Island Nation Britain on Film

Across stormy seas, halfway between Orkney and Shetland, is Fair Isle.

But this is an island with a difference.

This is a bachelor's island, a man's world.

An island where there are nearly twice as many men as women.

And nearly all the children are boys.

Which should make a girl's place something rather special.

But it's not surprising she's a tomboy.

By a strange twist of nature,

there have always been more boy babies than girls.

And in the school today, there are only two girls.

Mark you, there are certain disadvantages in not having

women around. Oh, yes, women certainly have their uses.

Then, there's breakfast to make.

And if you're not washing clothes and hanging them out,

you're doing what comes naturally in these parts.

You're dipping sheep.

This is a busy time, and they're all hard at it.

Farmer Stout, Farmer Stout and Farmer Stout.

Yes, nearly everyone is called, Stout, on this island.

There are 12 Stout families.

Many of the first name Jerome, Jerry for short.

That makes them almost as hard to tell apart as their sheep.

But they've found a clever way round.

Each man is called by the name of his farm.

Busta Jerry, Midway Jerry, Houll Jerry and Leogh Jerry.

If you happened to have a wife, you would get her knitting.

The faster, the better!

Fair Isle's famous for its Gaelic pattern knitting,

but there are only a dozen women left to carry on the tradition.

Strange to think that this knitting, produced by a few

women in Fair Isle in the Shetlands, has become known all over the world.

This may be a man's world, but it's hard to get on without women.

Only 50 islanders live here now - once there were 300.

And there's only been one marriage in the last 20 years at the little church.

But there is new hope for Fair Isle. The National Trust for Scotland

is doing what it can to encourage settlers

and is introducing a new industry - hand weaving,

a craft that will earn the islanders money during the long winter.

Adam Johnson and his family have come to live in Fair Isle,

to teach the islanders how to use the loo.

They like it so much, they decided to settle here.

The days of decline may be passing.

It's not hard work all the time, there's often a party or a dance.

All the island lacks is young people of both sexes, but especially women.

For Fair Isle wants to become much more of a woman's world.

If the ordinary housewife forgets something,

she can usually slip round to the shop on the corner.

But where Shirley Saunders lives, there's no shop on the corner.

In fact, there's no shop.

She has to plan her groceries for a fortnight ahead.

When she gets back by bus and bike to the coast,

there's her husband coming to fetch her.

And he's brought the children too.

For David and Shirley Saunders and their children, this is their life.

Shared with thousands of sea-birds.

Skomer has been inhabited for over 2,000 years.

But today the Saunders are the only humans who live on this rocky

table-land, 200ft above the sea,

looking straight out across the Atlantic Ocean.

Skomer is one of scores of nature reserves around Britain, which have

been created to preserve the wildlife that's in danger of disappearing.

But for sanctuaries such as this,

we might one day face the prospect of a land without bird song.

Or, at any rate, without the song of many of the birds we know today.

The Saunders home is on the cliff edge over the landing cove.

There's a built-in milk supply.

Time goes slowly enough to allow Shirley Saunders to enjoy her children.

And there's perhaps the best view in Britain from the kitchen sink.

David Saunders starts his day early.

His job is not only to preserve the wildlife on Skomer,

but to help in the study of birds and animals.

This Shearwater chick is being ringed,

so that when it's picked up again, some new knowledge will be gained.

Shearwaters are great travellers.

One recently ringed in Britain was later found in Australia.

Each year, bird lovers, serious students

and visitors in search of unusual spectacles come to the island.

They wander along the carefully defined paths to see

the kind of sight which was once common around the coast,

but today can be found only in such protected havens as this.

To the Saunders children,

the birds have become much more exciting than their own toys.

In fact, they really do seem to be members of the family.

And the Puffins are undoubtedly the favourites!

There are few more fascinating and beautiful parts of Britain

than Skomer in the summer.

But with the end of the season, the last of the visitors depart.

When the days draw in, and the mists come down, life gets lonelier,

but is still rewarding.

For the Saunders family

and all those other wardens of Britain's wildlife sanctuaries,

there's the knowledge that they're helping to preserve

a precious part of our national heritage.

Apart from the Channel Isles,

only one of the scores of islands around the mainland of Britain

has its own parliament, its own paper money, its own stamps

and its own passport. It is the Isle of Man.

Manxmen with a romantic feeling for their ancient Gaelic tongue

are giving up their spare time to revive the Manx language.

Starting with the young.

SPEAKING MANX GAELIC

In ways like this, we are teaching the Manx Gaelic language.

We are bringing it into the classroom.

We believe that the Manx Gaelic, along with the Manx customs

and all the Manx heritage, should be taught in the schools of the island.

Until that day comes, we, in the language movement,

are doing our best to do it ourselves.

The first bearded Vikings came here to burn and pillage,

to carry off loot and Celtic maidens.

And still they come, but with a difference.

The age-old invasion is re-enacted every summer

and a good time seems to be had by all.

Superstition and mysticism are deep in the island's background.

Few Manxmen will cross the Fairy Bridge without

passing the time of day with the little people.

Many a Manx house keeps the mystical Cuirn Cross, made of mountain ash,

bound with lamb's wool - traditional protection for the family.

The Crosh Bollan is made from a bone taken from a local fish.

It is still carried by many a Manx fisherman.

According to legend it's a natural compass,

guiding a boat back to the island if it's lost in fog.

Nearly everybody who visits the Isle of Man

makes the Sunday pilgrimage to Kirk Braddan. Here, for 106 years,

an open-air service has been held every Sunday from Whitsun to mid-September.

And the Bishop makes his way up the hill to preach to

one of the biggest open-air congregations in the world.

As many as 30,000 people pack the green slope

on a sunny day to listen to him.

At the Jersey Battle of Flowers,

thousands of people make prodigious efforts with millions of flowers.

I don't know how many millions, because nobody's counted them.

But anyway, millions and millions.

The flowers have been growing all the year.

Hundreds of people have worked all night

and now the floats are ready for the procession.

No procession is complete without its drum majors -

only these are majorettes and they've got no drums.

Frankie Vaughan is spending the day with this year's

Miss Jersey Battle of Flowers. No great effort in that!

Very attractive, huh? Isn't it?

More effort.

Mm, no effort at all.

The parish of St Brelade copied in flowers the famous painting

The Birth Of Venus, and won the Prix d'Exellence.

The main difference, in the painting, Venus hasn't so many clothes on.

Another parish, St Clement, named its float, appropriately enough,

The Bells Of St Clement.

The Swiss are here too - and making an effort!

Why do you think they call it The Jersey BATTLE Of Flowers?

That's it, what everyone's been waiting for.

Oh, lovely, rip it up to bits, tear it up!

All those millions of flowers, rub 'em in the mud.

Go on, trample on them. Thousands of hours of work - a year of planning!

We tended them all year. We stayed up all night.

We made a supreme effort to get them ready in time.

So now we'll pull them all to bits, throw them away,

hurl them on the ground,

trample them in and do it all over again next year.

To trainloads of holidaymakers who've come

over on the boats from Portsmouth, the Isle of Wight starts at Ryde.

These new arrivals are some of the 'overners',

as the Isle of Wight native calls all people from the mainland.

They come over as day-trippers, they come on a holiday,

or they come even to retire.

After 50 years, they'll still be overners

and they'll still be welcome.

And after 50 years, they'll still be in love with the island.

With its holiday carnival weeks,

that are much the same as they've been for ages.

It's all a mixture of the very modern and of Victoriana,

and in the processions it's mostly the slogans that change.

But behind the carnivals, life moves on.

The island today is a centre for important light industry.

Take the hovercraft. In some things, the Isle of Wight moves

not so much with the times as in front of them.

The first regular hovercraft passenger run has been

opened between the mainland and Ryde. One day, it may also carry cars.

Right now, it carries overners,

pleased to be pioneer travellers on a new form of transport.

Oldest and least changed of all the island's industries is farming.

Albert Flux farms 400 acres, only a few miles from where he was born.

Flux, Meaux, Squib, Yelf, Buckett, Chiverton -

these are but some of the old island surnames.

The names not of the overners who've come over to settle down,

but of the old farming families who've been there for generations.

Even today, there are nearly 1,000 registered

holdings on the island.

The oldest islander of all is Fred Yelf.

He's 105, born when Queen Victoria was almost young.

When he was a boy,

Osborne House was one of the favourite Royal residences.

The widowed queen spent most of her lonely years there,

surrounded by mementoes of her prince consort.

And here she died, leaving history behind her.

The most distinguished overner of them all.

In Britain each year, nearly 30 million of us

take the plunge and rush away from home for our holidays.

To make a splash at the seaside is what most of us seem to want.

Holiday scenes like these, dreamt or recalled, help to keep us

going during the 50 long weeks of the year we have to spend at work.

But come July and August,

the months that two thirds of holidaymakers prefer,

we decide that we've had enough,

pack our bags, leave a note for the milkman and off we go.

It's a pity that a few other people seem to have had the same

idea on the same day. But then, we just hate to break with tradition.

So, we all go down to the sea together.

We do love to be beside the seaside, especially at the end of July

and beginning of August.

Except of course for the one in nine who goes abroad.

Most of us still try to stroll along the prom with an independent

air in our own country and pretend the other chap isn't there.

Once installed, you fight your way onto the beach

for the sight of the sea, or if you're feeling lonely,

you join the others having a whirl in the funfair.

Thanks to holidays with pay,

we've £550 million of spending money.

And it's spent mainly in two weeks.

It's a little difficult to find somewhere to park an extra

deckchair and a bit of elbow room along the front isn't easy to get.

Late arrivals are unlucky.

At boarding houses and hotels, the House Full notices go up

and so do the prices.

And suddenly, the tide of holidaymakers turns.

The crowds are gone, the resorts deserted

and, as quickly as it began, the season's finished.

To encourage you to come earlier or later in the year, some resorts

are spreading their attractions over five months instead of two.

For the short season results in hotels standing half-empty

for the rest of the year.

And after the high-tide of employment during the summer peak,

when everything comes to the boil, work gradually ebbs away.

During the long winter months there's a shortage of jobs

for the thousands catering for tourist tastes.

Specialised workers, like these rock makers, squeezing their bundle

of coloured layers of heated confectionery

and drawing it out into an endless rope of candy-striped, lettered rock.

If, like the length of rock, the holiday period could be drawn out and

extended, seasonal unemployment would be cut, or at any rate shortened.

But just as the lettering always remains in the core of the rock,

so August bank holiday remains the date around which most people build their holidays.

If holidays could be staggered, trains and hotels would be

in more regular use, and so be less crowded, and they'd be cheaper too.

For in the rush weeks, you have to pay for the idle months.

There'd be room to enjoy bathing and the beach.

All the holiday interests and organisations representing industry,

commerce and trade unions are in favour of changing

Britain's holiday pattern, but we still cling to old habits.

All of us, young and old,

could once again recapture the sense of space of sands, sea and sky,

if we were to spread our holidays across the summer months.

There's obviously room for change. If we really want it.

Out of the 1,000 swimmers bitten by the Channel bug over

the last 40 years,

only one in eight has successfully completed the 21-mile stretch of tidal water.

The latest craze in Channel swims is by relay teams.

These ten London schoolgirls, aged from 13 to 17,

set off by boat to France to swim back to England.

Swimming in 40-minute stages,

they completed the crossing in just over 16 hours.

A party of fruit porters from London's Spitalfields Market

proved that they could do it too.

Having finished the swim,

the porters gave their boat skipper the traditional ducking,

and then set off for a meal at the Dover Boarding House

that has become a centre for Channel swimmers.

It's run by Welsh-born Mrs Garnett-Martin.

Many swimmers not only stay here but arrange for their boats,

hold press conferences, get special diets and, most important of all

during the long waiting period, get encouragement from their landlady.

15-and-a-half-stone Gregory Schofield, a 20-year-old

quantity surveyor from Weymouth, has been swimming since he was five,

but only took up distance swimming a year before this attempt.

Every two hours, food was passed out to him from his coach,

a Channel swimmer of 1951. The menu, breast of chicken and coffee.

And then back to swimming again.

The crossing took 15 and a half hours with seven hours against the tide.

This is the toughest time for the swimmer.

He knows he's making no progress, but he's got to keep going.

For the last six hours it was too rough to eat.

And then, there was the shore.

Only 50 yards to go now.

The boats had left him,

so that their crews could be on the beach when he landed.

When Gregory Schofield started swimming from England,

he weighed 15 and a half stone.

When he landed in France, he weighed 14 stone.

But he had done what he set out to do, to swim the Channel.

Was he satisfied? No!

Within a month, he was ready to start on a two-way attempt.

For that's the fascination of the Channel,

to swim it faster or more often than it's been done before.

Helicopters Manston.

Coastguard Deal here. There's a man trapped by the tide,

Kingsgate Bay at the foot of the cliff by the Captain Digby.

-Can you assist us?

-We're on our way.

Every year in Britain, about 640 people lose their lives by drowning.

And not just at holiday time. These tragedies happen all the year round.

And most of them need never happen at all.

Patrols are on duty at 30 or more resorts,

in Cornwall, Devon, Wales and other areas.

They've made 416 rescues since 1960 and saved 176 lives last year.

Voluntary lifeguards of the Royal Life Saving Society,

of which the Queen is patron,

also patrol 30 other beaches around Britain's coasts.

But most resorts are still without them.

Some local councils seem to think that lifeguards detract

people from their resorts.

They overlook the fact lifeguards are there to prevent accidents.

Even on safe beaches, and the safety record of beaches

patrolled by lifeguards is impressive,

there are plenty of volunteers willing to give their services free.

The rescue equipment costs £60.

But it's still not provided at many resorts.

Parents are often as much to blame as the authorities.

The astonishing thing is that parents should

leave their children unattended on beaches at all - but they do.

And 122 of them were drowned on unpatrolled beaches last year.

Robin Hood's Bay near Whitby, in Yorkshire,

is famous as a beauty spot and a haunt for painters.

But the cliffs are crumbling

and it seems that nothing can be done to save these houses.

The stones and bricks on the beach below were once homes,

and soon those that are still standing will join them on the sand.

It's said that over the coastline as a whole we are gaining as much

land from the sea as we are losing to it.

But that isn't much comfort if you live in Robin Hood's Bay!

If only beaches would stay put, but they are constantly on the move.

At Rye, they use a very effective method

of keeping their beach where it's wanted.

They pick up the shingle from the end of the beach where it's drifted,

load it into lorries, cart it back to where it started from and dump it.

The sea soon gets to work on this great pile of shingle

and starts moving it back along the beach.

Then the lorries will pick it up and bring it back again,

and so on and so on, forever.

This may seem a discouraging job,

but sometimes it's cheaper and more effective than any other method.

Precaution should now be taken to prevent damage to your property.

Please warn your neighbours.

The sea that surrounds us is constantly attacking our defences

and even when it appears to sleep, it is just resting, ready to strike!

But, say the experts, it won't catch us napping again.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd