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 go, what to see and where to stay,
and now, 110 years later,
I'm aboard for a series of rail adventures across the United Kingdom
to see what of Bradshaw's Britain remains.
I'm continuing my journey on the first inter-city line
built out of the nation's capital,
by Robert Stephenson, between London and Birmingham.
I'm now in North Buckinghamshire,
transformed since Bradshaw's day by the construction of Milton Keynes.
But I shall be focusing on towns and villages
mentioned in my 19th-century guidebook.
I began on the commuter lines of London.
I'm heading north on the London Midland line,
and on to the manufacturing heartlands of Northamptonshire and Warwickshire.
After making stops in the East Midlands,
my journey will conclude in Yorkshire.
Starting in Buckinghamshire at Bletchley,
I cross to Fenny Stratford on the branch line,
before heading north to the Victorian new town of Wolverton.
This leg ends in Newport Pagnell.
Today, I meet one of the Second World War's most secret agents,...
It was all a bit crafty, really.
So you took a message which had a meaning
and you put it into other words, but, of course, the meaning
- had to be exactly the same. - That's right.
...I'll be testing my knowledge of 18th-century hymns...
Do you recognise that one?
You're teasing me. What is it?
...and getting to grips with the ancient craft of vellum making.
- Do you do this all day? - This is my afternoon work.
My first stop today is Bletchley Station.
Bradshaw's tells me of its pivotal position on the rail network.
"From Bletchley, branch rails turn off left to Winslow, Oxford and Banbury,
and on the right to Bedford."
Before the Beeching axe fell in the 1960s,
Bletchley formed a junction between the Varsity Line,
which connected the intellectual powerhouses of Oxford and Cambridge,
with the London-to-Birmingham route.
And during World War II and our struggle against Nazi Germany,
the junction assumed a more enigmatic role.
As Hitler's Luftwaffe bombed Britain,
for a time, a successful German invasion
looked frighteningly possible.
But Britain was able to fight back more effectively
thanks to top-secret work undertaken here.
Nowadays, most of us have heard of Bletchley Park
and its secret code breakers,
but I hadn't appreciated that it owed its location
to the busy railway junction nearby.
The Secret intelligence Service wanted easy access for Britain's top brains,
and with Bletchley Park halfway between Oxford and Cambridge,
this stretch became known as the Varsity Line.
But not everyone stationed here was a professor.
I have a very special appointment with a Bletchley veteran,
90-year-old Betty Webb.
Great pleasure to be able to join you for some tea.
This is very nice, isn't it?
Had you any idea what you were coming for?
Absolutely no idea. I'd never heard of Bletchley,
and certainly had not heard of the operation
that I was about to be involved in, so it was all a complete shock.
When I came here after signing the Official Secrets Act,
I was interviewed by Major Tester,
and joined his group which had offices above the ballroom here.
Although only 18, Betty was useful to Bletchley's intelligence unit
because she'd been brought up by a German nanny
and spoke the language fluently.
But having signed the Official Secrets Act,
any loose talk could have invoked terrible penalties.
The most serious one for talking about secret matters
which we saw here would have been death.
So, obviously, one had to immediately put one's mindset into such a position
that you wouldn't talk about anything, anything you heard, saw or read.
And keeping shtoom also meant that Betty was never able
to tell her parents where she was or what she was doing.
They never knew because they both died
before the veil of secrecy was lifted in 1975.
So you said nothing, not only during the war, but nothing until 1975?
That's right. And when 1975 came,
we felt we didn't want to speak about anything.
It was very strange. You'd been so used to keeping everything to yourself.
But the sudden release was, well, a bit traumatic, really.
Are you allowed to tell me now what sort of work you were doing?
- Yes, I am. - What were you doing?
Well, to begin with, I was registering the messages
which had come in from our signal stations all over the world.
They all had to be recorded very accurately.
They were put onto little cards, in very strict order, date and so on,
so that the code breakers could call on them at any time that they needed them.
Did you need any mathematics in what you were doing?
- No. - What did you need?
Common sense, really.
Betty went onto handle
decoded and translated Japanese messages for Churchill.
But they had to be disguised so that if the enemy picked them up,
they wouldn't realise that their codes had been broken.
It was all a bit crafty, really.
So you took a message which had a meaning
and you put it into other words,
but, of course, the meaning had to be exactly the same.
That's right. Absolutely.
- And that was your skill? - That proved to be my skill, yes.
How do you feel about the importance of the work?
Well, now, in very recent years,
I've realised just how important it was and is to the nation as a whole.
To the world, in fact.
Because without it, we might not be here.
Or we might be here in rather difficult circumstances.
So I feel very proud of the fact that I was part of this operation.
I feel very honoured that Betty has been able
to share her secret wartime experiences with me.
But it also makes me wonder whether in today's age of disclosure,
we would have the same sense of discipline and control.
Would we be able to keep a secret?
My journey is taking me onto the branch line from Bletchley
as there's a village mentioned in my "Bradshaw's"
that merits a detour east.
I've taken the Bedford branch to Fenny Stratford
in order to visit neighbouring Olney,
which Bradshaw's tells me "is a town of lace makers,
with the house in which the poet William Cowper lived until 1786".
And there follows a bit of Cowper's verse.
"Yon cottager that weaves at her own door,
Pillow and bobbins all her little store, Content though mean."
There's more than one reference to Cowper in Bradshaw's,
suggesting that many years after the poet's death,
his praises were still being sung.
Cowper was one of England's most respected poets
in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
In Olney, he found a soulmate in the parish priest, John Newton,
and they formed a working partnership writing hymns.
St Peter and St Paul would have been Cowper's parish church,
and I'm hoping that choirmaster John Witchell
can unravel the mystery of the Olney Hymns.
- Hello, John. - Hello, nice to meet you.
Very good to see you.
Thank you very much, everybody. Was that an Olney Hymn?
That was an Olney Hymn.
That I think was Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken, wasn't it?
It was indeed. It's one of the most well-known hymns
because it's sung so frequently.
Do you regard this as a kind of high point of hymn writing?
I think so, and I think there was a certain feeling at Olney at the time,
with these two people,
they shared the same sort of approach to their spiritual life,
and they spent a lot of time together.
And out of that came the Olney Hymns
as a means of teaching the congregation, teaching the people.
In the 18th century,
a new fervour coursed through the Anglican Church.
Evangelicals were committed to converting those outside the faith,
and a good hymn melody could sweep along the doubters.
I think what they used to do
was to think, "Well, what's the theme of the sermon this week?"
"We'd better write a hymn about it." That's how they compiled the hymn book.
And the fact that my Bradshaw's is referring to these hymns
almost a century after they'd been written,
does that mean they had a particular resonance for the Victorians?
I think so. I think the feeling and the mood of the words,
the emphasis on grace and redemption and atonement of sins,
all those things that were prevalent at the time of Newton and Cowper
when they were at Olney, that continued into the Victorian age as well.
Any idea how many Olney Hymns were written?
Well, we're talking about 280-odd hymns by Newton, and then Cowper, another 67.
And are there any others that I might know?
I think you might know quite a few actually, yes.
Listen to this and see if you recognise it.
♪ The Lord has promised good to me
♪ His Word my hope secures
♪ He wit! my shield and portion be
♪ He will my shield and portion be
♪ As long as life endures
♪ As long, as long as life endures
- Do you recognise that one? - You're teasing me. What is it?
I don't know that.
Well, it's commonly known as Amazing Grace.
But that goes...
♪ Amazing grace How sweet the sound
It does, and it just demonstrates
how you can sing a tune of the same metre to the hymn.
So Amazing Grace is the one that you know...
♪ Amazing grace
- As you sang... - Well, sort of as I sang.
Sort of, yeah. Well, I wasn't much better.
But Hephzibah, which is this tune,
was the first tune that was sung in the Victorian ages, as far as I know.
So when Bradshaw was around, it was no doubt this was the tune
that was being sung, and not the one that we sing.
So were you singing one of the later verses?
Why didn't I hear the words I know?
Because we wanted to catch you out.
Well, you did!
♪ Amazing grace
♪ How sweet the sound
♪ That saved a wretch like me
♪ I once was lost
♪ But now am found
♪ Was blind, but now I see
Listening to the hymns makes me wonder
whether perhaps we've lost something that needs rediscovering.
It makes me even more curious about Cowper and Newton's partnership.
I've been invited by Cowper Museum trustee, Elizabeth Knight,
to find out more.
- Hello, Elizabeth. - Hello, Michael.
I've come to find out about William Cowper.
I can tell you a lot about him.
I'm going to take you in through his back door
because that's the way all his visitors had to go,
because he wouldn't open his front door
because he had three pet hares who lived in the house.
- Come with me. - Thank you.
What is it about all the English gentlemen
encountered on this journey so far?
Eccentricity seems to be a theme.
So John Newton as curate, was he living close by Cowper's house?
Yes, fairly close. Within a stone's throw, almost.
The two gardens virtually are joined.
There was just an orchard in between that belonged to a Mrs Aspray,
and she allowed the two gentlemen to visit one another through her orchard,
but she charged them a guinea a year for the right of doing this.
Quite a stiff sum of money in those days.
Yes. One pound and one shilling, wasn't it?
So what brought about, then,
the partnership of the two men writing hymns?
I think through the pastoral work, that Cowper helped Newton in the town.
The town was, of course, mostly poor lace makers,
and we think that he heard the lace makers reciting their tells,
which is a form of counting that helped them with their work,
and he thought, well, if they can learn by rote,
perhaps I could teach from the Bible that way.
And therefore he used the hymn writing
either to illustrate a biblical text, a biblical story
or anything else that would sort of make them learn something
about Christ and his life.
In fact, in the 18th century,
Olney had a large population of around 2,000 people,
and most of them were desperately poor.
In one of his letters, Cowper wrote, "I am an Eye Witness of their poverty
and do know that hundreds of this little town
are upon the point of starving,
and that the most unremitting industry
is but barely sufficient to keep them from it."
"There are nearly 1200 lace makers in this beggarly town."
Now, over 200 years later, starvation doesn't stalk Olney.
But in those desperate days,
the hymns of Cowper and Newton brought the hope of salvation.
After my enlightening visit to Olney, I'm heading west from Fenny Stratford,
where I plan to rejoin the main line north.
And after a day of spies and spires, I aspire to find a bed for the night.
I'm alighting at Wolverton,
and "Bradshaw's" has another recommendation for me
close by in Stony Stratford.
The high street in Stony Stratford is straight as an arrow.
It's the old Roman road from north to south, Watling Street,
and as such it has a good collection of old coaching inns.
In the early 1700s, these inns were a bit like our motels.
The Bull and the Cock both heard their share of travellers' tales,
which grew ever taller as the guests moved between the two inns
and the drink flowed.
Hence the expression "cock and bull",
describing their increasingly exaggerated stories.
The Bull back there looked pretty good, but Bradshaw's recommends the Cock.
Sounds like the perfect place for me to stay the night.
I'm up early to visit Wolverton,
a town that owes its origins directly to the railway.
Bradshaw's tells me that "Wolverton has an increasing population of 2,730,
chiefly dependent on the London and North Western Railway Company,
who have a depot and extensive factories here...
And then Bradshaw's becomes quite whimsical.
"While Crewe is the nursery, Wolverton is the hospital for locomotives." Aw!
In the 1830s, the London-to-Birmingham railway needed locomotives,
and somewhere to repair them.
Wolverton became the Victorians' first purpose-built railway town.
I'm here to meet local historian Bill Griffiths
to find out more about this unique railway centre.
Bill, this is a vast Victorian vista of industrialisation, isn't it?
How quickly was Wolverton developed?
Well, if you go back to the 1830s, this was all farmland,
so we'd be standing on a greenfield site,
just like Milton Keynes was built on a greenfield site.
All of a sudden from 1837, 1838 onwards,
it became a small town, and then grew very rapidly.
Within a very short time, there were a thousand people working here.
Why was Wolverton chosen for the engineering works?
There was a huge engine shed here.
It, I think, could accommodate 36 locomotives.
A lot of those were kept on scene, so those locomotives arrived from London.
The early locomotives, the Bury locomotives,
just couldn't do the 112 miles. They had to stop and be re-serviced.
And at that time there was a thinking
that all locomotives should be serviced after about 50 miles.
It was even contemplated to have an Act of Parliament to make that happen.
It must have been amazing in its day.
Mind you, it's still doing important work by the look of it.
What's going on here?
They're refurbishing one of the most modern trains,
one of the pride of the fleet, I suppose,
one of the trains that runs to Heathrow.
Well, it looks as if it's pretty well ready.
I'm quite interested in seeing not just the works but also the town.
- Shall we take a stroll? - Let's have a look.
I'm beginning to spot that the houses and the streets
have been laid out and planned specifically for railway workers.
ls the town important in railway history?
Incredibly important. I think it's as important as the works.
It was the first town in the world built for the railway.
And it was also built on a grid system
very much like Milton Keynes is built on a grid system,
and the layout was such that in the rows of houses,
you had the cottages in the middle, and then at the end,
you had a slightly better quality building that was for the foreman.
That social structure was reflected in their daily life as well,
because at work, the foremen would wear bowler hats and a three-piece suit,
whereas the men would wear their appropriate clothing,
depending very much upon what they were doing.
Was there something particular
about the nature of work for the railways
that made the company behave in this way towards its workers?
Yes, I think there was. I think the railway was the new industry,
so it's very much perhaps like IT today,
or perhaps the Rolls-Royce that we know of.
It was a company that wanted to encourage a skilled workforce,
a respectable workforce,
a workforce that would be contributing to the locomotive building of the time.
A model town built by a model employer.
A forward-thinking yet paternalistic Victorian society made all this happen.
But sadly, over 150 years later, while the houses are still here,
the line linking Wolverton to Newport Pagnell has been axed.
Now the line has become a cycle track,
but it remains my best way to my next destination.
Up until the 1960s, the engines that ran on the line
were affectionately known as Newport Nobby.
The line was built to carry workers to the Wolverton railway works,
and at peak times, the workmen's trains could have as many as six coaches.
But while the line has faded into history,
the town is still the home of an ancient craft: vellum making.
And as a former Member of Parliament,
I'm very familiar with the great acts of law
written so beautifully on this very specially crafted skin,
and I welcome the opportunity to see how it's made.
Master craftsman Paul Wright has been making vellum for five years.
The smell, first of all; the smell is overpowering.
I'm almost gagging-
And now I find, what, bits of animal remains?
I mean, the whole thing is smelling of farmyard and cow.
What we do here is we pretty much recreate
what has been done for 4,000 to 5,000 years.
The reason it looks medieval is because it almost is medieval.
And... what's going on with it here?
In these vats that you see around you,
there are certain chemicals,
and the chemicals will effectively loosen the hair,
and they will start to decay the flesh from the flesh side.
I can tell you that it smells rotten.
All the skins that Paul uses are a waste product from farming.
What is vellum, what is parchment, and what skins can you make them out of?
A vellum is the whole skin, typically for us, of a goat or a calf,
A parchment typically is from a sheep, but we've split the skin.
So the parchment is the finer material?
It is the finer material. If you imagine a book,
the vellum would be the bindings of the book
and the parchment would be the pages.
If you were very, very wealthy, even the pages would be of vellum,
and they are absolutely stunning.
A little tale for you.
So prized was the finest manuscript
that the master vellum makers would be kidnapped,
and that's the last he'd see of his family,
so determined were they that only his products went to them.
I hope things are a bit less onerous now.
Now, I'm not sure I really want to get too good at this,
but I suppose I've got to start somewhere.
Now, you want to sort of lean against this...
The big knife is called a scudder.
I've got to take all the hair off,
keeping this razor-sharp blade as flat as possible,
because the skin is the writing surface.
This is like shaving with one of those open razors, isn't it?
I dare say somebody else would go a bit faster than I'm going.
Well, you should really do probably 15 whole vellums a day
to earn your bag of corn.
I suggest at this rate you're going to go somewhat hungry.
Once the hair's been removed and there are no ugly marks left,
the skin's tied onto a frame to be worked more finely.
Now, this is Lee. Lee is a master vellum maker.
What he's doing there is he's cleaning the flesh from the back of the skin.
This looks more physical and more skilled,
so there's more room to make mistakes.
- Hello, Lee. - Hello.
- Nice to meet you.
- So you're a master vellum maker. - I am.
How many are you in Britain?
I'm the only one and I have one apprentice.
So, have you any tips, master vellum maker?
Keeping your hands like this, and it's punching into the skin.
So you're... See this flesh here?
You want to crunch the knife, you want to get a roll started,
and then you get underneath the flesh.
It's a punching action.
- I can be fairly vigorous, can I? - You can go as hard as you like.
- Really? - Yes.
Don't seem to be getting that much off compared with you.
- What am I doing wrong here? - You are trying...
- There's a bit. - There you go.
You want to try and get a roll started so you're digging into the flesh.
- You do this all day? - This is my afternoon work.
After the process of shaving and scraping,
there's still much work to be done,
but I'm beginning to see how strong vellum is.
Considering documents like the Dead Sea Scrolls
or illuminated manuscripts of the Middle Ages,
I can understand why they've survived, because vellum doesn't tear or rot.
So when you've shaved and you've scraped and you've shaved and you've scraped,
this is what you end up with.
It's absolutely marvellous. It is silky, silky smooth.
What would that be used for, Paul?
This one here may well become an Act of Parliament.
Ah, yes. Actually, your room here reminds me of the room in Parliament
where the Acts of Parliament are stored.
Because the old Acts of Parliament which are vellum are wound up into a scroll,
and there are, I suppose, hundreds or thousands of them.
Each one is identified by a little label.
And I've seen them rolled out in front of me,
and I've seen Henry VIII's signature.
It lasts for so long. Long after everyone else has gone.
This is the stuff.
As a little memento of your day's visit here,
on your programme, you constantly have your book in your hand,
so we've created this little bookmark with an image of a train on it,
and it says, "Awarded to Mr Michael Portillo
in recognition of his appointment as an honorary vellum and parchment maker".
What you have done today,
less than half a dozen people have done in the world.
That is most handsome, isn't it? Look at that.
A beautiful locomotive and a lovely piece of vellum,
and absolutely the perfect gift for a man who lives by his Bradshaw's.
This section of my journey has focused on two generations,
whose achievements should be recorded on vellum.
The early Victorians, who with brains and brawn
built the railway works at Wolverton.
And those who, during the Second World War,
with intellect and discretion, broke Hitler's codes.
The first generation bequeathed to us the benefits of industry,
and the second secured our freedom so that we may enjoy them.
On the next leg of my journey,
I discover a tradition unaltered since Victorian times...
It's like most things in life. You can learn it in two weeks
but it takes a lifetime to be any good at it.
...I hear about the man who changed education around the world...
These were people capable of running the British Empire.
Very much so, and that was part of Arnold's great reform.
...and I see how a city rode out economic cycles.
This is the forerunner of all modern bicycles, known as a safety bicycle.
For the good reason that everything that came before was not.
Exactly.