Devon The One Show - Best of Britain

Hello and welcome to The One Show

Best of Britain, with Michael Douglas...

..and the lovely Anita Rani,

with another chance to see some of our favourite One Show films.

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# One! #

Today, we are high above the English Channel,

literally standing on the White Cliffs of Dover.

If that doesn't make you proud to be British,

with all this glorious sunshine, then you can move to France.

Tonight, Phil Tufnell meets an amazing artist,

and he can't believe his eyes.

It's funny how easily we can be tricked.

It's all about the eyes and the brain

getting a bit confused.

SPLASHING

When it comes to tricking us, some people have got it down to a fine art.

The lifeboat crew who were literally cut off from civilisation,

until I turn up and give them a trim, of course.

Wow - gel as well!

And we meet a young mother facing one of the most complicated

surgical procedures ever attempted.

This is as close to a medical miracle as you can get.

But first, The One Show's gardener, Christine Walkden,

travels down to the coast to meet a lady

who will be forever associated with this very spot.

MUSIC: "Dream (When You're Feeling Blue)" by Vera Lynn

I'm calling on someone who is, quite rightly, used to receiving beautiful bouquets of roses.

Just as well, then, that these aren't for indoors.

# Dream

# When you're feeling blue... #

"Evergreen" doesn't begin to describe Dame Vera Lynn.

She first became a star more than 70 years ago,

and for half of that time, she's enjoyed this garden

in Sussex.

I always loved the country.

I had an aunt who lived in the country and we always spent

our school holidays with her.

I just love it here.

I can see the Downs in the distance.

I've always loved being out in the air,

and seeing everything growing.

I don't care whether it's a cultivated plant or not.

If things pop up anywhere,

I just let them grow.

Excellent!

Live and let live?

Yes, I've got marigolds growing out of my veranda up there,

but they look so pretty, so I just leave them.

# You must remember this... #

Dame Vera is known locally as "the Queen Mother of Sussex,"

but this splendid eight acres is a long way away from where she grew up,

in her grandmother's terrace in East Ham.

It was just a little back-yard garden.

My father was a plumber,

and my mother was a dressmaker.

I just took a liking to gardening

and I always wanted a rockery when I was little.

So I collected all the largest stones I could find in the garden

and built myself a little rockery

right at the bottom, against the fence.

And any little plant that I could find growing around

would go in the rockery.

-Splendid!

-Yes.

I believe you used to do a bit of performing in that garden.

I used to sing my songs to the plants,

and do an exit and an entrance and a curtsy

to the array of plants.

That's why they grew so well!

THEY LAUGH

MUSIC: "White Cliffs of Dover" by Vera Lynn

# There'll be bluebirds over... #

The young Vera wasn't just a good gardener.

She was a child star who made enough money by the age of 21

to buy her parents their first home.

And that was before the Second World War.

-I was seven...

-Seven?!

..when I first went onto the stage.

My first salary was seven shillings and sixpence.

CHRISTINE WHISTLES

That was quite a lot of money in those days.

That was a little while ago.

Our "Forces' Sweetheart" is now a sprightly 94.

This little funny tree here is the Tree of Heaven

that Mountbatten gave me, cos he had one in his garden.

But it's never done anything.

It hasn't got any bigger than when I first planted it.

Maybe just a little bit dry for it.

-It has the competition of the oak.

-That's right.

# Tomorrow is a lovely day... #

There's an orchard just over there,

and that's all lovely daffodils in the spring,

so that makes quite a different aspect to the garden

when they're there.

But the poor old trees suffered somewhat

in the '80s when we had the big storm.

How many trees did you lose in the storm?

Oh, about 80.

But now, you wouldn't notice them missing,

cos they re-shooted. They all popped up somewhere - little baby ones.

THEY LAUGH

I've noticed you've got some very old roses in the garden.

Yes, they must have been planted in the '20s.

They're getting rather ancient now.

I've brought you a little present,

and I'll show you a technique where you can put roses back

where roses have grown before.

Really?!

Ooh, you've got a secret!

MUSIC: "I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles" by Vera Lynn

'There was a time you couldn't plant roses where roses had been.'

But someone came up with the clever idea of planting them in fresh soil

in a cardboard box.

By the time the cardboard has rotted, the new rose is strong enough to withstand infection.

# I'm forever blowing bubbles... #

'So there it is.

'My own little contribution

'to Dame Vera's vast and varied garden.'

There we are.

Some new roses.

Oh, lovely!

They're beautiful. Thank you very much.

Great pleasure.

'I wonder if she'll let me come back next year to see how they look.'

MUSIC: "We'll Meet Again" by Vera Lynn

# Some sunny day. #

Dame Vera Lynn, there, with our Christine.

95 and still going strong.

That's Vera Lynn, that - not Christine.

Oh, very good! Look where we are!

It's just magnificent, isn't it?

The most iconic British landmark,

the White Cliffs of Dover. Stunning.

Why is that massive bit there much cleaner than all the rest of it?

It's a good question and luckily Gareth from the National Trust can answer it.

Thank goodness you're on this boat.

Why is that bit whiter than the rest?

We haven't painted it, if that's the first question you have to ask.

Recently, we've had quite a large cliff fall here

that's collapsed into the sea.

That's revealed the whiter chalk underneath.

A cliff fall sounds quite dangerous. Is that quite common?

Cliff falls are a perfectly natural erosion process that happens here.

You can see the large pile of chalk just over there

that's actually fallen into the sea,

and that's now creating a natural sea defence here.

How long is the White Cliffs of Dover?

About 14 kilometres, of which the National Trust

looks after seven.

Wow, amazing.

Good stuff.

Now, from one massive cliff to a massive man.

Here's Dan Snow telling us about a rather unusual recruit

to Britain's defences during the last war.

In World War II, the bulk of the fighting involved the Allies

using traditionally-trained soldiers, airmen

and sailors against their German counterparts.

But there were times when officers needed to think unconventionally -

to escape the narrow confines of accepted military doctrine.

And that gave us some of the most extraordinary stories from the Second World War.

One of them started right here

in what's traditionally one of the hardest areas of Glasgow -

the Gorbals.

'It was here in 1916 that a man called Johnny Ramensky

'began a long criminal career.

'A career that took him inside prisons across Scotland,

'serving more than 45 years behind bars.'

But Johnny was more than just a villain. He became a soldier.

He joined the elite Commandos unit.

Remarkably, his criminal skills

were an integral part of his military service.

Johnny was a safe-breaker.

'John Mitchell was a safe expert who worked for the police

'and crossed paths with Johnny.'

So, how did Johnny Ramensky learn his trade, his unique skill?

I understand that he learned the tricks of his trade

from fellow prisoners in Peterhead.

Particularly Scotch Jimmy, who was a real old hand.

I mean, he started way back in the 1800s.

'Ramensky applied the same techniques John Mitchell used

'in his demonstrations to the police.'

The idea is to remove the key lock.

If you can put the right charge of explosives through the keyhole

to take this lock off neatly,

then the handle should turn and the door should open.

Ramensky wasn't just an expert safe-breaker,

he was also an accomplished escape artist.

He managed to break out five times.

He was a thorn in the side of the authorities and a public enemy

until Britain declared war on Germany.

'Coinciding with the outbreak of the war,

'Ramensky began a long campaign of letter writing

'to his Prison Governor, pleading to be allowed to join the Army.

'One extract reads, "I beg you to overlook my past record

' "and give me a chance to serve my country.

' "I am willing to make the supreme sacrifice."

'Bob Jeffrey has written a book on Ramensky.'

So, how did this bad lad end up fighting for King and country?

The Chief Constable of Aberdeen and the Governor of Peterhead

both alerted the Secret Services

to the fact that there was this remarkable man

who was an extremely skilful safe-breaker.

He did serve his full sentence.

When it ended, he was immediately met outside the gates

by the Secret Service agents and whisked to London.

'He was put in the Commandos, the ideal unit for him.

'Created in 1940 with the express intention of breaching enemy lines on secret missions,

'Ramensky's skills in explosives fitted the bill perfectly.

'One of his achievements was to invent a new method

'of blowing up railway lines

'to thwart German attempts to minimise repair time.'

The Germans had put wagons in front of the locomotives

to blow them up and then they just repaired the track.

But he detonated the explosives underneath the locomotives

so that was a much better act of sabotage.

He, more or less, invented that delayed fuse technique.

What else did he do during the war?

He actually went to Rome and it was quite quickly realised

that there'd be a lot of valuable information

in German safes and who was the guy to open these safes?

Johnny Ramensky.

He did actually break into the German Embassy and open safes there.

Johnny returned from his wartime exploits

with some extraordinary souvenirs of top-secret missions.

These two banners, they were brought home from Rome and, in fact,

the suggestion is that these came from the Goering's office.

He had a lust for adventure and excitement.

He did thieve, we cannot argue about that but he was very, very driven

to do something for Britain in time of war.

One of the most remarkable Scots of the 20th century.

An unsung hero whose story really deserves to be told.

Despite his wartime heroics, after he was demobbed

Johnny slipped back into a life of crime and died in prison in 1972.

His life was a fascinating one that shows how, in a battle for survival,

desperate times call for desperate measures.

Now, Michael, are you afraid of the dark?

Of course I am, I'm a hairdresser, darling. You know.

Cos these are the tunnels underneath Dover Castle

that were built during the Napoleonic Wars

but used during World War II as a bombproof HQ and they even had a hospital down here.

-Really?

-Mm.

Well, I have cut hair in a hospital.

I've also cut hair underground and also on a boat.

Not out at sea, though, just in the harbour. You'll see what I mean.

Well, back there is England.

Over there is Norway and this is the narrowest part of Britain.

This is Spurn Point.

From the air you can see what an extraordinary shape it is.

This spit of land extends from the east coast of England

right out into the widest part of the Humber Estuary.

Now, it is home to a special group of people

that live here, miles away from anyone else.

I might get there by teatime(!)

'Spurn Point is the home to the seven-strong crew

'of the RNLI Humber Lifeboat.

'The only full-manned, full-time lifeboat crew in the British Isles.'

INAUDIBLE

That's obviously some kind of sailing-speak for,

"We're nearly there."

Because it is so remote, wives and family live here too.

So, getting to the barber is not easy.

-So, Dave, you're the coxswain here, meaning that you're in control, basically.

-Absolutely.

I'm guessing that the weather is not normally this good.

This is one of the two days of nice weather we get per year.

I can see you're a man of the world cos you've got some fancy tattoos.

-My fishing past.

-What've you got here?

Well, that one is Top Cat,

but what it's actually doing is covering up a few girls' names, you know, so...

When you come here, you're given a house to live in along with the job.

And it's always been operated the same way. Every single penny is funded by charitable donations.

-What's the longest you've been out for?

-Just before Christmas, we had a 17 hour shout

but that was in a Force 11.

When you're at sea, one hand's for you and one hand's for the boss.

But when it gets to Force 11, the boss is on his own

and it's both hands for you.

-Most of us on the crew have been rescued in the past.

-Have you?

When I was a fisherman, I was rescued by Skegness Lifeboat.

And they never let me forget it.

Colin, my mechanic, has been rescued by this boat.

You can't spend your life on the sea

without needing some help or assistance.

The gel. Dun-dun-dun!

We're ready for anything the North Sea can throw at us, now.

Take a look.

Wow. Gel as well.

'All I need now is a day off to go and show it off.'

'I can see why this job is important

'but I'm not sure every family could, or would, live here.

'I want to meet the wives.

'They aren't the rough, tough, brave lifeboatmen

'but they're still stuck out here on the edge of England.'

This is Karen. It was your husband's hair we cut earlier, was it?

-Yeah.

-Where do you go and get your hair cut?

I normally go into Hull, which is, like, a 68 mile round trip.

By the time you get back it probably needs cut again(!)

It's one bell if it's not life at risk, basically.

But if it's two it means life at risk.

That must mean more risk to your fella', doesn't it?

Oh, absolutely.

I don't say I don't worry, because I do but,

after 21 years, you do get used to it.

Do you get the chance to, kind of, go, "Good luck!"

He'll let me come to the door but he won't let me see him off

any further than that cos he always says, "It's unlucky."

So, what about when there isn't a bell? What does he get up to?

He loves cooking but that's about...

-Not cleaning?

-No, no.

I don't suppose he even knows where the Hoover is, any more.

You want to sort him out, you know.

You want to get him, you know, on it.

Take a look.

Oh, wow.

That's better than a trip to Hull.

I could live here, you know.

I mean, not for 15 years, but I know a man who can.

This is Colin. You're the mechanic.

Best job on the boat, till something goes wrong then everybody looks at you.

Once the station, with all the lifeboating side of things, is done

then you've become a househusband, really.

-You go and do the ironing and the washing.

-Are you any good at it?

-Well, look at my hands.

-Soft as a baby's bum. Eh?

What I find is, even if you do it, you've not done it properly, anyway.

My responsibility is hanging washing out.

If I hang it out one way, Steph will come up behind me and hang it out another way.

-I get that as well.

-You can't win, can you?

-What's that all about?

Take a look.

Oh, fantastic.

-What you doing next week?

-Is that a date you're asking me on?

I love the outfit.

I'd also love the job as well, actually, but I don't think I could get the family to make the move.

But, as a place, the people and the work they do here is amazing.

If I set off now, I'll be home in about six weeks.

Amazing those guys, aren't they, down at Spurn Point?

They're the only full-time lifeboat operators on the coast

and they've done some massive rescue missions out there.

Really scary stuff.

Well, thank goodness they exist because in years gone by,

sailors round these parts had to rely on this.

the South Foreland Lighthouse.

The first to use an electric light

and the first to receive a ship-to-shore transmission.

BOTH: Help! Help!

Groundbreaking stuff, eh?

Well, it's time now for Phil Tufnell.

And he's with an artist whose work is, well,

confusing, to say the least.

Sorry, you've caught me at a little bit of a bad time.

I should be having a coffee break.

It's funny how easily we can be tricked.

It's all about the eyes and the brain getting a bit confused.

'And when it comes to tricking us,

'some people have got it down to a fine art.'

'Joe Hill specialises in designs that turn a flat area

'into a three-dimensional world.'

'He's making a special design for The One Show.

'It's taken two days of drawing, painting and measuring,

'using a mixture of paints and chalk.'

I want to find out more about this.

So I'm going to ask this little fellow.

Tell us a bit more about this picture.

Well, it's a 3-D illusion of a big hole in the ground

and people are going to be sitting in a barrel which is going over

a waterfall and hopefully it will look like

they're about to plunge down into the pool at the bottom.

Joe Hill and his old school friend, Max Lowry,

started creating unique 3-D street art seven years ago.

And ended up travelling the world, showing their talent.

They both studied A-level art at school and started developing

this unusual style after the offer of some work promoting whiskey in Spain.

Max died suddenly last year, but Joe's decided to keep the work going.

-Do you mind if I have a little go?

-Definitely, yes. Take that.

-We need the eye, the vulture's eye.

-Fantastic.

It's not going to be round, it's got to be long and thin.

Yes, why is everything sort of stretched out?

Because it's an illusion.

You have to stretch everything out to make it look like it's standing upright.

-Yeah.

-So you give it a single perspective and then stretch everything,

so you get these really weird kind of alien shapes.

So that means the illusion only works

when it's viewed from one point.

The technique is called trompe l'oeil, or tricking the eye,

and can be traced back 2,500 years to ancient Greece.

The art of 3-D painting features in many British stately homes.

These fake arches and vases at Wimpole Hall near Peterborough

were drawn 200 years ago to make the chapel look grander than it really is.

-So, how's that?

-That's spot on. Glittering and evil.

-Fantastic.

Now, I reckon the best bit now would be if you get the white

-and create the ruff of furry feathers around his neck.

-Yeah.

Don't be shy, just really go for it.

-Get into it, you've got to get into it.

-That's it.

And then, just to really highlight it,

we are going to put in some texture.

So underneath here, like that, you're going to do nice dark.

Yeah, rub it in.

And then on top, you're just going to blend this a little bit,

just so that you've got a feathery kind of feel to it, like that.

Fantastic. What about the councils, do they get a bit annoyed with it?

Well yeah, it used to be a problem when we would do chalk straight onto the pavement.

And we'd have to wash it off afterwards with mops and brooms and all stuff.

But now we do it on canvas, we can just roll it up at the end of the day and everyone's happy.

In a lot of Joe's pictures, he draws a position

so that he can stand in and really bring the artwork to life.

So how does this one work?

OK, we painted the area of the barrel really dark

so that people can kneel on it and hopefully,

it will look like their legs are going straight down into the barrel

and then they can pretend that they're falling down into this gorge.

Well, we're pretty much done, aren't we, now?

-Shall we have a look?

-I want to have a look!

I've been dying to go and have a look! Let's go.

OK, now it's time for the moment of truth. Let's see if this really works.

Wooooah!

-One, two, three. Got it!

-Wooah!

And look, street artist extraordinaire, Joe,

is with us in Dover.

Great, what are you up to here, Joe?

Well, it's a bit of a surprise,

-but it's something to do with the white cliffs.

-Nice.

So we'll see this later, no doubt.

And what have you been up to since we last saw you?

Well, at the end of last year, we broke two world records

for the largest piece and the longest piece of 3-D street art.

It was a huge canyon dropping down into the ground in Canary Wharf.

Wow! That's awesome. Well, you carry on, because you've got a lot to do.

Now, this next story is incredible.

It's about a young mum who had some surgery that's so complicated,

there are only a few hospitals in the world that can do it.

29-year-old Sue Buckle has everything to live for.

I tried for Amelia for three and a half years.

I had to lose quite a lot of weight and I had some medical help,

hormones and different things, to conceive. But, it's amazing.

Best thing I've ever done, definitely!

But Sue's health deteriorated rapidly after Amelia was born.

Sue came out of hospital and just couldn't get out of bed.

And I just said, this isn't right.

You go on adrenaline when you've had a child, you know,

it keeps you going. But I knew something wasn't right

and she came to answer the door to a health visitor and lost her breath.

And that was when we took her into hospital, because that wasn't right.

Sue has developed pulmonary hypertension,

dangerously high blood pressure in her lungs.

She's now permanently attached to an oxygen tent

and barely able to lift her own daughter.

I have my days where I'm unbelievably frustrated.

I just want to shut the door and just be a mum and say,

you know, "I'll do it on my own."

And there's been a couple of mornings I've tried it,

and regretted it.

And that's made me feel even more anxious, and angry as well.

Because I just want to do it, I want to do it on my terms.

But the surgery that could save her

is only performed at a handful of hospitals in the world.

It's incredibly complex. Without it, Sue will die.

SHE COUGHS

The arteries in her lungs are clogged with blood clots,

putting unbearable pressure on her heart.

In the scan here, Mrs Buckle's lungs, in the upper lobes,

the branches are reasonably smooth and relatively normal.

But in the lower lobes, the branches are narrowed

and blocked in lots of places.

So that means the right side of the heart has to work harder to get the blood round?

-That's exactly right.

-What happens in the long-term?

Well, as the right side of the heart,

which is designed to pump against the low pressure

in the lung circulation, initially tries to compensate.

But eventually it gets bigger and more dilated and less efficient

and eventually, people get right heart failure

and become extremely unwell.

And eventually, unfortunately, die.

Sue knew her chances of surviving more than a couple of years were slim.

The more I read, the more terrified I was at the condition,

and the more I realised that I'd had a beautiful baby girl

and would I see her grow up?

I wasn't sure. And it was just devastating.

But Sue has been offered a lifeline by Papworth Hospital near Cambridge.

It's the only centre in the UK to perform the surgery that might cure her.

But it's one of the most difficult heart and lung operations undertaken anywhere.

The intricate surgery that could save her will involve putting her into a state of suspended animation.

So her body can be completely drained of blood.

It's her only chance of seeing Amelia grow up.

Over 90 percent of patients, after this operation,

are alive in five years.

Over two thirds of patients, it can offer a complete cure.

There's a good chance she hopefully we'll get back to a very good quality of life.

It takes nearly an hour to open Sue's chest.

They're going to reach her lungs through an artery in her heart.

A machine will take over the work of her heart and lungs.

The machine takes over the breathing and the circulation of the patient.

So the blood comes out of the body, bypasses the heart and lungs,

goes into this machine there and comes back oxygenated.

In most cardiothoracic operations, that would be enough to allow for surgery.

But not in this one.

Mr Jenkins' operating field is a hole about an inch across.

We need to switch the heart-lung machine off

because if we didn't,

you would always have a blood flow coming through.

So it would actually impede his vision.

The only way the team can do the operation without killing Sue

is too slow her metabolism down to a virtual standstill.

We need to cool the patient slowly, to about 20 degrees.

And then that gives us the safe period of 20 or 30 minutes

when we can drain all her blood out

and have a very good view to do the actual operation.

Sue's blood is very gradually chilled

as it runs through the bypass machine,

reducing her body temperature to half its normal level.

She'll be entering a state of suspended animation.

It's all designed to try and protect the brain from the periods

where we switch the pump off completely.

If you didn't do that, how long would it take for her to be brain damaged?

At normal body temperature, like you or I now,

three to four minutes,

and already we would start to see irreversible brain damage.

OK, so, Nick, you can stop the circulation now and drain out, please.

This is an extraordinary moment.

The heart-lung machine's just been switched off.

And all the blood is draining from Susie's body,

right in front of our eyes.

This is as close to being dead as you can get and still be revived.

They've now got just 20 minutes to tease out the blood clots

before her organs start to fail.

There is no way of knowing how easy or desperate it's going to be.

Hers is actually quite stubborn.

They've managed to remove the major blockages from the right side,

but time has run out.

So, we've just reached 20 minutes.

Sue will now briefly go back on bypass to refresh her brain

and body with a life saving cycle of blood,

then Mr Jenkins will have to start all over again on her other lung.

We only get the final proof when we come off bypass

and see what the pressures are like and see how she is.

Mr Jenkins is pleased with the results.

And it's looking, for this stage, it's looking pretty good.

I think she's going to be all right.

Sue will now go into intensive care.

If the recovery goes well, she could be home in a couple of weeks,

with a new life ahead of her.

When I was a medical student, this was the stuff of science fiction.

From my perspective, this is as close to a medical miracle as you can get.

That was amazing, wasn't it? I mean, how is she getting on?

Well, we did catch up with her, and she is recovering well.

See for yourselves.

I just wanted to give you an update on how I'm doing.

Coming home was incredible.

It was just amazing to see Amelia,

who had been here waiting for me to come home.

Having a cuddle.

Now I've had my operation, I'm able to dress Amelia

and change her nappy.

All those things that some parents would go, urgh, yeah,

mundane things.

But to me, every one is so special.

And pushing her in a pushchair is just lovely.

And not having an oxygen cylinder and being breathless,

just being able to do it on my own, is incredible.

I just want to say a humongous thank you to David Jenkins

and everyone that helped look after me at Papworth.

Before the operation,

and being told my life expectancy wasn't particularly great,

I viewed everything, birthdays, Christmases, Mother's Days, as a countdown.

You know, this might be the last one.

And now, it's incredible that I haven't got that over my shoulders.

Well, that is fantastic news, isn't it?

-I mean, good luck to Sue and her family.

-Yeah, an incredible story.

And look, Michael, look what Joe has left us behind. Our ride home.

-It's a seagull!

-Where are we going first?

-To the North!

-Yee hah!

See you later!

-Don't kick it.

-All right.