Land's End to Porthcawl Coast


Land's End to Porthcawl

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Southwest Britain, where the Welsh and Cornish coastlines

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form the mouth of a huge natural funnel

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which traps a vast body of water.

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As the Atlantic Ocean behind me surges along this coastline, it

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gets squeezed towards the point over there where England and Wales meet.

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In English, that's the Severn Estuary.

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In Welsh, it's Mor Havren, the Severn Sea.

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"The Severn Sea" - now that's a name that makes you want to explore!

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On my expedition to the Severn Sea and beyond I'm joined by some

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familiar faces, and a brand-new addition to the team.

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Champion surfer Renee Godfrey swims with seals and explores the unspoilt marine habitats of Lundy.

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The water here is running wild, as nature intended.

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Mark Horton discovers how painting a simple line on the side of ships has helped save countless lives.

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Fantastic!

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Nick Crane gets the hang of climbing on Exmoor's treacherous sea cliffs.

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I'm clinging on to everything I can, I tell you.

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And Hermione Cockburn visits an enchanted castle by the

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sea where a millionaire media mogul let his imagination run wild.

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This is not something he would get away with today.

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This is Coast.

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Crossing from the north coast of France, we're back on home turf.

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Our journey continues,

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heading for Porthcawl, starting at Botallack, near Lands End.

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The jagged edge of Cornwall jabs defiantly into the Atlantic.

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Only the most durable rock can resist that ocean's pounding.

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This tough coastline doesn't give up its treasures easily.

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But from the earliest times, men have been drawn here to pit themselves against the granite.

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Hidden inside the rock is a magical ingredient that brought the world to the Cornish coast.

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They came in search of a rare metal with remarkable properties - tin!

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The relics of tin mining can be seen along the north coast of Cornwall.

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The engine houses and their chimneys may be derelict,

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but these ruins are reminders of an industry that connects us directly to the ancient world,

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thanks to a humble household object.

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How about this? A tin.

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Nowadays though, you'd probably call it a can, made of aluminium or steel.

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But the originals started out in the 1800s, and were made of iron, iron coated with a thin layer of tin.

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Tin doesn't rust. It's one of its many magical properties.

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And food kept in rust-free tin cans remained edible for ages.

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But ages and ages ago, tin was at the cutting edge of a much bigger revolution.

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Mix tin with copper and you get bronze.

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The birth of the Bronze Age, some 3,500 years ago, owed a lot to the tin of the Cornish coast.

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'Archaeologist Adam Sharpe has studied ancient bronze tools.'

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An axe head.

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This is sort of the staple working tool of the bronze age.

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Virtually every piece of bronze that you find in Western Europe

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has got Cornish tin in it.

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Once people the world over realise that tin is to be had here,

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-Cornwall becomes pivotal.

-Absolutely.

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In terms of distribution on the Earth's surface,

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tin is very rare indeed even in terms of sort of western Europe.

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There's a bit in Iberia in Spain, there's a little bit on Sardinia,

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but almost all of it is in Cornwall and West Devon.

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And it means that the people who controlled that resource traded all over Western Europe.

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Thousands of years ago, long and perilous journeys were being made to this coast.

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As the Bronze Age boomed in Europe, they needed Cornish tin.

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The tin trade wasn't just with near neighbours across the Severn Sea but with the wider world.

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Tin was travelling as far away as Ancient Greece and the Middle East.

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Bronze Age traders took great risks navigating

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this treacherous coastline, but the rewards were worth it.

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Copper tool, it blunts very easily, it's too bendy.

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Adding just the right amount of tin, 10-11% of tin, makes it hard, makes

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it tough, it's sharpenable, it can be polished.

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For what, in the main is bronze being used to make?

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Utilitarian tools, axes and knives and chisels and things like that.

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Enormous range of jewellery and weapons, and

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it's the making of swords, which is, absolutely typifies the later part of the Bronze Age.

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So in a way, that puts Cornwall at the centre of an international arms trade!

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I'm afraid so!

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Throughout the Bronze Age, ancient armies relied on the Cornish coast for the raw materials of battle.

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Hiya, Neil.

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'To see why, I'm meeting Neil Burridge, who still

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'practises the age-old art of forging bronze weapons.'

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Got the fire going, just starting to warm up.

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As the temperature rises, Neil prepares a mould made of stone so we can cast our own bronze sword.

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So that's it.

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Oh, I'm so excited.

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Inside the fire is a crucible containing the two metals that together form bronze.

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90% copper will make our sword flexible, 10% tin will make it hard with a cutting edge.

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Heated to 1,200 degrees Celsius, we're ready to pour.

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-That's good.

-Wow.

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Wow, even that is a beautiful thing.

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Look at the colour of it.

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-My first sword!

-I'm just going to take the clamps off it now.

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If we try to move it too quickly it'll snap.

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And if we leave it too long in the mould it gets stuck in the mould and it won't come out.

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So, a bit like Excalibur, really.

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-It sure is.

-Give it a

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little wiggle. I can feel it so you should be able to draw it out very slowly, but don't drop it.

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Wow, look at that.

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That's how you draw a sword from a stone!

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A short distance up the coast,

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Tintagel Castle, long associated with the legendary King Arthur.

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Arthur and Merlin may be a magical myth...

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..but just 35 miles across the water is a real magic kingdom, Lundy Island.

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This jewel on the edge of the Severn Sea is one of the most

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precious wildlife sites in Britain, now owned by the National Trust.

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North Atlantic storms batter little Lundy, it takes a special breed to survive.

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These hardy ponies were introduced by the island's previous owner.

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So were the Soay sheep.

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But the real lure of Lundy is beyond the cliffs.

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Some claim the surrounding waters are the wildest, most diverse habitat anywhere on our coast.

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Champion surfer, diver, and Coast first-timer Renee Godfrey

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is a native of the Severn Sea but has never ventured out to Lundy, until now.

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I've surfed all along the Devon coastline and I know the Welsh

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coast like the back of my hand.

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And Lundy's always just been there, mysteriously on the horizon,

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and now I'm finally going to get the chance to explore.

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I'm really looking forward to swimming with the grey seals

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and getting a closer look at their unique underwater habitat.

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What makes the waters around Lundy so special is that they're completely protected.

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Lundy is England's first and only marine nature reserve, so the water here is running wild,

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as nature intended.

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Hi, Keith, how are you?

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-I'm well, welcome to your first dive on Lundy.

-Thank you very much.

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I'm going to give you my kit. Marine biologist, Keith Hiscock, has been diving off Lundy since the 1960s.

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Recently the experience has become even more spectacular.

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In 2003, Lundy became Britain's first statutory no-take zone.

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That means it's now completely undisturbed by fishermen.

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I'm eager to see how nature gets on left to its own devices.

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The first thing you notice is the plant life, like a garden gone wild.

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In deeper waters there are wonderful corals that you might expect to see only in much warmer climes.

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I'm hoping Keith can show me some of Lundy's hidden gems.

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Now look at these trumpet anemones.

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Lundy is one of the few places in Great Britain where they occur.

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They look so delicate and as the water moves past them,

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look like they're clapping their hands with their tentacles.

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They're mostly a bag of water with stinging cells.

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The trumpet anemones actually have photosynthetic algae in the tissue just like tropical corals, so they

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only occur in shallow water where there's enough light for the algae to thrive.

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This anemone wouldn't look out of place in the warmer Mediterranean waters.

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That's the magic of Lundy, it's full of surprises.

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Beautiful snakelock anemones.

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They're very beautiful but they're also very dangerous to any animals that stumble into them.

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Because again they've got stinging cells which paralyse the prey

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and so any clumsy shrimp or crab that clutches the tentacles is dead meat.

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Lundy's lobsters, though, are armour-plated against

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such dangers.

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Since the no-take zone was established, there are more

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of them here than before, and they're much bigger.

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But what I really want to see in this underwater treasure trove is

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a tiny gem that's rare in British waters and all too easy to miss.

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Here we are, I've got scarlet and gold star corals here.

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Wow, they're so small, they're like little hidden jewels, aren't they?

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Yes, that's a very good way to put it, hidden jewels, because we've had to look quite hard

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for these and you do have to know what sort of habitat they occur in.

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These seas are absolutely bursting with life,

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completely untainted by man.

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The shores of Lundy are nourished by

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balmy currents from the Gulf Stream.

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Not only do warm-water corals find a home here, all sorts of plant and animal life flourish.

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It's a rich source of food and an ideal environment for larger sea mammals.

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Island warden Nicola Saunders is taking me to see Lundy's amazing grey seals.

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Look, there's some on that rock over there.

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They lead a truly wild life. Out here I've got to play by their rules.

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They're wild, so you've got to be

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careful and treat them with respect but generally as long as

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you're fairly passive, don't chase after them,

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then they're just inquisitive and they

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want to see what you're up to in their territory.

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Great, let's get in.

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They're so big and clumsy and cumbersome when they're lying on the rocks.

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And the minute they get into the water they're so agile and

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so quick and they swim up to you, look you right in the eyes, and try and gauge whether they

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like you or not, and then just swim away like that, so fast, amazing!

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That was incredible.

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Lundy more than lives up to its promise.

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It's a rich and precious haven for marine life.

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A coastline where nature really runs wild.

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Lundy's once remote paradise has been opened up to the public.

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Day trippers travel to and fro aboard the MS Oldenburg.

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Her route takes us back to the Devon coast, to a resort town with a difference.

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200 years ago, the seaside holiday we take for granted was still being invented.

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In places like Ilfracombe they faced some formidable challenges, not least just getting to the beach.

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High cliffs stand all around the sheltered coves.

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So in the 1820s they looked across the Severn Sea for a solution.

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They brought in the real experts to break through the cliffs,

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miners from South Wales.

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I'm going to follow in the footsteps of those miners to explore how the

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Victorians learnt to love to be beside the sea.

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My guide is outdoor swimmer Kate Rew.

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Now, I'm amazed at this. This seems like an awful lot of trouble to go

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to for a swim, to actually dig a tunnel through a rock!

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It's amazing what people will do to get to a nice beach.

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Look at that, that's where it's been cut. That's maybe where they've drilled for blasting.

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All so that they could get to a beach for a swim.

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Some of us are very desperate to get into the water.

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Capitalising on the newfangled fashion for taking a dip, the Ilfracombe Sea Bathing Company's

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Welsh miners dug four tunnels through solid rock, wide enough to take a horse and carriage.

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They swam in from bathing machines, they were called, wooden huts on

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wheels that would be horse drawn all the way through these tunnels.

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And three foot into the water, where the ladies would elegantly step out.

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Bathing machines were portable changing rooms

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for preserving a lady's modesty in this novel environment.

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Once in the water, the novice bathers had to learn how to behave.

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The whole experience was stage managed.

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At Ilfracombe, they held back the rough seas by fencing off tidal pools.

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Walls were built to hold in calm water.

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Early bathers still needed some encouragement, and with the prospect

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of a swim here myself, I know how they felt.

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Looking forward to your dip?

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Let's talk about that later.

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Well, I've got an album here that I'd like to show you of someone who was here

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at all times during Victorian times to encourage people, people like you, to go swimming.

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He's not the kind of figure I expected.

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This is Professor Harry Parker, who was quite a figure around here.

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-He certainly was, that's quite a figure!

-With his top hat and his comedy nose,

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and he is one of England's greatest natatorial artistes.

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-Easy for you to say.

-Absolutely, and he would teach any good people on the beach diving and fancy swimming.

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Tricks like lighting a cigar while swimming, drinking a glass of champagne.

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This kind of comedy action showed how happy people could be in the water.

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Was it a family affair?

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Very much not, actually, even though the Victorians

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were very family orientated, the beaches were strictly segregated.

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So we're sitting here on, this is the men's beach, so men only.

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The women would be taken through the headland to the other side and

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a bugler would sit on the rocks in between and if any man dared swim out the area

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-enough to actually catch sight of the women, then a horn would be blown loudly.

-Wow!

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They would be ejected, there were newspaper reports saying that, you know, if the men were named that had

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committed this crime, then they would be thrown out of civilised society. It was very strict.

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Not only were they confined to separate beaches, there was a strict dress code too.

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And quite a double standard for men and women.

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The Victorian lady had to be very properly dressed when she

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went into the water, and these are the kinds of things that they wore.

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-Very nice.

-So you needed a good pair of pantaloons, below the knee obviously, to preserve her modesty.

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And a kind of dress or smock over the top, and these were apparently sometimes weighed down with lead

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pellets around the hem to stop them floating up.

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Lead is what you want on a swimming costume in the open sea!

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Half a pound of lead shot.

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-It would be like swimming in a sort of a hessian sack, I think, by the time it's wet.

-And what about me?

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-What do I get?

-You delightfully get to swim in the buff!

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Oh, come on! I wanted a duffle coat, wellington boots and a hat.

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She's not joking.

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Away from the ladies, hidden behind the headland on their own beach,

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those Victorian gents were a lot less buttoned up than you might imagine.

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It wasn't uncommon for the men to swim in the nude,

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even if the women on the beach next door were covered up.

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Swimming in the buff? I thought Victorian gentlemen had more decorum.

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Where's Queen Victoria when you need her? That's what I want to know.

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The tidal pool is still used today.

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The water is calmer and warmer than the sea around it.

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It's still a bit chilly all the same.

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-Watch out, you might get arrested.

-I can definitely hear a bugler!

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The Welsh miners who crossed the sea to open up the beaches of Ilfracombe

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were followed by waves of tourists on day trips between England and Wales.

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In the late 19th and early 20th century,

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pleasure boats criss-crossed the Severn Sea.

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The motor vessel Balmoral is a relic of a time when

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foreign travel was, for some, a booze cruise between the resorts of South Wales and North Devon.

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By the 1960s, exotic locations overseas made the pleasure steamers look dated and the

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opening of the Severn Bridge meant the sea was no longer the quickest route between England and Wales.

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Travelling along this coast, though, has always been a struggle.

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This is where Exmoor meets the Severn Sea.

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These imposing sea cliffs posed another challenge

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to Victorian engineers opening up this coast for tourists.

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In 1890, Lynmouth, by the sea, was linked with Lynton, up the hill,

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by a water-powered funicular railway that's still going strong.

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But not everyone wants to take the short cut.

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Nick Crane is meeting some pioneers who were determined to tackle these cliffs the hard way.

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It's 1953 and the world's highest mountain has been conquered

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in a breathtaking 29,000 ft ascent.

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The achievement prompted one mountaineer who'd missed out on the

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Everest adventure to plan a conquest of his own. Not up, but along.

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And it was a lot more than 29,000 ft.

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In his younger days, Clement Archer had been working in India when Everest was conquered.

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It's thought that he'd secretly hoped to join that expedition.

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Instead, Archer pioneered a new concept here on the Exmoor coast.

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Nowadays we might call it coasteering, a 14-mile climb along

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sea cliffs sandwiched perilously between pounding sea and sky.

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The purists know this route as the Exmoor Traverse.

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It runs from Foreland Point to Combe Martin,

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nearly three times longer than the ascent of Everest.

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And this route wasn't completed until 25 years after Everest.

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In 1978, Terry Cheek and a team of three young police cadets finally conquered the Exmoor Traverse.

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It took them four days and nights.

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Their achievement has not been matched since.

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30 years later, Terry and two of his team are back at the Exmoor Traverse.

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Ah, now what is going on there?

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You've got no rope shift, you're creeping around under an overhang above the water,

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wearing what look like soggy jeans.

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Yeah, and of course it was flares back 30 years ago.

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You did this in flared jeans?

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Do you remember this part of it, Trevor?

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Yeah, and talking about the clothing, the boots were made of

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pressed cardboard with a rubber sole.

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They were very cheap and not very flexible to begin with.

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Course, they get saturated with water and it's almost like

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wearing papier-mache while rock climbing. So it's a real challenge.

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If you don't get it right, you're cut off.

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And that may, without getting dramatic about it, mean drowning.

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What they call risk assessment, I don't remember us

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talking about those words back then.

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I'm not sure there was a risk assessment.

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Absolutely not, otherwise we wouldn't have done it!

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Terry was already an experienced climber in 1978.

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He's in his sixties now and still loves these cliffs.

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He's challenged me to take on a section of this daunting traverse.

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The Exmoor Everest.

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-The Exmoor Everest.

-Shall we go down?

-Yes, certainly.

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Doesn't sound like a walk in the park.

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Below, below.

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I just kicked a rock down which is not good when you've got somebody below.

0:23:360:23:40

Terry, the nature of this route in rock-climbing terms is pretty bizarre really, it seems to me.

0:23:430:23:49

Because I associate climbing with going up mountains, not going horizontally along, sideways.

0:23:490:23:56

The climbing is much the same. I mean, you really set your own rules.

0:23:560:24:00

We set a rule of not entering the water and not climbing out onto the grass line above the rock.

0:24:000:24:05

It's probably one of the harder spots

0:24:050:24:10

because we're only about three feet above the high water mark now.

0:24:110:24:16

So, I mean, only a couple of hours ago the waves were bashing at the bottom of this, weren't they?

0:24:160:24:20

Just below my feet, yes.

0:24:200:24:24

This is a bit of a tricky move, isn't it?

0:24:240:24:26

It's quite difficult.

0:24:270:24:29

That's it, cling your hands underneath that spike.

0:24:290:24:33

I'm clinging on to everything I can!

0:24:330:24:35

Look down at your feet, you'll be OK there.

0:24:350:24:37

-Under here it's all wet and slimy.

-Yes.

0:24:370:24:39

It's covered in sea water.

0:24:390:24:42

Jam the hands up in that crack. I know it's wet and it's painful.

0:24:420:24:45

Very tricky. Now what?

0:24:470:24:49

Some of the finger holes are really pretty minute, aren't they?

0:24:490:24:54

It's not quite as easy as...

0:24:560:24:58

sitting at a desk

0:24:580:25:01

working on my laptop, it has to be said.

0:25:010:25:04

If you get caught by a rising tide or a storm surge in the Bristol Channel, what do you do?

0:25:070:25:12

Once you've been driven above the high water mark, then you are in unknown territory.

0:25:120:25:17

You could be in absolute hell about 70 feet up on probably rock and vegetation.

0:25:170:25:23

We had to resort to climbing at night, waiting on

0:25:260:25:29

the cliffs for the tide to

0:25:290:25:32

recede to get past a difficult section, and it was freezing.

0:25:320:25:37

We also discovered what barnacles could do to your hands.

0:25:370:25:40

You know, it's like very rough, coarse sand paper. Very painful.

0:25:400:25:44

I've only done a section of this climb, and as

0:25:440:25:47

we haul ourselves up the cliff I'm feeling pretty exhilarated.

0:25:470:25:51

I've got nothing but admiration for the achievement of Terry and his team three decades ago.

0:25:510:25:57

I'm left too with a new respect for the awesome cliffs and the fierce tides of the Severn Sea.

0:25:570:26:04

Eventually, the imposing cliffs of north Devon give up their grip on the coast.

0:26:060:26:11

At Bridgwater Bay at low tide, the shallow water becomes a vast expanse of mud.

0:26:180:26:24

On the edge of the bay, in Stolford, there's a fishing family who

0:26:240:26:28

for generations have earned their living from the mud.

0:26:280:26:32

To come home with a decent catch,

0:26:340:26:36

they rely on centuries-old skills, and ancient tools, unique to the men of the mudflats.

0:26:360:26:42

My name is Brendan Sellick and I've been a mudhorse fisherman

0:26:440:26:47

all my working life ever since I was a nipper.

0:26:470:26:51

I used the mudhorse right up till well in me 70s.

0:26:510:26:54

My son Adrian is now doing it.

0:26:560:26:58

He's pushing the mudhorse because it's a very physical job.

0:26:580:27:01

You've got to be fit out there in the soft mud.

0:27:010:27:03

If you tried to go and do that without a mudhorse, some days you'd just disappear.

0:27:030:27:10

It gets in your bones and when I first started there was

0:27:110:27:15

quite a number of families in this estuary doing it.

0:27:150:27:18

Not only around here but all around the Bridgwater bay.

0:27:180:27:20

It's just now got that there's just us left.

0:27:200:27:24

We come out in all weathers, even if it's snowing, sleet, hailstones.

0:27:240:27:30

We do get worn down like any other job, I suppose,

0:27:300:27:32

but this job you've got to come out otherwise your catch gets spoilt.

0:27:320:27:37

On a day like today, I know it's a bit drizzly, but it's quite pleasant.

0:27:370:27:41

You feel the breeze and then you know the tide's turned.

0:27:410:27:45

Should be turning now in a minute.

0:27:450:27:48

You work with the tide, not the tide works with you.

0:27:480:27:52

You don't really know what you're going to catch with it, but that's what I like about it.

0:27:520:27:56

Brown shrimp, that's what we're mainly after.

0:27:560:27:59

When I've got a few little dover sole, slip soles.

0:28:000:28:04

One or two prawns.

0:28:040:28:06

We've caught all sorts out here. I've had a little lobster, a seahorse.

0:28:060:28:10

And what I do is give them a sieve,

0:28:100:28:14

let all the baby shrimps go

0:28:150:28:17

and pick the rubbish out I don't want.

0:28:200:28:22

That's my favourite, the little slip soles.

0:28:270:28:30

Rolled in flour, fried in butter.

0:28:300:28:32

Beautiful.

0:28:320:28:34

There's a nice skate.

0:28:360:28:38

Two hours ago, that was swimming.

0:28:500:28:53

How fresher do you want than that?

0:28:530:28:55

Onwards to one of Britain's great maritime cities.

0:29:060:29:11

For centuries, Bristol has thrived as a hub for international trade, the metropolis of the Severn Sea.

0:29:110:29:18

In 1497, John Cabot connected Bristol to the New World by sailing to Newfoundland.

0:29:190:29:26

A replica of Cabot's little ship sits next to the mighty SS Great Britain, the first ocean-going ship

0:29:280:29:35

with an iron hull, brainchild of Isambard Kingdom Brunel.

0:29:350:29:39

Bristol's famous sons are remembered by their historic ships.

0:29:410:29:45

But Mark Horton's on the trail of the city's unsung hero,

0:29:450:29:49

whose memorial is written on the side of modern ships worldwide.

0:29:490:29:54

Bristol's port carries 12 million tonnes of cargo every year.

0:29:560:30:01

Hundreds of steel containers are moved every day.

0:30:010:30:05

So they have to run a tight ship here.

0:30:050:30:08

To check that a vessel is not overloaded, every ship has to have a series of lines painted on the side.

0:30:100:30:17

They're known as the Plimsoll line, and over the last 140 years they've saved thousands of lives.

0:30:170:30:25

If the water comes over the Plimsoll line when the ship's being loaded, it's too heavy and might sink.

0:30:250:30:32

This warning mark was the brainwave of Bristol born Samuel Plimsoll.

0:30:320:30:37

Remarkably, 140 years ago, a simple brush-stroke made Plimsoll the most

0:30:370:30:43

popular man in Britain, and nearly brought down the government.

0:30:430:30:47

But aside from a modest plaque, there's very little in Bristol to mark his extraordinary story.

0:30:470:30:53

In the 19th century, there was a national scandal in our ports.

0:30:530:30:58

Greedy owners deliberately overloaded ships to increase profits,

0:30:580:31:03

or claim on the insurance when their overburdened ships sank.

0:31:030:31:08

Samuel Plimsoll realised a line must be drawn.

0:31:080:31:12

Now, though, the nation has all but forgotten his struggle.

0:31:120:31:16

Writer Nicolette Jones is as passionate as I am about restoring Plimsoll's reputation.

0:31:160:31:24

How big a problem was overloaded ships in the 19th century?

0:31:240:31:28

Bigger than you'd think.

0:31:280:31:30

The reports suggest that 500 sailors a year

0:31:300:31:33

lost their lives unnecessarily.

0:31:330:31:35

Something like 856 ships went down within 10 miles of the British coast in 1871.

0:31:350:31:42

In conditions that were no worse than a strong breeze.

0:31:420:31:45

Which suggests that there was quite a prevalence of avarice and neglect.

0:31:450:31:49

I've got an example here, the London Times, March 1st 1866,

0:31:490:31:54

and it tells of the loss of the London.

0:31:540:31:58

"The ship is sinking, no hope of being saved, God bless my poor orphans."

0:31:580:32:04

Was this common?

0:32:040:32:06

It was one of the sad events that triggered

0:32:060:32:08

Plimsoll's campaign because the London, a ship that was

0:32:080:32:11

travelling to Australia, was partly a passenger ship and also carried a great deal of cargo.

0:32:110:32:17

A lot of the witnesses who saw it leave said it

0:32:170:32:19

was conspicuously overloaded, it was too low in the water.

0:32:190:32:23

And 270 people drowned, so it struck a chord with the public.

0:32:230:32:27

So in many ways the London was sort of the Titanic of an earlier generation?

0:32:270:32:33

Yes, it was, and the inquiry afterwards did suggest that perhaps

0:32:330:32:36

a load line in the future would avoid this kind of catastrophe.

0:32:360:32:41

Plimsoll campaigned to get his safe load line painted on ships.

0:32:410:32:47

But knowing exactly where to draw the line isn't as simple as it seems.

0:32:470:32:52

It has a lot to do with salt.

0:32:520:32:54

Scientist John Polatch has offered to give us a demonstration using

0:32:540:32:58

two tanks of water, one salty and one fresh.

0:32:580:33:03

And we have some eggs here and we can show with the eggs that

0:33:030:33:06

things float differently in fresh water than they do in salt water.

0:33:060:33:09

So, if we pop an egg into fresh water, it sinks.

0:33:090:33:12

and salt water.

0:33:120:33:15

It floats! So we've got a couple of little boats there.

0:33:150:33:18

We've got some weights that we can attach to these little tin boats.

0:33:180:33:22

I'm going to come down and look at this close up.

0:33:220:33:24

We also have some cargo to load into them.

0:33:240:33:27

You've got to be careful it's balanced.

0:33:270:33:30

Now, that's looking good.

0:33:300:33:33

So that's now floating pretty well.

0:33:330:33:36

So shall we now take this one out and put it in fresh water?

0:33:370:33:43

It should sink.

0:33:430:33:45

And that is precisely why the ship can sail with heavier cargo in

0:33:450:33:51

sea water, because it has more buoyancy in the water.

0:33:510:33:54

So, ships are marked with different lines for salt and freshwater,

0:33:540:34:00

but climate plays a part too.

0:34:000:34:02

Ship's pilot Paul Chase needs to know one line from another.

0:34:020:34:07

We have this for the summer.

0:34:070:34:10

The regions of the world have been split up.

0:34:100:34:12

This is our summer load line.

0:34:120:34:15

If we go to tropical, T for Tropical.

0:34:150:34:19

Better weather, therefore we can load the ship deeper.

0:34:190:34:23

If we go to weather that's worse, we refer to it as winter, we have to load it less.

0:34:230:34:28

So it's temperature-dependent but salt-dependent as well.

0:34:280:34:31

Yes, you're right.

0:34:310:34:33

With so many lives at stake, you'd think painting a line on a ship wouldn't be controversial.

0:34:330:34:40

But it took Plimsoll years of bitter struggle.

0:34:400:34:44

There were too many vested interests.

0:34:440:34:46

Plimsoll became an MP and found himself in a house full of ship-owning MPs

0:34:460:34:51

who wanted to make as much profit as possible and who sabotaged his legislation at every stage.

0:34:510:34:56

So there must have been immense parliamentary battles to achieve this

0:34:560:34:59

and rather like the battles to abolish the slave trade.

0:34:590:35:02

Yes, Plimsoll's story is very much a story about machinations in the corridors of power.

0:35:020:35:07

It reached its climax when Plimsoll lost his temper.

0:35:070:35:11

He called ship owners murderers and the MPs who colluded with them villains.

0:35:110:35:15

He shook his fist at Disraeli. The most celebrated moment of his career.

0:35:150:35:20

And it led to a huge national outcry which nearly ousted Disraeli from government and led

0:35:200:35:24

to a hasty Merchant Shipping Bill which introduced the Plimsoll mark as we know it.

0:35:240:35:30

Plimsoll's triumph over the greed of ship owners and the corruption of MPs

0:35:300:35:36

made him a national hero to the Victorians.

0:35:360:35:39

It's ironic that today he's perhaps better known

0:35:390:35:44

for the shoes that were named after him.

0:35:440:35:48

I'm wearing a pair of plimsolls, which are perfectly dry,

0:35:480:35:52

providing the water doesn't rise above the rubber.

0:35:520:35:56

We leave Bristol and head back out to sea, over Portbury and Avonmouth

0:36:010:36:06

docks and up the estuary to Purton, on the banks of the Severn.

0:36:060:36:12

I've come to the graveyard of the Severn Sea.

0:36:120:36:15

The Purton Hulks.

0:36:150:36:17

A collection of dead ships that lie sprawled for a mile and a half along the estuary.

0:36:170:36:23

They were brought here to stop erosion by the strong currents.

0:36:240:36:29

Holes were knocked into their hulls so that they silted up and stayed put.

0:36:290:36:34

A lot of these vessels spent their working lives plying up and down the estuary.

0:36:340:36:39

But now they're just an eerie reminder of a time not so very

0:36:390:36:43

long ago when the only way to cross that stretch of water was by boat.

0:36:430:36:47

Its Welsh name, Mor Havren, the Severn Sea, says it all.

0:36:500:36:54

But now that sea has been tamed by two great bridges across the estuary.

0:36:540:36:59

Look hard alongside the first Severn bridge and there's still evidence of the earlier crossing between England

0:37:010:37:07

and Wales, the car ramp for the ferry, abandoned when the service stopped in 1966.

0:37:070:37:12

Back in the '60s, this crossing saved a 50-mile trip round the estuary.

0:37:150:37:19

But you still had to wait for the ferry.

0:37:190:37:22

Long enough for one famous passenger to get caught on camera.

0:37:260:37:30

In May 1966, Bob Dylan had just performed in Bristol

0:37:300:37:33

on his Judas tour, so-called because he'd gone electric.

0:37:330:37:39

Dylan had been booed by some fans, and was facing an uncertain reception in Cardiff.

0:37:390:37:44

The times were changing for the ferry too.

0:37:440:37:48

In the background, the first Severn Bridge just weeks from completion.

0:37:480:37:53

The day it opened, not everyone was cheering.

0:37:530:37:57

Enoch Williams, the ferry owner, lost his livelihood.

0:38:010:38:04

His passion for the old ferry still runs in the family, and Enoch is not forgotten.

0:38:040:38:11

My name is Richard Jones, I'm the eldest grandson of Enoch Williams,

0:38:110:38:15

who was the founder of the last incarnation of the Beachley-Aust ferry.

0:38:150:38:20

This boat on which we're standing at the moment is the Severn Princess.

0:38:200:38:24

This crossing was very important because it was the only crossing available for car traffic.

0:38:240:38:30

It was a lifeline to people in their daily business.

0:38:300:38:33

Many people courted on the ferries.

0:38:330:38:35

Girls in England meeting gentlemen from Wales and vice versa.

0:38:350:38:39

Everybody knew the bridge was coming, because they could see the bridge being built.

0:38:390:38:45

I think Enoch still harboured thoughts of continuing but it became obvious

0:38:450:38:49

the bridge really was going to be a very different proposition

0:38:490:38:52

and so he decided that it would not be economical and there was really no point in fighting against it.

0:38:520:38:58

He tried his best to make sure that the company obtained as much compensation as possible.

0:38:580:39:03

How much do I think I'm going to get is a sore point.

0:39:030:39:06

What we are worth and what we are going to get are two different things.

0:39:060:39:10

-Would you say you would get, what, 20 or 30,000?

-Oh, no, that isn't the price of a boat.

0:39:100:39:14

-A lot more than that then? 100,000?

-And a bit more.

0:39:140:39:17

The last day that the service carried cars was September 8th 1966,

0:39:170:39:22

the day that the first Severn Bridge opened.

0:39:220:39:24

To commemorate the first crossing of the Severn Bridge, I have great pleasure in unveiling this plaque.

0:39:240:39:31

It was a joyous day in some ways because everybody likes a party,

0:39:330:39:37

but it was also very sad to see my grandfather's lifelong work come to an end.

0:39:370:39:42

I would not wish to be considered a traitor, but at age 17, the bridge opened up huge new possibilities.

0:39:420:39:49

So a great feeling of regret, but at the same time

0:39:490:39:51

that was tempered somewhat by a feeling of new freedom.

0:39:510:39:55

Moving west, The deep water ports of Newport and Cardiff

0:39:590:40:03

were built to trade far beyond the confines of the Severn Sea.

0:40:030:40:07

Exports of coal helped finance the building of resorts like Penarth for miners on day trips close to home.

0:40:080:40:15

But the appeal of the South Wales coast stretches far beyond these shores.

0:40:180:40:23

At St Donat's, it's not hard to see the attraction.

0:40:230:40:26

A grand coastline, and a grand castle.

0:40:260:40:30

It boasts 800 years of history, but by the start of the 20th century

0:40:330:40:38

countless careless owners had left St Donat's in need of a little love.

0:40:380:40:43

In 1925, it was about to attract a wealthy overseas admirer.

0:40:430:40:50

Hermione Cockburn's exploring how one of the world's richest men

0:40:500:40:54

transformed this castle into a pleasure palace.

0:40:540:40:57

This is an edition of Country Life from the early 1900s.

0:41:000:41:05

And alongside articles of bird watching and trout fishing,

0:41:050:41:09

there's an illustrated feature about a Welsh castle down on its luck.

0:41:090:41:13

But St Donat's would soon capture one reader's heart.

0:41:130:41:17

The magazine attracted the attention of one of America's great newspaper

0:41:170:41:22

magnates, William Randolph Hearst.

0:41:220:41:25

He was one of the most powerful men in the USA, calling the shots both in Washington and Hollywood.

0:41:250:41:31

His media empire could make and break politicians and movie stars alike.

0:41:310:41:36

Hearst, famously the inspiration for the film Citizen Kane,

0:41:360:41:41

had a passion for excess and the money to indulge it.

0:41:410:41:45

He'd already built one extravagant castle,

0:41:450:41:47

on the Californian coast at San Simeon, complete with its own zoo.

0:41:470:41:51

But why, in 1925, was he hatching a new scheme

0:41:510:41:56

thousands of miles away on the Welsh coast?

0:41:560:41:59

Without ever coming to Wales, he cabled his staff in London, "Buy St Donat's Castle".

0:42:010:42:07

And so he acquired this modest pile in need of a little work.

0:42:070:42:12

It was another three years before he set foot here, but when he did,

0:42:160:42:20

he turned the place upside down.

0:42:200:42:22

Before Hearst, St Donat's boasted just three bathrooms.

0:42:220:42:27

He fitted another 32!

0:42:270:42:29

Like all good fixer-uppers, he installed central heating,

0:42:290:42:33

as well as connecting the castle to the water mains.

0:42:330:42:36

And he added not one but three tennis courts, and a heated pool.

0:42:360:42:40

With the essentials fixed, Hearst really started to show off,

0:42:420:42:45

and decided the Welsh history of the house wasn't quite enough.

0:42:450:42:49

To discover the full extent of Hearst's fantasies, I'm meeting Thea Osborne,

0:42:490:42:54

who's studied the man and his dream castle.

0:42:540:42:58

Look at this room.

0:42:580:42:59

-Yeah, it's amazing, isn't it?

-It is fantastic.

0:42:590:43:03

And look at the ceiling.

0:43:030:43:05

It's absolutely beautiful.

0:43:050:43:07

What's the history of this part of the castle?

0:43:070:43:09

Hearst actually built this room himself, originally

0:43:090:43:12

this was the outer wall and he added on these three extra walls.

0:43:120:43:16

And he imported the ceiling from the Bradenstoke Priory in Wiltshire.

0:43:160:43:20

A 14th-century ceiling, he brought it and built the room around it.

0:43:200:43:23

Unbelievable. You would never guess to look at it.

0:43:230:43:26

It looks so well integrated.

0:43:260:43:29

The ceiling and the windows both come from Bradenstoke Priory.

0:43:290:43:32

But what kind of reaction did he get?

0:43:320:43:35

This is not something he would get away with today.

0:43:350:43:38

It caused controversy at the time.

0:43:380:43:40

Various Members of Parliament called it vandalism of historic buildings.

0:43:400:43:44

But he had enough money and he was quite determined about what he

0:43:440:43:47

wanted to do and create the right entertaining space for himself.

0:43:470:43:50

-Entertaining space? Was this his party room?

-Yeah,

0:43:500:43:55

he'd sort of have dance and dinners here for all of his various famous guests.

0:43:550:43:59

And what kind of people would have come?

0:43:590:44:02

Well, he had members of the Hollywood elite including Charlie Chaplin and the Warner brothers and

0:44:020:44:07

then people from the UK like Winston Churchill, David Lloyd George, the Mountbattens came and stayed.

0:44:070:44:13

What about the fireplaces? There's a beautiful one at that end of the room, very ornate one there.

0:44:130:44:18

These, presumably, aren't original either?

0:44:180:44:21

No, he had a thing for fireplaces, brought in 18 in total and put them all over the castle.

0:44:210:44:25

These ones are both from France.

0:44:250:44:27

He plucked them from various areas within France and the UK and

0:44:270:44:30

-would even cut them down in size so they fitted in the room just in the way he wanted.

-Quite extraordinary.

0:44:300:44:36

Yeah, it's amazing.

0:44:360:44:38

So what else did Hearst get away with?

0:44:380:44:41

Gothic screens, ancient coats of arms,

0:44:410:44:45

and the gilded ceiling from St Botolph's, a celebrated parish church

0:44:450:44:50

in Boston, Lincolnshire, all found their way here to satisfy Hearst's insatiable appetite for history.

0:44:500:44:57

In truth, Hearst wasn't just a lover of history, he was a lover, a man with a mistress.

0:45:000:45:07

So a little Welsh hideaway a few thousand miles from home suddenly starts to make sense.

0:45:070:45:13

Her name was Marion Davies, a Hollywood actress.

0:45:130:45:19

Marion and Hearst loved to entertain the rich and famous, and she was the

0:45:190:45:23

reason for this private little scheme, well away from prying eyes.

0:45:230:45:28

But for all the money he lavished on this castle, Hearst spent just a few months here.

0:45:290:45:34

He lost control of his empire in the Great Depression, and with it most of his wealth.

0:45:340:45:40

Hearst and Davies, the American lovers, may have abandoned this Welsh castle,

0:45:400:45:47

but the world has moved in.

0:45:470:45:49

St Donat's is now home to Atlantic College, a private boarding school.

0:45:510:45:56

350 sixth-formers from 75 countries live and study here.

0:45:560:46:02

The students are encouraged to make the most of their coastal home.

0:46:030:46:08

They even run their own in-shore life boat with the RNLI.

0:46:080:46:13

After a hard day on the water, they're probably grateful for

0:46:180:46:22

the bathrooms and central heating put in by William Randolph Hearst.

0:46:220:46:27

Atlantic College attracts students from all over the world,

0:46:320:46:36

but just a little further down the coast, near the vast Merthyr Mawr dune system, one group of visitors

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came a lot less willingly, and were a little too eager to leave.

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The wide open spaces here are a good place to roam free, or to hide.

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Around 60 years ago, a deadly serious game of hide and seek was about to begin.

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-It's the morning of Sunday 11th March 1945.

-BELLS RING

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Listen carefully and you might hear the sound of bells carried on the wind across this coast.

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That ringing sound isn't a comforting call to prayer, it's a grim call to action.

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At the height of the war, church bells would only have been rung to signal invasion.

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But now, in 1945, they were sounded in a desperate attempt to warn that

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there might be Germans at loose in these dunes, not trying to invade, but to escape.

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I've got a recording from the day the story broke.

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'Here is the midnight news for today, Sunday 11th March, and this is Alvar Lidell reading it.

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'70 Germans escaped from a prisoner of war camp at Bridgend, Glamorgan,

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'last night and it is thought that the men may have found cover in the Welsh

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'hills and sparsely-populated valleys or in the caves and sand dunes on the coast a few miles from the camp.'

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So were there German prisoners roaming these sand dunes?

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Soon, a massive manhunt was under way.

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It seemed every available man and woman had been mobilised.

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Even the local girl guides wanted in on the act.

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The fear was real enough.

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By 1945, around 400,000 German prisoners of war were being held in camps up and down Britain.

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NEWSREADER: 'At one of the camps in Britain, ex-German sailors saved from sunken U-boats and ex-German airmen

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'whose planes were brought down are learning to start life afresh in more peaceful jobs.'

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One of those camps was Island Farm, near Bridgend, close to these dunes.

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By March 1945, there were around 1,600 German prisoners of war in the camp here.

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Most of it's been demolished now, in fact, that hut is all that remains.

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But that is Hut Number 9, the hut from which the escape attempt originated.

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One of the main problems for prisoners of war is boredom.

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So the men here spent time drawing sketches of naked women on the walls.

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But they weren't drawing just to pass the time.

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The racy paintings were there to distract the guards from a daring

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plan that was being hatched right under their noses.

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The prisoners were busy making other drawings too.

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On this handkerchief they sketched a plan of the Welsh and Irish coasts.

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And on a shirt tail, they drew a map of the English Channel.

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But the heavy work was happening silently, underground.

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This is an old tin can. It was used for digging and for removing spoil.

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This is a rough, extremely primitive digging tool made from two lengths of pipe tied together with string

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or wire, just enough to give them purchase to cut at the clay.

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This is a block of the clay, the actual clay that that was removed during the digging of the tunnel.

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In a laborious process they had to compact it into balls, carry it in their pockets

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and then hide the whole heap inside that building so that the guards would be none the wiser.

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But of course, after all the elaborate planning, the back-breaking work and the danger

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of it all, there came the night when there was nothing left to do but put it all into action.

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So how many Germans hid here in the dunes?

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Writer and historian Herbert Williams

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knows the full story of the "great escape" from Hut 9.

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67 escaped, they dug a 60-foot tunnel under the barbed wire

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into a field beyond.

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Were there high-ranking officers? Rank and file?

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They were young officers, they were determined really not to submit to being prisoners of war.

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Some of them were really devoted Nazis, they belonged to the Hitler Youth.

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This was a big, big story when it broke, all these Germans loose in South Wales.

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So Fleet Street gobbled up the story for the big news all over Britain.

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-So there's the notorious tunnel.

-Yes, there it is, yes.

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Some were captured quickly, close to the prison camp,

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others were determined to make it across the sea to freedom.

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Four of the Germans planned to get to an airfield.

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They found a car, but it wouldn't start, so they

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persuaded prison guards, coming home from the pub, to give them a hand.

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These Germans, they said to them, "We are Norwegians, engineers, on important war work.

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"We must get to Croydon but our car won't start.

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"Could you help us push-start it?"

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And they said, "Yes, of course, boy, of course we'll get you, get in the car, we'll push-start."

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So they push-started the car and off they went.

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-And how far did they get?

-They got 130 miles to the outskirts of an

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airport and hid in the wood there and some farm workers found them in the edge of the wood and the game was up.

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But the furthest anyone got were a couple of escaped prisoners that went to Southampton.

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All of the Germans were recaptured before they could cross the Channel.

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The waters round our coastline, so long a barricade keeping the Nazis out,

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ultimately formed a stockade, holding them in.

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On this journey, I've been impressed how the people

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of this coast have reached out together across the Severn Sea.

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They've forged links overseas from the earliest times,

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like the early arms trade with warriors on distant shores.

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And co-operated closer to home, like the Welsh miners who cut tunnels through English rock at Ilfracombe.

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Steamers, ferries and bridges have transformed these two coastlines into one.

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Standing here on the Welsh shoreline,

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looking out across Mor Havren, the Severn Sea, it strikes me that the few miles of water between

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Wales and England have done just as much to unite these two nations as they have to separate them.

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