Our Working Lives

In this film, Jamie Crawford uses remarkable aerial images to find out how the Scots have harnessed our precious natural resources to power the country's industry. He combines old aerial photographs with present-day drone and helicopter footage to tell a range of tales, from a remote loch near Ullapool to the Carron ironworks of Falkirk.

From the air it is clear that island of Belnahua on the west coast of Scotland has been almost entirely hollowed out. For here was a thriving slate industry. The deep quarries are now flooded by the sea.

It was not until more modern times that the central belt became the beating heart of industrial Scotland. Jamie meets a worker from Ravenscraig who talks about the harsh and dangerous working conditions they had to endure in one of the largest steel foundries in the world, and recalls the tragedy when Ravenscraig finally closed in 1992.

Jamie travels to Shetland to follow in the footsteps of his dad who went there to work during the oil boom, to witness the Herculean task of dismantling an old oil platform. And once the oil runs out, a new industry will take its place – wind power.