Reel History of Britain is a 20 part series being shown on BBC Two, presented by Melvyn Bragg and about the history of modern Britain; through the eyes of people who were there. It was shown from 5–30 September 2011. The programme is a social history documentary, charting the course of the twentieth century through archive film, plus interviews and recollections of key events that have taken place in the last one-hundred years, since the advent of moving film. In each episode, Bragg goes to a different place in the UK and shows people film in a 1950s Ministry of Technology mobile cinema, then gauges their reactions and captures them on film.
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Air Date: 2011-09-05
In Torquay, Melvyn looks back to the 1940s and the largest mass movement of people in British history - wartime evacu...
Air Date: 2011-09-06
In Soho, Melvyn looks back to the 1950s and a time when Britain broke free of the burdens of the Second World War and...
Air Date: 2011-09-07
At the Queen's Lancashire Regiment Museum and Barracks in Preston, Melvyn looks back to the First World War, when Bri...
Air Date: 2011-09-08
At the Big Pit Mining Museum in South Wales, Melvyn looks back to the 1930s and salutes Britain's Black Diamonds, bra...
Air Date: 2011-09-09
At Cliveden House in Berkshire, Melvyn looks back to the Roaring Twenties to discover how the other half lived, when ...
Air Date: 2011-09-12
Today we're pulling up at Osterley Park in Middlesex, the site of the first Home Guard training school, to look back ...
Air Date: 2011-09-13
Today we're pulling up in Columbia Road in the East End of London, to look back to the 1930s and a time when millions...
Air Date: 2011-09-14
Today we're pulling up at the Haynes International Motor Museum in Somerset, to look back to the 1960s when dreams of...
Air Date: 2011-09-15
Today we're pulling up in Great Yarmouth, once home to the world's largest herring fleet, to look back to the 1920s a...
Air Date: 2011-09-16
This episode comes from Bristol airport and looks back to the 1970s, when package holidays really took off and millio...
Air Date: 2011-09-19
Today we are pulling up at the College of Medical and Dental Sciences in Birmingham, to look back to 1948 and the for...
Air Date: 2011-09-20
Today, Melvyn Bragg travels to the site of the once great John Brown's shipyard in Clydebank near Glasgow to look bac...
Air Date: 2011-09-21
Today on Reel History we are going back to 1977 to celebrate the Silver Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II. It was a time ...
Air Date: 2011-09-22
Melvyn Bragg is in Kent to look back at films of rural life from the 1930s.
Air Date: 2011-09-23
Archive footage telling the history of modern Britain. A look back to the 1960s when an exam, the eleven-plus, could ...
Air Date: 2011-09-26
Melvyn visits London's Horse Guard's parade to look back to the 1953 coronation of Queen Elizabeth II and remember an...
Air Date: 2011-09-27
This episode of Reel History comes from the Park Hill Estate in Sheffield as we look at Housing redevelopment in the ...
Air Date: 2011-09-28
Melvyn Bragg is in Sheringham in Norfolk to look at the final years of steam railways.
Air Date: 2011-09-29
In Manchester, he looks at the first films made in the early 1900s.
Air Date: 2011-09-30
The last stop is Blackpool, as we look at seaside holidays in the 1950s.