I Never Knew That About Britain

Episode 1 (1x1)

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Tonight we celebrate the unsung heroes of Britain. People who, for one reason or another, haven’t received the global recognition that rightly deserve. The invention of the collapsible buggy revolutionised parenthood, but what is its connection to the Spitfire, so loved by the allied pilots during World War II? As Paul realises a childhood dream by flying in a Spitfire, proclaiming it “the best thing I’ve ever done in my life”, we learn how the buggy’s folding system, which is now so complex that it is studied at a number of universities, was inspired by the Spitfire’s wheel folding system. Owen Maclaren, one of the engineers who worked on the Spitfire’s undercarriage, realised that the prams of old were heavy and impractical and noticed that the solution was right in front of his eyes. Owen went into production with the new lightweight aluminium Maclaren Baby Buggy 01 in 1967. Alex, Owen’s granddaughter, reflects that this invention “liberated the way mothers could be with their children”. Most people think that Britain’s last invasion was the Battle of Hastings in 1066. However, in 1797 the town of Fishguard, Wales, fended off the advances of Napoleon’s soldiers hoping to stir up an uprising, who had inadvertently landed there after being blown off course from their intended destination of Bristol, as Suzannah investigates. Christopher John, a local historian, tells how “a local heroine in Fishguard, Jemima Nicholas, advanced from Fishguard with a pitchfork singlehandedly and captured 12 Frenchmen, and led them by the point of her pitchfork back to Fishguard.” She then organised the women of the town to dress up in their traditional Welsh costume of black hats and red shawls, and line up along the hill so that the Frenchmen, who had been drinking all the booze from the abandoned farmhouses, would think they were the British army. This bizarre and little known story had widespread repercussions both at the time a