.
0:17:59 > 0:18:01Good morning.
0:18:01 > 0:18:04- Rather a splendid parlour you've got here, eh?- It's very nice.
0:18:04 > 0:18:09Yeah, it's like a cut above the others, isn't it, with the semi-circular arches and the...
0:18:09 > 0:18:13- I've got a fireplace like that in one of my bedrooms. - Aren't you lucky?
0:18:13 > 0:18:19Yeah, it's about 1850, I would think, that that thing were made.
0:18:19 > 0:18:25and the lovely sash windows with the panelling and the shutters and everything.
0:18:25 > 0:18:29- This is quite posh, isn't it? - Yes, it is.- Bit, er, bit...
0:18:29 > 0:18:31- Rather superior residence.- Yeah.
0:18:31 > 0:18:34I see there's not even any gas lamps, is there?
0:18:34 > 0:18:37- No.- Only like oil lamps, still on the oil, you know.
0:18:37 > 0:18:39No, no, they're... A bit old-fashioned, we are.
0:18:39 > 0:18:42And the splendid ceiling rose there,
0:18:42 > 0:18:45yeah, very beautiful.
0:18:45 > 0:18:51Me mother wanted me to learn to play the piano, but I never got round to going.
0:18:51 > 0:18:57Me brother went, and the pianoforte teacher used to say to me, "Why don't you come instead?
0:18:57 > 0:19:00"You'd be better at it than he is."
0:19:00 > 0:19:05Aye, good morning, this is a bit like home from home for me.
0:19:05 > 0:19:11Really, the Victorian cast iron fire grates were the centre of the household.
0:19:11 > 0:19:14Everything happened here, the bread were baked and all
0:19:14 > 0:19:20the boiling water come out and it dried all the clothes on the rail here, quite a fascinating thing.
0:19:20 > 0:19:25He was Victorian through and through, Fred and he had
0:19:25 > 0:19:30certain ideas that he would expect his wife to behave and respond.
0:19:30 > 0:19:35Say for instance if his meal wasn't on the table at a certain time, he'd be quite cross.
0:19:35 > 0:19:41Or he might expect that you should have the house spotless and even bake bread.
0:19:41 > 0:19:47But of course there's only so many hours in a day that you can do, and he'd go out and moan to people that
0:19:47 > 0:19:50"I've not had me bloody tea yet, like."
0:19:50 > 0:19:52Do you do this often?
0:19:52 > 0:19:55- Once a week.- Once a week.
0:19:55 > 0:20:02I've actually got one at home that's a bit older than this, and I've mastered a way of doing the black
0:20:02 > 0:20:07lead in with an electric drill with a mop on the end, makes life a bit easier.
0:20:07 > 0:20:12It's quite a technical one, this, isn't it? It's got all these lovely...
0:20:12 > 0:20:14Are these for working the dampers and things?
0:20:14 > 0:20:17- Yes.- Yeah, yeah, it's very interesting, yeah.
0:20:17 > 0:20:20Mr Moffatt Brothers, Gateshead.
0:20:20 > 0:20:23- Yes, it's a local one. - Gateshead on Tyne.
0:20:23 > 0:20:28Yeah, you have a few labour-saving devices in here, haven't you?
0:20:28 > 0:20:33- That's for cleaning knives?- Yes, they were steel then.- I've got one but it's not in as good a nick as yours.
0:20:33 > 0:20:37I remember him talking about how you could see the letters "Co-op"
0:20:37 > 0:20:40on any high street at one point in the 19th century, and that's
0:20:40 > 0:20:45the kind of thing people will have seen on their own high street and walked past it a million times.
0:20:45 > 0:20:50And when you've seen Fred's programme you walk past and think "That's what he was talking about!"
0:20:50 > 0:20:57He made sense, I think, of a lot of the built environment that people have got very used to.
0:20:57 > 0:21:05The original Co-op business started off in Rochdale in 1844, sort of mushroomed
0:21:05 > 0:21:09into an England-wide organisation, that in the end they had their own
0:21:09 > 0:21:15architects and their own builders and the beautiful structures that they did, you know, they always stood out.
0:21:15 > 0:21:19Like in Lancashire, in a poor mill neighbourhood, there were always
0:21:19 > 0:21:26this beautiful building, the Co-op, and they always had a beautiful plaque on, "the Farnworth and
0:21:26 > 0:21:30"Kearsley Co-operative Society" or "the Bolton Co-operative Society".
0:21:30 > 0:21:34And it went on until it got that big I don't think they could manage it.
0:21:34 > 0:21:38And of course the architecture, these lovely...
0:21:38 > 0:21:43They were like the inside of a big wooden box, they were all the same
0:21:43 > 0:21:46with lovely T&G boarding with lovely beadings down edge.
0:21:50 > 0:21:52Ooh, good morning.
0:21:52 > 0:21:54- Morning.- Yeah, this is the Co-op.
0:21:54 > 0:21:58It reminds me of when I were little all this lot in here,
0:21:58 > 0:22:02when I went to the Co-op just round the corner from where we lived.
0:22:02 > 0:22:09Only one difference, there's some white cloth bags hanging out of the ceiling, what the flour company...
0:22:09 > 0:22:12They've got same thing but it's in a tin box in corner, I've noticed.
0:22:12 > 0:22:15And the, um...
0:22:15 > 0:22:19They even had one of these for cutting black twist in half,
0:22:19 > 0:22:22like a guillotine, you know,
0:22:22 > 0:22:26health and safety job, I don't know what they'd say about that.
0:22:29 > 0:22:31Aye.
0:22:31 > 0:22:37Now then, Malcolm, I know what you're doing but these lot at other end of here don't, do they?
0:22:37 > 0:22:40Yeah, well, I'm going to send the money by using a system
0:22:40 > 0:22:47which will take the ball and lift it up onto the track which will then be
0:22:47 > 0:22:52forced down by gravity and it runs into the cash office.
0:22:52 > 0:22:56There were a similar contraption to this in the Co-op in Bolton when
0:22:56 > 0:23:02I were a little lad, but it worked off either a vacuum or compressed air, but it did the same thing.
0:23:02 > 0:23:05It made life a lot easier for the guy behind the counter.
0:23:05 > 0:23:08Here you've got interesting stuff in here, haven't you?
0:23:08 > 0:23:12- Cater for the mining men, didn't you? - Yes, we have our miners shovels... - Yeah, yeah, big flat...
0:23:12 > 0:23:17Also you have the picks. The men had to buy their own equipment.
0:23:17 > 0:23:21They were on good wages then, contrary to what a lot of people think, you know.
0:23:21 > 0:23:23- Yeah, it's a little bit different. - Yeah.
0:23:23 > 0:23:30It were a funny occupation, really, it varied so much depending on the price of coal and who...
0:23:30 > 0:23:37In this area, it was all mines and the coal was actually king at the time so it was dependent on how much
0:23:37 > 0:23:40the coal was selling for, miners would get paid.
0:23:40 > 0:23:44He looked a Victorian, gold watch chain, waistcoat and so on.
0:23:44 > 0:23:51But also in his views of the world he believed in the work ethic,
0:23:51 > 0:23:55he believed that money should be only be made by hard labour, basically,
0:23:55 > 0:24:01and he wasn't too keen on the way money is made these days which is not always directly through work.
0:24:01 > 0:24:07His contribution to how we lived, I think, was a particular
0:24:07 > 0:24:12understanding of how the industrial working classes lived and what was
0:24:12 > 0:24:17expected of them because he was just old enough
0:24:17 > 0:24:24to have heard old people talking about the age before the welfare state,
0:24:24 > 0:24:33the age before a real caring about housing equality and I think in his odd little asides
0:24:33 > 0:24:39he is making clear that the good old days weren't always good but they were heroic.
0:24:39 > 0:24:44At Beamish they've recreated a complete pit village with the winding
0:24:44 > 0:24:50engine, the head gear, the washeries, the engine sheds, the village school,
0:24:50 > 0:24:53the Methodist chapel - that means no drinking.
0:24:53 > 0:24:59Last but not least a beautiful row of cottages, pit man's cottages, just like they used to be.
0:25:02 > 0:25:07Considering like this is a pit man's cottage, you know, it's very small.
0:25:07 > 0:25:10But they've made very good use of the space, sort of thing.
0:25:10 > 0:25:15I mean that in there is the parlour with the beautiful elliptical table
0:25:15 > 0:25:18and just round corner there's a double bed.
0:25:18 > 0:25:21You had to be ill before you moved the bed into parlour
0:25:21 > 0:25:24in Lancashire, but it must have been common round here to have the bed
0:25:24 > 0:25:31and the parlour all in same thing and of course the kids were upstairs you know, up in the roof space.
0:25:31 > 0:25:36And in here this is the kitchen, and this is Denise who is doing this wonderful peg rug.
0:25:36 > 0:25:39Well, peg rug to you but a proggy mat to us.
0:25:39 > 0:25:41Yeah, yeah, oh, yeah.
0:25:41 > 0:25:46- I remember me mam doing things like that after the war when times were hard.- That's right.
0:25:46 > 0:25:49That of course is the fireplace with the oven
0:25:49 > 0:25:54and that round oven is particularly noted for its locality, you know,
0:25:54 > 0:25:58you only ever see 'em in north east of England, never anywhere else.
0:25:58 > 0:26:01Everywhere else they're all square or rectangular-shaped.
0:26:01 > 0:26:07I've got one, something similar with same sort of handle but a square door.
0:26:07 > 0:26:11A lot of people still use the word Victorian as a term of abuse.
0:26:11 > 0:26:16It's pejorative, you know, we blame the Victorians for so many
0:26:16 > 0:26:20of society's ills today, you know. The way we live in our cities,
0:26:20 > 0:26:24the things we've done to our countryside, the way our factory systems work.
0:26:24 > 0:26:28We seem to think that the Victorians should have been more far-sighted,
0:26:28 > 0:26:31they should have been more politically correct, I suppose.
0:26:31 > 0:26:35And I think that Fred, by drawing attention to their great
0:26:35 > 0:26:42achievements, makes us realise that it wasn't all dark satanic mills.
0:26:42 > 0:26:46I do think that there can sometimes be a problem in the programmes
0:26:46 > 0:26:50that it is very celebratory of the past
0:26:50 > 0:26:55and very subjective in the way that he talks about the past, and I think there are
0:26:55 > 0:27:00times when you look at a worker's cottage in Beamish and it's all spick and span and you think,
0:27:00 > 0:27:03actually what would it be like when somebody comes back from
0:27:03 > 0:27:08the coal mine and they are grubby and they've got six kids and they've got to feed them.
0:27:08 > 0:27:15You do slightly wonder whether it is a bit rose-tinted and that the reality
0:27:15 > 0:27:19of working in a mine or working in a factory even though you are
0:27:19 > 0:27:22surrounded by beautiful machinery which is all highly decorated,
0:27:22 > 0:27:25it might have been rather less pleasant
0:27:25 > 0:27:30than some of these programmes give you the idea about.
0:27:30 > 0:27:33He didn't want to preserve the fact that folks
0:27:33 > 0:27:37were living on a pittance in houses
0:27:37 > 0:27:39with no modern facilities.
0:27:39 > 0:27:42It wasn't that that he wanted to preserve, it was just purely
0:27:42 > 0:27:47the craftsman side of the job, the way things were designed and built.
0:27:47 > 0:27:51Fred shows his love of the Victorian age a great deal
0:27:51 > 0:27:54through his appreciation of what he could see.
0:27:54 > 0:28:00He looked at pumping engines being a thing of great beauty, for example, with water supply,
0:28:00 > 0:28:06and he can look at the aesthetics of a piece of Victorian engineering when things were made where
0:28:06 > 0:28:11form and function went hand-in-hand, whereas we are now a sort of throwaway society where something
0:28:11 > 0:28:16is made to do a job and not much thought has gone towards what it looks like.
0:28:16 > 0:28:21The Victorians had that sense of aesthetics and I think that appealed to Fred a great deal
0:28:21 > 0:28:27and he was able to show the public, through his programmes, that appeal as well and to see that,
0:28:27 > 0:28:32you know, these things didn't only look well, they performed well and they lasted a very long time.
0:28:32 > 0:28:36I wonder if they'll us have a go at playing with the handles.
0:28:51 > 0:28:54Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd
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