Pleasure and Escape Britain and the Sea

For centuries, the sea has protected us and provided for us.

It's been a source of food, wealth, opportunity -

and our front-line of defence against invasion.

But over the last 200 years, our view of the sea has changed.

It has become our playground,

a place of pleasure and relaxation.

Aghhh!

-I like the houses along there.

-Yeah.

I'm setting out on my boat, Rocket, along the coast of East Anglia,

to chart this transformation.

I will see how a day at the seaside became an irresistible

subject for artists...

I'm stopping now.

..artists of all kinds...

She looks like one of those pilots, you know. Argh!

..how it transformed our coastal architecture...

Mmm!

..and how it created a seaside culture that is uniquely British.

HIGH-PITCHED VOICE: That's the way to do it!

DOG BARKS

For this journey, I am going to sail from Gorleston-on-Sea,

down the Suffolk and Essex coasts, and into the Thames.

Ending at the very heart of our maritime power - Greenwich.

BUSTLING VOICES

This is our idea of a seaside resort.

The wide sandy beaches, the deckchairs, windshields,

children playing, the grand hotels, the B&Bs, the music hall.

And it's all the creation of the Victorians,

to make the ideal place for a family holiday.

Not Majorca, not Florida...but Gorleston.

Gorleston-on-Sea is a small seaside town on the southern edge

of Great Yarmouth.

And, like its neighbour, it was transformed in the Victorian age.

By the mid-1800s, 80,000 visitors were heading to Great Yarmouth

and Gorleston each summer.

And they all came by the new creation of industrial genius -

the railway.

Tempting though it is to stay, I have a boat to board.

Rocket, the gaff cutter I've owned for over 30 years,

is anchored just off the beach, awaiting my arrival.

-Hi, John.

-Hi.

'And on board, my crew.' Thanks very much.

-Are you coming up?

-Yeah.

Can you move, Stanley?

'Stanley the dog - always happy to get under my feet.

'John Holden, Stanley's owner,

'who has spent his life around boats and looks after Rocket.'

OK, Cally, get the anchor up.

Anchor up!

'And Cally Stubbs - a local sailor

'who brings valuable experience of these tricky waters.'

-John, I'll hold ahead to wind...

-OK.

-..and we can get the sails up.

'Sails up, anchor up, and it's time to go.'

Our first stop is just a few miles along the coast -

we're heading to the port of Lowestoft.

During the 19th century, all along this coastline, people flocked

to the seaside, keen to escape the dirt of the cities, even for a day.

It was a spectacle that captivated artists and writers of the time.

In 1851, the painter William Frith went down with his canvasses

to Ramsgate in Kent. He did a series of sketches and then a huge

painting called Ramsgate Sands: Life At The Seaside.

The painting was controversial.

Frith had captured the confusion of social classes.

The sands were open to all.

The beaches swarmed with a variety of characters, all muddled up

together - people who would never normally have thought of mixing.

And the seaside was an open invitation to abandon convention.

For years, artists had delighted in it, with all its scope

for social embarrassment and sexual titillation.

Welcome to Lowestoft. Have you been through here?

-Yeah, about 20 years ago.

-Oh, right.

We're safely into Lowestoft,

but our destination is just a little further upriver.

Where are we going? I can see a swan.

-We're looking for a bald man waving at us.

-OK.

Oulton Broad lies on the outskirts of Lowestoft,

right on edge of the Norfolk broads.

Lovely, thank you.

Thanks very much, Cally. Thanks, John.

-Thank you.

-OK, David.

-Brilliant manoeuvre, I thought.

-Yeah, well, ten out of ten for that one.

-Ten out of ten!

Bye-bye, see you.

The Victorians may have created our image of the traditional

seaside holiday,

but I've come to see evidence that Lowestoft was attracting

tourists long before the reign of Queen Victoria.

This is Lowestoft Porcelain, among the earliest porcelain

produced in Britain, much of it dating from the 1760s onwards.

There are some very fine examples here.

This is a tankard, made in about 1790,

showing the entrance to the beach at Lowestoft,

with cottages along the front.

On one side, the lighthouse on the hill,

a stone lighthouse which still stands.

And an interesting little lighthouse here

that was moveable, it could go along the beach to show the smaller boats

the right channel to come up.

Big ships at that time couldn't come in, there was no proper harbour,

they had to go up to Great Yarmouth.

And then this, a brandy flask.

Fairly conventional picture on one side,

merchant ships flying the Red Ensign, but what's really

interesting on the other side, it's proof that Lowestoft was

already like all the resorts along this coast, being used for holidays.

Here's a bathing machine.

A man here with his long coat going up into the bathing machine,

he had changed there. Well, not changed, he stripped naked.

Because it was thought very important that you should go

naked into the sea, not have any clothes on,

nothing to prevent the sea salt water getting into you.

That was the cure they wanted for their health.

And then on this end, a funny kind of three-ribbed tent which

went down into the water.

You hid inside this thing so nobody could see you.

So you couldn't swim, you just stood in the water and washed yourself.

And this is obviously an ink pot.

Ink in there, quill pens, four places for them.

And this is its twin, really.

This was to dry the ink before blotting paper.

Would've had sand or a combination of sand and flour in it,

and you just shook it out on the wet ink

and blew it off and the ink would dry.

But what's significant is, look - "A Trifle from Lowestoft."

Each of them has written on them "A Trifle from Lowestoft."

Hundreds and hundreds of these, "A Trifle from Lowestoft."

Proving that this place was a holiday resort and these were,

in effect, souvenirs.

A reminder of a few days away from the rat-race of the 18th century.

-Can I take this off now?

-Yeah, that's fine.

I never thought Rocket would go on the Broads, John.

We're heading back downriver to Lowestoft,

and the British seaside at its most traditional.

Along the seafront, there's just time to catch a show.

Ohhh! That was good. Let's all sing.

Punch and Judy is a seaside favourite.

Just the other day, it was voted one of the top icons of Englishness.

Except Mr Punch is not English at all.

Snap!

He's actually Italian,

a mischievous character who used to entertain

the crowds in the streets and squares.

He was imported to Britain in the 17th century,

first performing in Covent Garden.

It was the Victorians who moved him to the coast and turned

a raucous street show for adults into a children's seaside treat.

Here we go! Here we go!

CHEERING

Every Punch and Judy show has its own characters,

this one has got the crocodile, we've already had the ghost,

we've had the policeman.

And there's a lot of slapstick and hitting and all the rest of it.

It's not actually nearly as fierce as the original Punch and Judy.

In the true story, Punch kills the wife, kills anybody who comes near,

he kills the policeman, the hangman comes to hang Mr Punch

and Mr Punch tricks the hangman into hanging himself instead of Mr Punch.

And finally, he kills the devil.

It looks as though he's about to be killed here.

But what the appeal of it is is very interesting because it's not

exactly...funny, it's quite cruel and yet children seem to love it.

ALL: Mr Punch!

MUSICAL TUNE: "I Do Like To Be Beside The Seaside"

The man behind the curtain is Bryan Clarke.

He has been a Punch and Judy man for over 60 years,

and he's been working these beaches since he was a boy.

But he's not just a performer. He is also a craftsman.

-So this is where they're all made?

-Yes, this is the workshop.

'At his home near Lowestoft, Bryan carves his own Punch

'and Judy puppets.

'He's made and sold hundreds over the years.'

Is there a particular look that Mr Punch has to have?

Cos they're slightly different, all of them.

Yeah. The hook nose, hook chin, red nose, red chin.

This is called a sugarloaf hat.

He's clowny-looking, he's sort of jester-looking.

And he's Italian. And he comes from Italy.

We get all our pictures from this book here,

which was illustrated by that wonderful illustrator called

George Cruikshank in about 1840.

It was like the Bible for the Punch and Judy man.

He saw a Punch and Judy show and he did the drawings,

which are in the book, and from that we got this Punch.

But over the years, Punch has become more stylized,

he's become more sort of friendly.

But basically, we still sort of keep him

Italian with all his goggle-eyes.

Some people are very frightened of clowns.

There's something eerie about the clown.

-But they're never frightened of Punch.

-Are they not?

I think the distinctive voice, the children love it.

How do you do that voice?

It's made by these things, which is called a swazzle.

-A swazzle?

-A swazzle.

And it's a little reed like this and then we place it in our mouth,

like that, on our tongue.

And then it goes to the roof of your mouth.

HIGH-PITCHED VOICE: Ha-ha-ha, that's the way to do it!

NORMAL VOICE: That's the distinctive voice, and I can talk to you...

When we're learning, we go... "One, two, three, four, five, six,"

and so you get that alternate voice coming in with each number.

NORMAL VOICE: You're very nice, Mr Punch! HIGH-PITCHED: Very good.

NORMAL VOICE: You've got a very nice gentleman here.

ALTERNATING VOICES: Who's he? I don't know. Hit him with snapstick.

NORMAL VOICE: You can't hit him with that. So, you know...

And it's just fun, isn't it?

-My Mr Punch is a bit like that, I think.

-Yeah, yeah.

But he's certainly got a big hook nose. He looks a bit like you!

Yeah, thank you, yes!

Well...no, they do say that, you know, like a dog,

people grow like their dogs. Well, you grow like the puppets, you know.

I don't think my eyes are quite goggle-eyes like them!

THEY LAUGH

Another sunny morning, and we're setting off early to catch the tide.

-Is Stanley all right?

-Yeah, he's good.

He just likes to see where he's going,

but I don't want him going out on the side deck.

Our next destination is the seaside village of Walberswick.

Today, Walberswick is a tranquil and rather exclusive place.

In the late 1800s, it was the site of an artistic revolution.

In 1884, a young artist, Philip Wilson Steer,

came to Walberswick to paint.

He stayed here at Valley Farm.

He'd been studying in Paris,

and there he'd come under the influence of the French

Impressionists with their intense study of the effect of light

on landscape, and it was that that he found here in Walberswick,

making a new stage in his career

and the beginning of British Impressionism.

It was in this marshy estuary, and the beach beyond,

that Steer found his artistic inspiration.

His canvasses are shimmering landscapes and figure studies,

fleeting moments of youthful freedom captured in brilliant

dots of colour.

A fellow artist said, "I have never seen a canvas which is

"more like sun and wind. You feel like sunshine and wind and youth

"are glorious things, and that life is a gift to be grateful for."

Even today, Walberswick is a Mecca for artists.

Jason Bowyer is a professional painter,

who has been coming here for 30 years.

So what was it that brought Steer to Walberswick?

I think that when he was here, he felt that the shackles were off.

You know, and I'm sure that was the opportunity to experiment.

You know, it's a beautiful little estuary and I think he loved

the light that came off, obviously, the wonderful, sparkling sea.

The movement, the wind.

Is the light similar to the light the French Impressionists got?

Is this Britain's French Impressionist scenery?

Yeah, I mean, this is... You know,

a lot of paintings of this type are painted against the light.

There's wonderful roofs at the end of the harbour wall

there on the left-hand side, now,

and then the fishing boat just with that little delicacy of line.

And then this landing stage in front of us,

you get a sense which is a time it is now, but it transcends

you into something which is...which I suppose is much more eternal.

You haven't given me any brown, I can't do these browns.

JASON LAUGHS

I've only got blues and yellows here.

You're getting on further than me, you've got paint on canvas.

-Yeah, well, I'm just...

-THEY LAUGH

-I'm talking more than you.

-I've done enough!

Next day, we're back on Rocket,

but our luck with the weather seems to be running out.

It's not exactly plain sailing.

It's a bit frustrating today because the way we want to go

is dead into the wind and, of course, you can't

sail dead into the wind, your sails just flap like our ensign is.

What you like is the wind, well, ideally for Rocket,

the wind on the side or behind you, then you can go roaring along.

But she's designed for sailing.

But still, you can't do anything about the weather, you can't do

anything about the tide, you can't do anything about the wind.

Which is why sailing is one of the most...frustrating

and difficult sports.

Fun, nevertheless. Now the sun's coming out, which is great.

Beautiful.

Our next stop is just a little way down the Suffolk coast.

We're heading for Aldeburgh.

This town, with its long beach washed by the cold North Sea,

has attracted artists for generations.

At the beginning of the 20th century,

one man in particular was drawn to it

and inspired by it to compose some of our greatest music.

Musicians often talk about the things that stir their imagination.

For one of our most famous composers, Benjamin Britten,

it was the sea.

He was brought up back up the coast there at Lowestoft

and he remembers as a child his whole life being

coloured by fierce storms which drove ships ashore,

which ate away great sections of the neighbouring cliffs.

He left all that and went to the balmy sunlight of California

just before the Second World War, but halfway through the war,

he suddenly realised that this place was his real home. And at some

risk to himself, he came back across the Atlantic, daring the U-boats,

and arrived here in Aldeburgh and settled here, because he knew

that this place, these beaches, this sea, was his real inspiration.

Even from a very young age, Britten had been drawn to the sound

and movement of the sea.

Here at the Red House, now a museum to Benjamin Britten's life,

there are passionate devotees of his work.

-This is Britten's piano, his Steinway.

-His own piano?

Yes, from the late 1960s.

'Lucy Walker explains how, even as a young man,

'he was fascinated by the changing moods of the sea.'

SHE PLAYS A GENTLE MELODY

This piece, Sailing, starts in a very peaceful way.

-Just slipping along in a gentle breeze, really, isn't it?

-Exactly.

That's lovely. It's like Rocket on a calm sea.

Then what happens?

Then this middle section where the sea is much more turbulent.

MELODY CONTINUES TUMULTUOUSLY

Everybody's madly rushing around, pulling at the ropes, "Help!"

-Yes, exactly.

-And then is peace restored or do they sink?

SHE LAUGHS Peace is restored towards the end

where the same peaceful music comes back.

It's just towards the end here.

GENTLE MELODY RESUMES

-That's lovely.

-And then it...

How old was he when he wrote that?

He was just shy of his 21st birthday.

Oh, really? So one of his first compositions?

One of his early mature compositions.

-He'd already written huge amounts as a child already.

-Called Holiday?

Well, this, he called it... The published score,

it's gone through several changes in title. This is called Sailing.

On the manuscript, it's called Yachting.

-Because he swam, didn't he, a lot?

-It seemed that way,

and his diaries from this time, while he was composing this piece,

are full of tales of him having a rough sea bathe in the North Sea.

And it happens on regular occasions. Or long walks...

Yes, so you can't take the sea out of Britten, really.

I don't think you can, no.

The next leg of our journey takes us across one of the busiest

shipping lanes in Britain, heading to Harwich.

So, Cally, this is your country we're coming into, Harwich?

Yes, it's quite an old town.

Harwich looks rather beautiful from here. I've never seen it like that.

-The first time I ever, ever went to sea was from Harwich.

-Oh, really?

When I was about 12, I went from here to Holland...

-Yeah, to Holland.

-..on the night ferry,

with a bicycle, with my mum.

I remember the excitement of coming to Harwich because it

was dark when we got here,

-it was ten o'clock the ferry left or something.

-Mm.

And we were on one of those old-fashioned Pullman cars where

-you had real china on the tables and armchairs to sit in on the train.

-Oh, fabulous.

We got on board and I can't remember a thing until we arrived in Holland.

And I'd never been abroad before, the first time I'd ever been abroad.

-How old were you then?

-12.

It was just after we'd smashed the Germans, you know.

Today, Harwich is dominated by the container port of Felixstowe,

just across the estuary.

But at the turn of the 20th century, these waters were better known

for the rather more leisurely pursuit of yachting.

A hobby brought to Britain by a king.

In 1660, the Dutch presented King Charles II with a gift -

a 52-foot sailing boat, built solely for pleasure.

For amateur yachtsmen, this is where it all began.

Here at the Harwich Low Lighthouse - now their maritime museum -

I've come to see a remarkable record of this craft.

This is a model of the first Royal Yacht.

She was called the Mary.

She was presented to Charles II by the city of Amsterdam. The very

word "yacht" comes from the Dutch "jacht", which was the word used for

a sort of small working boat that flitted in and out among the fleet

carrying people and provisions and doing jobs. And in the Dutch design,

of course, with these leeboards here, like the Thames barges have,

but with little elaborate touches to demonstrate that this is

a private yacht, in effect.

A unicorn gilded at the bow there.

And little gilding around the cannons.

And then an elaborate stern with a coat of arms of the King of England.

So a very fine boat and he was very fond of her.

In fact, he sort of became addicted to yachting.

In the 25 years of his reign, he had 26 Royal Yachts built.

And this is one of the finest.

This is a model thought to be of a ship called the Catherine.

And this model itself is very precious.

It was made in the late 1600s, and this shows how

the Royal Yacht gradually became more and more elaborate.

The detail is really fine, and it's only possible

because the wood they've used for the carving is fruitwood -

apple, pearwood - which grows very, very slowly

and so has no grain. It's like carving marble, and you can get

this absolute exquisite detail of tiny little bits.

The figurehead has got two figures.

The wreaths are very elaborate around the gunports,

and as we come back down the side here, this great

frieze of acanthus leaves, very elaborate Baroque decoration.

Poseidon here, trampling a monster.

Lamps on the stern.

And then two putti with anchors on the back here.

If you peer over down there, there's golden steps to the cabins.

Inside there, again, four-poster bed, paintings on the walls,

fine furniture - entirely a sort of pleasure dome for the King.

Charles II loved the sea. He'd go to sea at any excuse.

He'd take his court to sea, he'd meet his admirals on the sea,

he took up racing his "jacht", or his yacht, for pleasure.

It was the beginning of a whole industry that started, rather

like horse racing, started with the monarch and then trickled down.

For the first time,

boats became about more than fighting and fishing.

They were built for fun.

-John...

-Yes?

-..why do you like sailing?

-Why?

-Yeah.

I like that feel when you're still and then the wind picks up,

and you just lean over and accelerate. Nothing better than that.

I think the strange thing about it is that you take it out to sea

and you're completely at the mercy of the winds...

the winds and the tide.

And it's like having a little...

a little sort of domestic sea that you suddenly cast onto the wild sea.

Not far up the River Orwell from Harwich is the tiny village

and boat yard of Pin Mill.

I think there was a seal there.

Just there.

In 1935 this idyllic stretch of river became the home of a man

who probably did more than anybody else to introduce generations

of children to the pleasures and the excitements of sailing and the sea.

His name was Arthur Ransome and he wrote Swallows and Amazons.

Swallows and Amazons is a children's classic.

Golly, it's a pirate.

12 novels recount the innocent adventures of the children

of two families during carefree summer holidays...

Land ahoy!

..mostly spent sailing dinghies.

A keen sailor himself, Ransome turned sailing into the ideal

image of childhood fun and escape.

Nearly there! Nearly there!

Nearly there!

The early novels are set in the Lake District,

but he later moved the action to the coastal waters of Suffolk and Essex.

Pin Mill hasn't really changed much since the 1930s.

This little village captivated Ransome,

and he used to come here, to the Butt & Oyster, for a pint.

In 1937 he wrote a famous book that's based here,

it's called We Didn't Mean To Go To Sea.

It's actually rather a terrifying story of a group of children

who get landed on a boat alone, the owner having gone ashore, and then

drift out to sea and are forced to sail in a gale at night to Holland.

So it's quite an alarming story.

But it's very Arthur Ransome, it has his own illustrations.

The Hard here, for instance, is the first picture

and there are pictures of how to tie bowlines

and how to work an anchor and all sorts of things.

And a very obsessive attention to the detail of sailing -

he doesn't mind boring you silly with two or three pages of,

you know, how to hoist a sail or how to take in a reef.

But it was this book and these books that really entranced children.

I think also frightened them.

I was so, when I first read them I thought I'd never go to sea

if it was like this but that's clearly the secret of what

he did to dramatize sailing.

The boat that the children were in when they didn't mean to go

to sea was based on a real boat that Arthur Ransome had bought

and which he renamed the Nancy Blackett after the main

character in Swallows and Amazons.

Nancy Blackett, who had been called Ruth Blackett

but she wanted to be the chief of the pirates, and she was told

that pirates were ruth-less, so she changed her name to Nancy.

And the Nancy Blackett, the real boat, has been found and restored

and is here now at Pin Mill and I'm just on my way to see her.

-Hi, Peter.

-Hello!

'On board is Peter Willis. The man responsible for looking after her.'

I borrowed this dinghy to get out here

-and it's a bit of a bathtub.

-Bit of string.

-OK.

-Have you got her?

-Yeah, yeah.

Good. Is this strong? OK, great, thank you very much indeed.

-Yep. Welcome aboard.

-Thank you.

-Come below.

-Have you had to do a lot of work to her?

This is all the original wood, is it?

Some of it is.

The interior was totally reshaped to bring her back as she would

have been when Ransome owned her.

Lots of space, isn't there? What's the picture there?

That's himself sailing. The bald man, see.

Galley here.

Galley there, sink there.

Yeah.

She's quite heavy inside.

I mean, wooden drawers and all that...

-Solid. Solid construction, yeah.

-Yes, nice. Very nice.

What do you think Ransome saw in this boat and in the sea?

For this boat he just felt totally at home in her.

She's was a good sea boat, she's all he ever wanted.

He went onto bigger boats and wider boats and all sorts of boats

but this was the best boat he ever owned, he said.

Very nice to see a boat that carries so many memories!

I mean, I remember reading

We Didn't Want to Go to Sea as a child.

Scared the living daylights out of me.

-Did you read it as a child?

-Oh, yes.

-Have you always been a Ransome fan?

-Yes, very much.

-Why so?

I think for the reason practically everybody is.

You get totally sucked into the world of these children,

of sailing. It turned me onto sailing totally, Ransome.

That's why I have never lost the fondness for the books.

'With plenty of wind to fill our sails, and the tide running

'in our favour, we're leaving Suffolk behind us and crossing into Essex.'

What speed are we doing as a matter of curiosity?

-Seven knots.

-Seven knots. Maximum speed!

It's just a few hours to our next destination,

the little town of Frinton-on-Sea.

'Frinton is a small,

'rather old-fashioned town on the Essex coast.'

Between the wars, it was a byword for genteel seaside holidays.

'But I'm here to see a more recent addition to Frinton's seafront.

'It's a surprise, already attracting a crowd of onlookers.

'This is the original art of the seaside,

'taken to its extreme.

'Nicola Wood is a sand sculptor

'and she and her team have been hard at work since dawn.'

Just caught you before you finished.

Yes.

My sand castles never looked like this. It's so small!

How do you get this smoothness, first of all?

Well, the sand itself is very dense and very compact.

So you can apply quite a lot of pressure onto it to make

a smooth surface.

You can...kind of massage the grains into position, I suppose.

Yes.

And just a variety of different tools and smoothing devices.

This is tips for children on the beach....if you want to make

the perfect sand castle.

If you want to make the perfect sand castle

the trick is in the preparation.

You need a lot of water,

and you need to prepare your pile of sand in layers.

Is this... What sand is this?

This is Frinton beach sand, there's quite

a lot of stones in it, so it makes it quite difficult for carving with.

But it is beautiful beach sand. I mean, it's really, really old.

But tell me about how you make the look of it right.

Because she is the most wonderful shape.

That's one way of putting it.

Yeah, well, she is! But where did you begin?

How do you get the height? How do you get all the angles right?

Is there something inside there, a framework, or just sand?

There's nothing inside, a lot of people think that there is.

But this was, when we arrived, just a big blob of sand.

And this is what we did for the head, make a big wooden box,

compressed it down, put loads and loads of water in it,

remove the wood, and you've got a solid block, almost like sandstone.

And we made a kind of wedding cake

if you can imagine different levels of steps going up.

And on each step we would pour water and make a kind of moat.

Did you start with an idea in your mind of exactly what

this would be like?

Or have you done it as it's gone along? Developed it...

You just kind of adapt and evolve it as you carve.

And I've got lots of source material, I've got

pictures of old-fashioned postcards here that I've been referring to.

Oh, yes.

And the idea was originally to do a fun, cartoon,

seaside old-fashioned postcard type thing.

But because the sand is not

so strong, it left little room for elaborate shapes.

-But she is elaborate!

-She is really elaborate!

She's got sunglasses. Wacky hair. A sour-looking mouth, slightly.

She looks like one of those pilot things, you know, ahh!

Ice cream cone, melting...

Yes.

..huge thunder thighs. And a beach ball!

-Yes!

-Got everything you want!

-More than you want, I think.

-More than you want!

And a swimming costume with polka dots on it.

What happens at the end?

I mean, traditionally with a sand castle you kick it down,

don't you, before the tide comes in.

Yeah, you do. I mean, they are... it is temporary art.

They are transient. So they don't last for ever

and if they're not taken away by the elements then they're often

bulldozed down and the sand is recycled for another

sculpture or put back on the beach like this one will be.

I've never seen anything like this.

I'm absolutely gobsmacked by it, I think it's wonderful.

Our next stop is a town that went to extraordinary lengths to

attract visitors.

We're heading to Southend-on-Sea.

Home to the boldest pier on the British coast.

John, we're really at the mouth of the Thames, aren't we here?

It feels like it now to me, yes.

The longest pier in the world.

Has it always been the same length?

Or did they make it gradually longer?

No, it's grown. It's grown.

The Victorians had a wooden pier at the very end and then it grew

and grew and grew.

But it's always in trouble because boats collide with it,

don't they, in the past?

They have collided with it, over the past few years boats have.

Gone through the middle of it.

It's not a very easy entry. It's a bit rough.

The pier at Southend stretches almost

a mile and a half into the Thames estuary.

The original iron structure was completed in 1889

but it's been extended twice in the years

since to accommodate growing numbers of visitors.

It stands like a barometer of Southend's changing fortunes.

When this pier was threatened with demolition in the late '70s,

the poet laureate Sir John Betjeman, along with others, came to the rescue,

he said, "I love this place, to lose it would be like losing a limb.

"The pier is Southend and Southend is the pier."

And he was dead right,

it was the Victorians who had discovered the pleasures of

the pier. The illusion of being out at sea, but in perfect safety and no

risk of sea-sickness, or as another writer, William Thackeray, put it,

"To pace these vast decks without the need of a steward with a basin."

The Victorians loved walking up and down seaside pleasure piers

and they were soon being built at resort towns all around Britain.

In 1883 the American artist, James McNeill Whistler, came here,

to Southend.

He captured the scene on a busy Bank Holiday,

with Victorian day-trippers promenading along the seafront.

This is the face of today's seaside - loud music,

rides that are more and more terrifying.

The Victorians would have absolutely loved it.

I'm on one of the gentlest of the rides,

but this has all taken the place of promenading on the pier,

of Punch and Judy, of tea dances and music hall shows.

This is a trend that actually began here, at Southend.

It all started in a building just half a mile along the seafront.

This ornate interior was once the lavish entrance hall to the Kursaal,

which claims to be the first purpose-built theme park in the world.

Beyond these walls lay 20 acres of funfair.

It was this great hall, a cinema, a ballroom which was used

for all kinds of exhibitions and sports as well as for dancing and

eating, an arcade there with side shows all the way down, disguised as

a Cairo street. There was everything you could think of, from roller coasters,

there was a trotting track, and then there were weirder ones. In the

middle of the First World War there was a reconstruction of an Ypres

trench and there was a side show

where you could knock the Kaiser's head off, which was very popular,

the man who had that made a fortune.

It's difficult now to imagine all that,

but this Kursaal in the years between the wars was

everything that Southend had to offer, all the excitements,

all the attractions, constant novelties,

come and see Al Capone's car, come and see the fattest man,

come and see the thinnest man,

watch the first lady lion tamer - just what you want on a day out.

Yeah, that's a good view of the pier, isn't it?

See how long it is from there.

As we leave Southend's magnificent pier behind,

the light is starting to fade.

Fortunately, our next stop is nearby.

Just a few miles to the west lies a strip of land

separated from the coast of Essex by a series of creeks.

Canvey Island.

You might not think it at first glance,

but this was once Britain's top holiday destination.

Extraordinarily, in the 40 years leading up to 1950,

Canvey Island was the fastest growing seaside resort in Britain.

The Victorians came to the seaside for the beach

and swimming in the sea, but in the '30s what people wanted was

fresh air and sunshine, and Canvey Island provided both.

And it had two advantages - it was close to London, and it was cheap.

The 1930s were really Canvey Island's Golden Age.

You can still see the evidence today. Standing on the beach

overlooking the Thames estuary is the Labworth Cafe.

The Labworth was built in 1932, one of the first modern buildings

to be put up just after the First World War.

It's in what is called the Art Deco style, decorative style,

and it was built by famous engineer Ove Arup,

who went on the build the Sydney Opera House,

rather grander than this. But this design is said to be

based on the bridge of the Queen Mary,

the bridge above, and then cocktail lounge below to sip

your drink while the sea rolled past.

In the 1930s, Art Deco was all the rage at the seaside.

It was the architecture of sunshine and light.

Seafronts and coastal towns were redeveloped with the sun

and leisure in mind.

The Labworth cafe tells the story of the British seaside,

hugely popular in the 1930s,

falling into disrepair in the 1960s and now being revived once again

as people come back to this kind of place, the cafe downstairs,

a restaurant upstairs

and sitting here reminds me of being on the Queen Mary,

and it's cocktail time.

Pina Colada, top of the list, excellent!

Here's to the British seaside.

The final leg of our journey brings us into the Thames proper.

The royal river on which London's fortunes were built.

We're heading for Greenwich.

'But the weather, it seems, has turned against us.

'This feels rather more like the great British summer we know

'and love...or love to complain about.'

-Looking for Thames Haven. That's the next place to look for.

-Yeah.

I was hoping we'd be able to sail up here

but I don't think it looks very likely, does it?

My dream was to sail up the Thames, past Greenwich,

under Tower Bridge, all under sail.

But instead we've got drizzle and grey skies. No sign of wind at all.

It may come.

'Even for experienced sailors,

'the Thames can be a daunting waterway to navigate.'

Can't really see very much, really.

'It has strong tides, narrow channels and sandbanks.

'And it is one of the busiest shipping lanes in Britain -

'handling some 45 million tonnes of cargo every year.'

Okay...and up.

Here, a little local knowledge goes a very long way.

-How does that look?

-All right, I think.

'We're going to take on board a Thames Pilot to guide us

'safely upriver.'

Good morning! Where do you want to get down?

-On the shrouds?

-Yeah, I'll go here...yes.

'John Stafford has been a river pilot for 18 years.

'There have been men like him working these waters for generations.'

-Good morning!

-Good morning! And welcome.

-Thank you very much.

-And thank you very much for coming.

Since the time of Henry VIII, local sailors have been boarding

ships on the river to deliver them safely to their destination.

Pilots deal with traffic control.

If you only had the one ship on the river, life would be a dawdle.

But you don't, you have multiple ships.

You'll hear it just as we go up and I'm listening to the port

control radio...you'll hear lots of ships calling.

And they're all doing something, there are ships going onto berths,

off berths and you don't want to be in the same place at the same time.

So you're, as a pilot, you're adjusting the speed to make sure

that everything matches and it's choreography, really.

-Marine choreography of the Thames.

-Really, so you're,

-the ballet is being organized...

-The dance orchestrator!

..a dance orchestrator.

On this river, it's hard to escape the weight of history.

For centuries, sailors have navigated these waters.

Generations united by a passion for the sea,

and the simple power of wind and sail.

There's Canary Wharf.

Yeah, this is Blackwell Point.

Yeah, and this is just the beginning of the city.

Now, how far have we got to go until we get to Greenwich?

-Just around this corner, yes?

-Just around the corner.

Greenwich.

For five centuries this place has been at the heart

of our relationship with the sea.

A home to maritime science, history and art.

Can you slow down?

Watch the bowsprit!

'The river entrance to Greenwich is a flight of slippery steps,

'where grandees used to disembark.'

That was dodgy!

'Today, Greenwich is a monument to some of our greatest sailors

'and their mastery of the seas.'

Of all the places we've visited in our journey around Britain's

shores, Greenwich is the most powerful

symbol of our relationship with the sea.

It was here that Henry VIII was born, the father of the Royal Navy.

It was here that Queen Elizabeth was born.

It was here that she welcomed Francis Drake

back from his circumnavigation of the world in the Golden Hind.

And it was here that Lord Nelson lay in state

after his death at the Battle of Trafalgar.

This great palace with Christopher Wren's buildings there,

the old hospital, and then the Royal Naval College.

But the building I'm going to see is the oldest building on this site,

and the most delicate one - the Queen's House.

The Queen's House was built in 1616 as a royal waterside retreat,

close to the river.

'Now it's home to the National Maritime Museum -

'and our greatest collection of maritime art.

'It's been a fascinating journey around Britain.

'But for me, one tiny object captures the spirit of the seafaring

'past we've been looking at.

'It's a treasure from Britain's first great era of sea travel,

'the Elizabethan age.'

This is the most extraordinary object,

it looks like a large pocket watch. It's gilded brass.

It was made in 1569, it's said to have been made for Francis Drake

to take to the West Indies in 1570, it's called 'Cole's Compendium.'

It's actually a present for a sailor who has everything,

because this really does have everything you could need.

It's very delicate and I have to open it up rather carefully.

It has a series of dials on the inside, the first one is to

tell you the phases of the moon, and then the next dial to it here

is a perpetual calendar, giving you dates year-on-year-on-year,

then we come to the key measurement for sailors, the measurement

of latitude, and this one, I have to put spectacles on to see this.

This one gives various places and the latitudes that they're at,

Antwerp, Venice, Lisbon, Naples and so on.

Now this is the most complex

and difficult bit, if I can do it like this.

It folds up and that way.

Don't ask me how but it helps you tell the latitude that you're at.

And it reveals beneath it a little tiny compass in the centre there.

How you do it in a rough sea, I can't imagine.

And then we fold the whole thing up and open the other side, the back.

Rather mysterious dial of seaports and the inscription says

"The names of principle portes and havens of Europe."

And finally in the last leaf this very beautiful device,

almost incomprehensible to a layman's eyes,

which allows you to work out the tides.

All important, of course, when you're sailing.

What time the tides are high and low and therefore

also which way they're flowing.

And there it is, Cole's Compendium.

In a way this beautiful,

complex object perfectly illustrates our island's story. How we,

who the Romans thought of as the furthest people in the world,

living on the island set in an unknown sea, became, by conquering

that sea, among the richest and most powerful nations on Earth.

If we successfully navigate Tower Bridge it'll be my dream come

-true, Cally.

-How exciting!

For me, it's the perfect end to a journey to all the four corners

of Britain, is to end up in the heart of London,

going under Tower Bridge.

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