Beginning at London Marylebone, the last great Victorian railway terminus to be built in the capital, Michael Portillo embarks on a postwar exploration of Britain’s southern counties.\n\nHe travels to Denham in Buckinghamshire, where engineers are constructing a striking new viaduct, High Wycombe, a historic centre of furniture-making thanks to its abundant of beechwood forest, and Oxford, where he discovers the postwar origins of the charity shop.\n\nIn the Wiltshire countryside, Michael meets the head of the Soil Association and some of her saddleback piglets to hear how the organic movement was founded after the Second World War in reaction to the intensification of farming.
Source: BBC 2
Series 15: 15. Northallerton To Chester-le-street
Michael Portillo confronts a detachment of Gurkhas, produces a fine heritage cheese and discovers a monster cracker that is key to making plastic, before ending his postwar jour ...
05-04-2024
BBC 2
Series 15: 14. York To Skipton
Michael Portillo’s postwar exploration of Merseyside to Teesside finds him in York, a paradise for rail enthusiasts. In the company of some of the most famous locomotives ...
04-04-2024
BBC 2
Series 15: 13. Lincoln To York
Michael Portillo’s postwar journey from Merseyside to Teesside resumes at Brayford Pool in Lincoln, where England’s oldest canal, the Fossdyke, meets the city of Lin ...
03-04-2024
BBC 2
Series 15: 12. Derby To Nottingham
Michael Portillo reaches the jet age in the Derby suburb of Peartree, where he tours the engineering colossus Rolls-Royce. In Derby city centre, Michael is on the trail of littl ...
02-04-2024
BBC 2
Series 15: 11. Liverpool To Uttoxeter
Michael Portillo twists and shouts through postwar Liverpool, arriving in the city where the 60s burst into life to find the strikingly contemporary concrete and glass Liverpool ...
01-04-2024
BBC 2
Series 15: 10. Dundee To Loch Of The Lowes
Michael’s rail journey through postwar Scotland takes him over the River Tay to Dundee on the trail of Joseph McKenzie, the father of modern Scottish photography.\n\nIn Pe ...
29-03-2024
BBC 2
Series 15: 9. Edinburgh To Queensferry
At the former Midlothian mining village of Newtongrange, Michael meets the son of a miner whose name loomed large in the disputes of the 1970s and 1980s, 'Red' Mick McGahey. On ...
28-03-2024
BBC 2
Series 15: 8. Shawlands To Livingston
Michael Portillo continues his postwar Scottish railway adventure, this time from Glasgow to the capital, Edinburgh.\n\nAt Pollok Country Park in Glasgow, Michael joins a women& ...
27-03-2024
BBC 2
Series 15: 7. Glasgow To Cumbernauld
At the home of Scottish football, Glasgow’s Hampden Park stadium, Michael admires the oldest football trophy in the world and hears how the 'passing game' was born there. ...
26-03-2024
BBC 2
Series 15: 6. Loch Lomond To Kelvinbridge
Michael Portillo boards the West Highland Line to begin a railway journey across Scotland’s central belt, from the Arrochar Alps to the Loch of the Lowes. \n\nAt the head ...
25-03-2024
BBC 2
Series 15: 9. Edinburgh To Queensferry
At the former Midlothian mining village of Newtongrange, Michael meets the son of a miner whose name loomed large in the disputes of the 1970s and 1980s, 'Red' Mick McGahey. On ...
28-03-2024
BBC 2
Series 13: 8. Hampstead To Islington
Michael’s Bradshaw’s-inspired rail tour of London continues in Hampstead, where shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War, a groundbreaking Jewish doctor f ...
30-05-2022
BBC 2
Series 15: 8. Shawlands To Livingston
Michael Portillo continues his postwar Scottish railway adventure, this time from Glasgow to the capital, Edinburgh.\n\nAt Pollok Country Park in Glasgow, Michael joins a women& ...
27-03-2024
BBC 2
Series 15: 11. Liverpool To Uttoxeter
Michael Portillo twists and shouts through postwar Liverpool, arriving in the city where the 60s burst into life to find the strikingly contemporary concrete and glass Liverpool ...
01-04-2024
BBC 2
Series 15: 5. Wokingham To Heathrow
Michael begins the final leg of his journey at the Transport Research Laboratory in Wokingham, where they have been keeping Britain’s roads safe for 90 years. From Reading ...
22-03-2024
BBC 2
Series 11: 4. Dundee To Aberdeen
Michael Portillo continues his railway journey from Newcastle to Loch Ness, steered by his 1930s Bradshaw's Guide. \n\nStopping at Dundee, Michael heads for Glamis Castle, wher ...
23-11-2023
BBC 2
Series 2 - Langley Mill To Melton Mowbray
Michael Portillo learns the secrets of stilton cheese and finds out how trains transformed the traditional British sport of fox hunting.
11-06-2014
BBC 2
Series 2 - Durham To Grosmont
Michael Portillo visits Durham Cathedral and takes a Dracula tour in Whitby, before ending his journey on a steam train across the North Yorkshire Moors.
04-06-2014
BBC 2
Series 5 - Cheltenham To Wolverhampton
On the final leg of his journey, Michael Portillo joins battle re-enactors in Tewkesbury before reaching his destination of Wolverhampton.
16-09-2014
BBC 2