0:00:05 > 0:00:08It's hard to imagine life without the airport.
0:00:08 > 0:00:14For the last century, it has shown us the future and helped make us modern.
0:00:14 > 0:00:18There's no question that airports of the 20th century were symbols
0:00:18 > 0:00:23of modernity, they were one of the most glamorous, exciting buildings you can think of.
0:00:23 > 0:00:27Today the airport is open to everyone,
0:00:27 > 0:00:30but it has turned out to be a far more complex place
0:00:30 > 0:00:32than we could have predicted.
0:00:32 > 0:00:39The new conflict is between our desire to enjoy increasing affluence
0:00:39 > 0:00:44and the realisation that this desire may lead us to catastrophe.
0:00:44 > 0:00:48We were on the peripheries of society, we were
0:00:48 > 0:00:52putting forward what was going on but nobody was listening to us.
0:00:54 > 0:00:57Now the only issue is - can you make it through the barrier?
0:00:57 > 0:01:01If you make it through the barrier, you're a good citizen, "bye, shit",
0:01:01 > 0:01:06and if you don't make it through the barrier you're an evil terrorist who should be disappeared.
0:01:06 > 0:01:10The airport still allows us freedom and adventure but at a price,
0:01:10 > 0:01:15perhaps a far greater price than we could ever have imagined.
0:01:25 > 0:01:31Over half a million travellers pass through Britain's airports every day.
0:01:32 > 0:01:36And each year, most of us will visit the airport.
0:01:36 > 0:01:41The huge change that's come in the last 40 years
0:01:41 > 0:01:46is that flying's become a mass activity, everyone almost
0:01:46 > 0:01:51has flown and very large numbers of people have flown long distances
0:01:51 > 0:01:55across the world, and this means that airports
0:01:55 > 0:02:00are part of everyday experience in a way they never were.
0:02:02 > 0:02:05We're flying to Malaga to visit our daughter.
0:02:05 > 0:02:08I am heading to Accra, Ghana.
0:02:08 > 0:02:13I'm going to Knock today, I'm flying home from college for a couple of weeks for Easter.
0:02:13 > 0:02:17In the early days of the airport, flying was the preserve
0:02:17 > 0:02:20of the super-rich - and there weren't too many of them.
0:02:22 > 0:02:26In the '60s, costs came down and British holidaymakers flocked to the airport.
0:02:30 > 0:02:34But things really took off in 1970 when a new aircraft headed for
0:02:34 > 0:02:38Heathrow, one that would put the 100-seater jet in the shade.
0:02:40 > 0:02:46With room for four times as many passengers, the Jumbo would revolutionise the airport.
0:02:46 > 0:02:49Seeing it on the horizon coming in,
0:02:49 > 0:02:54you don't really get the idea of the size of it, but as it gets nearer
0:02:54 > 0:03:00and it kind of fills the whole of your eyesight, you realise that it was a massive aircraft.
0:03:04 > 0:03:06We went out to have a look at this aircraft
0:03:06 > 0:03:12and we just could not believe it, we were gobsmacked, we really were.
0:03:12 > 0:03:17I stood underneath the wheel base and I said
0:03:17 > 0:03:22that interior is bigger than my lounge, and it was.
0:03:24 > 0:03:27Captain Des Tranter and his crew brought the first Jumbo from the States
0:03:27 > 0:03:29in just over six and a half hours.
0:03:29 > 0:03:37It was there, it was reality out at Heathrow and it changed the way that we travel
0:03:37 > 0:03:43and the cost of travel. I think when it landed we realised it was going to revolutionise air travel.
0:03:43 > 0:03:49It wasn't only in the passenger side, we had to carry a lot of cargo, a lot of mail,
0:03:49 > 0:03:55but it made a huge difference, and we had to fill those aeroplanes for them to carry on flying.
0:03:57 > 0:04:02With the arrival of such a huge aircraft, the airport needed to be bigger too,
0:04:02 > 0:04:07but Heathrow was at full stretch - and it looked like it was struggling to cope.
0:04:07 > 0:04:11London faces erosion of its position as the hub of international air transport.
0:04:11 > 0:04:16Heathrow Airport has room to expand passenger facilities, but it's got no more room for runways.
0:04:16 > 0:04:21And yet the important thing is that no matter what you do here or what improvements you make,
0:04:21 > 0:04:24London Airport will be saturated in how many years?
0:04:24 > 0:04:26By 1974 we'll be full up.
0:04:28 > 0:04:33This was an era of great affluence and fast economic growth,
0:04:33 > 0:04:38demand for flying was growing very rapidly indeed.
0:04:38 > 0:04:44The government had got itself in a bit of a fix because Heathrow was limited basically to two runways
0:04:44 > 0:04:51and Gatwick, as the second airport, had been limited by a commitment that still stands to this day
0:04:51 > 0:04:54to an only one runway airport,
0:04:54 > 0:05:01and so there was a very urgent need to make long-term provision.
0:05:01 > 0:05:04This was going to be a challenge. Heathrow had been around for over
0:05:04 > 0:05:0920 years and by the Jet Age, everyone knew what it was like to live next to it.
0:05:23 > 0:05:26Moving day for Mr and Mrs Fred Turner.
0:05:26 > 0:05:30Their house became untenable when a runway was extended at London Airport.
0:05:30 > 0:05:33They had to sell up at a loss and get out.
0:05:33 > 0:05:35I suppose I've been on about
0:05:35 > 0:05:38PLANE ENGINE DROWNS SPEECH
0:05:41 > 0:05:47It's quite clear that the jet is the defining sound of the last 40 years of the 20th century.
0:05:49 > 0:05:53Before the aeroplane's invention, the only things that could be heard
0:05:53 > 0:05:55in the sky were thunder or birdsong,
0:05:55 > 0:05:58here now there was a new sound in the sky.
0:05:59 > 0:06:06I think as the century has progressed the sound of aircraft has intensified
0:06:06 > 0:06:10and also has intensified our sense of what it is to be modern.
0:06:16 > 0:06:19We've lived here 75 years, all my life.
0:06:19 > 0:06:23I'm 72 years, yeah. It's a good area, this place here is a good area.
0:06:23 > 0:06:25It's got a good bus service now.
0:06:25 > 0:06:29You know, we're not overlooked, we've got nice houses here.
0:06:29 > 0:06:33We've got a nice gardens, nice big back garden, nice front garden,
0:06:33 > 0:06:36three or four cars in the front garden with a lawn.
0:06:36 > 0:06:38Where would you get that today?
0:06:40 > 0:06:47To begin with, the villages around Heathrow were relatively undisturbed by the airport next door.
0:06:47 > 0:06:48New engine power,
0:06:48 > 0:06:52drawing its smooth, steady strength from both turbines and propellers.
0:06:56 > 0:06:58Turbo prop, remember the turbo prop.
0:06:58 > 0:07:03Yeah. They were usually all quiet except till the jets started coming.
0:07:03 > 0:07:06More noise from the jets, obviously.
0:07:06 > 0:07:08More noise.
0:07:10 > 0:07:15Just ear-shattering, really, and, you know, trembling sound
0:07:15 > 0:07:18against your stomach you got with them.
0:07:18 > 0:07:24Do you remember that bloke from Reading where the bloke do the ceilings, artexed the ceiling?
0:07:24 > 0:07:26And he was in here and Concorde went off.
0:07:26 > 0:07:30He come out, "What the bloody hell was that?"
0:07:30 > 0:07:32Frightened him to death.
0:07:32 > 0:07:37Noise was becoming a big issue, but in the late '60s, with more frequent and bigger
0:07:37 > 0:07:43aircraft landing at Heathrow, there was no doubt that a new airport was in the national interest.
0:07:43 > 0:07:46And to do its credit to the government of that day,
0:07:46 > 0:07:50the Harold Wilson Labour Government took the very long-term view,
0:07:50 > 0:07:52and appointed the Roskill Commission
0:07:52 > 0:07:57with the aim of doing the most exhaustive impartial study ever
0:07:57 > 0:08:02of the need for and the location of a third London airport.
0:08:02 > 0:08:06Good evening. In the coming age of jumbo jets
0:08:06 > 0:08:09and supersonic speed, how and where will we
0:08:09 > 0:08:14make room for new airports in England's green and pleasant land?
0:08:14 > 0:08:19Are we to be masters of our technology or fugitives from it?
0:08:20 > 0:08:26The Roskill Commission immediately started looking around London for potential airport sites.
0:08:27 > 0:08:31Its first task - to produce a shortlist.
0:08:31 > 0:08:35When Roskill first started his work, frankly, he was below the horizon.
0:08:35 > 0:08:38We knew, we'd read the Daily Telegraph and there
0:08:38 > 0:08:42were stories about him looking for a site in Britain. No-one dreamed it would ever come here.
0:08:44 > 0:08:48The Roskill Commission, which makes the final recommendation to the government on this point
0:08:48 > 0:08:54has now come up with its shortlist of four sites chosen on the grounds of their cost,
0:08:54 > 0:08:59their general suitability as an airport and how they fit in with planning considerations.
0:08:59 > 0:09:05The four sites chosen were Thurleigh and Nuthampstead, both north of London, Foulness
0:09:05 > 0:09:09on the Essex coast, and Cublington, a small village in Buckinghamshire.
0:09:09 > 0:09:13In each village, the very idea of an airport was hotly debated.
0:09:13 > 0:09:21For some it meant the destruction of the countryside, for others the creation of jobs.
0:09:21 > 0:09:25I would say 90% of the people that have come in my shop are for the airport.
0:09:25 > 0:09:27- 90%?- I would truly say...
0:09:27 > 0:09:31I don't agree at all. I refute that remark completely,
0:09:31 > 0:09:37because the things against it are much, much greater.
0:09:37 > 0:09:42This will be a place for old people, there'll be no youngsters.
0:09:42 > 0:09:44Even now the youngsters have to go out to get homes.
0:09:44 > 0:09:48What's wrong with that? People have always had to go out of villages to work.
0:09:48 > 0:09:49Well, why should they?
0:09:49 > 0:09:54They go and live near where the work is if they want to leave their work and the noise.
0:10:01 > 0:10:04Roskill knew that choosing between the four sites
0:10:04 > 0:10:11was going to be tricky, but he had a secret weapon up his sleeve, one that would ensure a fair decision.
0:10:11 > 0:10:18He was going to use the cold hard logic of a modern method of decision making, cost-benefit analysis.
0:10:18 > 0:10:24An approach so rational, he thought, no-one could argue with it.
0:10:24 > 0:10:25It didn't take into account
0:10:25 > 0:10:30questions of the quality of life, really.
0:10:31 > 0:10:34We are here, we want it, we're for it.
0:10:35 > 0:10:43In an uproar in this country unsurpassed in the political history
0:10:43 > 0:10:45of the place where we live.
0:10:45 > 0:10:51The campaign to prevent the airport being built at Cublington was started by a young barrister.
0:10:51 > 0:10:57I suppose I have to say that I'm the original NIMBY, but I'm afraid it's a matter of no concern,
0:10:57 > 0:11:03and I for one was not going to sit down and wave my legs in the air and say "this is a good idea".
0:11:03 > 0:11:06If the new airport comes here it wouldn't be anything like
0:11:06 > 0:11:09this strip which the countryside has been able to assimilate.
0:11:09 > 0:11:15The new airport will occupy a space of five miles by two-and-a-half, and many a devoted life plan
0:11:15 > 0:11:21seen in terms not of years but of generations will be suddenly meaningless.
0:11:21 > 0:11:26The proposed airport was going to be over twice the size of Heathrow with four runways.
0:11:27 > 0:11:32The villages that were going would have been Stewkley,
0:11:32 > 0:11:34Winslow and Cublington.
0:11:34 > 0:11:37I can't believe that Drayton Parslow would have been still there.
0:11:37 > 0:11:42Dunton, Whitchurch and Drayton Parslow,
0:11:42 > 0:11:46would have been absolutely intolerable to remain in.
0:11:46 > 0:11:51The local MP decided to throw his considerable weight behind the campaign.
0:11:51 > 0:11:55Captain Robert Maxwell, Military Cross, was the Member of Parliament
0:11:55 > 0:11:58for this constituency which was then Buckingham.
0:11:58 > 0:12:02He began to think that he was in danger
0:12:02 > 0:12:07of losing the seat, and I was then sent for by him.
0:12:07 > 0:12:12He said to me, "Who is the chairman of your organisation?"
0:12:12 > 0:12:14So I said, "Well, I am, sir."
0:12:14 > 0:12:19"Well," he said, "what you really need is somebody of national prestige."
0:12:19 > 0:12:22I looked as though I didn't know what the answer was going to be
0:12:22 > 0:12:26and he said, "I have enough prestige to sink a battleship."
0:12:28 > 0:12:34In a choice between people and money, the Roskill Commission will choose money.
0:12:34 > 0:12:37We say people matter more than money!
0:12:37 > 0:12:40APPLAUSE
0:12:40 > 0:12:46And he then said, "I'll tell you now, Fennell, that if you don't accept my invitation
0:12:46 > 0:12:51"I shall destroy your organisation and you will be out of a job."
0:12:51 > 0:12:55This was the first time that I'd been involved in anything political,
0:12:55 > 0:12:57let alone at this particular level.
0:12:59 > 0:13:03Fennell's campaign committee threatened to resign if Maxwell took over.
0:13:03 > 0:13:08So he called the MP's office to reject his offer.
0:13:08 > 0:13:13Quaking in my boots, I rang up the constituency agent and I said, "Well, it's about the airport."
0:13:13 > 0:13:17"Oh," he said, "we've just passed a resolution in favour of that."
0:13:17 > 0:13:20So I said, "in favour of it?" "Yes," he said, "in favour."
0:13:20 > 0:13:23I said, "I thought Captain Maxwell wanted to be against it."
0:13:23 > 0:13:26He said, "I don't know about that, there must be a mistake."
0:13:26 > 0:13:29Unable to rely on their own MP for support,
0:13:29 > 0:13:33the campaign needed a new champion, someone who wanted
0:13:33 > 0:13:37to protect England's green and pleasant land as much as they did.
0:13:37 > 0:13:40Thank you very much indeed for coming.
0:13:40 > 0:13:43I've got hours of stuff to go on with...
0:13:43 > 0:13:46We managed to persuade John Betjeman to come out
0:13:46 > 0:13:48and he had a very good lunch
0:13:48 > 0:13:52and said to me as an aside, "do you think it'll matter if I'm a bit squiffy?"
0:13:52 > 0:13:55But he produced a very good lecture.
0:13:55 > 0:13:57The roads are all widened,
0:13:57 > 0:14:04the lanes are all straight, so that rising executives won't have to wait.
0:14:04 > 0:14:11For who would use a footpath to Quainton or Brill, when a jet can convey him as far as Brazil?
0:14:11 > 0:14:13LAUGHTER
0:14:16 > 0:14:19For two years the Commission crunched the numbers to decide which
0:14:19 > 0:14:21of the four sites would be best.
0:14:21 > 0:14:26Then just before Christmas in 1970, it gave its verdict.
0:14:26 > 0:14:32The airport should be built at Cublington. The campaign had failed.
0:14:34 > 0:14:37There was a surge of, well, disbelief,
0:14:38 > 0:14:41and I think people did then get really upset.
0:14:43 > 0:14:45I was absolutely furious.
0:14:45 > 0:14:49For an unknown fringe element it was time for something more direct than
0:14:49 > 0:14:53poetry to ensure the government did not accept Roskill's recommendation.
0:15:01 > 0:15:05It was a Saturday morning, six o'clock in the morning, I was in bed, fast asleep.
0:15:05 > 0:15:12Telephone rang, a very gruff voice said in a broad Buckinghamshire accent, "Look in your letterbox.
0:15:12 > 0:15:14"Everyone in the area's got one."
0:15:14 > 0:15:16And the phone went dead.
0:15:18 > 0:15:24Behind my letterbox was a pamphlet with full details of how to make a petrol bomb.
0:15:28 > 0:15:34We found pieces of paper had been pinned onto telegraph poles and public notice boards and so on
0:15:34 > 0:15:39which actually gave the blueprint for making Molotov cocktails.
0:15:39 > 0:15:44This was entirely illegal, but we actually made one to see if it worked.
0:15:45 > 0:15:50And it did, we tested one out up on what used to be the old airfield
0:15:50 > 0:15:52in a derelict building!
0:15:52 > 0:15:58We also tried out one or two other devices, some of them were very ingenious, they wouldn't be any use
0:15:58 > 0:16:03to modern terrorists, they were very simple and primitive, but they would have worked.
0:16:03 > 0:16:06I'd phoned friends who confirmed they'd had these
0:16:06 > 0:16:09things put through their letterbox and we sent off a story.
0:16:10 > 0:16:15The Cublington campaign now had everyone's attention, so the villagers pushed on,
0:16:15 > 0:16:18but with publicity stunts that were more traditional.
0:16:18 > 0:16:23All sorts of things, going around bumper to bumper in an enormous
0:16:23 > 0:16:29column around what would have been the perimeter of the airport site.
0:16:29 > 0:16:33The second event we organised was a large rally.
0:16:33 > 0:16:3612,000 people turned up to this.
0:16:36 > 0:16:40The day of the inland airport has gone.
0:16:46 > 0:16:48For all the fun and games, the campaign
0:16:48 > 0:16:52wanted to make just one point, the logic of cost-benefit analysis might
0:16:52 > 0:16:58conclude that you should build a massive airport in Buckinghamshire, but that didn't make it right.
0:16:58 > 0:17:05So it's now blasphemy for a commission of learned economists, however well-intentioned,
0:17:05 > 0:17:10to try to add up the benefits of living in Stewkley
0:17:10 > 0:17:16and weigh them against the price of an air ticket to New York.
0:17:16 > 0:17:20They came to be widely criticised, even pilloried, for trying
0:17:20 > 0:17:25to value a Norman church by putting the insurance value on it.
0:17:25 > 0:17:29This was seen, in the famous words of a critic,
0:17:29 > 0:17:33Professor Peter Self, as "nonsense on stilts."
0:17:33 > 0:17:39My father, Peter Self, was Professor of Public Administration at the London School of Economics.
0:17:39 > 0:17:42His basic feeling was that the cost benefit analysis
0:17:42 > 0:17:44was a fundamentally flawed way
0:17:44 > 0:17:47of dealing with large scale projects like this.
0:17:47 > 0:17:51Dad said the loss of quality of life that was represented
0:17:51 > 0:17:56by the airport could not be assigned a simple integer
0:17:56 > 0:18:00I think the whole Wilsonian white heat of technology
0:18:00 > 0:18:03was more about money than it was about anything else.
0:18:05 > 0:18:09The Cublington campaign weren't against a new airport.
0:18:09 > 0:18:15In fact they believed that there was a location on Roskill's short-list that would be ideal.
0:18:15 > 0:18:21The obvious answer was to have a coastal site, that was Foulness.
0:18:21 > 0:18:26That became the centre of our activities towards the final chapter of the campaign.
0:18:28 > 0:18:33Foulness was an expanse of tidal marshland at the mouth of the Thames,
0:18:33 > 0:18:36and it was the only coastal site on Roskill's short-list.
0:18:36 > 0:18:44Although fewer people lived there it had been rejected because building an airport on reclaimed land cost more.
0:18:44 > 0:18:49But Foulness offered the nation the possibility of the perfect airport for the future.
0:18:49 > 0:18:52If you had to summarise the difference in planning terms
0:18:52 > 0:18:55between Foulness on the one hand and Cublington on the other,
0:18:55 > 0:18:56how would you put it?
0:18:56 > 0:19:01Er, I would put it that the...Foulness site
0:19:01 > 0:19:05can physically accommodate the urbanisation that is required,
0:19:05 > 0:19:08that is...accepted, I think, by everyone.
0:19:08 > 0:19:12I thought then, as I think now,
0:19:12 > 0:19:17that the best place to put an airport, other things being equal,
0:19:17 > 0:19:21which they sometimes aren't, is a seaside location
0:19:21 > 0:19:23or a riverside location,
0:19:23 > 0:19:27that is where the flights can approach and take off over water.
0:19:28 > 0:19:33Amazingly the Government agreed. They rejected Roskill's recommendation
0:19:33 > 0:19:37and decided to spend extra money on building runways over the sea.
0:19:37 > 0:19:41Foulness would be the site for London's brand new international airport,
0:19:41 > 0:19:45and Cublington was spared.
0:19:47 > 0:19:50When we marched down the village in the torch-light procession,
0:19:50 > 0:19:53I bet I cried because I cry at anything.
0:19:53 > 0:19:57I think the fight was that people mattered.
0:19:57 > 0:20:02That's was the overriding thing, that people are more valuable than money.
0:20:04 > 0:20:10Planning immediately started on Britain's largest ever civil engineering project.
0:20:10 > 0:20:12This was to be Europe's most modern airport.
0:20:12 > 0:20:16The "foul" in Foulness referred to birds, but, nonetheless,
0:20:16 > 0:20:20the name wasn't felt to be attractive enough for international travellers.
0:20:20 > 0:20:22So that was the first thing to go.
0:20:24 > 0:20:29'At the headquarters of the hydraulics research station is a two-acre model of Maplin Sands,
0:20:29 > 0:20:33'site of the projected third London Airport.
0:20:33 > 0:20:36'Starting small at the opening in 1980 or '81,
0:20:36 > 0:20:41'the airport will build up to handle 20 million passengers a year.'
0:20:41 > 0:20:44The new international airport couldn't come soon enough,
0:20:44 > 0:20:48because all the existing ones were busier than ever.
0:20:48 > 0:20:53'Within a few years, the volume of charter air traffic in Europe will have over taken schedule traffic,
0:20:53 > 0:20:59'and some of these obscure airlines may become just as familiar as BEA or KLM.'
0:20:59 > 0:21:02It was boom time for the British airport.
0:21:03 > 0:21:09More people travelled in 1973 than at any time in the history of aviation and the travel industry.
0:21:09 > 0:21:14That build up that had been taking place over the previous five years came to a head in 1973.
0:21:14 > 0:21:16Regional airports came into their own.
0:21:16 > 0:21:22Their locations made them convenient for eager holidaymakers, and cheap landing fees
0:21:22 > 0:21:26attracted major tour operators like Thompsons, Courtline and Clarkson's.
0:21:26 > 0:21:29The most important airport initially, of course, was Luton.
0:21:29 > 0:21:35One of the great advantages that Clarkson's had was that it was able to use an air terminal
0:21:35 > 0:21:40in the Finchley Road. Customers were able to get on a coach, they'd go straight to Luton Airport,
0:21:40 > 0:21:45so it managed to ensure that an airport like Luton was suddenly put to the forefront.
0:21:45 > 0:21:49In terms of passenger numbers there'd never been such growth,
0:21:49 > 0:21:53but underneath was an underlying problem of profitability.
0:21:53 > 0:21:58'And this year more than ever Britain's tour operators desperately need you to come,
0:21:58 > 0:22:04'because financially this could be the most crucial season since the air charter holiday business began.'
0:22:06 > 0:22:11Clarkson's motto was we won't be beaten on price, we were going
0:22:11 > 0:22:15to be cheaper than anybody else, we were going to make up for low prices
0:22:15 > 0:22:22by getting volume, by filling our aircraft completely, and they tried to fill them to unrealistic levels.
0:22:22 > 0:22:27What finally hit them was trying to do that at a time
0:22:27 > 0:22:32of rising fuel prices after the Arab-Israeli war.
0:22:33 > 0:22:39And it was very clear to tour operators that 1974 was not going to be a weak year.
0:22:39 > 0:22:44It was going to be a disastrous year, and it was clear that there would be a number of casualties.
0:22:46 > 0:22:48One major casualty of the economic crisis
0:22:48 > 0:22:52was the planned new international airport at Maplin Sands.
0:22:52 > 0:22:54At £800 million to construct,
0:22:54 > 0:22:57we simply could not afford it.
0:22:57 > 0:23:01The dream of an airport for the future was over.
0:23:03 > 0:23:06'The Government cancelled Maplin
0:23:06 > 0:23:11'at a point of really serious economic and political crisis.'
0:23:11 > 0:23:13I can only give you one gallon, sir.
0:23:13 > 0:23:16That'll get you to your nearest garage.
0:23:16 > 0:23:21There was strike after strike, power supplies failed,
0:23:21 > 0:23:25we were on a three-day week with power cuts nationally for four hours at a time,
0:23:25 > 0:23:30people sitting in darkness. There was just no money to pay for anything.
0:23:30 > 0:23:33The great post-war boom had come to an end.
0:23:33 > 0:23:36I was working at Clarkson's, I went home
0:23:36 > 0:23:40and my wife came into the kitchen and told me the news
0:23:40 > 0:23:43that Clarkson's and Courtline had gone bust.
0:23:48 > 0:23:53When Clarkson's went bust, the travel world exploded.
0:23:53 > 0:23:56There was chaos. There were people stranded in Spain,
0:23:56 > 0:23:58tens of thousands of people
0:23:58 > 0:24:03that wanted to get home, had no idea and no-one to turn to
0:24:03 > 0:24:05to get them home.
0:24:05 > 0:24:08We've been sitting here for hours on end waiting.
0:24:08 > 0:24:15In Britain, the airport, once a doorway beckoning us to exotic locations, was turning people away.
0:24:15 > 0:24:20We paid a £190 for two of us, so what chance do you stand of getting any back? None.
0:24:20 > 0:24:24- How do you feel about going on another package holiday? - Oh, no, thanks!
0:24:24 > 0:24:28Travel is really just all about dreams.
0:24:29 > 0:24:33Suddenly you weren't buying a dream, you were buying a big risk
0:24:33 > 0:24:37that you could be left stranded either having
0:24:37 > 0:24:43to find your own way back from somewhere in Spain or just losing your holiday, losing your money.
0:24:43 > 0:24:47I think that hurt an awful lot of people.
0:24:48 > 0:24:54In 1974 for the first time in the airport's history, the unthinkable happened.
0:24:54 > 0:24:57Passenger numbers fell...
0:24:57 > 0:25:00by millions, and there were darker days to come.
0:25:00 > 0:25:04On the 19th of May, an IRA car bomb exploded at Heathrow.
0:25:04 > 0:25:08The bomb went off at just about twenty minutes past eleven
0:25:08 > 0:25:11this morning and the explosion was absolutely enormous.
0:25:11 > 0:25:16The explosion came from behind and I was thrown on the floor and my colleague was
0:25:16 > 0:25:22thrown across the other side, and the next thing, well, there was stuff flying all over the place.
0:25:23 > 0:25:27'Just drove it straight into the front and it exploded
0:25:27 > 0:25:32'two guys were in it.'
0:25:32 > 0:25:38A deadly game of cat and mouse was being played out at the airport over the last 40 years.
0:25:38 > 0:25:43As security has closed one loophole, terrorists have sought another.
0:25:47 > 0:25:54In 1970, thereabouts, there was no security of any kind at any airport that I can recall.
0:25:54 > 0:25:56People just arrived, walked out to the plane,
0:25:56 > 0:26:00sometimes if it was a friend of a friend who worked at the airport
0:26:00 > 0:26:03and knew somebody, they would come on the plane and we, on
0:26:03 > 0:26:08the odd occasion I'd have to say, excuse me, would you mind getting off, we're ready to go here please.
0:26:08 > 0:26:12Which was a far cry from what happens today, as you can imagine.
0:26:12 > 0:26:15The security was completely nil.
0:26:15 > 0:26:17But by the early '70s,
0:26:17 > 0:26:21security measures began appearing at airports across the country.
0:26:21 > 0:26:24Passengers and staff entering the airport are stopped
0:26:24 > 0:26:28by police roadblocks and soldiers stand guard with guns at the ready.
0:26:31 > 0:26:35Almost as if terrorism and antiterrorist precautions had
0:26:35 > 0:26:38become an everyday part of the human condition.
0:26:38 > 0:26:42Terrorism isn't about the physical carnage,
0:26:42 > 0:26:45it's not about the mental and physical trauma,
0:26:45 > 0:26:48it's about what it symbolises, it's about a media event.
0:26:48 > 0:26:55And so it's not surprising, then, that airports should be a target for something like terrorism because
0:26:55 > 0:26:59it's a way to get noticed, it's a way to get on the front pages.
0:26:59 > 0:27:03From its earliest days the airport has been used as a stage by
0:27:03 > 0:27:06politicians wanting to address the world.
0:27:06 > 0:27:11So on the 6th September 1970, the Popular Front for the Liberation
0:27:11 > 0:27:16of Palestine created their own airport to get their message out.
0:27:16 > 0:27:20No breakfast, rumbling stomach, smoking too much,
0:27:20 > 0:27:24bumping away towards what somebody says
0:27:24 > 0:27:27is where we might find the aeroplanes.
0:27:27 > 0:27:34A couple of American nets, us in the Beeb, and we bumped over one more hill and there's a great Wadi
0:27:34 > 0:27:38laid out in front of us, and right in the centre of it,
0:27:38 > 0:27:42bright in the sunshine are these two aircraft.
0:27:42 > 0:27:46The next day the world woke to the news that two transatlantic
0:27:46 > 0:27:49jets had been hijacked and forced to land in Jordan.
0:27:49 > 0:27:54The hijackers were calling the airfield in the middle of the desert Revolution Airport.
0:27:54 > 0:28:0050 miles north-west of Oman on the sun baked salt flats, the two airliners hijacked by the PLFP.
0:28:00 > 0:28:03The two planes came in in the dusk last night with
0:28:03 > 0:28:08flares and kerosene lights put there by the PFLP to guide the pilots in.
0:28:08 > 0:28:14I think they realised that the whole life blood, the pulse of a sophisticated
0:28:14 > 0:28:20society was in its ability to travel and therefore the symbol of that
0:28:20 > 0:28:27wealth and power and ability to move, and internationalism was an airport.
0:28:27 > 0:28:32All women and children who should have been released were released.
0:28:34 > 0:28:38Immediately after the hijackings Heathrow stepped up security,
0:28:38 > 0:28:42but the rest of the airport network weren't so quick off the mark.
0:28:42 > 0:28:49And three days later in Bahrain, two more hijackers managed to board a BOAC flight.
0:28:49 > 0:28:53The level of security on any given flight is only as good as
0:28:53 > 0:29:00the security provided at the point of origin of each of the passengers on board that aircraft.
0:29:00 > 0:29:06The plane had been heading for Heathrow, but now it too was bound for Revolution Airport.
0:29:06 > 0:29:09'I said to the passenger, would you like some coffee?
0:29:09 > 0:29:10'Yes, please, black.'
0:29:10 > 0:29:13I served the coffee, I offered them sugar and as I did so,
0:29:13 > 0:29:16I looked to see this barrel of a gun in my face. "Get back", he said.
0:29:16 > 0:29:23I said who are you? And he said, "I am with the Palestinian Liberation Airways", he said.
0:29:23 > 0:29:26And he sort of shoved the trolley almost to one side
0:29:26 > 0:29:29and I'm, all I could think of to say was, you know, stop, be careful
0:29:29 > 0:29:34please, you could, I'm thinking this guy could knock the coffee pot over and scald himself.
0:29:34 > 0:29:37And here he is running around the cabin with a gun in his hand.
0:29:37 > 0:29:40And eventually we were then informed we were going to be taken
0:29:40 > 0:29:45to the desert, to Jordan, and land there, which we did.
0:29:45 > 0:29:50It was the first ever hijacking of a British aeroplane.
0:29:50 > 0:29:53'The BOAC arrived which was a shock for everybody, it was a shock for us.'
0:29:55 > 0:30:02It was absolutely stunning in terms of the publicity that this group attracted around it.
0:30:02 > 0:30:08Everybody on board quite reasonably OK and standing up to stay well.
0:30:08 > 0:30:12Can you give us your name first?
0:30:12 > 0:30:16Nigel, I'm British and I've come to Bahrain, and it's all
0:30:16 > 0:30:19right in there, it's just hot.
0:30:20 > 0:30:27The hijackers were demanding the release of Palestinian prisoners in return for the 300 hostages.
0:30:27 > 0:30:30And the negotiations weren't going well.
0:30:30 > 0:30:35Because of the tension in the capital there's a considerable worry that the already harassed
0:30:35 > 0:30:40and nervous guerrillas who are holding the planes will in fact stick to their threats and blow
0:30:40 > 0:30:45them up with the passengers on board if the European governments do not meet with their demands.
0:30:45 > 0:30:51Eventually the hijackers released all of the hostages over a tense three week period.
0:30:51 > 0:30:54- What's your name?- Susan Ablet.
0:30:54 > 0:30:56- Susan, how did you get on on board? - It's all right.
0:30:56 > 0:31:01'But the hijackers were still determined to make headlines.'
0:31:01 > 0:31:06There was silence and it wasn't, you know, what seemed like a long while but in actual fact was only
0:31:06 > 0:31:14most probably a matter of seconds before this enormous bang followed by this tidal wave of hot, hot
0:31:14 > 0:31:20air which almost knocked you off your feet, and this of course came after the actual explosion.
0:31:28 > 0:31:34We're into a completely different scene and we are then into the world where airline passengers are
0:31:34 > 0:31:38beginning to have to face the fact that their lives may depend on the
0:31:38 > 0:31:45level of security at the airport check-in desks, and this has made flying completely different.
0:31:45 > 0:31:48This has, this has changed the whole world.
0:31:48 > 0:31:55No hostages were killed, but the explosion at Revolution Airport reverberated around the world.
0:31:55 > 0:31:59'The events at Revolution Airport essentially were a catalyst'
0:31:59 > 0:32:01to the aviation security that we have today.
0:32:01 > 0:32:07Everything that has happened in aviation security was born at that point.
0:32:07 > 0:32:13American airports led the way, introducing metal detectors and x-ray machines.
0:32:16 > 0:32:20This is one of the obvious electronic devices used in the screening process.
0:32:20 > 0:32:26It's designed to detect first metal, when the passenger activated something he was frisked.
0:32:26 > 0:32:31After a thorough search, a monkey wrench was found and he was allowed to board the plane.
0:32:31 > 0:32:35These metal detectors and x-ray machines proved to be an effective
0:32:35 > 0:32:38deterrent, so they were quickly introduced to British airports.
0:32:38 > 0:32:43Ex-police officers examined passengers and their luggage electronically.
0:32:43 > 0:32:50It might mean slower boarding but no-one argues with extra safeguards against sabotage and hijacking.
0:32:52 > 0:32:55For me it's normally OK going through the metal detectors,
0:32:55 > 0:32:57I must have a nice friendly face,
0:32:57 > 0:33:01but my wife gets pulled over almost every time.
0:33:01 > 0:33:04You start feeling a bit suspicious like you've done something wrong,
0:33:04 > 0:33:07and it's a bit, it's just, it's not, you know, it's not great.
0:33:07 > 0:33:13Over three months in 1972, searches of BOAC passengers
0:33:13 > 0:33:18disclosed ten shotguns, 332 rounds of ammunition,
0:33:18 > 0:33:23245 knives, 67 swords, six rifles,
0:33:23 > 0:33:26five crossbows and 72 toy guns.
0:33:26 > 0:33:29I'm going to take them away from you for a little while,
0:33:29 > 0:33:34then when you get back, then when you get to wherever you're going, right, then you get them back.
0:33:34 > 0:33:36- Know what I mean now? You can't have them...- You're not..
0:33:36 > 0:33:42You can't have them on the plane. You're not, you can have them, you can have them when we get off.
0:33:42 > 0:33:45'The best job I ever had at the airport was frisking people,'
0:33:45 > 0:33:50and the training was perfunctory, I think, to say the very least.
0:33:50 > 0:33:54We were sat in the classroom for a couple of days where somebody
0:33:54 > 0:33:58without much enthusiasm said, "Look, if you see something like this" --
0:33:58 > 0:34:02and produced a Tupperware box with a few wires coming out of it --
0:34:02 > 0:34:05"then it's probably suspicious so you ought to tell somebody about it."
0:34:07 > 0:34:15X-ray machines had been introduced to help search baggage, but in the early days they were very basic.
0:34:15 > 0:34:19The fact that x-rays themselves were cosmetic
0:34:19 > 0:34:23was of course known within the industry but not to the general
0:34:23 > 0:34:27public, and not necessarily to the terrorist.
0:34:27 > 0:34:31There was always a threat their weapons would be identified.
0:34:31 > 0:34:35Er, and it did have a remarkable effect,
0:34:35 > 0:34:42the number of hijackings did go down, no question of that whatsoever.
0:34:45 > 0:34:50However, we had to understand that if you use technological methods
0:34:50 > 0:34:55to prevent hijacking and you lowered that threat then the terrorists
0:34:55 > 0:35:00would switch somewhere else and they'd look for a different approach,
0:35:00 > 0:35:04and eventually they looked towards the bomb.
0:35:04 > 0:35:07'One evening the El Al flight was going through controls.'
0:35:07 > 0:35:10Oh, after a few minutes, there was a bit of a furore,
0:35:10 > 0:35:15and then this girl was escorted out in floods of tears.
0:35:15 > 0:35:20When the saboteurs began to show their head, these were people who
0:35:20 > 0:35:23wanted to bomb aircraft but not to be on board at the time.
0:35:23 > 0:35:27And one example of that is Anne Murphy.
0:35:29 > 0:35:33Anne Marie Murphy was a young Irish woman working as a chambermaid in London.
0:35:33 > 0:35:40Pregnant by her Jordanian boyfriend, she thought she was flying to Israel to meet her future in-laws.
0:35:40 > 0:35:47Before the discovery of the bomb at Heathrow, presumably everything was all going very well, was it?
0:35:47 > 0:35:50Yes, it was, I was very happy that week.
0:35:50 > 0:35:52Yeah, and we came back and then,
0:35:55 > 0:36:00you know, for this to happen was absolutely dreadful.
0:36:00 > 0:36:06'She had been arrested at the gate because she was carrying this bomb in the bottom of her'
0:36:06 > 0:36:11piece of hand luggage, and the poor girl knew nothing about it, absolutely nothing about it.
0:36:11 > 0:36:15In the holdall, they found nearly ten pounds of plastic explosives,
0:36:15 > 0:36:18enough to blow the flight out of the sky.
0:36:18 > 0:36:22Anne Marie's boyfriend was trying to exploit a weakness in airport security.
0:36:22 > 0:36:25He had packed a bomb in her hand luggage believing
0:36:25 > 0:36:28that the x-ray machine wouldn't detect it, and it didn't.
0:36:28 > 0:36:30She walked straight through.
0:36:30 > 0:36:35But the airline, alert to a threat, hand searched her bag at the gate.
0:36:35 > 0:36:42This was, was a shattering, it was, I couldn't believe it, it was really terrible.
0:36:42 > 0:36:47Anybody could do anything like that to another human being, that's terrible.
0:36:47 > 0:36:50Really frightening.
0:36:53 > 0:36:57The incident was to leave its mark on the security process.
0:36:58 > 0:37:06The result of the inquiry of poor Anne Marie was that check-in were then told that they had to ask
0:37:06 > 0:37:10everybody the question did anyone else touch your baggage,
0:37:10 > 0:37:14are you carrying anything for anyone else?
0:37:14 > 0:37:16- Did anyone interfere with your bag at all?- No.
0:37:16 > 0:37:20I just need a T-shirt saying,'Yes, I pack my bags myself sometimes.'
0:37:20 > 0:37:23It's just a stupid question isn't it, obviously you've packed,
0:37:23 > 0:37:26today my boyfriend's packed for me, but...
0:37:26 > 0:37:30yeah, it's quite, quite frustrating.
0:37:32 > 0:37:38In 1988, terrorists found another way to get a bomb on board a plane.
0:37:38 > 0:37:43'Baggage reconciliation is sometimes called passenger and baggage matching.'
0:37:43 > 0:37:49You have a passenger, you make sure that his bags are related to that
0:37:49 > 0:37:53passenger and that no other bags get on board the aircraft.
0:37:56 > 0:38:00'We were out for maybe about an hour
0:38:00 > 0:38:02'and about to start the Atlantic crossing'
0:38:02 > 0:38:05and the captain said to me, we're going to do a little circle around
0:38:05 > 0:38:08here because we've just had word that the Pan Am behind us
0:38:08 > 0:38:10has sort of vanished off the radar.
0:38:10 > 0:38:14'There are growing fears that sabotage did bring the Pan Am
0:38:14 > 0:38:18'jumbo jet crashing into the Scottish town of Lockerbie last night.'
0:38:18 > 0:38:25The bombers had managed to get a bag onto Pan Am 103 to New York without getting on the plane themselves.
0:38:25 > 0:38:31Pan American who were charged with reconciling passengers and baggage
0:38:31 > 0:38:36to identify unaccompanied bags had decided quite deliberately
0:38:36 > 0:38:41for financial reasons to abandon that procedure in Frankfurt,
0:38:41 > 0:38:44and the bomb got on board.
0:38:48 > 0:38:54The international regulations that insisted airlines reconciled their baggage did not work.
0:38:54 > 0:38:56Something else was needed.
0:38:58 > 0:39:03To counter the threat, the authorities turned to an unlikely place for inspiration.
0:39:04 > 0:39:07CHECK-OUT BLEEPS
0:39:08 > 0:39:10We looked at supermarkets.
0:39:10 > 0:39:16Now, in supermarkets they'd introduced the barcode for all sorts of reasons,
0:39:16 > 0:39:22and we thought, well, can we not adapt this technology
0:39:22 > 0:39:29to an automated system of passenger and baggage matching?
0:39:33 > 0:39:38You see the results today, every time a passenger gets on board an aeroplane
0:39:38 > 0:39:43a barcode is being used, it's on his baggage tag,
0:39:43 > 0:39:46it's on his flight coupon and it's on his boarding card.
0:39:48 > 0:39:53So that on board an aircraft should be today only those bags
0:39:53 > 0:39:57which have gone through this technological screening.
0:39:59 > 0:40:05So much of security in our airports is actually hidden behind the scenes, so, for example,
0:40:05 > 0:40:11when you hand over your bag and it disappears off on a conveyor belt what you don't know is that bag's
0:40:11 > 0:40:18going through a whole screening process multiple layers of screening and some automated, some manual.
0:40:18 > 0:40:22It's basically a road map of the baggage system.
0:40:22 > 0:40:27All these islands that you can see at the top there, those are the check-in desks that the passenger
0:40:27 > 0:40:34goes to, the baggage then travels on these conveyors where we inject onto a loop which circles x-ray machines,
0:40:34 > 0:40:39if those x-ray machines accept the baggage, they travel down into what we call baggage sortation.
0:40:39 > 0:40:44Pink means that they're on their way to another level of screening, which is another set
0:40:44 > 0:40:49of more complex x-ray machines which have a lot better threat detection.
0:40:52 > 0:40:55Terrorist attacks give us a moment to pause, but it doesn't
0:40:55 > 0:41:00actually stop us from, from getting on a plane for any length of time.
0:41:00 > 0:41:05We see these incidents, they do drift from memory over time
0:41:05 > 0:41:10and gradually we become more relaxed about flying again.
0:41:12 > 0:41:17Heightened security was a price we were prepared to pay for the freedom to fly.
0:41:18 > 0:41:23I love going through security. I submit to them because
0:41:23 > 0:41:27that's their job, they need to make sure that the passenger is clean.
0:41:27 > 0:41:32Security's good, I mean, they're doing it for the benefit of us,
0:41:32 > 0:41:38for our safety, so whatever they want we're quite, you know, you're quite happy to go along with it.
0:41:42 > 0:41:46I think airports present us with this irony that it's about freedom,
0:41:46 > 0:41:48it's about freedom to move,
0:41:48 > 0:41:52yet to move freely we have to give up certain parts of ourselves.
0:41:52 > 0:41:58We have to give up, in a sense, certain rights, about us that we hold, and so there's that,
0:41:58 > 0:42:03that sort of give and take of, well, what do I give away in order to move the way I want to move?
0:42:05 > 0:42:09The threat of terrorism changed the geography of the airport.
0:42:09 > 0:42:14Corridors and checkpoints made it easier to control and monitor passengers.
0:42:15 > 0:42:22In the end nothing is ever going to be totally secure, and in that sense
0:42:22 > 0:42:28you could say that that is the eventual absolute capitulation
0:42:28 > 0:42:36if the airport becomes the windowless, underground, atomic bunker.
0:42:41 > 0:42:45A passionate aviator himself, Norman Foster was convinced
0:42:45 > 0:42:49the airport could return to the excitement and freedom of the past.
0:42:51 > 0:42:56When in the mid-Eighties, the government gave the go-ahead for a complete overhaul of a small regional
0:42:56 > 0:43:00airport called Stansted, Foster was given the job.
0:43:00 > 0:43:04You know, how do you avoid the experience of the airport being
0:43:04 > 0:43:08in a way the equivalent of going to the dentist?
0:43:08 > 0:43:15I describe it how you create an analogue experience in a, in a digital world.
0:43:15 > 0:43:21So really you want the airport to be a friendly experience.
0:43:21 > 0:43:25Norman Foster created a new model for what an airport might be.
0:43:25 > 0:43:30He tried to go back to the simple idea of a big box which
0:43:30 > 0:43:35you came in at one end, you could see the aircraft on the other side and you simply walked through it.
0:43:35 > 0:43:37That was the idea.
0:43:37 > 0:43:42It was absolutely superb because it was quite a new idea in airport design.
0:43:42 > 0:43:46The roof was going to be simply like an umbrella or a sunshade and it's a
0:43:46 > 0:43:49very handsome roof indeed, and the walls were basically
0:43:49 > 0:43:52walls of glass that enabled you to see what was going on around you,
0:43:52 > 0:43:54the aircraft taking off and landing.
0:43:54 > 0:43:57So the idea was that you would come into the airport
0:43:57 > 0:43:59and be aware of why you'd come there in the first place,
0:43:59 > 0:44:01that you were going to fly.
0:44:03 > 0:44:07Foster's Stansted was designed to be a glamorous international hub,
0:44:07 > 0:44:09but things didn't turn out quite as planned.
0:44:09 > 0:44:14In its early days, Stansted's new terminal was not a huge success,
0:44:14 > 0:44:16they were desperate to attract traffic,
0:44:16 > 0:44:22it was meant to be mainstream airlines and it was the budget airlines that moved there
0:44:22 > 0:44:27at first, and it's become fuller and fuller and fuller, in a way choked by its own success.
0:44:28 > 0:44:32Within months of opening, Ryanair moved in.
0:44:32 > 0:44:37The stage was set for a revolution in air travel, and Stansted,
0:44:37 > 0:44:40whatever its original aspirations, took full advantage of it.
0:44:40 > 0:44:44Low cost airlines has without a doubt been the single-most important
0:44:44 > 0:44:48influence on the travel industry in the course of the last ten years.
0:44:48 > 0:44:53Low fares airlines have certainly put certain airports on the map --
0:44:53 > 0:44:56who would have thought a few years ago that Stansted would now become
0:44:56 > 0:45:00the third most important airport in Britain?
0:45:03 > 0:45:08All those wonderful facilities, being used for the sort of people who when it was first built
0:45:08 > 0:45:12simply were not regarded as potential travellers.
0:45:12 > 0:45:17I think it's marvellous the way that this palace has been opened up to the people.
0:45:17 > 0:45:23And last year, over 23 million of us flew into or out of Stansted.
0:45:23 > 0:45:28Today almost half the UK's flights are taken on no frills airlines.
0:45:28 > 0:45:32The airport never stands still, the airport is never satisfied with
0:45:32 > 0:45:37what it has, it always needs more space, longer runways, more runways,
0:45:37 > 0:45:42more terminals, more terminal area because airports are only about
0:45:42 > 0:45:47masses, numbers, through-flow.
0:45:47 > 0:45:53The airport is a factory to create flow and process.
0:45:53 > 0:45:57The development of Stansted had taken 11 years and the
0:45:57 > 0:46:02longest planning enquiry to date to go from the drawing board to opening.
0:46:02 > 0:46:05Britain's airports had always met some local opposition,
0:46:05 > 0:46:09but in the late '90s, new voices joined the NIMBYS.
0:46:11 > 0:46:16I'm one of the tunnellers and I'm, my name is Disco Dave. Hello.
0:46:16 > 0:46:19We were highlighting the global warming situation which
0:46:19 > 0:46:23wasn't raised at all by the media, so we were on the peripheries of
0:46:23 > 0:46:26society really, we were, we were putting forward what was going on
0:46:26 > 0:46:28but nobody was listening to us.
0:46:28 > 0:46:35"What are you, you're just a bunch of smelly hippies, you're not really, well, what are you doing?"
0:46:37 > 0:46:43- Never seen people living up trees and things and never seen anybody like that, had we really?- No.
0:46:43 > 0:46:46So I think it was curiosity that got the better of us
0:46:46 > 0:46:48and we went and had a look.
0:46:48 > 0:46:53Actually, they were really nice people, you know, people couldn't understand why we were
0:46:53 > 0:46:56friendly with them or talked to them, but a good 50% of them
0:46:56 > 0:47:00were really nice and they were genuine in what they were doing.
0:47:00 > 0:47:06In 1997, Manchester Airport wanted to build a new runway to increase capacity.
0:47:08 > 0:47:14But within weeks of starting work, protesters were occupying the trees that needed to be cut down,
0:47:14 > 0:47:19and they started digging tunnels under the proposed path of the new runway.
0:47:19 > 0:47:26Gaynor and Sylvia had come round almost on a daily basis to certain camps.
0:47:26 > 0:47:29They're the people who are bringing you supplies from the outside
0:47:29 > 0:47:33without any reward, whatever, they're the unsung heroes really,
0:47:33 > 0:47:38because we were getting all the glory, you know, tunnel team and the tree house people.
0:47:38 > 0:47:40I think I'd rather go up a tree than down a tunnel.
0:47:41 > 0:47:44- Yes. Hmm.- I don't think you'd get me down a tunnel.
0:47:44 > 0:47:48Well, I wouldn't be able to get down from the tree and I get claustrophobic.
0:47:48 > 0:47:52We had a tunnel called the tight and nasty, basically.
0:47:52 > 0:47:55It was a tight and nasty design because it was very small,
0:47:55 > 0:47:57and it was basically, you had to go in it on your belly.
0:47:57 > 0:48:00And it goes down.
0:48:03 > 0:48:06This isn't the best place for a claustrophobic.
0:48:06 > 0:48:12And we had something called a squeeze hole which was even tighter, you'd have to sort of,
0:48:12 > 0:48:20like you were diving really, you'd put your head down six feet of very, very tight space.
0:48:20 > 0:48:23It comes, go on, come on.
0:48:23 > 0:48:26There's a specific wriggle that you can do that,
0:48:26 > 0:48:29that really works well, but I am quite good at.
0:48:30 > 0:48:31That's better.
0:48:31 > 0:48:36The tunnels led to a bunker where the protesters lived and slept.
0:48:36 > 0:48:38Night.
0:48:40 > 0:48:42They were a bit bizarre, some of them.
0:48:42 > 0:48:45I think the only person we had heard about was Swampy.
0:48:45 > 0:48:48Because he had a name and we'd heard about him from other protests.
0:48:48 > 0:48:52- He was there, he came and dug himself in I think for a little while.- Yes, yes.
0:48:52 > 0:48:56Swampy, known to his mum as Danny Hooper, gained celebrity status
0:48:56 > 0:48:59after evading eviction for a week in a protest tunnel in Devon.
0:48:59 > 0:49:01Swampy mania was gripping the country.
0:49:01 > 0:49:05Like there was a Diana mania, there was a Swampy mania.
0:49:05 > 0:49:11People would come from Liverpool and sit 20 feet away just to look at him
0:49:11 > 0:49:13with their kids and say, well, there's Swampy.
0:49:13 > 0:49:16Of course, we go into different places because there's so many
0:49:16 > 0:49:20places that are being trashed, you know, but that's not a rent a mob,
0:49:20 > 0:49:22that's a care for your planet, surely?
0:49:22 > 0:49:24People ask what was it like?
0:49:24 > 0:49:27I say, well, imagine Pirates of The Caribbean
0:49:27 > 0:49:29but a landlubber sort of version.
0:49:29 > 0:49:35We were, consumed vast quantities of alcohol, the amount of dope was, oh,
0:49:35 > 0:49:39was massive, but then, then again we looked at it, why not?
0:49:41 > 0:49:44We were going to go down this tunnel, there's a sort of a chance
0:49:44 > 0:49:47there that you're not gonna come out so you think, to hell with it.
0:49:47 > 0:49:52I think that the protesters against the Manchester runway extension had every right
0:49:52 > 0:49:57to feel that they were romantics and that they were, you know, living this outlaw life,
0:49:57 > 0:50:02and they were outlaws from the established law, the kind of
0:50:02 > 0:50:06law of modernism, if you like, the law of globalisation at that point.
0:50:07 > 0:50:10You know, the very fact that they tunnelled,
0:50:10 > 0:50:12the very fact that they were involved in their own kind of
0:50:12 > 0:50:17civil engineering project which literally subverted what the modernists
0:50:17 > 0:50:21and the globalising ideologues were trying to do was very important.
0:50:22 > 0:50:24Yeah!
0:50:24 > 0:50:28The authorities called in the bailiffs to evict the protesters.
0:50:28 > 0:50:30I told you, mate, you...
0:50:32 > 0:50:35- Hey, don't you push into me. - No, no, I wasn't.
0:50:35 > 0:50:38They quickly removed the tree dwellers,
0:50:41 > 0:50:46but the tunnellers had to be dug out, and a week later some were still under ground.
0:50:46 > 0:50:49I was the last one in that tunnel
0:50:49 > 0:50:53and the tunnel was basically collapsing at that point.
0:50:54 > 0:50:59They were digging away but because of the erosion due to the,
0:50:59 > 0:51:02the water, basically, the tunnel was falling in.
0:51:03 > 0:51:05They're getting here today, definitely.
0:51:05 > 0:51:08He was down there the longest and just as it happened,
0:51:08 > 0:51:13he came out of the tunnel and within hours the tunnel actually collapsed.
0:51:13 > 0:51:18That's how close he got, which I think frightened him at the time.
0:51:20 > 0:51:26Construction work continued and Manchester Airport's second runway eventually opened in early 2001.
0:51:28 > 0:51:33I saw the planes taking off in a different direction, coming over our house,
0:51:33 > 0:51:37and I honestly can say I had tears in my eyes, really, it, I felt sick.
0:51:39 > 0:51:44Environmental protest had not stopped the airport, but later that year
0:51:44 > 0:51:48global events brought the entire network to its knees.
0:51:48 > 0:51:52I'm in the greenhouse at home trying to get the greenfly off the tomatoes.
0:51:52 > 0:51:57I came out of the cinema, walked down the street and saw a crowd outside a television shop.
0:51:57 > 0:52:02And there's a shout from the kitchen, my wife, come in,
0:52:02 > 0:52:04a plane has hit a tower in New York.
0:52:06 > 0:52:09I was stunned, stunned.
0:52:09 > 0:52:14I immediately went into denial, I simply couldn't assimilate what was happening.
0:52:14 > 0:52:17I now realise I simply couldn't see it.
0:52:25 > 0:52:31The skyscraper and the aeroplane coming together at that, that moment in time, these two sort of symbols
0:52:31 > 0:52:34of the 20th and the 21st century, these things that sort of promised so much.
0:52:34 > 0:52:38For me, it was about how they cancelled each other out, they
0:52:38 > 0:52:42became nothingness, and for me that, that was the most poignant thing.
0:52:44 > 0:52:47The effect on the airport was immediate.
0:52:47 > 0:52:51Thousands of cancelled and diverted flights threw the system into turmoil.
0:52:57 > 0:53:00It was the start of a massive increase in security
0:53:00 > 0:53:04that has now reached levels unthinkable just a decade ago.
0:53:07 > 0:53:10You're taking your hand luggage through, but you've also got to
0:53:10 > 0:53:15hand down your passports, now you've also got to put all your perfumes, like, in a little bag.
0:53:15 > 0:53:17So you find you need three hands at the minute.
0:53:17 > 0:53:19I'm not quite sure whether we'll ever return to,
0:53:19 > 0:53:24if you like, the good old days where you just walked through ever again.
0:53:24 > 0:53:28But then again that's, you know, people just come to accept that.
0:53:29 > 0:53:34We feel the state's presence because we are literally touched by it, we're literally,
0:53:34 > 0:53:37we're, we're patted down, we're asked to take off our shoes and
0:53:37 > 0:53:41we're asked to do things like that which we, we can find humiliating.
0:53:41 > 0:53:45And we're then confronted with the reality that
0:53:45 > 0:53:50we are being secured for a purpose, the purpose of preventing terrorism.
0:53:53 > 0:54:01One of the principles of aviation security is the sterile lounge concept, the idea being that once
0:54:01 > 0:54:07you pass through security screening you're in an area which is pure, which is clean.
0:54:07 > 0:54:12Very safe, probably the safest place you can be in the world.
0:54:15 > 0:54:20We've always had to prove our identity to pass through the airport,
0:54:20 > 0:54:24but passports alone may no longer be enough.
0:54:24 > 0:54:28Facial recognition software can match a face to the photo in a passport.
0:54:28 > 0:54:32And some airports have now introduced iris scanning technology.
0:54:34 > 0:54:39You could say that airports give us an idea of what the future would look like,
0:54:39 > 0:54:44they emit this sort of, sort of science fiction fantasy
0:54:44 > 0:54:46in some ways in, in terms of the sorts of things we see,
0:54:46 > 0:54:50biometric technologies, finger print readers, iris recognition scanners,
0:54:50 > 0:54:55first in airports and we now see them in, in schools, we now see them on our laptops.
0:54:55 > 0:55:00So there's the sense that airports seem to shed light onto what's going to happen.
0:55:00 > 0:55:03You can often see whether people accept the modern world or not
0:55:03 > 0:55:06by kind of asking them how they feel about airports.
0:55:06 > 0:55:09Many people are quite offended by them and they see them
0:55:09 > 0:55:12as a symbol of everything that's wrong with the modern age.
0:55:12 > 0:55:15People who feel more hopeful about technology and about the future
0:55:15 > 0:55:16tend to celebrate airports.
0:55:16 > 0:55:20So it's a Litmus test to how people are feeling about the direction of humanity.
0:55:20 > 0:55:26Airports makes me feel wonderful, especially I haven't been home for the past six years.
0:55:26 > 0:55:30I look positively at an airport cos I think of going home maybe for the weekend
0:55:30 > 0:55:34or going on holidays or it's something positive, so, yeah, I like coming to the airport.
0:55:34 > 0:55:37I feel like, yeah, go on.
0:55:39 > 0:55:46Many of us are willing to pay whatever price necessary to enjoy the freedom the airport offers,
0:55:46 > 0:55:50but increasingly, there are those who believe that price is now too high.
0:55:55 > 0:56:01I would say that it's just in the last few years that climate change has become a mainstream issue.
0:56:01 > 0:56:05We live in a world where people want to fly, we've got used to flying,
0:56:05 > 0:56:10we expect it as a part of our lives, and, you know, we recognise that,
0:56:10 > 0:56:14but in the context of climate change we can't carry on
0:56:14 > 0:56:18flying as much as we have been, and so in the short term,
0:56:18 > 0:56:24we can at least stop policy from facilitating loads more flying
0:56:24 > 0:56:27by simply preventing our airports from expanding.
0:56:29 > 0:56:32The fact that so many people, say, are campaigning against
0:56:32 > 0:56:36airport expansions around the world, says that the age of, you know,
0:56:36 > 0:56:40innocence or the age of love of mass travel for its own sake has gone
0:56:40 > 0:56:44and indeed many people are questioning the need and the desire
0:56:44 > 0:56:47just to travel anywhere they like as cheaply as possible.
0:56:51 > 0:56:55It's not unreasonable to think that Heathrow itself will be
0:56:55 > 0:57:03a great modernist ruin, its once thronged booking halls and malls
0:57:03 > 0:57:08sort of tumbleweeds of desuetude blowing through them, it's a rather beautiful image.
0:57:08 > 0:57:13Modernism should have its ruins, every other era does.
0:57:15 > 0:57:19Whatever the future holds for the airport, for the last 90 years it has
0:57:19 > 0:57:22taken us on an extraordinary journey,
0:57:22 > 0:57:28expanding our horizons, changing our culture and altering our landscape.
0:57:28 > 0:57:30It has helped to make us who we are.
0:57:32 > 0:57:34If you want to get a sense that you live in a modern world,
0:57:34 > 0:57:37go to an airport, in a way that there's very few other places
0:57:37 > 0:57:39that compare with it.
0:57:39 > 0:57:42It sums up the promises of the age of modernity.
0:57:47 > 0:57:49We're flying off to Lisbon in Portugal
0:57:49 > 0:57:52just for four days, a break.
0:57:54 > 0:57:56I'm flying to Poland to Britgus.
0:57:57 > 0:57:59I'm going back to Versailles today.
0:58:00 > 0:58:04I'm heading home to Almeria Province in Spain.
0:58:42 > 0:58:45Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd