Invasion and Defence Britain and the Sea

It is the sea that defines Britain.

Throughout our history, it's been our line of defence

against invasion by enemies abroad.

In Shakespeare's words, we are "a fortress built by nature",

and the sea is our defensive moat.

There's no better way to explore these defences

than from the sea itself.

I'm sailing along our southern shore

to discover how we kept our frontier safe for 1,000 years.

How we improved on the gift that nature gave us

to make our country invincible.

How we built the most powerful warships.

Let me down about a foot.

How we designed bastions against our enemy.

How are artists inspired us and confused our foes.

And how throughout history

writers and painters have used stories of the sea

to strengthen our sense of independence.

Get back, you bloody fool!

I'm sailing from Lymington, past the Isle of Wight and Portsmouth

and then along the Sussex coast past Brighton,

past Beachy Head, to Kent

and on to my final destination, the gateway to Britain

at the white cliffs of Dover.

We're setting off from the harbour town of Lymington,

on the edge of the New Forest in Hampshire.

My sailing boat Rocket, my private passion,

and the crew to sail her.

John Holden, who looks after the boat and keeps us out of danger

and his dog Stanley, who goes everywhere with him.

-What time have we got to be off?

-About five minutes ago.

-Ach!

'And for this voyage, we're joined by Emily Caruso.'

-Hi, Emily.

-Hello.

-Welcome aboard.

Emily's a professional sailor who knows these waters well.

I'm keen to catch the tide, have it running with us, not against us,

which can halve the time our journey takes.

-9:15 we said we'd get away, didn't we?

-We ought to, yeah.

It's 9:30.

Sadly, there's not a breath of wind this morning,

so we have to use our engine.

-Can I get you guys some cake?

-That would be good.

Stanley looks as if he's rather interested in it.

Stanley...

Our first port of call is the site of some of Britain's greatest ever shipbuilding,

the village of Buckler's Hard.

-So, Emily, I'll come very gently up and you can just leap off.

-OK.

The slipways have long gone

but the shipbuilders' 18th-century cottages survive.

Come on, then. Come on. Here.

This is an idyllic summer scene.

People picnicking on the lawns,

this row of cottages, pastoral, quiet.

250 years ago, this would have been a very different scene

because Buckler's Hard was one of the great shipyards of England,

one of the places that built the warships for the Royal Navy.

Here they built 55 warships.

There might have been three being built at the same time,

stretching from where I'm standing right down to the water.

Great ribs sticking into the sky.

Carpenters at work.

The noise would have been fantastic - the sawing of wood,

ironmongers hammering out nails and metal fittings that were required.

The whole place a great hive of activity.

Some of the Navy's best ships were made here

and many that played a part in the Battle of Trafalgar.

HMS Agamemnon was described by Nelson as the finest in the service.

What made Buckler's Hard perfect for shipbuilding

is that it's right on the edge of the huge expanse of the New Forest

and thousands of acres of perfect raw material.

This is the home of the king of trees, the mighty oak,

a tree whose qualities make it ideal for ships.

Instead of being a straight tree like a pine,

an oak grows all twisted and gnarled.

And that's good for a ship

because what you need is not straight lines of wood,

you need curved bits of wood.

For instance, when you're fitting the deck to the side there,

you need a thing called a knee, which goes down like that.

Now, in these oaks, you can find knees ready-made.

You don't have to steam them or bend them or force them.

You just cut them and put them into the ship.

The amount of oak needed to build ships like the Agamemnon

was prodigious -

up to 2,000 trees, about 40 acres of woodland, for a single ship.

The oak tree is still celebrated by the Royal Navy even today

because the oak was, after all, at the very heart of our naval success,

pieces of oak like this, which used to lie literally at the heart of the ships.

And the Royal Naval anthem,

which used to be sung before they went into battle,

goes, "Heart of oak are our ships, jolly tars are our men.

"We always are ready, Steady boys, steady.

"We'll fight and we'll conquer Again and again."

CHOIR: # Heart of oak are our ships

# Jolly tars are our men

# We always are ready

# Steady, boys, steady

# We fight and we conquer Again and again! #

'Part of the romance of sailing is

'that you feel a bond with the sailors of the past,

'facing the same problems that seafarers have always faced.'

Are you all right?

'Today, it's full moon

'and that means the highest and fastest tides of the month.

'The wind is blustery, the ebb tide's against us

'and so we have to furl our sails, which can be tricky in a seaway.'

Watch out. Watch that dog!

OK.

The entrance to Portsmouth is narrow and always busy.

Stop filming. I want to get this boat through here.

Don't fiddle-faddle, please.

I want to sail the boat. The filming can take second place.

INDISTINCT VOICE OVER RADIO

We're just coming into Portsmouth harbour,

which is an absolute nightmare,

because we've got a spring tide against us, very strong tide at about three knots or so.

We've been creeping through this channel.

Big ships coming in, another big ship coming in there,

all these boats behind us. We have to keep on this side.

We have to ask permission to cross over.

It's quite a tricky little entrance, this,

and there are moments when the tide is so strong,

you almost feel you're going backwards,

just creeping, creeping ahead.

I want to put in at Portsmouth

because it's our finest monument to our sailing past,

the retirement home of many of our greatest men of war.

QHM, Rocket. We're approaching ballast.

Request permission to tie up. Over.

-'Yes, confirmed.'

-Thanks so much.

-Thank you.

The most famous ship here is HMS Victory,

lovingly preserved in dry dock.

Victory was Nelson's flagship off Cape Trafalgar

when we trounced the French in 1805.

The fame of that battle soon reached Britain

and painters were keen to record it at the first opportunity.

After the Battle of Trafalgar, Victory was brought back, badly damaged, to England

and the first thing that happened was artists came down,

demanding to be allowed to draw the ship

so they could be first out with a picture of the battle as they saw it.

And among those artists was William Turner.

He came down 1805, 1806

and did a whole series of sketches of the ship.

There are little sketchbooks that show detailed drawings he'd done.

And it emerged in the end as a great picture, a famous picture,

of the Battle of Trafalgar.

The painting was commissioned to be a heroic record of Britain's victory.

But it was controversial because it showed the price of that victory.

The ship herself is battle-torn,

the rigging and the sails are in disarray.

Her crew, dashed by the waves, are clinging to wooden spars

and even the Union Flag has been brought low.

One of the surprises of Victory to the modern eye

is her lavish interior decoration

and the luxury in which her officers lived.

The Admiral's Cabin on Victory, Nelson's cabin -

elegant, painted pale green, which was an admiral's colour.

But it all comes apart when you're going into battle.

The panelling comes off here, for instance -

just taken away and revealing the timbers of the ship,

partly to lighten the weight of the stern

but also here's a gun port with a bolt and a ring

and this all pushes back and a gun can be wheeled in.

This is a strange thing. This is a sort of megaphone,

which I think Nelson wouldn't have used onboard

but it's said he did used to bellow out at ships behind

to get back.

Get back, you bloody fool!

Because he led the line into battle, which wasn't usual.

The Admiral's ship was usually in the centre.

And this is authentic.

Nelson's table, with a few instruments out.

But this is the table at which he used to write.

Nelson's night cabin wasn't exactly a place of luxury.

There was a wash stand

and this is a replica of one he had specially made

from another ship of the line, HMS Foudroyant.

Cannon, because, of course, this was still a fighting ship.

So he had to sleep between two cannons.

Then his bed. There are two beds, one quite a nice solid wooden bed

that he'd have used when conditions were calm.

But this is the cot,

famously embroidered by his long-time lover,

the notorious Emma Hamilton.

The idea of this being that when the ship is leaning

one way or the other, like that,

you can still stay asleep because the bed, like a hammock, moves.

That's one deck and then another one.

That's better. Then this one.

So this is the lower gun deck.

This is where the heaviest guns are, ranged all the way up.

Fire buckets beside them. Horns for the gunpowder.

These huge tools to clean the barrels.

On this side, great pumps to take the water out of the bilges.

Vast arrays of cannon balls.

-HE STRAINS

-No, I think they're stuck in.

You lived here, too. This would all be hung with hammocks.

450 people in this space.

So it's quite low, quite dark,

but the interesting thing is, at the Battle of Trafalgar, for instance,

of the 150 people who were killed, only two were killed on this deck.

It was actually the safest place to be on the ship.

Because low down on the waterline was not where the main battle took place.

The main battle took place higher up,

trying to capture the ship, rather than sink it.

By contrast, Nelson, as Admiral of the Fleet,

was on the upper deck,

an easy target for a French sniper.

It's difficult to exaggerate the impact of his death on the country.

Here was a man who was a brilliant sailor,

who'd delivered the freedom of the seas to Britain

and died at the moment of his victory.

That people mourned him is to understate it.

Thousands lined the streets of London when he went to his burial.

They spoke of Nelson as though he was almost immortal,

almost a saint.

The bows of Victory, the front of the ship,

are missing one of the key symbols of dominance and aggression

that was carried by all warships at the time - the figurehead.

Victory's original figurehead has rotted away

but a unique record of what it was like survives...

in miniature.

This is a model of Victory's figurehead.

The real thing was 24-foot high. This is under a foot high.

This is a really intricate work of art,

full of very fine, delicate carving

and each part sending a different message.

At the head, the jowly figure of George III, the king,

triumphant in majesty,

Britain demonstrating that it is victorious over all the countries of the world.

Beneath him, there's a shield with the Union Flag,

the four winds, all smiling and blowing in Britain's favour.

Just on the edge here, the British lion, standing on the defeated enemies -

the figure of Europe and here, of America, borne by Native Americans.

So the whole figurehead designed to give

the feeling of power, of conquest, of success,

of victory,

and meant to inspire the people who sailed on this ship.

Today, figurehead carving is almost a lost art,

but one man keeps the tradition alive.

Andy Peters makes figureheads from scratch

and he restores them.

This one dates back more than a century and a half.

It's supposed to be a representation of Pocahontas,

-American Indian...

-Princess.

-..Princess, yeah.

It's stupendous, this figure.

-Can I touch it?

-Yes, yes.

Is this...? Is this...? This looks like plaster. Is it?

-No, that's wood.

-It's all wood?

-Yeah.

Extraordinary how smooth this is.

And the paint is not sort of plaster and paint together? It's just ordinary paint?

It's just paint onto the wood

and the smoothness is achieved purely by hand tools.

Can we have a look at this? This is one in construction?

-Yeah, this is made in the same way.

-And who is it of?

It's going to be a figure of Neptune

based on a figure that's in a museum in Toulon.

So this is a scaled-down version.

-Now, this isn't one piece of wood, is it?

-No.

It's made up from planks of wood. You can see the joins in them here.

And how do you get a smooth finish, as if it were, almost, plaster?

Well, once you get it to a certain stage

like that, you can then turn to just using finishing hand tools.

You'd need to be very patient to do this.

Yeah, a figure like this will probably take about a month,

from start to finish.

So at its peak, what proportion of the cost of a ship

went on decoration and figureheads?

Erm, the painting, gilding, carving could be sort 20% of the cost of the ship.

-Really?

-Yes, yes.

-20%!

-Yes, yeah.

-That's extraordinary.

-Yeah.

Why did the tradition of figureheads suddenly stop?

Well, coming to the sort of mid-1700s, late 1700s,

science was coming into the design of ships

and they wanted to be faster, to carry bigger guns

and the practicality of large carvings was

just not the important thing any more.

By the 1830s, a new industrial age of steam power was taking over.

The age that had belonged to Victory now belonged to Warrior.

Built in 1860, it was Britain's new terror of the seas.

OK, if I can get you to just slip this harness on.

-This is loose. Very loose.

-Yeah, yeah. There we go.

Ow!

I've never had much of a head for heights

but I wanted to see Warrior close up

to see the work her welders had done.

-Whoo!

-LAUGHTER

If you... If we just ease you out...

-Lower away a little bit, Bob.

-Right, down we go.

-Whoops...

From a distance, the hull may look the same

as every wooden ship before it.

Lower away, Bob.

Close up, there's no mistaking a whole new world of engineering.

Let me down a foot so I can put a foot here and I'll stop swinging.

-Down about a foot.

-There are kind of steps here.

-I think this'll do.

-Yeah? Are you happy with that?

-OK.

Well, this is the way to see this ship.

Over 400 feet long,

the first all-iron battleship delivered to the Royal Navy.

She was launched in 1860.

It's lovely seeing this from close to

because you get the feel of this.

It's not smooth - rather rumpled, dimpled cast iron.

It was all done at the Thames ironworks on the north bank of the River Thames

by West Ham.

West Ham the football team is known as the Hammers

because of the noise from these great steam hammers

pounding the side, night after night.

Three masts, all with sails,

as well as 1,250 horse power steam engines to drive her.

40 guns in all, just on one deck.

Dickens said that these gun ports were as terrible a row of incisor teeth

as ever bit a French frigate.

It was because Britain was so far ahead in the industrial revolution

that building a ship like this was possible.

We had the technology, we had the know-how to do it,

which nobody else really did.

And that's why she was, for a time, the supreme ship of the seas

and a supreme demonstration of Britain's industrial might.

Warrior was meant to be the ultimate deterrent,

but no sooner was she launched than the government embarked

on another plan to defend Britain.

They didn't think the Navy was enough.

There'd been a great row between the government and the Navy.

The Navy said, "We can handle it."

The government said, "What if you're defeated at sea?

"What if there's a storm? We must do better if we're to be absolutely certain."

And so they set about building a chain of forts around every harbour in Britain

at huge cost - in modern money, £1 billion.

And we're heading for one of these forts - Spitbank, just off Portsmouth.

This gloomy grey stump is a giant circular gun platform.

Building it was a supreme test of 19th century engineering.

It was constructed to withstand attack and invasion.

Oi!

But also the relentless battering of the seas.

There's a lot of movement here.

-Good afternoon.

-Ow!

Today, Spitbank serves a new purpose.

It's the ultimate island retreat,

a luxury hotel set in the middle of the sea.

There were gun emplacements right round the fort.

This is one of them.

Hooks in the ceiling to hold all the equipment,

to lift the gun, shell-loaded.

A track round here so the gun could get its arc of fire,

moving this way and that.

And there were guns right the way round the fort,

these ones facing towards Portsmouth in case the French broke through

and they still had a chance to fire on them.

The main guns, out that way, the big guns, looking out to sea.

It's a typical Victorian building. Beautiful brickwork.

Look at these bricks. Each one cut slightly differently

to make the curve of the arch.

Very fastidious.

Spitbank remained an active part of Britain's coastal defences

until the end of the Second World War.

Next morning, a short distance across the bay,

but 500 years back in history,

to see a much earlier but even more impressive example

of coastal defence.

Southsea Castle squats here on the coast,

protecting the eastern entrance to Portsmouth Harbour.

Built by Henry VIII, it looks like a modern nuclear bunker.

It's constructed in a complex geometrical form

to give its gun emplacements protection

while allowing them to fire from every angle.

The design is radical.

They were called Henrician castles after the King.

Britain's obsession with having a strong navy

goes back hundreds of years

to an event which created more enemies for us than we'd ever had before in our history.

It was Henry VIII's decision to divorce his wife, Catherine of Aragon,

and then to split from the Roman Catholic church.

And as a result, the whole of continental Europe, led by the Pope,

was against us.

Henry VIII had to build castles like this at Southsea

and all the way along the coast, east and west,

to protect us from a possible threat of invasion.

In 1545, just a few months after completion,

Southsea found itself on the front line.

These tranquil waters of the Solent were the scene

of an attempted invasion by the French.

This picture, a copy - the original was lost in a fire -

shows what happened 450 years ago, right here in front of me.

So here is the English coastline...

with Southsea Castle, armed with cannons.

And there is Henry VIII on his horse,

two years before his death, already a great, fat figure.

And the town of Portsmouth, which is right round the corner there.

This is where the French were trying to get,

to unload their troops.

Now, this is the French fleet.

230 ships, 30,000 troops.

The French decide the best thing to do to start with

is to send their galleys in towards the English fleet

and open fire - poof, poof, poof, poof.

And the British respond. Boom!

And it's pretty inconclusive.

We only had 60 ships and 12,000 men here to defend.

There were two great ships in the fleet.

One, Henry VIII's flagship, the Great Harry - Henry Grace a Dieu.

And the other, the Mary Rose.

There is the Great Harry, there.

Where is the Mary Rose?

She came round here, fired a broadside at the French,

capsized and sank.

And all that's left in this picture is the tip of two masts,

with a man on top of one

and one or two people swimming and being rescued by boats.

The Mary Rose sank just out there.

Only 35 of her 500 crew survived.

One of the quirks of this painting is

that Henry VIII seems completely impassive.

He's even got his back turned to the Mary Rose

and I think that's just the way the painter did it.

I'm sure in reality there was serious shock and horror

because they could see it all happening.

The Mary Rose was out there

and they could see this great ship that he loved so much

disappearing from sight before his very eyes.

30 years ago in a breath-taking display of skill,

the Mary Rose was raised from the mud of the Solent.

20,000 objects were retrieved,

a unique insight into Tudor life at sea.

So this is a cast-iron shot.

Archaeologist Alex Hildred was part of the salvage operation.

So we had about 200, 250 of those.

-It weighs how many pounds?

-This weighs just under 5lbs.

-And with this monogram or letter on it.

-Yeah. That's H for Henry.

Some of the other objects we've got have got an HI,

which is Henricus Invictissimus in Latin

and translated, that's, "Henry the most invincible".

So every time you loaded a gun,

-you knew on whose behalf you were firing it?

-Absolutely.

Because I think a lot of it is power and glory

and that's why some of guns are so beautifully embellished with his name

and King of Ireland and all the various attributes

that he bestowed upon himself or had bestowed by other people.

What kind of damage could it do?

I mean... What would it do? Go through the side of ship?

When we've done trials of ones slightly bigger,

we actually punched a hole straight through the side of a ship

that was built on the same size as the Mary Rose

and it went straight through at a fair distance, so they pack a punch.

And if you have a lot of small guns -

you can pepper the side of a ship more quickly than you can if you have bigger balls -

you're actually making more small holes, if you like.

I want to get some idea of the size and effect of Henry's fire power.

We're hauling an exact replica of one of his cannon

onto the battlements.

OK. Forward together.

Watch your toes.

It's filled with gunpowder,

though not, of course, with one of his monogrammed cannon balls,

and set ready to fire.

-There's a lot going in.

-Yes.

I'm expecting a few seconds delay when I light the powder.

I think that's OK.

But not at all. One touch with the linstock is enough.

Fire!

It's quite a good bang!

Sorry. It's all right. It's just a gun.

Guns and coastal defences kept us safe for 1,000 years

but before that, with no navy to protect us,

we could be easy prey.

We're sailing to the oldest port in Sussex,

a landing place which has been attacked

since the dawn of our recorded history.

With the wind behind us, I'm holding out the foresail to catch the breeze.

How far do you think we'll get on today, David?

The way you're sailing her, no distance at all.

LAUGHTER

Our destination is a few miles into Chichester Harbour,

one of the most beautiful expanses of water along the south coast.

This is a fine place to sail but the channel is shallow.

We've gone about as far as we can without going aground.

-Are you OK, there?

-Yeah.

-It's time to drop anchor.

OK. Let me go.

I'm rowing into this very pretty little village of Bosham

on the edge of Chichester Harbour,

rowing because Rocket can't get up here - it's too shallow.

We're going to see it because it's been at the heart

of all the big invasions of England, one way or another.

The Vikings came here, the Romans were here, of course.

And Harold, the man who lost the Battle of Hastings,

that led to the invasion of England by William of Normandy,

he actually lived here at Bosham.

The Romans were the first invaders to spot

the strategic importance of Bosham.

They turned it into a busy port.

But after the Romans had gone, Bosham was again vulnerable.

We know for certain that the Vikings came here,

marauding hordes, because this sea and the open arms of this coast

almost would have welcomed the invader.

It's said that once they attacked the old church here

and stole the two church bells

and then they were seen off

and set off down the harbour in a boat with the bells,

the boat capsized, the bells fell to the bottom of the sea

and according to the people of Bosham,

if you listen very carefully at certain states of tide

you can still hear the bells ringing,

which I rather doubt.

Today, the church prefers to celebrate the local link with King Harold,

and through him, one of the greatest works of art of the 11th century.

King Harold had a manor here and he came to Bosham

and this is a scene taken from the Bayeux Tapestry,

just an excerpt of it.

His courtiers on their way, coming to the church.

The tapestry explains the story not just in pictures but in words.

At the top here, Harold and his soldiers ride "ad Bosham", to Bosham,

to the church.

The prayers of Harold were to no avail.

When he and William of Normandy met on the battlefield at Hastings

on 14th October 1066,

the French forces were victorious.

Harold was defeated and William crowned King of England.

It's said that Harold, after he'd been killed at Hastings,

the arrow through the eye, was brought here to Bosham church

to be buried by his wife because this was his manor.

So that's Bosham at the heart of three great invasions -

the Romans, the Vikings and the Norman Conquest.

From Bosham we're sailing east towards the fortress of Dover

but not before pausing at the seaside town of Brighton.

I've never seen Brighton from the sea before.

It's quite spectacular. Just long rows of very expensive flats

looking out over the sea.

And Brighton Pier.

Despite its image as a fashionable seaside resort,

Brighton remembers a darker time

when this coast lived in fear of a French invasion

at the beginning of the 19th century.

A collection of pottery here celebrates our defender -

the British sailor.

At the time these pots were made,

the sea was really important to Britain. Everything depended on it.

The food came that way and it defended us and the Channel was important.

So the sailor was a kind of hero.

Dressed in his dark blue, navy blue, which is where the word came from,

cheap blue dye.

And this is a particularly lovely couple.

Here is the sailor saying goodbye.

He's got his little bag with his possessions in.

And here he is, with her looking a good deal happier,

with his arm around her, back from sea

with a box of dollars at the bottom.

Of course, there's always the old assumption that a sailor has a wife in every port

and that's illustrated on this one.

It's a rather dapper sailor

in striped trousers and a waistcoat on shore leave

and a girl with a bonnet on

and they're setting off, having a high old time,

and at the bottom it says, "A sailor's life's a pleasant life

"He freely roams from shore to shore.

"In every port he finds a wife -

"What can a sailor wish for more?"

But the pottery was also used for political purposes

and round about 1803, when we made war against Napoleon,

there were a number of pots made that are serious propaganda,

angry propaganda.

This is a lovely one. A Cock And Bull Story.

And on the left it has the cockerel, the symbol of France,

with Napoleon's head on it,

and on the right, John Bull representing Britain.

And the French cockerel is saying, "Cock-a-doodle-do, I'll soon come over to you.

"I'll fight true game and crow my fame

"And make you all look blue."

And the bull is replying,

"You impertinent cock, I'll have you to know

"on this side the brook you never shall crow."

This monumental object displays a special contempt for Napoleon.

It is a giant chamber pot

and inside, a bust of Napoleon

with the words "Pereat" - "May he perish".

And its purpose is obvious.

I won't demonstrate it.

So there was a lot of propaganda because there was a terrific fervour at the time.

People were really scared there would be an invasion

and this pottery was very popular

because it just said what people felt.

"Napoleon, bugger off."

The threat of a Napoleonic invasion frightened people

all along this south coast in the early 1800s.

And it was a terror that returned in 1914.

Early in the First World War, German submarines mounted

a campaign against merchant shipping bringing vital supplies to Britain.

There was a real danger Germany would starve Britain into submission.

No boat was spared.

Then the strangest of plans was hatched to defeat the U-boat.

This is an extraordinary painting

by an artist called Edward Wadsworth.

It shows a ship in dry dock

apparently being painted by a gang of men

in the most astonishing abstract, almost surreal shapes.

Stripes, black, white, grey.

All haphazard, higgledy-piggledy.

It looks like some sort of crazy Cubist invention but it's not.

It's reality. This is how merchant ships were being painted

during the First World War.

And the pictures of the ships are just astonishing,

this one with great black stripes at the stern

and a zigzag at the bow.

Here's another one with diagonal stripes down and up on each side.

They're all black and white all over.

The idea was this.

If you could break up the silhouette of a ship

by having it black, white, black, white, black, white,

so you couldn't actually tell what you were looking at,

then you wouldn't be able to focus on that ship from the submarine

and fire a torpedo accurately.

Edward Wadsworth was one of a group of artists

who worked to create shapes and patterns for ships

that would deceive submarines.

And this one, looking as though it's got teeth -

great flares.

It became known as dazzle painting, this.

By the time the Second World War came, of course, it was all over

because radar had been invented

and with radar you could see where the ship was,

which way it was going

and you could aim your torpedo accurately.

During the Second World War, this length of coast came under sustained attack.

and nowhere was more at risk than our next port of call.

-Looks nice and sheltered in there.

-Yeah, it is.

Yeah, it looks good, doesn't it?

I'm going to come down towards the right-hand breakwater.

When we're past the lighthouse, I'll turn up into the wind.

Newhaven is the only deep-water port between Portsmouth and Dover.

You can get in here at any state of the tide.

It would have been a valuable prize for invading Germans.

-John?

-That's fine.

-Can you tie her up?

-Yeah.

I'm going to go and say hello.

-How are you?

-Hello.

-Nice to see you. Thanks very much.

Thank you very much indeed. That's very kind of you.

Thanks. Hello.

Newhaven is a very special place, with an atmosphere all of its own.

In the 1930s, two young English painters, later to become famous,

visited here -

Eric Ravilious and Edward Bawden.

And this is the pub where they stayed.

-Hi, there.

-Hi.

-Sussex Best. That would be great.

-Certainly.

Edward Bawden was captivated by Newhaven.

His pictures show him excited by the ships

down the jetty in the harbour, there.

This harbour and then the downs behind on either side.

The day that Ravilious arrived there was a storm blowing.

He went out to the end of the jetty and said it was like being in a painting by Turner,

all just shapeless - shapelessness and great waves.

Anyway, his paintings are rather different.

They're sort of settled, quiet, calm.

Newhaven in the pre-war years - peaceful, quiet.

Interestingly, Ravilious, with no people, not even an animal.

When war came, Ravilious and Bawden were appointed official war artists

to paint the war, the battle scenes.

Bawden was sent to France and ended up in Dunkirk.

Ravilious came back here to Newhaven.

"Newhaven as good as ever," he said, "but much changed."

And his painting was much changed.

What he was painting was the defence of this part of the coast of England.

Gone are the tranquil scenes of summer.

Now the seaside is all barbed wire and gun emplacements.

This is the English coast as the front line of defence,

caught up in all the paraphernalia of modern warfare.

And across the Channel, Bawden was observing the retreat to Dunkirk

in the face of the advancing German army.

It's where boats like Rocket would have gone in 1940,

small ships to help rescue trapped Allied soldiers from the beaches.

Bawden's pictures capture the reality

of what it was like to be at Dunkirk.

His pictures have a sort of menace -

dark clouds and flashes of light

where people are milling about waiting to be taken off the beach.

People going down into air-raid shelters

to escape from the bombs.

People having a cup of tea or a cup of coffee while they waited.

Very quick sketches, quite unlike his normal way of painting

but giving a rather vivid picture of what is was like to be on those beaches,

something that the grand scene, the big photographs,

indeed, the movies that are made, don't really quite get across.

Everyone who sails these seas now in peacetime

is in debt to that earlier generation,

who volunteered their ships to the Dunkirk rescue.

Along the coast, one of those famous little ships is being restored.

The tug Challenge,

saved from the scrap yard as a reminder of the heroism of 1940.

How long is it all going to take? When will you be finished?

Well, I hope to be finished by the summer.

-Really?

-Yes - next summer.

Mick Wenban's father, also called Mick,

was one of the volunteers who answered the urgent call

to sail to Dunkirk.

This is the day they returned from Dunkirk.

And the gentleman at the front is Taff Weekes, the fireman,

and he was the one that told me about Dad saving those people.

-Which is your dad?

-That's the one - the man with the trilby.

-Yeah?

MICK LAUGHS

Do you have any memories of what your father did?

Did he leave any record of all this?

Well, Dad didn't tell me everything but when I came afloat on the tugs,

I sailed with people that were with my father

and, dare I say it, I think he was quite brave, actually.

Because at one stage while they were assisting a ship, it got blown up.

And obviously there were lots of people in the water.

And apparently without thinking, Dad just dived over the side

and saved about a dozen soldiers and brought them back onto the ship.

The unfortunate part was it was through thick oil,

so consequently he lost all his hair

and it affected his eyesight somewhat.

But apart from that, they came through unscathed

and just thought it was part of their... You know, doing their bit for King and country.

Did he have time to tell the family he was off and what he was doing?

Well, he couldn't get a message to my mother

because she was a staff nurse at Gravesend Hospital

and she was on duty.

So he shot off but when he got to Dover the next day,

he managed to write a little letter

and got someone to post it to my mum, which I've still got.

-What, you've got the letter?

-I have the letter here.

-What does it say? Read it.

-It says, "To my darling wife.

"We are soon putting out for a little job.

"which, to put it mildly, could be rather dangerous."

And the bit that I thought was quite sweet at the back, it said,

"If things go wrong, don't worry about the boat

"because I have asked Dad to sell it to give you some money

"if I don't come back."

And it's signed, "With lots of love, Mick," and lots of crosses.

-Is our Stanley all right?

-He's good, yeah.

-Is he asleep?

-He's having a little dream.

On our way east, we pass one of the south coast's most dramatic sights,

the Seven Sisters and Beachy Head,

where the gleaming white chalk of the Sussex Downs swoops

seven times towards the sea.

It's not that easy, drawing at sea with a bit of a swell

but until 70 years ago or so,

all naval officers were taught to draw

and there was a very practical reason for it.

The Admiralty realised way back, 200 years ago,

the danger of being at sea is not being out there

but being here, by the shore.

That's where you get into trouble

and so these very meticulous drawings were done

and the one I'm drawing, Beachy Head -

I'm doing a very rough sketch of, like that -

is actually in this book as a drawing.

The Channel Pilot, Volume 1.

And it's showing Beachy Head and it's dated 1896.

That's a drawing from 1896.

And some of these drawings are very beautiful.

They've been coloured in and they're works of art in their own right.

They were all part of a great collection

of the seas not just around Britain but all over the world,

so that gradually, a record was built up.

There's my drawing.

I wouldn't recommend you try and navigate by it.

The last stage of our journey is along the rather bleak coast towards Dover,

bleak because there are no natural harbours along the way to seek shelter.

Our destination is the so-called key to England.

Capture that key and England is yours.

I'll get tied on now, Emily.

-I'll check it.

-Are you all right, there, John?

-Good, yeah.

-Thank you, Emily.

-It's been a fantastic trip.

-And a history lesson.

-Yeah!

Come on!

The austere outline of Dover Castle stands guard

over the narrowest point of the English Channel,

where Britain is closest to mainland Europe.

The castle carries the marks of our history

over all the centuries we've travelled on this journey.

There were fortifications here when the Romans invaded

and they built a lighthouse which could be seen from France.

It was a favourite fortification of William the Conqueror.

It's huge - the biggest castle in Britain

and much of it hidden from view.

There are nearly four miles of tunnels here -

extraordinary enterprise - under the cliffs, under the castle.

We're about 25 metres under the chalk here

and these tunnels were built at the time of the Napoleonic wars

to house soldiers,

so the garrison could be safe and protected under here.

Dover Castle saw active service in World War Two.

It was in these underground rooms that the emergency evacuation from Dunkirk was conceived

and executed.

This journey's taken us along Britain's southern shore,

this frontier between us and the outside world.

The seas of the English Channel which have created this island

and in a sense defined it.

We've always had these fixed frontiers,

whereas on continental Europe,

distinctions have always been blurred.

Here, provided by nature, we've had a clear-cut space

that belongs to us

and it is perhaps that that's given us

some of our defining national characteristics,

in particular, a sort of truculent defence

of our independence.

On our next journey,

Rocket heads for the wild and romantic west coast of Scotland,

to some of the most beautiful scenery

our island nation has to offer.

But this has been a working part of Britain's coast for centuries.

Trade, which brought prosperity.

Fishing, which still thrives today.

And shipbuilding, where it all began.

Goodbye!

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd