Steve Crabtree gets an unusual start to his career: watching paint dry.

Steve Crabtree left school aged 15 in 1985 and started work as a painter & decorator in Vickers Shipbuilding and Engineering Limited in Barrow in Furness, where he painted nuclear submarines. Steve left the shipyard in 1992, went to Art College and after leaving college – and teaching music technology for a short time - started at the BBC in January 1999 as a junior researcher on ‘Tomorrow’s World’. Steve has produced and directed much of the BBC’s Science, Arts and Business programming, and made programs across all four BBC television channels. He is now the Editor of flagship BBC Science Strand ‘Horizon’ - now in its 52nd Year.

This story originally aired on May 20, 2016 in an episode titled “Painting A Nuclear Submarine.”