:00:19. > :00:21.Hello and welcome lovely evening. Goodbye.
:00:22. > :14:02.This place would have been very similar to what it was like in the
:14:03. > :14:08.1800, when Daphne came to stay. Yes, it would. In those days, there were
:14:09. > :14:12.just two buildings, no village. It was very remote, very quiet. The
:14:13. > :14:17.story is fictional. Yes, completely. She was a thundering
:14:18. > :14:23.good writer with a very good imagination. Jamaica Inn went on to
:14:24. > :14:29.become one of her most popular novels. Readers loved the thrilling
:14:30. > :14:36.plots and evocative descriptions of the Cornish landscape. On either
:14:37. > :14:41.side of the road, the country stretched interminably into space.
:14:42. > :14:48.No trees, no lanes, no cluster of cottages or hamlets, but mile upon
:14:49. > :14:52.mile of bleak moor land. It's a beautiful day here today on Bodmin
:14:53. > :14:57.Moor. But the weather can change quickly and becomes a very dangerous
:14:58. > :15:02.place. In the book, it has a dark, brooding, menacing presence, strange
:15:03. > :15:08.wind blowing from nowhere. Sometimes, the wind shouted and
:15:09. > :15:15.cried. There was a silence on the moor which belonged to another age.
:15:16. > :15:19.The writer's lover Cornel was not limited to the moors. In 1977, on
:15:20. > :15:23.Desert Island discs, Daphne Du Maurier recalled her earliest
:15:24. > :15:28.connection to the area. Family decided last have a holiday home in
:15:29. > :15:33.Cornwall. And we came down and discovered ferry side. I simply
:15:34. > :15:40.adored it. She first came to the coastal town in 1926. Her family
:15:41. > :15:45.love this area and purchased this house behind me, ferry side, as a
:15:46. > :15:50.holiday home. Her passion for the area has been passed down to her son
:15:51. > :15:59.who lives at ferry side today. What is the mother novel people love?
:16:00. > :16:04.Jamaica Inn especially is a real page turner, and a violent story,
:16:05. > :16:09.which is difficult to imagine coming from such a gentle, loving person.
:16:10. > :16:15.She and I used to walk over all these moors, and the stillness and
:16:16. > :16:21.the light, this had a terrific effect on her. I think landscape and
:16:22. > :16:25.places meant much more to her, almost than characters. It is now
:16:26. > :16:30.over ATA is since that lost afternoon on the moors, but the
:16:31. > :16:36.story it inspired and continues to catch our imagination. -- it is now
:16:37. > :16:42.over 80 years. There is a woman who knows how to
:16:43. > :16:45.wear a hat! Looking good there. I didn't even know that there was
:16:46. > :16:52.genuinely a Jamaica Inn. Have you been there? I used to live and work
:16:53. > :16:56.in Cornwall, and I stay there a lot. Jamaica Inn was a lovely pub, and
:16:57. > :17:07.you can go there and have lunch and relive the whole smuggling story.
:17:08. > :17:11.And Cornwall has inspired you. Your new novel A Seaside Affair is also
:17:12. > :17:17.set in Cornwall. I started reading it, but then my mum took it on her
:17:18. > :17:27.cruise! I set all the book is in a fictional town called Trevay. And I
:17:28. > :17:35.suddenly thought, when I was doing Strictly last year, I was hanging
:17:36. > :17:44.out with the stage managers, and I suddenly thought that Trevay could
:17:45. > :17:48.have a theatre that they need to save, because it is going to be
:17:49. > :17:51.turned into a coffee shop. So we brought in all of these actors and
:17:52. > :17:57.actresses from London, all behaving badly and having affairs, so that is
:17:58. > :18:02.why it is called A Seaside Affair, and even Richard Gere makes an
:18:03. > :18:09.appearance. You can just chuck them in? Yes, as long as you are nice to
:18:10. > :18:14.them. This is my fourth novel. And two of those have been set in
:18:15. > :18:20.Cornwall. Three. So clearly there is an inspiration there for you. I love
:18:21. > :18:25.Cornwall. I have been there since I was little, and when I first worked
:18:26. > :18:29.in television, I was offered four jobs, having asked for 72, and one
:18:30. > :18:35.of the was in Cornwall, so I went straight there. It is mystical and
:18:36. > :18:38.magical, and I grew up with stories of the headless Horseman going
:18:39. > :18:42.across the moors and stinking into the bog, and the Dartmoor prisoners
:18:43. > :18:46.escaping, and the police would have to stop our family car going on
:18:47. > :18:49.holiday, because that is exactly how prisoners would escape, dressed up
:18:50. > :18:57.as a father driving his family to Cornwall. And you are a busy girl. A
:18:58. > :19:00.Seaside Affair is out now. And as well as that, you've been busy
:19:01. > :19:04.poking around allotments for a new BBC Two series The Big Allotment
:19:05. > :19:07.Challenge. It's sort of what The Great British Bake Off does, but
:19:08. > :19:11.with fruit and veg patches. What do the contestants have to do? We have
:19:12. > :19:19.nine teams of two contestants per team. And last March, they will put
:19:20. > :19:22.into a walled garden, and they were told what they needed to plant for
:19:23. > :19:26.the challenges, and anything else they wanted to do. So they started
:19:27. > :19:31.planting last March, and we were filming them. By time-lapse magic
:19:32. > :19:40.photography, you see the seeds growing. As that happening now?
:19:41. > :19:50.You'll have to imagine it. And when the season got to harvesting, in
:19:51. > :19:55.July, I arrive with three expert who are there to judge them on the
:19:56. > :19:59.fruit, vegetables, flowers, flower arranging, pickling, preserving and
:20:00. > :20:05.jam making. And it is fantastic. So every show, they have to do four
:20:06. > :20:08.challenges. So it is quite forlorn. Let's have a look at a clip from
:20:09. > :20:16.tomorrow night, judgement day for the radish. You conceivably nicht
:20:17. > :20:23.there. It is just starting to come down there. This shows signs that it
:20:24. > :20:34.might be getting a little woody. It is quite hard to cut. It is a bit
:20:35. > :20:38.woody. Never mind. You can still pull something out of the bag. Just
:20:39. > :20:43.not radish is! APPLAUSE
:20:44. > :20:49.He took that well, but there is nothing worse than a woody radish.
:20:50. > :21:01.You don't want that in your mouth, obviously. They look like they are
:21:02. > :21:08.right out of ZZ Top. They do! They were very easy-going. And there were
:21:09. > :21:12.one couple, mother and daughter, not easy-going, actor win. And two best
:21:13. > :21:16.friends, they say they did have a competitive owner nobody, and they
:21:17. > :21:23.are fantastic. I think it will do brilliantly. There is also a book to
:21:24. > :21:28.accompany the series, which features lots of lovely recipes including one
:21:29. > :21:35.for mint jelly. Yes, and if you get the book now, you will be able to be
:21:36. > :21:40.doing this by July or August. There's lots of handy tips for
:21:41. > :21:50.growers in the series. One couple use of wheelbarrow of llama poo
:21:51. > :21:53.everyday. Prompting us to send the reliably green-fingered Terry Walton
:21:54. > :21:56.to find out what tips One Show viewers have to get their allotment
:21:57. > :22:00.springing in to action. Here in the Rhondda Valley, there are 27 of us.
:22:01. > :22:05.We share our stories. For some reason, we are mostly men. What you
:22:06. > :22:11.think is your tips for keeping pests of your allotment? I try to attract
:22:12. > :22:15.as many birds as possible. They are predators for the insects. And the
:22:16. > :22:22.joy I get from seeing them is fabulous. What is your success?
:22:23. > :22:29.Potatoes. What do you put in to make them so healthy? Well rotted compost
:22:30. > :22:36.and a little Horseman near. You cover them to within an inch of the
:22:37. > :22:42.top to retain the water. You have to grope them to check that they are
:22:43. > :22:50.ready. You can feel the potato, a bit small, not quite ready. A couple
:22:51. > :22:59.of weeks, we can eat them. These were planted way back last May. I
:23:00. > :23:08.put them in this cheap plastic tubing, so you have nine inches of
:23:09. > :23:13.nice white blanched leak. I call this my potato dither because it
:23:14. > :23:20.stops me doing a lot of bending on my hands and knees. A tool for the
:23:21. > :23:24.ageing Gardner. If you are growing members of the cabbage family, make
:23:25. > :23:31.sure that the ground is firm and hard. I would run backwards and
:23:32. > :23:38.forwards playing cricket on it to make it really hard, which makes
:23:39. > :23:44.your cabbages and cauliflowers have firm hearts. Take two steps forward
:23:45. > :23:48.and one step back because the weeds are creeping up behind you.
:23:49. > :23:55.And I love the way they say, women are allowed, too.
:23:56. > :23:58.Only within the last five years! The cute little water vole, immortalised
:23:59. > :24:02.in the popular children's story The Wind In The Willows, has been
:24:03. > :24:05.finding it hard to keep its head above water. Changes to its habitat
:24:06. > :24:08.and predators have resulted in dwindling numbers, so there's a race
:24:09. > :24:18.on to save Ratty, as Mike Dilger's been finding out.
:24:19. > :24:22.Magor Marsh in South Wales is unspoiled fenland. It should be
:24:23. > :24:29.perfect for water voles, but these cute creatures have been lost across
:24:30. > :24:34.Britain due to changing habitat and mink, a non-native predator. There
:24:35. > :24:37.hasn't been a whisker of water vole on these marshes recently, but now
:24:38. > :24:43.there was a bold plan to bring them back in big numbers.
:24:44. > :24:46.25 volunteers from the Gwent wildlife trust are gathering to
:24:47. > :24:52.release 100 voles into the waterways. Leading the project is
:24:53. > :24:58.Gemma Bo day. What is the plan of action? We need to move quickly
:24:59. > :25:02.because it is a hot day. I have never seen water vole is being
:25:03. > :25:07.unloaded from a transit van. They were bred in Devon, but the original
:25:08. > :25:11.stock is from right across the UK. They were captive bred and have
:25:12. > :25:14.never set foot in the wild, but this is the ideal setting, as mink have
:25:15. > :25:20.been removed from the area, so it is perfect habitat for them. It is slow
:25:21. > :25:26.flowing, not to deep water, fantastic botanical diversity. Water
:25:27. > :25:30.voles will eat up to 200 species of plants, so plant diversity is
:25:31. > :25:34.important. Water vole is need eat 80% of their body weight in plant
:25:35. > :25:37.material every day. This means winter hits them hard, as low
:25:38. > :25:42.temperatures limit the growth of plants on the river bank, causing a
:25:43. > :25:48.shortage of food. That is not their only struggle. Last year saw the
:25:49. > :25:53.first release of water vole is here. But when it became one of the
:25:54. > :25:57.wettest summers on record, Gemma watched nervously. We were worried
:25:58. > :26:07.last year with the first batch that went in. The rhynes do rise and fall
:26:08. > :26:13.naturally. But there was a lot of water here. And they can get flooded
:26:14. > :26:20.out of their homes? They rely on the banks to borrow into The Den nests.
:26:21. > :26:24.They can be flooded out. Burroughs can be up to three metres long, and
:26:25. > :26:29.have various entrances, including underwater openings to give them an
:26:30. > :26:31.escape route when in danger. But the areas where they sleep and have
:26:32. > :26:36.their young need to be above the water line. So these water voles
:26:37. > :26:42.have come up with a nifty survival trick. What we found last year was
:26:43. > :26:47.these amazing floating nests that they make. It is just the most
:26:48. > :26:53.exquisite rugby ball woven together with grasses and sedges. It floats
:26:54. > :26:59.and rises up with the water? Yes, it is a great adapter for them. It
:27:00. > :27:03.means potentially their success is hopeful. But even floating nests
:27:04. > :27:08.won't be enough to get the population to a point where it can
:27:09. > :27:16.definitely survive. So today, this year's extra 100 voles are heading
:27:17. > :27:19.out to boost the numbers. Left out in cages, they are given time to get
:27:20. > :27:25.used to their surroundings before they are released. But 31 of
:27:26. > :27:32.today's voles will be released straight into the waterways.
:27:33. > :27:37.Why treat these ones differently? These individuals will be hard
:27:38. > :27:40.released, and they are adults. They are not in a family group, so it is
:27:41. > :27:47.better just to release them straightaway. Wonderful. How do you
:27:48. > :27:54.handle them without getting bitten? Carefully!
:27:55. > :27:57.And hey presto, we have a water vole. Ouch! First one to be
:27:58. > :28:09.released. There we go. Best of luck in your new home,
:28:10. > :28:12.fellow. By the time these last 100
:28:13. > :28:15.individuals are released, they should ensure that there are water
:28:16. > :28:21.vole is back for good on the Gwent levels.
:28:22. > :28:28.It was always going to bite him! Thanks, Mike. We want to see your
:28:29. > :28:33.Commonwealth medal photos, and we have them here. This is Michael
:28:34. > :28:40.Floyd with his bronze medal at the Commonwealth Games in India. This is
:28:41. > :28:45.Karen's neighbour who won a silver medal in 2010. And this is a neater
:28:46. > :28:52.north with a gold medal in women's Olympic track in Delhi. That's all
:28:53. > :28:56.for tonight. Thanks for joining us, Fern, and good luck with your new
:28:57. > :28:58.book, A Seaside Affair. And of course, The Great Allotment
:28:59. > :29:06.Challenge starting tomorrow on BBC Two
:29:07. > :29:09.This is just a part-time job. In real life, we are fighter pilots.
:29:10. > :29:12.I think he might have forgotten the unit!
:29:13. > :29:17.Yeah, we just saw each other and just fell in love, didn't we?