[music plays] Britain, the United Kingdom. An island 700 miles long, 200 miles wide. Separated from Europe by the English
Channel. Bounded by the North Sea of the Atlantic. An island of 48 million people - the people of the land who harvest the wheat of East Anglia, who rear the sheep of the West Country, the Midlands, Wales and Scotland. Who work the fruit orchards
of the South and West, and the dairy farms of the central plain. The Britain of farmhouses, villages and market towns. Industrial Britain, the
world's workshop. Its people living in towns and cities - Glasgow, Manchester, London and a score of others. They mine the coal fields of Durham,
Northumberland, Rhonda and Midlothian. They work with steel and iron in the foundries and machine shops. They build ships on the Clyde on the tide at Barough, Liverpool and Belfast. They build locomotives at Doncaster and Swindon. They weave wool on the looms of Yorkshire, spin cotton in the frames of Lancashire. A thousand industries. A thousand products. A thousand manufactures for export
overseas. London, the nation's capital, centre of commercial Britain, Where black code workers manage the business and international trade of the country. They keep the accounts of industry. They insure the world's shipping. They fix the world's gold price. They buy raw materials from overseas, and sell
finished products. These are the main sections of working Britain: agriculture, industry and commerce. This is Britain, the great producing and trading country. And these are the people who are making it. Jack Moore, farmer. At 26 years of age, he runs the 250 acre farm on which he was born. For six generations Moat Farm has been worked by his family, and today as he drive the tractor up 20
acre field, he has behind him the experience of generations of farmers,
together with the modern scientific training he had at his Agricultural
College. Jane Martin, doctor and psychologist, is head of a children's
clinic in Manchester. Children meet her as an equal. In two minutes she makes a
rather nervous young man completely at home. He's even ready to help her examine
him. After 12 years intensive training and six years of practice, she is an established child specialist. James Anderson, Captain of the SS Glenila. She is on the South American run, carrying mixed cargoes outwards and bringing meat back to Liverpool. Captain Anderson is at sea for nine months in the year. He is solely responsible for his crew, cargo, and 10,000 ton ship, a job that requires experience and a cool head. His greatest pleasure is his garden on the hills above the Mersey. Elizabeth Davies, private secretary, works in a broker's office in London. She is a competent shorthand typist and
knows the stock market almost as well as her employer. In a day thousands of
pounds of stock are dealt with by her office. It is responsible work, which
requires intelligence and alertness. She likes to be independent and has many interests outside her office life. Sam Hawker, silversmith, has worked with
this Birmingham company for 40 years, from apprentice to journeyman to master
craftsman. He works to a basic design, but it is his creative ability that gives the work its beauty. His work is the work of an individual, and can be recognized as such. He's an easygoing man with the quiet confidence of a master of his trade. For five and a half days a week they work. At noon on Saturday the
weekend holiday starts. Saturday afternoon the time for sport. summer and winter, the British people
follow their particular game. In summer it may be cricket, Bowls, Tennis, or swimming. In winter: skating, a friendly game of curling, our rabbit shooting in a Kentish wood, with ferrets and a dog. Or most typical of all football. 20,000 people - steel workers, miners, and textile operators have come 300 miles with their
team, and on a football field mingle with the people of the South. 80,000 of them, from every walk of life are united by a game. It is a time when people meet and pleasures are shared, when community life is at its best. And there are those who stay at home. Here people are free to do the things
they want to do, free for all those small personal pleasures of home life. In the evening the farmhouse kitchen and the town sitting-room become the centres of
family life. mother, father and the children are home for high tea. Throughout the week they've been separated, but today they're together and
can enjoy the unity of family life. A daughter brings home a friend to spend
the weekend with her family, and they gossip cheerfully as they fit a dress. Mother finishes her last job of the
evening and enjoys it as much as her children do. It is within these family
surroundings that children and their parents learn to appreciate the values
of human associations. It is here that they learn the give-and-take of living
with others, consideration, tolerance, unselfishness, and generosity In the outside world we see these ways
of living on a larger scale. At this great ballroom where thousands dance, at this village hall where some play in the band, All in their own way contribute to
the general enjoyment. at the local ends, Britain meets. These are the traditional community
centres. they're even called public houses, where people go to talk and play
games, where men and women, friends and neighbors, come together, where the qualities of human relationships are at their best. It is in the small everyday things
people do that we see their character. In the skill of a craftsman as he shapes a
silver bowl, in the quiet efficiency of a secretary as she goes about her work, in the reliability of a Captain as he plots the course, in the good humor of a
doctor as she examines her patient, In scenes like these, we see not only the
character of individuals, but the character of a whole people - the British people.
