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Documentary, Edwardian Britain in Colour Part: 2
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00:00This is Edwardian Britain, the remarkable years at the turn of the 20th century.
00:07It's an incredible period. It's the shaping of our modern era.
00:11We wouldn't be where we are without the Edwardians.
00:14Now for the first time in colour.
00:18History tends to be about the rich, the famous, the powerful,
00:22whereas these people, they're ordinary people.
00:25This footage is about them.
00:28This time, Edwardian Britain locked in a power struggle.
00:32Workers unite and fight for fairer work and pay.
00:36Real sense of hope, I think, amongst working people,
00:39that they can make a difference to their own lives.
00:42Women demand a voice, the vote and a place in the world.
00:46It was about changing society's views about what women could dream to be and do,
00:50and it was about counting themselves in a way that society didn't count them.
00:54Victories are won, but a whole generation would make the ultimate sacrifice.
00:59This is very poignant, because you know what's coming next,
01:02and you know exactly what these men are going to face.
01:04You know exactly what they're going to face.
01:26The Edwardian era, from 1901 to 1914, was a period of rapid change and excitement.
01:37Miraculous new feats of British engineering were changing the world.
01:42The unsinkable Titanic, built here in Belfast and set sail in Southampton in 1912, and the
01:49motorcar boating a top speed of 12 miles per hour, were inventions that revolutionised
01:55life for all kinds of people.
01:59The Edwardian period was the start of a new decade, of a new century.
02:03People were prosperous, people were happier, they were kind of coming out of that long mourning
02:08period for Queen Victoria.
02:10There's a whole feeling of optimism.
02:14Cities and towns across the north, like Wigan, captured here in 1902, were being transformed
02:21by modern forms of transport.
02:25This is the opening of the trams, so the trams were an absolutely important thing for linking
02:32small industrial towns together.
02:35So when a new tram opened, everybody would come out and celebrate.
02:40Nearly every major town in Lancashire had a tramway by certainly the early 1900s.
02:46Previously they would have had horse-drawn trams, and so this was like state of the art, new
02:50technology, and they were very much part of civic pride.
02:55In 1900, more than a million horses were required to pull Britain's trams and buses, but just a
03:01decade later, they had all but vanished.
03:05British engineered, double-decker trams like these were a proud emblem of progress.
03:12The excitement, the joy on people's faces at seeing this new innovation.
03:17At this time everything was innovative, everything was changing.
03:21Not just for upper classes, not just for middle classes, but for working everyday people.
03:25I think there's something really special about that.
03:27And I love that we've got the old and the new side-by-side, Hoechman in the red coat coming
03:32alongside the newer tram that's going to displace him.
03:35Just getting ready to start.
03:37We're leaving behind that world of horse-drawn carriages and horse-drawn carts, and we're moving
03:43into a different kind of time.
03:46I absolutely love this shot of the little girl being picked up by her dad, so she's on camera.
03:52Everyone around her is cheering and excited.
03:55It's just a moment of absolute joy.
03:57It's fantastic.
03:58And even the couple in the very middle class couple in the background, the guy's waving
04:02his riding crop, I think.
04:05Everyone wants to be part of this moment.
04:07They see it as a historic moment.
04:12This film was shot by Mitchell and Kenyon, two Edwardian entrepreneurs who travelled the country
04:18documenting everyday life.
04:20And on this occasion, they couldn't resist an attempt at comedy.
04:24But look at this.
04:29The filmmakers obviously set up a comedic element.
04:32You can see the guy in the bowler hat is clearly setting it up and sort of directing
04:35it there, and he's giving the sort of saying to, he's like pushing the man directly into
04:41the horse bait, which is hilarious.
04:44These had a locality of maybe 10 or 12 miles.
04:49They were not really shown anywhere else outside the area.
04:52It's actuality.
04:53It's entertainment to show people a bit of their hometown on film and get yourself on the screen.
05:02The colour just really brings this scene to life.
05:05It closes that gap down between us as viewers and them as subjects in the film.
05:12It makes them seem much more like us.
05:17It's like time travelling.
05:18It's like you're going back and walking amongst these people.
05:21People who are exactly like us and lead such similar lives to the ones we lead today.
05:28The Edwardian period is the most fascinating period of the last 100 years because it's
05:33a period of rapid transformation where people's standards of living increases quite quickly.
05:40Their access to leisure time and holidays and new technology is starting to make a massive
05:46difference to their lives.
05:48With more time for leisure, sport became part of daily life.
05:53Britain tennis had long been favoured by the wealthy, but now the working man had football.
06:01Where 2,000 or 3,000 would watch in the Victorian era, now matches were attracting crowds of
06:06more than 30,000.
06:11This FA Cup third round match between Burnley and Spurs at Turf Moor shows there was nothing
06:17bigger than supporting your local team.
06:23Quite extraordinary.
06:24You can't hear the supporters.
06:26However, 23,000 Burnham supporters wouldn't have been quiet that day.
06:32I've been following Burnham since 1972.
06:34Came down, my dad brought me on a Fulham game in 1972 down at Burnham.
06:38I've followed them for 20 years without missing a game home and away.
06:42Looking at the footage, Burnham's shown in green and white.
06:45That is the correct colours of the day.
06:47It wasn't up to this start in the 1910 season that we've changed to Clarendon Blue.
06:51The captain that day was a gentleman called Alex Leek.
06:54He led the Burnley players out and it was a big, big occasion.
06:58Cup fever.
06:59Cup fever in an olden day.
07:01All the guys in the background, they're wearing flat caps.
07:04It looks like they've come straight from the mills.
07:06To the mill workers and the mine workers in the area, this is what they live for, football.
07:12This is well their outlet from coming out of the mines, out of the mills, they come straight
07:16down here and to watch Burnley play.
07:18The average ticket cost only one pound in today's money and apparently, the beer was just as cheap.
07:25It's been rather the worst for wear before the football match.
07:35Football's huge for many communities supporting your local town.
07:39It's become a regular kind of leisure pursuit for many men.
07:45We know that then these films were shown in the local exhibition places, that people responded
07:50to seeing their players and if the home team lost, they didn't show the film.
07:56Luckily Burnley won the game 3-1, so the footage survives.
08:02Edwardians were proud, not only of their football team, but of their local community and they
08:11loved to show it.
08:13Big social events like this charity swimming gala in Tynemouth in 1901 were an opportunity
08:19for the whole town to come out and enjoy themselves.
08:23The Edwardians loved to put on a show for local people.
08:26They loved civic events and galas and let's say processions.
08:31So this is very appropriate for Tynemouth to put on a gala, have people swimming, have
08:36people diving, you know, and lots of people in boats watching because it's really, it's
08:41a town that's fiercely proud of its maritime history.
08:47This is the fancy dress swimming parade in Tynemouth.
08:50They start with top hats and then they have to wear almost like this gentleman's costumes
08:56and then they swim and it's a local annual charity competition.
09:02It's so funny, seeing men dressed up in fancy dress swimming, it's kind of like the ludicrous
09:07pantomime of Edwardian entertainment.
09:11Most of the people watching would not be able to swim, so this is incredibly daring, foolhardy
09:18activity.
09:19They're not in the safety of the local swimming pool, they're actually in the tine.
09:23It looks absolutely freezing.
09:27This reminds me of growing up in the North East and going to Tynemouth open air pool, which
09:31was a tidal pool filled with seawater.
09:35So I remember just how cold it was and they were a lot hardier, the Edwardians, than we
09:40are.
09:41But Edwardian Britain wasn't all fun and games.
09:46Workers took to the streets to demand a fair deal, as a wave of strikes threatened to pull
09:51the nation apart.
09:53Working class people seem to push for a better deal after centuries of having a pretty rubbish
09:59deal.
10:00And this is the first time you really see this and it's played out on the streets.
10:14The Edwardian policeman is a figure we can recognise today.
10:19Throughout the era, the profession modernised as officers were issued standard uniforms and
10:24equipment and even began using methods like fingerprint analysis.
10:29A policeman had to be a certain height in the Edwardian period.
10:36So most policemen that you see command attention from their height.
10:41And there's that kind of demeanour of authority.
10:47These men are the new recruits of what is now known as the Greater Manchester Police.
10:54I love this scene because it looks to me this is their equipment and I think there's
10:58a trungeon.
10:59Certainly a trungeon.
11:00That's what they defend themselves with.
11:02Their notebook, I think we're seeing there, a whistle and a pair of handcuffs.
11:10The four essential things that you would find on a police officer today.
11:19Only one in five applicants were successful.
11:24The perfect candidate was over five foot seven, physically fit and had a stable personal life.
11:31Criteria that haven't changed too much over the years.
11:34We certainly did that as well.
11:37They tended to select people who were under 30 and if they were married, they were told
11:43they couldn't have more than two children when they joined.
11:46And if you wanted to get married, you had to ask permission to get married.
11:50I remember when I got married in 1981, I had to put in a form and ask permission to get
11:57married.
11:58So it still carried on then.
12:02I was sent away with other male colleagues to an army training centre.
12:08It was such a shock to the system.
12:11I can remember phoning my dad and saying, what on earth have I got myself into?
12:17Policing's pretty varied at this time.
12:20You see here, they're involved in first aid, they're involved in ambulance work.
12:29I like this bit, by the way.
12:30The very latest methods of ambulance work, they just roll up, stick out of stretcher,
12:39put this poor guy on the stretcher who probably shouldn't be moved, stick him in the back
12:44and that's the very latest methods of policing.
12:47It's amazing.
12:52Keen to publicise their achievements, the police force themselves commissioned this 30-minute
12:57long documentary.
12:59It's perhaps an early example of Edwardian corporate PR.
13:05There's an interesting thing already that the makers of this film have seen it as
13:08necessary to say, are friends the police, almost as if they're trying to convince the
13:12audience who may be watching this that the police are their friends.
13:16It's almost as if they're producing this to try and tell the audience what the police do,
13:21because people don't know what they do, or they want to change the perception of what
13:24people think the police do.
13:26It shows that the people that have been recruited in civilian clothes, they're ordinary people.
13:32I think they're trying to instil that sense of you can trust us because we are you.
13:39One January morning in 1911, in the shadowy streets of London's East End, the police were about to face something no training could have prepared them for.
14:01One of the most infamous gun battles in British history, all remarkably caught on film.
14:13Oh, this is amazing, isn't it?
14:15The siege of Sydney Street.
14:16It's something we can relate to today because it's a terrorist incident.
14:21A gang of Latvian anarchists were on the run after murdering three policemen in a failed jewellery robbery.
14:29Two of them got trapped in this house in Sydney Street.
14:33Amazing piece of intelligence to track them down.
14:36So they were the guns that the police had, totally inadequate.
14:40But the unusual thing is that the army were called in.
14:44I think the first and only time that the police have called the army in to assist them.
14:49Because they had nothing to match the firepower of these two Latvians who were cornered in this house in Sydney Street.
15:01The East End was home to a large working class and immigrant population.
15:05It was seen as a hotbed of political activism and those in power were determined to stamp out any signs of social unrest.
15:15Early 20th century Britain, the fear of anarchism was very strong.
15:19And there was a fear that anarchists would take over the country or cause so much disarray that there would be social revolution.
15:30So, in many ways, the Sydney Street siege shows that we do need army, we do need a police force, that there is a need for law and order.
15:39It provides a justification for it.
15:43The siege lasted for over six hours.
15:47And standing less than 100 yards from the gunfire, a familiar figure came down to get involved.
15:53Oh, and there's Winston Churchill there in the top hat.
16:00He'd come down to, some say, to direct operations and people weren't sure about his authority to do that,
16:07although he obviously had a military background himself.
16:11So, Churchill's there as Home Secretary, looking as if he's in charge.
16:16Well, of course, he shouldn't be in charge.
16:18The whole point of our system was we set up the police where they would be citizens in uniform and not directed by politicians.
16:25So, Churchill had no role there.
16:28The very presence of a politician might well have been putting the police in more danger,
16:32because they would have to protect him.
16:35He went there just because he couldn't resist the temptation of being in the lead.
16:39I mean, he was a bit of a showman, was our Winnie.
16:42At this time, Winston Churchill was a very ambitious young politician,
16:50and his attempt to resolve the Sydney Street siege
16:55was an attempt to place his name and his picture on the front pages as some sort of saviour.
17:05Now, here, a fire started in the house where the two Latvians were holding out under siege.
17:11Nobody knows how that fire started.
17:14But Churchill had said, no, let the fire burn.
17:17Even the Latvians will come out or they'll die.
17:20The guy being carried out is a fireman.
17:23One fireman was killed, actually, in this.
17:26It was a big incident.
17:28I remember when I was a kid, it was still a big thing.
17:31You can read lots of articles and books about it,
17:33but actually watching, seeing it, seeing Churchill turn up, seeing it happening,
17:38it's fascinating.
17:39It's fascinating.
17:40It's fascinating.
17:41It's fascinating.
17:42It's fascinating.
17:48Tension and conflict were in the air, and it now exploded in a wave of workers' strikes,
17:54the likes of which Britain had never seen before.
17:56In 1913 alone, there were 1,500 strikes, from dockers here in Liverpool to miners, teachers and bus drivers.
18:09All took to the streets to fight against the old order.
18:12In Dublin, 20,000 transport workers, most forced to work 17-hour days, were locked in industrial disputes without wages for six long months.
18:25Working-class people seem to be rising up in all sorts of ways.
18:29They're organising politically, they're forming political parties.
18:33Those of them who have the vote are beginning to use it, and they're beginning to use it to push for a better deal.
18:38After centuries of having a pretty rubbish deal, and this is the first time you really see this and it's played out on the streets.
18:43But it's a much smaller strike, a group of hotel workers in Dublin that provides a rare glimpse into life on the Edwardian picket line.
19:00So this looks like the price list in the strike committee's cafe.
19:04You can't strike on an empty stomach.
19:07Wow, you pay high prices but we're paid Lord's wages.
19:11This shows how, in the Edwardian period, people were becoming more aware of what they were getting paid in relative to what they were selling.
19:20So that somebody was making a profit out of their low wages.
19:24So they're starting to create these banners. I mean, that's absolutely fascinating.
19:28I love this sign. If we are soup service, we are not dished yet.
19:33Not quite sure he's got that right, but he's very proud of that. He's done that himself.
19:38And he's standing there with that very forbidding knife.
19:41Looks like he's parted his hair with that knife, by the way, down the middle of his head.
19:46At this time, nine out of ten people owned, in effect, nothing at all.
19:52These workers were demanding only basic improvements, an extra penny on their hourly wage, some kind of state pension, and as we are seeing here, a reduction on a 14-hour working day.
20:02These women would have been taking a particular risk. It was entirely legal to sack striking workers, all of them, on day one of the strike.
20:12But they look as if they're on their way to a victory. They're certainly very cheerful.
20:18The fact that they're laughing and smiling about it is amazing. It sort of shows, in a way, their confidence in what they're doing.
20:25You know, they believe they're right.
20:27We're seeing that moment of fight when you're driven by what you think is right.
20:32They're not looking sad. They're not looking down. These people are laughing.
20:36They know what they're doing. They're confident in what they're doing, and they're happy that they're doing it.
20:40Protest and confrontation was now contagious.
20:56This footage of mass unionist demonstrations in Belfast shows how arguments over home rule threatened to spark civil war in the United Kingdom.
21:05This clip is absolutely fascinating. It's showing a huge affiliation to the rest of Britain.
21:17It reminds me strongly of some of the Orange Order marches that we used to see every summer when I was growing up in Liverpool.
21:25And we can see they've sent a contingent, it would seem, over to support these marches in Belfast.
21:32The fashions haven't changed much, either. They still wear bowler hats for that.
21:40The idea of home rule was something so unknown. It was a bit like, sort of, political climates today.
21:45We don't know what's going to happen when there will be huge changes to our borders and to our country.
21:51And it was this potential that it might have, the potential for violence, the potential to split families,
21:56the potential to cause damage that would be irreversible.
22:03But more than Irish home rule or workers' strikes, it was a group of middle-class women and their demands for change
22:12that was to shake Edwardian Britain to its very core.
22:15You see the moment of a sacrifice. You see the moment where somebody puts their cause beyond their own safety.
22:24Across Edwardian Britain, ordinary people were fighting for a better deal.
22:43in Britain ordinary people were fighting for a better deal and the suffragettes were leading
22:49the charge for women as large public marches like this one in London in 1910 became increasingly
22:56common. Oh wow. Fortune favours the brave. Women of all backgrounds with again their amazing hats
23:07marching in military style but yet this is a feminine march all the flowing robes. My great
23:14grandmother Emily Pankhurst was the leader of the suffragette movement. Her photo is used as the
23:20iconic symbol of power and demand and uncompromising leadership. It's a role that she can play and that
23:28she will play and she won't give up she will campaign to the end. Oh my goodness. So this
23:36is incredible to watch this clip because the banner that is being marched forward now was
23:43made to commemorate the founding of the WSPU the Women's Social and Political Union in 1903.
23:49That's incredible. Famed for deeds of daring rectitude. Wow. Champion of womenhood. I mean
23:57that just makes me so proud. It was much broader than just votes for women. It was it was about
24:02really changing attitudes towards women and they were at the forefront of that. The colourisation
24:08process is fabulous in that it just it brings it to life. When you have the black and white the white
24:14is lost because it's just black or white. Here when you've got the different colours the white
24:19actually emerges as very powerful. It is one of the symbolically important colours for the suffragettes.
24:24White for purity. If we go back in time the reality of life is one where women's options are totally
24:34constrained. If you had children they are the property of your husband and you're not a citizen
24:39you're not allowed to vote you're not seen to have a say beyond the home. Before the Pankhursts the fight
24:47for women's suffrage was a relatively tame one. The National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies
24:53persevered with peaceful and polite protests like this one. But Pankhurst suffragettes took a radically
25:00different approach. The women's suffrage movement started you know well before 1903 and you had 50
25:08years of campaigning before then and you know thousands of petitions that were not getting anywhere.
25:12And with the beginnings of the suffragette movements you have more voice, more noise, more engagement.
25:21It becomes the issue that so many people are talking about. The suffragettes very famously adopted the
25:27phrase deeds not words and they lived by that. They adopted more and more violent tactics as the years
25:33went on. Window smashing, letterbox bombing, hunger strikes. The police clash with the suffragettes on a fairly
25:41regular basis and that image of women fighting for the vote against a state represented by the police
25:47that was denying them that vote is a really powerful, powerful image. They felt they had to do this in
25:53order to push for that vote which just had been denied them by this time for more than 50 years.
25:59We're seeing them respond to this idea that deeds will get attention even if it's bad press it will get
26:06you press it will get you heard it will get the messages and votes for women in the newspapers.
26:12There's a lot of suffrage film and the suffragettes were very good at recording what they were doing
26:18they were making a conscious effort to make their mark and also to create films that they could then
26:23show in local settings so they were extremely good at marketing their message colors the purple white and
26:30green. And we can see in the march they're carrying their prison arrows on poles the prison hour
26:37represented that you were the property of the government and it's amazing to see that they
26:42reclaim that so they take on marches to show we are the property of a government a government that
26:46won't give us a voice that won't give us a vote that imprisons us and that arrests us
26:51such bravery i mean the way that these women were force-fed you know they went on hunger strikes
27:01and they knew the the terrible pain and suffering that went on and then they'd leave prison and then
27:06do it the same thing all over again and go on hunger strike again but you can understand it can't
27:12you it just seems like i talk to my daughters now how could so relatively recently anyone
27:20argue that women shouldn't have a vote one woman above all is remembered today for her commitment
27:28to the cause emily wilding davison seen here in her academic robes she obtained a first class degree
27:36from oxford but was never permitted to graduate because she was a woman emily was almost wildly
27:46committed to the cause she was one of the first people to be force-fed we know she broke into
27:51parliament several times and i think at this stage the fight for women's suffrage the fight for the vote
27:56had almost reached its point the 1913 epson derby the scene of the most shocking five seconds of film
28:05footage of the edwardian era
28:08so this is an incredible moment in british history big sporting occasion well-known event
28:18you see people in their best hats and their best outfits
28:23people turn out in their thousands to go and watch it but of course this one we know
28:28ends rather differently it's known for being more than a horse race
28:31this is on tape this is us seeing that moment a hundred plus years later
28:46you see the people physically going back as they see the horses come past and that the speed at which
28:54all of that's happening and somewhere in that crowd we know there's emily davison huge crowds here she comes
29:13it's shocking it's still shocking to see her suddenly run out
29:29i genuinely when i'm watching this moment where she sort of steps out i want to cover my eyes
29:35it's almost amazing that she's still standing then so many horses have gone past her
29:43and it's so fleeting almost you could miss it
29:58i mean just the incredible kind of bravery of that turns out and that moment of contact and impact is
30:03just just awful to watch it's the act you see you see the moment of a sacrifice you see the moment
30:13where somebody puts their cause beyond their own safety miraculously emily davison survived for four
30:24days it's thought she was trying to attach a scarf to the king's horse in protest
30:31she knows it will make news she knows it will make headlines she wants to make headlines for the
30:36women's cause i don't think she wants or expects to die so people call her a martyr i'd say she is a
30:45martyr not necessarily an intentional one
30:50this moment is synonymous with the word suffragette you can't talk about them without talking about the
30:54suffragette who threw herself in front of the king's horse what makes me so angry as well is that for a
31:00long time and in all the newspapers people were more concerned about the horse than they were about
31:04the woman and i just think that is a testament to how women were treated at the time how women's rights
31:10were considered at the time it's just such a kind of metaphor for you know here's one woman just trying
31:17to stand against this tide and essentially it's a representative of that tide of opposition to
31:23suffrage and someone who's standing there just saying you know enough
31:34at emily davison's funeral 5 000 suffragettes marched behind her coffin determined to make
31:41her a martyr for the cause and a further 50 000 supporters lined the streets of london
31:47there's no doubt about the emotions on people's faces i fought the good fight
32:00the women saluting their black bands
32:06oh there's girls watching at the top
32:11there's a huge crowd attending this funeral of the martyr for the suffrage calls
32:17so the organization wspu but ordinary people too were determined that she would not die in vain
32:25it really is a moment
32:28created by women for women
32:32the suffragettes were incredibly good at the planning of events and the visual side of things so
32:39they were given very specific instructions about what to wear and what flowers to bring
32:43and how to present themselves knowing that the visual image of all of this was part of the propaganda
32:52it's you know it's like a state funeral it's sending off one of their own and i think it
32:57shows the element of how they saw themselves as an army how they saw themselves as soldiers because it
33:03quite has that very militant aspect to it it must have been really hard for these women who were you
33:10know burying a friend burying a comrade to to have to put on a show and to use it actually as another
33:16moment to push forward the cause and you see in the first few days the media is very critical of emmy
33:24wilding davison's act and that changes quite quickly by the end of the week there's a lot more sympathy and
33:30understanding and uh appreciation i think for her and for the cause
33:38i think women in those times involved in this struggle were incredibly brave and uh you know
33:46we owe them a great great debt this was not just about the vote it was never just about the vote it
33:52wasn't about a legal or structural or policy change it was about changing social norms it was about
33:57changing society's views about what women could dream to be and do and it was about individual
34:02women doing more with their lives doing different things with their lives counting themselves in
34:06a way that society didn't count them so from that perspective well beyond the vote it's those things
34:11that people admire and appreciate them for in their fight for equality these edwardian women knew their
34:18enemy but british men would now face a new threat and it was on a scale that few could have ever imagined
34:27they were told we had more men more arms than the germans this is just a matter of finishing them off
34:32and you'll all be back by christmas and we all know what happened next
34:40in july 1914 people enjoyed a long hot summer largely unaware that war was looming over edwardian britain
35:01this is incredibly poignant footage because it's taken just a few weeks before the outbreak of the first
35:10world war and that war is going to change everything and it's going to bring the edwardian era to a close
35:18and social life is not quite the same again after it
35:25it is been sad to see all these boys actually many of them look about the right age to have
35:30been even conscripted you know near the end of the first world war or volunteered
35:37when you see them crawling along doing that stuff there you can
35:40almost like they're crawling under barbed wire or going through look going through hoops the kind
35:47of stuff they would do in their army training and then eventually out on the battlefield
35:53and to see them at play sun shining grass green whole lives in front of them
35:59just looking at this crowd of people you know things were sort of building up tensions were rising but
36:09that didn't impact that you know life didn't stop and it's just amazing to think that yeah within two
36:14weeks a lot of these men would have been would have been gone or would have been quite excited to sign
36:19up on the 4th of august 1914 britain declared war with germany 3 000 men a day signed up to fight
36:29whole towns enlisted together like these volunteers from morecam this film is particularly poignant
36:38for me because this is my hometown and that's the morecam winter gardens it's all within that same
36:43area you could actually go that area today and it's still exactly the same all those buildings are still
36:49there the regiments going from lancaster one of the greatest fatalities was the lancashire regiments
36:57my own great-grandfather was in these regiments and went off to war and came back severely disabled
37:03and could have been one of these this is an emotional film for me i don't really look at it as historical
37:09i look at it as my own friends and family for going off to war
37:13so these are the professionals but of course supplemented by your country needs you volunteers
37:25this won't take long chaps regular soldiers maybe and they would have been bemused by trench warfare
37:32you'd have to have a heart of stone to watch any footage of men marching for world war one
37:43not feel the tragedy of it they're so young these are men who you know if they were too young were
37:50kind of sent out to have a birthday and come back in again you can tell it's very early on in the war
37:56you can tell because there's this mass optimism that they think the war is only going to be like
38:02five months or i'm going to be home for christmas is one of those tragic postcards you often read about
38:08everything about this is very poignant
38:11and these young boys like waving their flags they're showing their patriotism they're carrying
38:17one of the soldiers kit bags they want to join in they want to kind of be like the older boys the
38:22older men who are marching and you think in a way these younger boys probably the lucky ones because
38:28they escaped that they escaped what would have been an almost certain death
38:35these soldiers form part of the king's own royal regiment
38:39they would fight in the battle of the somme in 1916 one in six of the regiment would die on the front
38:46line corporal george parsonage was one of the lucky survivors
38:54that's my grandfather george parsonage in the middle and his best friend harold hodson he looks
39:01quite cheery he's smiling there so obviously he's having a good day by this time he's become a corporal
39:10and this is his dog which he brought home with him after the war called shrapnel
39:18this is the battalion coming down to the railway station if we look at what they're carrying here
39:23they've all got their 303 landfill rifles and the bandoliers around the neck containing their ammunition
39:32their pouches with their first essentials shaving kit eating kit that they wouldn't have at the front line
39:44i would imagine that they were thinking about what they were leaving behind
39:48whether they would see their homes again and what's ahead of them what's it going to be like
39:54this is a picture of the staff sergeant having his photograph taken with his daughter having just
39:59moved his son out of the way so that he could possibly have his last photograph before he departs for war
40:07but it's actually quite a moving picture isn't it because that's how dad's alike with the daughters
40:15and there is an amount of bravado where we need to be brave we need to show we're not
40:21uh squeamish or soft but then equally there's a another side that's quite uh thoughtful and
40:29and caring and that this is one of those moments
40:37the pride the men felt going to fight was matched by the people left behind from small acts of kindness
40:44like collecting blankets for the troops to the manufacturing of artificial limbs all of britain
40:51was united in the war effort
40:53the odwardians were brilliant at identifying a need and acting quickly to meet that need
41:00whether it's providing a cup of tea at a train station for a soldier passing through on a train
41:05or whether it's a blanket that could be sent out to a guy stationed at a barrack somewhere
41:10you see what mobilization means on the ground unprecedented in british history in european history
41:20every industry every worker everyone who can do something is putting themselves into the war effort
41:28this is what this film encapsulates really with that sort of community spirit that bound people
41:33together and it got britain through that war it really did
41:36in total six million british men went to war over 700 000 were killed and millions more were injured
41:48my dad's father was a stretcher bearer but then went off probably in a train like that at the age of 17
41:55makes you think about it quite differently but you can see there it's not just because the camera's
42:01there this is an exciting adventure they're going off to do something different and for many of them
42:06that have been working those 11-hour shifts in factories and not very good conditions
42:11suddenly they're going abroad
42:15so you can imagine how excited they were very few would have been trepidatious they were told we have
42:20more men more arms than the germans this is just a matter of finishing them off and you'll all be back
42:24by christmas and we all know what happened next huge carnage just to gain 25 yards on the western prom
42:33there was a huge enthusiasm for the war in the early days you know fighting for king and country and
42:40you know fighting for a just cause so people walk off with pride and with a certain sense of being
42:49invincible i think
42:50these films like nothing else reveal how our edwardian ancestors lived what they stood for
43:02what they fought for and what in the end they were prepared to die for
43:08history tends to be about the rich the famous the powerful the influential and most of the people that
43:15we've been looking at through this film footage are not powerful people they're ordinary people
43:20and they often get left out of the narrative of history but this footage is about them better
43:27conditions for workers people's right to vote people's right to travel people's right to earn a living
43:32wage all of those things that we still fight for today the edwardians fought for and achieve for us
43:39so we shouldn't look at them as a lost generation we should look ourselves as their proud descendants
43:45because they they gave us modern society it's a world that's shown in all its sensory vividness and
43:55you get a better sense of i think the beating heart of that of the edwardian period by seeing it in color
44:01new on monday night at nine tony robinson continues his incredible around the world trip by train taking
44:13in burma and india where he gets to do a bit of shopping at one of the oldest markets in the world
44:18next tonight a monarch's hunt for the perfect queen is one of the most shocking sagas in history
44:23check out henry the eighth and his six wives
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