- 23 hours ago
Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, an enormous mattress factory that produces 600 bouncy beds every day. follows the production of pocket-sprung mattresses....
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00:01Whether you're a night hour or an early riser, we've all got one thing in common, sleep.
00:06Which helps explain why we spend nearly £2 billion a year on mattresses.
00:12Soft, medium or firm, we all spend around 26 years of our lives lying on one.
00:19And surprisingly, for something so comfy, most of them start off life as this, cold, hard steel.
00:27The transformation happens in here, in one of the largest mattress factories in the country.
00:37I'm Greg Wallace.
00:39And I'm springing into action.
00:43Discovering the astonishing engineering that goes into delivering a good night's sleep.
00:48It's a bed of nails!
00:51I'm Cherry Healy. No bedtime story, though, we don't have time.
00:54And I'm investigating where the brain power can be boosted by an afternoon snooze.
00:59Go!
01:01And historian Ruth Goodman...
01:05..draws the short straw, checking out some ancient bedding.
01:08It's better than lying on the floor, isn't it?
01:11Here, in the factory that never sleeps,
01:14they produce 600 handmade mattresses in just 24 hours.
01:19Welcome to Inside the Factory.
01:44This is the Harrison Sphinx Factory in Leeds.
01:48They've been helping us catch faulty winks for nearly 180 years.
01:56Here, more than 600 people sew together 465 different styles of mattresses.
02:05And there's a lot more to them than you might think.
02:09Whether it's a single or a super king,
02:12each one contains more than 5,000 individual components.
02:17From springs, vents and tufts...
02:21..to frames, fabrics and fleece.
02:24All prepared on this 6-and-a-half-acre site.
02:28Today, we're following production
02:30of their king-size, pocket-sprung emerald mattresses.
02:37It all starts, not with a soft, bouncy filling...
02:41..but with a delivery of heavy-duty steel.
02:49Four lorries arrive here every week,
02:52each one laden with 24 tonnes of steel rod destined to become mattress springs.
03:00Seeing in today's delivery is manufacturing director Darren Rhodes.
03:05Morning, sir. Morning, Greg.
03:07Right. How are you?
03:08What have you got in there?
03:09There's 12 coils of two tonnes steel.
03:11That's heavy, heavy-duty.
03:13You are making beds, right?
03:15That's correct.
03:16And they're going to become the springs?
03:17That's correct.
03:18Each coil contains 10.7 kilometres of steel rod,
03:23and the factory gets through 48 of them every single week.
03:28That's over 500 kilometres of steel.
03:32Why do you use steel? Because that can't be cheap.
03:35It's abundant, it's resilient, it's strong,
03:38it's a perfect material for making springs.
03:40When you were a kid, did you have a slinky?
03:41Yeah, that was my favourite toy.
03:43It was, wasn't it? It was.
03:45Brilliant.
03:46Right, this has got to get unloaded. How long to unload this?
03:48About 30 minutes.
03:49Right, come on.
03:56Our mattress production begins.
04:01The 128 kilometres of steel rod on this lorry
04:05will make the springs for 600 mattresses.
04:10Turning this lot into springs
04:12looks like it's going to be a challenge,
04:14but getting it to this stage is no easy ride,
04:17as Cherry's finding out.
04:20Our steel rod is manufactured 55 miles away
04:24at this huge site in Scunthorpe.
04:30It produces a staggering 2.8 million tonnes of steel every year.
04:38And 5,000 tonnes of that head to our mattress factory.
04:44Plant manager Jim Worsley is showing me around.
04:49I seem to have found myself in the fiery pits of Mordor.
04:54What is going on inside that massive cauldron?
04:57This is the process where we turn liquid iron into liquid steel.
05:01It's a little bit like a big chemistry set,
05:03and I'm making a cake.
05:05Steel is one of the most widely used alloys in the world.
05:09A mix of iron and carbon.
05:13The recipe they work to here requires 260 tonnes of molten iron,
05:20bulked up with 50 tonnes of scrap steel,
05:24which is blasted with oxygen to remove impurities.
05:28The final ingredient is carbon.
05:32A high carbon content produces steel that's both strong and bendy.
05:37At 1,300 degrees Celsius, our molten steel is cast.
05:45Well, Jim, I thought it couldn't get any more impressive,
05:47and you've brought me to a river of steel.
05:51In this process, we take the 300-tonne batch of finished liquid steel
05:56and we turn it into a bloom.
05:59Each of these rectangular blocks, known as blooms, weighs four tonnes.
06:05It's hard to imagine that those red, hot rectangles
06:09are going to become springs for a lovely comfy bed.
06:13I certainly wouldn't want to lie on one of those.
06:15No.
06:16But first, these eight-metre-long blooms need to be squashed down
06:21into five-and-a-half millimetre-thick round steel rod,
06:25which involves a 32-step process known as hot rolling.
06:30It begins with reheating the blooms to 1,200 degrees C.
06:36Gail Rayburn oversees this operation.
06:39Oh, look, the door of the furnace is opening,
06:41and out comes a red, hot bloom.
06:46The steel is pushed through seven sets of rollers
06:49in what's called the breakdown mill.
06:52As we go into these mill stands,
06:53we're getting smaller and smaller.
06:55The bloom gets longer and faster as it goes through the mill.
06:58So, I can see it's got a lot smaller.
07:00It's almost half the size.
07:01And then when does it actually become circle?
07:04Where does the magic happen?
07:05So, here, at the sand six,
07:07that's when it finally gets its true circular shape.
07:09So, after all of that, it's thinner and round
07:13and it's starting to look a little bit more like a wire.
07:16It is.
07:18Now, 123 millimetres in diameter,
07:21our steel is chopped down into shorter lengths.
07:25Then it trundles on to the roughing mill
07:28to meet another 13 sets of rollers,
07:32which eventually reduce it down to 23 millimetres.
07:37The important thing is that as we reduce it down gradually,
07:40we keep the right properties of the steel.
07:43So, if you did it all at once, it might become brittle.
07:45It might not be the best quality wire.
07:47Absolutely.
07:49The final set of ten rollers take it right down to the required 5.5 millimetres.
07:55It's coiled onto a fan-cooled conveyor.
07:59Each eight-metre-long bloom has produced 22 kilometres of rod.
08:05That's nearly 3,000 times longer.
08:10Oh, that is absolutely beautiful.
08:12It comes out at about 900 degrees in this coil pattern and we'll tailor the cooling
08:18so we get the exact combination of strength and bendiness in the final rod.
08:22So, for the springs in the mattress, it needs to be quite malleable, quite springy.
08:27Yes, they want a lot of tensile strength so it'll withstand the squash of a person lying on it,
08:33but they also need it to be coilable.
08:37Once cooled, our freshly made steel rod is formed into coils,
08:43all ready to become a multitude of mattress springs.
08:58Back at the factory, the delivery of our steel rod is complete.
09:04But while it would make excellent bed springs for a giant,
09:08for us mortals, it needs to be slimmed down even more.
09:12To do that, it's squeezed into shape.
09:16It travels into this 14-metre-long wire drawing machine,
09:21which will take its diameter from 5.5 millimetres to just 1.5.
09:27How exactly does it work?
09:29Well, effectively, we're pulling the wire through a die.
09:32You draw that through that hole and that makes it 1.5 millimetres.
09:35Correct.
09:40The steel heads into a tungsten carbide die,
09:44the diameter of which is slightly smaller than the wire.
09:48It's pulled through with a force of 2,500 newtons,
09:53emerging 1 millimetre thinner.
09:57It's then squeezed through another nine increasingly smaller dies,
10:02finally emerging at the required 1.5 millimetre diameter.
10:09Why don't you just put it through the shape that you want straight away?
10:13Because the wire would snap.
10:14Do you know what it reminds me of?
10:16It's like a pasta machine.
10:17Exactly.
10:18You keep on tightening the size of the hole you want.
10:21Yeah.
10:22Same principle.
10:23And just like with pasta, as our steel gets thinner,
10:27it also gets longer.
10:29By the end of the drawing process,
10:31each 10.7-kilometre coil is now a whopping 144 kilometres long.
10:39All this engineering so that boys and girls can jump up and down on their mum's bed
10:44when their mum and dad aren't looking.
10:46Yeah, it's all very technical.
10:48Now drawn out, the wire is coiled into drums.
10:52Wow!
10:53And that's what we use for making the springs.
10:55So now at the end of all this engineering, are we finally ready to make springs?
11:00We are.
11:05From wire drawing, the drums head over to spring production.
11:12Where the 144 kilometre coils are loaded into what's known as a pocket coiler machine.
11:20I'm meeting managing director Richard Essary, a man with a real spring in his step.
11:26So tell me, how exactly are you taking the straight wire I saw
11:31and making it into the curly pig's tail?
11:33What we're doing, we're actually engineering memory into that straight wire.
11:38Steel has a remarkable ability to retain its shape
11:42and this machine engineers springy memory by forcing the wire into a spinning wheel.
11:48The tight coil that is made is then opened out and evenly spaced by a spreader bar.
11:56Because it's high tensile wire, that memory stays and that's your convolutions.
12:02A convolution is a ring in a spring.
12:06Convolution is a ring in a spring?
12:07Absolutely.
12:09The springs for our king size mattresses are each made from 120 centimetres of wire,
12:15which is spiralled into seven and a half convolutions.
12:20The whole process takes just half a second.
12:24How many of these springs, these complicated springs, would be in each one of the mattresses?
12:311,054.
12:331,054 in each mattress.
12:36That's correct.
12:36What's the length of the wire, do you know?
12:39It's 1,554 metres.
12:42That's just short of a mile.
12:44That's correct, yeah.
12:45A mile of wire?
12:47A mile of wire.
12:48In a mattress.
12:54This hardware will form the internal skeleton of our mattresses.
12:59But when did we start sleeping on springs?
13:02Ruth is getting into bed with the history.
13:08The quest for a comfortable night's sleep is one that has dogged mankind for tens of thousands of years.
13:14But it was the invention of this, the pocket-sprung mattress, that was the real game-changer.
13:20It made the mattress modern.
13:25But to find out how we got here, I'm meeting Deborah Sugg-Ryan, Professor of Design History at the University
13:31of Portsmouth.
13:33To sample the rudimentary mattresses our ancestors would have slept on.
13:39Deborah!
13:40Hello.
13:41Come on in.
13:44Almost 3,000 years ago, we know that the Romans were filling simple cloth sacks with wool and feathers.
13:52So what about back here in Britain?
13:54What were mattresses like before there were springs?
13:57In the Middle Ages, around the 1200s, people would have been making their mattresses out of sacks, which they called
14:03ticks.
14:04They were very strong and densely woven together.
14:07And even today, we still call the fabric that we use around a mattress ticking.
14:13These simple sacks would have been stuffed with straw.
14:17It doesn't look all that comfy, does it?
14:20So if I had my sacks of straw, I was a medieval peasant.
14:25How do I feel about this?
14:29Well, it's all right. It's better than lying on the floor, isn't it?
14:33A more familiar shape emerged in the 1700s.
14:36But mattresses continued to be stuffed with natural fillings throughout the 19th century.
14:42Despite offering some comfort, this basic stuffing soon got lumpy.
14:48Luckily, the solution to a sound night's sleep arrived, in the form of steel.
14:54Specifically, the steel spring.
14:57This is a sprung mattress.
15:00OK, so springs, I should be hoping for...
15:03Ooh! It's quite bouncy, isn't it?
15:05So this was developed by a man called Heinrich Westphal in Germany in 1871.
15:11It was really the next big thing, the biggest innovation for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.
15:19This inner spring technology was the beginning of the mattress as we know it today.
15:23Although it was a big leap forward in terms of comfort, it wasn't without its problems.
15:29So you can see here, we've got this series of steel springs connected together.
15:35But when you move one, you move a lot of them together.
15:40Yeah, and I definitely felt that when I was lying on it, that the whole thing sort of moved all
15:48at once.
15:49It was a bit sort of seasick in a way.
15:52But this inner spring technology was soon superseded by a newer innovation.
15:58The pocket sprung mattress.
16:00So who do we have to thank for comfy night's sleep then?
16:05We have this man, James Marshall, born in Canada in 1840.
16:11He was an engineer repairing things like early automobiles, trains and farm equipment.
16:17I mean, that sounds a million miles away from beds and mattresses.
16:21Well, all these vehicles use spring suspension and springs had started being used in the seating for different forms of
16:31transport.
16:32Armed with an in-depth knowledge of spring technology,
16:36Marshall identified that by keeping springs independent of one another, a mattress would be more stable.
16:42And he created the world's first pocket sprung mattress.
16:50That is it. Pocket sprung is just a spring in a pocket.
16:54But they're not done individually like that.
16:56So they're done in lines.
16:58So you can see on the edge here these kind of strips with all the springs in together.
17:04Yeah.
17:05And then they sew the strips together.
17:07Yeah.
17:08And this means that the springs can move independently without tangling with each other.
17:14Oh, now that makes enormous sense.
17:17Each one has got to work on its own.
17:19It can't get caught up with any of its neighbours.
17:21And it can only go in the directions that the pocket allows it.
17:24Absolutely. So it can mold to the contours of your body.
17:28But also, of course, there are two of you in bed and it means that you can move independently.
17:37It's really very simple, but very clever.
17:39So finally, after thousands of years of stuffing things in sacks, we are entering the modern era of comfortable mattresses.
17:47Absolutely.
17:49James Marshall patented this game-changing invention at the turn of the 20th century.
17:55The Marshall coil set a new standard in bedding and 120 years later, nearly 40% of all the mattresses
18:04sold in Britain today still use this technology.
18:08I don't think that James Marshall, even after the best night's sleep, could have imagined leaving such a legacy.
18:25And Marshall's legacy continues today.
18:28All of the mattresses made here at the factory are pocket sprung.
18:32So our mile of newly coiled springs need to go into their pockets.
18:38Durable and water-resistant polypropylene fabric is used to make the protective casings.
18:45Polypropylene is folded around the springs and ultrasonically welded.
18:50It's done what?
18:51It's ultrasonically welded.
18:52Like ultrasonic the hedgehog?
18:54Absolutely.
18:56This process uses high-frequency vibrations to generate temperatures of over 160 degrees C,
19:05heat-sealing the polymer cases in just 0.2 of a second.
19:10But the mattresses here don't just contain springs.
19:14Oh no, even the springs contain springs.
19:18So these little springs are going into the back of the big springs.
19:25Why?
19:26Basically it's for extra support for the heavier parts of your body.
19:31So if I put my belly on there, it would only go that far.
19:35But if I put my belly and my ego, it'll be fully compressed.
19:41In our mattress, every third core spring contains a baby pocket spring.
19:49One hour since our steel rod arrived.
19:53With springs made and safely tucked up in their pockets,
19:57they might not look much like a mattress.
20:01But that's all about to change.
20:07Oh hey, it's a little train going through here, a train of springs.
20:11What's happening?
20:12So this is a glue assembler.
20:14So what we're doing now is assembling the pocket coils into a mattress core.
20:20For a king-size mattress, 31 strips, each containing 34 springs, are lined up.
20:27Then glued in place, top and bottom.
20:34Well that looks like a mattress to me.
20:37Or if not, the bulk of a mattress.
20:39Almost.
20:40And how often does one of these come out of this machine?
20:42Every three minutes.
20:45So that is coming off now, right?
20:46It's coming off now, yeah.
20:48So we put it on the floor?
20:49Yep.
20:51Can I...?
20:52Absolutely. Have a lie on it, have a roll on it.
20:54You lay on it first.
20:55Sure.
20:56Go on.
20:57I'm not coming to tuck you in.
21:00Now, now, now, this independent spring action, right?
21:04Yeah.
21:05So if I get in beside you...
21:07We won't roll together.
21:08We won't roll over together.
21:09No matter how big you are.
21:10So it's two o'clock in the morning, I've come out of the bathroom,
21:13and I'm going to sort of bounce in the bed, right?
21:17No!
21:18No!
21:19No!
21:20There you go, I didn't feel a thing.
21:22Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!
21:25Ha-ha!
21:26Right.
21:28Have you set the alarm?
21:29You want to cuddle?
21:30No, I don't want to cuddle, no.
21:31I'm happily married man.
21:34This might be a mattress factory, but there's no time for sleeping on the job.
21:39This lot are far from finished.
21:41So on to the next stage in production.
21:44Framing.
21:47Which is on a different level, and there's a reassuringly low-tech way of getting there.
21:53Is this going to chuck them down the slide?
21:55Yeah.
21:56It looks like a kid's slide, I know, but that's exactly what we're going to do.
21:58It's a pretty steep slide.
21:59It is.
22:00Do you ever go down there?
22:02Absolutely not.
22:03Have you ever been down there?
22:04No.
22:05And I wouldn't tell you anyway.
22:07Ready?
22:08Ready.
22:08Go, let's just let it drop.
22:10Yeah!
22:12Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!
22:18The chute drops the mattresses to mattress assembly,
22:21just next door.
22:25It's the central hub of the factory site,
22:28where 114 employees work on six different stages of mattress production.
22:36I'm meeting team leader Gary Smith.
22:40You're going to help me lift this onto the table,
22:42and I'll show you how to frame it.
22:45Whoa!
22:46We're attaching a steel frame onto each side to support the spring core.
22:51Gives it a firm edge, stops you feeling like you're going to roll off.
22:54It also holds the structure better, the shape of the bed better.
22:57It's a proper metal frame?
22:59Yeah.
23:00So what we'll do, we fasten the frame to the core unit,
23:04using an hog ring gun.
23:05A what gun?
23:06Hog ring gun.
23:07A hog ring?
23:08Why is it...
23:09It must be from the time when they got a ring through a pig's nose.
23:11Yeah.
23:11Ring through a pig's nose.
23:13So what we're doing is just fasten in the nearest spring to the corner,
23:17to the firm.
23:18The galvanised steel rings are fired out of the hog ring gun with compressed air,
23:24looping through the frame and mattress structure.
23:28If you fix the corners, can I have a go at the straight bits?
23:31Yes.
23:32Has anyone ever come and say, can you do their ear?
23:35Er, no, but I have offered.
23:39That's it.
23:40Whoa!
23:43You know what, it's pretty heavy duty, this bed making, isn't it?
23:46It takes two people just three minutes to frame each side of a king-size mattress.
23:52I think I'm slowing things down.
23:57Gary, Gary, Gary, Gary, pack it in, son, all right?
24:00It's not clever, all right?
24:02Just making me look stupid, all right?
24:09We all know the benefits of getting a good night's sleep.
24:12But what about grabbing faulty winks during the day?
24:16Terry's finding out whether we should be making time for a nap.
24:21We all know the feeling.
24:23The afternoon slump when you just can't keep your eyes open.
24:30In many cultures around the world,
24:32an afternoon nap is considered to be a valuable way to recharge your batteries.
24:38But how many of us here in the UK manage to indulge?
24:44I'm hitting the streets to find out.
24:47Would you ever nap at work?
24:49No.
24:51No.
24:51No.
24:52I work in a retail shop, so I can't work.
24:55I can't really sleep at the tills or anything.
24:57If I could, I would.
24:59Why do you think we don't nap in the UK?
25:02Because it's not that tradition.
25:05So it seems like no one is getting any afternoon kip.
25:09But should they be?
25:11To find out if there are any benefits to a daytime nap, I'm meeting Dr Neil Stanley.
25:17Hello.
25:18Hi.
25:18Lovely to meet you.
25:19Lovely to meet you.
25:20Who specialises in the science of sleep.
25:23Should we be making time for naps?
25:25I think we should.
25:27A nap is great for boosting your performance and the effects of a nap will last three or
25:32four hours, whereas many people go for caffeine, coffee, tea.
25:37The effects of those are very short.
25:39They may only last for 30 minutes.
25:41So less flat white and more lie flat.
25:44Absolutely, yes.
25:4637% of people in the UK say they're not getting the right amount of sleep for them.
25:50And, you know, we know the effects of poor sleep are as bad as being over the drink driving limit.
25:57To get the most out of a nap, it has to be the right duration.
26:0220 minutes is optimum.
26:04Any longer and we fall into deep sleep.
26:07And it's waking prematurely from this that makes us feel groggy.
26:12Timing is everything.
26:13So a 20 minute nap, which requires about a 30 to 40 minute window, giving you that time to fall
26:20asleep,
26:20means you get the benefit of sleep without getting into that deep sleep.
26:24To demonstrate just how beneficial a siesta can be, we're heading to a drop-in sleep centre in East London.
26:32Here, worn out city folk can pay eight pounds for 40 winks.
26:38Neil has set up an experiment in what he's calling his reaction room.
26:44So, Neil, how on earth are we going to test napping with something that looks like it belongs in the
26:49gym?
26:50What we have here is a reaction timer.
26:52These individual lights will light up and the subjects got 30 seconds to cancel as many as they can in
26:59that time.
26:59And then after they've done that, they'll go upstairs for a 20 minute nap, come down and repeat it and
27:04hopefully we'll see an improvement in the reaction time score.
27:07Alright, let the games begin.
27:09Our weary volunteers arrive.
27:12Get ready.
27:13And they begin cancelling those lights.
27:16Go!
27:30Time out!
27:32First test done.
27:33Now it's nap time.
27:36I've made it nice and cosy for you.
27:38No bedtime story though, we don't have time.
27:41To get the best out of your nap, you need a quiet, dark room with a temperature between 16 and
27:4818 degrees C.
27:49The best time is between 2 and 3 in the afternoon when our bodies naturally have a dip in energy
27:56levels.
27:57But don't stress if you don't fall asleep straight away.
28:01Even closing your eyes to rest is proven to have a restorative effect.
28:0620 minutes later, how do our volunteers feel?
28:10I feel more relaxed. I didn't actually go to sleep.
28:12Did you fall asleep quite quickly?
28:14I did about 5 minutes.
28:15That was a good 20 minute nap. I feel brilliant.
28:17Feel good, feel refreshed.
28:18They report feeling better.
28:20Get ready.
28:21But are their reactions better?
28:23Go!
28:26On average, our volunteers recorded an 11% improvement in reaction times.
28:32Time out!
28:33But some individuals improve by as much as a third.
28:38This is something that people can do, that really does have an effect on the way they perform.
28:43So it is an important thing that we should be doing each and every day.
28:48So our results show that a power nap really is a powerful way to brighten up your day.
28:55Wake me up in 20 minutes.
29:09Back in Leeds, our mattresses are taking shape.
29:12But no one's getting a good night's sleep on these steel skeletons.
29:16They need some comfy coverings.
29:19Every mattress made at the factory is covered in tightly woven cloth known as ticking.
29:25And this is also made on site.
29:28Production manager Matt Butler is giving me a tour of the weaving room.
29:33This is one of our weaving looms.
29:36We've got six of them in the business and we're producing over 10,000 metres of tick a week.
29:43This, to someone who's never seen it before, is almost unbelievable.
29:48The looms weave fire retardant viscose fibres together to create the perfect outer casing for the mattresses.
29:57What this is, it's an air jet loom. It fires a jet of air straight across the cloth and takes
30:03one of the cotton strands and fires it across.
30:06And then when it's coming back, it just reverses and then shoots back with another jet of air.
30:12These air jet looms weave 30% faster than conventional machines, producing the eight square metres of ticking needed to
30:21cover a king-sized mattress in under 30 minutes.
30:27Once woven, the ticking moves to the sewing building.
30:32Where it's cut to size to make the top and bottom panels of the mattresses and the borders.
30:40Eight handles are attached.
30:42And 16 nickel-plated air vents are punched in.
30:46These little vents on the side, right, do you know what I thought they were for?
30:49Like when you bounce on the bed, to let the air out.
30:51They are in the mattress to let the air through and to let the mattress breathe.
30:56Can I have a go at this?
30:57Of course you can.
30:58Right.
31:01This, this is a job I can do.
31:06Oh, I didn't line up this line with that line there, look.
31:12I've messed up a bit.
31:14I haven't necessarily messed it up.
31:16This could be like a limited edition.
31:19Exactly.
31:20Every cloud.
31:27Two hours and 34 minutes since we began.
31:31Back on the assembly line, I'm catching up with mattress master, Gary.
31:37I've got all these boulders, right?
31:39Yeah, it's up.
31:41Now, are you going to show me what to do with it?
31:44Right.
31:45See these?
31:46Yes.
31:47I'll put some of these on.
31:48Did you?
31:49Look at that craftsmanship, look at that, look.
31:51Beautiful.
31:51Yeah.
31:53A layer of polyester padding is fitted to soften the edges of the mattress.
31:58Ready for the boulder.
32:01Now we're going to slide this over the top of the spring unit.
32:05We're just throwing it all the way over.
32:07Point it round us corners.
32:10That's it.
32:11Nice and tight.
32:11And then you'll put yours round the bottom then.
32:15I'll put mine on the top.
32:17Boulder in position, it's now attached to the springs in the core unit,
32:21using a surprisingly traditional method.
32:24Now we're going to hand stitch the bed.
32:27Hand stitch?
32:28Yes.
32:28Using a 12-inch needle that is razor sharp on both sides.
32:32Show me how to do it, boss.
32:34Right, so what we do is pull off three arms lengths of string,
32:39thread this needle.
32:41Using a super strong nylon thread,
32:44the hand sewn seam is an additional measure
32:46to hold the boulder firmly in place and secure the springs.
32:50That's going to take forever.
32:52Why not do it by machine?
32:53Why hand stitch it?
32:54Because hand stitching fastens the border through the springs,
32:58wraps around the springs and holds the border firm to it.
33:00You can't get a machine that'll do that.
33:02Wow.
33:04So this company's been making beds for nearly 200 years
33:07and you still, in the 21st century, have to hand stitch it.
33:11Gary pushes the foot-long needle in through three core springs,
33:15bringing it back out through the top.
33:17He then threads it back through the side and around the frame.
33:21Right, I'm going to back off, stop talking to you.
33:23Show me the speed you should go at, please.
33:25Right.
33:27This is the start of the speed.
33:29That would have to go up.
33:32Remarkable.
33:33Are you proud of the job you do?
33:36I've always taken pride in all the work I do.
33:40The job worth doing is worth doing right.
33:42Do you think people that buy these mattresses are aware
33:45that people like you have actually taken this mattress?
33:48I don't think so.
33:50Would you mind very much if I had a go?
33:52Yeah, we'll just start you on another side.
33:54Yeah, we'll go down that side.
33:55You don't want me to continue your line, do you?
33:57No, I don't want you to mess mine up.
33:59I can sew a button on. How hard can it be?
34:04I'm never going to get it out of there.
34:06It's never going to come out of there, mate.
34:08It's all about the angles.
34:10There you go.
34:13This is incredibly, incredibly difficult.
34:16Not only can you not see where you're going,
34:19you're stitching something that's nearly two foot thick.
34:22As well as having a practical use,
34:24this is actually really attractive, isn't it?
34:26This hand stitching here.
34:28Yeah, it completes the overall look of the bed.
34:31I tell you what, I've never really looked at a mattress.
34:33I don't suppose many of us have.
34:35But I'm going to take a much closer interest from now on in.
34:40The mattress's sides now have their outer comfort layer.
34:44But the core itself needs some added luxury too.
34:49More than 1,000 springs provide the basic bounciness.
34:53But when we sleep, we need fine-tuned support.
34:56And our mattresses are about to get more spring
34:59than Zebedee on a pogo stick.
35:01In the form of an entire sheet of micro-springs.
35:06This is a comfort layer.
35:08It's thousands of points of contact
35:10that moulds to your body to give you better comfort.
35:14There's another layer of springs about to go.
35:16Another one!
35:18Well, as they say,
35:20you can't have too much of a good spring.
35:24These two layers contain an additional 6,048 springs,
35:29bringing the total of our mattress now to over 13,000.
35:36Spring sorted, there's one last tiresome topic to tackle.
35:41Sweat.
35:42No-one wants a sweaty siesta,
35:45so a layer of breathable natural fibre is added.
35:48So, this is hemp flax.
35:51Hemp flax?
35:52A hemp flax sounds like an indigestion tablet.
35:55Well, hemp is actually from the cannabis family.
36:02Is it legal?
36:04Er, yes, this is legal.
36:07But listen, listen, listen.
36:09Underneath here, right, it's all quite pretty.
36:12This makes it look like a donkey.
36:14I feel like giving it a carrot
36:16and see if it'll go to the other end of the warehouse.
36:17Look at it.
36:18Why do you use this stuff?
36:20It's soft, it's very resilient, and it's antibacterial.
36:24And it also wicks moisture away.
36:27Antibacterial, why is that important?
36:28It stops it getting smelly.
36:29If I get hot and sweaty in the bed,
36:31the hemp actually gets rid of the moisture and the smell?
36:35Yes.
36:36Right, we've got one, two, three layers of springs.
36:39We've got sponge round the corners.
36:40We've got a boulder.
36:41We've got your hemp that gets rid of moisture and smells.
36:44Is that it?
36:46No.
36:46Are you pulling my leg?
36:48The princess would never detect a pea under all this lot,
36:53but unbelievably, there is still one more layer to go on,
36:57and that's wool.
36:58It's no surprise that wool comes from sheep.
37:02Cherry's down on the farm finding out just how
37:05muddy fleece becomes fine fibre.
37:10The wool for our mattresses is found 22 miles up the road here
37:14at the factory's farm, Hornington Manor.
37:18To get a soft, cosy mattress, you need soft, beautiful wool.
37:25Farmer Liam McPartland...
37:26Hi Liam, lovely to meet you.
37:28Nice to meet you, Gerry.
37:29Looks after a flock of 300 sheep here.
37:32He's going to tell me what it is about wool that makes it so good for mattresses.
37:38What kind of sheep makes grey wool?
37:41These sheep in this field are a North England mule,
37:44which is a cross between a blue-faced Leicester ram and a Swaledale ewe.
37:48They have a very spongy wool and a fantastic crimp.
37:51What is a crimp?
37:52A crimp is the springiness in the wool, which is fantastic for mattresses.
37:56We don't want a limp, soft wool like what you'd use in clothing.
37:59This natural crimp is essential to help the wool layer in our mattresses retain its shape and bounce.
38:08So, Cherry, these are the sheep that we're going to be clipping today.
38:10Look at those coats. They need a haircut, pronto. How's this going to work?
38:15We'll just walk the sheep through, and we'll go straight into the pen, ready for the clipper man.
38:19That way.
38:20Oh, off they go!
38:22So quick! Wow!
38:24The bums are wiggling.
38:25I make a pretty good sheep dog.
38:27Fantastic. Great work.
38:31Shearing sheep is a specialist job, so local pro Chris is in charge of the clippers.
38:37So, I can see that he's got a bit of a technique to it. What is he doing?
38:41You can see Chris's left hand is pulling the skin tight.
38:44Whilst the right hand moves the hand piece up the sheep.
38:47Why does the skin need to be kept tight?
38:49If the skin isn't tight, then the skin will bunch up like that, and you could catch it with the
38:53clippers.
38:54Each fleece is about two and a half kilos of wool, and it takes Chris just three minutes to remove.
39:01Is she being well behaved?
39:02It's being fine.
39:03And you're done!
39:05Three down.
39:06Go back to your friends.
39:08Another 12 to go.
39:11Oh, there she goes.
39:12Well done, you.
39:13That's quite a severe haircut.
39:15She only went in for a trim.
39:17In just 45 minutes, we have 15 freshly shorn sheep.
39:21And almost 40 kilos of wool.
39:25I just cannot believe how much there is.
39:28Isn't it fantastic?
39:29It's so incredibly greasy.
39:32What is that?
39:33It's called wool grease, and it gives the wool some really amazing properties.
39:37Like what?
39:37Well, it's antibacterial.
39:39Bacteria can't grow on the wool grease.
39:41Right, so it acts as a natural barrier.
39:43Mm-hmm.
39:43I can also see how springy and fluffy it is.
39:46You can see the crimp if you look closely.
39:48Moo!
39:49What else is amazing about wool?
39:50You can't burn wool unless you have lots of oxygen.
39:53Wool's fire retardant, and it has high levels of nitrogen and water content in it.
39:58And talking to heat, wool's actually a fantastic regulator of heat.
40:02It keeps you warm in the winter and cool in the summer.
40:05There's no doubt about it.
40:08These, um, farm fresh fleeces definitely need a wash.
40:12So, they head 30 miles down the road to Thomas Chadwick & Sons.
40:17Where our wool goes into the first of five industrial washing vats.
40:23The first cycle is at a very toasty 73 degrees Celsius, which removes stubborn dirt.
40:30Mark Andrews oversees the operation.
40:34If I've got a wool jumper, if I wash it that hot, it'll shrink.
40:39Yeah, yeah.
40:39It'll shrink, yeah.
40:40So, how are you preventing that?
40:42You've been very careful.
40:43You're not giving it as much agitation as you would in a washing machine.
40:46At the end of the first wash, excess water is squeezed from the wool
40:50before it plunges into a second bath filled with detergent.
40:55The soap removes contaminants such as dirt, sweat, paint and the wool grease.
41:03One of the advantages of the detergent is that once it's washed the wool, it doesn't allow it to go
41:08back onto the fibre.
41:10Just as you're washing up liquid does with your plate.
41:13Wool grease, also known as lanolin, is a valuable ingredient used in cosmetics, industrial lubricants and even shoe polish.
41:22So, it's filtered from the dirty water and sent to be refined.
41:27After a third and final clean, our wool is ready for the rinse cycle.
41:32Is it a bit like when you're washing your hair?
41:34It's the same process.
41:36You wet your hair, you put some soap on your hair, you give it a good bit of agitation and
41:40then you rinse your hair.
41:41With no trace of farm life remaining, our brilliant white wool travels through a 10 metre long blow dryer,
41:48emerging at the other end, wonderfully fluffy.
41:53What an amazing transformation.
41:56Our sheep have been sheared, washed, blow dried and turned into this amazing, soft, fluffy wool.
42:03I could use a lie down after that.
42:19From farm to factory, our wool heads straight to fillings,
42:24where it's transformed into the top comfort layer of our mattresses.
42:29I'm back with Matt to unload the wool bales into the blending machine.
42:35I love this. It's a beautiful thing, isn't it?
42:38How many sheep do you have to shear to make one bale?
42:42To make one bale, 280 sheep.
42:45The wool we're feeding into the hopper is far too dense to be a soft top layer,
42:51so the fibres are separated out to give them more bounce.
42:55The wool is picked up by a conveyor, covered in spikes,
43:00and carried into a series of spinning metal combs.
43:03It's a process known as carding.
43:07It's a big comb, basically.
43:09Not so I can know a lot about combs.
43:12As they spin, the metal teeth detangle and tease out the tightly packed fibres,
43:18creating a light and fluffy mesh.
43:20As it's pulling through, it's just generally opening up, opening up, opening up,
43:24until it makes one continuous web.
43:27I can't believe that what I saw going into the machine
43:30was transformed to that other end.
43:33That is so light, it's almost transparent.
43:37That looks like a small waterfall.
43:39Our featherweight fleece fibres now travel to the cross lapper,
43:44where they are concertinaed into five layers.
43:47What all this is doing is, it's just layering your web on top of each other,
43:53building it up to make the first stages of the pad.
43:56The wool pad may be beautifully light, but it's also very delicate.
44:02To stop it falling apart, some reinforcement is required.
44:08Matt, it's a bed of nails.
44:11They're just like a torture instrument.
44:14What have a load of needles got to do with a soft mattress?
44:17There's 6,000 needles in there.
44:19The needles are penetrating through the material.
44:22Every one has got slight barbs in it.
44:24The barbs hold on, and it pulls back up through the fibre,
44:27so it knits the product together.
44:29So once it's passed through, you get this.
44:35Bashing it continuously with hundreds of razor-sharp needles
44:39makes it stick together.
44:41Well, it's quite brutal, isn't it?
44:44Nothing sheepish about it at all, is there?
44:46Not at all.
44:47The end product is a three-metre wide topper,
44:51which is cut to the standard king-size specification
44:54of two metres by 1.5.
44:57This now looks completely different
45:00from the wall that we started with.
45:02Feels very, very different.
45:06My stacking's a bit rubbish.
45:08Practice makes perfect.
45:11I think I need to take a few of these round to the next stage.
45:15Can I grab some? Yep.
45:17Can I grab some of yours? They're better rolled.
45:19There you go.
45:19There you go.
45:23Three hours and 21 minutes since our mattress production began.
45:29There.
45:30I'm back with Gary on the mattress assembly line,
45:33putting the wall pad on.
45:37I cannot believe there's this many layers in one of your mattresses.
45:40There's still another layer, yeah.
45:43The woven ticking is the final addition.
45:47He's got to pin this side first.
45:4930 10-centimetre pins secure the ticking
45:52and all the fillings in place on each side.
45:55Gary, there's no way you can get any more in this mattress.
45:57It's like almost bursting.
46:00Hang on, hang on, hang on.
46:00How much does this now weigh?
46:02This weighs 68 kilos.
46:04Before you buy one of these,
46:06you've got to make sure you've got a bed frame that can support it.
46:09It's ludicrous.
46:11It looks all right, but what does it feel like?
46:18It's a good mattress, mate.
46:19That works for me.
46:22Now this lot all needs securing to the spring core.
46:27Which happens at the tufting press.
46:31Here, strings known as tufts are threaded through the mattress
46:34and all its layers to hold it together.
46:38But before all that,
46:39we've got to give the mattress a serious squeeze.
46:43All right, so we're going to compress the bed up to 50%.
46:47You've spent hours and hours clumping up the mattress.
46:52Why are you now squashing it down?
46:55And squashing it down cross-width to get a tufting string in.
46:58And the tufting string was not long enough to be able to put it in
47:02without it being compressed.
47:04Two side buttons.
47:05Press down.
47:08That scares me.
47:09Yeah.
47:09I feel like it's going to rip.
47:11No, we'll be fine.
47:12Once squeezed down from 25 to just 12.5 centimetres, the press is turned 90 degrees,
47:20ready for the 20 centimetre tuft strings to go in.
47:24When the tufts go in, it goes straight through the mattress, it holds all your springs in place.
47:28It holds all your fillings in place so they don't move because we're human rolling pins.
47:33As we roll over in bed, we can move those fillings. These tufts prevent that.
47:38This is your tufting needle. It's 18 inches.
47:41Has it got to go all the way through?
47:43It's got to go all the way through.
47:45You've got to get through 11 layers of bed.
47:47So we've fastened the tuft inside the little hole where it's spring-loaded,
47:53and we're putting the tuft string into the centre.
47:58Can I have a go?
48:00Yeah, of course.
48:01You're just holding that tip of your thumb until it's in to the centre of the square.
48:06In there, right?
48:07Yeah.
48:10Push.
48:13Oh.
48:14There you go. That's it. That's in.
48:16Ho-hey!
48:18Tuft Master Wallace.
48:20One more, one more, one more.
48:22There's something ridiculously satisfying about spearing a fat bed.
48:2732 tuft strings go into a king-size mattress,
48:30each spaced 35 centimetres apart to spread the tension evenly across the surface.
48:36Oh, that's a beauty.
48:38Tufts in place, the tuft heads are the finishing touch.
48:42OK.
48:44Well, it was all big and tough and heavy duty, and now we've got these little fluffy pom-poms.
48:49I'll tuft a bit.
48:50All right.
48:51Just pulling strings on, majority's on this side.
48:54Fed in full, the plastic load, pull in, and just let you go.
48:59The wool tuft heads stop the strings from being pulled back through the mattress when the press is released.
49:07There's no job in this factory that's too strange, is there?
49:11No.
49:12Squash your mattress half flat and put little silky pom-poms on it.
49:17Strung up and tufted on both sides, the mattress is released.
49:23That's got that kind of leather Chesterfield look now, hasn't it?
49:27Yeah, it does.
49:27A very tempting sight, indeed.
49:31I could do with a lie down, but...
49:33An inviting bed isn't just about a comfy mattress, it's also about...
49:40Making the bed in the morning used to be such a chore.
49:45Once your bottom sheet is nice and straight, then you need your top sheet.
49:51And next you start layering up the blankets.
49:55As many as you need to keep you warm according to the weather.
49:59And that might be as many as seven or eight.
50:03So now you start tucking everything in.
50:07It's always best to start with the corners.
50:09And you've got to do that all the way round the bed.
50:12And then you've got the bedspread.
50:15And finally, with your bed made, you're ready to get on for the rest of your day.
50:20This was the way beds were made for centuries.
50:24But that all changed in 1964,
50:26when Sir Terence Conran began selling duvets in his iconic Habitat store.
50:34I'm meeting one of the store's original staff members, Maurice Libby,
50:37who recalls his first brush with the duvet on a trip with Conran to Switzerland.
50:44I got a duvet in my room, but I didn't know what a duvet was.
50:51And you just assumed it was part of the mattress?
50:53Yes, I just laid up on top of it, yeah.
50:56Good gracious.
50:58Although Maurice was perplexed, Conran wasn't.
51:02He'd fallen in love with the duvet on an earlier trip to Sweden.
51:06He'd discovered it made bed-making faster and easier,
51:09and he was convinced Brits would love it.
51:13Conran knew it would sell and make money.
51:16He was proved right when they were stocked in the new store
51:19on London's trendy Fulham Road.
51:23It took off very quickly.
51:26And lots of customers were well-known people,
51:29particularly actors and actresses.
51:32Wow.
51:33It was getting publicity.
51:34It was in the papers.
51:38Once it took off, it never faltered.
51:42I'm meeting design journalist John Michael O'Sullivan
51:44to learn more about the launch.
51:50It sort of seems to me like the duvet's time had come,
51:54but the 60s was its moment.
51:56I think it was just the perfect point in time.
51:58It was the end of the ration era.
52:00It was the dawn of that first-generation post-war
52:04who were hungry for something new.
52:06It was the start of swinging London.
52:07Everything just came in the right place at the right time.
52:09Other shops had sold the duvet in Britain previously,
52:12but it was this burgeoning chain
52:14that delivered it to the masses.
52:17So, I mean, how was it being advertised?
52:19The 60s was the dawn of the era of the Sunday Supplement.
52:23So, suddenly, you had all these magazines
52:24and newspapers featuring lifestyle.
52:26And then, I think, what really shifted it into the mainstream
52:29was arrival of the catalogues in the late 60s and early 70s.
52:32You've got things like this great shot from the early 70s
52:36showing a man making the bed, which would have been, you know...
52:39Oh!
52:40Yes!
52:40..in gender roles of the day.
52:41It was quite a playful but also very clever, you know, sort of approach.
52:45And I quite like the way you know, yes, well, of course he can handle it.
52:48It's easy. Even a bloke can do it.
52:51And then, of course, I think it was practical.
52:53It was easy. Quick.
52:54This is actually for one of their French catalogues
52:56where you can see they lay the whole thing out for you.
52:59This idea of a 20-second bed in six easy stages.
53:02Ah!
53:02Start to finish.
53:03I really quite like this.
53:04It's so sort of clear, isn't it?
53:06Bonk, bonk, bonk, bonk, bonk.
53:07Done!
53:09Where Sir Terence Conran led, others followed.
53:13Yeah, obviously, the other stores like Debenhams, Woolworths, BHS,
53:18and then into the 80s, of course, IKEA arrive on our shores
53:20with their own version.
53:21And that's really when it becomes something that's not only affordable
53:25but actually is very cheap and universally available.
53:29So when did you get your first duvet?
53:31It was 20 years ago in this very store.
53:34Still have that same duvet 20 years and four flat moves later.
53:37Wow!
53:38Occasionally cleaned. Occasionally cleaned.
53:44What a joy!
53:47Mind you, you can't help but wonder if Terence Conran
53:50had not made that trip to Sweden,
53:52whether we would be a nation of duvet lovers today.
54:04Back in the factory, our mattresses are plumped and primped.
54:09But there's one last flourish.
54:11Tape edging.
54:13I'm meeting Mikey Joof, who's been adding the finishing touches
54:17to the beds here for more than 15 years.
54:20Mikey, Greg.
54:21Hello, Mikey.
54:22You all right?
54:23I'm all good, I'm all good.
54:24So this is our final bit?
54:25This is your final bit.
54:27So if Mikey messes up here, we'll be at the start all over again?
54:30No pressure on you.
54:30A bit panicky, I'm shaking already.
54:33Don't mess up, Mikey, this has taken me ages.
54:35I'll try my best.
54:36Mikey's job is to join the ticking, all the layers of padding
54:40and the border into one seamless taped edge.
54:45So what Mikey's got there is an enormous sewing machine.
54:48And what's that doing?
54:49That is stitching the tape plus the top and the border together.
54:53So hang on, the most difficult bit must be going round the corner, right?
54:56Going round the corner, yeah.
54:57Oh, the machine comes around the hole of the bed.
55:02This specialised sewing machine is mounted on rails,
55:05allowing it to be manoeuvred through 360 degrees.
55:09Mikey controls it with his knee.
55:11Pressing down on a paddle stops the sewing,
55:14leaving his hands free to stretch the tape around all six layers
55:18of filling and border.
55:20But that is finishing it, isn't it?
55:22That is finishing it beautifully.
55:24It seems to be tightening up the whole thing as well,
55:27making it, like, completely finished shape.
55:30Mikey's machine runs at an incredible 2,800 stitches per minute.
55:36There's no room for error at this stage.
55:39If you do make a mistake...
55:41Out the saddle again.
55:42Rip it out and start again.
55:43Yeah, start again, yeah.
55:44Another risk is that the rapidly moving needle overheats and snaps,
55:49so it's constantly cooled by a stream of compressed air.
55:53I reckon it was easier to get a space rocket to the moon
55:56than it was to make one of your mattresses.
55:58It is remarkable.
56:00Absolutely remarkable.
56:03Three hours and 41 minutes after our lorry load of steel rod arrived,
56:08we have a completed mattress.
56:12Beautiful.
56:13There it is.
56:14That's our finished mattress.
56:16Do you know what?
56:17I can see the things on the outside of it, like the handles and the stitching,
56:21but no-one is going to have any idea of what's in there.
56:25It's quite remarkable, isn't it?
56:27It is.
56:27Beautiful.
56:27Let's get it wrapped.
56:29Come on.
56:33Checked for the correct number of handles, vents and tufts,
56:37we're at our last stop.
56:40Distribution.
56:43Where I'm meeting factory owner, Simon Spinks.
56:47Simon?
56:48Great.
56:49How are you doing?
56:50Great.
56:50On average, how many mattresses will go out of the factory every day?
56:54Five to six hundred a day.
56:56Wow.
56:57Is your business at all seasonal?
56:59It is.
57:00We sell a lot of mattresses during the month of January.
57:02You see all the adverts on TV for furniture sales.
57:06But also, September, when the nights are getting darker,
57:10we start to nest, ready to sleep for the winter.
57:15So, we're at an end.
57:17Should we put our final mattress on the track?
57:19I think we should.
57:19Come on.
57:25Whoa!
57:26Whoa!
57:27There we go.
57:28Right.
57:29Come on.
57:29Well done.
57:32The mattresses from this factory are bound for bedrooms all over the world.
57:38As far afield as Australia and South Korea.
57:43But back home, it's the southeast of England that buys the most.
57:48We all sleep on a mattress.
57:50We all know what one looks like.
57:52But how many of us have actually looked inside and seen what's in it?
57:56Am I impressed?
57:57I'll tell you what, I'll sleep on it.
58:21I'll tell you what, I'll sleep on it.
58:27Monday.
58:30I'll see you next time.
58:33I'll tell you.
58:33Welcome.
58:36Here we go.
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