Episode 3 The One Show - Best of Britain

Hello and welcome to The One Show,

with street barber extraordinaire, Michael Douglas.

And the lovely Lucy Siegle, with another chance to see some of our favourite One Show films.

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We're in the north-east of England

and the island you see behind us is Lindisfarne,

otherwise known as the Holy Island.

It's bigger than it looks, actually.

It's three miles long and 1.5 miles wide,

and home to about 160 people.

All we need to do is get across there.

What time is the ferry?

There's no ferry, Michael.

Can't we just drive across?

Yeah, of course we do, just drive across in an underwater car

like James Bond(!)

-No, it's just a normal car.

-Really?

-Look, relax.

Lindisfarne is a tidal island,

so that's a causeway and we'll just drive across. We just need to wait.

-How long do I have to wait?

-About two hours.

I think I'll take the wait, because I've been on a boat before

and us hairdressers, we don't have sea legs, that's for sure.

We all know that fishing is a hardy weather-dependent occupation,

so I'm not quite sure if I'll

net any volunteers for a haircut, cos with weather like this,

I think they'll all be out fishing.

MUSIC: "Beyond The Sea" by Bobby Darin

Today, I'm in Polperro,

a picturesque fishing village on the Cornish coastline.

You're the only fisherman I've seen with some hair!

-Are you up for having a haircut?

-Yeah!

So here is Tim Curtis,

he's a part-time fisherman and a publican.

-So you can catch all the pub's fish...

-Yeah.

-..at five, six o'clock in the morning...

-Come in for ten, eleven o'clock...

..cook it, serve it

and then get people drunk in the evening?

Every good fisherman has a tattoo. Have you got an anchor?

No, I left that to Popeye.

What am I doing in a coat?

It's made me feel slightly overdressed. Take a look.

Whoa!

-That is different.

-All right?

-Yeah, that's great.

-D'you think the missus will be pleased?

-I think so, yeah.

Is it a thumbs-up or a thumbs-down? A down?!

We're going. I don't like it here.

Got a boat, got all the gear. I guess it's just a case of waiting, really.

What's the future of a fisherman round here?

Youngsters nowadays

don't really want to get out of bed at four in the morning

and come home at seven o'clock at night without a guaranteed income.

You have two youngsters here.

Do you quite fancy yourselves as fishermen?

I want to be a fisherman.

I suggest you do some kind of gangsta rap singing

on the side of the fishing

and bingo, you're on a winner.

I can feel something tugging.

Doesn't feel big, but

there's summat going on.

I think you've caught probably enough for a sandwich.

-You're Chris, are you?

-Yes.

-Is it a tough life?

-It's the most dangerous occupation there is.

I've met two or three fishermen this morning

and they all seem to be going bald. What's under the hat?

Worry!

Now, we've just set off,

and I'm not entirely sure we'll be able to do a haircut on here.

It's probably quite dangerous.

MUSIC: "Rock The Boat" by The Hues Corporation

I can see you have a lovely head of hair.

You ain't coming near me with them scissors.

How long has it been that long?

-All me life.

-Exactly. All the more reason for a change.

-No.

I think one day it will go on its own, quite frankly.

Do you want a haircut?

OK, so this is Beaver, a fisherman

as you can tell cos he has the whole kit and caboodle on

and he smells a bit fishy.

-I feel a bit ropey. Do you not get seasick or anything?

-No!

How long have you been a fisherman?

Ever since I was about 11.

Do you need any qualifications?

You need so many qualifications

just to pick your nose now.

I reckon I'm more qualified to work in the NHS,

-the amount of first aid courses I've done.

-Is it worth it?

I wouldn't choose to go into it now, not for the money,

but I do actually like the way of life.

It's like cutting hair on a rollercoaster.

Take a look!

Doesn't look too bad.

I'm relieved we're both in one piece and not overboard.

I hope this keeps till I get home or I'll have

to nip to the chippy.

Is that the most extreme location The One Show's asked you to

cut hair in?

Probably not. We did Britain's deepest pothole,

which was a bit scary

-and we also did a naturist camp.

-Oh, did you?

That was a bit hairy.

-How did that go?

-It was funny.

-It was very funny.

-Good.

And on that note, a couple of hundred years ago,

Lindisfarne had an enormous herring fishing fleet.

But there's only a few little fishing boats left now.

They mainly concentrate on catching crab and lobster.

I believe the French like these specific crabs and lobsters.

-From Lindisfarne?

-Yep.

But here on the island,

if we were to look back to the mainland,

if the tide was out you'd see loads of wading birds.

They're attracted by worms just beneath the surface.

-It's so gorgeous here.

-It is.

It's hard to believe we're on a massive lump

of volcanic rock

and it's been designated a nature reserve,

-not for naturists.

-Important to make that distinction.

They can come, but you must wear some clothes.

Because of the rare plants and wildlife here.

Time has a different value here.

It's very, very relaxing.

You just want to drink it in.

Probably not a good place to come if you're in a hurry.

But here's a man who knows how to speed things up -

Marty Jopson.

Sir David Attenborough's brilliant camera colleagues

bring the most astonishing images right into our homes.

We take for granted

the power of film to show us the world in close-up.

Cast yourself back to 1910,

and the dawn of the motion picture.

Imagine how amazing it must have been

to see a film of a plant actually growing.

'It was called The Birth Of The Flower

'and showed, in time-lapse...

'the birth of a flower.

'It was the work of a most-remarkable man

'called Percy Smith.

'Thanks to the British Film Archive,

'his masterpiece is carefully preserved for posterity.'

This is an amazing film.

It must have blown people's mind to see this the first time?

Absolutely. It's spectacular,

and to see things in such close-up...

amazing!

This was the first time anyone had ever done this?

Absolutely the first time, and copied by

everybody ever since. He was the Attenborough of his day.

'But hang on,

'this was years before colour film was even available.'

It's not a photographic colour,

it's colour that was applied to the surface of the film

to give a kind of lighting effect.

'Percy Smith was an eccentric.

'He was a clerk in the Civil Service

'with a passion for photography.'

The first person to film a motion picture was a guy called

Eadweard Muybridge. Here it is.

It's a film of a horse and shows it gets all its feet off the ground

at the same time.

But when Percy came along, they were filming with stuff like this.

It uses 24 frames per second.

What Percy did was film much, much slower than that

and then played the film at normal speed.

What that does is compress time.

It makes everything seem to go much faster.

'THE expert on Percy is Dr Tim Boon,

'head curator of the Science Museum.

'His research has shown him that the birth of the flower

'was an overwhelming success.'

It virtually caused a riot.

The audience refused to leave the cinema

until the film was rewound and shown again.

That happened several nights running.

'Percy became a celebrity and the work

'took over his life.'

So every room in the house, he'd have some set-up,

-some strange contraption filming?

-Absolutely.

That's how he came to make this extraordinary

Heath Robinson machine in his bathroom,

which involved a see-saw and an old cocoa tin,

water dripping in and chains of gears

operating the shutter of the camera.

In the end, he bought a house round the corner

from the house where this photography was going on.

They had connecting gardens.

So he had to buy another house to live in

cos he's taken over the one?

-Absolutely.

-That's fabulous.

'Today we take time-lapse for granted,

'but BAFTA-winning graphics designer Mick Connaire

'had helped bring it a giant step forward.

'he and the BBC's Natural History Unit

'have created an extraordinary sequence

'of a whole season in an English woodland.'

How does the state-of-the-art compare to what Percy was doing?

It's not a million miles away.

We were pushing the boundaries with what we did

and he did that way back then with no kit at all.

We have modern cameras

and high technology,

but we had to build ramps from wood

and use ladders and bits of string

and wheels and pulleys

in the same way, just to get the shot we needed.

'The sequence was filmed twice -

'once in the woodland,

'and then in the studio,

'to give themselves complete control of the environment.'

We had to replicate the woodland to the millimetre

to make sure all the plants fitted on.

We built the same 30-metre track

and filmed everything growing over the months ahead.

Then I had to stick all the bits together to make it work.

'And work it did.

'Two years filming, and at 50-seconds long,

'it's one of the most complex scenes ever invented

'in natural history film-making.'

What would Percy have thought of all that new stuff?

I think he'd have loved it.

But the blue screen and the computer graphics?

You mustn't forget that the journey from The Birth Of The Flower

to The Woodland has been a hundred years in the making.

And that really is a time-lapse.

Percy Smith, the forgotten pioneer.

It's hard to take your eyes off that sort of photography,

-isn't it, Michael? Hello?

-Just amazing, yeah.

Sorry, Lindisfarne Castle back there,

was thought to have been built by Henry VIII, would you believe?

He wanted to use this island

so he could keep on eye on those pesky Scots.

He certainly had a good view, because you can see for miles

and up to the Scottish borders.

You can. He used to have cannons pointed out to sea,

and pointed out to the mainland,

just in case of any emergencies.

More recently, in perhaps a more genteel fashion,

the castle was converted to a home

by Edward Hudson, editor of Country Life magazine,

and my favourite architect, Edwin Lutyens.

That would have been around the early 1900s.

So if I get my big, beloved history book out,

that's somewhere around the end of the reign of Queen Victoria.

Ah, and who on The One Show do we traditionally

turn to for all things Victorian?

Dan Snow.

-Gyles Brandreth.

-What?

Queen Victoria,

and her dogs, as painted by

the megastar, Sir Edwin Landseer,

a child prodigy who specialised in portraits of animals.

'From noble beasts to doleful pets with human emotions,

'Victorians lapped up his anthropomorphic creatures.'

Landseer was so revered as THE artist of the animal kingdom

that he was even given the job of fashioning THESE

magnificent cats to guard Horatio Nelson.

'But his most famous work had its origins far from the capital city

'in the Highlands of Scotland.

'You've probably seen it before, though not in an art gallery.

If you'd opened a magazine back in 1916,

you might have discovered this image promoting whisky.

Ten years later,

here we are again, still advertising whisky.

By the 1980s, a version of the same image

was again promoting whisky.

But this proud beastie

was never intended as a marketing tool.

'Known as The Monarch Of The Glen,

'the painting had been commissioned for the House of Lords'

'refreshment room, but on completion the Commons refused to pay for it,

'saying it was "inappropriate" for that setting.'

So what happened to that painting?

The painting was bought by Thomas Dewar.

The whisky family?

Dewar's whisky.

Thomas Dewar very quickly saw the worth

of the Monarch, not just as a work of art,

but also as an icon to

market and brand his whisky with.

And here he is.

Here he is in all his splendour and glory.

The monarch of all he surveys. Magnificent!

It looks remarkably lifelike.

Absolutely. Landseer was very interested

in anatomical make-up,

so he would spend a lot of time

both observing stags in the wild

and also with the carcasses of animals in his studio,

back in London.

What's unusual, too, in a way is you think of

most paintings that feature animals, there's usually

the master, somebody riding the horse,

somebody with the dogs.

But this is an animal isolated.

Absolutely. But perhaps

this is a hunter's-eye view of the stag as well.

The way he haughtily looks down,

almost challenging the stalkers.

You're right, he has us in his eye,

and we have him in our sights.

'Although an Englishman, Landseer's mastery of the Scottish landscape

'was achieved through numerous trips to the Highlands,

'which he loved.

'He's rumoured to have been ambidextrous

'and able to draw an animal's head with one hand

'while sketching its tail with the other.

'But was his view of Scotland

'just a romanticised cliche for English toffs?'

What's interesting - an image like that's so familiar now,

it's become something iconic.

It is more than simply a work of art.

It's kind of part of the social fabric.

It is a bit of a cliche.

I would say it's very much part of the shortbread-tin view of Scotland.

When the painting was completed in 1851,

Scotland was becoming

Europe's most urbanised and industrialised nation.

So really it is a complete contradiction

to what is happening in Scotland.

What the experiences of most Scots are during this period.

'The Monarch's had its critics,

'but what do the locals think of him these days?'

I've seen that before, definitely.

Seen him on my granny's walls when I was little.

Does it make you proud to be Scottish to look at a painting like that?

I would say so.

One of the criticisms of the picture is that it's

an English person's view of Scotland,

a sentimental view, the Highlands, the mists,

the stag, et cetera,

instead of being the reality of Scotland.

I'd probably rather have a picture of that

than a lot of the other aspects you see around here.

'Despite celebrity status,

'Landseer suffered from depression

'and was eventually declared insane.

'When he died in 1873,

'his funeral was held at St Paul's Cathedral

'and the lions of Trafalgar Square

'draped with wreaths.

'These days, the stag which once advertised whisky

'is a priceless museum exhibit.'

Landseer was never avant-garde,

never edgy.

He was unpretentious,

his work was full of simple goodness.

As a nation, we love The Monarch Of The Glen

because it stirs the spirit

and it touches the heart.

-I'm stirred and touched by Gyles.

-Are you?

-Yeah.

I've also had lunch at one of the great two pubs here in Lindisfarne.

-I think you've been to both of them.

-Well, I like a pub.

Where we are now is the priory.

This is the whole reason why this place is called the Holy Island.

This was actually founded as a monastery

in 635 AD by St Aidan.

It became a focus for Christianity

for the whole of Anglo-Saxon England.

How did he become a saint?

Well, in his case, the nearby place of Bamburgh

was ransacked by a pagan army

who set fire to it, so St Aidan prayed

and the wind changed and blew the flames

towards the enemy.

The power of prayer, of course.

Or it might just have been a change in the weather.

But remarkable things HAVE happened here.

In 700 AD, another one of the monks, Eadfrith,

he produced these beautiful illuminated manuscripts

and they became known as the Lindisfarne Gospels.

-They were originally in Latin, which I can understand.

-Go on, then.

Pater noster, qui es in caelis, et cetera.

But there is an English version, for you.

That was produced in 970 AD.

And that is the oldest surviving

copy of the Bible in English.

Really? That's quite interesting.

There isn't just one saint from round here.

The other one's St Cuthbert.

He was reported to be a great healer,

obviously had magic hands of some description,

and when they buried him when he died,

they put him in a stone casket

and when they opened this stone casket,

no ageing or decaying

had taken place at all.

HE defied the ageing process.

I'll get one of these stone caskets.

-I think you should.

-Get this sorted out.

-I'll lend it you.

-Thanks.

Unfortunately, we can't compare now,

because when the Vikings invaded,

the monks upped and left

-and they took St Cuthbert's body with the Gospels.

-Really?

That's a shame.

All this history, eh? Do you fancy some more?

Arthur Smith doesn't just like to talk to great historic figures,

he likes to move in with them as well. Bit weird, innit?

PIANO MUSIC

The music of The Planets,

the most famous piece of work by Gustav Holst

and played on the very piano he used for its composition.

And this is the very house where he was born,

because although his father's family

were of Latvian origins and he was rumoured to be Swedish,

Holst was in fact a very English gentleman.

'Brought up right here in Cheltenham.

'This is probably the room where he was born in 1874,

'the main bedroom.'

And it's where I'll be sleeping tonight.

'Music was in the Holst family.

'His father, Adolph, was a highly accomplished pianist.

'His mother, Clara, came for lessons and then married her teacher.'

But Clara died when Holst was seven.

And given his father's dedication to his music,

and it would seem, the local boozer,

I'm guessing Gustav had quite a lonely childhood.

As a young boy, Holst started by playing the violin.

But he disliked it intensely, much preferring the piano.

'But he was a frail child with poor eyesight and asthma,

'and he developed a painful hand condition.'

He became a rather good pianist.

He got into the Royal College Of Music.

He had hoped to become an even better one,

but at the Royal College he increasingly suffered from neuritis.

He was quite a sickly man and yet he was also

an avid rambler, wasn't he?

Did he walk with Vaughan Williams?

Yes, he did, they were great walking companions.

It's funny to think someone must have bumped into

these gentlemen walking along

and think, "That's Vaughan Williams and Holst!"

'Holst married Isobel Harrison in 1901

'and they had a daughter called Imogen.

'He settled down to a career as a teacher

'which he loved, but it took up so much of his time that he was

'only able to compose on Sundays.'

He wrote entirely what he wanted to write.

That made him seem very modern to a lot of people,

because his ear was attuned to modern things.

'Holst was quite an alternative thinker for his time.

'He studied the teachings of Hinduism

'and learned Sanskrit.'

And then he got into astrology.

The alignment of the stars was right

and he created his most famous work.

What is it about The Planets that makes it still such a hugely

popular and influential work?

I think there's several things.

One is in the Jupiter movement,

you have I Vow To Thee My Country. that's played everywhere.

Princess Diana's favourite hymn tune.

Mars...

Films. John Williams is totally inspired

by The Planets.

I think it's just the sheer exhilaration of quite a lot of it.

Of course, you always imagine these great figures from the past

were serious people,

but here's a letter from Holst and a couple of his drinking friends

to another friend.

"Dear Vally,

"we the undersigned guests of the Jolly Talgarth

"have learnt with sorrow

"of the indisposition of your sofa."

I'll bet he was fun to be with.

It's time for me to try and get some sleep.

The bed looks magnificent with its

brass bedstead, lovely sheets.

What a shame I'm sleeping on this one.

It's quite cosy here in what I think of as "The Planet Suite".

Ah!

It was interesting to sleep in a place

so quiet and dark, just the ticking of the clock.

And then, at 4 AM,

I woke up to find...

I was still quite tired so I went back to sleep. It was nice.

Well, let me conclude

by quoting the great man himself.

"Talking about music is like keeping small boys

"outside a sweet shop, explaining to them

"how sweets are made."

So I'll shut up and you listen.

MUSIC: "Jupiter" by Holst

I love The Planets, but it's a shame

the stars didn't predict the sorry fortunes of this priory.

It was destroyed the first time round by the Vikings,

but then it was rebuilt by the Normans,

and there's evidence of that in these rather lovely arched windows.

Nice. Didn't stay nice for long, though.

That old Henry VIII came along and denounced Catholicism

-in the 16th century and they trashed this place.

-Aw!

They took all the bricks and all the rubble

and that castle we saw earlier, they built that with it.

But people don't just come here for the ruins,

they also come for the magnificent views of the coastline.

Ah, the great British waters,

which incidentally, Miranda is about to immerse herself into.

Should be good.

'Britain has some truly stunning coastline

'and our shores are brimming with some very special wildlife.'

The trouble is,

most of the animals live down there, in crevices, in caves,

or on the rocks, and getting up close is really tricky.

'But for those with a good head for heights,

'there is a new way of experiencing coastal wildlife.'

It's called eco coasteering,

and it's quite scary.

'Unbelievably, along this bit of Cornish coastline,

'you can swim, climb and even leap into the water

'to get really close to wildlife.

'But you do need an expert guide

'who carries a lot of safety gear under his top,

'like Ian Anderson.'

We're about to jump into the water.

Basically, when you're ready,

don't stand up there too long, don't look at it for too long,

cos it just gets worse.

'So, after a thorough safety briefing and a leaping lesson,

'it's time for me to take the plunge.'

-It's a long way down!

-It IS a long way.

-OK, get ready.

-Yup.

OK, ready - three, two, one...

-Go!

-SHE YELLS

That is bonkers!

That is absolutely crazy.

Whoo!

'Ian knows exactly how deep the water is

'beneath each jump

'and once we're down here we can get access

'to some really pristine coastal habitat.

'Or at least we could if we hadn't picked a day

'with pouring rain and huge tidal swell.

'But it's worth the effort. These rocks are teaming with life.'

What's incredible about the rock here is every millimetre is covered with something.

We have barnacles, mussels clinging on for dear life,

anemones, dog whelks.

'The mussels are anchored to the rock

'by filaments that are weight-for-weight

'as strong as steel, and they need to be.'

That's the extreme environment we're working in.

We'll be clinging to the rocks soon.

'Mussel beds stretch for miles along this part of the coast,

'a sign of a really healthy habitat.

'Our next stop is a remote cave, only accessible with another jump.'

-Three, two, one, go!

-SHE YELLS

'With a rising tide and strong undercurrents,

'I have a really renewed respect for the creatures that survive here.'

Whoo!

Out of control! This is great!

I think we're all right, get in before the next wave.

Whoo!

Or not!

I love the pink hue of the rock we've got here

with all this lovely algae on, it's beautiful.

Yeah, it's amazing, and it's amazing that it manages to even cling on.

-You can see what's happening.

-Yeah.

'These caves are also used by seals to shelter from storms,

'or just to take a nap.

'Today, no-one's home, but whilst we're inside,

'this grey seal pops it head up just a hundred metres away.

'But there's one more animal I want to see

'and these live high up on the cliffs.'

So we've got the kittiwakes up there?

Yeah, just get a bit closer to the cliff edge

-and we'll get a really good look at them.

-Brilliant.

'These small, shy gulls

'nest up here to escape from predators

'and they're perfectly adapted for living on really narrow ledges.'

So when you look at these cliffs,

they are just sheer, it doesn't look like there's any

place a bird could nest, let alone lay an egg and try

and bring up chicks.

The eggs are quite an unusual shape.

That's right - a much more pronounced point at one end

than most birds' eggs,

so if they roll, it's in a circular fashion

and not straight off the edge of the cliff.

It's a wonderful end

to our journey today.

We've been through some pretty rough water, some pretty fierce swells,

and there's the "kitti-wah" call of the kittiwakes, brilliant.

What a spectacle to end the journey.

And a spectacular end to our journey as well.

We've just made it back from the island before the tide sweeps in.

-What a relief! But that's it from us for today. See you!

-Bye!

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