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NARRATOR: In 1939,
a group of eccentric inventors

were brought together
by Winston Churchill.

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They fought the Nazis with British
bulldog spirit and ingenuity...

..and by using salad bowls,
condoms and corks

to build bizarre
but brilliantly effective weapons.

We need some inventions that give us
a bit of a cutting edge,

a chance to fight back.

With the country facing disaster,

they defied authority

to defend Britain
in its darkest hour.

They would do what had to be done.

They didn't worry
too much about the rules.

But when the war ended,
they were erased from history,

so nobody knew that
this top-secret unit even existed.

This is the story
of Churchill's Toyshop.

1946, a year
after the end of World War II,

and the world's most unconventional
secret weapons lab

was shut down.

Just five years earlier,

it had been at the heart
of secret efforts

to prepare for a possible
German invasion

by building dozens
of astonishing inventions...

..using everything
from headache pills

to condoms to sweets.

The unit had also equipped
Allied soldiers across the world

with the tools they needed to fight
the Nazis' most dangerous machines.

It was called
'Ministry of Defence 1',

or MD1,

and had been
Winston Churchill's pet project,

as former British Army Captain
Patrick Bury explains.

He sets out to find some inventors
from many different walks of life,

marry them with some
military unconventional thinkers

to come together to help Britain.

What he wants is something
that's a bit outrageous,

a bit unorthodox,
a bit like Churchill.

MD1 was so close
to the Prime Minister's heart

that it became known
as Churchill's Toyshop.

It had been so secret

that almost no archive footage
of its operations exists.

It broke rules to create a succession
of highly experimental

cutting-edge weapons
in just weeks instead of years...

..and, in part, had also been
Ian Fleming's inspiration

for James Bond's weapons supplier Q.

But just how did this unique,
top-secret team

build such
an astonishing organisation?

1939, and the world
was on the brink of war.

Germany had already occupied
Austria and Czechoslovakia.

Britain is behind the curve
in the armaments race.

Germany is miles ahead,
it's been arming since the '30s,

building tanks, building ships,

increasing their air force
and increasing their army.

Britain had promised to defend Poland
if Germany attacked.

But Britain was far from ready.

Churchill, not yet in government,
was campaigning for re-armament.

Churchill realises that we're not
gonna match them quick enough

in terms of the size of our forces.

We need some inventions that give us
a bit of a cutting edge,

a chance to fight back

and a chance to hold our ground
even if the Germans invade.

And these weapons would require
unconventional creators.

One such frustrated weapons inventor
was Stuart Macrae,

who, at the time, was the editor
of Armchair Science magazine.

Stuart Macrae does have
a bit of military experience.

In the First World War,
he designed a system

for dropping grenades from planes,

and he's desperate to get back
into the weapons industry.

In June 1939,
he received a mysterious phone call.

The caller demanded that Macrae

provide him
with information about magnets,

but wouldn't reveal why.

Intrigued, Macrae convinced the man
to meet in a Soho bar.

The caller was Major Millis Jefferis,

a decorated soldier
who was known to enjoy developing

and detonating explosive weapons.

His son John recollects
his father's unorthodox approach.

He was exceptional,
his energy, his concentration,

his stamina to produce the idea
in a slightly wayward,

er, unusual form.

In that way, he was a genius.

And Jefferis had been given a mission
by senior soldiers in the War Office.

Millis Jefferis is told to come up
with smaller weapons

for irregular operations,

for saboteurs to use,
for commandos to use,

because he realises that these
could fill the gap in the meantime

while these longer projects
come to fruition.

Over several drinks,

Jefferis revealed his idea
for one such weapon.

Purely by accident,

Father had this idea of making
what he called a magnetic mine,

which was something that a saboteur,

a swimmer could put
on the hull of a metal vessel.

It would stick to it by magnets
and it would have a timer

and it would go bang after
a certain time and sink the boat.

Macrae was intrigued,

and the two men agreed a deal
to design weapons together.

Basically, this whole operation's
off the cuff.

They don't have any facilities.
They don't even have an office,

and so Macrae
is gonna have to come up

with the whole thing off the bat.

Macrae left his job
and was fast-tracked into the army,

armed only with a pile of magnets.

So the whole plan is to come up
with a prototype of some sort

and then present it,
and once they do that,

then they can maybe get some money
and get some resources to help them.

The German war machine
would be totally unprepared

for what it was about to face.

Gordon Rogers has spent years
researching the history of MD1.

The facilities for building the mine
was just a workshop at Bedford,

Nobby Clarke's workshop.

Retired soldier
and inventor 'Nobby' Clarke

was an old friend of Macrae's.

The two men planned to create
a device packed full of explosive

that could attach to a ship's hull,

remain watertight
and detonate on a timer.

It also had to be small enough
to be carried by a frogman.

They took the unconventional approach

of using a metal salad bowl
with a lid to create a flat surface.

They stuck magnets around the edge,
so it would clamp to metal.

But they had to come up with a way
of attaching it to the diver.

Their solution was
a metal plate on a strap.

It would be tied
around the diver's waist.

And they realised
that the mine's own magnets

could be used to secure it.

(CLANG)

Trial and error revealed
the correct number of magnets to use.

Yes! Yes!

Now they just needed
some kind of timing fuse

that would set it off.

It had to dissolve in water

at a pre-determined rate
before exploding,

allowing the frogman
time to get away.

(INDISTINCT DISCUSSION)

The only small issue was

that such a device
didn't actually exist.

As Macrae contemplated the problem,

he sucked on some aniseed balls
that were in the workshop.

In a Eureka moment,
he realised that each sweet

took the same amount of time
to dissolve in his mouth.

Aniseed balls were the answer
because they would decay
at a regular rate

in water of various temperatures
and various salinity.

Immediately, the pair bought
every aniseed ball in Bedford,

depriving the town's children
of sweets for King and Country.

They built a simple fuse consisting
of a spring-loaded striker,

held back by an aniseed ball.

The ball would decay until
eventually the striker was released

to hit the detonator.

But there was another problem.

GORDON: But of course
you had to keep these dry

until you wanted
to start the thing off.

How did you do that?

With a condom!

So these guys got a reputation
as sexual athletes

as they scoured the Bedford region
looking for condoms.

Their unlikely contraption
proved to be completely watertight.

With nothing more
than a few household items

and a spark of brilliance,

they had invented
an entirely new weapon:

the Mark 1 Limpet Mine.

What we've got here
is the finished product.

So what you can see here, we've got
the, kind of, encased steel shell.

Two fuses, screwed in here
by the frogman

or whoever's arming the device.

And inside here
is where you have the explosives.

You can see clearly the magnets -
this is the innovative bit

that Jefferis came up with.
Quite thick magnets.

Give it a good bit of suction onto
either the hull of a ship or a tank.

And then you've also
got the belt here,

which would be for the frogman
if he had to swim up to the boat.

He'd have this round his waist, then
arm it and then stick it to a hull.

Goes to show you how quickly
something can go from a salad bowl

and an aniseed ball
to a mass-produced industrial mine,

which really was quite effective.

All that was left
was to blow something up.

Macrae and Clarke prepared to teach
a metal plate a serious lesson.

It worked perfectly.

Their jerry-rigged contraption

was capable of punching
through armour plating.

Thousands were produced
during the war.

In one operation alone,
14 Allied commandos

used limpet mines to sink
seven Japanese warships.

Their success couldn't have come
at a more vital time.

On 1st September 1939,
Germany invaded Poland.

World War II had begun.

And Britain's madcap inventors
would have to go into overdrive

with whatever materials
they could get their hands on.

.

.

Although having declared war
on Nazi Germany,

Britain was unprepared.

PATRICK: Britain is playing
catch-up, essentially.

It's increased the size of its army,
it's introduced conscription

and because the army is bigger,
it needs more weapons for them.

Jefferis and Macrae's makeshift lab

was officially made
part of the War Office.

But they were going to have to
bend the rules to survive.

They're still only two blokes,
they've still got little money

and they're still
completely under-resourced,
and they're a very low priority.

They had little space,
and the packets of high explosive

they secretly carried
into their room...

..were stored in a filing cabinet.

Despite its official role,

the Toyshop
was at the bottom of the pile.

JOHN: Here was a unit
that were novices at the game,

were completely freewheeling
and careless about regulation,

and of course this irritated

the establishment,
who lived by regulation.

But their fortunes
were about to change.

One politician
whose maverick instinct

and reputation matched their own
was about to enter the fray.

(INAUDIBLE)

Churchill can see
that Britain is on the back foot,

yet he knows politically

that he needs to have
some offensive operations

to give people the confidence

that Britain
can actually win this war.

Though not yet Prime Minister,
Churchill was in command of the navy.

And as the Nazis' attention
turned towards France and Britain,

he recognised
the need to strike back.

Churchill decided
that attacking the Rhine river

would seriously disrupt
the Germans' own military supplies.

The Rhine river
is Germany's lifeblood.

It's a major route for transporting
industry and food across Germany.

Churchill basically thinks,

"If I can put something there
that chokes off the Rhine,

that shuts it down, even for a time,
it can halt German industrial output

and it can spread terror
amongst the German population."

But to succeed,

Churchill would require
a new kind of weapon.

On 10th November 1939,

Jefferis was ordered to a meeting
to hear Churchill's plan.

So the idea that Churchill has

is that mines of some sort
can be dropped into the river,

float downstream under the water

and then explode using a time fuse.

But the big problem is
the weapon hasn't been invented yet.

Jefferis promised to invent
Churchill's mine within two weeks.

The pair got cracking to design
what they planned to call

the "Water", or "W", Bomb.

This particular specification was
it should sink to the bottom,

rest there for a bit, float to
the position just under the surface,

arm itself and float down the river,

bobbing two feet under the surface
until it hit a target.

When the bomb's submerged,
a chemical pellet dissolves.

This triggers a spring that
pops the lid off and releases corks

that prevent the bomb
breaking the surface.

Almost simultaneously,
antennae pop out

designed to trigger the bomb
on contact.

In just a matter of days,

Macrae and Jefferis
again building a prototype.

In fact, he got a conceptual design
out in two weeks

and with a model to suit.

But they struggled to find
the perfect dissolving pellet,

and aniseed balls took too long.

Inspiration struck Macrae
from an unusual place -

the headache tablets
they kept on hand

to deal with regular hangovers.

Through repeated tests,
they discovered that the tablets

consistently dissolved
in five minutes.

With just days to go
before demonstrating

the weapon to Churchill,

they succeeded in constructing
a full-size version.

But it still had to be tested.

So Jefferis and Macrae
headed to the Thames...

..hurling the prototype
into the river.

Unfortunately, they forgot
to pull the safety pin.

The bomb sank to the bottom,
and was never seen again.

The test was a failure,
but they wouldn't let it stop them.

And at a midnight meeting,

Jefferis demonstrated
a second prototype to Churchill.

He recognises Father as being
a man of particular ingenuity,

and I think he uses
the word "brilliance",

which is very glowing
from someone like Churchill.

Churchill was a very good
judge of character, I think,

and recognised the ability of people

and always brought
people on for merit

instead of promoting by seniority.

Churchill was obviously impressed

by this amazing presentation
of what he wanted.

By December 1939,

the W Bomb was ready
for explosive testing,

and Churchill was determined
to witness his big idea in action.

Oh, he was naturally drawn

because Churchill
loved things going bang.

He loved firing guns,
he loved explosives,

he liked to watch
when things were whizzing about.

The weapon's 20 pounds
of explosive were primed...

..and put on a show.

Churchill was delighted
with the W Bomb,

and immediately cleared it
for operational use.

Macrae and Jefferis
were now running Churchill's Toyshop.

(INDISTINCT)

Jefferis was having ideas
about every two weeks.

He'd come up with a new weapon.
What a man! Fantastic inventor.

But his genius
was about to be put to the test

during Britain's darkest hour.

On 10th May 1940,
Churchill became Prime Minister.

Just hours later,

the Germans launched
a massive offensive against France.

With both the French and British
armies in a desperate situation,

Churchill launched his W Bombs
in Operation Royal Marine.

And it involves
just pushing the mines

down the river from areas of France,

and it causes quite a big effect.

1,700 W Bombs drifted down the Rhine

and caused massive damage
to shipping and bridges.

Jefferis and Macrae's weapon
had been vindicated,

but it couldn't stop
the Allied collapse.

It's lost, really, in the noise
of the defeat of the French army,

withdrawal of the British army
and the evacuation from Dunkirk,

where they leave massive amounts
of their heavy weapons

and kit on the beach.

And essentially,
Churchill later says

that although Operation Royal Marine
was actually a success,

it was lost in the deluge of defeat.

With the army almost defenceless
and a German invasion imminent,

Churchill would look
to the Toyshop for salvation.

.

.

By the middle of 1940,
Germany had swept across Europe.

By June,
France had been conquered, too,

and Hitler had Britain
firmly in his sights.

France had been quickly crushed
by Germany's tanks.

If they arrived on British shores,

Churchill would need a new weapon
to defeat them.

What Britain needs is a low-tech,
inexpensive weapon

that anyone can use,
from the Home Guard
to the nation's army,

that can be used against tanks
quickly and effectively.

Macrae and Jefferis

toyed with the notion of sticking
a bomb to a tank's armour.

Throw the explosive at the tank.

Somehow we will make it
stick to the plate

for long enough for it to explode
and hopefully do some damage.

An early version
had used bicycle inner tubes

full of explosive
and covered in glue.

They were completely uncontrollable
and a total failure.

Macrae went back
to the drawing board.

They tried various bizarre shapes

with flat surfaces
to provide contact,

but they were impossible
to throw correctly.

The ideal shape seemed to be a ball,

but if it was covered in glue,
it would stick to the thrower.

So Macrae added a handle.

But he then needed the ball

to somehow release the explosive
upon impact.

In a stroke of genius,

Macrae came up with
the idea of a glass ball.

For safety's sake, he used
wet porridge instead of explosive.

(SHATTERS)

It shattered perfectly,
but the porridge went everywhere,

limiting the explosive effect.

As ever, he came up with a simple
but ingenious solution.

By pulling a glue-covered sock
over the top of the glass ball,

it would still shatter...

..but would also stick to a surface
and retain the explosive.

What we've got here
is an instructional sticky bomb.

Because it's so sticky,
you need some sort of cover for it,

so you've got
this metal outer housing,

which then comes away
and releases the sticky bomb itself.

In the centre here, you would
have had about a pound and a half

of nitro-glycerine explosives.

There's one thing to remember
if you're gonna do this for real,

and that is that the handle

is pointing back the way
you probably threw it.

So you need to be very careful,

cos when that device goes off,
as well as punching that way,

it's obviously sending
stuff going... force going this way,
and the handle can come shooting out

at about a third the speed
of the actual explosion,

and obviously, you don't want to be
on the receiving end of that.

In just a few weeks, the device
had gone from drawing board

to firing range.

The toffee-apple-like weapon

was tested in absolute secrecy
during 1940,

with the Prime Minister looking on.

The new grenade
was a resounding success,

and Churchill was delighted.

The design fulfilled
his requirement for a simple,

cheap and portable weapon

that could combat
invading German tanks.

But the establishment didn't approve.

You can imagine that
this was extraordinary.

I mean, throwing a grenade
was one thing, you know, which...

Grenades had been
in existence for a long time,

but to put a lump of explosive
inside a glass container,

which was a thin glass,

was thin enough to smash
when it hit the target,

was not according
to regulation at all.

It was a health and safety nightmare.

Throughout the year, permission was
repeatedly denied for manufacturing.

When Churchill became aware
of the delays,

he personally intervened.

His one-line note read,

"Sticky Bomb, make one million.

WSC."

The Toyshop went on
to produce 2.5 million,

with the weapon used in action
on battlefields

from North Africa
to Papua New Guinea.

But its freewheeling approach

put the traditional government
weapons departments to shame.

They could turn
something out in a few days

and say, "Does this work
or does it not work?"

And the next day,
they would refine it

and change it, and make it work.

A small unit is much quicker
on its feet

than the large civilian
establishments that existed.

And this too
was a bone of contention.

The Toyshop's greatest enemy
was the Ministry of Supply.

It co-ordinated the supply
of all equipment to the armed forces,

from weapons to vehicles to food.

Well, the Ministry of Supply
was formed in 1939

with the burgeoning prospects
of war,

and its purpose was
to supply the whole military.

It was a massive operation.

Macrae and Jefferis
were seen as loose cannons

who had a disregard
for the chain of command.

In July 1940,

a senior officer
named Brigadier Wyndham

was sent to find out exactly
what was going on in the Toyshop.

The department is fighting being
overcome by the Ministry of Supply,

and there was a constant
threat of acquisition.

Brigadier Wyndham
was going to inspect them

with a view to taking them over.

Macrae decided to make
their small band of inventors

look like a larger operation

because it would make them seem
more official in Wyndham's eyes.

(INDISTINCT)

What the hell is going on here?
Who's in charge?

While Macrae led the Brigadier
from room to room,

the workers took a different route
to the next location...

Sir, sir, allow me to...

..quickly switching overalls.

When the Brigadier entered,

they pretended to be
different technicians

doing a completely different job.

This amazing con trick
actually worked.

The Brigadier reluctantly accepted

that the Toyshop
was too big to close down.

Having avoided obliteration
by the skin of its teeth,

the only way was up for the unit.

In May 1940,

Churchill had created
a new Ministry of Defence

to co-ordinate the war effort,
which he led.

So he was able to decree

that its first and only
armament production department

would be the Toyshop, codenamed MD1,

and it would
only answer to Churchill.

He'd always sought after
a little working force

directly under his control.

If he had a brilliant idea,

he could pass it to this small unit
and get it developed and refined

without having to go
through this long process.

With an ever-growing
portfolio of weapons,

the Toyshop needed
a purpose-built facility.

Macrae engineered a move
to a country house in Whitchurch,

50 miles from London.

By the end of 1940,

Whitchurch was fully operational,
with drawing offices,

workshops, testing ranges...

..and, of course, its own bar.

Finally, the Toyshop
was a fully self-contained design,

production and testing facility.

It expanded rapidly
in its own unique way.

Short of technicians,

the on-site barber was trained
to manufacture explosives.

A workforce was quickly put together
to churn out the Toyshop's designs.

They got a number of young girls
from Wales up to run the factories.

The girls weren't very happy
to start with, I don't think,

but soon there was a lovely
atmosphere developed in the place.

They were all working together.

Through 1941, the Toyshop
expanded to 250 people,

linked to a network of suppliers

and manufacturers
from Scotland to London.

It was at the heart of unorthodox
British weapons design,

and produced everything from covert
booby-traps to anti-tank weapons.

By the end of 1940,

the battle of Britain is being
decided in Britain's favour.

But Germany is still in charge
of the whole of western Europe.

It was time for the Toyshop
to take the war to the enemy.

.

.

By 1942,

the threat of an invasion
of Britain had receded.

But Germany was far from defeated.

Allied special operations teams

was still probing for weaknesses
in Nazi-occupied Europe.

PATRICK: If you're gonna do
something in Europe -

and we're talking about small teams,
irregular warfare,

special operations,
commando and para raids -

then you're gonna need
different kinds of weapons.

You're gonna need small devices
which, when attached to explosives,

will be able to hopefully wreak
havoc on the German infrastructure.

However, these new, small weapons

had a problem with
inaccurate time-delay fuses.

Ian Jones is a former British army
and police bomb-disposal expert.

If you're a saboteur and
you want to carry out demolitions,

there was a clear need to get in,
place your charges and get away,

so that you're far from the scene
when the device actually explodes.

At that time, the standard fuse
was known as a time pencil.

But it was unreliable.

The problem with the time pencil
was that the delays varied hugely.

And MD1 thought
they could improve on this.

Jefferis had a remarkable idea.

JOHN: Father had read somewhere that

lead under tension crept,
expanded, under load very slowly.

He came up with the concept of
a piece of specially-shaped lead

that was pulled by a spring.

The lead would slowly stretch,
eventually breaking,

which in turn set off a detonator.

The new fuse was named the "Lead-",
or "L-Delay".

Here is a L-Delay fuse.

Essentially how it works is that
you've got a safety mechanism here.

When you take that out,

inside is a specially-manufactured
strip of lead.

And the strip of lead can be,

you know,
varying levels of thickness,

and that thickness, therefore,
determines how long it takes
to go through.

And it's working on
a spring mechanism

and it's slowly stretching the lead
until breaking point.

So the thicker the lead,
the longer it takes to go.

Interestingly,
it's based on mechanics -

it's based on understanding
the properties of lead

at certain temperatures.
There's no electronics here.

So an innovative device.

It immediately became
a standard military timing fuse.

Five million were produced
by the Toyshop during the war.

It differed from anything that had
gone before - it's completely novel.

It was cheap, it was predictable,

which is the success
of any invention, isn't it?

By the autumn of 1942,

the Allies were finally
moving onto the offensive.

In North Africa,

the British 8th Army struck
a decisive blow at El Alamein.

The victory at El Alamein

is the first major
British victory of the war.

And crucially, it gives the Allies
the chance to springboard into Italy

and take the fight to the Germans
and the European mainland.

But the desert war had revealed
that British infantry weapons

performed badly against German tanks
in a major battle.

The Toyshop's own Sticky Bomb

had been designed
for a last-ditch defence of Britain.

But the army needed
something with a bigger punch.

What they need
and what is identified
is some sort of explosive charge,

which gives them a chance
of engaging a German tank.

The British needed their own
portable anti-tank weapon,

and they needed it quickly.

The Toyshop had been
experimenting with mortars

since the beginning of the war.

So, a mortar is basically
a close support infantry weapon.

You drop a bomblet down a tube,
it hits the firing mechanism,

shoots out of the tube,
and comes down and explodes.

But it wasn't particularly accurate.

Jefferis thought he could do better.

He discovered the remains
of a type of mortar

that, instead of a tube,

used a spring-loaded rod
known as a spigot.

Its projectile
fitted over the spigot,

which was pushed by a spring.

It triggered a small charge that
propelled the projectile forwards.

So this means that you can put
quite a large-diameter projectile,

you know, be it three inches
or six inches,

erm, onto the spigot,

and instead of having to enclose it
in a six-inch-diameter barrel,

you can reduce it
to quite a light base device.

Jefferis decided
to turn the spigot mortar

into a shoulder-fired system.

Which meant that it was something
that you could carry around

and you could use in any position,
lying down or standing up,

or even from the hip,
in some occasions.

The first test showed
that the spigot's spring

had an almighty recoil.

(GRUNTS)

By adjusting the spring,

he developed the ideal balance
between recoil and force.

But there was another problem.

The bomb had to be able
to pierce the tank's thick armour.

Again, genius struck.

Jefferis used a concept
known as the shaped charge.

A shaped-charge projectile

contains explosive
packed behind a cone of copper.

When the projectile hits its target,

the explosive detonates
and melts the cone.

The detonation pushes the molten
metal forwards with such force

that it can punch through
thick metal armour.

On the firing range,
Jefferis loaded a shaped charge

into his perfected
shoulder launching system

and fired at an armour-plated target.

The result was
an outstanding success.

The shaped charge penetrated
the heaviest armour

used on German tanks.

It suddenly provided

the man in the frontline battle,
the infantryman,

with a means of combating a tank.

Suddenly, he didn't have to run.
He could stay and fight.

The weapon was named
Projectile Infantry Anti-Tank,

or PIAT, for short.

It was originally called
the Jefferis Shoulder Gun, but

they didn't like people's names
so they changed it to PIAT.

It was a massive breakthrough.

The advantages of
the PIAT are threefold.

First of all, it's smokeless,
so it can be used

in relatively dangerous situations
and not give away
the firer's positon.

Secondly, it's portable,
and thirdly,

the shaped charge gives it
a bit more punch then you'd expect

from the size of that weapon.

The PIAT was first used in combat in
the 1943 Allied invasion of Sicily.

Several Victoria Crosses
were won by PIAT teams,

and the Canadian army ranked it as
its most effective infantry weapon.

By 1944, the Nazis were in retreat

and the Allies had
victory in their sights.

The invasion of Europe was imminent,

and the Toyshop's inventions would be
at the heart of France's liberation.

The important thing, I think,

certainly for the French resistance
in 1944, was their support to D-Day,

and in the lead-up to D-Day,
they were supplied with

a lot of explosives and L-delays,
which were produced by MD1.

To support the Allied landings,

the Resistance was tasked
with destroying German logistics.

And on the night of D-Day,
they disrupted French railways.

They allegedly broke the lines
in 1,000 places.

And up to 3,000 lines
were cut in the following 3 weeks.

(EXPLOSION)

So that was a huge effect
in preventing Germans

getting their enforcing divisions
actually into the battle area.

Explosive triggers
known as switches,

designed by the Toyshop,
helped drive the Nazis back.

They were certainly used to
cut railways and to attack railways.

Some of the booby-trap switches
were used to de-rail trains as well.

If you want to cut a railway line,

you can do it
with a bit of explosive.

If you want to definitely
do a lot of damage,

then you want to do that
as the train is going over it,

and in that case,
you need a pressure switch,
which MD1 developed.

With the invasion a success,

the end of the war
was on the horizon.

The Toyshop's future seemed secure.

Their mines, bombs
and anti-tank weapons

had been used in dozens of special
operations and countless battles.

But in fact,
its downfall was looming.

The Toyshop's reliance
on Churchill's support

has been really good
for it in the past.

It's allowed it to bypass
the bureaucracy and get new weapons

into production and out to
the troops as quickly as possible.

However, Churchill's patronage

has also been a bit of
a double-edged sword.

It made the Toyshop upset people
in the wider military bureaucracy,

and they're singularly reliant
on his support

for their continued existence.

Shortly after the Nazi surrender
on 8th May 1945,

Churchill lost
the British general election.

And this is catastrophic
for the Toyshop.

Suddenly, they've lost their patron.

And once Japan surrendered
on 15th August,

military production across Britain
instantly ground to a halt.

The war was over,

and with it went the Toyshop's
main reason to exist.

With Churchill gone,
the Toyshop is in the firing line.

The military bureaucracy that
have had to put up with all this -

what they would have seen
as madcap nonsense -

now can move in
and dismantle the Toyshop.

On 1st November 1945,

the Ministry of Supply
officially took over the unit,

and began sacking the staff.

Millis Jefferis
remained in the army...

..eventually running a top-secret
school of military engineering.

Stuart Macrae
returned to civilian life,

where he worked
in the energy industry.

I think Macrae was gutted by it.
He'd fought to keep this intact,

he'd got a wonderful establishment,

and suddenly it was
kicked from under him.

But even worse,
the Toyshop was systematically wiped

from the official histories
of the war

by a bureaucracy jealous of
its special treatment by Churchill,

and of its success.

Even the idea of creating a museum
for the Toyshop's work is declined.

They don't want
anything to do with it.

Churchill's departure
brought down the curtain

on a hidden part of
British military history.

But it had been his own
unorthodox approach

that had allowed the Toyshop
to succeed during its brief life.

The Toyshop is very much

a representation
of Churchill's personality.

This idea for the madcap,

the try-anything,
the unconventional,
out-of-the-box thinker,

because of Churchill's
mindset himself,

it gave an opportunity
for free-thinkers
to rise to the top.

And as long as
they could produce the goods,

and as long as it actually worked
and was effective,

Churchill would always
be open to an idea.

Churchill's collection of geniuses,

rule-breakers and innovators

had helped to protect
Britain in its darkest hour...

..and onwards to victory.

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