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This is Coast. | 0:00:13 | 0:00:15 | |
We're celebrating the workers of our shores. | 0:00:42 | 0:00:45 | |
The east coast of Britain is dotted with industrious communities. | 0:00:48 | 0:00:53 | |
They strike out across the sea to earn a crust. | 0:00:56 | 0:00:59 | |
Men who know the price to be paid for landing fish. | 0:01:00 | 0:01:04 | |
But this harsh life on rolling seas | 0:01:07 | 0:01:10 | |
relies on the support of those back on land. | 0:01:10 | 0:01:14 | |
I'm in search of forgotten workers | 0:01:16 | 0:01:18 | |
who kept our biggest fishing fleet afloat. | 0:01:18 | 0:01:22 | |
We've arrived in Grimsby. | 0:01:23 | 0:01:25 | |
This harbour used to be crammed with trawlers. | 0:01:28 | 0:01:32 | |
At the high watermark of the North Sea Fleet, | 0:01:32 | 0:01:35 | |
some 300 fishing vessels worked out of Grimsby. | 0:01:35 | 0:01:38 | |
Magnificent vessels like this were a floating workplace, | 0:01:40 | 0:01:44 | |
doing business in the wild North Sea. | 0:01:44 | 0:01:48 | |
The crew scoured the seas for cod and haddock, | 0:01:49 | 0:01:53 | |
fish that had to be kept fresh for weeks. | 0:01:53 | 0:01:57 | |
They needed ice, lots of it. | 0:01:57 | 0:01:59 | |
A challenge the early trawler men had to crack. | 0:01:59 | 0:02:02 | |
This grand building houses a freezing machine | 0:02:02 | 0:02:07 | |
constructed on a massive scale. | 0:02:07 | 0:02:10 | |
This is an ice factory! | 0:02:10 | 0:02:13 | |
Built in 1901, the Grimsby Ice Factory | 0:02:16 | 0:02:18 | |
supplied the port's trawlers for nearly a century. | 0:02:18 | 0:02:22 | |
My guide is Mike Sonley, | 0:02:22 | 0:02:24 | |
who was the last man out when the factory closed its doors in 1990. | 0:02:24 | 0:02:29 | |
This precious film was shot just two weeks before production ceased. | 0:02:31 | 0:02:36 | |
Today, it looks very different. | 0:02:38 | 0:02:40 | |
This is Mike's first visit back to his old workplace. | 0:02:43 | 0:02:47 | |
Heartbreaking. I just can't believe it. | 0:02:51 | 0:02:54 | |
A lump comes in your throat, definitely. | 0:02:54 | 0:02:57 | |
A real shame. How did that finish up there? | 0:02:57 | 0:03:01 | |
It was immaculate. You could just eat your dinner off the floor. | 0:03:01 | 0:03:04 | |
It was spotless. | 0:03:04 | 0:03:06 | |
I suppose the ice factory was totally essential for the port, for the trawlers. | 0:03:06 | 0:03:10 | |
We'd come out here at 4:00am and there'd be 20 wagons out there | 0:03:10 | 0:03:14 | |
waiting for 20 tonnes of ice each. | 0:03:14 | 0:03:17 | |
It was a fantastic company to work for. | 0:03:17 | 0:03:19 | |
When this machinery sprang into action, the ice palace came alive. | 0:03:24 | 0:03:29 | |
These massive engines were used to compress ammonia gas. | 0:03:30 | 0:03:35 | |
How did that compressed gas produce up to a thousand tonnes of ice a day? | 0:03:35 | 0:03:41 | |
Chemist Mark Lorch has the answer. | 0:03:43 | 0:03:46 | |
The first step is really just to get a gas and compress it. | 0:03:48 | 0:03:52 | |
Now, you can feel that's cold. | 0:03:52 | 0:03:55 | |
As it comes out it expands and in the process cools down because all the molecules | 0:03:55 | 0:03:59 | |
are much further apart now. They're not able to bash into each other quite so much. | 0:03:59 | 0:04:03 | |
That chilling effect is the principle behind all sorts of refrigeration, | 0:04:04 | 0:04:08 | |
including your domestic fridge and freezer. | 0:04:08 | 0:04:11 | |
The next step then is to show you how we can make ice with this simple set-up. | 0:04:11 | 0:04:15 | |
Pour this briny water into here, and what we need to do is to squirt some of this pressurised liquid, | 0:04:15 | 0:04:20 | |
which will be very cold when it releases, through this coil here | 0:04:20 | 0:04:24 | |
and in so doing, this whole coil will cool down, | 0:04:24 | 0:04:29 | |
the salty water will cool down. | 0:04:29 | 0:04:31 | |
But salty water will go below zero degrees centigrade before it freezes. | 0:04:31 | 0:04:36 | |
So, if we then take our tube of fresh water, | 0:04:36 | 0:04:40 | |
put that in there, this tube will freeze. | 0:04:40 | 0:04:43 | |
Because the brine has a lower freezing point than fresh water, | 0:04:43 | 0:04:46 | |
it will cool this fresh water in here pretty quickly and that will turn to ice. | 0:04:46 | 0:04:50 | |
Yeah, that's the hope, yeah. | 0:04:50 | 0:04:52 | |
So we just need to wait for that to freeze. | 0:04:52 | 0:04:54 | |
We're minus two, heading for minus three degrees in there now. | 0:04:54 | 0:04:59 | |
-There you go. -It's solid. -There you go, ice on the dockside. | 0:05:00 | 0:05:05 | |
This cooling method, scaled up to an industrial process, powered the ice factory. | 0:05:07 | 0:05:12 | |
It started with piping in the fresh water to be frozen. | 0:05:12 | 0:05:18 | |
-That there came down. -All these nozzles... | 0:05:18 | 0:05:21 | |
Came down all in one go, so they filled every pan with water. | 0:05:21 | 0:05:25 | |
-So the fresh water came out of these pipes, filled those pans... -That's correct. | 0:05:25 | 0:05:29 | |
So these metal boxes was where the ice actually formed. | 0:05:29 | 0:05:32 | |
That's it. Just the same as when you put your ice cubes in a fridge. | 0:05:32 | 0:05:36 | |
But where was the brine that chilled this fresh water? | 0:05:36 | 0:05:39 | |
Below the pans. If you took all the pans out, it would be just one gigantic swimming pool. | 0:05:39 | 0:05:43 | |
So you've got hundreds of these metal pans full of fresh water, | 0:05:43 | 0:05:46 | |
they get filled up here and they get pushed by gigantic rams | 0:05:46 | 0:05:50 | |
through the brine from one end of this hall to the other. | 0:05:50 | 0:05:53 | |
And by the time the pans had got to the far end, the water's turned to ice. | 0:05:53 | 0:05:57 | |
It took 27 hours for the pans to reach the far side of the building, | 0:05:57 | 0:06:02 | |
gradually being chilled on their journey | 0:06:02 | 0:06:04 | |
through the super-cooled brine beneath the floorboards. | 0:06:04 | 0:06:07 | |
So the pans have travelled the full length of the hall, and they've emerged this end and turned into ice. | 0:06:09 | 0:06:14 | |
That's correct. Then the crane comes along with the hooks, picks it up, | 0:06:14 | 0:06:18 | |
drops it in the thaw tank, which is warm water. | 0:06:18 | 0:06:20 | |
As soon as your ice pops up out here in moulds, it's into the cradle then. | 0:06:20 | 0:06:24 | |
The cradle's balanced with seven and a half tonnes of ice. | 0:06:24 | 0:06:28 | |
It tips over, slides down, all on to the floor, like. You know. | 0:06:28 | 0:06:31 | |
Then you fed the ice on to the conveyor into this crusher in the far end here. | 0:06:34 | 0:06:38 | |
So for the ice factory this is the very end of the process, | 0:06:38 | 0:06:41 | |
because what's falling out the bottom of the crusher is crushed ice ready for the trawlers. | 0:06:41 | 0:06:46 | |
That's it, and it takes it up there and on to that conveyor out there and into the ships. | 0:06:46 | 0:06:51 | |
But as Grimsby's fishing fleet dwindled, | 0:06:53 | 0:06:56 | |
fewer workers were waiting at the end of the line for ice. | 0:06:56 | 0:06:59 | |
The factory doors closed in 1990. | 0:07:00 | 0:07:04 | |
And what was it like that day that you left here, | 0:07:05 | 0:07:08 | |
the last man to be in here and lock the door for the last time? | 0:07:08 | 0:07:11 | |
Well, I can't explain it. | 0:07:12 | 0:07:14 | |
It was like if you'd lost somebody you know in your family really. | 0:07:14 | 0:07:17 | |
And it was heartbreaking. | 0:07:19 | 0:07:21 | |
And now to see it like this. | 0:07:23 | 0:07:25 | |
There's not much market for ice these days in Grimsby harbour, | 0:07:37 | 0:07:40 | |
but it's still doing brisk business. | 0:07:40 | 0:07:42 | |
The busiest boats now are those coming and going to service offshore wind farms in the North Sea. | 0:07:46 | 0:07:52 | |
Workers adapting to our changing coast. | 0:07:54 | 0:07:57 | |
New technology driving new opportunities. | 0:07:59 | 0:08:03 | |
It's an old, old story around our shores. | 0:08:03 | 0:08:06 | |
The Royal Navy has often been at the vanguard of innovation. | 0:08:07 | 0:08:11 | |
Fine ships have always needed skilled workers. | 0:08:13 | 0:08:16 | |
Those backroom boffins have given our sailors the edge in battle | 0:08:17 | 0:08:21 | |
since the days of wooden warships. | 0:08:21 | 0:08:24 | |
Back then, the Navy's cannonballs flew truer than those of our enemies. | 0:08:25 | 0:08:31 | |
Their deadly accuracy was largely due to a secret ingredient | 0:08:38 | 0:08:42 | |
we used to make our shot perfectly round. | 0:08:42 | 0:08:45 | |
A rare mineral used to manufacture precision cannonballs | 0:08:49 | 0:08:52 | |
was mined near Whitehaven. | 0:08:52 | 0:08:54 | |
Tessa is on the mineworkers' trail. | 0:09:01 | 0:09:04 | |
I'm going back over 200 years to the time of Nelson's Navy. | 0:09:05 | 0:09:10 | |
At the Battle of Trafalgar, HMS Victory alone | 0:09:12 | 0:09:15 | |
fired over 2,500 rounds of heavy iron shot. | 0:09:15 | 0:09:20 | |
At war with Napoleon, the Navy needed lots of ammunition. | 0:09:25 | 0:09:29 | |
Maritime historian Gareth Cole knows the numbers. | 0:09:31 | 0:09:34 | |
I have here a couple of receipts which show just how many cannonballs | 0:09:34 | 0:09:38 | |
were sent to the ordnance by various companies. | 0:09:38 | 0:09:40 | |
-We've got one here for 100,000 cannonballs. -100,000? | 0:09:40 | 0:09:44 | |
100,000 in one delivery, which cost about £8,500. | 0:09:44 | 0:09:48 | |
Considerable amounts of cash are being parted. | 0:09:48 | 0:09:51 | |
It was. Over the course of about a 30-year period, | 0:09:51 | 0:09:53 | |
over the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars, the ordnance spent about £10 million on the Navy, | 0:09:53 | 0:09:58 | |
which is about £1 billion in today's money. | 0:09:58 | 0:10:01 | |
Foundries could make a mint from Government contracts. | 0:10:04 | 0:10:07 | |
But they had their work cut out. | 0:10:07 | 0:10:10 | |
The Navy wasn't easy to please. | 0:10:10 | 0:10:12 | |
There's more to cannonballs than meets the eye. | 0:10:13 | 0:10:16 | |
To fly true and hit the intended target, | 0:10:16 | 0:10:18 | |
they have to be as round and as smooth and as perfect as possible. | 0:10:18 | 0:10:23 | |
To appreciate why the plumbago miners were so important, | 0:10:29 | 0:10:33 | |
we need to find out what plumbago actually is | 0:10:33 | 0:10:35 | |
and how it helped cast cannonballs. | 0:10:35 | 0:10:38 | |
So we're going to make our own. Old-style! | 0:10:38 | 0:10:40 | |
The trade secrets of cannonball casting were lost as the industry dwindled. | 0:10:42 | 0:10:47 | |
But foundry man Andrew Laing is trying to turn back time. | 0:10:47 | 0:10:51 | |
The plumbago was a secret process. | 0:10:55 | 0:10:58 | |
You coat the mould with the plumbago to make it nice and smooth | 0:10:58 | 0:11:01 | |
when the casting is removed, and this is what we call casting strip | 0:11:01 | 0:11:04 | |
and so there's no sand sticking to the actual casting. | 0:11:04 | 0:11:07 | |
The effect it has in the mould is a bit like buttering a baking tray. | 0:11:07 | 0:11:10 | |
It slips out at the end. | 0:11:10 | 0:11:12 | |
Plumbago powder stopped the cast iron cannonballs sticking, even when red-hot. | 0:11:12 | 0:11:19 | |
Nothing else was such a good lubricant, and only we had the best. | 0:11:19 | 0:11:24 | |
You're smoothing it in with your finger there. | 0:11:24 | 0:11:28 | |
-Yeah, we're just sleeking it up. -And that's to help it ease out. | 0:11:28 | 0:11:31 | |
And again to make the ball as smooth as possible. | 0:11:31 | 0:11:33 | |
When it's being fired. So will I have a go at doing that? Fill in the gouge. | 0:11:33 | 0:11:38 | |
Plumbago is common today. We know it as graphite or pencil lead. | 0:11:38 | 0:11:42 | |
But some 200 years ago, high-grade plumbago was rare. | 0:11:44 | 0:11:48 | |
Whitehaven was close to the only mine for the precious element. | 0:11:48 | 0:11:52 | |
Plumbago was hard to get, and working with it was a closely guarded commercial secret. | 0:11:53 | 0:11:59 | |
We haven't a manual for casting cannonballs and we're nowhere near a foundry. | 0:11:59 | 0:12:04 | |
Can we manage it on the quayside? | 0:12:04 | 0:12:06 | |
-Which one have we got? -Any one. -Go on. Go on. | 0:12:07 | 0:12:11 | |
That's it. | 0:12:12 | 0:12:13 | |
So, the moment of truth. | 0:12:15 | 0:12:17 | |
Will our graphite lining, in other words the plumbago, | 0:12:17 | 0:12:20 | |
have delivered a perfectly formed smooth cannonball? No pressure. | 0:12:20 | 0:12:24 | |
Oh, it's a disaster! There isn't one. | 0:12:30 | 0:12:34 | |
It's not run. The metal's chilled. | 0:12:34 | 0:12:37 | |
The sea breeze cooled my molten iron so quickly, it didn't flow into the mould. | 0:12:37 | 0:12:44 | |
Of course, you did cast it! | 0:12:44 | 0:12:46 | |
But these wily lads have left nothing to chance. | 0:12:49 | 0:12:52 | |
They've brought cannonballs cast in their foundry. | 0:12:52 | 0:12:55 | |
Half the mould with plumbago, half without. | 0:12:55 | 0:12:58 | |
You can see the surface finish on that one, the effects of the plumbago. | 0:12:59 | 0:13:04 | |
Yeah, you can immediately. I mean, this is smooth, | 0:13:04 | 0:13:07 | |
and on this side it's a very sandy feeling. | 0:13:07 | 0:13:10 | |
A real magic ingredient, | 0:13:10 | 0:13:12 | |
and quite sobering to think we didn't even get off step one today. | 0:13:12 | 0:13:17 | |
Clearly, I wouldn't make a living from cannonballs. | 0:13:18 | 0:13:22 | |
But then, the bottom fell out of the market a while ago. | 0:13:22 | 0:13:25 | |
Early in the 19th century, plumbago from near here | 0:13:27 | 0:13:30 | |
started to fall in value as other sources were discovered overseas. | 0:13:30 | 0:13:34 | |
Local miners had to find new uses for their graphite, in other words plumbago, | 0:13:34 | 0:13:39 | |
and turned it into pencil leads. | 0:13:39 | 0:13:42 | |
Swords into plough shares. | 0:13:42 | 0:13:44 | |
Cannonballs into pencils. | 0:13:44 | 0:13:45 |