Sarah Millican Who Do You Think You Are?

Comedienne Sarah Millican was born in South Shields in 1975.

She recently moved to her new home, near Manchester.

It's a bit weird buying a house,

cos I've never owned anywhere before,

so it's nice having different rooms for different purposes,

instead of an office/living room/kitchen/diner!

APPLAUSE

In 2008, Sarah scooped a Best Newcomer Award.

APPLAUSE

Hello!

And she's now one of the country's most sought-after comics.

You all having a good night?

CHEERING

She attributes her success to a life-changing experience -

when her marriage, of seven years, ended.

'He just stopped loving me, and,'

while that was horrific at the time, thank God it happened because...

it gave me...

such balls, if you like.

I'd hoped that I'd make a living doing stand-up comedy.

I never really thought that I'd be where I am.

APPLAUSE

'I'm very proud to be from the North East.

'I think it's important to remember where you come from.'

I want to find out if my family have always been in South Shields.

Isn't that ridiculous?! The whole world that they could be in,

and you just think I bet we've just lived, I bet they lived,

like, two or three streets away from where my mum and dad are now.

I hope I don't find out anything really horrible!

I do hope it's positive and nice and something that we can be proud of.

I'm off to see my parents in South Shields...

cos my dad's done a little bit of digging re the family tree,

and I want to see where he got up to.

This journey to my mum and dad's, I've done a lot.

I've even got, this is really sad, I've got a playlist

on my iPod for, erm...

driving home, that is just full of Geordie songs. It's-It's just...

it has, it has got some awful, awful things on there.

It's got Robson and Jerome on, I don't mind telling you,

it's got Robson and Jerome on.

Sarah's parents, Valerie and Phillip, were married in 1965.

Her mother was a hairdresser

and her father worked at the local colliery, for over 30 years.

He absolutely hates laziness.

When I was a kid, he used to work down the pit seven days a week,

sometimes, sort of, 12-hour shifts.

My mam's got a very dark sense of humour,

which I think I've inherited.

She's potentially the funniest of all of us -

but don't... don't tell her I told you that.

DOORBELL RINGS

Right, Sarah.

-Hello.

-Hi, darling, how are you, all right?

-It's nice to see you.

-Lovely to see you. All right, come in.

Now, you've done...you've done a little bit of research

-into the family tree, haven't you?

-Yes.

Now, what do you know about your side?

Well, what it was, was, I got stuck - I found it...it was expensive

and then I found you've got to have a lot of time available.

Did you get stopped at your grandad? Was that where you got stuck?

Cos you never met your grandad, did you?

Never met any of me grandads, er...

and me dad died when I was 15,

so I never had time to actually, you know,

-find out off me dad all the information, you see.

-Hm.

Do you think, through generations gone by,

that we've always been based,

not necessarily South Shields, but in the North East in general?

-Do you think we've always been here? Have you..?

-No, I don't.

-No.

Something said about me dad's side of the family being from Scotland.

Where they were, I don't know.

I think it's quite nice to think that your family have always

been in the North East, and stayed because they liked it.

I find it quite boring. I'd love to think...

You think that people have had adventures?

Oh, absolutely, absolutely, yes.

Cos I'm 67 and I'm going to start adventures any time.

-Really?

-Yep.

-OK.

Are you going to let us know when you're going?

THEY LAUGH

-Yeah.

-Ah, well!

OK. Now, Mam,

what do you know about your side?

Cos you think there's money from way, way, way back, don't you?

-I know there is.

-You know there is?

-Yep.

-What makes you think that?

Well, me, erm, mum's mum, had their own house which was...

Years ago, nobody bought their own house.

What they had in the house was a beautiful, erm...piano, grand piano.

-Ooh, posh!

-Dead posh.

So, I definitely know there was money,

but me mum never, ever saw any of it at all.

-So, this is a picture of your mum and dad.

-That's right, yes, yeah.

Er, James Prince and Gladys Hoult.

So, this is the side of the family that you think the money's on?

-Money, yeah. That's it.

-On her side?

-Yeah, yeah.

Don't you think everybody thinks that there's money in their family?

I think everybody thinks,

"Is there somebody in the past who's squandered me inheritance?"

THEY LAUGH

-Who's spent our money?

-Spent our money!

Both my mam and dad think that we haven't

been in South Shields for ever.

My mum seems to think that we have travellers

and adventurers in the family - cos I think

that's what you want, really, isn't it?

So, it's interesting to see if there is a history of that,

that I have rebelled against.

What I want to find out now is whether it is a myth that

there's money in the family, er, or whether it's true.

To find out if there was a fortune, on her mother's side,

Sarah has asked for a maternal family tree to be drawn up,

by local genealogist, Katherine Pringle.

Right, Sarah, this is the family tree on your mother's side, OK.

Oh, my god!

So, oh, so, right, OK, so we work our way up.

It's all lovely, laid out and everything, isn't it?

Yeah, it's beautiful writing.

So, OK, so this is who I know.

So, this is where we get, so, er, Grandma, who I never met.

So her...her dad was a fitter...

ah, William the fitter

and father, William the fitter.

A ship's stoker.

-Wow, isn't it amazing?

-Yeah.

So, these are all very, sort of, traditional, North East trades.

Yes. Yeah. You know, it's like me dad,

where they're all proper Geordie bloke jobs, aren't they?

Yeah, they really are.

It's really weird to see it all laid out -

to think that I'm related to all of these people, you know, it's...

Yeah, right, all your ancestors.

And a diver!

-A diver!

-Yeah.

And that was in the 1800s?

Yep, 1812, so...

-A diver!

-Yep.

I'm astonished by that.

In all the years I've been researching family trees,

-I've never come across a diver before.

-Really?

So, this is a really unusual occupation.

So, James, the diver, is her great grandparents' great, great...

-great, great, great.

-Yep.

-Three greats.

-Yep, yep, yep.

-Three greats equals awesome.

-It does, yeah.

I assumed somebody hadn't written that right.

I did glance and think...

(it means driver!)

I was still thinking, it's really quite impressive, isn't it?

I only passed me test five years ago!

-Oh, right!

-I'm quite impressed!

-That would be an achievement, then.

-Yeah!

-Yeah. Yeah.

-Hello! In Kent.

-Whitstable!

Mum and Dad are going to be gutted -

they're not going to be pleased we've got Southerners in the family.

I think they were hoping it would be North...

-Oh, right.

-Or Scottish or, yeah...

And, it's just, it's completely floored me.

My mam has this thing where she thinks that there's money

in the family and I wonder where, cos, you see, none of these jobs,

the fitters and that - your money comes in, your money goes out.

-Yeah.

-That's, you know, how you survive. But, a diver!

-Yes.

I don't...I've never met a diver, I don't know,

presumably that's quite well-paid, compared to these.

-Yeah, yeah, yeah.

-Anyway, you would think so.

-Mother, you might be right.

-She might be right.

How would you be a diver, as a job, in the 1800s?

-I'm going to go to Kent and find out why.

-Yeah.

Sarah's starting her search for information by heading south

to Whitstable, on the Kent coast.

She's meeting diving historian, Dr John Bevan.

-Hello.

-Hello.

-Lovely to meet you.

-Lovely to meet you, too.

-Thank you very much, love.

So, John, I found out that my great, great, great, three greats,

my great, great, great grandad, James Hoult, was a diver

and was born here in Whitstable in 1812.

What can you tell me about him?

I've found one or two interesting things about James Hoult.

I'm very excited! Tell me... Tell me more!

-OK.

-What have you got?

-Right, well,

this is one of the things I turned up.

This is, actually, the registration of a boat.

Wow, there's a lot of swirly writing, isn't there?

Yeah, it's quite old.

So, William is..? That's the name of the ship?

That's right.

So, the 1st of January, er, 1837...

there he is, James Hoult,

-25.

-That's his, erm...

-Seaman.

-Position, Seaman.

"Seaman. Played the whole time fishing in..."

-Assisting.

-"..assisting ships in..."

God, I feel like I'm five again.

-Sorry.

-Distress.

I'm glad you're here! Distress. Oh, in distress...

-Yes, it's a funny spelling.

-The whole of the time.

-Hmm.

Now that means he's a salvager.

Now salvaging is very dangerous - er, you have to go out there in...

in horrendous conditions.

These are expert boatmen, they would go out there during a storm

and they'd go and assist people, save their lives, but then,

of course, they'd help themselves to the cargo, if they could.

-Oh, OK.

-And that's salvage.

-So, brave and smart.

-Absolutely.

The law of salvage - if you bring a vessel in, er,

-you're entitled to the value of it.

-Finders keepers.

That's quite canny, isn't it?

If you were very lucky, you'd make a lot of money out of salvage.

Every now and then, there could be a bonanza.

-A bonanza!

-Hmm.

-Good word.

-Hm.

By navigating the treacherous waters along the Kent coast,

salvagers, like James, became expert boatmen...

..but their income was unpredictable.

They hoped to land a fortune,

but day-to-day made a living pulling up sunken cargo off the sea bed

and recovering abandoned anchors.

Unable to salvage beneath the water,

all they had were ropes and basic grappling tools,

which they used from the boat above.

And, this is where it gets really interesting.

Have a look at that.

OK. So it's now 1838...

James Hoult, and he's now, er,

"played the whole time in fishing and diving."

Ah, now this is diving - cos it was fishing and, er,

and boats in distress.

The fact that that says "diving" there is extremely important,

because the fact they've actually written it in as a...occupation

means they are using the word diving for one of the first times.

As a job, wow!

This is the sort of helmet that James Hoult would have been using.

Wow! You see, this is what I thought, this is what I visualised,

-when I found out that he was a diver.

-Hmm.

This is what's called a Deane Open Helmet.

The diving helmet had first been invented in the early 1800s.

John Deane, the co-inventor of the diving helmet, lived in Whitstable.

This is why the diving industry started here -

it went around the rest of the world from Whitstable.

So James Hoult becomes one of that first group of divers.

Wow, really?

So, James Hoult is very special.

So, one of the first divers ever, not just in the UK, but ever?

Ever.

Wow!

That's amazing, isn't it?

Er, this is actually called an Open Helmet.

-Mm-hm.

-And, it's called that because the principle is,

it's like having a bucket over your head

with the water level at the bottom of the bucket,

being supplied with air from the surface.

The disadvantage of this, of course, is if you lean forward...

-Oh, yes.

-..the air rushes out the back, and the water rushes in,

and you can drown.

Sounds horrific.

So, this was, obviously, an incredibly risky job.

Was there a high proportion of deaths by this, then?

Er, by the end of the 1830s there must have been

about 30-odd divers, most of them in Whitstable.

And, out of these 30 divers, at least five of them died.

God!

So, that's one in six divers.

-That's a huge proportion, isn't it?

-It's a huge proportion.

-It was very dangerous, was...

-But not James...not James!

The chance of drowning was a risk these early divers,

like James, were prepared to take.

For the first time, they could go underwater to depths of

up to 60 feet and search for valuable cargo on the sea floor.

To me, these are very brave people, seriously brave people.

To just...just go down there in the darkness and feel around.

Yes. But know that there's a treasure somewhere, with your name on it.

Absolutely! Yeah!

Amazing! Thank you ever so much.

I'm thrilled by what I've just found out.

Erm, I think just the fact that there was somebody in the family who was

a real pioneer, and really adventurous and a real risk taker,

considering that's the opposite of what I am in every way, is astonishing.

Divers, like James, were starting to put Whitstable on the map.

This small coastal town, known for its oyster fishing,

became the birth place of the modern diving industry.

To experience for herself the early diving gear

James would have worn, Sarah is meeting Gary Wallace-Potter

and Peter Wingett from The Historical Diving Society.

-Hello.

-Hello, Sarah.

-Hello, hiya.

-Hello, I'm Peter.

-Nice to meet you, I'm Sarah, hello.

-I'm Gary.

-Nice to meet you, Gary, thank you.

That's very exciting. Wow!

Oh, my god.

-Would you actually like to try a suit on?

-Absolutely.

-Yeah?

-Yeah.

-Well, we can do that.

-OK.

-OK. So, erm...

-What size is it?

-One size fits all.

-Really?

-Yes.

I've been in that situation before, you know!

Yeah, no, honest, yeah, one size fits all.

I hope you've got a couple of shoehorns!

-Yeah.

-Oh, my god!

What I'm going to do is put talc on the seals,

makes it easier to get in and out.

OK. I'm more worried about these at the front, to be honest.

All right. The next thing is we're going to put the breast plate on.

There we go.

We'll tighten this right down,

and this is to make sure that you don't get wet.

-Now it's the helmet.

-Yeah. Oh, no!

OK.

The open bucket type of helmet that James started diving in was

superseded in the 1840s by a helmet which was closed and watertight.

That's it.

HE KNOCKS ON HELMET

Come in!

Right, there you go.

Wow, that is heavy.

James could now move more freely underwater to salvage.

Air was pumped to his helmet, keeping him alive,

but was also trapped in his suit, making him buoyant.

The only way James could stay underwater was to carry

a huge amount of weight.

-D'you actually want to try the full weight?

-Yeah.

-Yeah?

-Totally.

Right, so...

-bring your hands up.

-Yeah, yep.

-All right.

How much do these weigh?

They're 40 lbs or, what's that? About 18 kilos each.

So, you've got one on the front, one on the back.

The boots had a lead sole to counteract the buoyancy.

-Um, right.

-If he lost his boots, you could be talking about

-a diver being inverted.

-Oh, my god. It's horrific, isn't it?

-Yeah.

-Whoa, they weigh a ton.

-Right, OK.

-Wow, OK.

That is heavy.

-I can't believe I said yes to this!

-Right.

Right. Here we go, then.

-Here we go.

-Leave go, yep. Both leave go.

That's 9½ stone on your shoulders.

-And then another 2½ stone on your feet.

-Really?

And then you'd have to climb down the ladder,

-over the side of the boat.

-I've gotta do a ladder...!

-Yeah.

-..after all of this!

-Down the ladder, into the water.

-Yes.

But then, of course, the worst bit is - face plate.

-Face plate in now.

-Oh, no!

KNOCKS ON HELMET

SHE LAUGHS

Let's get her out.

-Yep.

-Now that was claustrophobic.

-OK, all right.

-Yeah, yeah.

-Helmet coming off.

-All right.

-Yep.

Oh!

-Wow.

-There you go.

It's amazing to think that this is what James Hoult did.

You know, this was probably every day, do you think?

-That's right.

-You're right.

-I'm impressed with James Hoult.

The Whitstable divers, like James,

earned a reputation for their risk-taking

and specialist salvage skills.

Insurance companies, like Lloyds, hired these daredevils

to recover valuable cargo from ships which had sunk.

James would earn a percentage of the value of the recovered goods.

Do we know what sort of jobs, er, James might have worked on?

Well, I have got a reference...

-Ooh.

-..from our Divers' Index.

-OK.

-OK.

-There he is.

-Yep, there's James Hoult.

-James Hoult.

Now, the first conclusive reference we have to him, is in 1843,

and it's referring to Hoult working on the wreck of the Pegasus in Holy Island.

So, in order to find more out about the Pegasus,

-I suppose I should go to...

-Holy Island.

-..Holy Island.

-Yeah, I think so.

-That's very exciting.

James set off for Holy Island in 1843.

This time he'd be diving in unfamiliar waters.

But if the Pegasus was a valuable wreck,

for a bounty hunting salvager, like James, it could be a windfall.

Sarah is returning to her native North East.

Holy Island lies two miles off the Northumberland coast.

She's searching online to see

if she can find any information about the Pegasus.

I'm going to type in 1843, which is the day that it sunk,

and see what we can find.

Oh, here we go.

So, I've found the front page of The Illustrated London News

for the week ending Saturday, July 29th, 1843.

And, if I scroll down...

there is the Pegasus sinking - how horrific.

It says, "It was our painful duty to announce the melancholy catastrophe,

"the loss of the Pegasus steamer, plying between Leith and Hull.

"The only authentic narrative of the sad occurrence

"has been given by a seaman," and he says,

"The children seemed unconscious of the danger.

"The surface of the water was covered in the dead and the dying.

"The screeching was fearful."

Wow.

That's horrific, isn't it?

"Covered in the dead and the dying."

I think I'd like to know just what James was doing,

whether he was, you know, sort of,

recovering the belongings of the survivors...

..which is quite, sort of, icky, isn't it? Kind of...

..like, moving a body aside to bring up somebody's case

just feels really wrong, doesn't it?

The sinking of the Pegasus was the worst maritime disaster

off the English coast in 1843.

Sarah's keen to know if her ancestor profited from this tragedy.

To find out, she's meeting local historian Jane Bowen.

So, Jane, we're here on Holy Island.

-Yep.

-Can you tell me whereabouts the Pegasus sank?

Yes. She sank behind Lindisfarne Castle.

She had been coming from Leith and then she was going on to Hull.

It was a passenger steamer on a route which they did once a week.

-OK.

-But, for reasons that aren't clear,

she actually missed the channel

and went straight in to the sunken rock - the goldstone.

There was probably a loss of some 55 or so people.

-It's huge, isn't it?

-It is.

It's awful.

Some of the passengers who died on the Pegasus are buried here,

in the parish churchyard.

Jane has found some information about James Hoult's involvement in the salvage operation.

-Perhaps you'd like to read an account...

-Thank you.

..which was published in the Stamford Mercury.

"By accounts received from Holy Island, we're informed

"the divers are actively engaged about the wreck of the Pegasus.

"The divers on that day brought up a box of the Reverend Mackenzie,

"whose body was found some days before.

"Some things of Miss Briggs, a box of Mr Hodgson

"and a bag of Miss Flowers, whose body has not been found.

"The divers have 40% on the value of all they bring up.

"It's described as melancholy work wrenching open boxes

"and tearing out their saturated contents.

"In one box there were many little infants' clothes...

"..all most beautifully made and mended,

"proving what a careful mother had been with them."

-That's awful, isn't it?

-It is.

"Then there were relics of so much affection...

"its only hopes destroyed."

So, they were bringing up a lot of possessions.

Obviously, the job that James was doing

is clearly very important.

-Yeah.

-Cos I think, when it says that they got 40% of whatever

they brought up, that does feel quite money-driven.

-Yeah.

-Whereas, it was incredibly important for the...for the families.

Keepsakes, I don't know whether...

-It was keepsakes, it was something for you to cling to.

-Yeah.

And what some of them did was that they actually had notices

published to try and encourage people to look for the bodies.

-And this is one of the several that were actually published.

-Wow!

"A reward of three pounds will be paid for the recovery of either

"of the bodies of two children, Master Field Flowers

"and Miss Fanny Maria Flowers, cabin passengers

"on board the Pegasus steamer. Age of Master Flowers, 13 -

"forehead and upper teeth projecting, fair hair."

It's awful.

-Imagine having to describe the body of your child.

-Yeah.

Oh, God, it's gut-wrenching, isn't it?

It said a reward of £3.

Can you tell me how much that would be equivalent to these days?

That would be about three months' wages...

-OK.

-..for a working person.

-It's huge, isn't it?

-It is.

You can see that people were really desperate to be able to

give them a burial and not lying in a watery grave somewhere.

In Victorian Britain,

customs relating to death were extremely important.

The Christian ideal of "the good death"

was to die peacefully at home, surrounded by loved ones.

Being lost at sea

meant there would be no grave at which the family could mourn.

There is another account of the divers at work.

"The divers are still at work getting up cargo

"and passengers' luggage.

"They have succeeded in recovering some very valuable luggage,

"Messrs Gann and Hoult..."

Yep, that's him.

(Sorry.)

"..masters of the diving smacks,

"have most handsomely given up..."

SHE SOBS

Sorry.

SHE SOBS

"..have most handsomely given up all that they brought

"from the bottom to the orphan children, free of any charge."

The children had lost their father...

..seven children, and there was nobody left to support them.

And this is why...

..your relative was making over money to try and provide

some sort of provision for these children.

SHE SOBS

So, while they were left with very little, they at least had something.

They had something.

I like him.

It's...it's astonishing just to do such a horrific job

-and then the reward is helping people.

-Yeah.

-Yeah.

It was, sort of, important to know th-that

-he wasn't just doing it for money.

-Yeah.

-That there was...that he had a good heart, you know.

-Yes.

-Sorry for getting...

-No.

I..I quite lost it for a second there.

-What a good man.

-Yeah.

Oh, I'm going again! Sorry.

I think it's really important that... he wasn't just doing it for money.

SHE SIGHS

-I am knackered.

-Yeah?

-I'm emotionally drained.

But thank you, Jane, it means an awful lot to me.

I like what I've just found out about James,

I like that I know more about his character,

that he had a good heart and that he had a conscience

and that he...he did the right thing.

And I think that's... that's what you want in an ancestor -

you want somebody who was essentially a good man.

I'm interested to see

when he started to think about maybe becoming a father himself,

because that's a hard thing to have to recover,

the bodies of small children.

And that maybe that's when you start to think about a family of your own.

Sarah is meeting historian Margaret Lewis.

So...Margaret,

what I'd like to know about James Hoult

-is a little bit about his home life.

-Yeah.

We can find out more about him from the 1851 census.

Oh, wow! OK. Let's have a look.

So we've got to find the Hoults. Erm...

-Yes.

-Oh, and there he is.

-Yep.

So James Hoult, aged 39.

-Yes.

-And still a diver.

-Yeah.

-Wow! After all that as well.

-Yes, yeah.

-He still continued, very impressive.

-That's right.

-And he was married.

-Yes.

-And then, children.

-Yep.

-Er...three.

-Yes.

-Yeah, and it goes to the next page.

-More.

-More.

-More children.

There's more children.

He was 39 with five children. I'm 37.

-Mm.

-And I've got a cat.

THEY LAUGH

-Ah...

-North Shields.

-North Shields.

-Yes.

So they would have moved about 1849-50.

-Would you have any idea why they would move...

-Yes, yep.

..up to...up to North Shields?

We do know, by this time,

-that he was working for the Tyne Commissioners.

-Oh, really?

So, you know, he had a very, very important job -

to make sure any wrecks, or other obstructions,

on the River Tyne were cleared as quickly as possible.

-So...

-So, he moved for work and took his family with him.

He did.

Instead of going round trying to find speculative diving work,

he had a really good, regular income.

And he never went back to Whitstable or anywhere else,

he stayed put with his family.

And, here, you might be interested in this.

OK. So the Shields Gazette...1867.

"Sudden death at North Shields on Saturday afternoon -

"Mr James Hoult died at his residence of concussion of the brain.

"Deceased, who was a native of Whitstable,

"and was much respected for his genial and affable disposition."

-So, how old was he?

-55 when he died.

-That's very young, isn't it?

-Fairly young, but, of course,

with the arduous sort of work he was doing and the risk...

-It's going to take its toll, isn't it?

-It would have taken its toll.

-But that is a lovely obituary, I think.

-Yes.

-"A genial and affable disposition." Yeah, an all-round good man.

-Mm, mm.

I like that a lot.

Now, there's a...there's a thought in...in our family

that there was some money somewhere along the line.

Er...I did wonder if he was where the money came from.

-Erm, we certainly haven't found a will.

-Mm.

So I don't think, unfortunately, there was a lot of money.

-OK.

-Yeah.

-Thank you for that.

-That's a pleasure.

I'm really proud to have James Hoult as an ancestor.

Not just because of the diving

and pioneering this whole new industry,

but, also, he was clearly a very strong, brave man,

kind-hearted and...and that people liked him.

I like that he came up North, and that we kept him.

Sarah's now turning her attention to her ancestors on her father's side.

My dad thinks that there are Scottish roots on his side of the family.

So I've asked Katherine, who did the family tree for my mum's side,

to do one for my dad's side, and I've got it here.

So, I'm very excited about what this might hold.

OK, let's have a look.

So we start with me and my dad.

SHE CHUCKLES

This is good paper...

Paperweights can't handle it.

There we go.

So me and my parents and my grandparents.

So, let's go up on Arthur's side.

So Arthur...born in South Shields, OK.

South Shields again, OK.

And then, Lincolnshire, ah...

Oh, Scotland! There we go! Oh, he was right!

My dad thought there were Scottish roots, but I didn't know...

I assumed that it would be, maybe, just over the border.

Er...the Orkney Islands, that's crazy.

My geography is based on where I tour, generally.

My knowledge of the Orkneys is...is nothing.

1791. God, that is so long ago.

John Malcolm is my great-great-great-great-grandfather,

so we've gone a generation further than we did on my mum's side.

Hudson's Bay Company, servant.

It'd be good to know what kind of servant that was

and what kind of company that was,

and what kind of... what kind of life he had.

I think the best place to find out more about John Malcolm

is the Orkneys.

A servant, it's like Downton Abbey, so exciting. Aah!

The Orkney Islands lie just off the northern coast of mainland Scotland.

Sarah's in Stromness,

the main sea port,

to meet local historian Jeanette Park.

-Hello.

-Hi.

-I'm Sarah.

-Pleased to meet you.

Erm...now, I found out that one of my ancestors, John Malcolm,

was born here, on the Orkney Islands, in 1791.

What can you tell me about Orkney at that time?

Life in Orkney would have been quite hard and poor,

but the majority of the population would have lived on the land.

I guess the options, it's quite limited, isn't it, really?

But that was life as they knew it.

So my ancestor, John Malcolm, what I know about him,

I know that he was a servant for Hudson's Bay Company.

-Now that's...that's literally all I have.

-Right.

Can you shed any light on that?

A servant was used in the way that we would use employee nowadays.

Anything from a labourer to a blacksmith or a joiner.

-OK. Worker.

-Worker.

Well, that massively changes things,

cos I was all Downton Abbey all over it.

Well, er...no.

What can you tell me about...I don't know anything

about the Hudson's Bay Company.

-It was based in London.

-OK.

-Erm...London.

-But, Hudson's Bay is here, isn't it?

No, it's...it's across in Northern Canada.

Oh, OK. Thrown completely, sorry.

-So it's... So it was... Hudson's Bay itself is in Canada.

-Yeah.

So what did the Hudson's Bay Company do out there?

They were set up as a fur trading company.

-So fur traders.

-Fur traders.

In the 17th Century,

the fashion for fur had led to over-hunting in Europe.

To meet demand, the French looked further afield

and established a fur trade in the east of modern-day Canada.

The British were also eager to exploit this new world.

In 1670, King Charles II granted a royal charter

to a group of London businessmen to form the Hudson's Bay Company.

It gave them monopoly trading rights

over a vast, unclaimed territory

around Hudson's Bay.

The company needed a hardy workforce,

and Orcadians, like John, desperate for employment,

were eager to sign up.

That was a recruitment poster.

Aah. "Wanted - blacksmith,

"joiner and boat-builder,

-"also several labourers, apply early."

-Yeah, yeah.

Obviously, very popular. It's sort of an advert for an adventure, isn't it?

Yeah. It's a bit like with Boy's Own adverts.

It does make it look very exciting, doesn't it? Especially for young men.

Oh, yes.

The ships would arrive from London.

-Uh-huh.

-And go on up round the top of Scotland,

and stopped off on Orkney, en route.

Picking up all their employees on the way.

Stromness would be one of the last landfalls

before they went across the Atlantic to Hudson's Bay.

-It was a long trip at sea.

-It's a long trip, isn't it?

But obviously worth...worth it when you got there.

-It was...a five-year term of employment.

-Really?

-That's it, that's right, yeah.

-Which must have been so attractive.

And you wouldn't have to pay for accommodation or food out of that,

so you basically had the chance to save most of your pay.

They would be able to come home

and basically set themselves up in their own piece of land.

-Your nest egg, isn't it?

-Yeah.

-And maybe marry their childhood sweetheart...

-Ah!

-..and set up a family.

So, it was a great opportunity.

I suppose it's just the chance of such solid work.

-I think people these days would snatch your hand off, wouldn't they?

-Yeah.

A Hudson's Bay Company ship would arrive twice a year

to pick up new recruits like John.

-I have here a document.

-What have you got?

Let's have a look. So what is this?

It's a ship's log from one of the Hudson's Bay Company ships.

Oh, there he is, John Malcolm, 1817.

-So that makes him 26? 27...

-Yeah. Something like that.

My maths is rough.

He was one of 28 passengers that were Orcadian, out of a list of 33.

Really?

They were all starting a new life out in Hudson's Bay.

-Passengers from the Orkneys to Moose River.

-Yeah.

-OK.

SARAH CHUCKLES

I'd love to find out more about what happened to John Malcolm

when he actually got there, what sort of things he would be doing.

And Moose River certainly needs some investigation, doesn't it?

It sounds like it's just a river

that's just, you know, guarded by moose.

It's very intriguing, isn't it?

Thank you, Jeanette.

It's a 3,000-mile journey from the Orkney Islands

to Hudson's Bay in Canada.

In 1817, it took John Malcolm three months by ship.

Even today, it's taken Sarah two days and three flights

to reach this remote part of Canada.

I've finally arrived here, in Canada.

It's very, very cold.

I wouldn't hesitate before I said it was absolutely bloody freezing.

Sarah is heading to Moose Factory Island,

which lies at the mouth of the Moose River.

The Hudson's Bay Company had their main outpost here,

and it's where John Malcolm arrived 200 years ago.

With the outside temperature at -25,

Sarah can drive across the frozen river to get there.

Dr Scott Steven is an expert in the history of the Hudson's Bay Company.

Hello, Sarah.

-Welcome to Moose Factory.

-Thank you very much.

It is worth pointing out, Scott, how different we look,

considering we're both dressed for the exact same temperature, isn't it?

It is slightly ridiculous.

I've got three pairs of socks on and a wrap-around duvet,

and you've got, like, trainers on.

I just stick out like a sore thumb.

SHE LAUGHS

-Don't worry, you'll get used to it.

-Good, I hope so.

Now, what can you tell me about John Malcolm's arrival?

-Well, that's why we're standing here.

-Oh, OK.

Because this is basically the spot

where John would have disembarked from the boat.

-Ah, really?

-Yes.

-Wow.

It's worth pointing out that is a body of water.

That is the river out there.

We drove over it to get here, which just blows my mind.

Winter is, obviously, a major fact of life here, in Hudson Bay.

It's so different from Orkney.

An entirely different world from what John had been used to.

Scary, isn't it?

-Why don't we go inside?

-Yeah.

-OK, let's go.

So, Scott, what would John have found when he arrived here?

Well, we actually have an image...

-Oh!

-..of Moose Factory.

-So that's the first thing he would have seen?

-Uh-huh.

Now, I read on the passenger list, in Orkney, that John was a labourer.

Do you know what sort of thing he would be...he would be doing?

We talk a lot about fur traders.

Now, John Malcolm, himself, isn't trading any fur.

He's going to be doing support roles, a lot of manual labour -

cutting firewood, shovelling snow.

-A cog in a big machine.

-Exactly.

-Yeah.

It's necessary work to support the Hudson's Bay Company traders.

-Mm.

-So the Cree, the indigenous people in this area...

-Wow.

-..they'll make the journey down rivers like the Moose,

and trade their surplus furs

in exchange for manufactured goods,

like copper kettles and guns.

OK.

What skins and furs would the Indian hunters have been after?

The Hudson's Bay Company will take anything that has fur on.

SHE LAUGHS

But some furs are particularly valuable in Europe at this time,

and first and foremost among these is the beaver.

-Oh.

-Which you can use to make...

Lovely hats!

-A range of lovely hats.

-Wow.

-I've actually got some furs here.

-Oh, really?

-What is this?

-This is a beaver fur.

Really?

Now, a lot of what you see on top here is not valuable.

-It's the...

-It's the soft underfur.

-That's the pricey stuff.

-That's the pricey stuff.

-That's what the felt would have been made from.

-Exactly.

-Understood.

Here we've got a...a wolf skin,

and then, here's a...

-Oh, wowzers!

-..here's a fox.

Oh, it has a head! OK.

It was over the end of the table, I hadn't seen.

There would be, literally,

tens of thousands of animal skins passing through Moose Factory.

I am quite pleased that John was very much a behind-the-scenes kind of guy in this.

I wouldn't wear fur myself, but I don't think I realised

how against it I actually am until I see it all.

But I know the time that we're talking

was a totally different situation.

So I will forgive John Malcolm, just this once.

Good, I'm glad they're leaving.

SHE CHUCKLES

So the standard contract would have been five years.

Do you know if that's how long John stayed?

Well, 1817, it's a difficult year for the Hudson's Bay Company.

They are in a very intense period of competition

with a rival company, known as the North West Company.

The North West Company was an alliance

of independent Scottish fur traders and French settlers.

They knew the Hudson's Bay Company trading posts

were mostly along the coast.

So ignoring the HBC monopoly,

they set up rival posts inland.

Here, they could intercept the Cree en route to the bay,

and secure the best furs.

With vital business being lost,

the Hudson's Bay Company was forced to take action

and also pushed further into the harsh interior.

John arrived in 1817,

as the battle for control of the fur trade was raging.

We've got the Moose Factory Journal

from the year that John Malcolm arrived,

and if we flip through, there we are.

So this is September 10th, 1817 -

"Mr J Davis, Mr D McDonald, James Spence, John Malcolm...

"went on board the Gipsy to proceed to Albany."

So, he wasn't there very long, then?

No, not even two weeks.

There's a real sense of desperation

from the Hudson's Bay Company to send men inland,

-where that competition...

-OK.

-..with the North West Company

-was really taking place. Now there's...

-Yeah.

..us at Moose Factory.

There's Albany.

He, and seven other men, were sent inland, up the Albany River to here.

It's an inland post named Gloucester House.

That's about 350 miles from Albany.

Oh!

Oh, my god.

Considerably more remote and farther away from assistance or supplies.

Sounds horrible. Poor bugger.

I feel sorry for him, because he's got here after three months

and gone, "So this is home for the next, you know,

"for the foreseeable future,"

and, he's moved on again, before he was ready, possibly.

Normally, rooky labourers, like John,

would spend at least a year at Moose Factory,

where they'd learn essential skills from the local Cree,

like how to use snowshoes and fish from frozen rivers.

But pressure from the competition meant John was sent

to the remote Gloucester House outpost after just two weeks.

In order to identify a little bit more

with what John Malcolm had to deal with in a tiny, tiny way,

I want to have a go with the snowshoes,

and I think I want to see if I can do a little bit of ice fishing.

Just to get a taster of some of the things he had to endure.

Sarah is meeting local Cree guide, Nolan Tozer.

-Hello, Nolan.

-Hello.

-This is what...my ancestor, John Malcolm would have worn.

-Yep.

These are the exact kind of style he would have worn 200 years ago.

OK. And these are snowshoes?

Yeah, these are snowshoes.

I've never worn anything like this before. Erm...

-I'll give you a hand here.

-Yes, please.

-So I'll set this one down.

So you'll probably really feel

-like your ancestor learning for his first time.

-That's true.

And I imagine he probably fell too, so I wouldn't feel that bad.

-So just point your toe up.

-OK.

And, slowly, one step at a time.

It was essential John learnt to use snowshoes,

to walk in snow that was often waist deep.

By distributing his weight over a larger area,

they'd stop his feet sinking in too far.

It's a lot easier than walking without them, that's for sure.

I've never been in such deep snow in my life.

So what do you think of the snowshoes so far?

I mean, they're...it's still hard, it's really hard. Ooh!

I can't even put my hands down to help myself.

There we go, up.

Thanks, love.

Oh, God, I've gone quite deep.

In I go, that's better. OK, I'm walking.

It's horrendous to think

that my ancestor had to walk hundreds of miles in these.

Oh, yeah, he would have had some really long days.

Wow. It's good to know what it feels like, yeah.

Labourers like John had to master fishing when the river was frozen.

This is the traditional way that he would've done it.

-OK.

-And how about I let you have a go?

-OK.

The catch was a vital food supply

at remote outposts

like Gloucester House.

So what fish would be there when we got there?

-Well, we have trout.

-Yeah.

And white fish.

So how long would you have to wait before you got a bite, usually?

Well, sometimes they catch them right away,

and you can be sitting here all day and not get a single bite.

-Wow.

-So it varies.

Scott Steven has been searching the company records

for information about John Malcolm's time at Gloucester House.

This is what Gloucester House would have looked like.

Is that still there now, to see?

No, I'm afraid that's long gone.

-But we do have the Gloucester House Journals.

-Oh, really?

Which I...I have made some, some transcriptions

of some of the entries here.

Thank you.

"November the 16th -

"The men employed taking up nets

"that was set fast in the ice, got five fish."

Five, that's not going to be enough. For how many men?

Ten men.

Ten men.

"November the 17th - Richard Thomas making snowshoe frames,

"John Malcolm cutting firewood,

"six fish from the nets." God!

So that's five fish one day and six the next.

"November the 23rd - Finding it now impossible to maintain

"the number of men that is here,

"being unable to procure so many fish per day

"as would scarcely serve two.

"I have given five men orders

"to prepare to set off on Tuesday for Albany.

"Magnus Backie, Samuel Harvey, John Goudie,

"John Johnstone and John Malcolm."

So how long has he been there, and he's going again?

He's been there a month.

-About a month and a half.

-A month and a half.

And he's gotta go again, back to Albany.

And, this time, the river is freezing up,

so they're going to have to go overland, on foot,

with snowshoes and sleds.

They're undernourished, it's going to be very, very difficult for them.

On the 25th of November,

John set off from Gloucester House

on the 350-mile trip back to Albany

with four other men.

God, he's having it tough, isn't he?

There'd better be a happy ending here, Scott.

Well...

"December the 11th - Late in night,

"an Indian arrived with a few skins and informed me

"he had fallen in with the track of someone walking without snowshoes.

"That he followed it for some time

"and at length came up with a white man.

"He states the man to be in a miserable condition

"having much froze his feet

"and from the description he gives of him,

"I conjecture it to be John Malcolm."

So he's lost his way - so they didn't stick together, then?

Apparently not, and...

Why wouldn't they stick together?

Unfortunately, the documents don't tell us that.

-Maybe visibility's bad, he just lost his way and...

-Yes.

..was at the end of the group and they hadn't realised he'd gone.

It must have been terrifying to be all alone in such an environment,

especially if, you know, you'd been in a group

and then, all of a sudden, everybody's gone,

and how scary that must have been.

When I had the snowshoes on, I lost one and, if I had been on my own,

it's too scary to think what could have happened.

Poor John.

Thank God for the Indian.

John's saviour there.

John was found all alone,

almost three weeks after he had set off for Albany,

and was brought back to Gloucester House.

It was the middle of winter,

when temperatures often fall as low as -40 degrees.

I'm really curious as to what happens next.

I just...I hope something good happens.

Let's take a look here.

Thank you.

"December the 15th - John Malcolm in a shocking condition

"and at present there appears no likelihood of his ever recovering."

Wow.

"January the 19th - John Malcolm still much the same."

He's hanging on in there, isn't he?

-He's a tough one.

-He is.

Can I have a look and see how long ago that was?

That was...December?

-Yeah. He's hanging on in there.

-Over a month.

-Maybe no improvement, but he's still there.

-Uh-huh.

Now, unfortunately, that's all

that the Gloucester House Journals tell us.

But I've found a letter from William Thomas,

the gentleman in charge of Gloucester House,

written to his superior, later on in 1818.

"John Malcolm is now laying here in a miserable condition,

"having froze his feet in so dreadful a manner

"that since I have been obliged to cut both off."

Erm...

Wow!

It's horrendous that he's had his feet taken off.

The frost bite has caused er...major, major damage

to the...to the nerve endings.

But he's still alive.

It must have been to give him a better chance of survival.

-So he must have been... He's clearly fighting.

-Yes.

Because the rest of his health must have been more at risk

-with the feet on.

-Right.

William Thomas was the gentleman in charge of the post,

and so he was in charge of cutting off John's feet.

The Hudson's Bay Company did employ a few surgeons,

but not at remote outposts

like Gloucester House.

To amputate John's feet,

William Thomas would have used saws and knives,

and to manage the bleeding,

just basic twine or rope.

The operation would have taken several hours.

The most John could have hoped for, to numb the pain,

was a bottle of rum.

26 and he's now lost both of his feet.

And this is not the life

-that was talked about in pubs on Orkney, I'm guessing.

-No.

The fact that John was abandoned and the fact that he was alone,

it makes me furious, weirdly.

It's really weird to be furious about somebody who's been dead a long time,

but I'm absolutely furious.

And if you stood the men in front of me now who abandoned him,

I wouldn't be able to take my hands off them.

What happened to John was so horrific,

I feel I need to see a bit more of his journey.

I think I need to get a sense of the remoteness.

I need to see the kind of terrain that he had to handle.

So I'm going to go and have a look close to the Albany River.

The landscape all around me is just...

is just...it's sort of never-ending, it just... There's nothing.

It's just nothing for miles and miles and miles,

just trees and snow.

Just nothing.

This is the Albany River,

this is where John Malcolm would have been 200 years ago,

and...I've never been anywhere this quiet before.

All I can hear is my heartbeat.

There's nobody here to help you.

I can't imagine how terrified he must have been.

And I mean, this is daytime,

I can't imagine how harsh it gets at night

and how much colder it gets at night.

You know, to have had such little time to adjust

and gain any skills that would be useful here...

His story makes utter sense,

that he got such severe frostbite.

Of course he did,

cos I can't see any way how you couldn't.

I'm intrigued as to how disability was dealt with in those days,

whether he ever got back to Orkney and had a family.

To find out about John Malcolm's life as an amputee,

Sarah is meeting historian Dr Vanessa Warne.

So, Vanessa, can you tell me what happened to him next?

I'd love to know.

I'm pleased to tell you that, er...

we have these entries from the Moose Factory Journals.

OK.

This is April the 19th, 1819.

"Christopher Corrigal and John Malcolm,

"the former lame with rheumatism, the latter a cripple, picking oakum."

Doing stuff.

What he's doing is he's unravelling old rope,

and then they would use that material to make new rope.

-It was very monotonous.

-But he's working.

-But he's working.

And he's earning and he's still a valid member of the team.

-He's contributing to the community.

-That's amazing.

-Yes.

(I didn't think you were going to say that.)

Sorry.

-Would you like to learn more about what's happening...

-Yeah.

-..in his life?

I really would.

So we do know that, in September 1819,

-John left Moose Factory and returned to the UK.

-Really?

-Uh-huh.

-Wow.

The men that he was living and working with passed the hat,

put together some funds

to help support John after he returned to Britain.

After serving only two years of his five-year contract,

John returned to the Orkney Islands.

The Hudson's Bay Company managed the funds

that gave John a small income each year.

Vanessa has found more information about his life back home.

John made an application to the Hudson's Bay Company

for an increase in this annual payment.

Er...so this is to John Malcolm -

"Your plea of a wife and family of the ages you mention,

"is not a good one, as this is a circumstance

"which, though it must reduce your limited means,

"has unquestionably taken place since you suffered the misfortune

"through which you have obtained relief from the company."

-He has a family.

-He does.

This is amazing, isn't it?

So we know that, since his operation, and since he came home,

he fell in love and he had a child or children.

That's astonishing. Do you have any specific information?

I have for you an 1841 Census document.

OK. Let's have a look...

John Malcolm.

Wow!

He got to 50? That's awesome!

-And there's more.

-Oh, really? Wow!

-Yes!

-Five kids!

-Yes.

-He's done very well for himself.

-He's been busy.

THEY LAUGH

I'm so relieved.

I have one more record for you.

It's the 1851 Census.

South Shields.

So they moved.

He's still married.

SARAH LAUGHS

As a divorcee, I'm just impressed by that alone.

THEY LAUGH

Who could have predicted,

he was so close to death for such a long period of time...

..that all of this has happened?

You couldn't... You couldn't make it up, could you?

That's amazing, what a great story.

What I really wanted was to be proud of my ancestors.

They were quite similar in a lot of ways, James and John.

They were incredibly brave,

much braver than I have ever been.

I feel a little bit like, from now on, I can have

James Hoult and John Malcolm on my shoulders.

They were both really inspirational.

They've both had incredibly hard times and tough things to deal with,

but they both got through it.

I was unprepared for how protective I would feel of my ancestors,

and, you know, family's family.

Dead or alive, family is family.

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