Peak District Countryfile

The Peak District, where lofty tors and rolling moors

shelter the dales from the brunt of nature's elements.

But over the centuries, these moors have suffered terrible damage,

and I'm going to be meeting the team whose mission it is to

restore this landscape back to its former glory.

Ellie's meeting a photographer who's harking back to a golden age.

I thought it would be interesting to shoot contemporary climbing

with the camera that was there from the birth of the sport.

Tom's looking into poor mobile phone and broadband services

in rural areas.

It's just so frustrating that society is geared to the assumption

we've all got very good broadband and mobile signal, and we haven't.

And in Adam's final film from New Zealand,

he's meeting an inspirational farmer.

I said to Ian, "Shall I go back and get the buggy?" And he said,

"No, no, I'll go. I'll just run down."

And he literally meant "run down".

He's headed off downhill like a mountain goat.

This guy's 78, it's quite remarkable.

I'm in the Peak District, near the summit of Snake Pass.

These vast, wild moorlands make a stark midwinter snowscape.

Sculpted by penetrating icy winds, it's bleak and bitterly cold.

But glaringly beautiful.

For the people of Manchester and Sheffield,

this is a popular place to get out onto the tops,

but if I can just make my way down here, I can show you that

gullies like this are a symptom of catastrophic damage.

These aren't the best conditions to see it, but in many areas,

the plant that built these moors is missing.

Killed off by centuries of pollution and acid rain

blown over the moors from the neighbouring industrial powerhouses.

Now, this whole area should be covered in

a lovely rich green carpet of this stuff.

Sphagnum moss.

But if I just dig down a couple of feet into this snow...

..you'll see that all that's here...

..is bare peat.

The hills of the South Pennines were once covered with sphagnum moss.

Over thousands of years, it's decayed to form

a deep layer of peat.

But with the top layer of sphagnum moss gone,

that peat's been exposed to the erosive forces of nature.

Heavy rain carves up the landscape, flowing rapidly down eroded gullies

into the valleys below. Sometimes with disastrous consequences.

These photographs of a family on the same trig point clearly show how

much peat was washed away in just 27 years.

Now an ambitious restoration project called MoorLIFE is underway,

to reintroduce this tiny, but significant,

plant to the whole of the South Pennines.

'Conservationist Brendan Wittram explains why this work is so vital.'

Sphagnum has multiple benefits.

In the first instance,

the sphagnum is the building block of the peat that's up in the

uplands. It also has amazing properties for water quality,

for natural flood risk management, for biodiversity.

The gaps in the ear provide a great habitat for invertebrates to

thrive, which then provide the food for the chicks that then

breed and grow on the moors.

Sphagnum's good for other plant life, too,

providing a foothold for cotton grass, cranberry,

cloudberry and other moorland berries

that feed the local wildlife.

But it's the ability of sphagnum to absorb and filter rainwater

that's most impressive.

So this is what happens when it rains on an exposed peat.

So, as you can see,

the impact of the rain is washing the peat off the hills.

I mean, look at that,

it's a very small quantity of water, and producing a lot of sludge.

Where there's bare peat,

we lose two centimetres a year through erosion.

All that goes into the reservoirs.

The water companies pay to clean that.

OK, moving on to this other tray, then, that's got exactly the

same kind of peat bottom, but with this sphagnum moss top.

And there's the result.

So the revegetation has a massive impact in holding the water

up on the hills, slowing the flow, reducing the erosive forces.

And in the experiments, we've found it will actually reduce the

amount of peat that's been washed off by up to 90%.

You can see, even at the bottom there,

the water that's running out is actually pretty clear.

It's clean, yes.

So that's why the water companies invest so much in our works,

because they see the benefits of it.

In the first five years of the MoorLIFE project,

more than 6,000 acres were restored.

This required 1.5 billion sphagnum plants.

But where do you get 1.5 billion sphagnum plants from,

and how on earth do you go about spreading them across an area as

vast as this?

The answer was to go micro.

Matt Barney explains.

We were able to take a tiny amount of source material that we

actually found out here on the moor, and from that,

back at our laboratory in Leicestershire,

we were able to bulk that up through a process called

micro-propagation.

Which is plant tissue culture, it's effectively cloning.

We've been able to come up with these unique products.

They're kind of right inside these little beads, then?

They are indeed, yes. And each bead, we've got multiple varieties

of sphagnum. There can be up to 15 different species of sphagnum

in each bead.

OK, so that's this bucket. What about this stuff in here?

This product here, they are slightly larger sphagnum plantlets.

And so with this, we're able to spread this in environments where

the conditions are slightly better, and you get a faster growth rate.

So with this stuff, then, does it just lay on the top and then when

it rains and what have you, that's what washes it down into the peat?

Absolutely.

So the best place to put this is where's there's a nice, damp

environment, where the sphagnum can really thrive and take off

-and flourish.

-Do you expect this stuff, in hundreds and hundreds and

hundreds of years' time, still to be producing new peat?

I expect this, once the sphagnum establishes,

to be producing peat within five years.

At first, the beads were spread by helicopter,

but it was too hit and miss.

Now, specially adapted kit means the moss can be distributed evenly.

Right, let's go spreading.

'Mine blows beads.'

So there's my throttle.

OK, when do I start squirting beans out, and how?

-I think you're firing. You're going.

-Am I?

-Yeah, yeah.

-Oh, I didn't realise, sorry.

-You squirted the cameraman!

I'm actually firing at you without even realising. Oh!

'And Brendan has a contraption that drops blobs of slime.'

Is it a good idea that we're doing this in quite deep drifting snow?

This is not the ideal conditions to apply it, you would look

for much warmer weather, but, you know, we'll give it a go.

All right, then. Let's go for a walk.

Right, my spreader's empty and my wellies are full of snow.

Time to call it a day, I think.

Now, parts of the Peak District, like many other rural areas across

the UK, have no broadband or even a mobile phone signal.

But is there hope on the horizon? Here's Tom.

Just a few miles down the road from Matt, I'm in Hathersage.

Not so long ago in many of our towns and villages, the everyday

services were quite literally built in, and with some grandeur.

Need to go to the bank? Just pop down the high street. But now...

it's closed. And the Post Office there shut just a few months ago.

The expectation is that we can do so many of these things online.

The trouble is that for 1.4 million homes and businesses in the UK,

the internet is unreliable or non-existent.

These are the so-called "not spots",

and most of them are in the countryside.

You'd think, in the modern world,

you could just get on the internet on your smartphone,

but many internet "not spots" also have no mobile phone signal.

Just experiencing some of the frustration that's all too

regular on Countryfile. Pulled over to make a call here - no signal.

And I've just noticed that a few e-mails I tried to send from

the rural pub down the way last night didn't go then,

and they're still not sending today.

Kind of winds you up after a while.

I'm visiting Robert and Sarah Helliwell.

Their beef and sheep farm in the Peak District is on the edge of

Edale village. And it's a "not spot",

with broadband often as slow as old-fashioned dial-up.

-So, Sarah, Robert, how is the signal doing this morning?

-Not brilliant.

No, I got up early this morning to do the VAT returns and there was

no signal, so I've completed my VAT here, but I haven't sent it off yet.

But the other thing is, I couldn't get on to look at my bank

details either because online banking and things like that.

It's not just the farm paperwork that's a problem,

Sarah needs online access for her work as an NVQ assessor,

and they run a small campsite.

People expect to be able to book online,

and if there's a delay in our response because we haven't

got e-mails, they've generally gone elsewhere.

-If you can't get internet here, what do you do?

-I get really cross.

And after that?

And after that, I go and find a friend,

or I go and sit in a supermarket... on the way home.

-You literally go roam the valleys trying to find a signal?

-Yes, yes.

What about the mobile signal?

If you go across the field and you're on the right network,

you can get one or two bars.

That is quite an issue with campers who come expecting to be able

to get Wi-Fi, e-mails, 4G.

It's hard to describe how exasperating it is on occasions.

I had an incident the other day where I picked up an e-mail that was

sent three days ago and they were expecting an answer the next day.

Where that had been, goodness only knows,

but it didn't get through to me.

And when you've got a problem, you ring the support lines,

and they say, "Well, go to our website," and...

you can't. They just can't seem to grasp the fact

that you can't use their support that's web-based.

Do you feel like you're living in a different world from those people?

Sometimes. It's just so frustrating that society

is geared to the assumption

that we've all got very good broadband and mobile signal,

and we haven't.

It's not just remote homes like the Helliwells'.

In huge areas of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland,

more than one in ten premises can't get acceptable broadband.

And there are so many other pockets of "not spots" across the UK,

no-one has mapped them all.

But they're easy to find.

This is Wigginton, just 15 miles from Birmingham.

The broadband here barely works at all.

With rural areas most affected, it's often farmers who suffer.

I'm meeting Suzanne Clear from the National Farmers' Union,

which is campaigning for change.

When you've been doing your survey, and it's not just about facts and

figures, what have the farmers told you about how they feel about this?

Farmers are incredibly frustrated.

They go out of their way to pay extra to get lines,

they offer to dig trenches, they get involved with community groups.

So there's a lot of frustration about the additional cost and

time they end up wasting because they're not connected.

Why is it so important that farms and other rural businesses

have good internet?

We find that it's for business needs, for environmental permits,

for doing the wages, but also for productive agriculture.

There's some really good productivity gains if you've

got the best use of broadband and mobile phone coverage.

Do farmers think the blame for this lies mainly with the

government, or also with the phone companies, BT, the mobile operators?

To be honest with you, farmers get frustrated with both, but at the

end of the day, they want a reliable broadband and mobile phone signal.

They don't really worry so much about where it comes from and

who provides it, they just need to be able to do their job.

Without mobile phones and broadband, farmers and everyone else living

in or visiting these "not spots" are genuinely disadvantaged.

So, what's being done?

Well, in 1840, the UK introduced the Penny Post, the world's first

universal service obligation with a promise to deliver and collect.

And currently, Parliament is discussing

a similar idea for broadband.

A promise to provide everyone with a good service.

Too good to be true? Join me later in the programme.

The majestic, brooding Peak District.

With its rocky crags and gritstone edges, it's climbing country.

The gritstone escarpment here at Stanage Edge

is a climber's dream.

People come from all over the world to test their skills against

its daunting facade.

And that makes it the perfect setting for award-winning

photographer Henry Iddon to capture the final images for his outdoor

sports exhibition.

Ah, what a beautiful camera, Henry, look at this.

-So, modern tripod, old camera. Tell me about this part.

-That's right.

Well, the camera was owned and used by the Abraham brothers of Keswick.

And they were the first to sort of pioneer rock climbing

photography in Britain around the sort of late 1800s and around 1910.

This was their actual camera?

Yeah, this was one of their cameras that they'd have used, yeah.

Why would you use something like this rather than a digital camera?

Well, I've photographed action sports and mountain sports

for nearly 20 years and I'm always looking for new ways to do it,

so I thought it'd be interesting to shoot contemporary climbing

with a camera that was there from the birth of the sport, really.

-How does this work, then? Show me around.

-Quite simple, really,

it's just a box with a hole at the front where the lens would go,

then there's the bellows, which allow you to focus,

then at the back of the camera is the plate where you would

capture the light.

-So there's a lens...

-The lens goes on, yeah.

The lens itself is older than the camera.

The lens was made in London around 1870.

And what's the difference with the images that you'll get from this

compared to what you'd get digitally?

The lens and the camera give a real lovely feel to an image.

Whereas now someone might take a photograph on a telephone,

and they'll use filters to give a vintage look or feel.

All they're trying to do is replicate what the camera does.

So this is the authentic look and feel without having to rely

-on technology or an app.

-Yeah.

'Today, Henry is here to photograph a portrait

'of bouldering world number one Shauna Coxsey.'

I'll just focus.

-Looks amazing against that boulder, doesn't it?

-That's nice, yeah.

-Happy with that?

-That's good.

-It's going well?

If you keep perfectly still just while we get the dark slides ready,

don't move an inch.

Pass me the dark slide, Ellie.

This is what contains the film.

Slot that into the back of the camera and that's great,

-just need to take the shot now.

-This is the moment of truth,

in which case you need to concentrate. I'll leave you to it.

-Good talking to you.

-OK.

-All right.

'The plan was for me to have a go at bouldering - which is

'a climbing discipline without ropes -

'but it's not looking great.

'Let's see what instructor Claire thinks my chances are.'

Basically none. It's really, really wet and you can't climb on this rock

when it's wet because of the erosion. And you can see here...

These paler patches here?

Yeah, where it's been climbed on when it's been slightly damp

and it just erodes the top layer away and then as soon as this

top layer's gone, you can see it's a lot paler underneath -

that's a lot softer.

And then it's just going to keep eroding and keep eroding

and then it can't be climbed on any more.

So more worried about the health of the rock than my own safety?

Pretty much, yes, it is all about looking after the rock.

-And I wore my jazzy leggings especially.

-They are amazing

but I'm sorry they're not going to get a chance to get on the rock.

There is a reason why I'm wearing these, I wouldn't normally.

I can't go bouldering today but that's OK because I'm meeting

Shauna Coxsey to find out about her love of the sport.

What was it that first got you into climbing?

I started climbing at the age of four,

after seeing a lady free climbing without ropes on the TV.

And your family were supportive of that, even though you were

so young when you decided to do it?

Yeah, my family were incredibly supportive.

Why did you decide to do bouldering rather than climbing with ropes?

I always climbed with ropes and also bouldered as well,

I kind of did both and then it was in my teens

I decided to predominantly boulder.

I just found it to be less faff, really, you don't need anyone else

to do it, you don't need any ropes and it's much more free,

it's easier to do on your own and when you're actually on the wall

it's just you and the wall.

You're incredibly young, early 20s, and you've got the World Cup title,

you're the best female in the world,

and an MBE - where do you go from here? What's next?

Our sport's just been accepted into the Olympics so that's

a very exciting opportunity and, yeah, something that I didn't think

I'd see in my career, like climbing as part of the Olympic Games.

-Team GB, then.

-Yeah, hopefully.

-That'd be amazing.

-I can't believe I missed the opportunity...

-Sorry.

-..to get a bit of coaching by the world number one.

-Not great weather.

But there is a snow storm going on so we better duck out of this.

I'm in the middle of gritstone bouldering country and the weather

has hampered my plans. But this is about the extent of the bouldering

I'm going to get to do today.

Up I go. There we go.

I've made it! Right, I'm ready, Henry.

Now it's time for our winter warmer.

Late last summer,

we asked some well-known faces, from DJs to comedians...

It's a seal. False alarm, everyone, it was a seal.

..chefs to singers...

# My old man

# Said follow the van. #

..which part of our magnificent countryside was special to them.

This week, radio DJ Edith Bowman returns home to the rugged

coastline of the East Neuk of Fife.

I grew up in a little fishing village called Anstruther,

which is on the east coast of Scotland.

When I was a teenager, I felt very differently about this place

than I do now. I...probably hated it.

I couldn't wait to get out.

I left to go to university in Edinburgh.

I kind of did that gradual thing of going from the little village

to the kind of bigger city but then to the biggest city - London.

So I think the further away I got from it the more I crossed that line

into missing it and loving it and needing it.

Everything's kind of all right when I come back here,

just inhale that sea air and see this landscape, which is...

You know, it's not typically picturesque and kind of

postcard-pretty - it's rugged, it's real,

it's angry - the waves and the sea's angry when it's like this, but I...

I love it. I could just stare out there for hours.

It does remind me of things like Wuthering Heights, you know,

and I think the landscape's really kind of like that,

it's got this real kind of character about it.

There's always been cameras in our house,

we were encouraged to take pictures as kids.

But then it was only really when I was at Radio 1 and I saw this

great opportunity to take pictures of bands and things like that,

and it became more than a hobby.

And then I went back to college to do a night course.

I had to do a little project on landscapes.

I was terrified cos all I'd really done up to that point was faces,

was bands, you know, but the first place I thought of when I was

asked to do a project on landscapes was here.

There's so much that you can photograph,

be it the rock formations and every step you take it's different.

It just really opened my eyes to being able to see what was

around me and to acknowledge what's around me and capture

what's around me as well.

And so these buildings, a lot of them were salt houses.

So, it would be where the coal was brought to burn

the sea water to make salt.

You know, when the industry was no more,

these buildings are the only thing that remains.

I love photographing things like this cos you can use the natural

parts of it, like the window frames.

There are little bits of history ingrained in the rock

and in the stone and the foundations.

Every little village has a harbour.

And every harbour at one point was thriving.

This is Pittenweem Harbour.

I spent a lot of time here as a kid growing up.

There's a lot of history with my family here.

My dad grew up in a house just over the other side of the fish market

and, you know, it's where he spent his childhood.

My great-grandfather used to mend nets and we've got the most

brilliant pictures of him mending these nets.

My Uncle Brian as well,

he was a fisherman and we used to go

out on the boat with him all the time and, you know,

bring home fresh lobsters and crabs and eat them straightaway.

I've got this real...

want to document this place through my photography.

There's some people I know still work in that industry and are

still keeping it going.

I have so much respect for... especially the men and women

who are still involved in the fishing industry round this coast

because it's not an easy life, it's brutal out there.

This is May Island and it's the most bonkers and brilliant little island

with these natural statues that have risen from the sea,

it's beautiful and scary.

Fishing was such a thriving industry here.

And it's part of my family history as well

and so I'm intrigued by that and I'm intrigued by, you know,

people still living here and being here and making their life here,

having more courage to stay here than I did.

Is this the last one?

OK, this is good.

I loved that.

It reminded me of being out in the boat with my Uncle Brian,

before he passed away, which is just the loveliest memories of him.

It really confirms that respect I have for people I know who still

live here and people who are trying to keep these industries,

that are so connected to the area, alive.

This place is home.

It always has been and it always will be, to be honest.

I still find things that I've never seen before or I look at things

and I see them in a different way than I did before.

I would hope that I never take it for granted ever again.

Our countryside is being left behind

in the mobile phone and broadband revolution.

But now the government's planning a Universal Service Obligation -

the right to have decent broadband wherever you are.

Here's Tom.

Nearly 1.5 million homes and businesses have poor

or no broadband,

and many of them also have very patchy mobile phone signal.

Most of these so-called "not spots" are in the countryside and they're

having a very real social and economic impact.

But country folk are a resourceful lot.

Gary makes wrought-iron plant supports at Kingsley Moor

in Staffordshire.

He was struggling with internet sales because of slow broadband,

then he discovered a wireless solution, using microwaves

instead of cables.

I'd never heard of it before, so didn't know what to expect,

didn't hold out a lot of hope for it,

but we went with it and it's proved to be a major success for us.

-So how does it work?

-I don't really know,

I just know that we've got a dish on the house,

like a small satellite dish, there's a radio mast which is about

six miles as the crow flies from here,

-and it works between the two.

-What has it meant for the business?

I can contact courier companies, I can dispatch my products,

I can deal with customers, I can process orders.

So you often hear the story of rural businesses struggling with

really poor broadband - what do you make of that?

Well, I don't think we should have to deal with that sort of problem

in this day and age, I just think let's get the basics right.

If there's a way of doing it wirelessly,

why don't we do it wirelessly?

The solution here is a great example of creative technical thinking

but it does have limitations.

Today, when it's snowy,

the signal from the mast isn't getting through very well.

And his neighbours, some of them don't get it at all because that

line of trees just blocks the signal.

And that's the problem.

In rural areas there's no one-size-fits-all solution.

The Helliwell family I met earlier don't have line of sight to a mast,

so microwave broadband wouldn't work for them.

But Parliament is discussing a new law promising broadband for all,

a modern-day Universal Service Obligation.

Karen Bradley is the Secretary of State responsible.

So what does that Universal Service Obligation actually mean for

the family that we met earlier who's really struggling

in a fairly remote part of Derbyshire?

It's a right to demand a minimum of ten megabits.

And everybody in the country will have the right to demand that

-by 2020.

-Not quite sure what the "right to demand" means.

Will they be guaranteed decent broadband?

The USO is that backstop that says if there's no other options

then a minimum of ten megabits can be available for the home

by 2020 at demand of the homeowner.

And who will fund that in those difficult to reach places?

It'll be funded with a combination of government money,

commercial providers' money,

but there is a possibility there will be some funding required from

the homeowner - in much the same way

as there is for telephone lines today.

Travelling across the UK for Countryfile, I'm constantly

aware of patchy rural mobile phone coverage,

so what's the government doing about that?

There's a long way to go.

I make no bones about the fact that progress still needs to be made

and that's why we have set the challenge to the mobile phone

operators that by the end of this year, they have to have achieved

at least 90% coverage of mobile signal across the whole geography.

So that's not premises, that is across the geography,

meaning that there will be parts of the country that today

don't have mobile coverage that will do by the end of the year.

There's no doubt that broadband and phone not-spots are shrinking

but those promises on mobile coverage still leaves

swathes of the countryside with nothing.

And is a legal right to demand broadband quite the same

thing as a promise that you will get it?

2017 may prove to deliver a step change in rural digital access,

with pledges that 90% of the landmass will get phone signal

and legislation for universal broadband.

But country dwellers have had promises before and are still

waiting for access to truly 21st century communications.

Now Adam's continuing his incredible journey in New Zealand.

This week, in the final part of this special series,

he's visiting an inspirational character with a lifetime

of experience farming on the other side of the world.

I first visited New Zealand 30 years ago.

Its spectacular scenery is what drew me here but, most of all, I wanted

to experience what New Zealanders do best - farming.

This is a classic New Zealand scene - vast mountains,

grazing livestock on lush pastures that go on forever.

It's absolutely remarkable.

What a wonderful place to live and work.

I'm visiting a farm on the east coast of North Island

at Hawke's Bay.

Te Wae Wae is a spectacular farm located on the edge of the beautiful

Mohaka River, a fine example of the North Island's rich farmland.

It might look stunning but this terrain is unforgiving

and challenging at the best of times.

A lot of this farm

is only accessible by foot.

So you've gotta be fit to work here.

I'm getting out of breath. Come on, Adam.

In 1967, at the age of 27,

Ian Brickell purchased his first farm with his wife, Carolyn.

What's remarkable is, at the age of 78, Ian still farms this

remote location that's an hour off the beaten track.

Hi, Ian.

-Good to see you.

-I'm pleased to meet you, Adam.

Goodness me, you're a tough man to find.

I was coming all the way through the forest and I thought I was lost

and then got to your farm in what a remote spot, it's remarkable.

It is remote, I agree, but that's the way I like it.

And you're 78, how do you manage farming here?

I honestly believe that you grow unfit more than you grow old.

As long as you can keep your fitness and obviously if you've got

good health, then, yeah, you just keep going.

So what are you farming here? I see livestock everywhere.

Well, we've got 600 breeding ewes,

we've got 83 Welsh Black cows,

-and I also breed horses.

-Wonderful. So can we go and take a look at

-your Welsh Black cattle?

-You can.

-Let's go.

Today, Ian needs to muster his cattle from the mountain

to do some routine checks in the handling pens.

'His grandson Jacob and his team of working dogs are on hand to help.'

Goodness me, how many dogs have you got?

Six here, six working dogs and a Jack Russell.

-Wow. Can you control them all at once?

-Try to, yeah.

-Do my best.

-And what are they? Huntaways, I recognise.

Yeah, Huntaways and Heading Dogs.

-So the Heading Dog is a bit like our Border collie, is it?

-Yeah, yeah.

-And how many cattle have we got to gather? How many altogether?

-200.

And if I'm in the wrong place, just shout at me.

The tranquillity is about to be broken.

HE WHISTLES

DOGS BARK

WHISTLING AND BARKING

Goodness me, those Huntaways can really go, can't they?

Jacob's a really good young shepherd,

he's probably mature beyond his years when it comes to his dogs.

He's got very good dogs.

So the black and white ones are the Heading Dogs who get round in

-front and round them up?

-That's right.

-And then a Huntaway hunts them away up the mountain.

-That's correct.

And why do you love this wild country so much?

I mean, what is it in you that makes you want to be out here?

We're miles from anywhere.

I can't answer that. I guess it's my genetic make-up or something.

But I just love the wild places, always have done.

And were all these calves born outdoors or do you have to

bring them in to the sheds out here?

We don't have sheds.

No, no, my cows calve completely on their own, unassisted, no problems.

And is that part of your mantra, part of what you want to try

and achieve, a cow that looks after itself?

I think it's part of the New Zealand hill country farming.

We've looked to breed a type of animal that are perfectly

capable of looking after themselves.

-Low-cost animal, really.

-Yep, and low input, from our point of view.

-Sure.

-We don't have to pamper them.

But the Welshies are brilliant at surviving on rough grass,

they really are.

It's great to see traditional British breeds still thriving here.

How popular are the Welsh cattle?

Not as popular as they should be, but let me say,

I have tried all those breeds - Angus, Hereford, Shorthorn,

Charolaise - and the Welsh leave them for dead,

in my opinion.

I judged Welsh Black cattle once, actually, and really liked them -

and I'm half-Welsh, so, you know, I'm feeling quite patriotic.

THEY LAUGH

Well, that's the young cattle through the first gate where

there's still quite a long way to go.

I said to Ian, shall I go back and get the buggy? And he said,

"No, no, I'll go. I'll just run down."

And he literally meant "run down".

He's headed off down the hill like a mountain goat.

This guy's 78! It's quite remarkable!

Now that Britain is coming out of Europe, there's some concern

for farmers, particularly those who are reliant on government support,

but here in New Zealand in 1984, your subsidies were removed.

How did you cope here?

Well, it wasn't easy, you know, some struggled

but I think the key factor was that those who were willing to cut

their cloth to suit the situation, they got by.

The ones that were used to a lavish lifestyle found it a lot harder.

I'm seriously concerned back home that once that support is removed,

particularly from the hill farmers who farm sheep and beef,

that they're going to really find it very,

very difficult and quite stressful,

those who are heavily borrowed in particular.

I'm sure there's truth in that but you've made your decision for Brexit

and there will be plenty of positives as well as the negatives

and I'm sure that if the farmers get the support of

-the rest of the nation, they'll be fine.

-Yeah.

We're just chasing these cattle up here now.

Jacob's still working his dogs and moving them along nicely.

The herd have split a bit and some have gone along the track

and then the others are going down this really steep hill.

Just remarkable, really.

This is really exciting for me, you know, coming back to

New Zealand and rounding up cattle, out in the middle of nowhere.

This is what dreams are made of, really. I love it.

You never get sick of it.

No.

You can never get sick of doing things like this,

it's absolutely brilliant.

Meeting fantastic characters like Ian here,

with a great outlook on life, it's really refreshing.

The cattle are being rounded up for an annual TB test.

In New Zealand in 1990, the percentage of cattle with TB

was about seven times greater than in Britain.

But by 2011, it was about 40 times less.

I'm keen to know how they've achieved this incredible reduction,

as back home my animals have suffered with TB for decades.

'Michelle Murphy is an animal technician

'and TB testing is her full-time job.'

Michelle, over here you've managed to reduce your prevalence of TB

in the herds very dramatically. How have you succeeded doing that?

It's controlling the infected wildlife.

Which wildlife are you controlling?

Possums, feral deer,

ferrets, wild pigs.

Anything that can carry or spread TB.

-And so they're all non-native species.

-Yes.

-They are.

-And do they cause damage out in the environment as well?

Is that why they're considered as pests?

Yes, they do. The possums ruin the native trees and birdlife.

And how much TB would be in this area now?

Very little, if any.

We've got a similar problem at home but the animals in the wild

that carry TB, particularly badgers,

have been in our country for centuries, if not thousands

of years, so they're a native species, very symbolic to Britain

and there's a huge amount of controversy over culling them,

although the government has taken that decision, but also we are

TB testing our herds.

So it's really difficult for us to get on top of it.

But interesting how you've managed it over here.

-You've been really robust about it, haven't you?

-Yes, yes.

Thankfully, the herd got the all-clear.

It's a stressful process for the cattle, so we release them

as quick as we can and drive them towards some fresh mountain pasture.

Well, it's been about a ten-hour day and we're still climbing up

the hills and I'm starting to fade, but Ian's still going strong here.

I have to say,

I'm so jealous of the place you live and work,

your wonderful cattle - this farm's just extraordinary.

I know I'm truly blessed, I know that.

I've got a wonderful wife, she's been very supportive, too,

and I've still got my health. I've got no reason to stop

and I certainly don't want to stop.

And you've got lots of children and grandchildren all following in

-your footsteps.

-We've got seven children

and 24 grandchildren and, yeah,

there's a bit of talent starting to show up amongst the grandkids, too.

Well, that's just good breeding on your part, isn't it?

I wouldn't say that. Maybe they get it from their mother.

I have to say, this is a day I'll remember for a very long time.

-That's lovely, Adam, I hope you've enjoyed yourself.

-It's been great.

That's good, that's good, it's a pretty special place.

My time here in New Zealand has come to an end.

I've been on an incredible journey. It's amazing how far farming's come

in a relatively short space of time.

Since those early arrivals of livestock,

it's gone from strength to strength.

I'm in complete awe of this country and love the way its people

have a positive, forward-thinking attitude.

I really hope I'll be back before too long.

The Peak District. Jutting crags and bleak moorland.

At once a howling wilderness and a rich, rolling landscape.

And this setting is said to have inspired many storytellers,

including Charlotte Bronte, who stayed near here while

writing her best-known book, Jane Eyre.

So are these the moors on which St John Rivers discovered

a near-dead Jane after her dramatic departure from Thornfield Hall?

Storytelling is one of our oldest artforms and helps us make sense

of our experiences.

So today at the start of National Storytelling Week,

we're celebrating stories in all their glory.

But it's not just literature.

These hills are home to musicians and artists, too.

'Award-winning songwriter Bella Hardy grew up in Edale.

'She's travelled across the Peak District, gathering folk tales

'for her own original songs and composing music for existing verse

'inspired by the landscape.'

Bella, why is songwriting...

Why are songs so good for storytelling, do you think?

Well, I think there's a history of great song storytelling and

in the times when you didn't have TV and theatre to go to, it would be

a way to pass the time and tell a story and relate to people,

and I think having it to a song is just an extra way of adding

emotion and empathy to words and stories and to keep people

listening all the way through the story.

What is it about this landscape that inspires you and your songs?

Obviously just the gloriousness of the vista with the hills around you,

but I think also the names of the places are a wonderful inspiration.

-This is pretty.

-Uh-huh.

How would you go about starting to write a song?

I just use all sorts of different starting points.

But I often find that Edale creeps back into my songs,

even if they're more modern songs.

And last year I got to go to China and I wrote

a song about the beautiful stars I saw out one night

and how much they reminded me of my stars back here,

and the hills I was looking at were reminding me of my hills of Edale,

so it just seems to creep back into everything I do.

-Edale's in your heart.

-Certainly is. It's inescapable.

Before you dash off, can I hear at least one of your songs?

Of course you can.

You can have one from my album The Dark Peak And The White,

which is a few years ago now but is all about this area.

-Lovely.

-And this song is called the Peak Rhapsody.

-Very fitting.

# Give me the land where the wild thyme grows

# O'er the heathery dales among

# Where sol's own flower with crimson eye

# Peeks the sunburnt banks along

# Where the tor hangs o'er the dell

# While its pinnacles pierce the sky... #

Stories can take many forms,

from song and dance to pictures and poems.

They're an intrinsic part of our culture.

Even early evidence from cave paintings suggests that we've

always told stories through art.

'A tradition narrative artist Ingrid Karlsson continues today

'from her Derbyshire home.'

What a gorgeous view.

'She's form Sweden but has lived in the Peak District for 14 years.

'I'm meeting her in one of her favourite places -

'Eccles Pike near Chapel-en-le-Frith overlooking Combs reservoir.'

I feel a real connection with this wood and it's going back to

childhood, really,

because I'm a northern Swede and I come from the big forests.

And the wood was always a safe place to go to.

And how is storytelling a part of the work you do?

I think I always look for the stories because I tend to

want to talk about something as a part of the visual piece,

the work that you see. And I love doing that.

It could be on my personal journey but very often here in the

Peak District, linked to something that I have found in the landscape.

I brought my own inspiration today, I've got my wooded leggings.

You can't really miss them, I'm afraid.

When I saw them they looked just like this wood and they've got my

-colours in them.

-So I'll blend right in in the studio?

-You will.

-We won't be able to see you.

-Great!

As with all good stories, there are many layers to Ingrid's work.

Back in the studio,

she's showing me how she creates her first layer with monoprinting.

-So squirt out a bit of that.

-What's this?

This is a mix of water and a bit of washing-up liquid.

'And that helps spread our first watercolour.'

-Ultramarine.

-Yeah, exactly.

-We're going to go by your leggings.

That's such a good guideline, you know.

'Now a touch of rose and some deep red and we're ready to create.'

This is where the magic happens.

So the colours all bleed into each other.

Then let this drop,

then use the base of your hand and just gently go over it.

Oh, that's great. That is very intense.

A sense of fading in the sky.

-Look at this.

-Beautiful.

'As we wait for that monoprinting to dry,

'we add texture with a second layer, using collage.'

In the woods I've been collecting leaves. Can you see how I have

actually sewn in the imprint?

-Ready?

-Yeah, you ready?

My mum will be watching intently, she taught me how to sew.

-So is this the piece that it's going to eventually be in?

-Yeah.

And how would you describe your style of work?

Well, I am known as a narrative mixed media artist.

I would explain that as using mixed media to tell a story.

And one of things I love is the layering because that brings in

the layers of a story.

Right, don't laugh.

-There you go, look.

-That's brilliant.

Just seeing that red reminds me of the network of veins.

-It's like the lifeblood.

-I like that, all that meaning.

Well, that's part of the story.

Not too shabby for a beginner.

We're in the Peak District.

Whilst Ellie's been immersed in the stories of the landscape,

I've been discovering a conservation project high on the

snow-covered moors.

As this snow melts, it will help fill the reservoirs.

But some will make the long journey down through more than half a mile

of limestone to be heated by warm rocks deep underground,

before emerging as geothermal spring water.

This area's famous for its spa towns - Matlock Bath and Buxton.

But here, in the former mining village of Stoney Middleton,

they have their very own humble little spa bathhouse...

fed by a warm spring.

'Geologist Barry Smith is an expert on thermal springs and he's

'come equipped to see if we really are in hot water.'

Well, here we are in the middle of winter and I am very intrigued

to feel what the temperature of this water's going to be like.

I think you'll be surprised.

Hang on a second. Oh, my word, that is warm!

That is surprisingly warm.

It's kind of the temperature, to be honest,

that I'm left with every morning as the last person in the shower.

That's what it feels like.

'It's just about 17 degrees Celsius.

'More tepid than hot. But what about the mineral content?'

It's been in limestone so therefore it's dominated by calcium and

bicarbonate. This water itself differs a little bit from, say,

Buxton spring water. This contains a little bit more sulphate

and a little bit more chloride.

And in the world of water,

does that mean anything as far as the old medicinal qualities?

-It means it's good for beer.

-Right!

-Sulphate is good for beer.

-Yeah.

But its purity, it's a very good, nice, hard water.

Hard water's always been thought to be good for heart disease.

The water is low in harmful trace elements like arsenic,

which is reassuring,

as some of it's diverted underground into the bathhouse.

It's been closed to the public for decades but now there are

plans to change all that.

Is the idea to get people back in that water?

I think that would be great. That's what it was made for, wasn't it?

-Sure. Have you been in this water?

-No, I have to confess.

-You haven't?

I haven't yet been in it.

And obviously, the connection with tourists and locals

with spa water goes way back.

Yeah. The actual settlement here probably is here because of

a clean water spring.

You know, for the Celts and the Romans it's hugely important

and it's venerated.

It was in the 18th and 19th centuries that the fashion

for spas really took off.

But would a spa have been built for tourists in

a small village like Stoney Middleton?

Somewhere like this,

I almost wonder whether you've got the emerging industrial village

and you've got mines and things round here,

was this thing part-built for local people simply to come and bathe?

The posh people tended not to bathe so much in those days but if

you're a worker, you know,

imagine coming out of a mine covered in dust and everything then,

actually, probably bathing would be a huge benefit.

The special thing for me

is this is still here and it's been safeguarded.

One person has suggested it could be a dog spa.

What about a microbrewery?

Bathhouse beer. What a great idea.

See yourself as a bit of a Del Boy with a bottle of water?

That's very possible. Nice idea!

Right, the stage is set.

Let's just hope that Ellie's expectations aren't too high.

-Ellie!

-Hello! I'm so excited about this.

-It's going to be great.

-I can't wait.

-We'll say goodbye first and then we'll get on

-with things.

-OK.

-Well, that's all we've got time for this week.

Next week, we're going to be learning all about

our feathery friends.

And Helen will hopefully be seeing one of nature's greatest spectacles.

-We'll see

-you then. Bye-bye.

-Right, is it this way to the spa?

-Follow me.

-Excited!

Going to be great!

WATER SLOSHES

-Oh, that's lovely!

-It's a bit chilly.

-Whoo!

Here, try this, I've got some sphagnum moss here.

-Apparently it works just like a sponge. Ooh!

-Oh, yeah.