At a recent event run by Counterpoint, the thinktank of the British Council, we watched some fantastic archive commissioned by the Council in the 1940s and 50s. Like the superb work from the GPO film unit, they provide an incredible wealth of evidence about the way we used to live. Many are also outstanding films. From a 21st century perspective, the scale of industrial production and the huge amount of man hours essential for all kinds of manual labour is what amazes and inspires now.  

Intended as propaganda for the UK in the pre-war and post war world, these films show a Britain run along class lines, the social contract at work. But they also offered aspirational  portraits of working lives. Who might not be inspired to run a printing press, to fish the North Sea or even be a humble postman after watching these films, which show a respect for working lives, despite the patrician commentary.

It made me wonder how we can inspire people today – are BBC Three’s apprenticeship show’s like Young Butcher of The Year the closest we get? Are there other examples?

It also locks into work I’ve been doing for The Wellcome Trust, and the Goverment’s Science and Society initative. How do we inspire people to want to be scientsts? What role can television play? Have we over-formatted and complicated our documentary making so much, that the study of ordinary lives being led, that so inspired the documentary movement of the 1930s, is in danger of being lost? I recommend English Surgeon in this regard – a superb film which shows brain surgery in all its complexity – technical, ethical, political. I watch Henry Marsh in awe. Maybe someone will be watching who will want to follow in his footsteps.