Nairn across Britain on iPlayer

[Hellfire]

The three parts of the 1972 series Nairn Across Britain have been put on iPlayer as part of the BBC4 collections.

For the benefit of younger readers, Nairn was an architectural historian who presented a number of programmes for the BBC. In the third part of this series he travelled from Leeds to Edinburgh via the Settle & Carlisle at the time when BR were actively trying to close it to passenger traffic and nearly all the stations were closed.

From Carlisle he followed the course of the Waverley Line shortly after the track had been lifted. Fascinating programme with some long gone DMU's and locomotives. It can be found here.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p01rwh55/nairn-across-britain-3-from-leeds-into-scotland

The other two parts cover Nairn's journey by road from London to Manchester and then by canal from Manchester to Leeds.

 

[HowardGWR]

Great stuff. Although he left the managerial BBC job in 1972, I am sure that this series would have been authorised by David Attenborough before he went. What quality we had when Attenborough was in charge in the late 60s.

 

[Busaholic]

Nairn was a true iconoclast and couldn't come to terms with the modern world very easily. Unfortunately his last few years saw poverty, not helped by alcohol problems. I know this through working in a local authority housing department at the time.

 

[Hellfire]

Yes, he died at 53. I love his presenting style. He doesn't take any prisoners when castigating local authorities for the so called 'modernisation' of town centres in the 1960s when so many lovely buildings were torn down.