BBC - Secret Life of the Airport (2009) Part 1 Preparing for Take Off

The Secret Life of the Airport documents the rise of mass air travel, starting with a look at the advent of commercial air travel through to the dropping of prices and the rise of mass air tourism. Once, all cities aspired to having their own cathedral. Now, they want an airport and 44 public airports are now in use in Britain. The series looks at how the system of airports developed, and how they have transformed people's attitudes towards travel and made long distance travel more widely available. Series charts the airports and how they have transformed the country, in the process creating both freedom and fear. A social history of how airports came into being, the series is also an affectionate and entertaining look at how we got used to living with them and the ways in which they changed us.

Part 1: Preparing for Take Off

This part navigates from the heady, imperial glamour of Britain's first airport terminal at Croydon to the internationally-agreed hieroglyphics on today's taxiways and runways. Using rare archive and access to airports' hidden corners, it reveals the intense local rivalry, skulduggery and sheer passion for flight behind our airports.

Contributors include architect Lord Foster, philosopher and author Alain de Botton, veterans of Britain's interwar airports and a 'wildlife control co-ordinator', talking about how, in 100 years, the muddy airfield became the 24-hour airport.

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