Great British Railway Journeys

Michael Portillo strikes out to explore the Britain of his youth, starting at Preston’s Fulwood Barracks and heading across to Bury Bolton Street station in Greater Manchester.

Michael’s journey through north west England from Preston to Hebden Bridge reaches Greater Manchester, where Michael celebrates new beginnings for the nation in the years after the Second World War.

Greater Manchester’s Metrolink tram delivers Michael to the former cotton town of Oldham. He heads across to Wakefield and the striking postwar sculptures of Barbara Hepworth.

From Wakefield, West Yorkshire, 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 River Calder. In a vast factory, he finds the headquarters of a shirt manufacturer, Double Two, a pioneering wartime business co-founded by a Jewish refugee from Austria. In Leeds, Michael heads for the Chapeltown area to investigate the origins of the Leeds West Indian Carnival in 1967 and try his hand on the steel drums. In the city's Harehills district, he admires the back-to-back houses once condemned as slums but now highly prized for their character and community.

Michael Portillo continues his postwar exploration of north west England in Bradford, Shipley and Hebden Bridge. In Centenary Square in Bradford, Michael encounters Bradford’s literary giant JB Priestley, author of An Inspector Calls. Just north of Bradford, at Shipley station, Michael discovers a nature reserve in the middle of a car park that's home to more than 14 species of butterfly and moth.

Michael Portillo travels through the Britain of his youth from London’s Docklands and East End to the ‘city within a city’, the Barbican.

Michael Portillo continues his railway exploration of the post-war Britain of his youth on a journey from London to Cambridge, starting at South Bank.

Michael Portillo ventures deep underground onto London’s newest railway: the Elizabeth Line. He travels across London before transferring to the Epping Ongar Heritage Railway.

Michael Portillo continues his rail exploration of the east of England, starting on the seafront of Felixstowe and finishing in the plate glass campus of the University of East Anglia.

Michael Portillo completes his railway journey through the east of England during the post-war period, heading from RAF Lakenheath to the city of Cambridge.

Michael Portillo explores the postwar Britain of his youth on a railway journey from the Midlands to the West Country, beginning in the city of Derby.

In Coventry, Michael recalls the destruction by the Luftwaffe of the city’s Gothic cathedral in November 1940, before heading to Leamington Spa to visit the Guide Dogs for the Blind National Centre.

Michael Portillo’s railway journey reaches the heart of the Warwickshire countryside, where work is underway the biggest project of new railway infrastructure in Britain for a hundred years: HS2.

At the African and Caribbean Heritage Centre in Wolverhampton, Michael finds out about the impact of Enoch Powell's 1968 speech on immigration in Wolverhampton and across the nation.

Michael visits the fairy-tale castle of Eastnor at the foot of the Malvern Hills, before heading to the Severn Estuary and Filton, the centre of Britain's postwar aviation industry.