Fred Dibnah traces Britain's textile industry, from South Lanarkshire to Burnley. Ex-weavers describe life in the mills and a group of volunteers explain why they have spent 30 years saving mill engines from the scrapyard.
Fred Dibnah explores how tin, slate, lead and coal were extracted from the ground, visiting a winding engine at a Cornish tin mine, a pit shaft in South Wales and a coal face in west Yorkshire.
Fred Dibnah evokes nostalgia for steam locomotives as he visits museum collections in York and Darlington, travels on a replica of Rocket, and rides the footplate of a 1950's passenger train as it speeds through the countryside.
Fred Dibnah examines the skill of the shipbuilders and engineers who turned Britain into a great manufacturing nation. He visits SS Great Britain in Bristol, the Windermere Steamboat Museum and the Kew Bridge Steam Museum.
