0:00:05 > 0:00:07The sea, the vast sea.
0:00:07 > 0:00:09Exciting and challenging.
0:00:09 > 0:00:14Or, as the writer William Golding put it, "beautiful, grand, tremendous...
0:00:14 > 0:00:16"God, it's hateful!"
0:00:19 > 0:00:23As an island nation, "This sceptr'd isle," to use Shakespeare's phrase,
0:00:23 > 0:00:25"bound in with the triumphant sea",
0:00:25 > 0:00:28it's not surprising that the British,
0:00:28 > 0:00:30and British writers in particular,
0:00:30 > 0:00:33have had such a close relationship with the waters around them.
0:00:36 > 0:00:40The sea has been our farm, our highway, our playground
0:00:40 > 0:00:43and, too often, our cemetery.
0:00:43 > 0:00:47It's shaped our culture, moulded us as individuals,
0:00:47 > 0:00:49and it's also fired the imaginations
0:00:49 > 0:00:54of extraordinary writers since the earliest days of literature.
0:00:55 > 0:00:57"The waves of the sea are mighty,"
0:00:57 > 0:01:00says the Prayer Book, "and rage terribly."
0:01:00 > 0:01:04Those words were written in the 1600s, but to me, they still seem
0:01:04 > 0:01:09to tremble with the effort of trying to capture the sea's power.
0:01:09 > 0:01:12And it's that, as a writer, which really fascinates me.
0:01:12 > 0:01:13Words and the sea.
0:01:13 > 0:01:19How do authors and poets find the right words to conjure up,
0:01:19 > 0:01:21and to capture, all of this?
0:01:46 > 0:01:52"Break, break, break, On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!
0:01:52 > 0:01:55"And I would that my tongue could utter
0:01:55 > 0:01:59"The thoughts that arise in me."
0:01:59 > 0:02:04"Dirty British coaster with a salt-caked smoke stack
0:02:04 > 0:02:07"Butting through the Channel in the mad March days."
0:02:09 > 0:02:10The sea has been a muse
0:02:10 > 0:02:13that's inspired all kinds of writers through the ages.
0:02:13 > 0:02:15Lyric and epic poems,
0:02:15 > 0:02:19stories of swashbuckling and piracy, dark tales of immorality.
0:02:19 > 0:02:21From Shakespeare to Robert Louis Stevenson,
0:02:21 > 0:02:24from Joseph Conrad to Patrick O'Brian, the list of British
0:02:24 > 0:02:28sea writers features some of the best in the language.
0:02:28 > 0:02:31But why exactly has the sea been of such enduring interest to them?
0:02:34 > 0:02:37In this programme, I want to find out if there's something which
0:02:37 > 0:02:42unites our sea literature, something that explains this fascination.
0:02:42 > 0:02:46Is it because venturing out to sea is the ultimate test, perhaps?
0:02:46 > 0:02:50Or because, once at sea, all pretence is stripped away
0:02:50 > 0:02:53to reveal what we're really like?
0:02:53 > 0:02:56Put bluntly, is it because going out to sea
0:02:56 > 0:02:59in some way fundamentally changes us?
0:03:02 > 0:03:07The library of sea literature is remarkably varied and huge.
0:03:07 > 0:03:12So to give my research some clarity, I'll be focusing on how
0:03:12 > 0:03:15British writers have described and imagined the sea.
0:03:20 > 0:03:25At the heart of the British sea story is the sailing ship.
0:03:25 > 0:03:29Square-rigged tall ships, built with thousands of English oak
0:03:29 > 0:03:33trees, once came to symbolise Britain's maritime supremacy.
0:03:40 > 0:03:44So many of the great battles of history, the battles that defined
0:03:44 > 0:03:45Britain's imperial power,
0:03:45 > 0:03:49have taken place on the high seas in ships like these.
0:03:49 > 0:03:53So what better setting could there be for a gripping sea story?
0:03:58 > 0:04:02That's why Patrick O'Brian chose the Napoleonic Wars as his backdrop
0:04:02 > 0:04:05when he started writing his celebrated series of novels in 1970.
0:04:05 > 0:04:10As a writer, Nelson's battles with the French provided O'Brian
0:04:10 > 0:04:13with a ready-made theatre on an epic scale.
0:04:15 > 0:04:18The hero of these stories, the most written about sea captain
0:04:18 > 0:04:21in the whole of British sea literature, is Jack Aubrey.
0:04:23 > 0:04:26O'Brien's series of 20 novels about Aubrey
0:04:26 > 0:04:30sold over 3 million copies before his death in 2000.
0:04:32 > 0:04:33He was once described as
0:04:33 > 0:04:36the greatest historical novelist of all time,
0:04:36 > 0:04:41a big claim, and one that rests on O'Brian's vivid evocation of life
0:04:41 > 0:04:44on a Man of War in Nelson's navy.
0:04:44 > 0:04:47He captures the period in in extraordinary detail.
0:04:47 > 0:04:50The weapons, the food, the way people talk.
0:04:50 > 0:04:54And, in Aubrey's botanist friend, Stephen Maturin,
0:04:54 > 0:04:58the role of the sea and sailing in scientific exploration.
0:05:00 > 0:05:04The stories are more famous for their characterisation
0:05:04 > 0:05:06and their detailed description
0:05:06 > 0:05:09of 19th century life than they are for their dramatic action.
0:05:09 > 0:05:12So when they came to make the movie, Master And Commander,
0:05:12 > 0:05:15Hollywood had to raid several of the novels
0:05:15 > 0:05:17to create the action-packed film.
0:05:17 > 0:05:20The harrowing flogging scene, for example,
0:05:20 > 0:05:23was taken from the tenth novel, The Far Side Of The World.
0:05:23 > 0:05:27This dramatic episode finds Jack and his friend Stephen locked in the
0:05:27 > 0:05:32kind of moral debate a sea captain was frequently forced to encounter.
0:05:32 > 0:05:33Do you not see? The only things that keep
0:05:33 > 0:05:36this little wooden world together are hard work, discipline...
0:05:36 > 0:05:38Jack, the man failed to salute.
0:05:38 > 0:05:41There's hierarchies even in nature, as you've often said.
0:05:41 > 0:05:43This is no disdain in nature. There is no humiliation...
0:05:43 > 0:05:45Men must be governed.
0:05:45 > 0:05:47Often not wisely, I will grant you,
0:05:47 > 0:05:49but they must be governed none the less.
0:05:49 > 0:05:53That's the excuse of every tyrant in history. From Nero to Bonaparte.
0:05:54 > 0:05:59"The first stroke jerked an "Oh, my God" out of Nagel.
0:05:59 > 0:06:03"But after that the only sound, apart from the solemn count,
0:06:03 > 0:06:07"was the hiss and the impact.
0:06:07 > 0:06:10"Near Stephen, those youngsters who had never seen
0:06:10 > 0:06:15"a serious flogging before were looking frightened and uneasy.
0:06:15 > 0:06:20"And over the way, amongst the hands, he saw big Padeen Colman
0:06:20 > 0:06:22"weeping openly, tears of pity
0:06:22 > 0:06:25"coursing down his simple, kindly face."
0:06:25 > 0:06:27Cut him down.
0:06:29 > 0:06:34So how does the screen version match up to the novels?
0:06:34 > 0:06:36I'm meeting David Cordingly
0:06:36 > 0:06:40maritime historian and devoted reader of O'Brian's work.
0:06:42 > 0:06:45I wondered what he thought of the Hollywood treatment.
0:06:46 > 0:06:50The best battle scenes, I don't think have ever been done better.
0:06:50 > 0:06:54I've watched Errol Flynn's battles and
0:06:54 > 0:06:57reconstructions of Trafalgar, and that sort of thing,
0:06:57 > 0:06:59and they're always stagey.
0:06:59 > 0:07:03But what Peter Weir did in this film was to create battle scenes
0:07:03 > 0:07:07that are as vivid and as authentic as any that I've read about.
0:07:07 > 0:07:10And I've read a lot about sea battles.
0:07:19 > 0:07:20What he does is,
0:07:20 > 0:07:26he creates that feeling of noise and confusion and limbs being torn apart.
0:07:26 > 0:07:28And yet, in the midst of that,
0:07:28 > 0:07:33the crew getting on with the job and the captain knowing
0:07:33 > 0:07:38what commands to give, in spite of being blasted in all directions.
0:07:38 > 0:07:41And that's quite an achievement, to do that in a movie.
0:07:42 > 0:07:43- 18 pounders.- At least, sir.
0:07:43 > 0:07:45We're going to have to get closer to poke his eye.
0:07:45 > 0:07:46- Run-out the starboard battery. - Aye, sir.
0:07:46 > 0:07:47Mr Allen! Come up on the wind.
0:07:47 > 0:07:49- On the wind, sir?. - Lay me alongside a pistol shot.
0:07:51 > 0:07:54He's a very different kind of Aubrey in the film, isn't he?
0:07:54 > 0:07:59Yes, he is. The Aubrey that Patrick O'Brian creates is a big man.
0:07:59 > 0:08:04He's six foot, 16 stone, a rather burly figure.
0:08:04 > 0:08:07He's described as having flaxen hair
0:08:07 > 0:08:11and a sort of florid complexion and piercing blue eyes.
0:08:11 > 0:08:14And he's a bit sort of clumsy on land,
0:08:14 > 0:08:18but get him on a ship, and he knows exactly what to do.
0:08:18 > 0:08:19And what is interesting,
0:08:19 > 0:08:23comparing him with Russell Crowe, Russell Crowe does have what
0:08:23 > 0:08:28Aubrey has, which is this sense of command and of leadership.
0:08:28 > 0:08:30Lads! It's not good enough.
0:08:30 > 0:08:33We had to fire two broadsides to her one.
0:08:33 > 0:08:36Do you want to see a guillotine in Piccadilly? ALL: No!
0:08:36 > 0:08:40Do you want to called that raggedy arse Napoleon your king? ALL: No!
0:08:40 > 0:08:43Do you want your children to sing the Marseillaise? ALL: No!
0:08:43 > 0:08:45Starboard battery!
0:08:47 > 0:08:51'The great thing about sea novels, and Patrick O'Brien's more than any
0:08:51 > 0:08:57'other, is that he creates a world of its own, that you believe in.
0:08:57 > 0:08:59'I mean, that's his gift.'
0:09:02 > 0:09:06O'Brian's novels powerfully illustrate how the sea can provide
0:09:06 > 0:09:09a writer with an ideal setting for conflict,
0:09:09 > 0:09:13and how people's natures tend to change at sea.
0:09:13 > 0:09:15They can grow or shrink in stature,
0:09:15 > 0:09:19become successes or failures, heroes or villains.
0:09:19 > 0:09:21But it doesn't require a battle
0:09:21 > 0:09:24between men to bring about this sort of change.
0:09:24 > 0:09:27The sea itself can be the enemy.
0:09:29 > 0:09:32"A big foaming sea came out of the mist
0:09:32 > 0:09:36"It made for the ship, roaring wildly
0:09:37 > 0:09:41"And in its rush it looked as mischievous and discomposing
0:09:41 > 0:09:43"as a madman with an axe."
0:09:46 > 0:09:51In any half-good sea story, there's nearly always a voyage on a ship.
0:09:51 > 0:09:54The characters on board are often like a microcosm of society.
0:09:54 > 0:09:57All sorts of people, of every class, who are going
0:09:57 > 0:09:59off to war, or to trade
0:09:59 > 0:10:02or to run some outpost of the British colonies.
0:10:02 > 0:10:05Once on board, it soon becomes clear that,
0:10:05 > 0:10:09in setting sail, they've entered a different world.
0:10:09 > 0:10:13So, since a sea voyage is a fundamental part of sea fiction,
0:10:13 > 0:10:18I thought I'd better get a taste of one myself.
0:10:18 > 0:10:22Some writers describe the sea voyage as a transgression,
0:10:22 > 0:10:25as if going to sea were not what man is meant to do,
0:10:25 > 0:10:29and something for which he will perhaps be punished.
0:10:29 > 0:10:33It's true that once the ropes are loosed and reeled in on deck,
0:10:33 > 0:10:36and the ship begins to pull away from the quay,
0:10:36 > 0:10:40there is a sense that all ties with the land are being cut.
0:10:40 > 0:10:42Anything could happen now.
0:10:47 > 0:10:50As I spend some time on this ship, I hope to get closer to the
0:10:50 > 0:10:54physical and emotional experiences that sea literature draws upon.
0:10:57 > 0:11:00I'm going to get you doing the hard work.
0:11:00 > 0:11:02Thanks. That's what it should be about.
0:11:07 > 0:11:08All right. That's tight.
0:11:08 > 0:11:15- Do you need a hand with that? - Heave! Heave!
0:11:15 > 0:11:18The first thing you notice is that, once at sea,
0:11:18 > 0:11:21you have to learn a new kind of language.
0:11:21 > 0:11:26The novelist William Golding, had a name for it, "Tarpaulin".
0:11:26 > 0:11:28Heave!
0:11:28 > 0:11:31Heave! Two six! Heave! And why do you call it the two six?
0:11:31 > 0:11:34The two six were the men who hauled the guns, apparently.
0:11:34 > 0:11:37So somebody would shout "Two six! Heave!"
0:11:37 > 0:11:40and basically they had to pull the guns in at that point.
0:11:43 > 0:11:47It's only when you get involved that you begin to realise that the entire
0:11:47 > 0:11:51ship can only run if everyone does their job at exactly the same time.
0:11:51 > 0:11:56You also realise that it's a lot more physical than it looks.
0:12:02 > 0:12:07I suppose, for me, the writer who best understands the alien nature of
0:12:07 > 0:12:11the sea, the sea as enemy, is the Polish-born Joseph Conrad.
0:12:11 > 0:12:13He was a sailor himself,
0:12:13 > 0:12:18serving in the British merchant navy for 16 years.
0:12:18 > 0:12:19The Nigger Of The Narcissus,
0:12:19 > 0:12:23a title few writers would feel comfortable using today,
0:12:23 > 0:12:29is a story based on a real ship in which Conrad sailed in 1884.
0:12:33 > 0:12:37The book is about the how tough, self-reliant sailors are transformed
0:12:37 > 0:12:40by the plight of one of their comrades.
0:12:40 > 0:12:46The focus of the story is a seasoned black sailor named Jimmy Wait
0:12:46 > 0:12:51who, when he boards the Narcissus, appears to be dying.
0:12:51 > 0:12:53Jimmy has a brooding presence,
0:12:53 > 0:12:59and begins to acquire a kind of superstitious significance,
0:12:59 > 0:13:02when a storm hits the ship.
0:13:06 > 0:13:09"The coming wave towered close-to and high,
0:13:09 > 0:13:13"like a wall of green glass topped with snow.
0:13:13 > 0:13:16"The ship rose to it as though she had soared on wings
0:13:16 > 0:13:20"and, for a moment, rested poised upon the foaming crest
0:13:20 > 0:13:23"as if she had been a great sea-bird."
0:13:25 > 0:13:28In Conrad's time, the heyday of sail,
0:13:28 > 0:13:32a hurricane force storm could be a catastrophe.
0:13:32 > 0:13:37Survival depended partly on the ship, but also on the crew.
0:13:39 > 0:13:41"The men's feet flew from under them,
0:13:41 > 0:13:44"and they hung kicking above the slanting poop.
0:13:44 > 0:13:48"They could see the ship putting her side in the water,
0:13:48 > 0:13:51"and shouted all together, 'She's going!'"
0:13:56 > 0:14:00So to what extent did Conrad's personal history
0:14:00 > 0:14:01influence his writing?
0:14:01 > 0:14:03I've been joined on board by the president
0:14:03 > 0:14:08of the Joseph Conrad Society, Laurence Davies.
0:14:08 > 0:14:12How exactly does Conrad's experience as a sailor feed into his fiction?
0:14:12 > 0:14:17It feeds in, because he understands so well how a sailing ship works,
0:14:17 > 0:14:19how a crew works, or doesn't work.
0:14:19 > 0:14:22The accidents, and so on, that can happen to a ship.
0:14:22 > 0:14:26Again, all the stories that he has picked up and heard,
0:14:26 > 0:14:28that all comes in there as well.
0:14:28 > 0:14:31I think I'm right in saying that in writing the stories, one
0:14:31 > 0:14:36of his aims was almost to provide a voice for these inarticulate seamen.
0:14:36 > 0:14:38Yes, I think that's very much the case.
0:14:38 > 0:14:42He talked about that in the preface of The Nigger, for example.
0:14:42 > 0:14:45And he talks about rendering justice.
0:14:45 > 0:14:48He's also tackling very big issues.
0:14:48 > 0:14:52He's very interested in the vastness of the sea.
0:14:52 > 0:14:55There are these moments where a character or characters
0:14:55 > 0:14:58are terrified by the hugeness of the universe.
0:15:00 > 0:15:04The sailors have come to believe that their own lives
0:15:04 > 0:15:06are somehow tied up with Jimmy's.
0:15:06 > 0:15:10So, when the storm strikes, and Jimmy is trapped under a bulwark,
0:15:10 > 0:15:15drowning in a rush of stormwater, it's vital that they rescue him.
0:15:19 > 0:15:23"We only heard the deep hum and moan of the wind above us,
0:15:23 > 0:15:27"the mingled roar and hiss of the seas.
0:15:27 > 0:15:30"Belfast clamoured," For the love of God, Jimmy, where are ye?
0:15:30 > 0:15:33"'Knock! Jimmy darlint... Knock!
0:15:33 > 0:15:36"'You bloody black beast. Knock!'
0:15:36 > 0:15:40"He was as quiet as a dead man inside a grave,
0:15:40 > 0:15:43"and like men standing above a grave,
0:15:43 > 0:15:46"we were on the verge of tears."
0:15:49 > 0:15:52The normally buried compassion of the sailors
0:15:52 > 0:15:57is brought out by their own superstitious concern for Jimmy.
0:15:58 > 0:16:02Conrad always claimed to be sceptical, but he certainly has some
0:16:02 > 0:16:06moments where people are enormously worried,
0:16:06 > 0:16:09by what seems to be uncanny and sinister.
0:16:09 > 0:16:11It would seem to me that he was very aware
0:16:11 > 0:16:14of the supernatural quality of the sea.
0:16:14 > 0:16:20If you think of the importance of Jim Wait's life to the whole ship,
0:16:20 > 0:16:21is it not fair to say
0:16:21 > 0:16:25he was actually very aware of that superstitious element of seafaring?
0:16:25 > 0:16:28He's aware of it but he always gives you an escape in some way.
0:16:28 > 0:16:32There is the wonderful scene where James Wait is being buried at sea.
0:16:32 > 0:16:37- They lift the planks and the corpse won't move.- It won't leave the ship?
0:16:37 > 0:16:39No. And people are looking at each other
0:16:39 > 0:16:41and saying that he doesn't want to leave us.
0:16:41 > 0:16:44But then a few pages later,
0:16:44 > 0:16:49the captain and one of the officers are talking, and they are talking
0:16:49 > 0:16:53about the nail that the carpenter has left in the board,
0:16:53 > 0:16:57which is what the body is actually snagged on.
0:16:57 > 0:16:58Conrad's one of those writers
0:16:58 > 0:17:01that brings out the atheist in the atheist,
0:17:01 > 0:17:04the believer in the believer and the agnostic in the agnostic.
0:17:04 > 0:17:06And there's a bit of all those things.
0:17:15 > 0:17:19It's intriguing how, despite the story's racist language,
0:17:19 > 0:17:21this hardened crew share an almost
0:17:21 > 0:17:25sentimental concern for their weakened comrade.
0:17:25 > 0:17:28So does a drama at sea always bring out what we're really like?
0:17:28 > 0:17:31Or is that the stuff of fiction?
0:17:36 > 0:17:39It's easy for someone like me to assume
0:17:39 > 0:17:43that the way literature describes crises at sea is accurate,
0:17:43 > 0:17:48but I'd really like to know how authentic these stories are.
0:17:52 > 0:17:55I've never been a sailor, so I can only imagine what it must
0:17:55 > 0:17:59be like to be under sail in a hurricane force storm.
0:17:59 > 0:18:02How do you overcome your fear when your boat is capsized?
0:18:02 > 0:18:05How do you find the strength, not just the physical,
0:18:05 > 0:18:07but the mental as well, to make the right decisions?
0:18:07 > 0:18:10What does a storm at sea actually do to you?
0:18:16 > 0:18:18So, in the real world of the sea,
0:18:18 > 0:18:21is it every man for himself?
0:18:21 > 0:18:24To get some idea of the reality of a storm,
0:18:24 > 0:18:28I'm meeting up with round-the-world yachtsman, Pete Goss.
0:18:30 > 0:18:32If you come right up here
0:18:32 > 0:18:37and look at the sale, you can get a real sense of the power of the boat.
0:18:39 > 0:18:42In 1996, a couple of days before Christmas,
0:18:42 > 0:18:44Pete was competing in the gruelling
0:18:44 > 0:18:47single-handed Vendee Globe Yacht Race,
0:18:47 > 0:18:51when he realised that some truly atrocious weather
0:18:51 > 0:18:52was about to hit him.
0:18:54 > 0:18:57I was deep in the Southern Ocean, south of Australia,
0:18:57 > 0:19:00and we had a very big storm coming in.
0:19:00 > 0:19:02And the worst thing about a storm
0:19:02 > 0:19:05is the anticipation as you watch the pressure dropping.
0:19:05 > 0:19:09There's nothing you can do, there's nowhere to run away and hide.
0:19:09 > 0:19:10And once you are in a storm,
0:19:10 > 0:19:14of course, you are up to your ears in mud and bullets.
0:19:16 > 0:19:18It dropped 36 millibars in 24 hours,
0:19:18 > 0:19:20and I'd never seen that before.
0:19:20 > 0:19:22I'd never actually heard of it.
0:19:22 > 0:19:25The boat was knocked down three times. If you imagine a
0:19:25 > 0:19:29big breaking wave picking up the boat and slamming it on its side.
0:19:29 > 0:19:33We were twice nearly pitch-poled, which is cartwheeled.
0:19:34 > 0:19:36The noise is incredible.
0:19:36 > 0:19:40You get this scream, a very loud noise, and
0:19:40 > 0:19:44a spume of water which is basically torn off the surface of the sea,
0:19:44 > 0:19:48and it's bouncing and banging around, and you get very tired.
0:19:48 > 0:19:50It's pretty full-on.
0:19:50 > 0:19:52Yes, it sounds it.
0:19:52 > 0:19:55I stumbled back down below
0:19:55 > 0:19:59and came down to this very shrill alarm.
0:19:59 > 0:20:04And it was a Mayday. There was another competitor in the same storm,
0:20:04 > 0:20:06a guy called Raphael Dinelli,
0:20:06 > 0:20:08who had gone down a huge wave,
0:20:08 > 0:20:11the boat had cartwheeled and landed upside down and
0:20:11 > 0:20:16he was trapped inside and it wouldn't come upright for about three hours.
0:20:16 > 0:20:19It eventually came up and he let his emergency beacon off.
0:20:19 > 0:20:22That sends out a Mayday, which means it is a life-threatening situation.
0:20:22 > 0:20:25So that's the only information that had come off the boat.
0:20:25 > 0:20:29So it was at that point that you made the decision to turn back into
0:20:29 > 0:20:37the storm that you have already been in, to go back and try and save him?
0:20:37 > 0:20:41Yeah. Actually, I don't think it was my decision. I think it was laid down
0:20:41 > 0:20:44many years ago by a tradition of the sea.
0:20:47 > 0:20:51- It actually took two days fight back to Raphael.- Two days?
0:20:51 > 0:20:52Two days, yes.
0:20:52 > 0:20:54So when you got back there two days later,
0:20:54 > 0:20:57what kind of physical state was Raphael in?
0:20:57 > 0:20:59He was in a hell of a state.
0:20:59 > 0:21:03It's funny, I fought all the way back,
0:21:03 > 0:21:06and once I got to sort of close proximity of the raft,
0:21:06 > 0:21:10suddenly this great sense of dread crept in.
0:21:10 > 0:21:13Having got here, what am I going to find? Will there be a body in it?
0:21:13 > 0:21:16Will he be badly injured? But this little head popped up.
0:21:18 > 0:21:22I dragged him on board, and I knelt down
0:21:22 > 0:21:23and we had this little hug.
0:21:23 > 0:21:26I will never forget his eyes.
0:21:26 > 0:21:31All you could see of Raphael was his eyes in the survival suit,
0:21:31 > 0:21:35and you can see into somebody's soul in the right circumstances.
0:21:35 > 0:21:37I kept close medical records,
0:21:37 > 0:21:41they think he had about 10 hours to live.
0:21:41 > 0:21:43And we only just got there in time.
0:21:45 > 0:21:48Do you think that you were, in some way, a different person when you
0:21:48 > 0:21:52came out of that storm experience to the man who went into it?
0:21:52 > 0:21:57I came back with this great sense of inner peace,
0:21:57 > 0:21:59and it sustained itself.
0:21:59 > 0:22:04I don't really know where it came from, and we all like to think we'd
0:22:04 > 0:22:07make the right decision, but I don't think you necessarily know.
0:22:07 > 0:22:10And it seems to me that if you keep chipping away at life
0:22:10 > 0:22:14you will eventually come to this clear and simple crossroads,
0:22:14 > 0:22:15and that is that you either
0:22:15 > 0:22:18stand by your morals and principles, or you don't.
0:22:24 > 0:22:27The experience of rescuing Raphael in a Force 11 storm
0:22:27 > 0:22:29clearly changed Pete,
0:22:29 > 0:22:31and gave him a fresh perspective
0:22:31 > 0:22:35both on life and the power of the sea.
0:22:35 > 0:22:39In its changeability, its moods, the sea is almost human.
0:22:39 > 0:22:42It can be gentle as a baby.
0:22:42 > 0:22:44But when it's angry,
0:22:44 > 0:22:49when it's pounding in your ears, it's the sound of all history.
0:22:51 > 0:22:56For Joseph Conrad in literature and Pete Goss in real life,
0:22:56 > 0:22:58the sea is a transformational force.
0:22:58 > 0:23:03Characters real and invented are changed by being at sea.
0:23:03 > 0:23:05So, has the idea of transformation
0:23:05 > 0:23:09always been the backbone of stories about the sea?
0:23:10 > 0:23:15Margaret Elphinstone is the author of nine novels,
0:23:15 > 0:23:19including The Sea Road, which re-works a Viking saga,
0:23:19 > 0:23:24and Hy Brasil, a story set on a mythical island in the mid-Atlantic.
0:23:24 > 0:23:27She's continuing in the 21st century
0:23:27 > 0:23:30a truly ancient tradition of sea writing.
0:23:31 > 0:23:35It seems to me that there is an especially strong template
0:23:35 > 0:23:36for a lot of sea literature.
0:23:36 > 0:23:39There is often the voyage, the rites of passage.
0:23:39 > 0:23:42Can you identify any early texts
0:23:42 > 0:23:47that really lays down for us what a sea story would be?
0:23:47 > 0:23:50Well, the Odyssey isn't a bad precedent, is it?
0:23:50 > 0:23:52That's the earliest I can think of.
0:23:52 > 0:23:56And it is the sea story par excellence,
0:23:56 > 0:24:01because it is a whole thing of adventure, survival,
0:24:01 > 0:24:03certainly a transformative experience
0:24:03 > 0:24:07that you are going into this other element on this endless voyage.
0:24:07 > 0:24:09There's an element of The Old Man And The Sea about it.
0:24:09 > 0:24:12Are you ever going to get home? Or the Ancient Mariner.
0:24:12 > 0:24:16You can see how it has informed the sea story since.
0:24:16 > 0:24:21What do you feel the sea really gives you as an author?
0:24:21 > 0:24:24I notice that I'm drawn to it again and again,
0:24:24 > 0:24:28and I haven't written a single book in which the sea doesn't appear.
0:24:28 > 0:24:33If I ask myself why this is, I think it is because
0:24:35 > 0:24:38it makes it possible to have a journey
0:24:38 > 0:24:44for your characters which focuses and changes everything for them.
0:24:44 > 0:24:48Going to sea IS transformative.
0:24:48 > 0:24:50It IS a rite of passage.
0:24:50 > 0:24:53You actually go into another element.
0:24:53 > 0:24:57Your life is the ship, being on board it, and all the clutter
0:24:57 > 0:25:01of multi-tasking life has been left behind.
0:25:05 > 0:25:09It's really come home to me now how isolated you are at sea
0:25:09 > 0:25:14from the familiar things that make you feel safe.
0:25:14 > 0:25:17The change can be challenging.
0:25:17 > 0:25:19Stories of the sea suggest
0:25:19 > 0:25:22that's certainly the case at the physical level,
0:25:22 > 0:25:25but the sea can challenge your reason as well.
0:25:25 > 0:25:27It can play tricks on your mind.
0:25:29 > 0:25:32I think the story that deals best with that theme
0:25:32 > 0:25:34of psychic transformation is one of the great
0:25:34 > 0:25:36poems of English Romanticism,
0:25:36 > 0:25:40The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
0:25:45 > 0:25:50"Alone, alone, all all alone
0:25:50 > 0:25:53"Alone on the wide, wide sea
0:25:53 > 0:25:56"And Christ would take no pity on
0:25:56 > 0:25:58"My soul in agony."
0:26:03 > 0:26:06The sea is a wilderness.
0:26:06 > 0:26:09Once you're out on the open ocean, there's literally nothing to see
0:26:09 > 0:26:13except for a vast sky and an apparently endless expanse of water.
0:26:13 > 0:26:17It's the kind of environment that can promote spiritual reflection,
0:26:17 > 0:26:19but also despair as well.
0:26:19 > 0:26:22And perhaps because of this, it's also been a place that,
0:26:22 > 0:26:24from the very earliest stories,
0:26:24 > 0:26:26writers have seen the supernatural occurring.
0:26:26 > 0:26:28As Joseph Conrad would say,
0:26:28 > 0:26:31"Trust the high seas to bring out the irrational in man."
0:26:31 > 0:26:35Or in other words, it can drive you mad.
0:26:40 > 0:26:44Coleridge published The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner in 1798.
0:26:45 > 0:26:48It tells a story of psychic disturbance.
0:26:48 > 0:26:51The mariner's ship is struck by a storm,
0:26:51 > 0:26:55and as it's driven south to the Antarctic, an albatross appears.
0:26:58 > 0:27:01In the cold and mist, amidst the growling ice,
0:27:01 > 0:27:04the mariner shoots the albatross dead with his crossbow
0:27:06 > 0:27:09and a curse then falls on the ship.
0:27:11 > 0:27:14"And I had done a hellish thing
0:27:14 > 0:27:17"And it would work 'em woe
0:27:17 > 0:27:21"For all averr'd, I had kill'd the Bird
0:27:21 > 0:27:24"That made the breeze to blow."
0:27:26 > 0:27:29The mariner's ship loses the wind
0:27:29 > 0:27:33and is becalmed in the heat of the sun amidst a rotting sea.
0:27:35 > 0:27:41"Down dropt the breeze, the sails dropt down
0:27:41 > 0:27:45"'Twas sad as sad could be."
0:27:49 > 0:27:53Well, as you can see, I'm currently climbing the rigging,
0:27:53 > 0:27:55but thankfully not in the old-fashioned way.
0:27:55 > 0:27:57But even doing it like this,
0:27:57 > 0:27:59you get a real sense of what it must have been like for
0:27:59 > 0:28:05those sailors to have to climb the rigging on those tall sailing ships.
0:28:06 > 0:28:08There are all sorts of creaking and squeaks
0:28:08 > 0:28:11which you just don't hear from down there on deck.
0:28:16 > 0:28:18To be honest, I thought
0:28:18 > 0:28:20it would be
0:28:20 > 0:28:23more frightening than it is. At the moment,
0:28:23 > 0:28:26it's rather lovely.
0:28:26 > 0:28:29I'm almost at the top,
0:28:29 > 0:28:33at which point I'm going to have to work out exactly how I come down.
0:28:36 > 0:28:37I'm doing this with no wind at all.
0:28:37 > 0:28:40I mean, this is practically
0:28:42 > 0:28:45Coleridge's image of "the painted ship on the painted ocean".
0:28:48 > 0:28:51"Day after day
0:28:51 > 0:28:55"Day after day
0:28:55 > 0:28:59"We stuck, nor breath, nor motion
0:28:59 > 0:29:03"As idle as a painted ship
0:29:03 > 0:29:05"Upon a painted ocean."
0:29:08 > 0:29:11The crew are stranded.
0:29:11 > 0:29:15"Water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink".
0:29:15 > 0:29:19And then, out of the mist, a shape appears.
0:29:19 > 0:29:21A ship, perhaps?
0:29:23 > 0:29:26"Are those her ribs through which the sun
0:29:26 > 0:29:28"Did peer, as through a grate?
0:29:28 > 0:29:32"And is that woman all her crew?
0:29:32 > 0:29:34"Is that a Death?
0:29:34 > 0:29:37"And are there two?
0:29:37 > 0:29:39"Is Death that woman's mate?"
0:29:43 > 0:29:45As the men on deck begin to die,
0:29:45 > 0:29:48cast down one by one by the Ship of Death,
0:29:48 > 0:29:51the sea takes on a haunting, sinister quality.
0:29:51 > 0:29:55It comes to represent the stark desperation
0:29:55 > 0:29:59of being hundreds, perhaps thousands of miles from anywhere.
0:30:05 > 0:30:08This ship is giving me a very strong memory of a trip I once
0:30:08 > 0:30:12took on a cargo boat through the eastern islands of Fiji.
0:30:12 > 0:30:14And on that trip we quite often
0:30:14 > 0:30:16wouldn't see any land for days on end.
0:30:16 > 0:30:17And I think, because of that,
0:30:17 > 0:30:20there were lines from the Ancient Mariner
0:30:20 > 0:30:22that kept coming back into my mind again and again.
0:30:22 > 0:30:25I've also got a very strong memory
0:30:25 > 0:30:27of waking up in the middle of the night,
0:30:27 > 0:30:30more than once, and having a very sudden realisation
0:30:30 > 0:30:32of just how incredibly isolated we were.
0:30:32 > 0:30:36And how dependent we were on this somewhat ramshackle boat
0:30:36 > 0:30:40for our safety, in the middle of nowhere.
0:30:40 > 0:30:42It was an exhilarating experience,
0:30:42 > 0:30:44but also a pretty frightening one as well.
0:30:49 > 0:30:52The Mariner makes it safely home,
0:30:52 > 0:30:56but he has been fundamentally changed by his experience,
0:30:56 > 0:31:01and he's for ever doomed to tell and re-tell his harrowing tale.
0:31:06 > 0:31:10"Since then in an uncertain hour
0:31:10 > 0:31:13"Now oftimes and now fewer
0:31:13 > 0:31:17"That anguish comes and makes me tell
0:31:17 > 0:31:19"My ghastly adventure."
0:31:32 > 0:31:34So, was Coleridge ahead of his time
0:31:34 > 0:31:36in recognising that the loneliness of
0:31:36 > 0:31:39the sea can distort our perception of reality?
0:31:41 > 0:31:43I've arranged to meet Neil Weston,
0:31:43 > 0:31:47a psychologist who studied the effects of stress and isolation
0:31:47 > 0:31:52on people who have faced the perils of the sea.
0:31:52 > 0:31:56I've been hearing stories from some very experienced seaman about
0:31:56 > 0:31:59sometimes people hallucinating on board boats.
0:31:59 > 0:32:02I was just wondering if you could tell me a bit about that,
0:32:02 > 0:32:04because I assume that is a consequence
0:32:04 > 0:32:09of that type of patterns of sleep deprivation and a change in diet.
0:32:09 > 0:32:13Yes, I think so. The fact that they were away for long periods of time
0:32:13 > 0:32:16with very little sleep in a very physically demanding environment,
0:32:16 > 0:32:18and some individuals in the past
0:32:18 > 0:32:21have not maybe taken as much food on board,
0:32:21 > 0:32:23and therefore they have had to ration their food,
0:32:23 > 0:32:25and as a consequence they are not
0:32:25 > 0:32:29getting enough energy in to deal with the different demands that they have.
0:32:29 > 0:32:31It is interesting that under conditions
0:32:31 > 0:32:35when the weather is actually very good but there is no wind,
0:32:35 > 0:32:37it is those conditions where the skippers
0:32:37 > 0:32:40have less sleep, because they are continually trying to find the wind
0:32:40 > 0:32:42to get the boat moving again.
0:32:42 > 0:32:46So if you combine the lack of sleep under those circumstances,
0:32:46 > 0:32:49plus the anxiety that is associated with that
0:32:49 > 0:32:51and they don't maybe eat as effectively,
0:32:51 > 0:32:54it results in them getting into an hallucinogenic state.
0:32:54 > 0:32:57They begin to feel that somebody else is on board,
0:32:57 > 0:33:00or hear somebody, or smelling coffee, for instance,
0:33:00 > 0:33:03when they know they don't have any coffee on board.
0:33:03 > 0:33:05Quite bizarre sort of sensory experiences
0:33:05 > 0:33:07which their mind is telling them they
0:33:07 > 0:33:11shouldn't be experiencing, but they feel that is a very real experience
0:33:11 > 0:33:12that they are actually having.
0:33:15 > 0:33:18I think Neil Weston's comments throw some light
0:33:18 > 0:33:21not only on Coleridge's poem, but on the
0:33:21 > 0:33:25changes in behaviour that seem to occur in most sea literature.
0:33:27 > 0:33:30What's really starting to come clear for me
0:33:30 > 0:33:33is that these great stories of the sea are often about people
0:33:33 > 0:33:38who go through a significant change as a consequence of a crisis at sea.
0:33:38 > 0:33:41They are characters are forced to face the type of challenges
0:33:41 > 0:33:44that most of us on land would never have to.
0:33:44 > 0:33:46You can't avoid a problem at sea.
0:33:46 > 0:33:48You can't run away from it.
0:33:48 > 0:33:50It's a great leveller, in that respect.
0:33:50 > 0:33:55When a storm hits a ship, then everyone's in the same danger.
0:33:55 > 0:33:59The crew of the Narcissus, the companions of the Ancient Mariner,
0:33:59 > 0:34:00they're all in it together.
0:34:00 > 0:34:04And to get through it, they're thrown back, not just on their own,
0:34:04 > 0:34:07but on each other's innermost resources.
0:34:08 > 0:34:11Of course, it's not just the crews of sailing ships
0:34:11 > 0:34:13who face the challenges of the sea.
0:34:15 > 0:34:17The passengers do too.
0:34:17 > 0:34:21And it is the sea's capacity to unhinge an otherwise sane clergyman
0:34:21 > 0:34:24that interests the Nobel prize-winning author
0:34:24 > 0:34:26William Golding
0:34:26 > 0:34:28in his 1980 novel Rites Of Passage.
0:34:30 > 0:34:33It's the first book in his acclaimed sea trilogy
0:34:33 > 0:34:34To The Ends Of The Earth.
0:34:36 > 0:34:40And it explores a modern and disturbing example
0:34:40 > 0:34:42of the transformation theme.
0:34:44 > 0:34:46It's a novel which, I think,
0:34:46 > 0:34:48brings together two of Golding's most
0:34:48 > 0:34:53personal preoccupations, the sea and morality.
0:34:55 > 0:34:57The dominant metaphor in the novel
0:34:57 > 0:35:01is that the sea is a theatre for dramatic events.
0:35:03 > 0:35:07"Everyone was looking forward to the great, unknown part of the ship
0:35:07 > 0:35:12"where the people were indulging in whatever sport was afoot.
0:35:12 > 0:35:16"We were spectators and there, interruptedly seen beyond the boats
0:35:16 > 0:35:21"on the boom and the huge cylinder of the mainmast, was the stage."
0:35:27 > 0:35:29Rites of Passage is set two centuries ago
0:35:29 > 0:35:32on a sailing ship bound for Australia.
0:35:32 > 0:35:33It has two narrators,
0:35:33 > 0:35:39Edmund Talbot, a young aristocrat about to take up a government post,
0:35:39 > 0:35:40and the Reverend James Colley,
0:35:40 > 0:35:43who records his voyage in a daily letter to his sister.
0:35:47 > 0:35:50Talbot tells us about the ship's characters, a microcosm of the
0:35:50 > 0:35:56English class system, a colonial servant, a governess, a farrier.
0:35:56 > 0:35:59Typical, and unremarkable.
0:36:01 > 0:36:05But the life of the ship changes when, to everyone's surprise,
0:36:05 > 0:36:09Colley appears to get drunk and frolics around
0:36:09 > 0:36:11half-naked with an ordinary seaman.
0:36:15 > 0:36:19"This fellow was supporting Mr Colley,
0:36:19 > 0:36:23"whose head lay back on the man's breast.
0:36:23 > 0:36:28"As the curious pair came uncertainly past the mainmast,
0:36:28 > 0:36:31"Mr Colley pushed back so that they stopped.
0:36:31 > 0:36:33"It was evident that his mind
0:36:33 > 0:36:37"had become only lightly linked to his understanding.
0:36:37 > 0:36:42"He appeared to be in a state of extreme and sunny enjoyment."
0:36:43 > 0:36:48Edmund Talbot sees Colley as a kind of carnival entertainer
0:36:48 > 0:36:51and the ship as a theatre in which he plays.
0:36:51 > 0:36:55But the next morning however, the mood is more sombre.
0:36:55 > 0:37:01Mr Colley is a changed man and refuses to come on back on stage.
0:37:01 > 0:37:06After several days immured in his cabin, Colley dies, at which point
0:37:06 > 0:37:09Talbot discovers the letters he'd been writing to his sister.
0:37:09 > 0:37:11In reading these letters,
0:37:11 > 0:37:14he realises how badly he'd misjudged Colley,
0:37:14 > 0:37:16how he was much more someone to be pitied than mocked.
0:37:16 > 0:37:20Something about the sea voyage had turned Colley's mind,
0:37:20 > 0:37:23and the drunken cavorting turns out to be much more significant
0:37:23 > 0:37:25than Talbot had first thought.
0:37:26 > 0:37:29Whilst drunk, Colley had performed a homosexual act,
0:37:29 > 0:37:34the memory of which appals him when he wakes the next morning.
0:37:34 > 0:37:38In the end, in his final scene in the ship's drama,
0:37:38 > 0:37:41he dies from an overwhelming sense of personal shame.
0:37:44 > 0:37:48Why did Golding zero in on this idea of a ship as theatre?
0:37:48 > 0:37:51There's something very theatrical about ships.
0:37:51 > 0:37:54The rituals, the conventions and so on,
0:37:54 > 0:37:57about how you move, how you talk,
0:37:57 > 0:38:01the captain on the quarterdeck, uninterruptible.
0:38:01 > 0:38:06The ringing of the bells at measured intervals, and the actual
0:38:06 > 0:38:11crucial episode, where the Reverend Colley is persecuted,
0:38:11 > 0:38:14is based on the ritual of crossing the line,
0:38:14 > 0:38:16which was carried on in the Royal Navy
0:38:16 > 0:38:19and the Merchant Navy for centuries.
0:38:19 > 0:38:21By the line you actually mean the equator?
0:38:21 > 0:38:24Yes. And did you think about the way that anthropologists
0:38:24 > 0:38:27talk about rights of passage, they use that
0:38:27 > 0:38:33metaphor of the threshold, where the rules don't hold, and you misbehave.
0:38:33 > 0:38:35And the one rule is that you must break the rules.
0:38:35 > 0:38:39The story is also, a much more subtle, perhaps,
0:38:39 > 0:38:41rite of passage for Talbot himself.
0:38:41 > 0:38:44Because he begins as this objective observer,
0:38:44 > 0:38:46as if he is watching the play.
0:38:46 > 0:38:48But really, by the end of the novel,
0:38:48 > 0:38:50he has become one of the players, hasn't he?
0:38:50 > 0:38:53Yes, and there is a series of unveilings.
0:38:53 > 0:38:56There's that extraordinary and brilliant turn
0:38:56 > 0:38:59when we start to read Colley's long,
0:38:59 > 0:39:04long, long letter and you realise that he is not simply this pathetic
0:39:04 > 0:39:07victim, but a victim with great talent
0:39:07 > 0:39:10and a great gift for seeing things,
0:39:10 > 0:39:12and seeing things that Talbot hasn't seen.
0:39:12 > 0:39:15There are extraordinary seascape passages, for example,
0:39:15 > 0:39:18in that Colley letter. They are quite wonderful.
0:39:18 > 0:39:20Which you feel very strongly
0:39:20 > 0:39:22are coming from the core of Golding as a writer.
0:39:22 > 0:39:26He was a writer who had a huge respect for the sea, didn't he?
0:39:26 > 0:39:28Where did that respect come from?
0:39:28 > 0:39:32It came especially from his service in the Navy in the second world war.
0:39:32 > 0:39:35He was in charge of a rocket ship on D-Day,
0:39:35 > 0:39:39and he was a keen amateur sailor after that.
0:39:39 > 0:39:41I think he had a very significant experience
0:39:41 > 0:39:45in the English Channel in that respect, when he was in real danger.
0:39:45 > 0:39:50A boat he'd just bought was hit by a Japanese freighter,
0:39:50 > 0:39:55and she sank, and Golding and his wife and the others
0:39:55 > 0:39:58on the ship didn't know whether they were going to survive.
0:39:58 > 0:40:00This is quite a difficult question,
0:40:00 > 0:40:03but what do you think it is that the sea
0:40:03 > 0:40:05really gives Golding as a novelist?
0:40:05 > 0:40:07It seems to me that he wouldn't have been the writer
0:40:07 > 0:40:11that he was unless he'd had that experience at sea.
0:40:11 > 0:40:13The thing he couldn't stand about English society...
0:40:13 > 0:40:17There were many things he loved about England, about English literature,
0:40:17 > 0:40:19about English history, but for him I think it's
0:40:19 > 0:40:23also a very constricting place, and the sea isn't,
0:40:23 > 0:40:26because it is so unexpected and so unpredictable.
0:40:26 > 0:40:28You never know what's going to happen next,
0:40:28 > 0:40:32especially on this seemingly interminable voyage to Australia.
0:40:42 > 0:40:44The books I've been looking at
0:40:44 > 0:40:47have all been from a distinctly male perspective.
0:40:47 > 0:40:49Most sea writers are men,
0:40:49 > 0:40:54and their stories feature storms and battles and all-male crews.
0:40:54 > 0:40:56Women don't seem to get much of a look-in.
0:40:58 > 0:41:01A writer who seems to have been sensitive to this issue
0:41:01 > 0:41:06is Charles Kingsley, who understood that the sea has many faces.
0:41:09 > 0:41:11Kingsley had a real love of the sea,
0:41:11 > 0:41:15which went back to his childhood in Devon and Cornwall, when he must
0:41:15 > 0:41:19have been acutely aware of the sea's ambiguous character,
0:41:19 > 0:41:23how it has both feminine and masculine qualities.
0:41:26 > 0:41:31Standing here now, I'm really struck how a scene like this
0:41:31 > 0:41:35can offer such a surprising union of beauty and violence.
0:41:35 > 0:41:38I could feel my pulse start to quicken as I came down here to
0:41:38 > 0:41:43see all of this conflict and power happen in such a confined space.
0:41:45 > 0:41:48So, do men and women view the sea differently?
0:41:48 > 0:41:51That's certainly the impression you get
0:41:51 > 0:41:53from Kingsley's 1855 novel, Westward Ho!
0:41:53 > 0:41:59True, it's really a swashbuckling romp, but for his time,
0:41:59 > 0:42:05Kingsley shows a surprising interest in how women are changed by the sea.
0:42:05 > 0:42:08Westward Ho! is another coming-of-age story.
0:42:08 > 0:42:11Its hero is Amyas Leigh, who breaks free from the peaceful
0:42:11 > 0:42:14village he's been brought up in to go off and fight the Spanish.
0:42:14 > 0:42:19Once at sea, he's transformed from a raw Devonshire youth into a fiercely
0:42:19 > 0:42:23brave sea captain who captures Spanish galleons by the dozen.
0:42:24 > 0:42:28But Westward Ho! is not just a swashbuckling adventure.
0:42:28 > 0:42:32We see a different side of the story when Amyas returns home,
0:42:32 > 0:42:35bringing the news that his brother Frank is dead.
0:42:37 > 0:42:41What I find especially interesting about Kingsley's story is the way it
0:42:41 > 0:42:46shows so starkly how different the sea was for the men who went away
0:42:46 > 0:42:48and the women who stayed behind.
0:42:48 > 0:42:50For Amyas, the sea is an opportunity,
0:42:50 > 0:42:54a chance to make his reputation and possibly even his fortune.
0:42:54 > 0:42:56But for his mother Mrs Leigh
0:42:56 > 0:42:59the sea is fraught with the anxiety of waiting.
0:42:59 > 0:43:03For her, it comes to symbolise death.
0:43:06 > 0:43:10"Every day when the tide was high
0:43:10 > 0:43:12"and a red flag on the sand hills
0:43:12 > 0:43:15"showed that there was water over the bar,
0:43:15 > 0:43:18"she paced the terraced walk
0:43:18 > 0:43:22"and devoured with greedy eyes the sea beyond
0:43:22 > 0:43:26"in search of the sail which never came."
0:43:29 > 0:43:31I would say that where Mistress Leigh
0:43:31 > 0:43:36is at the beginning of that scene is more than typical, it's archetypal.
0:43:36 > 0:43:40I mean, the image of the woman looking out to sea,
0:43:40 > 0:43:41looking for a ship
0:43:41 > 0:43:45that never comes or may eventually come, and waiting and hoping,
0:43:45 > 0:43:49the rather passive role, perhaps, of endurance,
0:43:49 > 0:43:52of having to bear the fact that your husbands,
0:43:52 > 0:43:55sons and brothers are gone, may never come back...
0:43:55 > 0:43:59And when I read that scene, I was thinking of how many fishing towns
0:43:59 > 0:44:01and villages or ports I've been in,
0:44:01 > 0:44:05like I was recently in St John's, Newfoundland,
0:44:05 > 0:44:08and there's the Lady's Rock up on the hill above the town,
0:44:08 > 0:44:13where, traditionally, the women used to watch for the men coming home.
0:44:13 > 0:44:15And Kingsley - a Devon man - what he's showing there
0:44:15 > 0:44:21is what you actually do have in every place where men go to sea.
0:44:21 > 0:44:25So I think it's interesting that Kingsley, who, after all,
0:44:25 > 0:44:28was a proto-feminist, in his way,
0:44:28 > 0:44:30actually does include that scene,
0:44:30 > 0:44:33and quite often he shows us what's going on
0:44:33 > 0:44:35through the eyes of the mother.
0:44:35 > 0:44:40It strikes me that women hardly ever appear as central characters.
0:44:40 > 0:44:41Why is that?
0:44:41 > 0:44:44I think mostly because women weren't at sea.
0:44:44 > 0:44:47And I think women readers of sea fiction
0:44:47 > 0:44:51have to be positioned very often as men, i.e. when you're
0:44:51 > 0:44:55reading a book about the sea, if you start worrying too much
0:44:55 > 0:44:59about gender and "Where are the women?", you can't get into it.
0:44:59 > 0:45:03So, in effect, you have to become a reading man, if not a physical man!
0:45:03 > 0:45:07When women do come to write about the sea, do you think that they do
0:45:07 > 0:45:11so in an inherently different way to their male counterparts?
0:45:11 > 0:45:13If you think of the greatest novels
0:45:13 > 0:45:16that women have made about the sea, they're on land.
0:45:16 > 0:45:19In Virginia Woolf's To The Lighthouse,
0:45:19 > 0:45:22until the very end of the book, nobody goes to sea.
0:45:22 > 0:45:26And right at the end, where Mr Ramsay, James and Cam, the survivors
0:45:26 > 0:45:29of the major text of the novel,
0:45:29 > 0:45:33actually get to go in a boat and go to the lighthouse,
0:45:33 > 0:45:38it can only be after the main character, Mrs Ramsay, is dead.
0:45:38 > 0:45:39And I think
0:45:39 > 0:45:44her relationship to the sea, the sea is also sort of feminine
0:45:44 > 0:45:50in that it's inchoate, it's other, it's surrounding them all.
0:45:50 > 0:45:52It's always there, it's an element.
0:45:52 > 0:45:54Mrs Ramsay's almost like an element
0:45:54 > 0:45:56against which the other characters move.
0:46:03 > 0:46:06The setting for To The Lighthouse is Cornwall,
0:46:06 > 0:46:09and that's where Robert Louis Stevenson introduces
0:46:09 > 0:46:13one of the most frightening themes in sea literature,
0:46:13 > 0:46:16the power of evil let loose on a ship on the open sea.
0:46:19 > 0:46:24Treasure Island is a story I feel I've always known and always loved.
0:46:24 > 0:46:29Written in 1881, it's a tale that's been thrilling people for centuries
0:46:29 > 0:46:32in which a bunch of grotesque pirates
0:46:32 > 0:46:35transform the life of a young Cornish lad.
0:46:37 > 0:46:42This is the Admiral Benbow in Penzance in Cornwall.
0:46:42 > 0:46:44Stevenson took the name of this pub
0:46:44 > 0:46:47for the inn where his central character lives, Jim Hawkins.
0:46:47 > 0:46:48It's at the Admiral Benbow
0:46:48 > 0:46:52that Jim meets his first buccaneers, and from there that he sets out
0:46:52 > 0:46:53to join the Hispaniola,
0:46:53 > 0:46:57the ship that will sail him and his companions to Treasure Island.
0:46:57 > 0:47:01Her crew are a pretty motley bunch, but they sing a familiar song.
0:47:04 > 0:47:07"A little before dawn, the boatswain sounded his pipe,
0:47:07 > 0:47:10"and the crew began to man the capstan-bars.
0:47:10 > 0:47:12"'Now, Barbecue, tip us a stave,'
0:47:12 > 0:47:14"cried one voice.
0:47:14 > 0:47:16"'The old one,' cried another.
0:47:16 > 0:47:20"'Aye, aye, mates,' said Long John, who was standing by, with his crutch
0:47:20 > 0:47:24"under his arm, and at once broke out in the air
0:47:24 > 0:47:26"and words I knew so well.
0:47:26 > 0:47:28"'Fifteen men on a dead man's chest.'
0:47:28 > 0:47:31"And then the whole crew bore chorus.
0:47:31 > 0:47:34"'Yo ho ho, and a bottle of rum.'"
0:47:34 > 0:47:38# Fifteen men on a dead man's chest
0:47:38 > 0:47:41# Yo ho ho, and a bottle of rum
0:47:41 > 0:47:45# Drink on the devil Have done for the rest
0:47:45 > 0:47:48# Yo ho ho, and a bottle of rum... #
0:47:48 > 0:47:51The early part of the sea voyage is cheerful enough,
0:47:51 > 0:47:56but unlike other sea tales, in which the ship's company pulls together,
0:47:56 > 0:47:59those on board the Hispaniola are pitted against each other
0:47:59 > 0:48:02as the treasure becomes the focus of their greed.
0:48:04 > 0:48:06Slew around the point!
0:48:06 > 0:48:08Mr Trelawney, will you please pick me off one of those men?
0:48:08 > 0:48:10Certainly, Captain.
0:48:10 > 0:48:13So, how did Stevenson come up with his story
0:48:13 > 0:48:15of a hunt for buried treasure?
0:48:18 > 0:48:22We know exactly how he came to write it, and it was all because of a map.
0:48:22 > 0:48:26And what happened was that Stevenson was staying at Braemar,
0:48:26 > 0:48:29in Mr MacGregor's cottage, with his
0:48:29 > 0:48:32stepson Lloyd Osbourne, who was aged 12.
0:48:32 > 0:48:37And Lloyd was drawing in watercolours one day,
0:48:37 > 0:48:40and Stevenson came up and he drew
0:48:40 > 0:48:46the outline of an island, and he filled in detail - Spyglass Hill,
0:48:46 > 0:48:50Skeleton Island - and he put in some nautical lines and a compass.
0:48:50 > 0:48:54And underneath it he wrote "Treasure Island".
0:48:54 > 0:48:58And he said something like he could see a lot of brown men
0:48:58 > 0:49:00with cutlasses in the woods
0:49:00 > 0:49:05and he could see a mutiny, and above all he could see a sea cook
0:49:05 > 0:49:08with one leg and a parrot on his shoulder.
0:49:10 > 0:49:14And we all lays in ambush, waits for 'em.
0:49:14 > 0:49:16Nice and quiet.
0:49:16 > 0:49:18Pistols primed!
0:49:18 > 0:49:21Ah, 'tis a fine day, lads!
0:49:21 > 0:49:25And I think Stevenson really is responsible
0:49:25 > 0:49:29for our belief that pirates had parrots and
0:49:29 > 0:49:32wooden legs and earrings and buried their treasure,
0:49:32 > 0:49:34which of course is a load of nonsense, really.
0:49:34 > 0:49:37- They didn't bury their treasure. - So where did all his come from?
0:49:37 > 0:49:41I mean, would Stevenson have actually met any pirates?
0:49:41 > 0:49:42No, he wouldn't have met any pirates.
0:49:42 > 0:49:44I think it unlikely.
0:49:44 > 0:49:46But he read, certainly,
0:49:46 > 0:49:50and got a lot from Captain Johnson's History Of The Pirate.
0:49:50 > 0:49:52That was the great, classic book on pirates.
0:49:52 > 0:49:54It was written in 1724,
0:49:54 > 0:49:58which was at the height of the pirates of the Caribbean problems.
0:49:58 > 0:50:02And Captain Johnson had interviewed pirates and
0:50:02 > 0:50:04had followed their goings-on,
0:50:04 > 0:50:08and the book is an amazing series of biographies of famous pirates.
0:50:08 > 0:50:13And Long John Silver, who is both humorous
0:50:13 > 0:50:16and scary, and murderous
0:50:16 > 0:50:21but scheming, is really the archetypal pirate.
0:50:21 > 0:50:24And the only one, really, who competes with him is another
0:50:24 > 0:50:28- fictional one, which of course is Captain Hook in Peter Pan.- Yeah.
0:50:28 > 0:50:32And it is ironic, I think, that the two most famous pirates,
0:50:32 > 0:50:35Long John Silver and Captain Hook, should both be fictional.
0:50:37 > 0:50:40There's a scene in Treasure Island in which Jim is hiding in a barrel
0:50:40 > 0:50:45of apples when he overhears a voice speaking nearby.
0:50:45 > 0:50:47Now, Dick, me young friend.
0:50:47 > 0:50:50Ship's ours already, you fool. Always has been.
0:50:50 > 0:50:54Be parts of the crew hand-picked by me, innit?
0:50:54 > 0:50:58- Well then, let us attack!- No, here's what I say, here's what I say.
0:50:58 > 0:51:02'It was Silver's voice, and before I had heard a dozen words,
0:51:02 > 0:51:05'I would not have shown myself for all the world,'
0:51:05 > 0:51:07but lay there,
0:51:07 > 0:51:13trembling and listening, in the extreme of fear and curiosity.
0:51:13 > 0:51:15'For from these dozen words I understood that the lives'
0:51:15 > 0:51:20of all the honest men aboard depended upon me alone.
0:51:22 > 0:51:25Squire and Captain's got the map.
0:51:25 > 0:51:27Now, best is,
0:51:27 > 0:51:30let 'em find the treasure for us,
0:51:30 > 0:51:34help us bring it aboard, then
0:51:34 > 0:51:36- we does what has to be. - Maroon 'em, eh? Maroon 'em!
0:51:36 > 0:51:38No, Dick, no.
0:51:38 > 0:51:40And I've only one maxim -
0:51:40 > 0:51:42dead men don't bite.
0:51:42 > 0:51:45That's the long and short of it.
0:51:45 > 0:51:51This is Jim's awakening to the truth about the one-legged cook.
0:51:51 > 0:51:54Long John Silver is planning to seize the ship.
0:51:54 > 0:51:56By hiding Jim in the barrel, Stevenson
0:51:56 > 0:52:01makes him the secret audience when this crucial turning point
0:52:01 > 0:52:03in the voyage is played out before him.
0:52:03 > 0:52:07It's pure theatre. Like William Golding's trilogy,
0:52:07 > 0:52:10Treasure Island has a strongly theatrical character,
0:52:10 > 0:52:13which Stevenson uses to emphasise the moment
0:52:13 > 0:52:16when the whole life of the ship is about to change
0:52:16 > 0:52:18and the desire for treasure
0:52:18 > 0:52:21begins to split the ship's company into two rival camps.
0:52:25 > 0:52:28Robert Louis Stevenson clearly believed that a ship at sea was
0:52:28 > 0:52:33a dramatic gift to a novelist and a likely place for human crisis.
0:52:35 > 0:52:40In his 1886 novel Kidnapped, he explored another important aspect
0:52:40 > 0:52:43of the transformation theme, the shipwreck.
0:52:45 > 0:52:47And to investigate that,
0:52:47 > 0:52:49I have to leave the Spirit of Fairbridge
0:52:49 > 0:52:51and head further up the west coast
0:52:51 > 0:52:54to my final destination, the Isle of Erraid.
0:53:00 > 0:53:04This is where Stevenson set the shipwreck in Kidnapped.
0:53:06 > 0:53:08David Balfour, the central character,
0:53:08 > 0:53:11is held prisoner on a ship called the Covenant,
0:53:11 > 0:53:13which is trying to sail past Mull
0:53:13 > 0:53:19when a storm blows in, and David is thrown overboard into a boiling sea.
0:53:28 > 0:53:31"The sea was here quite quiet.
0:53:31 > 0:53:34"There was no sound of any surf.
0:53:34 > 0:53:37"The moon shone clear,
0:53:37 > 0:53:40"and I thought in my heart I had never seen
0:53:40 > 0:53:43"a place so desert and desolate.
0:53:43 > 0:53:45"But it was dry land."
0:53:49 > 0:53:52The sea throws David back on his own resources.
0:53:52 > 0:53:55It's another twist in the maritime tale.
0:53:58 > 0:54:01The books I've been reading have had characters battling
0:54:01 > 0:54:03with the violence of the sea, characters
0:54:03 > 0:54:06bonding together in the face of its dangers
0:54:06 > 0:54:11and characters fighting each other as it roars around them.
0:54:11 > 0:54:16But in Stevenson's masterpiece, David faces the ultimate test.
0:54:16 > 0:54:18He's stripped of all pretence
0:54:18 > 0:54:22and left fighting for survival on his own.
0:54:24 > 0:54:27Stevenson could not have chosen a bleaker spot for it.
0:54:27 > 0:54:29And this island was known to him,
0:54:29 > 0:54:33because his father earned his living building lighthouses.
0:54:36 > 0:54:41Well, this is the tiny island of Erraid, just one mile across.
0:54:41 > 0:54:44It was here that the 19-year-old Robert Louis Stevenson came with his
0:54:44 > 0:54:48father to observe the building of the Dubh Artach lighthouse.
0:54:48 > 0:54:52He often went out on sailing trips with his father and,
0:54:52 > 0:54:54in later years, he used to say that
0:54:54 > 0:54:55whenever he smelt salt water,
0:54:55 > 0:54:59he knew he wasn't far from the work of his ancestors.
0:55:10 > 0:55:16"At last I came to a rising ground, and it burst upon me all in a moment
0:55:16 > 0:55:19"that I was cast upon a little barren isle
0:55:19 > 0:55:23"and cut off on every side by the salt seas.
0:55:23 > 0:55:26"Instead of the sun rising to dry me,
0:55:26 > 0:55:29"it came on to rain, with a thick mist,
0:55:29 > 0:55:32"so that my case was lamentable."
0:55:38 > 0:55:41This is a surprising moment of comedy in Kidnapped
0:55:41 > 0:55:44after all of the grim hardship on board the Covenant.
0:55:44 > 0:55:47What David Balfour lacks the imagination to work out
0:55:47 > 0:55:49is that the stretch of water
0:55:49 > 0:55:51that separates him from Mull is tidal,
0:55:51 > 0:55:55so that at low tide he can actually cross it on foot.
0:55:55 > 0:55:58Eventually, some passing fishermen point this out to him,
0:55:58 > 0:56:00and, elated, he dashes over.
0:56:00 > 0:56:02What I especially love about this passage in the novel is that,
0:56:02 > 0:56:04in effect, Stevenson is poking fun
0:56:04 > 0:56:08at his own character and his psychological attachment
0:56:08 > 0:56:11to the idea that he will always be a prisoner.
0:56:14 > 0:56:17"Even I, who had the tide going out
0:56:17 > 0:56:21"and in before me in the bay and even watched for the
0:56:21 > 0:56:24"ebbs, the better to get my shellfish,
0:56:24 > 0:56:29"even I, I say, if I had sat down to think instead of raging at my fate,
0:56:29 > 0:56:31"must have soon guessed the secret
0:56:31 > 0:56:33"and got free."
0:56:38 > 0:56:42This bay is now known as Balfour Bay, after David Balfour,
0:56:42 > 0:56:45and it's the end of my journey.
0:56:46 > 0:56:49So, what have I learnt over the last few weeks
0:56:49 > 0:56:52about the sea and its literature?
0:56:54 > 0:56:58What it's taken me a while to appreciate
0:56:58 > 0:57:01is just how alien the sea is in literature.
0:57:01 > 0:57:05We expect it to be depicted as dramatic or dangerous or majestic,
0:57:05 > 0:57:08but I think that authors who write
0:57:08 > 0:57:12stories about the sea also see her as an entirely other realm.
0:57:12 > 0:57:16Just as Hell was another realm for Milton or Dante,
0:57:16 > 0:57:19so Conrad calls the sea, "another planet".
0:57:19 > 0:57:24What we're reminded of in these stories is that once out there,
0:57:24 > 0:57:27everything changes, it's another world, and that if we do choose
0:57:27 > 0:57:29to venture out onto her waves,
0:57:29 > 0:57:33the sea is just as likely to punish us as she is to inspire us.
0:57:33 > 0:57:38But then, the lure of a sea voyage is tremendous,
0:57:38 > 0:57:41both for the characters in a novel and for us, the readers,
0:57:41 > 0:57:42about to embark with them.
0:57:42 > 0:57:45And I really do think that if we choose to make that voyage
0:57:45 > 0:57:50and to steep ourselves in the sea literature of Britain, then we will
0:57:50 > 0:57:53return not just with a different perception of the sea itself
0:57:53 > 0:57:55but also with a different perception
0:57:55 > 0:58:01of our relationship with her, this other element which, as islanders,
0:58:01 > 0:58:04both surrounds us and defines us.
0:58:20 > 0:58:24E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk
0:58:24 > 0:58:27Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd