The record attempt was the idea of the government to bolster morale at home and send a message abroad that British wartime manufacturing capacity was unaffected by German bombing.

The Ministry of Information produced the newsreel Worker's Week-End using film of the attempt, detailing the construction process from the beginning to first flight, emphasising the vital role of women in the workforce on the "factory front".

As part of the BBC television's Battle of Britain 70th anniversary season, the record attempt was the subject of a one-hour documentary film Wellington Bomber.

The 26.25 metres (86.1 ft) wingspan Vickers Wellington bomber was designed by Rex Pierson and made by the Vickers-Armstrongs company.

[2][3] With its geodetic aluminium skeleton airframe construction covered by a varnished linen fabric skin it was said to be held in great regard by aircrews and pilots for its durability and resistance to damage, able to survive long enough to return home, even if one engine failed.

[1][3][4] Two Wellington bombers have survived to the present; the one recovered from Loch Ness is on display at Brooklands Museum Weybridge, Surrey.

[5] The propaganda newsreel Worker's Week-End showing the construction of the Wellington bomber was made in 1943, at the height of the British bombing efforts against Germany.

[1][6] In particular, the movie was to be shown in America, with an American-sounding narrator deliberately chosen, to show that Britain had not been beaten by The Blitz, the sustained German bombing of 1940-1941, and was now holding its own in production efforts.

[1][7] Other propaganda films of the period focussing on factory production include the one-off newsreels Night Shift (1942), Clyde-built (1943), Coalminer (1943), and A Date with a Tank (1944), and the series Worker and Warfront (1942–1946) and War Work News (1942–1945).

He indicates that the company test pilot Gerald Whinney, who "stood next to me" (but not shown), said that the electrical fitters were "like a lot of bloody ants, hope they don't forget anything".

He also describes how he had noticed the girl working on the exterior of the cockpit, Ivy Bennett, because she was wearing a pink chiffon blouse, because she had come back from a party to help out in the attempt.

The film then shows the bolting and stitching of the covering fabric to the wings and other large control surface frames, described as the "4 great sections" of the aircraft.

After a general scene of the construction, the crane lifts the rear gun turret into place, followed by a shot of the main undercarriage and wheel being moved into the raised position.

After a shot of the front gun turret being tested for movement, the completed bomber is towed out of the factory tail-first, as a worker cleans the cockpit windows.

The film covered the design of the bomber by Barnes Wallis and the background behind its urgent operational need and thus necessity of easy and quick manufacture.

Cooling told how his first flight returned with petrol leaking out of a fuel tank, with the pilot simply remarking they were 'back in time for last orders'; the crew were flying again within two days.

The film covered air raids on the factory and the measures taken to prevent injury or damage, including a system of amber and red warning lights, and the illumination of nearby hills to fool German bombers.

With all regular forces committed in theatre, security at the factory was provided by the Home Guard, who also escorted workers as they undertook snagging work to finished aircraft on the neighbouring fields into which they were distributed with wide spacings.

By contrast, it also discussed the problems of instances of low morale, absenteeism, death, and the effect of industrial relations movements since the 1926 general strike, and the Labour Acts used to bring in Scottish workers.

Dance music was piped into the hangars to boost morale, while the factory had its own doctor, dentist and barber, and employed strict control of comfort breaks.

According to Hastings it had probably been a Wellington force that had caused an air raid warning in Berlin, just as the visiting Russian ambassador Vyacheslav Molotov was being reassured by Hitler that the British were near defeat.

In the wider civilian context, the film dealt with the effects of domestic bomb damage and air raids, and air raid shelters, and the role of Welsh coal mining, a reserved industry supporting production at Broughton, with Ben Motram having been a coal miner at Llay main colliery, the deepest mine in Europe at the time, with wife Constance employed as a seamstress at the factory.

Further on the film relayed the progress of the ground and aerial fighting in Europe, and covered German Luftwaffe raids on the Channel Ports and Dunkirk.

There were stories about the success or otherwise of the resulting reunions with their husbands returning home from the fighting, moving forward into demobilized civilian life.

[9] Towards the end of the documentary, there is also extended footage of Air Forces Memorial at Runnymede, used as the backdrop as Cooling recites a poem he wrote.

The documentary closes with an on screen dedication to "Flt Lt Rupert “Tiny” Cooling (1920–2010) and to the wartime workers on the Broughton production line".