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15 Episodes 2023 - 2023
Episode 1
29 mins
Michael Portillo strikes out to explore the Britain of his youth. He is a boomer, born in the decade after the end of WWII, and he recalls the optimism and excitement of rebuilding a nation exhausted by conflict.
Episode 2
29 mins
Michael Portillo's journey reaches Greater Manchester, where he celebrates the new beginnings for the nation after WWII. He visits Trafford General Hospital to learn about the birth of the NHS, and meets Coronation Street's William Roache.
Episode 3
29 mins
Greater Manchester's Metrolink tram takes Michael to the former cotton town of Oldham at the Peak District. In the stalls of the Oldham Coliseum, the town's Victorian repertory theatre, Michael hears about the lifting of censorship.
Episode 4
29 mins
From Wakefield, Michael visits the National Coal Mining Museum for England at Caphouse Colliery. He pauses to admire the tall spire of Wakefield Cathedral and its resident peregrine falcons before heading to the banks of the Calder.
Episode 5
29 mins
Michael Portillo continues his post-war exploration of north-west England in Bradford, Shipley and Hebden Bridge. In Centenary Square in Bradford, Michael encounters the literary giant JB Priestley, author of An Inspector Calls.
Episode 6
29 mins
Michael Portillo travels through the Britain of his youth from London's Docklands and East End to the city within a city, the Barbican. At Tilbury, he traces the arrival in 1948 of the Empire Windrush.
Episode 7
29 mins
Michael continues his railway exploration of the post-war Britain of his youth on a journey from London to Cambridge. He begins on the capital's South Bank, where a Festival of Britain drew more than 8.5 million visitors in 1951.
Episode 8
29 mins
Michael Portillo ventures deep underground onto London's newest railway: the Elizabeth Line. Emerging into the sunshine in Bedford Square, he recalls the choking smog that plagued the capital during the 1950s.
Episode 9
29 mins
Michael Portillo continues his rail exploration of the east of England. He visits the seafront at Felixstowe, the town that suffered through the worst flooding to hit England in the 20th century in January 1953.
Episode 10
29 mins
Michael Portillo completes his railway journey through the east of England. At RAF Lakenheath, he discovers a slice of America dropped into the British countryside, watching the US Air Force's Strike Eagles.
Episode 11
Episode 12
Episode 13
Episode 14
Episode 15
29 mins