Episode 3 Countryfile Winter Diaries

This is the toughest time of year.

But it can also be the most

spectacular season in the entire calendar.

Winter is upon us.

It's a time when days are short and temperatures can plunge.

But there are still plenty of ways

growers can make the most of the season.

It's the time when the British weather

throws everything it's got at us.

And while some animals are hibernating,

others are bringing new life into the world.

All this week, we're travelling the length and breadth of the UK...

How much time have we got, given the tide?

We've got about an hour-and-a-half before it starts turning.

..bringing the very best seasonal stories that matter to you.

It's exciting planting trees.

Everybody should get the chance to plant a tree. And, you know,

it's not for us, it's for our children and for their kids.

HE SHIVERS

The very warmest of welcomes! This is Countryfile Winter Diaries.

Here's what's coming up on today's programme.

Margherita's investigating how getting their hands dirty

down on the farm could stop children from being excluded from school.

You've done it!

In my whole lifetime, I never thought I would be birthing a lamb.

Paul's braving the cold to help

protect the future of our woodlands.

-That's the first one.

-Yep. 1,249 to go.

Phew!

And I'll be joining in a race against time to investigate

a now-submerged and fragile prehistoric landscape that's

at the mercy of the sea.

We're here all week, celebrating the season amid the stunning scenery

of the Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park.

But you can't always count on the weather...

After a day out in the countryside in whatever winter weather

nature chooses to throw at you, nothing really beats the

prospect of going home to a nice hot bath and a tasty roast dinner.

Now, we Brits eat 1.4 billion roast dinners every year.

But have you ever stopped to consider the impact of all

that leftover cooking oil when it's routinely poured down the

kitchen plughole? Well, Keeley has the unenviable task of finding out.

KEELEY: This eerie landscape

may look as though it's from a distant planet...

..but in fact, it's somewhere much closer to home.

It's lurking beneath our feet,

and it's made of solid fat.

Over the winter months,

the build-up of fat in our sewers reaches epic proportions,

with a 25% increase in congealed oils going down the kitchen sink

in just a few months.

And long after we've polished off the last Yorkshire pud,

the remains of our Sunday roast linger on...

..in the form of these - fatbergs.

These massive lumps of lard that grow in our sewers can become

as long as a jumbo jet, and if they're not dealt with,

they can pose a major flood risk downriver.

The winter floods of 2013 and '14 cost the UK around £1 billion,

so this is one ticking time bomb that has to be tackled head-on.

Today, a team of technicians is preparing to enter the sewers below

London to do battle with one of the country's most notorious fatbergs.

And lucky me, I'm going with them...

'Will Randall is in charge of today's operation.'

So, tell me what we're going to be doing today.

So, today we're going to take you down and we're going to show you

some of the problems we have with the fat that's in the sewers.

Now, I take it from what you're wearing, I can't go down like this.

-No. We've got some kit for you today.

-Excellent!

We'll get you dressed up, get your safety gear and get ready to go.

Lovely!

-So, it's pretty grim down there, is it?

-It is... It will be for you.

For us, we're used to it, we know what to expect.

-But it's not the nicest place in the world.

-OK.

Can it be quite a dangerous place down there, then?

It can be very dangerous.

So, yes, you get lots of sewer gases, it's obviously slippery,

you've got moving water, so we have to be quite careful.

Obviously, we always go out in big groups so we've got people at

the top ready to rescue us if anything nasty happens underground.

But the main danger is the gases, so we all wear personal

gas detectors, and those will alarm if the levels get dangerous.

And if that happens, we're straight back up again?

If the alarm goes off, we're straight out.

-Looking good!

-Thank you very much!

He's lying. I know he's lying.

'Before heading down,

'I'm given a safety briefing in case things turn bad down there.'

-OK.

-..all around you, you're safe. Just enjoy it.

-Thank you!

-No problem.

-"Enjoy it"! "Enjoy it," he says!

'Well, it's now or never.

'Joining us on our investigation is sewer man Tim Henderson,

'who's been taking the fight to the capital's fatbergs for nine years.

'Here goes.'

-That's it. So, put your legs on the ladder.

-OK.

And then start making your way down.

Just hold on all the way down so you don't slip off.

-Here we are.

-Wow! It's smaller than I thought it would be.

-It is small.

-It opens up a bit as we go further down.

-OK.

But they're not always as big as people imagine them, these sewers.

-I can't smell anything yet.

-It never smells as bad as people think.

-There are some bits further down that smell worse than this.

-OK.

So once we go a little bit further in,

you'll start to smell some things.

-OK. Right, you lead the way.

-Right, let's go.

-It's starting to smell a little bit worse now we're here.

-Yeah.

Whereabouts are we? What's this down here?

This is the Victoria Street sewer, Whitehall Court branch.

We're right under Whitehall Court itself.

'The capital's sewer system was built 150 years ago and

'certainly isn't designed to handle all the waste created by

'today's huge population.'

I think I spoke too soon. It absolutely stinks down here.

And it's full of what I presume is...waste?

In fact, what exactly is this?

What you're standing on here is fat and silt and everything

-that's washed through the sewer.

-So, where does all this come from?

This is all the fat and other items that people put down their sinks and

toilets at home and from businesses, as well, like restaurants.

Some of it flows off down the sewer to be treated at the

treatment works, and lots of it ends up getting stuck along the way

and deposited in our sewer network.

Because it's easy for people, isn't it, to do the washing up,

quickly pop it down the drain? But that's the worst thing they can do.

What can they do instead?

What people should do is wait till the fat solidifies,

put it in a margarine tub or a yoghurt pot or some other

container and then put it in the bin.

These are really difficult conditions to work in, aren't they?

Yeah, at the best of times. When they're like this, yeah.

The fat and that is about as bad and dirty as the job gets.

It does pose a lot of dangers and a lot of additional risks.

And if we have a particularly stormy January after all that fat

down the drain at Christmas, that could spell disaster, couldn't it?

Yeah. So, London's got a combined sewer network,

which means that it's not just waste from people's houses and

businesses that ends up in here, it's the surface water.

So when it rains, all the water from the roads and people's roofs

ends up in the same place.

But the system isn't big enough to cope with it all,

so we have overflows that go into the River Thames,

and what happens is, all this nasty stuff ends up in the river,

as well, which causes pollution to the Thames.

So if people don't start behaving, and we keep getting more and

more stormy weather, you're more likely to have your sewage

-come back through into your house, aren't you?

-Absolutely.

How time-consuming is this?

If we had enough time and enough people to do it, we could do

-this every day for ever and we still wouldn't tackle the problem.

-Really?

-Yeah.

-It's that big a problem?

-Yeah, it is. It is, yeah.

'Even with Will and the team working tirelessly to help keep the

'system flowing, it's clear the problem of all this cooking oil

'clogging up our sewers is far from being solved.'

Thank you so much. I tell you what,

-I don't envy you working down there...

-It's our job.

-..every day.

And I promise I will never put any oil, any fat down the sink.

-That's good. That's good.

-Never again! Never again.

-No problem.

Keeley makes a very good point there.

Surely we should all do the same.

And flooding isn't the only way that this time of year

reminds us of just how destructive the power of water can be.

Every winter, our shores are battered by storms.

It's become a race against time to save our coastline and the

homes along it from the ravages of the sea.

But it's not just our present that's in danger of disappearing

beneath the waves.

Jules is in Essex on an archaeological rescue mission.

JULES: I'm on Mersea Island,

rushing to meet a group of archaeologists who've gathered

to investigate what they believe is a unique historic landscape

that the winter storms have revealed here on the coast.

The conditions are perfect, but it is a race against time

and tide before the next storm could wash it all away for ever.

Thank you so, so much for coming and for being here very, very early.

'Oliver Hutchinson is from Coastal and Intertidal Zone

'Archaeological Network, or CITiZAN for short.

'He and his team of experts and volunteers are battling to

'capture this piece of history before it's gone for good.

'But as the site is only accessible when the tide is out,

'we're going to have to work fast.'

Oliver, how much time have we got, given the tide?

We've got about an hour-and-a-half before it starts turning, which is

why we want to get a team straight out to the low-water line now.

So that old adage of time and tide waiting for none of us is

true today as ever it was!

It waits for no man, nor does it wait for no archaeologist.

THEY LAUGH

'From what Oliver and his team have discovered,

'they believe this could have been home to an ancient settlement,

'complete with timber structures.

'But they don't have long to find out more before the

'sea that uncovered it will reclaim it.'

There's no doubt that the further out you go, Oliver,

-the more treacherous it becomes.

-Certainly!

'Way back in my own ancient past, I studied archaeology,

'but I never had to get my feet wet like this.'

So, this is probably as far out as the tide will let us get.

For today, yeah, and for the height of the tide,

this is as far as I think we should venture.

-Oh, look at this!

-Wow.

JULES LAUGHS Do you want me to hold the end of

-that?

-Hold the end of that.

-Yeah. There you are.

-240 there.

-Nearly two-and-a-half metres long?

-Yeah.

I mean, I can't believe it. Look at that. A massive series of oak beams.

'To the untrained eye,

'this might just look like a bit of muddy old wood,

'but to the archaeologist,

'it's a vital clue left by those who once lived and worked here.'

I mean, these are really substantial.

Look at the holes in there, the mortise holes.

I suspect it's a way of lifting things.

Rather than trying to get hold of a big bit of wood,

you can just hook something through and carry it, like that.

Are we thinking, then, that this is some form of trackway?

It's that sort of thing, I think.

'Normally, in archaeology,

'you'd slowly excavate a site inch by inch to uncover its secrets.

'But with the tide on its way back in, we just don't have that luxury.'

What I love about this is that it

really is genuine rescue archaeology.

I mean, nothing could be more pressing than the tide

lapping around our ankles as we try and make sense of this.

'Luckily, the latest technology is helping to preserve this

'ancient landscape in a virtual form.'

We're trying to do some photogrammetry on there,

so we're trying to create a 3-D model, and that's done by

basically stitching an awful lot of photographs of the same object,

the same feature, together in some very smart software.

And I suppose the key thing about this new 3-D software is that

it allows you to take back and interpret at your leisure

or, indeed, future generations can interpret at their leisure.

It certainly is, and it's perfect for this environment.

'The team are hoping to create a 3-D map of the whole site to help

'build up a picture of what it once looked like

'before it's lost for good.

'Thousands of years' worth of storms have eroded away the

'structures and revealed an ancient land surface which could once

'have supported a small community,

'and one of the most intriguing finds was down to the keen eyes of

'local oyster fisherman Daniel French.'

So, Daniel, you've been fishing oysters out here, well,

-an entire lifetime, I expect.

-Yeah.

And just the other day, you found something you weren't expecting

-to find at all.

-No, that's right. We found a skull.

And we knew it was really, really old just by looking at it

and the holes in it and the

general condition. And we knew that the archaeologists were interested.

Were you shocked to find a skull?

Erm, a little bit. It was a little bit freaky, to be honest.

JULES LAUGHS

'Tests revealed that this skull dates back to the Iron Age,

'between 290 and 350 BC.

'But more recent evidence is pointing to the possibility

'that this site may have been occupied even before that.'

But for you, this is very much a local history, isn't it,

-as well?

-Oh, yes, yes.

And for me, I'm quite interested in

the whole...you know, what's gone on before us.

It really does sort of ring a bell with me, it really interests

me to find out more about what's gone on in the past.

'Over the last 2,000 years,

'the coastline here has receded by nearly half a mile.

'Now mudflats, this would once have been fertile marshland where

'people may have hunted or grazed livestock.'

Well, this looks absolutely fascinating. What have you found?

We've found the remains of - and I mean remains, fragmentary

remains - of a brushwood raft, a deliberately constructed raft.

And you see these twigs.

Maybe this is a shepherd's hut, maybe it's a seaside villa.

-We don't know yet.

-Well, Gus, we'd better let you carry on recording it

before the tide does come in.

'There's less than an hour to go before these fleeting

'glimpses into the past disappear beneath the waves for another day.

'But Oliver's team have a cunning plan to turn us

'all into amateur archaeologists,

'harnessing our obsession with our smartphones via a new CITiZAN app.'

That way, anyone walking along the

beach can record archaeology when they see it.

So this is bringing in, presumably,

thousands of observations from all around the coast.

Yeah, we have received nearly 1,500 new photos of objects -

things like that.

It's been an overwhelming response. It's very exciting.

This is a really savvy idea, Oliver!

It's one of the largest community archaeology programmes in the

country, if not THE largest,

and our volunteer basis is large and it's growing.

But we need more people to take part. England's coastline is huge,

there are thousands of undiscovered sites and features all over.

'It's often said that it's only by understanding the past that

'we can predict our future.

'Who knows what lessons the people

'who lived here might still have for us?

'But today, our time has run out.'

Well, clearly there are still a great many questions that

need to be answered about this now-submerged historic landscape

and the peoples that once called this part of the coastline home.

Now, this is a story that could so easily have been forgotten,

lost in the mists of time, but it's thanks to the team and their efforts

and their volunteers and their commitment to the past

that it won't be.

JOHN: And if you're interested in getting involved in

a community archaeology project in your part of the country,

you'll find details on the Countryfile website.

The Trossachs is home to 22 large lochs,

and the biggest and most famous of all is of course Loch Lomond.

Just half an hour north from Glasgow and you're by its bonny banks.

It's the largest freshwater lake in the UK,

covering around 27 square miles, and Matt went to have a look around.

And what better way to explore this place than in one of these?

Wow. The nose comes up slightly as the power kicks in.

'This seaplane flies regularly from Glasgow to Loch Lomond, and

'with water for a runway we can take off and land wherever we like.

'David West is my pilot.'

And, David, you've flown jumbos all over the world,

so how does zipping around here in a seaplane on Loch Lomond compare?

-I've got to tell you, I love this.

-Do you?

THEY LAUGH

I'm not saying any more than that. I absolutely adore this.

-It's that mix of seamanship and airmanship.

-Yeah.

-And look at the landscape.

-It's just amazing. It really is.

It is the oddest feeling, as we're coming in to land,

that we're just heading into water.

-And we're on.

-Thank you so much.

No, it was a pleasure to have your company.

'The loch is dotted with many small islands, some of which are

'no bigger than a rock. Only two are inhabited.

'And, having got the lie of the land,

'I've dropped in on the smaller of the two, Inchtavannach.

'I'm meeting some four-legged island residents and their owners,

'the appropriately named Roy Rogers and his partner, Susan Gell.

'Apparently, their horses like nothing better than

'a swim in the loch.

'But first, I need to get to know the animals better.'

-Roy, how are you doing? All right?

-Oh, hello!

-Nice to see you.

-Is there room for a small one in there?

-Yes, absolutely.

-I'm sure she'll let you join us.

-Hello, my darling!

-This is Rosa.

-Rosa!

I have to say, Roy, you have the most incredible existence.

Of all of the farms and the crofts that I've visited, this one,

it has to be one of the most exciting.

-How big is the island?

-It's about 200 acres.

It's about a mile long, roughly, by a quarter of a mile wide.

-Is anyone else on it, then, apart from yourself?

-Just us. Just us.

Just how we like it. Well, for me, it's...

To give you an idea, my parents always said I'd be a recluse.

When I was a kid, I was brought up

for a while in the Highlands of Scotland.

And horses came along quite late in life.

I was 48 before I started with horses.

Right! And is that where the swimming comes from, then?

You've got this stretch of water between you and the

mainland, so you've got to get from one to the other.

Well, it sort of came in that way, as I'd certainly seen these types of

people who work with horses doing that sort of thing.

They just do it naturally.

But it was primarily because we wanted to get to the other side!

THEY LAUGH

Aren't you a beautiful girl? She's saying, "Can I go for a swim?"

Well, it's not your turn today, is it?

'No. It'll be Shoshone getting her regular swimming exercise in

'a very fresh loch.'

Is that you being acclimatised, Susan, or Shoshone?

HE LAUGHS

-Is it nippy?

-Just a bit!

It seems like a very long way away, Roy.

No, it only takes about four minutes or so.

And Shoshone's a pretty powerful swimmer, so it won't take long.

And we have literally swum hundreds of them there.

-In the winter, though?

-Yeah.

-In the winter as well, yeah?

Yeah, we've done it with the snow coming down, and all sorts.

Susan's not so keen these days!

If Susan's got to get in the water, I'm not surprised!

Ooh, this is the moment. Here we go. It's getting deeper.

And she's...

-swimming now, is she?

-Yeah.

-There she is.

What a good girl!

And so the technique here, then, Susan, is, what,

-just to keep her straight with the lead rope?

-Yes.

The main thing is, when we first start swimming them,

they try and use the boat as a little safety zone,

so we usually have to push them out, away from the boat,

and it's getting the distance from the boat that's the important thing.

And, I mean, it is a wonderful form of exercise,

-this, anyway, isn't it?

-Oh, it's absolutely brilliant, yeah.

If you've got a lame horse, you can just keep them fit by swimming.

She sounds like she's taking quite a lot of air there.

-I mean, she's OK, though, yeah?

-Because they close... They swallow.

You know yourself when you swallow...

-SHE GULPS

-..you do that,

and then they're breathing through the nose rather than their mouths.

Almost there! It's an incredible rate that she's swimming at.

She swims fairly fast.

-Some of the other horses swim a lot slower than her.

-Yeah.

She's one of the fastest.

And you can see as well she's very buoyant in the water.

-Her bum sticks up in the water.

-That's it, yeah, yeah.

-Some of the horses, they sink quite low down.

-Yeah. Yeah.

And I think she's got her feet down now, has she?

Yeah, that's her down now. Yeah, she has. The loch's quite high just now.

Normally, there's little bits of land.

SHE LAUGHS

JOHN: Many of the islands on Loch Lomond are so close to each other

that swimming is probably the quickest form of getting around.

Still, in this chilly weather, I'd rather stick with a boat!

Here in the Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park,

there's not just one but two vast forests.

But large areas of woodland like this are fast disappearing

right across Britain.

Since the 1930s, half of our ancient woods have been lost or damaged.

Now just over 10% of the UK is covered with trees.

As well as protecting trees and restoring landscapes,

the Woodland Trust wants to plant 64 million new trees

to help redress the balance.

But what can we do to help? Paul is on the case.

PAUL: 'I love calm winter days on my smallholding.

'But just because nature's resting, it doesn't mean I can.

'Apart from anything else, it's the perfect excuse for me to get

'the toys out and catch up with a few jobs that I've been neglecting.'

We've got quite a few willow trees on the land, and if I'm able to and

they're not too close to the water,

I can get up there and pollard them, take the weight off the top.

I forgot last year, I got a bit lazy, and look what happened.

It got too top-heavy and it split in half.

So right now, I'm going to take

these branches off to help it rejuvenate.

'Back in the autumn, Hamish Thomson from the Woodland Trust gave

'me some tips on pollarding.

'But I also want to do my bit to regenerate our precious woodland,

'so today Hamish is back to give me advice on planting

'a new area of trees.'

-Good to see you.

-Hello, Paul, how are you doing? You've been busy?

-Very busy, yeah.

-Excellent!

-It's looking a lot better.

-It's looking loads better, isn't it?

-Yes.

-Anyway, you're not here to talk about pollarding.

-No.

You're here to show me how to plant.

-A great deal of trees arrived the other day.

-Yeah? Let's have a look.

-Can you show me what to do?

-Sure.

-Come on.

'The Woodland Trust has several schemes designed to encourage people

'all over the country to plant trees,

'and I've signed up for one of them.

'Hamish has already helped me choose the best trees...'

-Lots of things.

-Yep.

-Hawthorn, hazel, field maple.

'..and worked out how I should plant them.'

So, when I met you last time, I came up with a bit of a plan.

We thought we'd start just under the beech trees there,

where we're going to extend the beech copse, and then link it

with a hedgerow that goes down the hill to the canal.

-Yeah, make a corridor for the wildlife.

-Yep.

'And today, he's also agreed to help me out for a bit.'

Let's make a start.

'Our first job is to stake out where we're going to plant each tree.'

-So...

-So, what are we doing? Just coming out about a metre?

Yeah, just stick a stake in, a couple of paces...

stick another one in. Try and do it randomly.

It's surprisingly difficult to mark them out randomly.

You look back and you find it's all in line.

'Having an expert like Hamish on hand makes

'me feel confident that what we're doing will make a real difference.'

It's exciting planting trees. And not only that, you know,

I'm thinking I'm kind of changing the landscape, in a way.

-We're ensuring the continuity of it, aren't we?

-Yeah!

-That's the thing.

Everybody should get the chance to plant a tree.

And it's not for us, it's for our children and their kids, as well.

That next generation.

And there are lots of schemes with the Woodland Trust available.

-It's just a matter of finding out what suits you.

-There are.

We've helped you with these through our MOREwoods scheme,

whereby we can help landowners, and we'll subsidise the cost of the

trees and the tubes and the stakes. And we'll also give advice, as well.

But, you know, you might be in town, you might just be

a community group, so we've got free tree packs for community groups.

-Yeah.

-Schools we can give free trees to, as well.

What about someone in suburbia who's got

a decent-sized garden and they want a tree? What do they do?

Well, actually, we've got a really good web shop now where you

can just go and buy an individual tree on the website.

And get all the information about how to plant it,

-how to look after it.

-Yeah.

-Well, we've got our work cut out.

So, let's get spades in the ground and get started.

'Tree-planting season runs from mid-November to late March,

'when they're dormant and less susceptible to damage.

'There's still a knack to getting them in the ground, though.'

-It doesn't need to take long.

-No, it doesn't at all.

But the first thing to do is to get rid of the grass. Scrape it away.

Just turn away a top bit of grass.

And then we want to make the first cut.

I'm going to hold my handle away from me

so that the blade goes in straight.

Just put all my weight on it, jiggle it down. It's got nice, soft soil.

And then, once you've done that, wiggle it around a bit,

-take it out and then come and make like the top of a T.

-Yeah.

This time, keep the handle straight so the blade goes in at an angle.

Push it down again and, as I pull back on that spade,

the first cut opens up.

-Look at that!

-That's when I get the tree out the bag.

And we put the roots in there. And as we take the spade out,

we can feed the tree in, tuck in those few loose ones.

-Take the spade out.

-It swallows it up.

-And it does, it drops into the hole.

-PAUL LAUGHS

It's really clever. And the most satisfying bit is treading it in.

We've got to firm it in. We've got to make sure there's

no air around those roots.

They need to be in touch with the soil, stop it from drying out.

Yeah. And make sure all the root is underground,

-there's no bit sticking up.

-Yep. That's it.

-There you are.

-Job done!

'Then it's just a matter of putting a stake in and covering the sapling

'with a tube that will protect it from hungry deer, hare and rabbits.

'Simple!'

-This is a job for the kids, actually.

-I know.

-It's good for them.

-Yeah, they're at the right level!

'And unless you're planting in the middle of an exceptionally

'dry spell, there's no need to water your tree straight away.'

-That's the first one.

-Yeah. 1,249 to go.

Phew!

'Luckily, we've managed to magic up a little band of woodland helpers.'

-Use all your might. Put your boot on it.

-That's it!

-Push it down.

Well done, you! That's another one done.

Drop it right in there. All those roots, tuck 'em in.

You planted that one! That's your beech tree.

Many hands make light work. Just look at that site now.

Isn't that great?

I think everyone needs a hot chocolate and some marshmallows.

-Shall we light that fire and get the drinks on the go?

-OK.

-Come on.

Thank you so much, everybody. A big thank you to Hamish, as well,

because we couldn't have done this without you!

It's brilliant to plant trees.

Please, please get in touch with the Woodland Trust. YOU plant a tree.

It makes you feel good, it makes you feel so good. Well done!

Well done, everyone! Yay! Big cheers!

Whoo!

'By planting over 100 trees and shrubs today,

'we've all done our little bit for Britain's woodlands.'

-Cheers, everyone. ALL:

-Cheers!

-Well done.

Well done, girl.

JOHN: We Brits are so lucky.

We can enjoy the most glorious and varied landscapes even in the

dead of winter.

But now our countryside is being used to get hundreds of children

back on the straight and narrow, as Margherita's been discovering.

MARGHERITA: 'Modern life can be tough on our teenagers,

'leaving them feeling vulnerable and isolated.

'On average, 31 children a day are permanently excluded from our

'schools, and the long-term effect can be devastating.

'Children who are excluded from school go on to make up

'over 60% of our prison population.

'This group of youngsters from central London have embarked

'on a school trip with a difference.'

But what I want to know is, how does a week on

a farm get disengaged kids back on track.

The guys I'm about to meet are halfway through their stay,

and I've arrived just in time for breakfast.

-Hi, everyone. Morning! ALL:

-Morning!

-Hi.

What rules do you have to think about when you're on the farm?

Well, there are quite a few rules here,

like we're not really allowed to bring any sort of, like,

chocolates or fizzy drinks or any food from outside the farm.

-No sugar, huh?

-Yeah, none of that!

Also, you're not allowed any electronics, MP3 players, phones.

'I wonder how that goes down with teenagers!

'Many of the children referred here

'are struggling at school so at risk of exclusion.

'Ex-teacher Jamie Feilden started the project 12 years ago to

'tackle the problem head-on.'

Well, I was lucky enough to grow up in this beautiful countryside

round here, and I then went to teach in Croydon, in London,

and that was a bit of a shock to the system.

I got very excited about the opportunity to bring some of

the privileges I'd had back home to those children.

At the moment, we're working with 900 students per year.

Within two years, we hope to be working with 1,800 students

per year, because we're going to be operating across four farms.

And how many more students out there

do you think are in need of an experience like this?

We believe there are 30,000 children out there who could

really benefit at this moment in time.

'But how does it work?

'The team here believes the combination of family,

'farming and therapy can offer a powerful turning point.'

Right, so we're going to clean them all out now, OK?

If you guys actually want to grab the tools...

-People might see it as just a holiday in the countryside.

-Yeah.

Yeah, it's absolutely not a holiday.

This is a really tough experience for the young people that come here.

-Do you want a go at scraping the pen?

-Ah, yeah.

Right, if you come on here...

Not only are they having to work very hard when they're here,

they're having to really reflect on themselves and their behaviour.

What we'll do is we'll make it easier for the other guys and

we'll push all the muck up to the doorway here, OK?

And we'll work as a team to push that straw up.

We hope that we can be a catalyst and a boost to those children,

so that when they do go back to school they can really engage

with what they're trying to achieve within the school and they can

really start to achieve much better than they were before.

'It's the first time some of the pupils have ever been to a farm.'

Before, I was kind of thinking I'd regret it,

because I'm not really the kind of mucky person.

'But they get their hands dirty in ways they've never done before.

'13-year-old Sally has been tasked with delivering winter lambs.'

-What have we got there?

-That's a foot.

-Yeah. So they're coming.

So if you grab hold of one of these feet and pull them out a bit, OK?

That's it. Hold on tight and then pull that down. Well done.

That's great. Now, we're pulling down in a curve, OK?

Now the head's out. Well done. That's it. Yes!

Well done. Now grab some straw and rub it on the chest.

Great job, Sally. Yeah, the lamb's breathing.

-HE LAUGHS

-You've done it!

It was amazing how I got to help with birthing the lamb.

In my whole lifetime, I never thought that I would be

birthing a lamb.

I'm proud of myself, cos I never thought I would do that.

Right, who's next?

'And 13-year-old Ahmed's lived all his life in the city.'

When I saw the baby sheep, it was, like, smaller than I thought.

I didn't think, like, you could have a sheep that small.

It was, like, different than the usual sheep you'd see on TV.

'I've never really seen anything like that.

'When I first saw that people were doing that, I was like,

' "I do not want to do that, cos it looks disgusting."

'But it's not just about adorable baby lambs.

'Some of the bigger animals are also drafted in to help the children

'learn vital skills they need to cope with pressures back at school.'

Good girl!

'Lead therapist Tish has found that horses can really develop

'the pupils' concentration and problem-solving skills.'

What is it that's so special about working with these horses?

Horses have incredibly alert defences,

because they are used to living in the wild and having predators,

and so they are hyper-vigilant, like a lot of children,

they easily get stressed.

'14-year-old Mo has never been this close to a horse before,

'but now he's going to have to work with it to guide it through

'a series of obstacles.'

Before you go this time, I just want you to think about your next move.

Good girl. Come on. Good girl!

And the horse is a mirror for the child, so when

a child is all over the place, usually the horse will be, too.

When a child is feeling centred and calm,

the horse will respond very quickly.

Now, as you start, think about it, stand up tall.

They're also big, powerful creatures that kids are usually frightened of,

and to build that association in a short space of time is

fantastic for their levels of confidence.

So it's about facing a situation and overcoming fears,

realising what you're capable of.

Realising what you're capable of and not giving up.

They'll have an experience that becomes something they can

go back to. It's like a talisman they can hold on to.

Lovely. Now relax.

At first, I was really scared, cos it was bigger than I thought.

Way bigger than I thought. And I didn't really want to do it.

Yes, good.

And then remember to breathe.

It's not in your words, it's in what your body means.

Me and Rachel started talking about fear and comfort zone,

and I really, like, felt safe around her, and Danielle was in good hands.

So I started to get out of my comfort zone and really try

and pump full effort into it.

-Has she done it right?

-Yeah.

-So what do we do?

-Good girl!

'These pupils are only halfway through their week,

'but they're already feeling the changes.'

The me before this trip, if someone was to tell me to do things,

I'd feel I'm being bossed around. But now I see it differently.

Myself and our staff are astounded by how these children transform.

They arrive with a really tough exterior. They're living in very,

very challenging environments in the cities around the UK,

and very quickly here they manage to soften, work really hard,

live without mobile phones, they live without sugar.

But also, we see them leave probably two inches taller in terms

of their own self-esteem and their understanding of what they

can achieve back at school and back at home.

How do you measure if you've been successful with the students or not?

This year, 87% of those who were at risk of exclusion are no longer

at risk of exclusion six weeks after the intervention, so for us,

that's very, very exciting.

So you're really transforming lives with this project.

We believe that this can be transformational.

You really get to show your true colours.

It showed me I can do anything that I put my mind-set to.

I learnt that I'm not really the person I thought I am.

I learnt new things about myself, things I didn't know.

You leave the farm with something and bring it back to London.

It's been amazing to see the children in their element and

the power of nature at work.

JOHN: 'Powerful indeed.

'Now, many of us like to capture the beauty of our countryside on camera,

'and this may be the perfect time to get out and about with yours.

'Wildlife cameraman Richard Taylor-Jones

'has filmed all over the world, including the Scottish Highlands.

'And he's got some top tips for

'taking pictures of British wildlife in winter.'

When I'm in Scotland, three species really come to mind,

and that's the red squirrel, the red deer and the crested tit.

And winter is the best time to film them, I think,

because of one simple thing - they're hungry.

So, a very friendly group of conservationists have come to

the woodland here and they've set up a feeding station.

You've got this lovely, big mesh of peanuts here

which the birds are going to absolutely love,

and then just over behind me we have a squirrel-feeding box.

And a squirrel will come and sit on this platform here,

use its head to flip the lid up and get to the lovely peanuts inside.

Well, it hasn't taken long before we've got coal tits...

..which are distinctive by the lovely white stripe

down the back of their head.

And then... Look at this!

Masses of long-tailed tits!

They've almost sort of...

Yeah, they've completely taken over the feeder.

And actually, a crested tit, the bird I was after, has just

snuck in whilst I wasn't looking and it's over by the squirrel-feeder.

It's gone underneath the squirrel-feeder and is feeding

that way because the long-tails

have just completely hogged the bird-feeder.

The crested tits are a real treat.

They're a specialist of the Caledonian pine forests,

and there are probably only about 1,500 breeding pairs in the

whole of the UK.

They're quite common here in Scotland, but, you know,

nationally, they're incredibly scarce.

So an absolute treat and a real symbol of the Scottish woods here.

(Here we go!)

Lovely, lovely animal.

Now, you'll notice that there's actually

a bit of grey in his coat, and that's not because he's halfway

between a red or a grey squirrel.

This is what happens to red squirrels in the wintertime.

They have a summer coat, which they moult out in the autumn,

for a thicker, warmer winter coat that has a greyish tinge to it.

And he's doing exactly what I'd hoped. He's using his head to flip

up that lid and reach down to grab some nuts.

-TRAFFIC ROARS PAST

-And you can hear the road,

you can hear cars whizzing behind me,

so, you know, it just goes to show you

these aren't difficult animals to see.

You could just park up, hop out and see this

very, very easily for yourself.

Red squirrels and crested tits - tick.

Two down, one to go - the red deer. And I have a plan.

How's about that for a truly Scottish winter scene,

a beautiful herd of red deer stags?

There's got to be at least 20 up there. And these are wild animals.

Normally, I'd never be able to get this close to them.

But there's a very good reason why I can,

and it's all down to the keeper here.

You can see that there's one of the stags here who

has a really curved antler at the top. He's called Droopy, apparently.

And the reason that he's got the antler like that is probably that

it was damaged when it was growing.

It's very, very soft material, as it initially comes out of the head,

and it probably just got a knock and it sent it in the wrong direction.

But of course, the stag will lose those antlers and then grow

a whole new set next summer.

So it's a deformity that probably isn't going to cause him

a problem for long, if it's even caused him a problem at all.

So, there you go, three animals in one day - red squirrels,

red deer and crested tits.

It just goes to show that winter can be

a great time to get out and watch wildlife.

And that's it today from this beautiful national park, where

melted snow and heavy rain has turned gentle streams into

surging torrents. But that's winter for you.

Join us tomorrow, when Paul asks what can be done to halt the

return of a deadly disease that could cost us millions...

It must be very worrying for you right now. This is your livelihood.

Yes, it is our livelihood.

..Jules braves the cold and goes outdoor swimming...

That rush of feeling that I've done something that my brain is

saying is a really bad idea but my body is now saying thanks.

..and Keeley digs in to discover how best to survive a mountain blizzard.

If you want, you can pull the door shut.

I'll leave the door open for now. I feel a bit safer with the door open!

See you again next time.