From battle re-enactments to royal button makers... Michael Portillo explores Britain’s unique history in his latest travel series.
Ed Grenby - 8 April 2025
So ten men turned up on the train, all dressed as Michael Portillo,” recounts… Michael Portillo. “It was their annual college reunion, and that year the theme was to dress like me, because it took place on the Ghan train in Australia.”
It’s a funny story (“It was pure coincidence that we bumped into them, but they made me award a prize to the best, and it got a bit… divisive,” he adds). The point, though, is that Portillo’s multiple series of Great Railway Journeys have taken him everywhere – “The programme has visited five different continents,” he points out proudly – but for the 16th season, it’s back in Britain. “This country has such marvellous stories to tell,” he swells – and here are four of his favourites from the new series.
INTERVIEWING CORPSES OUTSIDE SHREWSBURY
“We went to a village called Battlefield, in Shropshire, which was the site of the Battle of Shrewsbury in 1403. Harry Hotspur, like many aristocrats at the time, thought he ought to be king, so he fought Henry IV and was killed. But he deployed these skilled archers, using English longbows, and the Prince of Wales was hit in the face. He had a fantastic surgeon, so he survived to become Henry V and of course then had a tremendous respect for bowmanship, which is why he goes off to Agincourt with these longbows, which are a far superior weapon to the French crossbows. It’s a fascinating bit of history, and we have re-enactors come and re-enact the battle for us, hacking away at each other with great enthusiasm until most are ‘left for dead’ and I have to interview the corpses. “It’s all lovely, rolling green valleys round there, and well worth a visit.” shropshiresgreatoutdoors.co.uk/route/easy[1]access-10-battlefield-heritage-site
BRUTE STRENGTH — AND UNUSUAL NUTS — IN KENT
“I had a lot of fun on the Kent and East Sussex Heritage Railway [kesr.org.uk], which is being reconnected to the main line at a place called Robertsbridge. They’ve got this turntable there, which is a magnificent piece of equipment used for turning a locomotive around so it ends up facing the opposite direction from the way it started. And it’s so beautifully balanced and sprung that it’s perfectly easy to use human power to push it around – but it generates a lot of momentum, which makes it hard to stop. So it’s not about brute strength, it’s about calculation, and I was quite pleased with myself as I got it sussed fairly quickly.
“Then in the same episode, we visited the orchards of nearby Hildenborough, and I discovered Kentish cobnuts. They’re quite a rarity, but they grow extremely well in that part of the world, and they’ve lived on them for centuries down there. I joined in the harvest, but it’s not a particularly complex process – you put a ladder against a tree and up you go.”
“I worked a different kind of turntable in the Blackwater Estuary, which is a National Nature Reserve on the Essex coast, reached via a lovely scenic rail journey on the Dengie Peninsula. It’s very nostalgic for me because there’s a ship at anchor out there which is the present home of Radio Caroline. I’m of an age when those pirate radio stations – Radio Caroline, Radio London, Radio Luxembourg – really meant something to me. No young person today would believe that police forces would arrive and shut these radio stations down because they weren’t licensed, and that the staff risked arrest because of their love of music. And there they still are, still broadcasting! They’ve got these studios, which look very 1970s, and anyone can visit [radiocaroline. co.uk/#boat_trips.html]. That said, I had no idea an estuary could be so choppy. We had the most violent crossing and I lost one of my hats, which I’m still very bitter about. Does the BBC give me a millinery budget for replacements? I think I get an allowance.”
BUTTONS TO BIRMINGHAM
“We went to the Newtown area of Birmingham and visited a company called Firmin & Sons [firminhouse.com], which has been going since 1655, under Cromwell. It’s one of the longest-established continuously operating private companies in Britain, and it makes buttons – fine, gold-plated ones for the military, police, the royal household and so on. They’re still using an oak anvil-block rescued from the Great Fire of London – so it was already considered ‘old’, even in 1666. And, typical of the British, Firmin managed during the American Civil War to supply both sides – so they gave me a set of those buttons, half made for the Union, half for the Confederacy, and I’ve now made a jacket to wear those buttons.
“Then, just five minutes away from all this history, we saw the future: the HS2 terminus under construction, where these 225mph trains will arrive into Birmingham. Remarkable.”
It’s a funny story (“It was pure coincidence that we bumped into them, but they made me award a prize to the best, and it got a bit… divisive,” he adds). The point, though, is that Portillo’s multiple series of Great Railway Journeys have taken him everywhere – “The programme has visited five different continents,” he points out proudly – but for the 16th season, it’s back in Britain. “This country has such marvellous stories to tell,” he swells – and here are four of his favourites from the new series.
INTERVIEWING CORPSES OUTSIDE SHREWSBURY
“We went to a village called Battlefield, in Shropshire, which was the site of the Battle of Shrewsbury in 1403. Harry Hotspur, like many aristocrats at the time, thought he ought to be king, so he fought Henry IV and was killed. But he deployed these skilled archers, using English longbows, and the Prince of Wales was hit in the face. He had a fantastic surgeon, so he survived to become Henry V and of course then had a tremendous respect for bowmanship, which is why he goes off to Agincourt with these longbows, which are a far superior weapon to the French crossbows. It’s a fascinating bit of history, and we have re-enactors come and re-enact the battle for us, hacking away at each other with great enthusiasm until most are ‘left for dead’ and I have to interview the corpses. “It’s all lovely, rolling green valleys round there, and well worth a visit.” shropshiresgreatoutdoors.co.uk/route/easy[1]access-10-battlefield-heritage-site
BRUTE STRENGTH — AND UNUSUAL NUTS — IN KENT
“I had a lot of fun on the Kent and East Sussex Heritage Railway [kesr.org.uk], which is being reconnected to the main line at a place called Robertsbridge. They’ve got this turntable there, which is a magnificent piece of equipment used for turning a locomotive around so it ends up facing the opposite direction from the way it started. And it’s so beautifully balanced and sprung that it’s perfectly easy to use human power to push it around – but it generates a lot of momentum, which makes it hard to stop. So it’s not about brute strength, it’s about calculation, and I was quite pleased with myself as I got it sussed fairly quickly.
“Then in the same episode, we visited the orchards of nearby Hildenborough, and I discovered Kentish cobnuts. They’re quite a rarity, but they grow extremely well in that part of the world, and they’ve lived on them for centuries down there. I joined in the harvest, but it’s not a particularly complex process – you put a ladder against a tree and up you go.”
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PIRACY OFF THE COAST OF ESSEX
“I worked a different kind of turntable in the Blackwater Estuary, which is a National Nature Reserve on the Essex coast, reached via a lovely scenic rail journey on the Dengie Peninsula. It’s very nostalgic for me because there’s a ship at anchor out there which is the present home of Radio Caroline. I’m of an age when those pirate radio stations – Radio Caroline, Radio London, Radio Luxembourg – really meant something to me. No young person today would believe that police forces would arrive and shut these radio stations down because they weren’t licensed, and that the staff risked arrest because of their love of music. And there they still are, still broadcasting! They’ve got these studios, which look very 1970s, and anyone can visit [radiocaroline. co.uk/#boat_trips.html]. That said, I had no idea an estuary could be so choppy. We had the most violent crossing and I lost one of my hats, which I’m still very bitter about. Does the BBC give me a millinery budget for replacements? I think I get an allowance.”
BUTTONS TO BIRMINGHAM
“We went to the Newtown area of Birmingham and visited a company called Firmin & Sons [firminhouse.com], which has been going since 1655, under Cromwell. It’s one of the longest-established continuously operating private companies in Britain, and it makes buttons – fine, gold-plated ones for the military, police, the royal household and so on. They’re still using an oak anvil-block rescued from the Great Fire of London – so it was already considered ‘old’, even in 1666. And, typical of the British, Firmin managed during the American Civil War to supply both sides – so they gave me a set of those buttons, half made for the Union, half for the Confederacy, and I’ve now made a jacket to wear those buttons.
“Then, just five minutes away from all this history, we saw the future: the HS2 terminus under construction, where these 225mph trains will arrive into Birmingham. Remarkable.”
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