Browse content similar to 17/08/2011. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
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Hello and welcome to the One Show with Alex Jones. Afrpblgts and Matt | :00:16. | :00:21. | |
Baker. We have a busy show tonight. Later John Sergeant will reveal the | :00:21. | :00:25. | |
family who built Scotland's Whitehouses. Lucy Siegle tests her | :00:25. | :00:30. | |
nerve with the RAF's bomb disposal heroes. First seven hours ago the | :00:30. | :00:34. | |
deadline closed for applications to become the next commissioner of the | :00:34. | :00:36. | |
Metropolitan Police. The Home Secretary said she was looking for | :00:36. | :00:41. | |
a single minded, tough crime fiergt. It's a shame they don't want an | :00:41. | :00:45. | |
American. We have the perfect woman, it's Cagney & Lacey's Sharon Gless. | :00:45. | :00:50. | |
APPLAUSE How fantastic. There's that music. | :00:50. | :00:53. | |
Do you ever tire this afternoon music? I lover that music. It's | :00:53. | :00:59. | |
great. We love it as well. I walked into a restaurant last night and | :00:59. | :01:04. | |
the piano player started playing it. It was a treat. Sharon, look at | :01:04. | :01:08. | |
these pair of cute little female rabbits. Here they are. Sorry I've | :01:08. | :01:16. | |
got them here. They're here! They called them Cagney & Lacey. Can you | :01:16. | :01:23. | |
guess which is which? It may be a trick question. I think the blonde | :01:24. | :01:28. | |
is Cagney. Call me crazy. I think the dark one is Lacey. I think yes, | :01:28. | :01:32. | |
Cagney is the cutest. No it's actually, this one is Lacey and | :01:32. | :01:36. | |
this is Cagney. Oh, well there we are. Yeah, that's what I said. | :01:36. | :01:42. | |
LAUGHTER Any way! Whichever way it is, it | :01:42. | :01:46. | |
doesn't really matter. They are up for adoption from the RSPCA. The | :01:46. | :01:50. | |
trouble is they're so close that they can't be separated and we need | :01:50. | :01:54. | |
your help in finding them a home. Details are on our website. Come on | :01:55. | :01:58. | |
Britain, give Cagney & Lacey a home. We thought there must be more | :01:58. | :02:03. | |
Cagney & Lacey pets out there. We would like to see them. If you are | :02:03. | :02:06. | |
already living with Cagney & Lacey creatures, send us a photo and tell | :02:06. | :02:11. | |
us all about them. Now one of the most dangerous jobs in our arms | :02:12. | :02:15. | |
forces in Afghanistan is dealing with the threat posed by home-made | :02:15. | :02:18. | |
bombs. It's a role most of us associate with the army, but the | :02:18. | :02:21. | |
Royal Air Force are experts too. Lucy Siegle spent the day training | :02:21. | :02:27. | |
with them. A bomb has failed to detonate on | :02:27. | :02:31. | |
landing. We need to take out the fuse to make it safe. This way? | :02:31. | :02:36. | |
Yeah, that way. One wrong move could be fatal. It's like something | :02:36. | :02:41. | |
out of a Hollywood movie. When lives depend on one person keeping | :02:41. | :02:45. | |
their nerve and a steady hand and that person happens to be you, well | :02:45. | :02:49. | |
very few of us will experience that for real. Thankfully the closest | :02:49. | :02:53. | |
I'll get to it is this training exercise. That seems nice and tight | :02:53. | :03:01. | |
now. We'll go back to the vehicle and fire it off. For the men of the | :03:01. | :03:04. | |
RAF's 5131 Bomb Disposal Squadron life and death decisions are a | :03:04. | :03:09. | |
daily reality. The squadron deals with unexploded World War II bombs | :03:09. | :03:16. | |
here in the UK to improvised explosive devices in Afghanistan. | :03:16. | :03:20. | |
16 men from the squadron have recently returned home after six | :03:20. | :03:25. | |
months on the Afghan front line. The men tackled IEDs in two ways: | :03:25. | :03:30. | |
Working in destroy teams, blowing up devices and clearing a safe path | :03:30. | :03:34. | |
for ground troops or neutralise teams, disarming bombs and | :03:34. | :03:39. | |
recovering evidence, which could help identify who put them there. | :03:39. | :03:43. | |
Sergeant Martin Farrimond led a four-man destroy team. They worked | :03:43. | :03:47. | |
with a remote controlled robot known as a dragon runner. It's used | :03:48. | :03:54. | |
on mat jort of tasks in Afghanistan. It goes down the road to see -- | :03:54. | :04:00. | |
save a person having to go doub into -- down into a dangerous area. | :04:00. | :04:05. | |
The robot places an explosive charge on top of an IED allowing it | :04:06. | :04:10. | |
to be detonated from a safe distance. Come on. At least that's | :04:10. | :04:16. | |
the theory. If I was doing this for real, we would be in big trouble. | :04:16. | :04:19. | |
More by luck than judgment I managed to put the charge down in | :04:19. | :04:26. | |
roughly the right place. I just think under pressure, it would be | :04:26. | :04:30. | |
really, really tricky and as soon as I started to lock at the screen, | :04:30. | :04:34. | |
I completely lost it. Then dropping the thing at the end, you have to | :04:34. | :04:37. | |
be in exactly the right position as well. I think it's pretty difficult. | :04:38. | :04:41. | |
It's a pressure that you do get used to. First couple of times out, | :04:41. | :04:45. | |
it's like, right the pressure's really on here. I need to get this | :04:45. | :04:51. | |
done rapid. Obviously, it's a case of more haste, less speed. Now it's | :04:51. | :04:58. | |
time to detonate our charge and destroy the IED. Firing now! | :04:58. | :05:03. | |
Something like that small charge like that would probably cause | :05:03. | :05:07. | |
lower limb loss, one possibly multiple. These are the sort of | :05:07. | :05:09. | |
devices that you were come ing across all the time and bigger than | :05:09. | :05:14. | |
that. Yes, up to anything that would take on vehicles. | :05:14. | :05:17. | |
delicate job of disarming these devices so forensic evidence could | :05:17. | :05:22. | |
be recovered from them fell to the neutralise team. The team was led | :05:22. | :05:27. | |
by chief technician Dave Lowe. you're aware, there's many IEDs | :05:27. | :05:31. | |
over there. To convict one bomber and one bombing chain is worth | :05:31. | :05:34. | |
removing hundreds and hundreds of bombs. If you can stop it at source, | :05:34. | :05:38. | |
you stop it in the future. That's so important. There's no points | :05:38. | :05:42. | |
just stopping the drip from the tap. You need to turn the water off. | :05:42. | :05:46. | |
of Dave's vital pieces of kit is this bomb suit. It's made of Kevlar | :05:46. | :05:53. | |
and it's designed to with stand the impact of a blast. It is so heavy. | :05:53. | :05:56. | |
I can't actually express how uncomfortable this is. I haven't | :05:56. | :05:59. | |
even tried walking and they have a little task they want me to do. I'm | :05:59. | :06:03. | |
not sure that I'm actually going to be able to do it. I'm going to move | :06:03. | :06:10. | |
over here. It's really hard. The object of the exercise is to attach | :06:10. | :06:14. | |
this wire it a weapon concealed in here. So if it's booby trapped, it | :06:14. | :06:17. | |
can be recovered without anyone touching it. It's very, very hard | :06:17. | :06:27. | |
:06:27. | :06:29. | ||
to move. So hard to lift your arms. Now am I going to put it in here? | :06:29. | :06:33. | |
Job done. But it's not been a pleasant experience. That was | :06:33. | :06:40. | |
appalling. It's like every muscle is straining just to drag yourself | :06:40. | :06:45. | |
along and just the thought of that weight and that people work under | :06:45. | :06:51. | |
such intense pressure and the heat and being shot at, I mean, it's | :06:51. | :06:57. | |
unfathomable how they manage to do it. Over the last five years, 174 | :06:57. | :07:01. | |
British service personnel, including 13 bomb disposal experts, | :07:01. | :07:04. | |
have been killed by IEDs in Afghanistan. Don't you think your | :07:04. | :07:11. | |
job is unacceptably rifpbgy. course there's risks with it. | :07:11. | :07:14. | |
There's risks with every job out there. But the reward is massive. | :07:14. | :07:17. | |
At the end of the day, you're making an area safe, allowing | :07:17. | :07:21. | |
people to live a normal life. That's incredibly rewarding to be | :07:21. | :07:27. | |
part of that. And to have your teams doing that (. Our thoughts | :07:27. | :07:31. | |
are with the family of Daniel Clack from the 1st Battalion The Rifles, | :07:31. | :07:37. | |
who became the latest British victim of an IED last Friday. | :07:37. | :07:41. | |
We saw Lucy struggling with the training there. Did you have formal | :07:41. | :07:45. | |
police training before you played Cagney? I did. I had to go to the | :07:45. | :07:51. | |
police academy and learn gun training. I felt very uncomfortable. | :07:51. | :07:59. | |
I was playing the tough cop. Tyne had her training, so she came down | :07:59. | :08:04. | |
to give me support. Start -- you start with blanks. Then they put in | :08:04. | :08:08. | |
real bullets and handed it back to me. Why give you real bullets? | :08:08. | :08:14. | |
That's what I said. Here I'm the tough one and Tyne had just met me, | :08:14. | :08:18. | |
and I start crying. Please, I just don't want the gun with the real | :08:18. | :08:22. | |
bullets. Why do I have to have those? They said, because we need | :08:22. | :08:26. | |
you to feel it because there's a kick. I suppose the weight. When a | :08:26. | :08:30. | |
real bullet goes off there's a kick to it. If you are going to fake it | :08:30. | :08:38. | |
on film, you have to know what that feels like. Let's see new action. | :08:38. | :08:48. | |
:08:48. | :08:58. | ||
Chris, you all right? Yeah. It looked realistic to me. | :08:58. | :09:04. | |
looking at it saying what happened? Let's not go there. You mention | :09:04. | :09:08. | |
Tyne Daly before. You seemed like a great pair, friends. Were you | :09:08. | :09:12. | |
friends then, are you still friends now? We're very, very close friends. | :09:12. | :09:16. | |
She was very generous and welcoming in the show. I was her third Cagney. | :09:16. | :09:22. | |
Her mother had a great expression. She said "Sweat makes a great | :09:22. | :09:28. | |
cement." We sweat together for six years against all odds. It was very | :09:28. | :09:33. | |
controversial show. We are cemented for life. Lots of 80s television | :09:33. | :09:38. | |
shows have been remade. You have Dallas, Charlie's Angels, the A- | :09:38. | :09:43. | |
Team. How would you feel about a remake of Cagney & Lacey? I think | :09:43. | :09:47. | |
it would be wonderful. I don't know if it would go as a series. I don't | :09:47. | :09:52. | |
think you should top it. Not because I was in it. But to try and | :09:52. | :09:56. | |
top a classic, but it would make a good film. It was dark then. I | :09:56. | :10:00. | |
think it could be, what you could do with those two characters could | :10:00. | :10:05. | |
be very dark. You said it was dark, but it inspired a lot of women to | :10:05. | :10:09. | |
join the police force. Yes, it did. I used to get letters all the time. | :10:09. | :10:14. | |
Young girls telling me, I'm joining the force because of you. Are you | :10:14. | :10:20. | |
crazy? Alex was saying she used to play it. I always wanted to be | :10:20. | :10:24. | |
Cagney. We deal with lots of big questions here on The One Show, but | :10:24. | :10:27. | |
one we have never answered before is where do passenger aeroplanes go | :10:27. | :10:31. | |
when they're not needed any more. I've always wondered that. Such a | :10:31. | :10:36. | |
good question and Marty Jopson has the answer. | :10:36. | :10:39. | |
With nearly two million commercial flights entering or exiting the UK | :10:39. | :10:43. | |
each year, few of us stop to think what happens to those planes at the | :10:43. | :10:49. | |
end of their lives. And even fewer of us would picture the rolling | :10:49. | :10:53. | |
Cotswold countryside as their final destination. But when an aircraft | :10:53. | :10:59. | |
needs to be retired from service and scrapped, it may well fly to | :10:59. | :11:05. | |
this airfield in kendal where the remaining value will be stripped | :11:05. | :11:14. | |
from it. This is a budget airline boneyard. | :11:14. | :11:18. | |
Former planes of the air lying forlornly beneath the heavy British | :11:18. | :11:21. | |
summer sky. But they're not going to waste. There's a huge amount of | :11:21. | :11:25. | |
cash sitting here on the Tarmac that ultimately can be extracted to | :11:25. | :11:31. | |
keep passenger air fares down. Having scrapped some 350 planes | :11:31. | :11:36. | |
over the last 15 years, Mark Gregory runs the 25-strong company. | :11:36. | :11:40. | |
We've got 12 aircraft in at the moment through various states of | :11:40. | :11:46. | |
repair or dismantle, I should say. The time zones for dismantle depend | :11:46. | :11:53. | |
on the type of plane. A 737, up to eight weeks. It's not just a | :11:53. | :11:57. | |
wrecking ball job. It takes time. What are you doing? It's very | :11:57. | :12:00. | |
methodical. First the engines are removed. They're the high value | :12:00. | :12:08. | |
part of the aircraft. Anything from $500,000 to �4 million -- $4 | :12:08. | :12:13. | |
million per engine. Then avionics, air conditioning, landing gear etc. | :12:13. | :12:18. | |
A typical plane has up to 2,000 salvagable parts. Each has a | :12:18. | :12:23. | |
complete caid toll grave service history, all of it is carried | :12:23. | :12:27. | |
through the cataloguing of every component in all these packing | :12:27. | :12:31. | |
crates. With all this nitty gritty detail, it's easy to forget the | :12:31. | :12:35. | |
amazing machine that this lot comes from. So here's my guide to the | :12:35. | :12:42. | |
most iconic plane of the skies, the 747, or jumbo jet. | :12:42. | :12:48. | |
The 747 contains six million parts. 171 miles of wiring, but only five | :12:48. | :12:54. | |
miles of tubing. The wings weigh a massive 21 tons each. They're so | :12:54. | :12:58. | |
big if you put them together you could park 45 medium sized cars on | :12:58. | :13:03. | |
them. The aircraft sits on 18 of these monster wheels. The interior | :13:03. | :13:09. | |
is so cavernous you could fit 25 African elephants in here. The | :13:09. | :13:16. | |
flight deck has 365 buttons, switches and dials and overall, the | :13:16. | :13:23. | |
entire fleet of 747s has flown an astonishing 48 billion miles. All | :13:23. | :13:27. | |
the while transporting 3.5 billion passengers. That's equivalent to | :13:27. | :13:33. | |
half the world's population. No wonder she's looking a bit tired. | :13:33. | :13:37. | |
With all the parts laid out like this, it's more like a giant air | :13:37. | :13:45. | |
fix kit, but we're not here for the making. We're here for the breaking. | :13:45. | :13:49. | |
With just the frame left, it doesn't take long for the team to | :13:49. | :13:58. | |
reduce this 737 to 25 tons of scrap aluminium. With just a teepbsy bit | :13:58. | :14:08. | |
:14:08. | :14:08. | ||
of help from yours truly. How was that? That was fab. Don't | :14:08. | :14:11. | |
you feel guilty munching up these planes? They have got so much | :14:11. | :14:15. | |
history in them. It's quite sad, but at the end of the day, | :14:15. | :14:18. | |
everything's got a life on it. Everything comes to an end. And it | :14:18. | :14:25. | |
ends up here. And with recycling only taking 5% of the energy used | :14:25. | :14:31. | |
to manufacture aluminium from raw site, this plane lives on as an | :14:31. | :14:35. | |
increasingly valuable resource, which one day will be used to make | :14:35. | :14:39. | |
engine blocks or ladders or cars. One aeroplane contains enough | :14:40. | :14:49. | |
:14:50. | :14:50. | ||
aluminium to make 16,934,234 of these. So the next can you're | :14:50. | :14:59. | |
drinking from may be a tiny part of a jumbo jet. | :14:59. | :15:06. | |
Great film. Not bad that One cola. Sounds like what happens to old | :15:06. | :15:12. | |
actresss in Hollywood. Your Cagneys and Lacey s are coming in thick and | :15:12. | :15:18. | |
fast. That's from Gemma. Keep them coming. You've flown over to the UK | :15:18. | :15:23. | |
to play a character who doesn't want to end up on the scrap heap. A | :15:23. | :15:28. | |
Round-Heeled Womam is out from October. It's a true story, isn't | :15:28. | :15:32. | |
it about one woman's unusual quest for a more fulfilling love life. | :15:32. | :15:37. | |
That's true. It's a book I optioned ten years ago. A woman really did | :15:37. | :15:43. | |
this in Berkeley California, a teacher. She took an ad out in the | :15:43. | :15:46. | |
New York Review of Books because she wanted to attract an | :15:46. | :15:51. | |
intellectual like herself. The ad said "Before I turn 67, next March, | :15:51. | :15:57. | |
I would like to have a lot of sex with a man I like. If you need to | :15:57. | :16:03. | |
talk first trollope works for me." She didn't think nb would respond. | :16:04. | :16:10. | |
She took a sabatical a year later, to write about the 63 men who | :16:10. | :16:14. | |
answered. She did well. Yeah some of it is heart breaking. I went to | :16:14. | :16:18. | |
watch her lecture. I obtained the option, but I never met her. I flew | :16:18. | :16:21. | |
to New York to listen to her lecture. Someone raised her hand | :16:21. | :16:26. | |
and said "Why did you humiliate yourself like this? "And she looked | :16:26. | :16:30. | |
right at her, she said "I had not been touched in 30 years and I | :16:30. | :16:35. | |
wasn't going to die until I felt that again." It's a really cool | :16:35. | :16:40. | |
play. It is a subject that has a lot of taboos around it still. How | :16:40. | :16:45. | |
do audiences react to it? audiences in America, we've tried | :16:45. | :16:49. | |
it out twice, have been very, they end up being very touched by it. | :16:49. | :16:54. | |
The people come and talk to me. Sometimes they're crying, saying | :16:54. | :16:58. | |
you've changed my life. I'm not afraid any more. I'm going to take | :16:58. | :17:02. | |
a chance. I say I didn't change your life, Jane did. I've told that | :17:02. | :17:06. | |
to Jane, the real woman. I said these people want to do what you | :17:06. | :17:10. | |
did. She said "I don't know if I could recommend that." But she was | :17:10. | :17:16. | |
very brave. It's the story of a woman's courage. Lots of woman can | :17:16. | :17:20. | |
empathise with the character. But you've finished auditioning today | :17:20. | :17:24. | |
for the other parts. Yes. You're going to have to maybe kiss or be | :17:24. | :17:32. | |
intimate with these men. All they did was read with me. They only | :17:32. | :17:36. | |
read their side. I haven't really informed them about the scene. Then | :17:36. | :17:41. | |
the chariot race started, I haven't informed them about some of the | :17:41. | :17:46. | |
scenes. It sounds superb. We've got another Cagney & Lacey. Five-year- | :17:46. | :17:51. | |
old labs. Thank you very much. Recently a vicious war of words | :17:51. | :17:54. | |
broke out between two Scottish towns. It's nothing to do with | :17:54. | :17:59. | |
politics, religion or money. It's far more important than all of that. | :17:59. | :18:05. | |
It's a battle over which location inspired author JM Barrie's famous | :18:05. | :18:10. | |
tale of flying boys and fairies. Why the sudden who haw about the | :18:10. | :18:15. | |
boy who never grew up you might be thinking? Last week residents in | :18:15. | :18:20. | |
Dumfries unveiled this statue, boldly claiming this is the | :18:20. | :18:30. | |
birthplace of Peter Pan. But 150 miles north, in the town of Kerry | :18:30. | :18:33. | |
mule, say hold on, we thought the birthplace of Peter Pan was right | :18:33. | :18:40. | |
here. Are the Dumfriesians in fantasy | :18:40. | :18:46. | |
land. I would say never, Neverland perhaps. They have a part to play | :18:46. | :18:52. | |
in Barry's life. Dumfries birthplace of Peter Pan, that's | :18:52. | :19:00. | |
quite a bold statement to make. is quite a bold claim. JM Barrie | :19:00. | :19:05. | |
lived and was educated in Dumfries. He went to Dumfries academy. | :19:05. | :19:10. | |
Adjacent to the academy was a house. He played pirates in the garden. | :19:10. | :19:17. | |
That was described by him as an enchanted land. He only revealed | :19:17. | :19:21. | |
the secret of the Genesis of Peter Pan when he came to Dumfries in | :19:21. | :19:25. | |
1924. Perhaps the most important secret was the Genesis of Peter Pan | :19:25. | :19:29. | |
was in that enchanted land. So JM Barrie made this claim himself. | :19:29. | :19:37. | |
did. Why do you care? Unlike Peter Pan, we should all grow up and both | :19:37. | :19:39. | |
towns should embrace the opportunities available to both of | :19:39. | :19:46. | |
us for tourism. Will the locals of kerriemuir do what Peter Pan failed | :19:46. | :19:52. | |
to do and grow up. Or will they snap back at the heels of Dumfries | :19:52. | :19:56. | |
like the crocodile at the feet of Captain Hook. They say JM Barrie | :19:56. | :19:59. | |
himself said the idea for Peter Pan came from his time of living in | :20:00. | :20:04. | |
their town. He did say that. But he also said the Genesis for Peter Pan | :20:04. | :20:10. | |
started off when he was a young boy playing in his mother's wash house | :20:10. | :20:15. | |
behind where he was born. This is where the idea first started. | :20:15. | :20:20. | |
Dumfries may well have continued the movement. After he became | :20:21. | :20:24. | |
successful, he returned to the town and of course, instead of being | :20:24. | :20:29. | |
laid to rest in Westminster Abbey, he decided, when he died, that he | :20:30. | :20:34. | |
would come back here, where he was born. Tell me about the statue, you | :20:34. | :20:38. | |
designed it, didn't you? I drew something very quickly on a piece | :20:38. | :20:43. | |
of paper. I put it into planning in December last year. And this is the | :20:43. | :20:52. | |
result. You've got the stamp of approval of Joanna Lumle ye. | :20:52. | :20:57. | |
was. She realised the truth about Peter Pan. How does it compare to | :20:57. | :21:03. | |
your statue? I think our statue has got a wee bit more taste. It's like | :21:03. | :21:06. | |
JM Barrie, like Peter Pan, it's small in stature, but it actually | :21:06. | :21:10. | |
gives off quite a lot. So with both towns using Peter Pan | :21:10. | :21:17. | |
as a draw for tourism, maybe the National Trust has the answer. John, | :21:17. | :21:22. | |
in your professional opinion, who has this claim to Peter Pan? It has | :21:22. | :21:29. | |
to be ultimately Kerriemuir because of his birthplace. Both claim -- | :21:29. | :21:34. | |
towns claim to fame is that they are both Scottish and I can assure | :21:34. | :21:40. | |
you that Peter Pan was Scottish. You're a big fan of Peter Pan the | :21:40. | :21:44. | |
musical. I love it. I know all the songs. Anita is here, because the | :21:44. | :21:49. | |
origins of other figure is in dispute. Yes if I said to you Robin | :21:49. | :21:53. | |
Hood, you'd all say Nottingham and Sherwood Forest. I can now proudly | :21:53. | :22:02. | |
reveal that Yorkshire, yes my own county, is already laying claim, | :22:02. | :22:07. | |
ballads dating to 1500 says he lives in the forest of barns Dale | :22:08. | :22:13. | |
and lived in Loxley. Yorkshire feel Nottingham have taken their hero | :22:13. | :22:17. | |
for themselves. They have a big sign and the visitor centres. It | :22:17. | :22:20. | |
even got to Parliament. All Yorkshire want is to be able to | :22:20. | :22:26. | |
claim the hero that was born in their county. That's all. We have | :22:26. | :22:32. | |
got time for one more. We have news on King Arthur. I have! Everybody | :22:32. | :22:42. | |
:22:42. | :22:44. | ||
lays claim to King Arthur. You have Cornwall, Glastonbury Abbey, | :22:44. | :22:49. | |
Glastonbury Abbey and you're not going to believe this, castle field | :22:49. | :22:53. | |
in Cardiff also claim that he's from there and now the French are | :22:53. | :22:56. | |
involved. It's gone international. The French say they believe King | :22:56. | :23:00. | |
Arthur was a Welshman and that he would have hated the English. What | :23:00. | :23:06. | |
it's got to do with the French I don't know. Croatia have muscled in. | :23:06. | :23:13. | |
They say King Arthur's final resting place is in a village. -- | :23:13. | :23:21. | |
village there. And the mayor has challenged the Brits to a dual. | :23:21. | :23:26. | |
say Durham. Any way. Definitely not. Moving on from castles and forests | :23:26. | :23:30. | |
to light houses. As John Sergeant explains, it was one remarkable | :23:30. | :23:33. | |
family business that has kept the light shining in the dark for the | :23:33. | :23:41. | |
last 200 years. The rugged Scottish coastline has | :23:41. | :23:46. | |
inspired countless tales of high drama. Many dreamt up by the author | :23:46. | :23:51. | |
of Treasure Island. Members of Stephenson's family, including his | :23:51. | :23:55. | |
father, did more than dream of this coastline. They transformed it, | :23:55. | :24:02. | |
building more than 200 lighthouses. When I smell salt water, he wrote, | :24:02. | :24:06. | |
I know that I'm not far from one of the works of my ancestors. When the | :24:06. | :24:10. | |
lights come out at sun down ah, long the shores of Scotland, I'm | :24:10. | :24:14. | |
proud to think they burn more brightly for the genius of my | :24:14. | :24:20. | |
father. They were an extraordinary, | :24:20. | :24:23. | |
ingenious family. No matter how inaccess ibl a site was, if a light | :24:24. | :24:29. | |
house was needed, they built it. I'm on my way to see one of the | :24:29. | :24:37. | |
earliest light houses. With me is Dr Robert Prescott from St Andrews | :24:37. | :24:42. | |
university. How many wrecks do we know there were around the Scottish | :24:42. | :24:45. | |
coast? Around the coast, it would be many thousands. Light houses | :24:45. | :24:50. | |
were brought in, was that to save life or to save cargo? I think it's | :24:50. | :24:54. | |
always a question of lives and property. It's the two things | :24:54. | :25:00. | |
together really. A crew of 30 maybe would have hundreds of pounds of | :25:00. | :25:10. | |
:25:10. | :25:10. | ||
cargo on board. Light house building really took off in 1808, | :25:10. | :25:15. | |
when Stevenson's grandfather became engineer and chief executive of the | :25:15. | :25:18. | |
Northern Lighthouse Board. The aisle of May light house is one of | :25:18. | :25:22. | |
his earliest and it's a master piece. He had space here. Most | :25:22. | :25:26. | |
towers are built on skimpy pieces of rock, covered by the high tide. | :25:26. | :25:31. | |
Here he had the room and space to spread himself. I don't think | :25:31. | :25:34. | |
there's another light house like this anywhere many Britain really. | :25:34. | :25:39. | |
Not quite so grapbld. It's like a country house really. How much of a | :25:39. | :25:43. | |
pioneer was Robert Stevenson. was a considerable pioneer. No-one | :25:43. | :25:47. | |
prior to him would have dreamed of trying to put a light tower on the | :25:47. | :25:51. | |
Bell Rock, a rock that is submerged most of the time and just appeared | :25:51. | :25:56. | |
for an hour or two at low tide and is in the fiercest and most exposed | :25:56. | :26:00. | |
locations. The abt to build a tower strong enough to kopt with those | :26:00. | :26:05. | |
situations, he perfected it. Robert Stevenson retired in 1842. There | :26:05. | :26:08. | |
were three more generations of Stevensons working in the Scottish | :26:09. | :26:15. | |
light house industry. It wasn't until 1938 that the last Stevenson | :26:15. | :26:21. | |
finally retired as chief engineer. It's an maizing -- an amazing | :26:22. | :26:26. | |
record. Wherever you go round the Scottish coast, you're not far from | :26:26. | :26:30. | |
a Stevenson light house. Bob McIntosh has visited most of them. | :26:30. | :26:36. | |
They built 200 light houses around the coast of Scotland. 100 like | :26:36. | :26:39. | |
this here and 100 smaller lights, something which the mariners around | :26:40. | :26:42. | |
the coast of Scotland have been very grateful for. These light | :26:43. | :26:48. | |
houses have stood the test of time. Most are still in use. But they | :26:48. | :26:54. | |
have modern technology. When was this built? This was built in 1870. | :26:54. | :26:57. | |
No lift. We have to go all the way on the stairs. Yes there's 170 | :26:58. | :27:06. | |
steps right to the top. 170 - oh. The Stevenson light houses are | :27:06. | :27:10. | |
impressive structures. They've endured storms, fierce winds and | :27:10. | :27:13. | |
heavy seas. Remarkably they're all still standing. It's a real tribute | :27:13. | :27:17. | |
to the men who built them. Here we are at the top of the light house, | :27:17. | :27:22. | |
and this is the light, isn't it? Yeah, this is the modern technology | :27:22. | :27:27. | |
with the headlight type lenss. There are three levels which gives | :27:27. | :27:32. | |
us the equivalent of three flashes. We've used the original strakure | :27:32. | :27:36. | |
with modification inside and the modern technology gives us a | :27:36. | :27:39. | |
brighter light. Otherwise the structure of the light house is | :27:39. | :27:44. | |
exactly the same as it was at the end of the 19th century. Exactly. | :27:44. | :27:50. | |
The light house Stevensons were remarkable men. Their ideas spread | :27:50. | :27:55. | |
worldwide and they became legendary figures. These aren't just | :27:55. | :27:59. | |
marveelzf the Victorian age, here in the 21st century they still | :27:59. | :28:05. | |
stand looking magnificent and proud and long may they do. So | :28:05. | :28:09. | |
I couldn't agree more. Earlier on we asked to you send in your photos | :28:09. | :28:14. | |
of pets called Cagney & Lacey. Inspired by these two who are from | :28:14. | :28:17. | |
Inspired by these two who are from the RSPCA. They kneed a home. We | :28:17. | :28:27. | |
:28:27. | :28:40. | ||
asked you to log onto the website. right! This is from the Gibbs | :28:40. | :28:50. | |
:28:50. | :28:53. | ||
family. 14-year-old Lacey, missing a Cagney. Thank you for coming in. | :28:53. | :28:58. |