The Coracle Britain Afloat

The waterways of Britain are a wonderful world of their own.

From the earliest times, we've sailed, rowed,

paddled and steamed along them.

Whether travelling, trading, hunting, racing,

or just having a good time,

we've made a boat that's perfect for the job.

I'm Mary-Ann Ochota.

I like nothing better than getting out on the water.

Boats fascinate me - their design, their engineering,

and what they tell us about the people of Britain.

Coracles are a type of fishing boat used...

The coracle is one of the oldest and strangest-looking boats of all.

They're easily portable and thoroughly watertight.

It's so simple that it can even be made out of twigs and bedsheets,

but it's a boat that's helped save lives in desperate times.

The history of Britain's boats is our history.

This is Britain Afloat.

Our story starts in beautiful West Wales,

which many would say is the heartland of coracles.

The rivers Teifi and Tywi both have centuries of coracle tradition,

and to this day, this ancient craft

is still being used for commercial fishing here.

This is a coracle.

It's pretty much as simple as a boat can get.

It's basically a thin wooden frame with a bit of a rim,

covered in something waterproof.

It's got one oar. It's basically a floating tub.

I'm going to give it a go.

This is literally my first time in a coracle,

so it could all go terribly wrong quite quickly.

OK.

Ooh.

It's deceptively simple,

but I've got a feeling that, when you are in a floating tub...

Ooh!

..you end up turning in circles. SHE CHUCKLES

Some say coracles have been around for anything up to 40,000 years.

They're usually single-seaters

and designed to be light enough to be carried by one person.

So, given that this is such a simple little boat,

it's been used by communities across Britain

for an astonishing array of things -

fishing, poaching, looking after livestock,

crossing rivers, getting people safe.

One man even managed to paddle across the Channel in a coracle.

Took him 14 hours. Rather him than me.

How do you go forward? SHE CHUCKLES

I can't do it! I'm not going anywhere.

SHE LAUGHS

Given they're such simple boats,

you might think there's not much more to say about coracles,

but that is where you'd be wrong.

The earliest reference in the Welsh language

that we know about coracles dates from about 1,400 years ago.

It's a poem.

Now, my Welsh is not up to doing it in the original,

but the translation goes as follows.

"When thy father went a-hunting

"A spear on his shoulder, a club in his hand

"He would call the nimble hounds,

"'Giff, Gaff, catch, catch, fetch, fetch!'

"He would kill fish in his coracle as a lion kills its prey."

You get a real sense of the kind of people using coracles -

proper hunters, masters of the river.

Gelwi gwn gogyhwg

"Giff, Gaff, daly, daly, dwg!"

I'm on my way to the National Coracle Centre

in the village of Cenarth on the banks of the Teifi.

The centre was set up by Martin Fowler.

A Londoner by birth, he married a local woman and settled here.

He soon developed a love of coracles,

so, naturally, he set up a coracle museum, as you do.

-Ooh, Martin!

-Yeah.

-It's an emporium of coracles.

-Look at this.

-Coracles all over the place.

The coracle is a truly international boat,

but does its story begin in Wales?

Most people who come here usually associate the word coracle

with Wales, or the Celts, or the Ancient Britons,

but I think there have been coracles in Britain since the last ice age.

And, originally, a coracle probably looked more like this -

just a basket you covered with one animal hide.

So, the size of the animal decided the shape and size.

-Something to get you across a river.

-So, that's a very simple...

-Yeah.

-..sort of solution to a universal problem, then?

-Yeah.

People came up with more or less the same idea all independently.

So, in Tibet, they use yak hide and juniper wood.

So, if you went to India or to Vietnam,

you would use bamboo to build a basket.

And that particular one was last used

to take a family of people nearly 500 miles

across the South China Sea, with refugees, to Hong Kong.

-Wow. That's extraordinary.

-Yeah.

What's really surprising is how many variations there are,

and you can even tell which region a coracle comes from by its shape.

-So, Martin, looking round here...

-Yeah.

..it's clear that not all coracles are created equal.

Why are there such different shapes?

Well, these are all Welsh coracles,

but they're all different shapes for different reasons.

First of all, it depends on the water conditions -

the river flow - or the materials you've got,

or what you want to use a coracle for.

You see, if you look at the coracle for this river,

we have a completely flat front to it

because we're using it with a net.

The flat front here has become that shape on purpose.

When you've got the flat front, first of all,

you need to be able to paddle from the front,

and then, when you're netting,

you need to draw the net over the front of the coracle.

If you were using a coracle in Llangollen, for instance,

they were mostly designed for rod-and-line fishing.

And this square shape made them so stable

you could actually stand up in it and cast a rod and line from it.

So, every river had their own version of a coracle

to suit their river.

During the 19th century,

coracles became a common sight in Cenarth.

If you think, 150 years ago,

there might have been up to 300 coracles fishing this river.

Now, up until probably 50 years ago, this was almost commercial fishing.

So, a pair would be fishing through the night,

even through the day, and they would have fish

to go down to the railway station,

go off to Cardiff or London or wherever.

-Wow.

-Yeah.

-Humble little coracle...

-Yeah.

-..getting fish to London!

One man who knows as much as anyone about coracles in Wales

is Malcolm Rees.

His family has been fishing the River Tywi in Carmarthen,

just a short distance from Cenarth, for more than 300 years.

It's in my blood. It's been, you know,

handed from generation to generation.

I can remember sitting here as a little boy.

I've got a photo of me with my great-grandfather.

Over the centuries, the designs of the local coracle have been updated.

To save the nets snagging,

the traditional wicker top was replaced with a smooth rim,

but that didn't go down well with the elders.

My great-grandfather was totally against any change.

When he first saw this type of coracle

with a band on the top, he kicked it.

He didn't like it. It wasn't how it should be.

-Not a proper one?

-No.

And then, of course, we've changed now, evolved again,

to bringing in fibreglass coracles.

And, well, if he saw those,

-I don't know what he'd say.

-SHE LAUGHS

It feels like the coracle is part of Malcolm's family,

and he's now custodian of all the boats,

nets and memorabilia they've amassed over the years.

But it wasn't until quite recently

that he decided to follow in the family tradition himself.

My father always said it would come to me at one stage.

For 20 years, it didn't. I wasn't involved in the fishery.

I was living away, and I was too busy with work to become involved.

And then, when I hit 40, I just sort of had this pang.

"Look, I really need to take this up

"because my father's not going to be around for ever." You know?

And I tried to get all the knowledge

that I could from him then, you know.

I've come back to the River Teifi in the village of Cilgerran.

-That is Mark Dellar. All right, Mark?

-Hi!

He's actually Australian,

but he is as passionate about coracles as anyone.

-I'm coming down.

-Yeah, come on down.

Mark's agreed to teach me to coracle.

After my abysmal efforts earlier, he's going to have his work cut out.

Swing your other leg in.

Paddling is key. It's basically a figure-of-eight sculling stroke,

which looks simple, but it isn't.

I feel like it's the kind of skill where,

after about ten minutes, you go, "Oh, yeah, I can do this."

And then it takes actually ten years to really, really master it.

-Everyone's got a slightly different style.

-Ooh, God.

-All that happens is you get told and taught the basics...

-Yeah.

..and you get in and you just find your own natural pattern.

And after a while, I'm finding mine.

So, Mark, how on earth did an Australian

end up in West Wales coracling?

I married a Welsh girl, into a Welsh fishing family,

into the coracle family.

Catrin's uncle taught me how to coracle fish,

and to coracle, when I first came over.

Fell in love with it and carried on ever since.

I can certainly see the attraction,

but I'm not just here to mess about on the river.

Later on, Mark and I are going fishing.

So, while you're practising that,

I think we probably should open the net and do a practice

before we go fishing tonight. What do you think?

-I think that's an excellent idea.

-Yeah? OK.

I'm barely managing to not fall in or drop the paddle.

The idea of then holding a fishing net

and then doing it all in the dark...

-Yes.

-SHE LAUGHS

Yes, it'll be dark.

Here on the Teifi, coracle fishing generally happens at night,

and the darker the better.

What fish are you fishing for on the Teifi?

Two types of fish we're licensed to catch is salmon and sewin,

which is the Welsh name for sea trout.

Can anyone fish on the river?

As an activity for coracle fishing, you have to be licensed, yeah.

We're commercial fishermen,

and there's only 12 licences left on the river.

Salmon stocks are low, so the Teifi netsmen

are voluntarily releasing any fish they catch,

but they're determined to keep the skills alive.

So, now we wait for nightfall.

Coracles are ideal for night fishing.

Small, shallow and silent, the fish don't know they're there.

This is so exciting. It's kind of spooky. It's dark.

-It's beautiful, isn't it?

-It is so quiet.

So, you can sort of see the allure of the fishing, can't you?

It's nice and quiet.

It's the anticipation of possibly catching a fish.

With our net gliding silently through the water,

we work with the river's natural rhythm.

We're just starting to go with the flow.

-You can see it starting to pick up a little bit of pace.

-Yeah.

I thought that was my paddling. THEY CHUCKLE

And we're not the only ones hunting tonight.

-OWLS HOOT

-There we go. The owls are out.

-SHE LAUGHS That was magical.

-It's beautiful.

Yeah, it might seem like you're alone on the river,

but you're never alone on the river.

We fish downstream, complete the run,

and then go again, carrying our coracles back to the start,

like coraclemen here have done for generations.

That was so special -

to be out at night on the river fishing for salmon from a coracle

in the way that people have done for hundreds of years.

We didn't catch a fish tonight, but it doesn't matter.

That was a real privilege.

Wales can certainly lay claim to being the last bastion

of coracle fishing in the country,

but there are other parts of our nation

with an equally proud coracle tradition.

The River Severn runs from Mid Wales

before flowing into the sea at the Bristol Channel.

In the early 20th century, it's said there were more coracles

on the Severn than any other river in the country.

This is Ironbridge, the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution.

That's the famous bridge over there.

First bridge in the whole world

to be constructed entirely of cast iron.

It was built in the late 1700s

when this place was rich in the raw materials for industry -

iron ore, coal, and, of course, water.

At the same time as technology that would power

an Industrial Revolution was being developed here,

the primitive coracle was to prove a lifeline.

For one thing, you could use it to cross the river

without paying the expensive toll on the fancy new bridge.

Talk to anyone around here about coracles,

and before long, they'll mention the Rogers family.

They were at the heart of the Ironbridge coracle community

for centuries.

We've been making coracles here, my ancestors, for 300 years.

As well as making them, they would use their coracles

to help in times of crisis,

rescuing people and animals from floods,

or even retrieving dead bodies from the river.

Tommy Rogers, his son Harry, and his son Eustace,

must have built hundreds of coracles from the 1800s right up to 2003,

when Eustace died.

Their workshop, built by Harry in the 1920s,

still bears his mark - Harry Rogers, coracle man.

Come on in and have a look.

Jude Pilgrim from the Ironbridge Coracle Society

is going to show me round.

-Mind the floor.

-Wow.

-It's not too safe.

-Ooh.

Look at this. Wow!

Since Eustace's death in 2003,

with no-one in the family to pass the business on to,

the shed has stood empty.

-How fantastic.

-Much as it was when they were building coracles in here.

There were more tools, but it's basically the same shed.

They used to leave little messages on the walls.

"Severn frozen..." What does that say? Over?

-"January 20th, 1940."

-Yeah.

-Brilliant.

So, presumably, no coracling that month,

but Eustace knew how to keep himself busy.

Eustace used to make these model coracles.

-Oh, look at that.

-And he used to be so pleased with himself

if he could sell one to a tourist for £5.

-SHE LAUGHS

-Made his day.

But the family wasn't always on the right side of the law.

Here's Eustace in 1972.

Oh, bit of poaching, it was.

It was the main industry here at one time, yeah.

-Oh, aye.

-Tell us about it.

-Oh, there was...

There was about 15 of these poachers living like large off the land.

With names like Hellfire Jack and Gunner Boden,

they sound like outlaws from the Wild West,

not the West Midlands.

But for many, during the 19th and early 20th century,

times were hard.

Unemployment, cholera, and tougher fishing regulations

meant it was a simple choice - poach or starve.

The penalties were severe, but it was the coraclemen,

with Eustace's grandfather Tommy amongst their number,

who were at the heart of the poaching scene.

They've played down with the policeman on occasion,

but it hasn't always been one-sided.

-No?

-No. No, it hasn't.

The poachers have had some scars to show.

-Yes?

-Many a time.

Matter of fact, one got drowned one time.

You can imagine them floating down the river,

getting off at a piece of woodland down there,

picking up a few rabbits from the snares,

and maybe a few pheasants.

So, they weren't just stealing fish?

They were stealing the kind of fruit of the land, as well?

They certainly were,

and that was what made the coracle so useful for them -

cos they could escape and nobody could follow them.

And they weren't just doing it for themselves.

They were doing it for all the families in the area.

And their distribution point was the barber's.

So, they would go in - the men would go in -

for a short back and sides, and the barber would say,

"Something for the weekend, sir?" or something along those lines,

and he would tuck a rabbit or a pheasant under their coat,

and the men would walk out with food for the weekend.

We can still meet people today who have said,

"I wouldn't be alive

"if the coraclemen hadn't put food on our table."

CHURCH BELLS CHIME Although Eustace's death in 2003

signalled the end of the Rogers dynasty,

their skills haven't vanished entirely,

and there's evidence of them some 30 miles away

on the River Teme.

This is the village of Leintwardine in Herefordshire.

Having grown up here, Peter Faulkner knows every inch of the place.

But as an adult, he was inspired to explore the river,

and he reckoned a coracle might be the best way to do it.

HE HUMS

I thought about making a canoe or building a raft

and just have some fun.

And then, somehow - I don't know how, I can't remember -

but, obviously, the coracle idea bubbled up out of my subconscious,

and I thought, "Yeah, perhaps that's the thing to do it in,"

so made my own.

Having never made one before, though,

he sought out the help of a local coracle maker.

Yep, you guessed it - one Eustace Rogers of Ironbridge.

So, I went to Eustie.

I got my notebook, took drawings, measurements, photographs,

and then came back.

I had to visit him a couple of times when I got into trouble

and couldn't sort of work out what was going on.

Leintwardine and the River Teme play important roles in Peter's life,

and that's certainly reflected in his boats.

He's even named them after the river.

This is a Teme coracle, yeah.

It's got the name - it's got Teme - on it.

That's my logo, my trademark - the swallow.

It's not just about giving it a special name, though.

All the wood comes from this area, too.

That's viminalis - Salix viminalis -

which is a common osier, and that suits what I do very well.

You need more then wood to make a coracle, though,

and when Peter visited Eustace, something caught his eye.

He made the traditional Ironbridge coracle -

made from lath covered with cloth and tarred.

Very lightweight.

But also, what I saw there, I saw one covered with cowhide.

You know, and when I saw that, that was it.

"I've got to make one of those."

Vegetarians, look away now.

Come off the beast today.

About there.

So, that's 7ft long, and that will do for a round boat.

It takes Peter more than 50 hours to make each coracle,

but it's worth it.

When I've finished a boat, I look at it and think,

"Did I really make that?"

All it is is a pile of sticks and a cowhide

stuck together in a certain way,

but, yeah, it never ceases to thrill me, really.

And getting them on the water, of course, they come to life.

We're part of it.

Nature can live without man, but we can't live without nature.

Peter's boats are labours of love, but with a bit of help,

anyone can make a coracle.

Since Eustace died,

Terry Kenny's been Ironbridge's premiere coracle maker,

and he's going to help me make

my very own traditional Ironbridge coracle.

And that is particularly handy because I'm going to be needing one.

It turns out that Ironbridge host an annual coracle regatta,

and I am going to be taking part.

To get me started, Terry's already made the gunwale -

the circular rim - and put the seat post in,

but there's still plenty for me to do.

First job is to make the frame using ash laths.

Reasonably gentle, but not quite so critical as the central...

-Oh, OK. That much?

-That's about right, yeah.

The whole frame takes 25 laths, so I usually work on the basis of 30

cos you're going to break a few anyway.

You do a lot of this by eye, and to do that,

you have to use a special coracle maker's stance...

-SHE LAUGHS

-..which is thus.

-You see?

-Whilst I might have perfected the stance,

I'm not sure about my handiwork.

-It's a bit rubbish, isn't it?

-It's...

-Yeah.

I'd been expecting to use traditional woodworking methods.

A genuine medieval power drill, that.

SHE LAUGHS

Well, I think you can certainly see what it's meant to be.

Time to fit the cover.

This isn't going to be one made with an animal hide.

We're using a modern fabric, but you can use anything, really.

People down here at Ironbridge apparently used to use bedsheets.

Old bedsheets.

And as long as you put a platform for the tar,

that's all you need, isn't it?

So, actually using whatever material you've got to hand...

-Whatever you've got to hand.

-..is the traditional way,

even if it's quite a modern material?

-Yes, that's right.

-Excellent teacher.

It's all about the teacher.

Well, I'd be prepared to go afloat in this.

-SHE LAUGHS

-Once it's tarred, of course.

I'll have that. I'll take that.

All that's left now is to paint the wood and tar the cover

to make it waterproof,

and that is how you make an Ironbridge coracle.

Much as the coracle is a working boat,

it also has a spiritual significance.

Some even believe that Moses' basket was a coracle.

Throughout the centuries,

these ancient boats have featured in poems, novels and ballads.

Folk singer Emily Portman finds them irresistible.

How did you first get interested and inspired by coracles?

I think that water and boats were definitely kind of

in my thoughts when I was writing for the album, Coracle.

And also I've been writing with a brilliant poet from the Wirral

called Eleanor Rees, and she wrote a poem that references coracle,

and I thought, "What a beautiful word."

And also the song that I wrote called Coracle

is about the birth of my first daughter,

and so the imagery of the coracle - a little bit like a nest,

a little bit like a cradle - really struck me.

And it's a rich seam for a writer, for sure.

# They took away my Bonny

# And what did they leave me?

# No cuckoo bird to sing me lies

# No wicker doll with painted eyes

# To dandle on my knee

# Only empty-cradle arms

# Only empty-cradle arms

# Bent as the willow tree

# A coracle of skin and hair

# That's never known the sea. #

There is something hauntingly beautiful

about these little boats that really consumes the people who use them.

But times have changed,

and coracles will never again fill our rivers as they once did.

But every so often, you can get an idea

of what a busy coracle river might have looked like.

This is the Ironbridge Coracle Regatta.

People have come from far and wide for a day of paddling and racing,

and I get to see my very own coracle for the first time.

-I've finished her off for you.

-Wow!

-Terry, she's beautiful.

-Isn't she lovely?

-Oh, thank you!

Really amazing.

-Oh, you've even put my initials on there.

-Of course. Of course.

Look at that.

I hope she's watertight. Let's see how I get on.

The girl's a natural. She's a natural.

That's very good.

This is all very nice, but now it's time to get serious.

I feel nervous.

I've been entered into some of the races,

and because I've done a bit of coracling before,

I've been classed as an intermediate.

It's really hard work,

and it doesn't help when you get stuck under a tree.

SHE LAUGHS Oh, I'm going downstream!

I may not have won any of my races...

..but at least I stayed dry.

It's time for the experts to show us how it's done,

and I have the honour of starting them.

Ready, steady...

Look at them go!

Who'd have thought a coracle could go so quickly?

But, then again, the coracle is full of surprises.

These simple boats have proven themselves versatile, dependable,

and an awful lot of fun for centuries, if not millennia.

I reckon they'll keep going for another few centuries still.

Good effort.