GREAT AMERICAN RAILROAD JOURNEYS, BBC2, 6.30pm
THE new series follows the railroads which opened up the American West.
Over the course of 20 episodes, Michael Portillo will follow the route of the hardy pioneers from Missouri to Dodge City and Kansas, before travelling on to New Mexico and, finally, the Grand Canyon. It makes a change from his usual pottering around in damp English towns meeting local bell ringers and Morris dancers.
In tonight’s first episode he visits St Louis, “the gateway to the West”. The Mississippi River was once a “colossal moat” denying access to the land beyond, so a bridge was built with a railway line running across it. The locals were unsure of its strength and so the architect walked an elephant across to prove it was sturdy. This was just one project to “civilise” the West. We also see an English-style Botanical Garden and a 19th-century water treatment plant whose famous product Portillo samples like a fine wine drinker.
SCOTLAND AND THE KLAN, BBC4, 9pm
THIS documentary premiered last year on BBC Scotland and is now being shown on UK-wide TV. If you missed it the first time, make sure you don’t miss it again. Its discussion of the Klan and white supremacy in America has suddenly become rather more topical, wouldn’t you say?
Neil Oliver travels to the Deep South to trace the links between Scottish emigrants who arrived in the New World in the 18th century, and the Ku Klux Klan. The trials of being far from home, the sense of loss brought about the crushing Confederate defeat in the Civil War, and fear of the newly emancipated slaves all combined to create a culture keen for myths and nostalgia.
So when a group of Scottish immigrants formed a “clan” to reinforce their values and identity this was easily warped into the “klan” and quickly became about racism, not sentimentality.
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