- yesterday
The People's History Show Season 5 Episode 1 - Full Movie
Category
🎥
Short filmTranscript
00:00Hello,
00:29and welcome to the People's History Show,
00:31where we travel the country to bring you some amazing stories from Scotland's past.
00:35I'm Jennifer Reuch.
00:36And I'm Fergus Sutherland.
00:37Coming up on tonight's show...
00:40We'll be taking a trip down memory lane
00:42as we look back at the 1988 Glasgow Garden Festival
00:45to discover how it helped to transform the city.
00:48And I'm off to East Weems in Fife
00:50to learn about one of Scotland's worst coal mining disasters.
00:54But first, I'm travelling to New Lanark
00:56to learn about the origins of the beautiful town
00:58nestled beside the Falls of Clyde.
01:07There the river Clyde flows down between the stately hills.
01:11A noble and useful stream drives the toiling mills.
01:15The water runs so clearly and on a rushing tide.
01:19And, oh, it is a lovely place for anyone to bide.
01:22There's no place in Scotland that I like so well.
01:26For, oh, they were happy days when I was in the mill.
01:29I'll never forget the place I love.
01:31New Lanark and its mills.
01:37Nestled in a dramatic gorge in the upper reaches of the River Clyde,
01:41lays a small village which is both beautiful and globally significant.
01:46New Lanark.
01:47It's important as an early and very fine example of a model factory village.
02:06For most people, one name comes to mind when thinking of New Lanark.
02:10Robert Owen.
02:13Undoubtedly, Owen was key in the development of the area.
02:16However, the man who started it all,
02:18and arguably the unsung hero of New Lanark, was David Dale.
02:22Dale was actually Owen's father-in-law.
02:25Dale was a self-made man, a pioneer in employee welfare,
02:29regularly donating to charities.
02:30But his crowning achievement was the stunning New Lanark.
02:35Dale was born in 1739 and brought up by a poor family in Ayrshire.
02:39But his hard work and determination paid off.
02:42He went from a weaver's apprentice to a textile merchant
02:44and ultimately opened up the new Lanark mill.
02:48He was brought here by an MP called George Dempster.
02:51Now, George Dempster was very concerned with displaced people
02:54following the Highland clearances.
02:57And he looked to wealthy merchants to set up enterprises
03:00to provide employment and accommodation.
03:02So he invited Richard Arkwright and David Dale
03:06to the Royal Borough of Lanark
03:08and decided that because the river is quite unusual here,
03:11it's extremely fast for its width,
03:13this would be an ideal place to site a water-powered cotton mill.
03:17The three men started working together,
03:20but both Dempster and Arkwright left the project early on,
03:23leaving Dale to take charge.
03:24David Dale is most famous as a benevolent entrepreneur or a philanthropist.
03:32He decided to implement changes that were really quite revolutionary
03:36for this sort of enterprise.
03:39As you can see from all the machinery around me,
03:42I am currently in the mill room.
03:44This is where all the workers would work from dawn till dusk every day
03:47on machinery very similar to the machines that are behind me right now.
03:51Dale felt it was important to ensure the welfare of his workers,
03:55which was pioneering at the time.
03:57In fact, to many of his workers,
03:59Dale was seen as a kind and paternalistic manager.
04:02He believed in offering not just employment,
04:05but also board and lodging,
04:07and the chance to learn new skills to keep workers healthy and happy.
04:11There was a definite philanthropic element
04:13in the creation and management of New Lanark.
04:16And that's important too,
04:18is the notion that wealthy people have a responsibility.
04:29In the late 1700s and 1800s,
04:31it was commonplace for children to be working in mills,
04:34especially those so-called apprentice or pauper children.
04:38Orphans were regularly brought in
04:40from the charity workhouses in Glasgow and Edinburgh.
04:43What David Dale did differently
04:45was value the welfare and, of course,
04:47the education of the children.
04:49There's a value that Robert Owen took on,
04:51developed and created this very classroom
04:53that we're standing in right now.
04:56Robert Owen made education compulsory
04:57and he banned the use of child labour
05:00so any workers under the age of 10
05:02were not permitted to work in New Lanark mills
05:05and instead were sent to school.
05:06New Lanark mills became famous not just here in Scotland
05:15but across Europe and America
05:17with visitors flocking to see the successful business.
05:21But not just that,
05:22they wanted to see business, philanthropy and education
05:25all working together successfully for the first time.
05:28In a five-year period,
05:30New Lanark had something like 3,000 visitors,
05:33mill owners and entrepreneurs from across the world
05:35to come and see what was going on here
05:38and to see how it worked out
05:39with the quite scary and draconian ideals
05:43of steam-powered factories.
05:47Dale's kindness and charity is much documented
05:50and was undoubtedly inspired by his religious beliefs.
05:55His religious beliefs coloured everything he did.
05:59He was a supporter of the establishment
06:02of the Royal Infirmary of Glasgow,
06:04the Trades House of Glasgow
06:06and a man who had always had an eye to the public good.
06:13Dale died in March 1806 at his home in Glasgow.
06:16On the day of his funeral,
06:17the shops in the city all closed
06:19and crowds gathered on the streets
06:20to pay their final respects.
06:24He was a splendid man,
06:27an absolute model for what a man can do.
06:31New Lanark continued to be a working mill
06:37until it closed in 1968.
06:40Afterwards, it fell into disrepair.
06:43It was painstakingly restored
06:44and, in 2001,
06:46became a UNESCO World Heritage Site,
06:48not just celebrating its natural beauty,
06:51but also its international importance.
06:53The ideas that were put into practice here
06:56in this small village started by David Dale
06:58have gone on to have a huge global impact,
07:01not only on our businesses,
07:03but on all of our working lives.
07:04New Lanark is one of my favourite places.
07:12It is beautiful.
07:13It was amazing.
07:14Great stories as well.
07:15Well, in keeping with the industrial theme,
07:17I'm off to East Weems in Fife now
07:19to learn about the coal mining industry in Scotland
07:21and the scene of a very tragic accident.
07:24Employing over 2,000 workers,
07:33producing 17,000 tonnes of coal per week,
07:36the Michael Colliery was the largest mine of its kind in Scotland.
07:40Mining was hot, physical work, deep underground,
07:45and all for this, the power of the nation, coal.
07:48The Scottish coal industry over a couple of hundred years
07:54from the late 18th century till the 1980s
07:57was an incredibly important sort of cog
07:59in the Scottish economic wheel.
08:01Coming into the 60s,
08:03a lot of the pits were closing down.
08:04Power stations gradually going onto nuclear
08:06and the men with the knowledge
08:09were drifting away from the pits.
08:12Working in a coal mine was a very dangerous job
08:15with a constant threat of injury and even death.
08:19Every miner goes to work with fear in his heart
08:21and death at his elbow.
08:23Death from gas, floods, explosion, fire, roof falls.
08:29He can never be sure.
08:30And although every precaution is taken,
08:32especially today,
08:33everything is done to make pits safe
08:35as far as they can be made safe,
08:37but a pit's an unpredictable place.
08:39On 9th September 1967,
08:42workers at the Michael Colliery
08:43discovered how unpredictable a mine could be.
08:46Pits in this area were prone to spontaneous combustion,
08:51which means that the coal could go on fire at any time.
08:55There was a fire discovered during the night shift
08:57at about 3.30 in the morning,
08:59and at that point there were 311 men underground.
09:033,000 feet below the surface,
09:04the pit was filling with flames and smoke.
09:08The inquiry afterwards said that the cause of the fire
09:10was spontaneous combustion of coal.
09:12But one of the big problems was that
09:14there was some polyurethane lining
09:16in some of the tunnels.
09:19The coal board hoped the polyurethane
09:21would curb the combustion,
09:22but the consequences were catastrophic.
09:25That caught fire,
09:27which produced some really noxious fumes
09:29and also some really dark black smoke.
09:33So it made visibility very, very poor.
09:37This is what it must have been like
09:39for the miners in the Michael Colliery.
09:42Deep underground,
09:43where it was dark and claustrophobic
09:46and so, so far from help.
09:48One of the deputies at Michael realised
09:51that there were people working on the coal face,
09:53but they couldn't be reached by telephone,
09:56and he actually went down himself to the face,
09:58found this group of men,
10:00organised them so that they came back up to the surface,
10:03basically in a chain,
10:05holding onto the belt of the man in front.
10:08Similar acts of bravery occurred throughout the colliery
10:11as courageous miners put their lives on the line
10:14to rescue their co-workers and friends.
10:18Of the 311 that entered the pit that night,
10:21nine lives were claimed by the blaze.
10:25It was just the people's faces
10:27and the fear and the worry
10:29and the smoke spewing out the number two pit shafts.
10:33You know, as a miner,
10:34you realise that that was really serious stuff
10:36and we didn't think there was going to be any chance
10:39of getting as many men out as they did get out,
10:42but if it hadn't been for the efforts of the rescue
10:44and some of the miners themselves,
10:46it went back into the smoke
10:47a lot more people would have died.
10:50But the impact of the inferno
10:52would extend beyond the initial tragedy.
10:58Such a tragic story
10:59and we'll be finding out more about it again in part two,
11:02so make sure you join us after the break
11:03here on the People's History Show.
11:04See you after the break.
11:05Welcome back to the People's History Show.
11:22Still to come, the History Girls, Rachel and Karen,
11:25tell us how the 1988 Glasgow Garden Festival
11:27helped rejuvenate the city.
11:29But before the break,
11:31I was finding out that one of the worst accidents
11:33in Scotland's coal mining history,
11:35let's return now to the story
11:36of the Michael Colliery disaster.
11:46Smoke continues to belch from the pit
11:48and that means that the fight to contain this fire
11:50is still going on six days after the disaster.
11:52But one thing is certain,
11:54the men who are tackling this blaze
11:55know they are fighting for very high stakes indeed.
11:58The purse is 44 million tonnes of coal
12:00and jobs for over a thousand men
12:02for many years to come.
12:04You ask any miner or his family in Fife tonight
12:06and they'll tell you it's a great fight to win.
12:10Workers at the Michael hoped
12:11the devastation of the fire was finally over.
12:14But the future of the colliery hung in the balance.
12:19I think the colliery can open again
12:21and we are arguing with the board
12:23and with the government at the present moment
12:25to ensure that the first thing is
12:27the restoration of the colliery
12:28and the maintaining of jobs in this area.
12:31We never thought for one minute
12:32the mine was going to close
12:34because there was news flowing through
12:36for the unions that there was
12:37a £5 million investment agreed with the government
12:40that would get the Michael back in production.
12:44As the flames continued to rise
12:46so too did the cost of repairing
12:48the extensive damage caused by the blaze.
12:51If you can't contain the fire
12:52what's going to happen?
13:00The problem will then be
13:03as to whether or not we seal at the shafts.
13:07And that's exactly what happened.
13:10In December 1967 the shafts were sealed
13:13and the Michael colliery was closed for good.
13:18The Michael colliery had been there about 80 years
13:20so that's what four generations of people
13:23had lived by it, had worked for it, etc.
13:26And for that to suddenly overnight basically
13:29disappear from the economy of the area
13:31was quite a blow.
13:32In the aftermath of the Michael colliery disaster
13:43new safety measures were introduced
13:45to reduce the risks for future generations
13:47including the mandatory use of self-rescuers.
13:52But this is a story not just of tragedy
13:54and safety reforms
13:56but of the heroism of the men
13:57who put their own lives on the line
13:59for their colleagues and their friends.
14:02I think the bravery of the individuals involved
14:05should be remembered
14:06but actually overall
14:07I think it's the clear level-headedness
14:11of the people
14:12it's the clear level-headedness
14:17of the people that were underground
14:18and the people that were running that shift
14:20underground and the people
14:21that were running that shift
14:23their quick decisive action
14:25in getting on the telephone
14:26and warning people
14:27and actually just staying calm
14:29and not panicking
14:30while people evacuated
14:31I think that's well worth remembering
14:33because this
14:34it was a very bad accident obviously
14:36but it could have been so much worse.
14:38and it was that composure
14:40compassion
14:41and sense of community
14:42that saved hundreds of souls
14:44at the Michael Collierry.
14:57Such a sad story.
14:59Yeah it really really is
15:00but we're moving on in Glasgow now
15:02to find out how the 1988 Garden Festival
15:05transformed the city.
15:06Here are Rachel and Karen
15:08to tell us more.
15:18The River Clyde has always been known
15:19for shipbuilding
15:20but after World War II
15:22it dramatically reduced.
15:23By the 1970s
15:25the industrial boom was over.
15:27The industry had declined.
15:29The once bustling shipyards
15:31became deserted
15:32relics of a bygone age.
15:34It was a really bleak city
15:36in those days
15:37it was very grimy
15:38dirty
15:39not entirely safe
15:41but it was very friendly.
15:43It was a lot of unemployment
15:45there wasn't much going on
15:47in the town.
15:51However hope was not lost.
15:53In the 1980s
15:54an idea was developed
15:55to rejuvenate industrial areas
15:57in Britain.
15:57The concept was based
15:59on a German idea
16:00called Bundesgardenschau.
16:02Bi-annual horticultural festivals
16:04with the aim of reclaiming
16:06large areas of derelict land.
16:08This led to the creation
16:10of the National Garden Festivals.
16:13There were five in total.
16:15Liverpool, Stoke-on-Trent,
16:17Gateshead,
16:18Ebu Valley
16:19and of course Glasgow
16:20which was by far
16:22the most popular.
16:23It was very, very difficult
16:24to imagine it
16:25before it took place.
16:27I mean Glasgow today
16:28is a tourist destination.
16:31Back then
16:32Glasgow was a place
16:33that people avoided.
16:35It was exciting
16:36to have something so big
16:37to come to my city
16:38especially as
16:39I've been to the Garden Festival
16:40in Liverpool.
16:42We stayed in Govan
16:43so you've seen
16:44all the construction of it
16:45as it was going along
16:46and it was a good thing
16:48for Glasgow to have.
16:53The Garden Festival logo
16:54was designed
16:55by one of Scotland's
16:56first female graphic designers.
16:59One of my bosses
17:00came burling into the room
17:01and he said
17:02we've got a chance
17:02at this great big job
17:03and he said
17:04I'm kind of busy
17:05would you mind
17:06having a go
17:07at doing a second idea
17:08for me
17:09just in case
17:10the first one bombs
17:11you know
17:11and I had a kind of sense
17:13of what people
17:15might really want
17:16was to sort of
17:17be in the sunshine
17:17and enjoy each other's company
17:20and you know
17:21live a kind of better life
17:22and I thought
17:24that's what I want
17:24to do with this logo
17:25I want to capture
17:26that sense of happiness
17:27When I saw an Empire biscuit
17:35I knew that
17:36something really special
17:38had happened
17:39people liked it that much
17:40Thursday 26th of April
17:451980
17:45was the big day
17:47the Garden Festival
17:50was opened officially
17:51by Princess Diana
17:52and Prince Charles
17:54I think they had a ball
17:59because they were looking
18:00from one side
18:01to the other side
18:01where everybody
18:02dressed differently
18:03and you could just
18:04I mean
18:04Diana's face
18:05was just a picture
18:06she was just smiling
18:06the whole time
18:07that's a picture
18:09of them
18:09because we were that close
18:10The festival
18:14was something new
18:14and exciting
18:15not only for Scots
18:16but it also attracted
18:18international visitors
18:19Over its 152 day run
18:30a staggering
18:314.3 million people
18:32came to the festival
18:34including 1 million
18:35from overseas
18:36But what was there
18:38to do for people
18:39visiting the festival?
18:41One thing that struck me
18:42was it was
18:42not so much
18:44about plants
18:45as you would think
18:46Everybody was out
18:58to enjoy themselves
18:59Chinese garden
19:01I loved
19:01and at that point
19:03I never ever thought
19:03I'd go into travel
19:04so I never ever thought
19:05at that point
19:06I would ever get to China
19:07There was a kind of
19:09secret forest
19:10wooded area
19:10a bit up the back
19:11which is I think
19:12around about
19:13where the science centre
19:14in the harbour area
19:15is now
19:16and that used to be
19:17really good
19:17you could go in there
19:18and pretty much
19:19get yourself lost
19:19and nobody would find you
19:20The Coca-Cola roller coaster
19:28Oh that was great fun
19:29That was great fun
19:29There was always a queue
19:31for that
19:31but it was good
19:33I mean it was worth a bit
19:35I love and I love them now
19:38I love and I love them more
19:41You could get all this
19:43for a £15 season ticket
19:45What a bargain
19:46So it meant you could go
19:48every day if you wanted to
19:49We went nearly every day
19:50even if it was only for
19:51half an hour a day
19:52or an hour a day
19:53you could have a stressful day
19:55and walk in there
19:55as soon as you walked in there
19:57you were as calm as anything
19:58so it was worth every single penny
20:01it was great fun
20:02Like all good parties
20:11it eventually had to end
20:12So in September 1988
20:14the gates closed
20:15for the very last time
20:16It was a shame that it closed
20:19because it was
20:20about six months going
20:22You were so thankful
20:24that it had happened
20:25in the first place
20:25I was hoping
20:27they would keep some of it
20:28in situ
20:28That was probably
20:29the saddest part
20:30the fact that you knew
20:31there was going to be
20:32absolutely nothing left
20:33Sadly not much remains
20:40but in the spirit of the event
20:42the small festival park
20:44was left as a legacy
20:45It seemed to be the first big
20:48international event
20:49we had for a long time
20:51after all the unemployment
20:53that just seemed to spark
20:55life into Glasgow again
20:56Glasgow has a lot to show the world
20:59There are great things to see here
21:01It was just a question
21:03of being able to take that step
21:06and look outward
21:07and I think that's what
21:09the Garden Festival did
21:13Only two years later
21:14Glasgow was named
21:15European City of Culture
21:17and in 1999
21:18Glasgow was the UK city
21:20of architecture and design
21:22and this continued right up
21:23until the 2014 Commonwealth Games
21:26I think it represented
21:28kind of hope
21:30hope for the future
21:31It represented a hope
21:32for regeneration itself
21:36and I think that hope
21:38over the years
21:39transformed itself into reality
21:41Oh what an amazing event that was, Fergus!
21:55But sadly that's all we've got time for!
21:58Goodnight!
21:58We'll see you next time!
22:02We'll see you next time!
22:04We'll see you next time!
22:06We'll see you next time!
22:11We'll see you next time!
22:13We'll see you next time!
22:15We'll see you next time!
22:27Bye!
22:29You
Recommended
22:29
|
Up next
31:23
43:59
39:40
54:09
52:20
48:42
40:20
35:26
53:33
50:59
42:08
52:22
43:06
1:23:14
1:58:22