First Four Years (1951) | BFI National Archive

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First Four Years (1951) | BFI National Archive

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Күн бұрын

This majestic documentary tells the story of ambitious modernisation in the Welsh steel and tinplate industry. This involved upgrading the Margam works near Port Talbot and building both the Abbey hot strip mill next door and a new cold rolling mill and tinplate works at Trostre near Llanelli. Film cameras were frequently on hand: thanks to them, an integrated mega-complex takes shape before our eyes.
The film was produced by cooperative production company DATA, whose dynamic leader Donald Alexander secured rolling contracts with both the National Coal Board (for the Mining Review series for which DATA is best known) and the Steel Company of Wales for ongoing coverage of the developments summarised here. No doubt DATA's filmmakers, based in London, frequently combined steel with coal filmmaking trips to Wales. Clocking in at over 40 minutes, this compilation of DATA's footage is an exhaustive progress report on four years' worth of large-scale and complex work. Taken a sequence at a time, it's engrossing industrial history. Taken as a whole it's a cinematic monument, colossal in scale but intricate in detail, to the magnitude of a major project - and the sheer ambitious optimism of the postwar re-investment in British industry that lay behind it.
This video is part of the Orphan Works collection. When the rights-holder for a film cannot be found, that film is classified as an Orphan Work. Find out more about Orphan Works: ec.europa.eu/in.... This is in line with the EU Orphan Works Directive of 2012. The results of our search for the rights holder of this film can be found in the EU Orphan Works Database: euipo.europa.e....
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Пікірлер: 178

@amteo7107 Ай бұрын

The younger generations should should watch this and see what work was back in the day.

@user-nx8ii4ef7f Ай бұрын

I used to love these films, but we take little pride in our industry today!

@darrinmcneill534 4 ай бұрын

Has anyone watching this ever dug out wet clay with a shovel I have and by god it’s hard work men where men back then and had to do hard graft like this They built our country ❤

@admiralcraddock464 4 ай бұрын

I did when waiting to start my apprenticeship in 1970 aged 16

@stephendavies925 4 ай бұрын

Me to in a oil refinery for Mcalpines in the 70s, a grafter made it just bearable, hard work though

@piccalillipit9211 4 ай бұрын

I have yes. On a similar thing. We had 40 tons of gravel delivered at my uncle's - hes a farmer - about 65 years old at the time. I said i would give him a hand moving it - I thought it would take 2 or 3 days. I was about 2 or 3 hours late. HE HAD SHIFTED THE LOT...!!! Him 1 wheelbarrow, a shovel and 3 hours of hard graft he moves 40 toms of gravel from the road to the back of the farm buildings.

@Garwfechan-ry5lk 4 ай бұрын

Very correct

@davidvivian596 Жыл бұрын

In my opinion, the guys who built this infrastructure are heroes of the first order. Although some of the film may be 'staged' for the cameras, there's little doubt that these workers took their lives in their hands to get the job done. We owe them a debt of gratitude.

@morganmorgan3904 5 ай бұрын

Well said!, your words echo my opinion also!.

@onepup-pr3yl 4 ай бұрын

@@richardrowlands9113 They want us to believe Britain was built by blacks and brown people, showing documentary films like this will be forbidden soon because they don't show how diverse enough we were, they should be shown and studied in every school in the country to show what made this country great and what has been lost.

@Garwfechan-ry5lk 4 ай бұрын

No it was not staged it was all done by the Ministry of Works of the Atlee Government on site with the men and Management.

@BaronEvola123 3 ай бұрын

Life was better back then. Now, you have more stuff, but your communities and families are torn asunder.

@douglasvick9703 3 ай бұрын

I hated school and in my Biological fathers Leyland Octopus As a little lad smuggled under blankets in to Trostre Velindre etc...(Kids wait in the security hut) not Me.!!!!!I peeked out watching the crane loading the steel/tinplate...Wonderful childhood and still cab happy UK Europe at 81....Lovely memories....

@BaronMichaelDeBlone1066 2 ай бұрын

The school of life was indeed more interesting.

@apacherider7110 4 ай бұрын

I visited Cardiff Bay for work this week. I had a walk in the morning before my meeting. I looked out at the old harbour and imagined the ships there 100 years ago. I read an information board saying it was the biggest industrial harbour in the world, now sadly all gone. Then I think back to our great industrial heritage. If you could imagine 100s of Amazon warehouses stacked full of industry of all kinds, the ingenuity, the skills, knowledge and wealth. Now there is one of those warehouses with a small pile of pennies in the corner, that's what left. How the politicians and the establishment have destroyed this country, it makes me very sad and angry. The next general election will only replace the current bunch of idiots with the new ones. Beam me up, Scoty.

@billirvine9078 4 ай бұрын

Sorry boyo NKD. The Klingons have drained our crystals.

@monteceitomoocher 4 ай бұрын

Regrettably the only thing that'll change post election is the colour of the flag atop the pole, such is the state of British politics today.

@richardrowlands9113 4 ай бұрын

My father was born at Tiger Bay, in 42, so you walked in his footprints, as a merchant sailor he seen the world and brought his family to Australia in 68

@heathstjohn6775 3 ай бұрын

The voters voted for the politicians. There is no separate species of people called politicians. People get what they vote for. Vote for mainstream CON/Lab/Lib politicians, and you'll have the land we have today. Vote for any party that should put the nation first, and you'll have a different land. Even if the land isn't t a successful one, it shouldn't be a voluntarily destroyed one. People shall blame anyone but themselves.

@jamesrichardson1 3 ай бұрын

The people who vote in the politicians that destroy your way of life are the ones who live in the cities these people built. Thy think that houses just grow from the ground, you plant the trees that grow your computers, and the food you eat just falls out of the packaging plant.

@rayjones2150 4 ай бұрын

Dad was a storeman in Ebbw Vale, he issued anything fron a clock spring to a half tonne bronze bearing. The store was 1/2 mile long, so they had a bike with basket. The site was 3.5 miles long. I was there when they opened a new Electolytic Tinning Line 1971/2, I was in IT dept. There were 9,800 on the payroll. Hardly a trace left today, just the original brick built main office.

@user-jy8mo5fi5q 5 ай бұрын

It is now 2024 some 73 years since this film was made and now all those steel works have since gone and no longer exist.

@cliveclerkenville2637 6 ай бұрын

Worked on 1/2/3 furnaces in the early 70s. All gone now.

@martinwarner1178 4 ай бұрын

Those fellows, hard at work, on hard jobs. I jolly well admire them to the extreme. I worked forty years in canning, using the tinplate from these mills. Peace and goodwill.

@kopynd1 Жыл бұрын

the days we got on with the job, lets just get the job done, not like the last 40yrs,construction, donkey jackets and wellies freezing in the winter wet in the rain, a remember those days, to think a wind proof quilted viz jacket to day, they wouldn't last a week, men of steel those days, tough as boot leather,

@andrewlilley3660 4 ай бұрын

What's the point of that? I bet it put many of them in an early grave, poor buggers.

@samrodian919 4 ай бұрын

You got that wrong mate. They were a tough as OLD boot leather! Two working generations later, all bloody gone! What a waste

@hiscifi2986 4 ай бұрын

Horses, Canals, Steelworks, Railways, Coalmines... All gone, but not forgotten.

@musicurio Ай бұрын

So much could be said about this fine film. Imagine all the planning, and the mind-boggling size and complexity of the construction - let alone the mechanical and electrical aspects. No sane person could fail to be impressed. What an amazing work-force. What a project. Nothing lasts for ever. It is sad that all this has had its day. Is it all the fault of the politicians? I doubt it, although they would have been instrumental in taking decisions. Demand has changed, other countries can make the stuff cheaper and the pollution is "their" problem. You can look at it so many different ways. The war and its aftermath consumed so much steel - but no one would want that again - yet it is hard not to feel immense awe for the folk who were involved in this great industry of the past, and lamment its innevitable passing. (in my opinion) I visited this strip mill as a student in the early '90s, and to see the ingot of incandescent steel moving ever faster as it coursed along the rollers, getting ever thinner, and feeling the heat on our faces from around 100 yards away was something I'll never forget.

@harpo7226 4 ай бұрын

I could watch shows like this all day. 👍

@georgerenton965 3 ай бұрын

I hauled steel back in the 70’s, I recall picking up a couple of ingot mould stools at Shanango Steel in Lackawanna New York, and delivered them directly to the # 1 melt shop at Stelco ( Steel Company of Canada ). I’ve picked up a lot of steel product, coils, plate, bar, ingots, billets, but what I got to see inside that building was heavy industry in your face. I had to wait in there with my truck and trailer while they taped and poured molten steel further up the building, then the crane carried the product by my truck. This huge gantry crane then came along and lifted the mould stools of my trailer. Apparently they bump the solid red hot “ pig “ onto the stool, and the “pig “ remains on the stool till it’s soon shipped to the nearby rolling mill. Meanwhile the empty mould goes back to the furnace area to be refilled once it’s tapped. It had to be close to a 100 degrees in that building. Being the dead of winter my air system froze up soon after I left, and I had to add methyl hydrate to the tanks.

@cliveclerkenville2637 6 ай бұрын

Used to watch them tap the furnace on a quiet night shift. Amazing stuff.

@andyrbush 4 ай бұрын

Wonderful to see these old films.

@familycurious3813 3 жыл бұрын

Wonderful stuff. My grandfather worked in the tinplate works in Gowerton. Fantastic to get an idea of how they worked.

@danholliday5564 3 жыл бұрын

Should have a lot more views.

@alexfogg381 5 жыл бұрын

Amazing from marsh land to producing steel, in 4 years. I'm amazed that the men working around the molten metal are so calm.

@georgerhys5434 3 жыл бұрын

a tip: watch movies on KaldroStream. I've been using them for watching all kinds of movies lately.

@louisjaxtyn7409 3 жыл бұрын

@George Rhys definitely, I've been watching on kaldrostream for years myself =)

@noeljude19 3 жыл бұрын

@George Rhys definitely, I have been watching on KaldroStream for since december myself :D

@GLF-Video Жыл бұрын

The working conditions are frightening. But they got the job done.

@dont-want-no-wrench 4 ай бұрын

it always amazes me the scale of capital required for something like this would be considered worth investing, of course in these years with a destroyed europe there would have been a great demand for product.

@joegill3612 4 ай бұрын

Built by giants destroyed by politicians

@heathstjohn6775 3 ай бұрын

...voted for, and still being voted for, by the " Giants ".

@davidvivian596 Жыл бұрын

See the guys rolling the white-hot steel ingots (@ 37:32) wearing their 'Sunday best' three piece suits and trilby hats! Obviously, dressing scruffily is bad form whilst making steel.

@donaldpaterson5827 4 ай бұрын

Dressing scruffily is bad when the wife learns you’re going to be filmed!

@onepup-pr3yl 4 ай бұрын

That was the norm, and clean-shaven collar and tie wasn't just for office workers!

@davidkidd1974 3 ай бұрын

That hat was the only hat they had

@cliveclerkenville2637 6 ай бұрын

Roller man. Best job in the woks. Used to watch that too.

@ancientbriton8262 4 ай бұрын

The guys controlling the rolling mill were top men, hence the Truby Hat and not flat caps as a symbol of their skill and standing, with all those knobs, gauges and levers, must have felt like they were controlling the starship Enterprise 😊

@daviddwight5745 4 ай бұрын

More the responsibility, rolling mills when they go wrong is terrifying

@alexfogg381 5 жыл бұрын

Interesting thing the diesel locomotive pushing the flatbed of ingots is an american built switcher made by Alco.

@chezpostmanpat 3 жыл бұрын

AFAIK, the works used 5 Alco’s (#801-805) along side Brush / Rolls Royce locos, which replaced the older steam locos

@davidkean1487 3 ай бұрын

Lima cranes & Euclid trucks too!

@davidkean1487 3 ай бұрын

Rolling mill stands, United Engineering & Foundry PGH.

@andrewallen9993 4 ай бұрын

Back when the UK made things.

@3967742 2 ай бұрын

I worked at Port Talbot Works for 44 years.

@joegoldman3065 3 ай бұрын

Being British, they knew that the most important thing when working in an industrial setting like this with tons of powerful machinery is to wear a necktie. That way. You maximize the chance for your tie Getting caught in the machinery which would crush you within seconds. At least you had a sharp tie on. They had a brilliant sense of style.

@tractors-plant-machinery 4 ай бұрын

Absolutely brilliant footage!

@huw3851 15 күн бұрын

It's interesting to find this video at the same time as they are dismantling the two great furnaces shown (or probably ones that replaced those two).

@Bringontheasteroid 4 ай бұрын

I was expecting more diversity, given recent claims in the media of who actually built Britain. Hard working men, who probably wouldn’t recognise any aspect of regressive modern life.

@taxpayer_revolt 4 ай бұрын

According to the BBC it was the "Windrush Generation" that built everything postwar.🙄

@vmax42dave 4 ай бұрын

Amazing !

@Garwfechan-ry5lk 8 ай бұрын

Made in Great Britain, what do we make now!

@bushwhackeddos.2703 4 ай бұрын

Foreigners

@stephenjones9153 4 ай бұрын

Made in Great Britain 🇬🇧 and what do we make now ?? Answer Shit Politicians and a Government that doesn't give a stuff about anyone else but there greedy selves and there corrupt friends and family. 😭😭😭

@patpending8134 4 ай бұрын

Question marks!

@richardrowlands9113 4 ай бұрын

Welfare for blacks

@alexanderheath6662 4 ай бұрын

Not a lot 😂

@theflyinghamster8442 3 ай бұрын

When Britain was GREAT and British .

@neilfurby555 4 ай бұрын

Wonderful workers and great plans, but many sad comments... not much else to say. Huge ambitions, all derelict or just memories and museums!

@johnstudd4245 3 ай бұрын

"Sand(in this case) is available in unlimited quantities". How often have we heard something similar to that said. And 50 years later or less, it's all gone.

@jeffreyloftus3617 Ай бұрын

Those double / triple extension ladders at 13-00 look about as safe as the future of steel at the plant

@philthycat1408 4 ай бұрын

Only when things started to get easier here did people from other countries start setting their eyes on coming to the UK to stay 🇬🇧

@heathstjohn6775 3 ай бұрын

Magnificent what self-belief can do.

@mjg6966 3 ай бұрын

So labour intensive great video 💪💪

@adrianaaraujo8634 3 ай бұрын

Nice record!

@sea-saw2654 3 ай бұрын

Two world wars and all that work throughout this once great land all for where we are now ... Im 100% sure if my grandfathers and great father's could see the state of this country now none of them would have gone to war... I struggle to believe there has ever been a era of greater political incompetence than the last 60 years in the uk...

@skelejp9982 3 ай бұрын

I worked at the Dutch Steel Factory; Hoogovens IJmuiden. And at the part, where they used to do steel plating, the Hall was called; De Maagdenhal.. Meaning: ''Hall of Virgins''...because , back then there were mostly woman working there.. And those days, only unmarried women worked..

@bapsmcginty4782 3 ай бұрын

Nowadays the heaviest industry is some spotty oik prancing in front of a camera for views. Christ how the world has changed in just 50 yeas.

@mjg6966 3 ай бұрын

Funny 🤣

@glyngibbs9489 4 ай бұрын

If they had these MEN on the HS2 it would be finished

@snapon1948 4 ай бұрын

Worked in Etna Iron steel Works as hand Roller in the Strip mill , most antiquated, mill is Scotland 1965 All gone

@bootchop88 3 ай бұрын

Where did the steel for Raleigh bicycles made at Nottingham come from?

@daffyduk77 5 ай бұрын

the pulpit controllers' jobs 35:00 must have been transformed with the advent of CCTV

@christopherhampson265 3 ай бұрын

35mins 07 seconds in MAD MAX MUSIC 👍👍👍⭐️🇬🇧

@michaelkinsey4649 4 ай бұрын

The environmental issues here are utterly eye watering!

@tonydalton6756 4 ай бұрын

How did they make your pink knickers? 😂

@bootchop88 3 ай бұрын

@@tonydalton6756 exactly!

@jamesbarbour8400 Ай бұрын

The guy in the thumbnail looks like Eric Sykes !

@chadsimmons6347 2 ай бұрын

Great Britain somehow built those big factories very quickly,,with rain drenching them 4-out of 5 days a week (bravo)

@phildxyz 3 ай бұрын

Fascinating - back when we had the optimism to build things. It's all a wasteland now.

@sigbjrnjohansen8872 3 ай бұрын

😮😢😊 etter slike natur inngrep håper jeg fabrikken fortsatt er i bruk og att folk ser verdien i stål

@tjm3900 3 ай бұрын

No, all is gone :-(

@stevenweasel2678 4 ай бұрын

When Britain had ` HEAVY INDUSTRY ` & ` McAlpines Fusileers `

@petermitchell6348 5 ай бұрын

If the furnace is hot enough to melt iron, what does the furnace itself not melt?

@hypergolic8468 5 ай бұрын

The Furnace is lined with kiln bricks (a skilled job) then the Tuyeres that feed the blast air into the furnace are cooled by water jackets so they don't melt.

@musicurio Ай бұрын

because it's lined with a refractory material like fireclay

@leonwilks4114 3 ай бұрын

If only these chap's were given the role of building HS2 it's completion would have been done years ago at less than half the cost

@davidkidd1974 3 ай бұрын

The Humans of the future wish they would bring restore the farms to grow food for them to eat, and fix back all the coal fumes that fill the atmosphere. Dont get me wrong, my great Grandad Thomas Jones, worked in the steel mills all his life, and his dad in the coal mines.

@Bunz69er 3 ай бұрын

13:43 One slip and she's all over for of these blokes.

@grotekleum 2 ай бұрын

And there's me thinking it was all built by the Windrush disembarkee's.

@typhoon2827 4 ай бұрын

Modern day young Welshman: sorry pal, i dont work, see. I'm going to top up my tan, see, at the salon. Then i need to buy some more beard oil. Then i'm going to the parlour for some more tattoo, see.

@justpassingby2358 2 ай бұрын

Very tough work. Men and women were lean.

@kellytkachenko 3 жыл бұрын

So how long did the steel plant last is still there

@mikedavies8124 3 жыл бұрын

Yes.its still there. I work there

@chezpostmanpat 3 жыл бұрын

Still there and still going strong - built for The Steel Company of Wales (SCOW), from 1948 along side the older Margam works. SCOW later became British Steel Corpoation, then British Steel, then Corus, and now currently owned by Tata

@Mercmad 4 ай бұрын

@@chezpostmanpata saying attributed to an Gent " when the Indians can make their own railway track,I'll eat a pound of it . ( Tata )

@ricksmith1673 19 күн бұрын

With inflation destroying the current economy no one wants to work that hard ie for prices to go up as fast as they do.

@gagasmancave8859 4 ай бұрын

How the Hello you go about designing a factory like this awesome

@user-lt7ne9mv9b 4 ай бұрын

What's the piece of music from 28:40 to 31:00. I recall Emerson Lake & Palmer performed it. I can't find it on any of the listings in the desrciption.

@parkdigwig3447 4 ай бұрын

Aaron Copland “Hoedown” kzfaq.info/get/bejne/mr-Ud7yEuavZh6M.htmlsi=6h8dWbp7SxJmyL9l

@nicholasbell9017 4 ай бұрын

Could it be "Pictures at an exhibition " by Mussorgsky? ELP had an album and a film with this title.

@chrispomphrett4283 4 ай бұрын

No, not pictures at ..... It's actually Aaron Copland 'Rodeo' YT it.. enjoy.

@bas1010 3 ай бұрын

Look up Appalachian Spring by Copland

@alanwann9318 4 ай бұрын

This is Pakistan now?

@stellayates4227 2 жыл бұрын

No sign of PPE or health and safety regs in operation!

@bootchop88 3 ай бұрын

no purple hair or " they thems " either. Better days then.

@kilgoretrout413 4 ай бұрын

And not a single mobile phone 📲 in sight 🥹🥲

@colliecandle 3 жыл бұрын

What a nasty scar on the landscape. Port Talbot itself on a windy, wet winters day - if feeling suicidal, visiting that place will 'clinch' it ! i used to have to deliver to the place - what a depressing hole, i could never understand why anyone would want to live there.

@davidvivian596 Жыл бұрын

You may be right, but we all owe the people who work (and live) there, a huge debt of gratitude

@Deepthought-42 3 ай бұрын

@@davidvivian596And the guys in the pits. Eternal respect to the people of South Wales whose communities were destroyed by Thatcher and her ilk.

@Hertog_von_Berkshire 4 ай бұрын

Chap in the thumbnail: Mark Selby?

@pathowlett5689 2 ай бұрын

❤ I,Hahaha hope 3 arefeeklingwell

@user-se2pq4xq6s 4 ай бұрын

Old times.

@alistairkewish651 4 ай бұрын

Not ‘ have visited’ but ‘ visited’ - poor grammar lurks everywhere.

@lenholloway4390 Ай бұрын

50 years later its all ripped down to build a shopping centre.

@martinworkman8669 3 ай бұрын

And there is was.......Gone

@johnparr5879 2 ай бұрын

Only when people take the time and trouble to....... LOOK BACK...... WILL THE..... ANGER..... TRULY BECOME...... KNOWN.... SET AGAINST A BACK DROP OF TOTAL LOSS OF UK BORDER CONTROLS....... AND.... UNENDING INDUSTRIAL ECONOMIC...... ... DECLINE*

@Yaketyyak21 4 ай бұрын

Health and safety wasn’t much back then,now you can’t go to the toilet on a construction site without permission..

@conormorgan6280 4 ай бұрын

Interesting map with the name Hibernian almost totally erased from the country

@typhoon2827 4 ай бұрын

6:10 ex military carrier?

@peterchaloner2877 4 ай бұрын

Hideous. Knock it all down. Restore the lake. Rebuild the Abbey. All workers to become monks.

@mountainmantararua8824 8 ай бұрын

All this going on and before diversity. Perhaps it may have been built faster, if we had. How did GB manage without it.🤣🤣

@user-uk3uj6zs1w 3 ай бұрын

Imagine doing all this without an environmental impact survey😂

@jameshogg4625 3 ай бұрын

What happened to it

@tomcoleman4207 3 ай бұрын

Churchill warned against socialism….

@user-wy3rq1sh2j 4 ай бұрын

Where today at the top of our government system is the ability to visualise instigate and fund and deliver such projects, sadly gone I fear. DEI, transgender forces and too much immigration is all on the priorities of our "betters". To build new and something useful [not like HS2] that we could all admire, would not that be what they should be spending our money on?

@stuartwarrick6444 3 ай бұрын

Not a lot of obesity going on, not many fat people working hard.

@geoffrundel3343 4 ай бұрын

We now in the age of the biggest landfill that's progress regaurd to Amazon u can Inheret all my chipboard and plastic

@geoffrundel3343 4 ай бұрын

Can you get radiation sickness working in a furness ,thy must have sufferd lots of burns

@antoniostamndley8272 2 ай бұрын

All that effort, money, machinery, and men, All gone for what . Wasted

@mikegroocock6279 27 күн бұрын

No need of exercise or going to the gym back then.

@InverJaze 21 күн бұрын

Capitalism killed of this industry.

@darrenspear4257 4 ай бұрын

Try and find men like this now!

@christopherhampson265 3 ай бұрын

15000 tons of coke per week 😂

@fugglestick 3 ай бұрын

All fit healthy lean men..now obese there....says a lot

@papabits5721 Жыл бұрын

They were girls! Not woman😂

@godislove8740 4 ай бұрын

noticed.

@charlesreid3482 4 ай бұрын

Don’t you mean women

@papabits5721 4 ай бұрын

@@charlesreid3482 their a little young

@brianchislett2699 3 ай бұрын

I am saying nothing. (Yawn)

@user-kf9qn9rf5l 2 ай бұрын

Rait pass telugu pen rait hand paly reyal shot swet drems baby hart fell in app lepp lok

@billbright1755 3 ай бұрын

Fontana California had a self sufficient large steel plant. Raw materials such as iron ore Eagle Mountain California were delivered by rail most all owned by Henry J Kaiser. Finished product as beam, sheet, and plate all under one roof. Steel the very back bone of a nation’s strength. When Apollo 11 put men on the moon it was Mesabi Range sourced steel that stayed behind in the rocket blast to support the vessel and made it possible. The movie Steel Town was filmed there with the beautiful Ann Sheridan and Howard Duff. The film also featured Henry’s own line of cars produced elsewhere with his own steel. As a time line reference my 1951 Chevrolet pickup is still in service with its original equipment and engine. Quality construction of the time period so obvious as now 73 years on. 🇬🇧🫱🏼‍🫲🏻🇺🇸