Great British Railway Journeys (2010–…): Season 1, Episode 19 - Coventry to Watford - 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.
Using my 19th century Bradshaw's guide,
I'm continuing my journey from Derbyshire
to London,
passing through the industrial heartland
of England in Warwickshire
and on into rural Buckinghamshire.
My Bradshaw's has often been a reliable guide
to places and people that still exist,
but maybe there'll be an exception today.
One city is highly recommended in Bradshaw's,
but scarcely features in modern guide books.
It's Coventry.
On today's journey,
I'll be reliving the Coventry Blitz.
You could pick the sound
of the German planes up.
Their engines were "vrum-vrum" -
a humming-humming noise.
I'll be ruffling some feathers in Aylesbury.
Your family's been in the business a while?
- 1775 that we know of.
- No!
Oh, absolutely. Continuously.
And I'll hear how the railways saved
thousands of lives during World War Two.
This was the largest station
where the evacuations took place from.
How we found our way onto the right train,
I'll never know.
All this week, I've been travelling from Buxton,
in the Peak District,
through the industrial Midlands,
towards Birmingham.
The line south was built by civil engineer
Robert Stephenson in 1837,
and was one of the first intercity tines
to the great imperial city of Bradshaw's era,
London.
Today, I'm continuing south from Bougainvillea,
on the edge of Birmingham,
to Coventry, the Vale of Aylesbury,
and on to Watford.
The line has seen many changes
since Bradshaw's day.
I'm following a 19th century guide book
and the man who started it, Bradshaw,
was really crazy about technology.
He loved technology.
I think he'd really be very, very excited
by your information.
He was the first person to put together
all the timetables.
OK.
So the idea that you have them all in a little box,
on a train.
We used to have to carry the old timetable
with us which was... that size, that thick -
obviously very thick and heavy.
- You've got an electronic Bradshaw.
- An electronic Bradshaw.
- (Both laugh)
- He'd be thrilled.
It would have taken about 30 minutes
to get to Coventry in Bradshaw's day,
on trains travelling at around 60 miles an hour.
Surprisingly, it takes about the same time today.
Next station will be Coventry.
If you are leaving the train,
make sure you've got everything with you.
Take care as you step from the train
onto the platform.
- A lot of whistling going on.
- That's it. That's me.
- Thank you. Bye.
- Bye-bye.
All along the railway line,
from Birmingham to London,
you had these stations that were rebuilt
in the 19603.
Birmingham New Street at one end,
Euston at the other,
and Coventry in the middle.
These enormous glass boxes.
And I remember, in the '60s, being
very impressed by this brave, new architecture.
Inevitably, they now look old-fashioned,
and nothing dates faster
than yesterday's View of the future.
These days,
Coventry isn't really on the tourist trait.
Probably because so much of the city was
destroyed during the Blitz of World War Two.
It's a very different Coventry
from the one that so impressed Bradshaw.
He says, "The fine steeples
are the first to strike one in this old city.
Many old-fashioned gable houses
are to be found in the back streets."
That's the Coventry
that Judith Durant remembers welt.
You were a girl in Coventry.
What was the city like then?
The city was beautiful.
A lot of old buildings.
The streets were all cobbled streets.
I remember all these old, beautiful buildings,
particularly the churches in the centre -
the three spires of Coventry.
And the cathedral itself.
Coventry was an essentially medieval city
built in the 14th century,
when it was the fourth wealthiest city in
England.
But one night in 1940, it was changed forever.
For you and your family,
how did the night of November 14, 1940 begin?
It began as a normal night.
We... The sirens did sound early.
I think it was probably about seven o'clock,
but we were then being prepared to go to bed.
We just went straight into the shelter
as a normal night.
But as we found out later,
it was not to be... a normal night.
Instead, it marked the start of a German
bombing operation called Moonlight Sonata.
You could pick the sound
of the German planes up.
Their engines were "vrum-vrum" -
a humming-humming noise.
You knew instantly
that they were not English planes.
You could hear the bombs whistling down.
The explosions were horrendous.
And you could smell the dust.
You could chew the dust.
And it was a very horrendous night.
It was one of the worst bombing raids on Britain
of World War Two.
600 planes bombarded Coventry for six hours,
by which time, most of it
had been blown to smithereens.
What impression did the devastated city
make on you?
Horrendous.
Of course, my mother kept us son of closer...
because of everything that was going on.
But we had to learn to live
and we had to readjust.
It made us all grow up.
We all grew up very quickly.
500 people died
on a night that Judith will remember forever.
As I say, these memories will be with me
for the rest of my life.
You once picked your way
through the rubble of this city,
and now you see it rebuilt.
How do you feel about what you see now?
I love it. It's beautiful.
And, you know...
those old memories are still there,
but with everything, you have to move forward,
and I think Coventry is beautiful.
What is indeed beautiful
is the new St Michael's cathedral...
built to incorporate the ruins
of the 14th and 15th century cathedral
that was destroyed in the Blitz.
It's a poignant symbol of Coventry's rebirth.
On the floor here in gigantic letters...
"To the glory of God...
this cathedral burnt November 14th AD 1940.
Now rebuilt 1962."
I guess that says it all.
I think it's wonderful.
I find the new cathedral is full of reference...
These columns refer to Gothic columns.
The way the roof is built
refers to the Gothic structure.
Obviously the stained glass
refers to Gothic stained glass.
Full of reference and reverence
for what was there before.
What's come as a great surprise to me, though,
is that despite the thousands of bombs
dropped over those six hours,
there's a remarkable amount
of the medieval city that survives today.
Tucked between the new,
there are numerous hints
of just how impressive Coventry was.
- Good morning.
- Morning.
- You're opening up, I see.
- I am, yes.
You trade in this lovely medieval building
and it somehow survived the bombing of 1940.
It did. It did, yes.
We've also got St John's church
at the bottom of the street,
which goes back to... the English Civil War.
The prisoners were kept in there. The term
"sent to Coventry" comes from that church.
I'm feeling that this is a city
that's somehow undersold.
I've never thought of coming
and lingering in the city before.
No, I think that's quite true.
When people do come to Coventry,
they are pleasantly surprised, I feel.
- I'm one of them. I'm pleasantly surprised.
- Good.
- Thank you. Have a good day.
- And yourself. Bye.
I'm feeling really guilty.
I've done a big injustice to Coventry.
I've always known that it was destroyed
in the war,
and therefore I've never come here
to pay it any attention.
Now I find it full of these
wonderful medieval buildings,
really as good as any English city.
I wish I'd known about all this before.
I feel I should have done.
I'm back at Coventry Station
for the next leg of my journey south.
Right...
For once, arriving with plenty of time,
it gives me the chance to get the answer
to a question I've always wanted to ask.
- Tell me about this paddle thing.
- My bat.
My dispatch baton.
Does it have a multiplicity of uses?
Can you play table tennis with it?
- I think somebody has.
- (Both laugh)
- No, not really.
- Show me your technique.
Show me a good wave.
(Blasts whistle)
- Wow.
- Nice clear blow.
- Thank you.
- You're more than welcome.
I'll practise that at home, I think. Thank you.
Bless you.
After all that,
my new friend's already lost interest in me.
She wouldn't give me a wave with her baton.
Oh, dear. I'm devastated.
The next part of my journey
takes me 60 miles south to Buckinghamshire.
And for once I'm being spoiled.
A cup of tea, please. Thank you.
- With milk?
- With milk, please.
- There we go, sir.
- That's very kind of you. Thank you.
First class travel.
The Midland Railway originally had
first and second class.
The third class was pretty basic.
In fact, when railways began,
third class travel wasn't even covered.
It was in goods wagons.
But then the railways realised
that they needed to attract the working classes,
that they were the new market.
And the Midland Railways created a sensation
in 1875
when all its quite comfortable
second class coaches were made third class.
In other words, there was now to be
a decent standard of accommodation,
even for the poorest members of society.
In the mid 19th century,
whatever class Bradshaw was travelling in,
he wouldn't have got refreshments on the train.
Today I find that eating on a train
is inexplicably exciting.
The next stage of my journey
involves two changes of trains...
- Bye-bye.
- See you.
To travel south to reach the place
where I'll be spending the night.
This is Aylesbury.
My Bradshaw's guide tells me
that during the Napoleonic wars,
the exiled French King lived at Hartwell House
and luckily that's now a hotel.
Even arriving after dark,
this house oozes regal splendour.
- Hello.
- Good evening, Mr Portillo.
Welcome to Hartwell.
If I can just ask for a signature at the bottom,
please.
Thank you very much.
Is it true that Louis XVIII lived here?
Yes, and you're in
the Queen of France's bedroom.
Oh, excellent. Thank you very much indeed.
A pleasure. Thank you.
This journey seems to be
getting better and better by the moment.
Next morning,
Hartwell House is revealed in all its glory.
Louis XVI“ lived here,
along with his family and 100 courtiers
for six years after the French Revolution.
T can imagine very many worse places
to be exiled.
This is one of the royal bed chambers
at Hartwell House...
and it's full of the fripperies
befitting Her Majesty, the Queen of France.
But I'm politically minded
and I'd like to tell you
about important matters of state
that occurred in this house.
Come with me.
In this room, French history was made.
The exiled King was invited to return to France,
to boot aside Napoleon Bonaparte
and take up his throne again
and he signed the papers of acceptance
in this very room.
When I was in the Cabinet,
we entertained the President of France
at nearby Chequers.
But there wasn't room for all of us to stay there
and junior members of the Cabinet, like me,
were sent packing hereto Hartwell House.
But we didn't feel hard done by.
We were sharing a roof,
not with a French president,
but with a French king.
First class travel, a night at Hartwell House.
Now I have a taste for high living,
my guide book can also
point me towards haute cuisine.
Bradshaw's guide says, “Another manufacture
peculiar to Aylesbury is ducklings,
which are forced for the Christmas market.
They're fed with an abundance
of stimulating food.
As many as three quarters of a million ducks
are sent to London from this part.“
And here is a farm where they're still bred.
In the 18th century, Aylesbury ducks
were a delicacy for the rich.
When the railways came along in the 18603,
suddenly many more people could eat them.
Each year, almost 750,000
were being sent by train
to Smithfield Market in London.
Hello, Richard.
- Hello, Michael.
- That wasn't too easy to do, was it?
- No.
- So this is...
- Very, very nervous, they are.
- Very nervous.
- So that is an Aylesbury duck.
- Meet a real Aylesbury duck.
Now Richard Waller runs the last bona fide
Aylesbury duck farm in the country,
producing around 10,000 a year.
- They're very distinctive.
- They are. Absolutely.
It's a bit unfortunate the rest of the breeds
which aren't table ducks are all white,
so it's hard to distinguish
unless you know an Aylesbury.
Pure Aylesbury ducks
have flesh-coloured beaks.
An other flocks are crossed
with the Pekin duck,
giving them yellow ones.
Aylesburys are also famed for their soft feathers,
ideal for quilts,
and their especially tender meat.
Your family's been in the business a while?
- 1775, that we know of.
- No!
Oh, absolutely. Continuously.
Possibly longer but 1775 we can trace it back to.
That's amazing.
How was the trade run by your father?
Well, I remember, in those days, 90% of it was
wholesale trade straight into Smithfield Market.
But the high spot of the day
was going down to the local station
to put them on the railway.
Because I knew that once they'd been offloaded
and weighed
and the money was paid to the railway
to get them into Marylebone,
it was down the chip shop for a bag of chips.
So the chips were your reward.
Looking back now, it doesn't seem very much,
but that was a great outing.
Going to the station, then a bag of chips.
In Bradshaw's time,
there were duck farmers all around Aylesbury.
But in the last hundred years,
the industry has shrunk,
partly due to competition
from the mass-produced Pekin ducks.
Now Richard supplies his ducks only to locals.
Richard, what is the future of this very beautiful,
very specialised, very tasty duck?
Well, at this very moment,
I would say quite bleak, to be quite honest.
I think, like all other small producers -
particularly in agriculture -
we've been hit by high costs, low income.
80, really, I'm maybe going to be
the last of the line.
Incredibly soft, Richard.
Incredibly soft feathers.
Very, very sweet bird, actually.
Thank you for your time today.
Until recently, Richard -
like his great-grandfather -
sent his ducks by train to Smithfields.
But now, once again, the Aylesbury duck
has become a speciality exclusive to the area.
You can find it at the King's Head in Ivinghoe,
where Richard's ducks are cooked
with ingredients gathered from the back garden.
- I find you amongst your herbs.
- (French accent) Yes, I am.
This is rosemary, as you can see.
There is lots of rosemary here.
- Lovely scent.
- Beautiful, beautiful smell.
Of course, it contributes to the success
of the cooking at the King's Head. Definitely.
Georges de Maison co-owns the restaurant
and has perfected the cooking of the ducks
over a period of 50 years.
We've got four apple trees, as well,
which are being used as much as we can
to serve with the duck as well.
- Apple sauce.
- Fresh apple sauce.
Which we flavour with calvados,
which is applejack.
That gives an extra dimension
to the apple sauce.
- I imagine it does!
- Yes, it does.
I think I must have actually handled
possibly in the region
of 150,000 or 160,000 ducks.
Which is possibly a record.
Georges, you're making me very, very hungry.
- Could we go to the kitchen, please?
- Of course. I'd be delighted to show you.
Georges serves around 3,000 ducks a year,
and I'm about to join the culinary pilgrims
who consume them.
- The famous Aylesbury duck, sir.
- Georges, c'est magnifique.
C'est magnifique.
As we“ as using his own special duck recipe,
Georges carves the duck in the French way,
at the table, in front of the diner.
I'm going to make an incision here
and remove the drumstick and the thigh.
And we do the same operation the other side.
- You speak like a surgeon.
- Yes, I do. Yes.
Now the aroma of the meat
is beginning to reach me,
as you've taken out the drumstick.
The duck is, of course,
perfectly cooked, Georges.
And here it is.
Yes, absolutely perfect.
A little bit of surgery.
And after all that hard work -
on Georges' part, at least -
I finally get to the best bit.
- It's heaven.
- Heaven.
- A votre santé.
- Mm.
And yours.
Having enjoyed a hearty lunch,
it's time to head south,
to my final destination 25 miles away.
We are now approaching Watford Junction.
Please mind the gap.
According to Bradshaw,
there's not much to see in Watford.
It's “a busy, thriving populous town
and consists of only one street,
with minor ones diverging from it."
Having just crossed Watford,
you wouldn't describe it that way today.
Watford is now a very much busier place,
but the town isn't the reason I'm here.
It's the station itself that's lured me off the train.
- Brian. Michael.
- Pleased to meet you.
Very good to see you.
Does this station have memories for you?
Very much so, yes.
I came here in July, 1943,
and this was the station I was evacuated from.
Londoner Brian Russel! was a child
at the outbreak of war in 1939.
This was the largest station
where the evacuations took place from,
from our part of London.
- Did you know what was happening to you?
- Not really, at the time.
I was with my sister,
who's seven years older than me.
She seemed to know what was going on.
But I was only six, so...
It was a bit of a kind of mystery ride, really,
and it was quite exciting.
Operation Pied Piper
was a national evacuation programme
begun in September 1939.
In just one week,
almost one and a half million children
were relocated on 3,000 special trains.
Towns like Watford played a critical role,
supplementing the overburdened stations
in London,
so as to get more children out of the capital.
By the end of the war, over three and a half
million children had been evacuated.
How we found our way onto the right train,
I'll never know.
Or whether it was a random thing,
I just don't know.
But it was quite an exciting day, in a way.
Especially for the younger children.
So this whole place would have been
panting steam engines...
- Yes.
- ..and the slamming of doors.
You would have had your suitcases with you,
I suppose?
Yes. I can remember
my Mickey Mouse gas mask.
Everybody had a gas mask
and mine was a Mickey Mouse one.
What about the journey itself?
What do you remember?
The journey itself was...
The trains were very, very crowded.
We had to mostly stand in the corridor
and took turns to lean out of the window.
We daren't go as far as opening the doors,
but we used to put our heads out of the windows
as much as we could,
getting covered in soot from the engine.
And we would take turns to sit down
in the compartments.
- Did you end up with a family up there?
- Yes. We moved into a family.
A very, very large house,
which was quite frightening for me,
cos it was like something out of Dickens, almost.
But the family were very, very kind
and helpful to us,
and when I came back home -
it was only after a year
because the European war ended -
and my father came home, from North Africa,
and I wouldn't say I didn't get on with him,
but we felt very distant.
Because I couldn't remember him at all.
I know he had a bad time. I do know that.
Cos he had some war injuries.
But he would never ever talk about it.
I was intrigued... I can remember
talking to my mother at the end of the war,
when we came back,
and I couldn't understand why the war was over.
It was just, “We must be fighting somebody."
You know, because it gets ingrained.
That's extraordinary,
for people from my generation,
- to think that war was your normality.
- It was.
- And did you love steam engines as a boy?
- Oh, yes, very much.
Many children of my era, when we grew up,
we all wanted to be an engine driver.
But it was only when I was 65 years old,
and retired,
I actually became one.
- (They laugh)
- On a steam railway?
A steam railway in a museum
set up in Shropshire, yes.
I think you must be a man
with a terrific sense of adventure
to have departed on that evacuation
only feeling excited
and still to enjoy your railway travel today.
I certainly do, yes.
The railways must have saved
thousands of lives
by transporting youngsters to safety.
They were also an invaluable pan
of the national war effort.
The government took over the rail networks,
sending men, machinery and supplies
to the front lines.
The railways directly contributed
to Britain's success in World War Two.
50, another leg of my journey ends.
For most of the 19th century,
Britain was at peace,
so George Bradshaw might have been
surprised at the horrors of war in the 20th.
Now I'm on my way to London,
and I shall be interested to see what Bradshaw
says about the city that I know so well.
On my next journey, I'll be visiting
one of the country's grandest Victorian hotels.
When I was a child, I believed that the witches
lived in here, it was so dark and dingy.
Very scary, actually, as a child.
I'll head to one of the oldest markets
in central London.
Do they behave nicely with you?
Watch their PS and Qs?
Sometimes. Not always, no.
If you were single, you'd have a good time.
(Bells chime)
And I'll be discovering how the capital
has rung in the changes since Bradshaw's day.
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.
Using my 19th century Bradshaw's guide,
I'm continuing my journey from Derbyshire
to London,
passing through the industrial heartland
of England in Warwickshire
and on into rural Buckinghamshire.
My Bradshaw's has often been a reliable guide
to places and people that still exist,
but maybe there'll be an exception today.
One city is highly recommended in Bradshaw's,
but scarcely features in modern guide books.
It's Coventry.
On today's journey,
I'll be reliving the Coventry Blitz.
You could pick the sound
of the German planes up.
Their engines were "vrum-vrum" -
a humming-humming noise.
I'll be ruffling some feathers in Aylesbury.
Your family's been in the business a while?
- 1775 that we know of.
- No!
Oh, absolutely. Continuously.
And I'll hear how the railways saved
thousands of lives during World War Two.
This was the largest station
where the evacuations took place from.
How we found our way onto the right train,
I'll never know.
All this week, I've been travelling from Buxton,
in the Peak District,
through the industrial Midlands,
towards Birmingham.
The line south was built by civil engineer
Robert Stephenson in 1837,
and was one of the first intercity tines
to the great imperial city of Bradshaw's era,
London.
Today, I'm continuing south from Bougainvillea,
on the edge of Birmingham,
to Coventry, the Vale of Aylesbury,
and on to Watford.
The line has seen many changes
since Bradshaw's day.
I'm following a 19th century guide book
and the man who started it, Bradshaw,
was really crazy about technology.
He loved technology.
I think he'd really be very, very excited
by your information.
He was the first person to put together
all the timetables.
OK.
So the idea that you have them all in a little box,
on a train.
We used to have to carry the old timetable
with us which was... that size, that thick -
obviously very thick and heavy.
- You've got an electronic Bradshaw.
- An electronic Bradshaw.
- (Both laugh)
- He'd be thrilled.
It would have taken about 30 minutes
to get to Coventry in Bradshaw's day,
on trains travelling at around 60 miles an hour.
Surprisingly, it takes about the same time today.
Next station will be Coventry.
If you are leaving the train,
make sure you've got everything with you.
Take care as you step from the train
onto the platform.
- A lot of whistling going on.
- That's it. That's me.
- Thank you. Bye.
- Bye-bye.
All along the railway line,
from Birmingham to London,
you had these stations that were rebuilt
in the 19603.
Birmingham New Street at one end,
Euston at the other,
and Coventry in the middle.
These enormous glass boxes.
And I remember, in the '60s, being
very impressed by this brave, new architecture.
Inevitably, they now look old-fashioned,
and nothing dates faster
than yesterday's View of the future.
These days,
Coventry isn't really on the tourist trait.
Probably because so much of the city was
destroyed during the Blitz of World War Two.
It's a very different Coventry
from the one that so impressed Bradshaw.
He says, "The fine steeples
are the first to strike one in this old city.
Many old-fashioned gable houses
are to be found in the back streets."
That's the Coventry
that Judith Durant remembers welt.
You were a girl in Coventry.
What was the city like then?
The city was beautiful.
A lot of old buildings.
The streets were all cobbled streets.
I remember all these old, beautiful buildings,
particularly the churches in the centre -
the three spires of Coventry.
And the cathedral itself.
Coventry was an essentially medieval city
built in the 14th century,
when it was the fourth wealthiest city in
England.
But one night in 1940, it was changed forever.
For you and your family,
how did the night of November 14, 1940 begin?
It began as a normal night.
We... The sirens did sound early.
I think it was probably about seven o'clock,
but we were then being prepared to go to bed.
We just went straight into the shelter
as a normal night.
But as we found out later,
it was not to be... a normal night.
Instead, it marked the start of a German
bombing operation called Moonlight Sonata.
You could pick the sound
of the German planes up.
Their engines were "vrum-vrum" -
a humming-humming noise.
You knew instantly
that they were not English planes.
You could hear the bombs whistling down.
The explosions were horrendous.
And you could smell the dust.
You could chew the dust.
And it was a very horrendous night.
It was one of the worst bombing raids on Britain
of World War Two.
600 planes bombarded Coventry for six hours,
by which time, most of it
had been blown to smithereens.
What impression did the devastated city
make on you?
Horrendous.
Of course, my mother kept us son of closer...
because of everything that was going on.
But we had to learn to live
and we had to readjust.
It made us all grow up.
We all grew up very quickly.
500 people died
on a night that Judith will remember forever.
As I say, these memories will be with me
for the rest of my life.
You once picked your way
through the rubble of this city,
and now you see it rebuilt.
How do you feel about what you see now?
I love it. It's beautiful.
And, you know...
those old memories are still there,
but with everything, you have to move forward,
and I think Coventry is beautiful.
What is indeed beautiful
is the new St Michael's cathedral...
built to incorporate the ruins
of the 14th and 15th century cathedral
that was destroyed in the Blitz.
It's a poignant symbol of Coventry's rebirth.
On the floor here in gigantic letters...
"To the glory of God...
this cathedral burnt November 14th AD 1940.
Now rebuilt 1962."
I guess that says it all.
I think it's wonderful.
I find the new cathedral is full of reference...
These columns refer to Gothic columns.
The way the roof is built
refers to the Gothic structure.
Obviously the stained glass
refers to Gothic stained glass.
Full of reference and reverence
for what was there before.
What's come as a great surprise to me, though,
is that despite the thousands of bombs
dropped over those six hours,
there's a remarkable amount
of the medieval city that survives today.
Tucked between the new,
there are numerous hints
of just how impressive Coventry was.
- Good morning.
- Morning.
- You're opening up, I see.
- I am, yes.
You trade in this lovely medieval building
and it somehow survived the bombing of 1940.
It did. It did, yes.
We've also got St John's church
at the bottom of the street,
which goes back to... the English Civil War.
The prisoners were kept in there. The term
"sent to Coventry" comes from that church.
I'm feeling that this is a city
that's somehow undersold.
I've never thought of coming
and lingering in the city before.
No, I think that's quite true.
When people do come to Coventry,
they are pleasantly surprised, I feel.
- I'm one of them. I'm pleasantly surprised.
- Good.
- Thank you. Have a good day.
- And yourself. Bye.
I'm feeling really guilty.
I've done a big injustice to Coventry.
I've always known that it was destroyed
in the war,
and therefore I've never come here
to pay it any attention.
Now I find it full of these
wonderful medieval buildings,
really as good as any English city.
I wish I'd known about all this before.
I feel I should have done.
I'm back at Coventry Station
for the next leg of my journey south.
Right...
For once, arriving with plenty of time,
it gives me the chance to get the answer
to a question I've always wanted to ask.
- Tell me about this paddle thing.
- My bat.
My dispatch baton.
Does it have a multiplicity of uses?
Can you play table tennis with it?
- I think somebody has.
- (Both laugh)
- No, not really.
- Show me your technique.
Show me a good wave.
(Blasts whistle)
- Wow.
- Nice clear blow.
- Thank you.
- You're more than welcome.
I'll practise that at home, I think. Thank you.
Bless you.
After all that,
my new friend's already lost interest in me.
She wouldn't give me a wave with her baton.
Oh, dear. I'm devastated.
The next part of my journey
takes me 60 miles south to Buckinghamshire.
And for once I'm being spoiled.
A cup of tea, please. Thank you.
- With milk?
- With milk, please.
- There we go, sir.
- That's very kind of you. Thank you.
First class travel.
The Midland Railway originally had
first and second class.
The third class was pretty basic.
In fact, when railways began,
third class travel wasn't even covered.
It was in goods wagons.
But then the railways realised
that they needed to attract the working classes,
that they were the new market.
And the Midland Railways created a sensation
in 1875
when all its quite comfortable
second class coaches were made third class.
In other words, there was now to be
a decent standard of accommodation,
even for the poorest members of society.
In the mid 19th century,
whatever class Bradshaw was travelling in,
he wouldn't have got refreshments on the train.
Today I find that eating on a train
is inexplicably exciting.
The next stage of my journey
involves two changes of trains...
- Bye-bye.
- See you.
To travel south to reach the place
where I'll be spending the night.
This is Aylesbury.
My Bradshaw's guide tells me
that during the Napoleonic wars,
the exiled French King lived at Hartwell House
and luckily that's now a hotel.
Even arriving after dark,
this house oozes regal splendour.
- Hello.
- Good evening, Mr Portillo.
Welcome to Hartwell.
If I can just ask for a signature at the bottom,
please.
Thank you very much.
Is it true that Louis XVIII lived here?
Yes, and you're in
the Queen of France's bedroom.
Oh, excellent. Thank you very much indeed.
A pleasure. Thank you.
This journey seems to be
getting better and better by the moment.
Next morning,
Hartwell House is revealed in all its glory.
Louis XVI“ lived here,
along with his family and 100 courtiers
for six years after the French Revolution.
T can imagine very many worse places
to be exiled.
This is one of the royal bed chambers
at Hartwell House...
and it's full of the fripperies
befitting Her Majesty, the Queen of France.
But I'm politically minded
and I'd like to tell you
about important matters of state
that occurred in this house.
Come with me.
In this room, French history was made.
The exiled King was invited to return to France,
to boot aside Napoleon Bonaparte
and take up his throne again
and he signed the papers of acceptance
in this very room.
When I was in the Cabinet,
we entertained the President of France
at nearby Chequers.
But there wasn't room for all of us to stay there
and junior members of the Cabinet, like me,
were sent packing hereto Hartwell House.
But we didn't feel hard done by.
We were sharing a roof,
not with a French president,
but with a French king.
First class travel, a night at Hartwell House.
Now I have a taste for high living,
my guide book can also
point me towards haute cuisine.
Bradshaw's guide says, “Another manufacture
peculiar to Aylesbury is ducklings,
which are forced for the Christmas market.
They're fed with an abundance
of stimulating food.
As many as three quarters of a million ducks
are sent to London from this part.“
And here is a farm where they're still bred.
In the 18th century, Aylesbury ducks
were a delicacy for the rich.
When the railways came along in the 18603,
suddenly many more people could eat them.
Each year, almost 750,000
were being sent by train
to Smithfield Market in London.
Hello, Richard.
- Hello, Michael.
- That wasn't too easy to do, was it?
- No.
- So this is...
- Very, very nervous, they are.
- Very nervous.
- So that is an Aylesbury duck.
- Meet a real Aylesbury duck.
Now Richard Waller runs the last bona fide
Aylesbury duck farm in the country,
producing around 10,000 a year.
- They're very distinctive.
- They are. Absolutely.
It's a bit unfortunate the rest of the breeds
which aren't table ducks are all white,
so it's hard to distinguish
unless you know an Aylesbury.
Pure Aylesbury ducks
have flesh-coloured beaks.
An other flocks are crossed
with the Pekin duck,
giving them yellow ones.
Aylesburys are also famed for their soft feathers,
ideal for quilts,
and their especially tender meat.
Your family's been in the business a while?
- 1775, that we know of.
- No!
Oh, absolutely. Continuously.
Possibly longer but 1775 we can trace it back to.
That's amazing.
How was the trade run by your father?
Well, I remember, in those days, 90% of it was
wholesale trade straight into Smithfield Market.
But the high spot of the day
was going down to the local station
to put them on the railway.
Because I knew that once they'd been offloaded
and weighed
and the money was paid to the railway
to get them into Marylebone,
it was down the chip shop for a bag of chips.
So the chips were your reward.
Looking back now, it doesn't seem very much,
but that was a great outing.
Going to the station, then a bag of chips.
In Bradshaw's time,
there were duck farmers all around Aylesbury.
But in the last hundred years,
the industry has shrunk,
partly due to competition
from the mass-produced Pekin ducks.
Now Richard supplies his ducks only to locals.
Richard, what is the future of this very beautiful,
very specialised, very tasty duck?
Well, at this very moment,
I would say quite bleak, to be quite honest.
I think, like all other small producers -
particularly in agriculture -
we've been hit by high costs, low income.
80, really, I'm maybe going to be
the last of the line.
Incredibly soft, Richard.
Incredibly soft feathers.
Very, very sweet bird, actually.
Thank you for your time today.
Until recently, Richard -
like his great-grandfather -
sent his ducks by train to Smithfields.
But now, once again, the Aylesbury duck
has become a speciality exclusive to the area.
You can find it at the King's Head in Ivinghoe,
where Richard's ducks are cooked
with ingredients gathered from the back garden.
- I find you amongst your herbs.
- (French accent) Yes, I am.
This is rosemary, as you can see.
There is lots of rosemary here.
- Lovely scent.
- Beautiful, beautiful smell.
Of course, it contributes to the success
of the cooking at the King's Head. Definitely.
Georges de Maison co-owns the restaurant
and has perfected the cooking of the ducks
over a period of 50 years.
We've got four apple trees, as well,
which are being used as much as we can
to serve with the duck as well.
- Apple sauce.
- Fresh apple sauce.
Which we flavour with calvados,
which is applejack.
That gives an extra dimension
to the apple sauce.
- I imagine it does!
- Yes, it does.
I think I must have actually handled
possibly in the region
of 150,000 or 160,000 ducks.
Which is possibly a record.
Georges, you're making me very, very hungry.
- Could we go to the kitchen, please?
- Of course. I'd be delighted to show you.
Georges serves around 3,000 ducks a year,
and I'm about to join the culinary pilgrims
who consume them.
- The famous Aylesbury duck, sir.
- Georges, c'est magnifique.
C'est magnifique.
As we“ as using his own special duck recipe,
Georges carves the duck in the French way,
at the table, in front of the diner.
I'm going to make an incision here
and remove the drumstick and the thigh.
And we do the same operation the other side.
- You speak like a surgeon.
- Yes, I do. Yes.
Now the aroma of the meat
is beginning to reach me,
as you've taken out the drumstick.
The duck is, of course,
perfectly cooked, Georges.
And here it is.
Yes, absolutely perfect.
A little bit of surgery.
And after all that hard work -
on Georges' part, at least -
I finally get to the best bit.
- It's heaven.
- Heaven.
- A votre santé.
- Mm.
And yours.
Having enjoyed a hearty lunch,
it's time to head south,
to my final destination 25 miles away.
We are now approaching Watford Junction.
Please mind the gap.
According to Bradshaw,
there's not much to see in Watford.
It's “a busy, thriving populous town
and consists of only one street,
with minor ones diverging from it."
Having just crossed Watford,
you wouldn't describe it that way today.
Watford is now a very much busier place,
but the town isn't the reason I'm here.
It's the station itself that's lured me off the train.
- Brian. Michael.
- Pleased to meet you.
Very good to see you.
Does this station have memories for you?
Very much so, yes.
I came here in July, 1943,
and this was the station I was evacuated from.
Londoner Brian Russel! was a child
at the outbreak of war in 1939.
This was the largest station
where the evacuations took place from,
from our part of London.
- Did you know what was happening to you?
- Not really, at the time.
I was with my sister,
who's seven years older than me.
She seemed to know what was going on.
But I was only six, so...
It was a bit of a kind of mystery ride, really,
and it was quite exciting.
Operation Pied Piper
was a national evacuation programme
begun in September 1939.
In just one week,
almost one and a half million children
were relocated on 3,000 special trains.
Towns like Watford played a critical role,
supplementing the overburdened stations
in London,
so as to get more children out of the capital.
By the end of the war, over three and a half
million children had been evacuated.
How we found our way onto the right train,
I'll never know.
Or whether it was a random thing,
I just don't know.
But it was quite an exciting day, in a way.
Especially for the younger children.
So this whole place would have been
panting steam engines...
- Yes.
- ..and the slamming of doors.
You would have had your suitcases with you,
I suppose?
Yes. I can remember
my Mickey Mouse gas mask.
Everybody had a gas mask
and mine was a Mickey Mouse one.
What about the journey itself?
What do you remember?
The journey itself was...
The trains were very, very crowded.
We had to mostly stand in the corridor
and took turns to lean out of the window.
We daren't go as far as opening the doors,
but we used to put our heads out of the windows
as much as we could,
getting covered in soot from the engine.
And we would take turns to sit down
in the compartments.
- Did you end up with a family up there?
- Yes. We moved into a family.
A very, very large house,
which was quite frightening for me,
cos it was like something out of Dickens, almost.
But the family were very, very kind
and helpful to us,
and when I came back home -
it was only after a year
because the European war ended -
and my father came home, from North Africa,
and I wouldn't say I didn't get on with him,
but we felt very distant.
Because I couldn't remember him at all.
I know he had a bad time. I do know that.
Cos he had some war injuries.
But he would never ever talk about it.
I was intrigued... I can remember
talking to my mother at the end of the war,
when we came back,
and I couldn't understand why the war was over.
It was just, “We must be fighting somebody."
You know, because it gets ingrained.
That's extraordinary,
for people from my generation,
- to think that war was your normality.
- It was.
- And did you love steam engines as a boy?
- Oh, yes, very much.
Many children of my era, when we grew up,
we all wanted to be an engine driver.
But it was only when I was 65 years old,
and retired,
I actually became one.
- (They laugh)
- On a steam railway?
A steam railway in a museum
set up in Shropshire, yes.
I think you must be a man
with a terrific sense of adventure
to have departed on that evacuation
only feeling excited
and still to enjoy your railway travel today.
I certainly do, yes.
The railways must have saved
thousands of lives
by transporting youngsters to safety.
They were also an invaluable pan
of the national war effort.
The government took over the rail networks,
sending men, machinery and supplies
to the front lines.
The railways directly contributed
to Britain's success in World War Two.
50, another leg of my journey ends.
For most of the 19th century,
Britain was at peace,
so George Bradshaw might have been
surprised at the horrors of war in the 20th.
Now I'm on my way to London,
and I shall be interested to see what Bradshaw
says about the city that I know so well.
On my next journey, I'll be visiting
one of the country's grandest Victorian hotels.
When I was a child, I believed that the witches
lived in here, it was so dark and dingy.
Very scary, actually, as a child.
I'll head to one of the oldest markets
in central London.
Do they behave nicely with you?
Watch their PS and Qs?
Sometimes. Not always, no.
If you were single, you'd have a good time.
(Bells chime)
And I'll be discovering how the capital
has rung in the changes since Bradshaw's day.