00:00Look up, look down, look all around. Up in the air or on the ground. Come for a walk, come for a ride. There's so much to see, so come outside.
00:26We're perfect for drawing and colouring in, with so many colours to choose from. We're perfect for writing your favourite words. Keep us sharpened and ready to use. What are we? We're pencils.
00:47Pippin sits still. Hello, me dears. I'm trying to draw Pippin's picture, but she keeps moving. Now sit still, Pippin.
01:09Pippin! I think you need a walk. You're very restless. It's time I bought a new pencil. We'll go to the stationery shop. Come on.
01:35Here they are. What a lot of pencils.
01:42Did you know there are different sorts of pencils? Some make light, thin lines on the paper. Others make dark, thicker lines.
01:57I need one that makes dark lines. This one, I think.
02:04Have you ever wondered where pencils come from? We'll go and find out.
02:11Thank you. Pippin, Pippin, it's time to fly.
02:26Have you ever wondered where pencils come from? We'll go and find out.
02:33Thank you. Pippin, it's time to fly.
02:39Pippin, it's time to fly.
02:49Pippin, it's time to fly.
02:54Pippin, it's time to fly.
03:01We're going to a place which has big hills and lakes, so look out for a lake full of
03:17water, Pippin. Can you see a lake, Pippin? Yes. Here we are. Look how the land dips in the
03:41middle, with hills on both sides. It's called a valley. And that's where we're going.
04:02Something happened here five hundred years ago, and if it hadn't happened, there might
04:09never have been any pencils. It all began here, in the valley we call Seathwaite.
04:23There were two brothers, Thomas and John. They were shepherds, and they each owned a flock
04:30of sheep. Every day their sheep would feed together in the grassy valley. One day John
04:38noticed a sheep had wandered off. Thomas, he said, one of your sheep is up in the hills.
04:46You'd better go and fetch her back. That isn't my sheep, said Thomas. That's one of yours.
04:54You'd better go and fetch her back. Then they began to argue. You see, the problem was they
05:02couldn't tell one sheep from another. They all looked the same. That night there was a terrible
05:10storm. Next morning, on the side of the hill, Thomas and John saw an old tree had been torn
05:19from the ground by the fierce wind. And there, under its roots, they saw what looked like coal.
05:30They always needed coal to make a fire to keep themselves warm and cook their food. So, Thomas
05:38and John dug up as much as they could carry. When they got it home, they tried to light it.
05:47wouldn't burn. This isn't coal, said John. What is it? Then Thomas noticed his hands were dark grey,
06:00and he said, I don't know what it is, but I know what we can use it for. He went out into the valley
06:11where the sheep were feeding, and he marked half of them with a cross. Now, John, he said, the sheep I've marked
06:23are mine, and the rest are yours. So, from then on, they knew who owned which sheep, and they never argued about it again.
06:36The shepherds didn't know it, but they discovered a special sort of rock called graphite. It was very
06:48good at making marks which didn't come off easily. Very soon, tunnels were dug deep into the hills, and they
07:03began to dig up the graphite. You can still see up there on the hillside where they used to dig for graphite.
07:15I wonder what it was like in those tunnels.
07:27Oh, Pippin. I think we're in one of the tunnels, deep under the ground.
07:34Pippin? Pippin? Pippin? Where are you?
07:46Pippin? What have you found?
07:58That's how they used to work in the underground tunnels, chipping away at the rock to dig out the graphite.
