Episode 5 The River

The Scottish Borders.

A land steeped in history...

Good lad.

..and rivalry...

Pass the ball!

..with its own unique customs...

Wahey!

The sheep are afraid.

..and twisting through these lands for 97 miles.

The world-famous Tweed.

In my view, it's the best salmon fishing river in Scotland.

Over eight months, we follow the river guardians.

I kind of look as if I've been arrested!

We learn of old traditions...

Every morning, I love getting up to go shoe horses.

..and embrace the new...

It's just another part of life here.

-ALL:

-..two, one...

go!

Come on!

..as the modern Borders redefines its identity.

Welcome to life along The River.

Good old Borders wee lanes.

There's hardly any traffic jams and, you know,

you're out on wee back roads like this.

It's just beautiful, it really is nice.

Richard Mackay is a travelling draper.

I say to people, erm, the easiest way to describe me

is probably an old-fashioned tailor, travelling tailor -

and they can understand that -

but I'm not a tailor because I don't cut.

Drapers fit. So they make clothes fit.

Richard's diary varies from day to day,

with appointments scattered all along the river.

We're currently on the way to a place called Beamerside,

which is in the middle of the Tweed stretch, erm,

and we're going to, erm,

a house which is actually owned by

the Haig family, and they actually have a ghillie who's needing a suit.

Richard's first task of the day is to track down Beamerside ghillie,

Ian Farr.

This is what I love about the job,

cos you never know where you're going to go.

So this is totally new to me.

Erm, next time, I'll know where I'm coming.

-I didnae see the steps there.

-Didn't see the steps?

Just need the exercise, Richard.

There's not many people know this is here,

-and how to get access to the river.

-Aye.

Lady Haig has asked Richard to fit Ian up for a new tweed jacket.

Ian, the river's changed quite a lot this year after the flood.

How far did it come up here?

-It was up to the top of the steps.

-Was it?

It's interesting to look back in the old records,

cos they had a huge flood in 1796,

when all the bridges at Gala and Jedburgh were taken down.

There are records of big floods and big fish at Beamerside.

This is the big fish that we caught in 2012.

This was the biggest fish in Scotland that year.

-It was an incredible fight.

-Very good.

You could see you're like...!

Yeah, I'm just saying, "Take the photograph, it's really heavy!"

-Right, come on, let's get some work done.

-Yeah, OK, no problem.

-Better get you measured up.

-Come on, girls.

Do you want to try that on?

The Haig family have owned Beamerside since 1921.

I think that the river is the lifeblood of Beamerside.

It's why Beamerside is here.

Economically, it's now the heart and soul.

-MOBILE PHONE RINGS

-Right, that's fine. Good, we'll get that done. Oh, sorry, that's me.

I didn't think I'd get a phone signal down here.

-I'll just turn it off.

-We try to pretend we don't have phone signal!

No, it's quite good! Down in the valley. No, but that's fine,

I'll get that organised and I'll tell you when we've got them

and when we're dropping them off and stuff like that.

And I'm sure we'll catch more fish as a result.

Hopefully, hopefully.

And what do they call this place, James? Do you know?

-The middle of nowhere.

-The middle of nowhere, aye.

River bailiff Kenny and Tweed Foundation biologist James

are monitoring numbers of juvenile fish in the Tweed river system.

We'll have a sample up here at the top of the Teviot,

and we'll have samples all the way down to the bottom of the Teviot,

all the tributaries as well.

The worry is that winter floods may have washed away eggs from

salmon and trout spawning grounds, affecting the numbers of fish.

Samples are taken from different tributaries to get an

understanding of the river system's condition.

We've got this wonderful piece of equipment here,

the electro-fishing unit, which allows us to find out what's there.

Without this equipment,

we'd have absolutely no idea what's in the water.

The electro unit transmits a low current through the water to attract

the fish to the probe, allowing Kenny to net them and James

to count them, helping determine the effects of the winter floods.

There's a salmon, there's a trout.

The salmon's got the forked tail, the trout's got a flat tail.

Salmon, 63. Trout, 109.

What that tells us is that adult salmon and trout

have been spawning here.

I'll just add those up.

Eight salmon fry, ten trout fry.

Fish returned unharmed, onto the next tributary,

where they hope to find a healthy river full of fish.

-All right, we're done here. Onwards...

-And upwards.

I'll bring me bucket,

unless we're going somewhere completely different.

In Cardrona Forest, an ancient trade is alive and kicking.

METAL CLANKS

Further down.

Every morning, I love getting up to go and shoe horses.

You've got to have a love for horses

before you want to be a farrier, I think.

And I've always had that, so...

David Merry has worked as a farrier for 19 years,

making shoes and looking after horses' feet throughout the Borders.

I think they reckon there's more horses in the Borders now

than there was 100 years ago.

So, I think somebody said, the last survey they did,

there was almost 80,000, I think? So...

And there's a good community along the River Tweed, I find, as well,

so, through all the Borders towns and coming together for their

common ridings or some other sort of festival, you know,

and a lot of the times, it is horses.

David and his farrier team have a lot of work ahead of them.

It's the Common Riding season.

Each town has their own Common Riding and it basically

goes back hundreds of years and they ride the boundaries of their towns,

to protect them from invading, other people invading.

So, June and July, they'll get on their horses,

we'll shoe them all up for the Common Riding and they'll basically

do a ride out and check the boundaries of their village

to make sure no-one's coming in that shouldn't be coming in.

Dating back to the late 13th century,

the Common Ridings are an ancient Border custom.

During continual Border wars with opposing clans and the English,

it became practice for each town to send out riders to mark the

boundaries of the common land to protect their borders and people.

Today, each town has its own commemorative festival,

to continue the tradition and to remember the fallen from

historic battles, such as Flodden Field.

A townsperson is given the honour as flag-bearer,

with principals supporting the rider.

CHEERING

MUSIC: This Is The Life by Amy MacDonald

David and singing apprentice Ross Fitzgerald...

Good tune, good tune.

..are heading to the Jedburgh Common Ride.

# And you're singing the song thinking this is the life

# And you wake up in the morning and your head feels twice the size

# And you wanna go Where you gonna go

# Where you gonna sleep tonight?

# Where you gonna sleep tonight...? #

-Nae bother. Nae bother!

-Sure?

-Oh, aye!

-Once you get a wee run, that's it, into second.

-Aye.

-Into second.

At Carter Bar, the location of the Raid of the Redeswire,

the farriers need to manoeuvre the van as close as possible

to the horses' rest area.

-Just don't go right doon this time!

-Aw, naw!

ROSS LAUGHS

Oh! Stuck in, isn't he?

-ENGINE REVS

-No, never.

I'll get these horses shod

and then I'll figure out how we're getting out.

THEY LAUGH

Riders from the Jedburgh Cavalcade will visit David and Ross

to get their horses reshod. CHEERING

We're just waiting for people

to see if there's any shoes off and we'll get them sorted out.

There'll be a mad rush, probably!

On long rides and in heavy ground conditions,

-horses can easily lose their shoes.

-Anybody else with a shoe off?

-Aye, my yin.

-The cavalcade won't hang around for long.

The boys have 15 minutes to shoe the horses.

Good boy. Yeah.

-Lovely, thank you very much.

-Cheers.

-Another one here.

In the sheds of Cowbog Farm, farmer Robert Wilson is moving some

of his pedigree Hereford cows and calves.

If we could take the mothers and their calves at the same time,

then once they get to the field, they'll stay...stay a bit calmer.

But some cows are still to calve

and he's keeping an eye on one in particular.

This is one of my favourite cows.

She doesn't look it, she's, you know, coming to calving,

so she's a wee bit lumpy and bumpy in places

but she's a tremendously good working cow for us.

So, I'm excited to see the result of this.

I'm hoping for a heifer calf, if it comes out, cos she's only

had one heifer in her time, which is a good cow for us.

I wouldn't be surprised if she calves tonight

or, erm, early hours of the morning.

Ooh, you want a bucket? There's fish in there, I've just seen one.

On the River Tweed tributary,

Kenny and James are tracking down young fish.

We're heading down river and the further we get down,

the stronger the effects of the flooding last year.

It's difficult to believe that we had flooding on a day like this.

Back in wintertime, you know,

-the river would be up above Kenny's head.

-Oh, at least.

They're looking for a good variety of fish,

different species and sizes, to assess the health of the river.

The question is whether, when the eggs have just been laid

and they're at their most sensitive,

whether they're just squashed

or washed out further, further downstream.

As they move downstream, they're hoping to find larger fish,

which will indicate a healthy river, despite the winter floods.

What we're seeing here is encouraging.

You can see every time you put the probe on, we're finding fish here,

-so, a mixture of salmon and trout.

-Come on, you.

Right, that's it. Let's count them then.

James records their vital statistics

to help him calculate overall fish numbers.

Almost all of the sites were more than I expected today,

erm, considering what happened over the wintertime.

We'll carry on doing our sampling further down the river

and we'll find good numbers and everything will be all right.

I thoroughly enjoyed it. No, it was fine, it was absolutely grand.

I think we've got a decent, erm...

I think James is quite happy with what we've got.

-LOUDSPEAKER:

-Henry VIII's rampaging soldiers in the 1540s...

At the Jedburgh Common Ride,

farriers David and Ross are close to finishing the horses.

That's brilliant.

-There we go.

-Cheers, thank you very much for that.

Perfect, brilliant, thanks very much. Cheers.

Pressure's on cos they don't want to be waiting around when they leave,

they want to just go straight away or their times are all messed up.

And our van's stuck, so I need to get that out as well!

But the joys of Common Riding(!)

ENGINE REVS

This happens every single year and...I say to him,

"Don't bring the van down," and he continues to bring the van down!

This is a nightmare, isn't it?

-BUGLE SOUNDS

-That's them ready to leave, you can hear the horn now.

That's them getting the... There he is.

He's got the red jacket on, he's the Marshal.

-Hip, hip!

-CROWD:

-Hooray!

-Let's go!

At least there's time to see off the cavalcade.

BUGLE CALLS

On Cowbog Farm,

Robert is waiting for Lucy's calf to arrive

and he's hoping it's a girl.

Well, the water's broken on Lucy.

She is aware that she is on calving and getting pretty excited about it,

I think. So... There's a bit of worry as well,

because things can go wrong, it's a...birthing process.

It doesn't take too long for the calf to make an appearance.

That's better. That's a better push.

Here we go...

At the moment, I'm a wee bit worried,

the sheet's over the calf's head.

So, if it's over the nose, and you don't get in there quick enough,

you can end up losing the calf.

I might just go and move it off its nose.

(Yeah, go on...)

COW LOWS

So, the calf's shaking its head a wee bit now.

And it's taken its first breaths, so,

I think it's been fairly successful.

It's just the fact it was born into a pile of straw and it was

getting, sort of squashed up - that was worrying me slightly.

But, I maybe worried too much.

CATTLE LOW

And it's a boy. So, we need a name beginning with N.

We've not got a Noddy yet this year, so...

HE LAUGHS

Erm, it's the start of the Gala week now,

so we've got a ride out to Lindean tonight, so, myself,

Katie and Abbie are following on horseback.

It's the day of the Galashiels Common Ride.

Yeah, I've followed probably the ride-outs since '93...

which is, what? 23 years.

Each year, a Braw Lad and a Braw Lass are selected as

flag-bearers for the Gala ride. Katie was Braw Lass in 2010.

She runs a racing garage but when time allows,

she still participates in the ridings.

I think when you're riding a horse, just constantly, all winter,

when it comes to the summer, I maybe don't do as much as I used to.

And her trusty steed for the Galashiels ride this evening?

This is Jewellery.

-SHE CLICKS HER TONGUE

-Come on, bonny lass!

So, she's actually in full training at the minute.

She quite enjoys this as well, so, gives her a change!

Well, actually, I'd swapped the tweeds to riding gear.

Right, I'll need to chase this Braw Lass on!

Richard is also riding in Gala tonight,

along with his daughter, Alice.

This is one of the ride-outs, as a father,

I can actually participate in,

so, hopefully there will be a nice cavalcade

following the Braw Lad and Braw Lass.

We ride across the River Tweed, so hopefully we'll have

a river crossing tonight cos the river's not too high.

See the things you've got to do, eh?!

Richard's wife, Lynne,

will also be on hand to see him complete the ride.

-This is the wrong way. Did you put this on?

-Yeah.

You see, when men dress theirsel'?

They say behind every good man...

Aye, there's a better woman haudin' him up, eh?!

OK...

We're away, Lynne!

Daughter Alice has the important role of Bearer of the White Roses.

Got the final approval from the boss.

-A' they women...

-See you later.

-A'right, OK, have a nice ride.

-Bye!

One, two... Ooh! That's two. We're up.

Tonight, the cavalcade will ride ten miles

around the Galashiels boundary...

Come on, then.

..finishing off with the chase up the hill.

In Peebles, UK World Chocolate Master, Ruth Hinks,

is getting ready for a really big day.

I'm looking forward to having a wee glass of Prosecco after!

Today marks the end of a long journey for Ruth -

the official opening of her dream chocolate school.

And they're expecting a very special royal visitor.

Oh, look, everybody's started to arrive now,

so it's nice to have the event finally here.

I'm like, "Oh, my God! All these people!"

You know? Don't laugh!

It's great, it's very exciting.

OK, now I'm going to put my pearls in my raspberries.

Pastry chef Zoe has been nervously preparing

a chocolate gift for the royal guest.

So, he's going to take this one home and just this one to show what

it looks like and then I'm going to decorate this one, when he's here.

Yeah! We've got a production line of "here's one I made earlier."

SHE CHUCKLES

If everybody wasn't watching, then it would be fine.

If it was just him, I would be fine.

There's going to be so many people, so, I'm going to be like, "Whoa!"

I'm nervous I'll not be able to put the decorations on,

cos I'm going to be shaking!

His Royal Highness Prince Edward is due to arrive in 15 minutes

to officially open the chocolate school.

Oh, my gosh! Oh, dear. I hope I don't get tongue-tied.

HE LAUGHS

Did you just bash your teeth off that bottle of juice?

You're a ding-dong!

David Merry and his crack team of farriers are heading to the

Duke of Roxburghe's stud at Floors estate.

We've got the farriers coming, so the main plan is to shoe them.

Nearly all of them will be shod all-round,

so we'll have a full set of shoes on.

David Trouton's stud team have 12 valuable young horses that

-need to be shod for the first time.

-This is it.

This is their time to shine.

They've only got eight weeks now until they go to the sales, so...

International racehorse farrier, Gary Pickford,

will be leading the team of farriers.

I mean, I've probably looked at 200 yearlings in the last two weeks.

-Yeah, yeah.

-And you know,

-she's well up there with the top of them.

-Yeah.

-Ready to roll, boys.

-Gary comes from, like, a racing background,

all over the world, so, definitely,

his experience and knowledge does help us out a lot. Very good.

Before they start, they must assess the hoof to decide how best to shoe each horse.

Probably what I'll do is I'll drop him right down and I'll shoe him

-a little short.

-Yeah.

-Make him sit back a bit.

Any more been sedated, David?

No, do you want another one doing?

Yeah, please, we'll have another couple.

No rest, Lester!

Vet Lester gives the young horses a mild sedative to keep them calm.

It's very important. Yeah, yeah.

They need to be just relaxed, so you can do a proper job.

Yeah, it's like going to the dentist, you can't do a proper job

if someone's jumping out of the chair, trying to fight you.

Shoeing the horses for the first time is a vital step in developing

the supreme athletes that the team hope they'll become.

-He'll go up another size next time.

-Yeah.

At the end of it, you know, you've got million-pound horses here.

So, whatever it takes to get them...

to the sales, to the best of our ability,

to make money for the stud.

The Gala cavalcade has reached the crossing at the Tweed.

-Hooray!

-CHEERING

Richard and Katie have been riding hard.

Yeah, good!

Yeah, we've had a good hurl so far and the weather's been good.

-We've had a few canters and on the road a bit as well.

-Hooray!

CHEERING

With the ride coming to its climax, it's time for the chase up the hill.

Richard and Lynne's daughter, Alice, is in the first race.

First race is just about to start for the principals coming up

the field here. Erm, so, they'll all race up here.

We're right at the finish line, to see who's going to finish.

CHEERING

Oh, she was last. Oh, dear.

Katie will be in the ex-principals' race.

So, I think her and Ryan Mania will have a good race coming up here.

Very competitive. Yes... Uh-huh.

But Katie has a Grand-National-winning jockey to contend with.

CHEERING

When Ryan was Braw Lad, he won the Grand National that year,

so, Katie coming second to the Grand National winner? That's OK.

Totally acceptable.

Finally, it's Richard's turn.

-Hip, hip!

-Hooray!

He did just like his daughter. Came in at the end there.

Too busy waving, I think! Enjoying it.

CHEERING

-Hip, hip!

-Hooray!

At Cowbog Farm, Robert's taking daughter Lottie to check on the new arrivals.

We're going up to check the young calves and, especially Noddy,

who was born the other day.

And then there's been another one born since then,

a little one called Plum.

So, she's in with them, with two or three other calves.

Hello, Noddy.

Noddy's doing well. Yeah, he's a happy little chap

and his mum seems to love him a lot. And it's good, yeah! So...

-Oh, there's my favourite one!

-Which is your favourite?

-That one.

-Plum?

Yeah, Plum.

She's got two cute spots on her head

and it's just really, really cute to me.

I love the name. Plum! And I love plums.

With the Kelso show on the horizon,

Lottie's helping her dad select the best cows for the show.

Rosettes are great but they don't put food on the table.

There is a wider commercial audience round the ring as well.

There's a pedigree judge in the middle,

who's evaluating the cattle so

we're trying to cover both bases by having a good enough animal and one

that the beef producers in Scotland will see and will like as well.

The plan is for Lottie to handle her own calf at the show.

We'll see how these calves behave once we break them,

as to whether Lottie's going to take them.

And Robert knows exactly what to look out for when selecting

prize cattle.

So, this young heifer beside the wood,

she's got a nice, attractive face on her,

for a cow, if you're into those kind of things!

Erm, she's got a good, long, straight back,

which is what we want because from a commercial point of view,

that's where all the sirloin and fillet steaks are.

She's got nice, well, as we would probably say in Scotland,

she's got nice cocky lugs. So, she's got nice big ears on her.

It means they're going to grow.

Well, there's no science behind this, obviously!

Lottie appears to have her dad's sharp eye for spotting a good cow.

-This calf will probably definitely go to Kelso show.

-Straight back.

-Straight back, yeah.

-Good standing.

Stands well, nice and square. Do you think he will be a good show bull?

-Yeah.

-Are you going to hold on to him?

HE LAUGHS

The farriers are working their way

through the 12 young horses at Floors Stud.

The Frankel is next.

So, they're all, I think they're all very pleased with him.

It brings the sale day ever closer for stud manager David.

In just eight weeks,

these horses will go under the hammer at Newmarket.

-This is Dubawi Comic.

-This could be a million-pound one.

-None of that cheap talk!

-Is that a five? Give me a four.

I don't want him pulling...

Once David has worked his magic and got it sitting down,

they don't very often pay me to shoe poor ones!

Getting the right shoes in the correct position can make the

million-pound difference for these elite horses.

I always teach all my boys, it's all about having passion.

If you have the passion,

the money and the success comes because of the passion.

You've got to have OCD tendencies, perfectionist tendencies.

Got those in abundance!

-My wife wouldn't agree with that, I don't think.

-DAVID LAUGHS

With all 12 horses shod,

they can now step up training for the Newmarket sales.

What time is your plane in the morning, by the way?

-Just thinking ahead.

-Five o'clock.

-Five!

-Ah, well, I'll leave the bicycle out for you!

-THEY LAUGH

It's been a nervous wait for Ruth and her team in Peebles.

Time for the royal stamp of approval.

His Royal Highness Prince Edward is officially launching Ruth's new chocolate school.

-Good morning, welcome back.

-Nice to see you again.

Yes, thank you very much for coming.

-Thank you. Thank you.

-Everyone's on their best behaviour!

-I'm sure it's always this quiet.

-THEY LAUGH

This is Sarah, she's our chocolate production manager.

Astrid and Richard... Ruth's parents, from Tasmania.

-Hello there, how are you?

-I think it's excellent.

He appears to be really genuinely interested in chocolate and

what's going on here. And of course,

I am overflowing with pride. It brings tears to my eyes.

And then around this corner over here, we have seen Zoe Taylor.

Hello there, hello!

-Nice to meet you.

-You as well.

-She's got a cake for you to decorate if you want to take it away!

-HE LAUGHS

There's no pressure on that one, is there?

-Here's one we prepared earlier.

-Oh, so I've got to try and copy that, have I?

-Yeah!

-Right, you just talk amongst yourselves...

-So basically you use this as a glue?

-Pretty much, yes.

-Depending on what it is we're going to...

-Beautiful, beautiful.

What do you reckon? I did say, "Talk amongst yourselves," didn't I?

There we go.

-We're recruiting soon.

-Are you recruiting? I don't think so!

-Have I got to try and put one of these in here as well?

-You do.

-Yeah, something... How many do we reckon?

-However many you like.

What do you reckon? Does that sort of...?

I don't know what it says...

Just to thank you for the honour of joining us today and

thank you to all of our guests.

It's been a long journey to get to this point,

so it's lovely to have so many of you here.

So, the object of the exercise is to try and declare this

particular building and the classes open.

Now, I do have to warn you,

I know you're quite excited about this, but the unveiling of

a plaque is not necessarily the most exciting thing...

THEY LAUGH

..OK?

So, I would like you to pretend, all right,

and that goes for all of you as well, I'd like you to pretend,

if I get this right,

-I want you to pretend that it really is THE most exciting thing...

-OK.

..that's happened in your life? OK? Do you think you can do that? Right?

-Can everybody else do that?

-ALL:

-Yes!

OK, one, two, three... Go!

THEY CHEER

-Ruth can finally start to relax.

-Whoo!

It's been a long, hard week.

Well, a couple of months and a couple of years, actually, but it's...

-Yeah, I'll drink to this.

-ALL:

-Cheers!

Next time on The River...

the International Enduro hits the dirt at Glentress...

It's nice we get the chance to have a wee romantic walk together.

..it's judgment day for the stud team...

It's probably our biggest day of the year,

whether it goes right or wrong.

..and Lottie shows her dad just how it's done.

I could scream with happiness. Like, this is a dream.