Taking unique journey along the Thames
Thames at Night Channel 5, 8pm
TONY Robinson is clearly fascinated by the River Thames.
“My family have always lived nearby,” he explains. “My dad worked by the Thames; my mum’s dad was a merchant fisherman. My first job at drama school was working at the docks”.
“Everybody thinks Thames just goes through London as it is governed by its relationship with London. The river starts as a tiny stream, a river for pleasure-craft, London’s river with an embankment.
“After London, it widens out to five miles across. It is a great river.”
In his previous Channel 5 series The Thames: Britain’s Great River with Tony Robinson, the Blackadder actor and Time Team presenter explored the history, influence and population of the famous stretch of water.
And across four fascinating episodes, he made many discoveries.
“I thought of the Thames as 200 yards across, dirty, and going through London. I didn’t know about the cleaning of the Thames; I didn’t know about the seals in the mouth of the Thames.
“But the idea that there was such a complexity of wildlife just wasn’t there when I was a kid.”
Now, he is back on Britain’s busiest river, only this time, he’s exploring it by night, discovering how this great river works around the clock to ensure Britain’s 24/7 demands are met.
During the four-part series, he will travel from the estuary in the east to the heart of London and beyond, joining an army of nightshift workers as they do jobs more surprising, more extreme and often more dangerous than one would imagine.
Tony also goes behind the scenes at some of the Thames’s most famous landmarks, uncovering the secrets of the river after dark.
In the first edition, he explores the stretch of the Thames from the estuary – where the river meets the sea – to the Thames Barrier.
At the Barrier itself, he’s given a unique invitation to its control room to see for himself how it keeps London safe throughout the night.
Next, he heads to Canvey Island, where he discovers one of the Thames’s great secrets – a 70-acre fuel terminal that has to keep supplying airports and garages throughout the night, or Britain would risk grinding to a halt.
For his next nightshift, Tony heads out to sea, joining a fisherman trawling for Dover sole. But after years of the fish stock being decimated by pulse fishing, will the fisherman catch enough to make the trip worth his while?
Tony’s back on the industrial section of the Thames for his next night, on a ship transporting rapeseed to a factory on the riverbank that operates 24/7 making vegetable oil.
Talking to the ship’s crew and the factory workers, he discovers family ties that go back generations – for many nightshift workers, the Thames is in their blood.
Finally, he takes a personal pilgrimage to Tilbury Docks, where his grandfather used to work.
Here, he discovers an operation that keeps going around the clock – the paper hub, without which we wouldn’t have our morning papers, takeaway coffees or online deliveries.
And he meets an eagle-eyed night worker – a Harris’s hawk who keeps the pesky pigeons away.