Great British Railway Journeys (2010–…): Season 1, Episode 1 - Liverpool to Eccles - full transcript
In 1840, one man transformed travel in Britain.
His name was George Bradshaw,
and his railway guides inspired the Victorians
to take to the tracks.
Stop by stop, he told them where to travel,
what to see and where to stay.
Now, 170 years later,
I'm making four long journeys
across the length and breadth of the country
to see what remains
of Bradshaw's Britain.
Until the 18403, travelling by rail in Britain
was really complicated.
There were already 20,000 miles of track
and more railway companies
than we have today.
The only way you could find out the timetable
was by going to your local station.
Then, in 1841,
along came George Bradshaw,
a map engraver from Manchester,
who put the timetables together and produced
the first handbook of Britain's railways.
I want to find out the extent to which
the industries
and the places and the types of people
that Bradshaw wrote about still exist
and whether a Victorian handbook
can help us to understand
the way that the railways
made us the people that we are today.
First up, I'll be learning the lingo in Liverpool.
You have the Beatles -
Paul McCartney, very soft:
"How ya doing, Michael?
How's things?“
Then you've got Lennon,
with his nasal twang, the adenoids.
Then visiting the birthplace
of the first steam locomotive -
George Stephenson's Rocket.
It was an absolutely astonishing event
in railway and, indeed, world history.
And having a go at folding an Eco/es cake.
Surgeon's hands!
Ah!
That's one of mine. You may have guessed.
All this week, I'll be travelling west to east,
starting from Liverpool,
along the oldest passenger railway in the world,
on the line that was built to take cotton
from Liverpool's docks to Manchester's mills.
After stopping at Skipton,
PH carry on across Yorkshire
and eventually end up at the east-coast resort
of Scarborough.
Today, I'll be covering the first 30 miles
via Rainhill to Eccles.
And my first stop is Lime Street station,
in Liverpool.
I'm now in the tunnel that runs from Edge Hill
into Liverpool Lime Street.
It's a mile and a quarter long.
It goes all the way under the city,
and Bradshaw was incredibly impressed.
And he said when people see this, they'll want to
pay just tribute to the engineering skill
of those people who delivered the railway
to the very heart of the city of Liverpool.
Bradshaw marvel/ed at the new railway line.
But he was even more impressed
by Lime Street,
one of the first stations ever built
Morning.
Bradshaw talks about Lime Street as having
an Italian design, with many columns,
and I suppose he must be referring to
this part of the station,
which is now rather rundown
and tucked in a corner.
Because when you come to Lime Street,
what you're really impressed by is this enormous
Victorian canopy of glass and iron.
Magnificent.
Liverpool has always been a vibrant city.
In Bradshaw's day, it was a great port,
second only to London.
Today, its rich Victorian heritage
sits alongside a shiny new Liverpool
that's sprung up in the last few years.
I love the way this brand-new glass building
reflects the old Liverpool,
the Liver Building, one of the most famous
buildings on Merseyside.
Throughout its history, the docks,
more than anything else,
have shaped Liverpool's character.
Bradshaw's guide was struck by the huge
numbers of people moving through the city.
"Liverpool, as might be expected,
is also a great emigrant port.
As many as 206,000 people,
for whose use half a million tons of shipping
were required in 1851.
In the 19th century, millions of immigrants
passed through Liverpool,
leaving a mark on the city
that's instantly recognisable -
the Liverpool accent.
I must admit, as a Southerner,
I've sometimes struggled to understand it,
so I've come for a lesson in Scouse
with local author Peter Grant.
- How very nice...
- Hiya, Ia'.
- What did you say?
- Hiya, Ia'.
- La'. Lad.
- Ah. That's a good start, isn't it?
Where does this Liverpool accent come from?
It comes from this almost allegorical
big melting pot,
a big pan of accents thrown in -
Scottish, Irish, Welsh, Lancashire, Cheshire.
Put a spoon in it, stir it all up
and you've got little sparkles here and there,
our little idiosyncratic little accent.
I'm following a 19th-century guide.
Would there have been a Scouse accent
in those days?
They would have spoken it, but it wouldn't have
been recognised till about 1890.
Is it a single accent?
You can actually discover different types
of Scouse accent - the north and the south.
In Maghull, you can hear a certain type of accent
that is different from the one in Allerton,
and this is reflected
especially in people like the comedians.
Stan Boardman - "the Germans".
He's from the north side.
You have the Beatles -
Paul McCartney,
very soft, "How ya doing, Michael?
How's things?“
And then you've got Lennon,
with his nasal twang, the adenoids.
George talking out of the side of his mouth,
“Scrotty,”
and Ringo's "Thomas the Tank Engine".
So all four, all from different parts of the city.
- You're a son of Professor Higgins of Scouse.
- I like that. I like that.
I think I'll bring out My Faaa-Ir Lady,
the sequel.
So, why don't you test me out
on some Scouse words or phrases,
and I'll see if I can follow you.
That fella over there, he's brickin' it.
That fella over there's brickin' it.
- That's great. That sounded like George.
- Um...
That means, "That man over there is scared.“
Scared, yeah, petrified.
And it could have other connotations, but...
'Ey, la', you're doin' me 'ead in.
Hey, la', you're doin' my 'ead 'un.
- That means, “Hey, boy...“
- (Peter laughs)
“..you're driving me crazy“.
That's good.
It's like an American pop song, that.
Have you heard the phrase
"getting off at Edge Hill"?
Getting off the train at Edge Hill?
In Liverpool, if you're getting off at Edge Hill,
it's the last stop before Lime Street,
but Scousers tend to use it as a son of analogy
to the... let's say the sexual act.
You went out with a girl,
or a girl went out with a bloke,
and you nearly got there, you know?
In the an of copping off, which is short for
"copulation“. 50, “Did you cop off last night?"
This is going out at 6:30.
But it seems Scouse isn't only an accent
in Liverpool.
It's also a dish.
Thank you very much.
If you like it that much,
we do it in a tin as well.
OK, great. Thank you.
I feel really ignorant asking this,
but what is scouse?
It's very much a peasant,
working-class-type dish.
It comes from Norway.
We adopted this Norwegian dish,
which was a lovely big stew with beef,
meat, fat, you name it.
Throw all the vegetables in, stir it round.
Very nutritious.
And it stopped you getting scurvy.
What do you say for “bon appetit" in Liverpool?
'Ave a good scran, la'.
'Ave a good scran, la'.
- What do you think?
- I think it's very good.
The beef has been shredded
so that it just gives it a kind of real...
lovely stringy texture, doesn't it?
I've never heard it called that before.
But you can't beat a good, solid bowl
of scouse.
And, as I say, it's got everything in it.
So, it's a very, very good metaphor
for the accent.
Yes. Absolutely.
So, Liverpool's signature dish
comes from Norway.
It seems everything in Liverpool
originates somewhere else.
Hello, guys. Nice to see you all.
- Are you all from Liverpool?
- Yeah.
- Do you like the city?
- Love the city.
- What do you love about it?
- The way it's so diverse.
I like that.
Everyone who's born in Liverpool
is either Irish, Scottish or Welsh descent,
and they say that it's a combination.
- Like, our nan's Irish.
It's lovely to see you so enthusiastic
about your city. Thank you so much.
- Bye.
- Bye, now!
- What do you think of the city?
- The city's great.
- You like the city?
- Oh, yeah.
- Is it getting better?
- Yeah, yeah. Lots of money coming in.
Can't beat it.
There was a lot of money coming in
in Bradshaw's time too.
Liverpool grew into the most important port
for the cotton trade,
with two million bales
passing through the docks every year.
Across the Mersey, on the Wirral,
there's another place Bradshaw talks about
that I'm keen to see.
Birkenhead Park.
Bradshaw's a little bit iffy
about Birkenhead Park.
He says it's not one of the largest.
But then he goes on and says but as a model,
it's "owned to be one of the finest in England".
And it did turn out to be a model,
because it was designed by
Sir Joseph Paxton
and then an American,
called FL Olmsted, came over.
And he was inspired by this
and designed Central Park in New York City.
And with these beautiful lakes, and with these
rocks piled high and the trees raised up,
it does have the feel of Central Park.
And so you like to think of all those people
leaving Liverpool, Birkenhead,
going across to New York City
and finding something very familiar
at the other side.
- Morning.
- Morning. How are you?
In the 18503, up to a thousand ships a year
were leaving Liverpool for America,
many carrying Irish refugees
fleeing the potato famine.
The trains brought people from all over Britain
to Liverpool to board the emigrant ships.
In the late 19th century,
one of the largest groups of refugees
passing through Liverpool were Jews,
like Mervyn Kingston's grandfather.
How lovely to see you. Good morning.
- How nice to see you, Michael.
- Great to see you.
When did your family come
to the United Kingdom?
In the 18903.
They came from Riga, in Latvia.
Now, why were they leaving Latvia?
Probably because of the pogroms.
They were chased all the time
in Latvia and Lithuania,
which was then pan of Russia.
- They were being persecuted?
- Yes.
As anti-Jewish riots took hold across Russia,
over two million Jews fled Eastern Europe
for America.
Between the 18803 and 19203,
many of them travelled by boat to Hun,
then caught the train to Liverpool
on their way to New York.
They came to Liverpool, the whole family.
There were five of them, five children.
And when they got to Liverpool,
they settled in town,
in what was called Little Moreton Street.
It's been demolished since.
And my grandfather got a job with Cunard.
As they passed through Liverpool,
many decided to stay,
forming one tenth of the city's population.
These days, the Jewish community
has shrunk to less than one per cent.
What would you say the Jewish community's
influence on Liverpool has been?
We've had seven Jewish lord mayors,
many councillors.
I was a Conservative councillor once.
And we believe we give back
as much as we take, if not more.
- A great tradition of philanthropy.
- We do our best.
That's been really interesting.
Thank you for sharing those memories.
Very nice seeing you.
Bye-bye. Take care.
- Goodbye, now.
- Bye-bye.
I'm now leaving Liverpool
to continue my journey east to Manchester.
My train will take me to Rainhill,
along what is perhaps
the most historic stretch of railway in the world.
Not surprisingly, the Bradshaw guides
were really keen on railway history.
"The Liverpool and Manchester line
was really the first
on which was attempted
the practical application
of locomotive power for the transit of goods
and passengers.
And it is therefore prominently entitled to rank as
the pioneer of those stupendous undertakings
which have not only given a new stimulus to the
mechanical and architectural genius of the age,
but have enabled this country to take the lead
of all others in these respects."
The Victorians were immensely proud of their
railways and immensely proud of their country.
They had good reason to be.
Before the railway, it took some 36 hours
to cover the 30 miles by canal.
This line cut journey times
down to just two hours,
a revolution for inter-city travel.
As the tine was being built, a highly innovative
competition that would change the world
took place about nine miles outside Liverpool.
This is Rainhill, and I've come to this little place
because railway history was made here.
Christian Wolmar is an expert on the Rainhill
Trials, the world's first steam-locomotive race.
- Are you Christian?
- How do you do?
Lovely to see you.
Why were there Rainhill Trials?
Well, essentially, it was a very clever
public-relations exercise,
because they were building the Liverpool
and Manchester railway,
they had just about decided
that they wanted locomotives,
rather than horses or stationary engines,
so they decided to have a big launch,
a PR exercise,
announcing several months in advance
that there were going to be these trials
for a locomotive in October of 1829.
Set the scene for me. Were there bands?
Were there balloons?
And was there hullabaloo?
Oh, it was an absolutely huge event.
There were people from Europe,
from the United States.
There was maybe 10,000, 15,000 onlookers,
but also all these foreign visitors
who had come to see...
was this the invention that was going to change
the face of the world?
And they were proved right.
It was an absolutely astonishing event
in railway and, indeed, world history.
George Stephenson, chief engineer
for the Liverpool to Manchester tine,
entered his steam locomotive, the Rocket
It won hands down,
achieving a top speed of 29 miles per hour.
The Rocket became the prototype
for all future locomotives.
It was a one-iron-horse race,
because the others blew up one by one.
He got the £500 prize,
probably worth about £20,000 these days,
and, crucially, the contract to build more
locomotives for the Liverpool to Manchester.
You paint a really vivid scene.
I wish I'd been there.
Christian, my train is here.
- I'd better scoot. Thank you so much.
- Cheers.
Phew! Just made it.
Well, the party atmosphere of the opening
of the Manchester to Liverpool railway line
was pretty much spoilt when, at the opening
ceremony, there was what Bradshaw called...
"a lamentable accident to
the Right Honourable William Huskisson".
Huskisson was President of the Board of Trade.
He was a member of the Cabinet.
At the opening ceremony, he was hit by
Stephenson's Rocket and he was injured.
They loaded him onto the train.
They took him to Eccles,
where I'm headed now.
But he died,
and so a cabinet minister became the first
railway fatality anywhere in the world.
My last stop is Eccles, towards the other end
of the Liverpool to Manchester tine.
This stretch of railway
is full of engineering firsts,
like the Sankey Viaduct,
bum by one George Stephenson.
Well, I'm looking forward to Eccles,
because Bradshaw says,
“This little village is prettily situated
on the northern banks of the Irwell
and environed by some of
the most picturesque rambles."
It sounds charming.
Which way for the picturesque rambles?
Whoops.
The 21 st century caught up with Eccles.
Up to the 1860s,
Eccles was barely more than a few cottages.
But when the world's first passenger railway
was routed through it,
the village's fate was sealed.
It was soon swallowed up
into the suburbs of Manchester.
There are still some patches of greenery left,
like the vast estate of Worsley Hall.
The hall dates back to the 16th century,
but was re-modelled in Victorian times
and eventually turned into a pub.
My Bradshaw's guide says it belonged to
“the celebrated Duke of Bridgewater“.
So, the notice in the pub
tells me that the old he” burnt down
and its historic owner had a great interest
in engineering.
So, tomorrow, I shall explore
what was for Bradshaw
a passion almost as great as railways,
that is to say canals.
Bradshaw started his life
mapping Britain's canals,
before he moved onto railways,
and so Worsley was of great interest to him
as the birthplace of the canal.
Bradshaw's guide is interested in
all great feats of construction.
It says of this spot: "The late Earl of Ellesmere
inherited the vast estates
of the celebrated Duke of Bridgewater,
for whom Brindley, the engineer,
first made the subterranean canals here.
They supply the coal mines below,
at a depth of 180 feet,
and wind in and out for about 18 miles."
That prodigious feat of engineering must have
inspired the railway builders of later years,
and, ironically, the railways were then
to put the canals out of business.
These underground waterways were part of
the Bridgewater canal system,
arguably the first in Britain.
They were built to carry coal directly
from the Duke's mines at Worsley
without going to the expense
of bringing it to the surface.
This pool is browny-orange,
telling us that this water
still comes up from the mine.
You can't see much now,
but from 1761, barges laden with coal
would have emerged from there
and this pool would have been
a hive of early industrial activity.
Clearly, what was the village of Eccles
has changed a lot since Bradshaw's guide.
But the guide also notes that Eccles
is celebrated for its cakes,
and that hasn't changed at all.
An Edmondson is the production director
of Lancashire Eccles Cakes.
How long has your family been involved in
making Eccles cakes?
I suppose it started in the 19203,
when my grandad went round
the local bakers' shops buying cakes
and then he'd put them
on his horse-drawn can
and he'd sell them at the local shops
on the corners of the streets of Manchester.
Then the family decided it would be better
if they made the cakes,
so they set a bakery up making the cakes.
- Can we see how they're made?
- Of course.
First, I'll show you the ingredients.
As you see here, this is the most important
ingredient in an Eccles cake -
a really, really good-quality currant.
These are Vostizza and they're from a place
in Aeghion, in Greece.
You'll see it says
"Protected designation of origin."
This is just like Champagne,
where they don't allow another grape
to come out of that area.
This is the same with here.
- A guarantee of quality.
- Yes, it is.
And then we've got sugar...
Simple ingredients.
That's all that's in the product.
It's sugar, more currants, brown sugar...
- Brown sugar.
- A bit of salt...
- Salt.
- And lots of butter.
Wow. It's a whole different world, isn't it?
It's absolutely fantastic, isn't it?
What would it have been like here,
I don't know, 50, 60 years ago?
The way they'd have made the cakes
EEO-odd years ago
would have been on a big, round table,
a big pile of currents in the middle.
Everyone gets a bit of pastry, puts it in
and then folds it into a little dolly bag
and then knocking it in rings
and then putting them on trays.
Quite inefficient
compared to how we make them now.
Now it's all coming down the process line.
- Hi.
- Hi.
That looks quite complicated.
No, it's easy, really.
Just put all the four corners to the middle,
and then the sides.
If you'd like to have a go,
put these gloves on.
- I wish you luck, anyway.
- Yeah!
Surgeon's hands. 50, four corners...
Ah!
Into the middle.
And then fold the side bits in as...
Oh, Lord.
- That's a bit of a mess, isn't it?
- Yeah.
And once they come off the line there,
they get baked in these ovens,
taken out and taken into the packing room
for cooling, then packing.
This is really where you get the strong smell
of the Eccles cake, isn't it?
Yeah, you get that fantastic smell. It's all the
flavours coming together of the ingredients.
How many Eccles cakes are you producing?
We're producing about 150,000
Eccles cakes a day.
In fact, it's probably in the top six
most popular cakes.
That's about... 40 million a year, or something.
Yes. I'll take your word for that.
- Would you like to try a real Eccles cake?
- I thought you'd never ask. Yes, please.
Lovely aroma.
Beautifully folded, by the way.
Is it one of yours?
No.
Mm, it's...
It's wonderful.
It's wicked. It's erm...
Look at the lovely row of currents inside.
Can you taste the butter and the sugar?
Are you kidding? Of course I can.
Absolutely buttery and sugary.
I'm really pleased to have looked into this
very historic cake.
Centuries of history in this cake.
The fantastic thing is that it's
the only Eccles cake you'll get in a supermarket
that's made within five miles of Eccles.
- The genuine article.
- Of course, yes.
The delicious pastries became so popular,
they were transported to markets
up and down the country by train
and sold on station platforms.
They were even exported to America
and the West Indies
and were laced with brandy
to help them last the journey.
But that method of preservation
got the cakes into trouble.
The apparently innocuous Eccles cake
has been associated with merrymaking,
so much so that at one time,
Cromwell banned the Eccles cake.
And it got into trouble again in the 19th century,
because they used to put brandy in the cakes,
and it's thought that one railway driver
got so drunk on eating Eccles cakes
that he fell off his footplate.
And thereafter, the sale of liquor
and the sale of Eccles cakes
was banned at all the stations around Eccles.
It wasn't only goods like the Eccles cake
that the railways transported around the world.
Before Britain had railways,
the average Briton was born, lived and died
within a 15-mile radius of the same spot.
The railways changed people's lives,
and George Bradshaw saw it happening.
In a single lifetime, he saw how the railways
changed industrialisation,
and how they changed people's lives,
and how they brought about the exponential
growth of cities like Manchester and Liverpool.
And Bradshaw was proud of the technology
and proud that it was British.
Next time, I'll be discovering how Manchester
came to be known as Cottonopolis.
By the end of the century,
the Indians were getting Indian designs
sent back from Manchester to India
that maybe came from cotton
they'd grown originally. It was crazy.
PH be finding out about Bradshaw the man
and how he helped to unify time.
Each provincial city, like Birmingham,
Manchester and so on, had their own time.
And, of course, this was liable to create
great confusion with railway timetables.
And how the railways brought fish and chips
to British plates.
- Oh, thank you very much.
- Thanks.
It was the onset of the railways that allowed
all this population, this inland population,
to, for the first time,
experience sea fish.
His name was George Bradshaw,
and his railway guides inspired the Victorians
to take to the tracks.
Stop by stop, he told them where to travel,
what to see and where to stay.
Now, 170 years later,
I'm making four long journeys
across the length and breadth of the country
to see what remains
of Bradshaw's Britain.
Until the 18403, travelling by rail in Britain
was really complicated.
There were already 20,000 miles of track
and more railway companies
than we have today.
The only way you could find out the timetable
was by going to your local station.
Then, in 1841,
along came George Bradshaw,
a map engraver from Manchester,
who put the timetables together and produced
the first handbook of Britain's railways.
I want to find out the extent to which
the industries
and the places and the types of people
that Bradshaw wrote about still exist
and whether a Victorian handbook
can help us to understand
the way that the railways
made us the people that we are today.
First up, I'll be learning the lingo in Liverpool.
You have the Beatles -
Paul McCartney, very soft:
"How ya doing, Michael?
How's things?“
Then you've got Lennon,
with his nasal twang, the adenoids.
Then visiting the birthplace
of the first steam locomotive -
George Stephenson's Rocket.
It was an absolutely astonishing event
in railway and, indeed, world history.
And having a go at folding an Eco/es cake.
Surgeon's hands!
Ah!
That's one of mine. You may have guessed.
All this week, I'll be travelling west to east,
starting from Liverpool,
along the oldest passenger railway in the world,
on the line that was built to take cotton
from Liverpool's docks to Manchester's mills.
After stopping at Skipton,
PH carry on across Yorkshire
and eventually end up at the east-coast resort
of Scarborough.
Today, I'll be covering the first 30 miles
via Rainhill to Eccles.
And my first stop is Lime Street station,
in Liverpool.
I'm now in the tunnel that runs from Edge Hill
into Liverpool Lime Street.
It's a mile and a quarter long.
It goes all the way under the city,
and Bradshaw was incredibly impressed.
And he said when people see this, they'll want to
pay just tribute to the engineering skill
of those people who delivered the railway
to the very heart of the city of Liverpool.
Bradshaw marvel/ed at the new railway line.
But he was even more impressed
by Lime Street,
one of the first stations ever built
Morning.
Bradshaw talks about Lime Street as having
an Italian design, with many columns,
and I suppose he must be referring to
this part of the station,
which is now rather rundown
and tucked in a corner.
Because when you come to Lime Street,
what you're really impressed by is this enormous
Victorian canopy of glass and iron.
Magnificent.
Liverpool has always been a vibrant city.
In Bradshaw's day, it was a great port,
second only to London.
Today, its rich Victorian heritage
sits alongside a shiny new Liverpool
that's sprung up in the last few years.
I love the way this brand-new glass building
reflects the old Liverpool,
the Liver Building, one of the most famous
buildings on Merseyside.
Throughout its history, the docks,
more than anything else,
have shaped Liverpool's character.
Bradshaw's guide was struck by the huge
numbers of people moving through the city.
"Liverpool, as might be expected,
is also a great emigrant port.
As many as 206,000 people,
for whose use half a million tons of shipping
were required in 1851.
In the 19th century, millions of immigrants
passed through Liverpool,
leaving a mark on the city
that's instantly recognisable -
the Liverpool accent.
I must admit, as a Southerner,
I've sometimes struggled to understand it,
so I've come for a lesson in Scouse
with local author Peter Grant.
- How very nice...
- Hiya, Ia'.
- What did you say?
- Hiya, Ia'.
- La'. Lad.
- Ah. That's a good start, isn't it?
Where does this Liverpool accent come from?
It comes from this almost allegorical
big melting pot,
a big pan of accents thrown in -
Scottish, Irish, Welsh, Lancashire, Cheshire.
Put a spoon in it, stir it all up
and you've got little sparkles here and there,
our little idiosyncratic little accent.
I'm following a 19th-century guide.
Would there have been a Scouse accent
in those days?
They would have spoken it, but it wouldn't have
been recognised till about 1890.
Is it a single accent?
You can actually discover different types
of Scouse accent - the north and the south.
In Maghull, you can hear a certain type of accent
that is different from the one in Allerton,
and this is reflected
especially in people like the comedians.
Stan Boardman - "the Germans".
He's from the north side.
You have the Beatles -
Paul McCartney,
very soft, "How ya doing, Michael?
How's things?“
And then you've got Lennon,
with his nasal twang, the adenoids.
George talking out of the side of his mouth,
“Scrotty,”
and Ringo's "Thomas the Tank Engine".
So all four, all from different parts of the city.
- You're a son of Professor Higgins of Scouse.
- I like that. I like that.
I think I'll bring out My Faaa-Ir Lady,
the sequel.
So, why don't you test me out
on some Scouse words or phrases,
and I'll see if I can follow you.
That fella over there, he's brickin' it.
That fella over there's brickin' it.
- That's great. That sounded like George.
- Um...
That means, "That man over there is scared.“
Scared, yeah, petrified.
And it could have other connotations, but...
'Ey, la', you're doin' me 'ead in.
Hey, la', you're doin' my 'ead 'un.
- That means, “Hey, boy...“
- (Peter laughs)
“..you're driving me crazy“.
That's good.
It's like an American pop song, that.
Have you heard the phrase
"getting off at Edge Hill"?
Getting off the train at Edge Hill?
In Liverpool, if you're getting off at Edge Hill,
it's the last stop before Lime Street,
but Scousers tend to use it as a son of analogy
to the... let's say the sexual act.
You went out with a girl,
or a girl went out with a bloke,
and you nearly got there, you know?
In the an of copping off, which is short for
"copulation“. 50, “Did you cop off last night?"
This is going out at 6:30.
But it seems Scouse isn't only an accent
in Liverpool.
It's also a dish.
Thank you very much.
If you like it that much,
we do it in a tin as well.
OK, great. Thank you.
I feel really ignorant asking this,
but what is scouse?
It's very much a peasant,
working-class-type dish.
It comes from Norway.
We adopted this Norwegian dish,
which was a lovely big stew with beef,
meat, fat, you name it.
Throw all the vegetables in, stir it round.
Very nutritious.
And it stopped you getting scurvy.
What do you say for “bon appetit" in Liverpool?
'Ave a good scran, la'.
'Ave a good scran, la'.
- What do you think?
- I think it's very good.
The beef has been shredded
so that it just gives it a kind of real...
lovely stringy texture, doesn't it?
I've never heard it called that before.
But you can't beat a good, solid bowl
of scouse.
And, as I say, it's got everything in it.
So, it's a very, very good metaphor
for the accent.
Yes. Absolutely.
So, Liverpool's signature dish
comes from Norway.
It seems everything in Liverpool
originates somewhere else.
Hello, guys. Nice to see you all.
- Are you all from Liverpool?
- Yeah.
- Do you like the city?
- Love the city.
- What do you love about it?
- The way it's so diverse.
I like that.
Everyone who's born in Liverpool
is either Irish, Scottish or Welsh descent,
and they say that it's a combination.
- Like, our nan's Irish.
It's lovely to see you so enthusiastic
about your city. Thank you so much.
- Bye.
- Bye, now!
- What do you think of the city?
- The city's great.
- You like the city?
- Oh, yeah.
- Is it getting better?
- Yeah, yeah. Lots of money coming in.
Can't beat it.
There was a lot of money coming in
in Bradshaw's time too.
Liverpool grew into the most important port
for the cotton trade,
with two million bales
passing through the docks every year.
Across the Mersey, on the Wirral,
there's another place Bradshaw talks about
that I'm keen to see.
Birkenhead Park.
Bradshaw's a little bit iffy
about Birkenhead Park.
He says it's not one of the largest.
But then he goes on and says but as a model,
it's "owned to be one of the finest in England".
And it did turn out to be a model,
because it was designed by
Sir Joseph Paxton
and then an American,
called FL Olmsted, came over.
And he was inspired by this
and designed Central Park in New York City.
And with these beautiful lakes, and with these
rocks piled high and the trees raised up,
it does have the feel of Central Park.
And so you like to think of all those people
leaving Liverpool, Birkenhead,
going across to New York City
and finding something very familiar
at the other side.
- Morning.
- Morning. How are you?
In the 18503, up to a thousand ships a year
were leaving Liverpool for America,
many carrying Irish refugees
fleeing the potato famine.
The trains brought people from all over Britain
to Liverpool to board the emigrant ships.
In the late 19th century,
one of the largest groups of refugees
passing through Liverpool were Jews,
like Mervyn Kingston's grandfather.
How lovely to see you. Good morning.
- How nice to see you, Michael.
- Great to see you.
When did your family come
to the United Kingdom?
In the 18903.
They came from Riga, in Latvia.
Now, why were they leaving Latvia?
Probably because of the pogroms.
They were chased all the time
in Latvia and Lithuania,
which was then pan of Russia.
- They were being persecuted?
- Yes.
As anti-Jewish riots took hold across Russia,
over two million Jews fled Eastern Europe
for America.
Between the 18803 and 19203,
many of them travelled by boat to Hun,
then caught the train to Liverpool
on their way to New York.
They came to Liverpool, the whole family.
There were five of them, five children.
And when they got to Liverpool,
they settled in town,
in what was called Little Moreton Street.
It's been demolished since.
And my grandfather got a job with Cunard.
As they passed through Liverpool,
many decided to stay,
forming one tenth of the city's population.
These days, the Jewish community
has shrunk to less than one per cent.
What would you say the Jewish community's
influence on Liverpool has been?
We've had seven Jewish lord mayors,
many councillors.
I was a Conservative councillor once.
And we believe we give back
as much as we take, if not more.
- A great tradition of philanthropy.
- We do our best.
That's been really interesting.
Thank you for sharing those memories.
Very nice seeing you.
Bye-bye. Take care.
- Goodbye, now.
- Bye-bye.
I'm now leaving Liverpool
to continue my journey east to Manchester.
My train will take me to Rainhill,
along what is perhaps
the most historic stretch of railway in the world.
Not surprisingly, the Bradshaw guides
were really keen on railway history.
"The Liverpool and Manchester line
was really the first
on which was attempted
the practical application
of locomotive power for the transit of goods
and passengers.
And it is therefore prominently entitled to rank as
the pioneer of those stupendous undertakings
which have not only given a new stimulus to the
mechanical and architectural genius of the age,
but have enabled this country to take the lead
of all others in these respects."
The Victorians were immensely proud of their
railways and immensely proud of their country.
They had good reason to be.
Before the railway, it took some 36 hours
to cover the 30 miles by canal.
This line cut journey times
down to just two hours,
a revolution for inter-city travel.
As the tine was being built, a highly innovative
competition that would change the world
took place about nine miles outside Liverpool.
This is Rainhill, and I've come to this little place
because railway history was made here.
Christian Wolmar is an expert on the Rainhill
Trials, the world's first steam-locomotive race.
- Are you Christian?
- How do you do?
Lovely to see you.
Why were there Rainhill Trials?
Well, essentially, it was a very clever
public-relations exercise,
because they were building the Liverpool
and Manchester railway,
they had just about decided
that they wanted locomotives,
rather than horses or stationary engines,
so they decided to have a big launch,
a PR exercise,
announcing several months in advance
that there were going to be these trials
for a locomotive in October of 1829.
Set the scene for me. Were there bands?
Were there balloons?
And was there hullabaloo?
Oh, it was an absolutely huge event.
There were people from Europe,
from the United States.
There was maybe 10,000, 15,000 onlookers,
but also all these foreign visitors
who had come to see...
was this the invention that was going to change
the face of the world?
And they were proved right.
It was an absolutely astonishing event
in railway and, indeed, world history.
George Stephenson, chief engineer
for the Liverpool to Manchester tine,
entered his steam locomotive, the Rocket
It won hands down,
achieving a top speed of 29 miles per hour.
The Rocket became the prototype
for all future locomotives.
It was a one-iron-horse race,
because the others blew up one by one.
He got the £500 prize,
probably worth about £20,000 these days,
and, crucially, the contract to build more
locomotives for the Liverpool to Manchester.
You paint a really vivid scene.
I wish I'd been there.
Christian, my train is here.
- I'd better scoot. Thank you so much.
- Cheers.
Phew! Just made it.
Well, the party atmosphere of the opening
of the Manchester to Liverpool railway line
was pretty much spoilt when, at the opening
ceremony, there was what Bradshaw called...
"a lamentable accident to
the Right Honourable William Huskisson".
Huskisson was President of the Board of Trade.
He was a member of the Cabinet.
At the opening ceremony, he was hit by
Stephenson's Rocket and he was injured.
They loaded him onto the train.
They took him to Eccles,
where I'm headed now.
But he died,
and so a cabinet minister became the first
railway fatality anywhere in the world.
My last stop is Eccles, towards the other end
of the Liverpool to Manchester tine.
This stretch of railway
is full of engineering firsts,
like the Sankey Viaduct,
bum by one George Stephenson.
Well, I'm looking forward to Eccles,
because Bradshaw says,
“This little village is prettily situated
on the northern banks of the Irwell
and environed by some of
the most picturesque rambles."
It sounds charming.
Which way for the picturesque rambles?
Whoops.
The 21 st century caught up with Eccles.
Up to the 1860s,
Eccles was barely more than a few cottages.
But when the world's first passenger railway
was routed through it,
the village's fate was sealed.
It was soon swallowed up
into the suburbs of Manchester.
There are still some patches of greenery left,
like the vast estate of Worsley Hall.
The hall dates back to the 16th century,
but was re-modelled in Victorian times
and eventually turned into a pub.
My Bradshaw's guide says it belonged to
“the celebrated Duke of Bridgewater“.
So, the notice in the pub
tells me that the old he” burnt down
and its historic owner had a great interest
in engineering.
So, tomorrow, I shall explore
what was for Bradshaw
a passion almost as great as railways,
that is to say canals.
Bradshaw started his life
mapping Britain's canals,
before he moved onto railways,
and so Worsley was of great interest to him
as the birthplace of the canal.
Bradshaw's guide is interested in
all great feats of construction.
It says of this spot: "The late Earl of Ellesmere
inherited the vast estates
of the celebrated Duke of Bridgewater,
for whom Brindley, the engineer,
first made the subterranean canals here.
They supply the coal mines below,
at a depth of 180 feet,
and wind in and out for about 18 miles."
That prodigious feat of engineering must have
inspired the railway builders of later years,
and, ironically, the railways were then
to put the canals out of business.
These underground waterways were part of
the Bridgewater canal system,
arguably the first in Britain.
They were built to carry coal directly
from the Duke's mines at Worsley
without going to the expense
of bringing it to the surface.
This pool is browny-orange,
telling us that this water
still comes up from the mine.
You can't see much now,
but from 1761, barges laden with coal
would have emerged from there
and this pool would have been
a hive of early industrial activity.
Clearly, what was the village of Eccles
has changed a lot since Bradshaw's guide.
But the guide also notes that Eccles
is celebrated for its cakes,
and that hasn't changed at all.
An Edmondson is the production director
of Lancashire Eccles Cakes.
How long has your family been involved in
making Eccles cakes?
I suppose it started in the 19203,
when my grandad went round
the local bakers' shops buying cakes
and then he'd put them
on his horse-drawn can
and he'd sell them at the local shops
on the corners of the streets of Manchester.
Then the family decided it would be better
if they made the cakes,
so they set a bakery up making the cakes.
- Can we see how they're made?
- Of course.
First, I'll show you the ingredients.
As you see here, this is the most important
ingredient in an Eccles cake -
a really, really good-quality currant.
These are Vostizza and they're from a place
in Aeghion, in Greece.
You'll see it says
"Protected designation of origin."
This is just like Champagne,
where they don't allow another grape
to come out of that area.
This is the same with here.
- A guarantee of quality.
- Yes, it is.
And then we've got sugar...
Simple ingredients.
That's all that's in the product.
It's sugar, more currants, brown sugar...
- Brown sugar.
- A bit of salt...
- Salt.
- And lots of butter.
Wow. It's a whole different world, isn't it?
It's absolutely fantastic, isn't it?
What would it have been like here,
I don't know, 50, 60 years ago?
The way they'd have made the cakes
EEO-odd years ago
would have been on a big, round table,
a big pile of currents in the middle.
Everyone gets a bit of pastry, puts it in
and then folds it into a little dolly bag
and then knocking it in rings
and then putting them on trays.
Quite inefficient
compared to how we make them now.
Now it's all coming down the process line.
- Hi.
- Hi.
That looks quite complicated.
No, it's easy, really.
Just put all the four corners to the middle,
and then the sides.
If you'd like to have a go,
put these gloves on.
- I wish you luck, anyway.
- Yeah!
Surgeon's hands. 50, four corners...
Ah!
Into the middle.
And then fold the side bits in as...
Oh, Lord.
- That's a bit of a mess, isn't it?
- Yeah.
And once they come off the line there,
they get baked in these ovens,
taken out and taken into the packing room
for cooling, then packing.
This is really where you get the strong smell
of the Eccles cake, isn't it?
Yeah, you get that fantastic smell. It's all the
flavours coming together of the ingredients.
How many Eccles cakes are you producing?
We're producing about 150,000
Eccles cakes a day.
In fact, it's probably in the top six
most popular cakes.
That's about... 40 million a year, or something.
Yes. I'll take your word for that.
- Would you like to try a real Eccles cake?
- I thought you'd never ask. Yes, please.
Lovely aroma.
Beautifully folded, by the way.
Is it one of yours?
No.
Mm, it's...
It's wonderful.
It's wicked. It's erm...
Look at the lovely row of currents inside.
Can you taste the butter and the sugar?
Are you kidding? Of course I can.
Absolutely buttery and sugary.
I'm really pleased to have looked into this
very historic cake.
Centuries of history in this cake.
The fantastic thing is that it's
the only Eccles cake you'll get in a supermarket
that's made within five miles of Eccles.
- The genuine article.
- Of course, yes.
The delicious pastries became so popular,
they were transported to markets
up and down the country by train
and sold on station platforms.
They were even exported to America
and the West Indies
and were laced with brandy
to help them last the journey.
But that method of preservation
got the cakes into trouble.
The apparently innocuous Eccles cake
has been associated with merrymaking,
so much so that at one time,
Cromwell banned the Eccles cake.
And it got into trouble again in the 19th century,
because they used to put brandy in the cakes,
and it's thought that one railway driver
got so drunk on eating Eccles cakes
that he fell off his footplate.
And thereafter, the sale of liquor
and the sale of Eccles cakes
was banned at all the stations around Eccles.
It wasn't only goods like the Eccles cake
that the railways transported around the world.
Before Britain had railways,
the average Briton was born, lived and died
within a 15-mile radius of the same spot.
The railways changed people's lives,
and George Bradshaw saw it happening.
In a single lifetime, he saw how the railways
changed industrialisation,
and how they changed people's lives,
and how they brought about the exponential
growth of cities like Manchester and Liverpool.
And Bradshaw was proud of the technology
and proud that it was British.
Next time, I'll be discovering how Manchester
came to be known as Cottonopolis.
By the end of the century,
the Indians were getting Indian designs
sent back from Manchester to India
that maybe came from cotton
they'd grown originally. It was crazy.
PH be finding out about Bradshaw the man
and how he helped to unify time.
Each provincial city, like Birmingham,
Manchester and so on, had their own time.
And, of course, this was liable to create
great confusion with railway timetables.
And how the railways brought fish and chips
to British plates.
- Oh, thank you very much.
- Thanks.
It was the onset of the railways that allowed
all this population, this inland population,
to, for the first time,
experience sea fish.