John o'Groats to Firth of Forth Coast


John o'Groats to Firth of Forth

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Transcript


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This programme contains some scenes that some viewers may find upsetting.

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We've now travelled the length and breadth of the UK

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on our voyage of discovery.

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We've visited our southern, western and northern shores

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looking at how the coast has shaped us as a nation.

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Now, for the first time, we're heading down the east coast.

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We're beginning at the north-eastern corner of the British mainland,

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the famous Scottish landmark of John O'Groats.

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Many years ago, I cycled here all the way from Land's End.

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If you're thinking of doing the same thing yourself,

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the last stretch along the north-east coast of Scotland has a sting in the tail.

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It's a killer, yet my bike ride was nothing compared to the extraordinary lengths

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that the people who live on this coast have gone to

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just to make a living.

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It's that industry and ingenuity that I'll be exploring

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in the company of our team of experts.

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Neil Oliver gets a taste of life at sea

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during one of the most troubled times in the fishing industry's history.

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Alice Roberts meets Britain's last whalers.

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Miranda Krestovnikoff has a front-row seat

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as our most northerly dolphins do a spot of salmon fishing.

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Mark Horton uncovers the origins of an invention

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that helped turn the tide of the Second World War.

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And I'll be investigating the future of North Sea oil.

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This is the story of Coast.

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On this leg of the journey,

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we'll be travelling over 500 miles,

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right down to North Queensferry in the Firth of Forth.

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Fishing has been the mainstay of communities on the east coast

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for centuries.

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In the 1800s, there were over 100 fishing ports along here.

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Today, there are still 50 working harbours.

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But because there's little protection from the wilds of the North Sea,

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it's very difficult to land boats.

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But up here in the north-east,

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they've always been an enterprising lot.

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The Whaligoe Steps zigzag their way up the sheer cliff face.

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This gigantic staircase

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was built for carrying fish from the harbour below.

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They're a monumental testament to the people who lived here.

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There were fish out there

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and they were going to land them, whatever it took.

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There were steps here as early as the 1600s,

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but the 365-step sweep that we see today was completed in 1792.

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Whaligoe was mainly used to land herring.

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At its peak in 1855,

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there were 35 boats operating out of this tiny port.

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We look at this place today and it's dramatic, it's scenic,

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but in those days it would have been horribly intimidating.

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It's a very narrow, rocky entrance.

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You're in a boat loaded with fish and you misjudge your approach... You'll be smashed to smithereens.

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Despite the dangers,

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in the 1860s, Whaligoe harbour was thriving.

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The North Sea teemed with the affectionately-known "silver darlings".

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They landed over 2,000 barrels of herring a year at Whaligoe

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and the whole catch had to be laboriously carried, basket-by-basket, up the cliff.

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It wasn't the fishermen who did the carrying, it was the women.

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The women were the backbone of the industry,

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mending the nets and gutting up to 60 fish a minute.

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To stop the men getting wet and catching hypothermia, they'd carry them out to the boats.

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You only have to climb these steps to get a feel

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for how hard life must have been for those women carrying baskets of fish up the cliff...

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..often in the winter, when the steps would have been slippery with rain and the air freezing cold.

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Looked at from the comfort of the 21st century, their lives look unimaginably tough.

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Today's east-coasters aren't scared of hard work either.

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There are salmon fishermen along here who still embrace traditional methods,

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hauling in nets by hand.

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But they've got competition -

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the UK's most northerly population of dolphins, who are also partial to this prized fish.

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Miranda Krestovnikoff is at the Moray Firth with the salmon hunters.

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This great expanse of water is a truly extraordinary place

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that really comes alive during the summer months.

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Bottlenose dolphins and fishermen

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await the salmon returning to breed.

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Seven generations of Sandy Patience's family have fished this area.

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-Come this way a wee bit.

-OK.

-There you go.

-All right.

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Is it hanging at the back? No, clear! >

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Right-o!

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Watching you guys work like this,

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-is like watching fishing from a bygone era.

-It is indeed.

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This is what they did in Biblical times.

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The net goes around in a semicircle

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and the rope is fed out and comes back to the beach.

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The net is pulled at all times. The whole operation maybe takes about 20 minutes.

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It's really full-on work.

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-It looks very tiring.

-It's very hard work.

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You can start off, like myself, weighing 13 stone

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and by the end of the season you're down to 11 stone.

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You don't need any exercise bike!

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Sandy catches an average of only 50 fish a week,

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but a single dolphin can eat up to 10 salmon per day.

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I've caught the odd glimpse or two of dolphins this morning while I've been fishing here with Sandy.

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But this isn't the best place to see them. Just over there is a little spit of land.

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That's the best place to watch dolphins from the shore in the whole of Britain.

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The dolphins congregate here at Channonry Point because it's the perfect place to catch dinner.

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It's one of the most dangerous parts of the salmon's journey back to their spawning rivers.

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As they swim past, the tide pushes them against the shore.

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It offers rich pickings for the dolphins and means we get to see them in action.

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I've met up with dolphin expert Helen Bailey.

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-Look! There's a dolphin!

-Fantastic.

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-They're a long way away but you can really see what they're doing.

-Yes.

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That's terrific, though.

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All that energy and excitement... Even from this distance you can gauge just how big they are.

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I never get over how huge these bottlenose dolphins are.

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They are really big.

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The dolphins here can be up to four metres long. It makes sense in this area -

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we've got cold water. They need a big body,

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small fins, thick blubber layer...

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-They're designed to generate heat, minimise loss...

-Changed direction!

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They're coming towards us!

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That's fantastic.

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I've heard that dolphins can eat 10% of their bodyweight a day.

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-If you've got a 300-kilo dolphin, that's 30 kilos of fish!

-Yes.

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-They'll be spending a lot of their time trying to feed.

-Superb!

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-I've never seen that before.

-The salmon are very large, fast fish.

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It could be that during the pursuit, the dolphins just break the surface.

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-We see the fish being thrown.

-Oh!

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-Those two there...

-Fantastic!

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Once they've had a good feed, the dolphins just seem to have fun,

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playing with each other and reinforcing their social bonds.

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This really is the ultimate hotspot in the UK

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to see one of nature's great floor shows.

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From Channonry Point, we wind our way along the Moray coast.

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This is the mouth of the Spey,

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one of Scotland's great rivers. It's best known for salmon fishing

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and is the magic ingredient in some fine whiskies.

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But this peaceful river was once a hive of industry.

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The Spey was a logging river, similar to the ones in the Canadian Rockies.

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The trees were felled in forests and mountains way inland

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and then the logs were floated downstream to be used in the shipbuilding industry.

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That bank of the river was once lined with shipyards.

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Between 1785 and 1890, over 500 beautifully-crafted ships were built on the Spey's banks.

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The best known were the tea clippers,

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built along this stretch of coast in ports like Kingston and Aberdeen.

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The pride of the east coast

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was the Thermopylae, once the fastest ship in the world.

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In 1872, she took on the Cutty Sark, raced her from Shanghai to London

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and beat her by an impressive margin of seven days.

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Steam and steel killed off the wooden ship.

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It's a story we've seen all the way round the UK coast -

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historic industries succumbing to modern technology. But there are a couple of pockets of resistance.

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The port of MacDuff is home to the last boatyard in the UK

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that can build commercial wooden ships.

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90% of their work is for the fishing industry.

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Although there's been a big shift over to steel, wooden boats remain popular.

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You've got quite a few wooden boats standing around being worked on.

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-Yes.

-That's a wooden one?

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-That's right.

-And that one there?

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Everything on the slip is wooden.

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-That's interesting, not a single steel boat here at all?

-No.

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John Watt is managing director of the shipyard.

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Why would somebody choose a wooden boat over a steel one?

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It's tradition. Some skippers have always had wooden boats...

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Their family's always had wooden boats. It's a nice material...

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It doesn't rust.

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The wooden boats we build are very strong. They last a long time.

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Can you still get shipbuilders who can work in wood?

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That's a bit difficult,

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getting experienced people.

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There's a serious skill shortage throughout the country. We take on six to eight apprentices each year.

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We've currently got 20 apprentices going through the company. Six are being trained on timber boats.

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-You train young Scots to build boats?

-They don't have to be Scots!

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We've now reached the heart of Scotland's biggest fishing region.

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Scotland is still one of the largest fishing nations in Europe.

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The fleet lands two thirds of the total UK volume of fish.

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But quotas imposed by Europe cutting the amount of fish they're allowed to catch

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have made recent years some of the most turbulent the industry has ever faced.

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Neil Oliver has gone to see how one particular community is coping.

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Fishing's been the main way of life in Fraserburgh for over 200 years.

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Today, out of a population of 13,000,

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over half work in fishing-related jobs.

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In recent years,

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the Fraserburgh fleet's been cut in half and the white-fish fleet

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has borne the brunt of it. It's all been done in the name of conserving fish stocks,

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and decommissioning boats has been the Government's solution.

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Sandy West and his two sons used to own a fishing trawler.

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-But the boat was decommissioned - scrapped - 18 months ago. ..Show me what's gone on.

-OK.

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In October 2003, the family made their last trip with the boat...

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to a scrap yard in Denmark.

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It's not so much the end of a dream,

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it's the end of a part of my life.

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The end of a big part of my life.

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I'll just have to get over it.

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It was so final at the time, to see the ship go.

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More than so, because that ship was actually built for the future of my two sons.

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49 white-fish boats have been destroyed in Fraserburgh over the last four years.

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Today, there are only 10 left.

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Decommissioning started because cod and haddock stocks were at dangerously low levels.

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The European Union imposed quotas, but they were driving fishermen to the verge of bankruptcy.

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Many skippers felt they had no choice but to take up the Government's offer of compensation

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to scrap their boats.

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What do you think now, nearly two years down the line, about the decommissioning?

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It's been bad for the town.

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The white-fish fleet is gone from this town.

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On the other hand, the sea is starting to replenish itself.

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What's going to happen when they need a fleet to catch these fish?

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The biggest fear here is if foreign fleets come into our waters and catch these fish.

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-There'll be an abundance of stocks.

-How does that make you feel?

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It makes you feel gutted, doesn't it? Really.

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Sandy had little compensation money left after he paid off the costs of the boat.

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He now works as a hired skipper in Ireland.

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After the boat was decommissioned, Sandy's son Zander spent a year in the oil industry,

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but now he's back - working as a deck hand on a prawn boat.

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-Is this you back on the boats?

-Unfortunately, aye.

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I just wanted to turn my back to fishing, get into something else.

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But the pull was too strong. I think it's in the blood.

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I've got it in my blood, unfortunately.

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I just had to come back.

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I'm joining Zander to try and understand what lured him back.

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HE WHISTLES

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LOUD ENGINE NOISE

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-TANNOY:

-'How are you doing, boys?

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'OK, now!'

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Wakey-wakey, Neil. Time to go!

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That was dreadful! I don't mind telling you!

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This constant noise - it's like being in a tumble dryer!

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And it smells real bad!

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The working routine involves shooting and hauling the nets,

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sorting out the catch and grabbing a couple of hours' sleep before it's time to start again.

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These guys can be working 20 out of every 24 hours.

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So is this just a typical morning, then?

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This is how it starts, this is how it ends...

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I know you've seen all this a thousand times before but it's exciting for somebody like me.

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There are now 70 prawn boats working out of Fraserburgh.

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Quotas on prawns are more generous

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so white-fish boats that could convert moved over.

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It's become the biggest shellfish port in Europe.

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But for Zander, who'd been training to be a skipper on his dad's boat the Steadfast,

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it's not the future he had planned.

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-What are you doing there, exactly?

-Just sorting 'em out, really.

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Keeping the bigger ones in one basket

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and the slightly smaller size in another basket.

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Can you imagine standing here, three, four hours a day doing this?

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You couldnae exactly turn round and get a job in here, could you?!

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When I was on the Steadfast I swore I'd never go aboard a prawn boat.

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I left the Steadfast, and the wife said, "What you gonna dae?"

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I said, "I'm nae caring as long as it's nae on a prawn boat.

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"There's no way you'll ever get me on a prawn boat."

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A year later - on a prawn boat.

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What was it about the Steadfast that made the difference?

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I think the simple bit of it is

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there's a big difference between chasing a cod and chasing a prawn.

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Chasing cod and fish,

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er, I think it's just mair exciting.

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Was it more like hunting?

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Yeah, yeah.

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The EU accept they should have tackled over-fishing earlier.

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When they eventually did, the measures they took were extreme.

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But many Scottish fishermen feel they've been hit harder than others.

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While their boats were decommissioned,

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Irish and Spanish fishermen got grants to build new ones.

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For Zander, the loss of the family boat has been devastating.

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It's really hard to explain how you feel when your life's taken off you,

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cos that's what it is.

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The Steadfast was a boat, but it was also something that had been in my family for years,

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put food on the table for years,

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so it wasnae just a job.

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And all of a sudden that's taken off you.

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Where do you go from here? How do I support my family?

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Why take somebody with ambition and knock it oot of them?

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It's clear that both the fishing industry

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and the fish stocks are fragile.

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There's a delicate balance to be struck

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to ensure we don't lose either one.

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As the scientists and politicians fight it out,

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the fishing families of Fraserburgh pay the price.

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From here it's south all the way

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as we turn the corner at Fraserburgh.

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Luckily for all of us, the North Sea has provided more than just fish.

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Beneath the waves lurks another bonanza,

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one that has transformed not just the economic fortunes of this area,

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but the whole UK.

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This beautiful beach at Cruden Bay is concealing a surprise.

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Rushing beneath my feet

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at a rate of 2½ million gallons a day is oil.

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The oil from nearly 50 platforms, sited up to 200 miles offshore,

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is passing through a single umbilical cord right here

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known as the Forties Pipeline.

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The oil industry has had a profound effect on this stretch of coastline,

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and on the UK as a whole.

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But what does the future hold for North Sea oil?

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The Forties Pipeline system took 20,000 people three years to construct.

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Built in the early 1970s,

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it was a massive undertaking

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in the same era and on the same scale as the space race.

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Today, it carries nearly half our entire oil supply

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direct from beneath one of the harshest sea environments in the world.

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But incredibly, the discovery of North Sea oil nearly didn't happen.

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It was a find of natural gas off the coast of The Netherlands

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that triggered a gigantic gamble.

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Companies staked tens of millions of pounds on a hunch

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that the Scottish waters might be hiding the far bigger prize of oil.

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One of those early oil prospectors was Rob Lingard.

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From the late 1960s, he worked as a drilling deck hand

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on board BP's Sea Quest exploration rig.

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Great pleasure to meet you. I like the hat!

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-Shall we go aboard?

-Yep.

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-Is that an authentic oilman's hat from your travels?

-It is.

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I've had this 30-odd years. A long, long while.

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-Did you see yourselves as explorers?

-Very much so,

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because we used to try all this new equipment, and smash no end of gear.

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But it was pioneering days, you know,

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and the things we used to do then you'd never get away with nowadays.

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Was it all just a big adventure or did you think, "We're really making history here!"?

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Well, to me it was a big adventure at the time.

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BP had been searching beneath the sea bed for five years,

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but had found nothing.

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Their exploration licence was about to run out,

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and the company's future was in jeopardy.

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By the 11th October, 1970,

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it was reaching make-or-break time.

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I was working on a rig floor, and lo and behold,

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there was oil floating about on top of the wood.

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First thought - rotary table leaking cos we'd had trouble with it earlier.

0:26:080:26:13

-You thought the oil had come from faulty machinery?

-We did, yes.

0:26:130:26:16

We stopped, and thought, "Oh, go down and get a sample."

0:26:160:26:21

Get the geologist out of bed, drill a little bit more, geologist going mental.

0:26:210:26:27

-Everybody's on the telex machine, coded messages.

-Why coded messages?

0:26:270:26:33

We don't want the world to know what's happening out there, there's a big investment.

0:26:330:26:38

We knew we'd got oil, but we didn't realise at the time how big it was.

0:26:380:26:43

In actual fact, you were sitting on top of the Forties field

0:26:430:26:46

-and had changed economic history for Britain.

-Certainly Aberdeen.

0:26:460:26:49

If I'd known then what I know now, I'd have gone home, remortgaged my house and bought a few shares!

0:26:490:26:56

It didn't just change the economy,

0:26:560:26:58

it changed the whole way the coast behaved.

0:26:580:27:01

-Jobs, the local economy...

-You've just got to look at Invergordon

0:27:010:27:05

where we are today. There was nothing here except bird-spotting at one time.

0:27:050:27:10

Forties was the first giant oil field to be discovered in UK waters.

0:27:190:27:24

Soon, other big fields came on stream.

0:27:260:27:28

Piper, Brent, Ninian -

0:27:280:27:31

North Sea oil had truly taken off.

0:27:320:27:36

The provincial fishing port of Aberdeen became the Dallas of the north -

0:27:370:27:42

Europe's oil capital.

0:27:420:27:44

The oil and the revenues - £200 billion to date -

0:27:530:27:57

have flowed ever since.

0:27:570:28:00

But for the first time since the discovery of the big oil fields,

0:28:030:28:07

UK oil production has begun to decline.

0:28:070:28:11

Britain will soon be a net importer of oil.

0:28:110:28:14

The problem is not that there isn't any left,

0:28:140:28:17

but that what remains is becoming increasingly difficult to extract.

0:28:170:28:21

I'm on my way to one of the New Age oil platforms.

0:28:210:28:24

With the end of North Sea gas and oil in sight

0:28:240:28:27

companies are having to find cleverer ways of exploiting what's left.

0:28:270:28:32

The Elgin/Franklin platform, 150 miles out to sea,

0:28:330:28:39

is at the cutting edge of extracting oil

0:28:390:28:42

that would have been inaccessible 30 years ago.

0:28:420:28:45

They're tapping the deepest reserves anywhere in the North Sea.

0:28:450:28:49

'David Atkins is manager of the Elgin/Franklin platform.'

0:28:520:28:56

How does Elgin differ from the fields found in the early days?

0:28:560:29:00

The main difference right now for Elgin

0:29:000:29:04

is that we're drilling a lot deeper than we did, and a lot further.

0:29:040:29:09

Here we've got a rig which has come up against the platform

0:29:090:29:13

to drill a new well for us,

0:29:130:29:14

-and this well is over 5,000 metres deep.

-That's about three miles!

0:29:140:29:19

It's over three miles deep. We're drilling down, and then we fan out.

0:29:190:29:24

Techniques have moved on in 30 years.

0:29:240:29:27

It's called directional drilling, and we can drill in practically any direction we want to go.

0:29:270:29:32

We can do loops or spirals. It's amazing what the drillers can do.

0:29:320:29:37

Originally, 20 years ago, we only expected to produce

0:29:370:29:41

20%, 30%, maximum 40% of the oil in the reservoir.

0:29:410:29:45

That means 60% of the oil is still left there in the ground.

0:29:450:29:49

What we're trying to do is work out techniques

0:29:490:29:52

to get that extra oil out.

0:29:520:29:54

Getting 1 or 2% oil from one of the large fields today

0:29:540:29:58

is the equivalent of a new find, a new discovery in the North Sea.

0:29:580:30:02

We're just going to go across to the wellhead platform.

0:30:040:30:08

This is where the wells are drilled from.

0:30:080:30:11

It feels rather as if we're walking through an underground tunnel

0:30:110:30:15

on the London Underground network

0:30:150:30:17

rather than balanced 100 feet above the open sea.

0:30:170:30:20

New techniques mean that they can carry on pumping oil

0:30:200:30:24

out of the North Sea for at least another 30 years.

0:30:240:30:28

But the boom time has passed, and ultimately the reserves will run out.

0:30:280:30:32

Are there elements of this huge oil industry

0:30:320:30:37

out here in the North Sea that can somehow be recycled

0:30:370:30:42

as other forms of energy generation?

0:30:420:30:44

Aberdeen is a centre of excellence in the oil industry worldwide.

0:30:440:30:48

So what we hope at the end of the day is maybe the oil platforms will go, maybe the rigs will go,

0:30:480:30:54

but the technique, the industry, the skills that we've set up

0:30:540:30:58

will actually last for a long time.

0:30:580:31:02

It's not all big business and heavy engineering around here.

0:31:060:31:11

But the same sense of enterprise

0:31:170:31:19

that led to the success of the oil industry,

0:31:190:31:23

the impulse to make the most of whatever nature has to offer

0:31:230:31:26

has seen a more modest harvest of the sea.

0:31:260:31:29

My name is Margaret Horn and I have a restaurant in Auchmithie village.

0:31:340:31:38

And I'm down on the shore picking up seaweed

0:31:380:31:42

like generations of Auchmithie fisherwomen before me.

0:31:420:31:45

I come down here as much as I can to get stuff for the restaurant.

0:31:450:31:49

This is dulse. This is one of my favourites.

0:31:520:31:56

You eat it like this,

0:31:560:31:58

or you can roast it with a red-hot poker from the fire.

0:31:580:32:02

It splutters and sizzles and turns bright green.

0:32:020:32:05

Sprinkle it with vinegar - delicious!

0:32:050:32:08

This is what I've been looking for to show you. This is tangles.

0:32:140:32:18

This end is what my mum would snap off and give me to eat, and say,

0:32:180:32:23

"Enjoy that - it's just like a stick of rock but much better for you."

0:32:230:32:29

OK - this is the pool I've been looking for.

0:32:310:32:34

The tide is going to come in and overwhelm us

0:32:340:32:37

but we'll be able to see this wavy one that we called sloke.

0:32:370:32:41

It's like the Japanese nori

0:32:410:32:43

and people pay a fortune for Japanese seaweeds

0:32:430:32:47

and it's growing just on our own shores.

0:32:470:32:51

Whoo!

0:32:510:32:52

We're going to be swept away!

0:32:520:32:55

Now I'll take this up, give it a good wash,

0:32:550:32:58

and then it'll be on the menu tonight, if I leave any!

0:32:580:33:03

For centuries, intrepid traders from the east coast

0:33:050:33:09

have exported their wares around the world

0:33:090:33:11

from grain to Scandinavia through to granite to New Zealand.

0:33:110:33:16

But just 12 miles offshore,

0:33:170:33:20

there's a treacherous barrier to sea trade -

0:33:200:33:24

Bell Rock - a deadly reef notorious for shipwrecks.

0:33:240:33:28

By the late 1700s,

0:33:310:33:33

Bell Rock was claiming an average of six ships a year.

0:33:330:33:37

When HMS York sank in 1804

0:33:370:33:40

with the loss of 491 men,

0:33:400:33:42

the tragedy finally triggered action.

0:33:420:33:46

This is the result.

0:33:470:33:50

Bell Rock lighthouse defiantly sticking out of the ocean.

0:33:540:33:59

It took over 100 men four years to build it in appalling conditions.

0:33:590:34:05

The challenge of building a lighthouse in the middle of the sea

0:34:050:34:09

fell to the brilliant engineer, Robert Stevenson,

0:34:090:34:12

who went on to construct over 20 Scottish lighthouses.

0:34:120:34:16

I'm going to take a closer look at Bell Rock.

0:34:180:34:22

The 100-foot high lighthouse is precariously perched,

0:34:250:34:29

ingeniously designed so its weight alone holds it on to the rock.

0:34:290:34:33

Now we're up close

0:34:350:34:37

I can see why Stevenson was commissioned to build a lighthouse on top of this ferocious reef.

0:34:370:34:42

It's actually a ridge of serrated sandstone

0:34:420:34:45

that forms the top of a gigantic submerged mountain

0:34:450:34:49

which disappears just below the surface of the water every high tide so you can't see it.

0:34:490:34:55

It's absolutely lethal.

0:34:550:34:57

The lighthouse has been doing its bit

0:34:570:35:00

to keep sailors safe since 1811.

0:35:000:35:03

So precise is its construction

0:35:050:35:07

that the stonework hasn't required any maintenance in nearly 200 years.

0:35:070:35:12

But for one east coast community, overcoming the obstacle of Bell Rock

0:35:140:35:18

was just the start of their epic voyages to some of the most inhospitable parts of the globe.

0:35:180:35:23

Alice Roberts is in Dundee - a place that likes to bill itself as "The City Of Discovery".

0:35:320:35:38

The "Discovery" in the slogan is this ship.

0:35:390:35:42

Built in 1900, she took two of the world's most celebrated explorers,

0:35:420:35:46

Captain Robert Falcon Scott and Ernest Shackleton,

0:35:460:35:49

on their very first expedition to the Antarctic.

0:35:490:35:53

In Scott and Shackleton's time,

0:35:530:35:55

Dundee led the world in building ships

0:35:550:35:59

that could withstand extreme polar conditions.

0:35:590:36:02

The famous explorers' expeditions relied on the strength of the Dundee-built vessel.

0:36:020:36:06

The Discovery was trapped in the Antarctic ice for nearly two years and survived.

0:36:060:36:11

But Dundee's shipbuilding expertise didn't come from exploration

0:36:110:36:16

but from a less glamorous enterprise.

0:36:160:36:18

The city was once one of the world's major whaling ports.

0:36:180:36:22

Dundee whaling crews had been sailing to the polar regions for over 150 years

0:36:240:36:29

before the Discovery's expedition.

0:36:290:36:33

The hunt for the great beasts of the sea took them further north

0:36:330:36:37

than anyone had been before.

0:36:370:36:39

They ventured through the ice and uncharted waters of the Arctic,

0:36:390:36:44

searching for Greenland right whales.

0:36:440:36:46

Historian David Henderson is an expert on Dundee's whaling past.

0:36:500:36:54

-Hi, Alice.

-Hello, David.

-Welcome to Discovery.

-She's beautiful.

0:36:540:36:59

Lovely ship, magnificent ship.

0:36:590:37:01

Mind your ankles on the portholes.

0:37:010:37:04

-The portholes are on the deck on Discovery, not on the side.

-Why?

0:37:040:37:10

To keep the strength of the hull.

0:37:100:37:12

She was built to barge through ice

0:37:120:37:15

and they didn't want any points of weakness.

0:37:150:37:18

It seems really strange to think of Britain as a whaling nation, cos obviously we're not any more.

0:37:180:37:24

It seems odd to think about it being such a key thing here.

0:37:240:37:28

Yes, Dundee was like many of the east coast ports -

0:37:280:37:33

the government offered a subsidy and everybody jumped in

0:37:330:37:36

-and goes whaling. This happened in Dundee in about 1750.

-Right.

0:37:360:37:41

It was fraught with difficulty -

0:37:420:37:44

on occasions, Dundee ships were trapped in the ice for months.

0:37:440:37:49

One year, 19 ships were lost, 21 came back without a catch,

0:37:490:37:54

things were that bad.

0:37:540:37:56

What were they actually bringing back? What were the main products?

0:37:560:38:00

The main one, of course, was blubber,

0:38:000:38:02

which contained the oil.

0:38:020:38:04

The other product was a material called whalebone

0:38:040:38:07

which are the baleen plates

0:38:070:38:09

that hang down inside the whale's mouth instead of teeth.

0:38:090:38:14

These plates are very flexible, and they're what made your granny's corsets,

0:38:140:38:20

and that was a very valuable commodity.

0:38:200:38:24

-So it was big business, then?

-Very big business in Dundee.

0:38:240:38:30

Simply, it was the best job around.

0:38:300:38:32

It was better than sailing to the Indies and getting standard pay,

0:38:320:38:37

because at the end of a whaling voyage, providing they got a catch,

0:38:370:38:41

they were in the money when they came off the ship.

0:38:410:38:45

It was in the 1860s that Dundee's whaling industry really took off.

0:38:480:38:53

Other whaling ports were struggling as paraffin began to replace whale oil for lighting.

0:38:540:39:01

But the Dundee whalers had a new market right on their doorstep.

0:39:010:39:05

The city's vast jute industry

0:39:050:39:08

needed whale oil for processing the cloth.

0:39:080:39:10

It was an industrial match made in heaven.

0:39:100:39:13

Dundee's whalers were the first to invest in steam ships,

0:39:130:39:17

and became a major force in the whaling industry.

0:39:170:39:20

But they were victims of their own success.

0:39:200:39:23

By the time Dundee was a key whaling port,

0:39:230:39:26

the whales they were hunting were becoming very scarce

0:39:260:39:31

and they were having to sail further and further north

0:39:310:39:35

into uncharted waters to find their prey.

0:39:350:39:39

It became a very, very risky business indeed.

0:39:390:39:44

By 1900, the Arctic whales had been hunted almost to extinction.

0:39:450:39:51

In an effort to save their industry,

0:39:510:39:53

the whalers had to look even further afield.

0:39:530:39:56

Their search took them south to the oceans of the Antarctic.

0:39:560:40:00

Whaling from Scotland continued right up till the 1960s.

0:40:040:40:08

Don Lennie and George Cummings were Antarctic whalers.

0:40:080:40:12

-Hello!

-This is George.

-Nice to meet you.

0:40:120:40:15

What are we looking at? They look fairly nasty.

0:40:160:40:19

-Very nasty tools, yes, as far as a whale's concerned.

-Yeah.

0:40:190:40:23

This looks like a pretty old instrument here.

0:40:230:40:27

Is that a harpoon that would have been used in the 19th century?

0:40:270:40:31

Certainly, yes,

0:40:310:40:32

but this would be a hand-held one with a pole.

0:40:320:40:36

-Right.

-And you come up, throw it into the whale,

0:40:360:40:40

withdraw the handle, and of course the line is attached.

0:40:400:40:45

This thing on the end - is that still a harpoon?

0:40:450:40:49

-That is one large harpoon!

-It's enormous!

0:40:490:40:52

-That's a more modern harpoon.

-Right. Just like a warhead.

0:40:520:40:57

Once it was inside the whale, it exploded,

0:40:570:41:01

and hopefully that killed the whale. In lots of cases it did,

0:41:010:41:04

but in other cases it didn't.

0:41:040:41:06

George, you were there on the factory ship taking in the whales...

0:41:080:41:12

It sounds like a horrendous job.

0:41:120:41:14

It was. Really, it was like a large, open-air abattoir

0:41:140:41:18

in freezing conditions.

0:41:180:41:20

That's basically what modern whaling's about, actually.

0:41:200:41:24

If you were below decks on the factory ship, the temperature could be up to 120 degrees Fahrenheit.

0:41:240:41:30

It was almost Dante's Inferno.

0:41:300:41:33

It was a hot, hostile environment to work in,

0:41:330:41:37

but it was a job you'd take knowing you just had to get on with it.

0:41:370:41:41

Don and George were on the very last whaling mission

0:41:410:41:46

launched from Britain in 1962.

0:41:460:41:48

Over 40 years on, they now have mixed feelings about the industry.

0:41:480:41:53

At that time, even in the early '60s, there was no conservation lobby as such.

0:41:530:41:59

We didn't think an awful lot about it.

0:41:590:42:01

We were sorry that you had to kill the whales, it was not a thing you took pleasure out of,

0:42:010:42:06

but most of the men were there to earn a good living.

0:42:060:42:11

My opinion's changed now. I'm sorry I harpooned, obviously,

0:42:110:42:15

but like anything else, you're clever in hindsight.

0:42:150:42:21

Britain was a major whaling nation,

0:42:210:42:23

and it's something we can't hide, it's part of the history.

0:42:230:42:28

It was a job of work. It was an industry, but it was a job of work like any other job,

0:42:280:42:34

and you tried not to think about the sad part of it

0:42:340:42:37

which was the killing of the whales, and let's face it, it was sad.

0:42:370:42:41

They're such magnificent creatures, they really are, and it's sad

0:42:410:42:45

to see them suffering like that, because they did suffer.

0:42:450:42:49

If whales could've made a noise we wouldn't have been there.

0:42:490:42:52

If a whale could've screamed or shrieked,

0:42:520:42:56

you wouldn't have been able to bear it. You wouldn't.

0:42:560:43:00

International commercial whaling was suspended in 1986,

0:43:050:43:09

but Norway continues to hunt them commercially,

0:43:090:43:12

and Iceland and Japan award themselves whaling quotas

0:43:120:43:16

for scientific research.

0:43:160:43:18

Over a thousand whales are killed each year

0:43:180:43:21

and many species are still endangered.

0:43:210:43:25

The thought of Britain ever being a whaling nation makes me uncomfortable

0:43:280:43:32

but it was the pioneering spirit of the whaling expeditions that set out from ports like Dundee

0:43:320:43:38

that helped drive the exploration of the Antarctic.

0:43:380:43:40

We can still admire the resilience and resourcefulness of those men,

0:43:400:43:44

who made their living in one of the planet's most inhospitable environments.

0:43:440:43:49

We're off to the windswept shores of Fife.

0:43:570:44:01

DOG BARKS

0:44:010:44:03

This is a popular spot for sports of all kinds,

0:44:250:44:28

and it was the grassy dunes of St Andrews that inspired a game

0:44:280:44:33

that's become one of Scotland's most famous exports.

0:44:330:44:37

In 1457, James II of Scotland banned his subjects

0:44:370:44:41

from playing the newly-invented game of golf.

0:44:410:44:44

Obsession with the sport was distracting the Scots

0:44:440:44:48

from their war with the English.

0:44:480:44:50

Now that distraction has become a global industry.

0:44:590:45:02

St Andrews is proud of its title as the "home of golf".

0:45:040:45:07

It has six courses, and despite the Scottish weather,

0:45:070:45:11

golfers from around the world come to play here.

0:45:110:45:14

At £115 a round on the Old Course,

0:45:140:45:18

St Andrews is a big contributor to the £300 million a year that Scotland earns from golf.

0:45:180:45:24

The superintendent of the Old Course is Gordon Moir.

0:45:270:45:30

Do you know how it started?

0:45:300:45:32

Originally, Dutch and Flemish fishermen

0:45:320:45:36

arrived at the port here,

0:45:360:45:38

and played their way along the beach into town as they were coming in,

0:45:380:45:43

then the local shepherds sort of picked up and developed that game.

0:45:430:45:49

Where did they get the idea of hitting little white balls with long, thin sticks?

0:45:490:45:54

Probably pebbles with crooks.

0:45:540:45:56

The shepherds were using the crooks and hitting pebbles along the links.

0:45:560:46:01

And what does links mean?

0:46:010:46:03

Links is really the land between the sea and the arable inland land.

0:46:030:46:07

It's too infertile for farming, possibly a bit of sheep-grazing.

0:46:070:46:11

So golf couldn't have evolved on any other part of the landscape

0:46:110:46:15

other than this link area between the seashore and the farmland?

0:46:150:46:19

It's a coastal sport.

0:46:190:46:21

Initially, it started off as a coastal sport, then it developed

0:46:210:46:25

and everybody wanted to play, so courses were built inland.

0:46:250:46:29

I'm amazed we're allowed to walk around so casually on such hallowed turf, Gordon.

0:46:290:46:34

Well, all the golf courses in St Andrews technically belong to the people of the town

0:46:340:46:39

-so it's common land.

-So anybody can come and have a picnic here...

0:46:390:46:43

You can, and the townspeople actually have the right to hang their washing out to dry here,

0:46:430:46:48

which probably started from fishermen having the right

0:46:480:46:52

to lie out their nets and mend them.

0:46:520:46:55

-Do you come across many strings of laundry on the course?

-Fortunately not.

0:46:550:47:00

It's strange to think that a coastal wasteland

0:47:040:47:07

became the bunkers and roughs that golfers know all too well.

0:47:070:47:11

This corner of the Scots coast is now replicated the world over.

0:47:110:47:15

The landscape may be ideal for golf,

0:47:170:47:20

but during World War II it was also identified by Hitler

0:47:200:47:24

as a potential spot for attack.

0:47:240:47:26

The huge beaches meant it was perfect for landing troops,

0:47:280:47:31

armoured vehicles and planes.

0:47:310:47:33

An invasion here could have cut the country in half

0:47:370:47:41

and opened up a new Northern Front.

0:47:410:47:43

Winston Churchill's response inadvertently led to one of the greatest unsung inventions

0:47:430:47:49

of the Second World War.

0:47:490:47:51

With British forces fully occupied abroad, this stretch of coast

0:47:530:47:58

was put under the protection of exiled Polish forces.

0:47:580:48:01

The anti-tank blocks strung along these beaches are a visible reminder of the Polish efforts.

0:48:010:48:07

The invasion never materialised,

0:48:090:48:12

but as Mark Horton is investigating, the Poles put their time here to good use.

0:48:120:48:17

One of the Polish officers sent to defend the Fife coast

0:48:170:48:21

designed a machine that was to save countless lives

0:48:210:48:24

in war zones around the world.

0:48:240:48:27

It is one of the most important inventions of the Second World War -

0:48:270:48:31

the mine detector.

0:48:310:48:33

Lech Muszynski was part of the exiled Polish Army based in Fife.

0:48:350:48:40

He trained with the Polish mine-clearing sappers

0:48:400:48:44

using the original mine detector

0:48:440:48:47

developed on this very beach. It must be the famous mine detector!

0:48:470:48:51

-It is, yes.

-What a wonderful piece of kit!

0:48:510:48:55

Does this date from the Second World War?

0:48:550:48:58

Yes, that was one of the first units

0:48:580:49:01

produced by the British Army

0:49:010:49:05

for the Allied Armies.

0:49:050:49:07

Before these things were invented

0:49:070:49:10

-how did people look for mines?

-Well, they had steel spikes

0:49:100:49:14

and they had to walk along the beach or field

0:49:140:49:17

and spike the ground. And if you felt a hard object,

0:49:170:49:22

you had to feel with your fingers to see if it was a mine or something else.

0:49:220:49:26

Then you had to gently remove it, which was an extremely dangerous job.

0:49:260:49:31

It was in the Second World War that mines became a major weapon.

0:49:350:49:41

Huge numbers were buried around our coasts to prevent enemy landings.

0:49:410:49:46

But they were laid in haste and the poor records of their locations

0:49:460:49:50

made them dangerous to our own troops.

0:49:500:49:53

Polish officer Lieutenant Josef Stanislaw Kosacki

0:49:530:49:59

had already been toying with an idea for detecting mines back in Poland.

0:49:590:50:04

The British War Office asked him to develop his designs

0:50:040:50:08

during his posting in Fife.

0:50:080:50:11

Do you think after all these years it still actually works?

0:50:110:50:14

-Can we have a go?!

-Well, I've got a bunch of keys here. I'll go and hide them!

0:50:140:50:18

I shall look away!

0:50:180:50:20

-Have you hidden them, then?!

-Yes, I have.

0:50:230:50:26

-So what do I do?

-Just walk with it...

0:50:260:50:29

That's right.

0:50:300:50:32

Two or three inches above the sand.

0:50:320:50:35

Slightly slower sweeps.

0:50:350:50:38

Short steps forward. That's it.

0:50:380:50:40

-I can hear this continuous tone the whole time.

-Yes, yes.

0:50:400:50:45

If you come across a metal object, it'll change.

0:50:450:50:49

-TONE CHANGES

-It's sort of fluctuating like mad!

0:50:490:50:54

-It must be...

-That's right.

-It IS!

0:50:540:50:56

-Look, keys!

-Yes!

0:51:010:51:04

The mine detector came into its own during the North African campaign.

0:51:100:51:14

German troops had protected themselves with extensive minefields.

0:51:150:51:20

500 of Kosacki's mine detectors

0:51:200:51:23

were urgently deployed.

0:51:230:51:26

The Allied Forces punched through the enemy minefields

0:51:260:51:29

and their victory at the Battle of El Alamein in 1942

0:51:290:51:34

was one of the pivotal moments of the Second World War.

0:51:340:51:38

Far more than is generally realised,

0:51:410:51:44

the mine detector has played a great part in bringing the Axis out of Africa.

0:51:440:51:48

Rommel brilliantly employed the landmine and it was necessary to find a quick and safe detector.

0:51:480:51:55

What the anti-mine device achieved

0:51:550:51:57

can be judged by the fact that this is a typical day's haul.

0:51:570:52:00

Now hear what Sgt Miller has to say.

0:52:020:52:05

I've been fighting in the desert with General Wavell and with General Montgomery.

0:52:050:52:10

My job out there was to clear mines

0:52:100:52:13

and make gaps for our tanks to get through.

0:52:130:52:16

And every 40 men I used to take out of my section

0:52:160:52:20

I knew it was certain that I'd lose ten - either blown up or killed.

0:52:200:52:24

Now we have these new detectors,

0:52:240:52:27

we are pretty certain that we won't get many casualties.

0:52:270:52:30

So how do you rank the importance of this as an invention?

0:52:300:52:35

Well, as an invention, I rank it very, very highly.

0:52:350:52:38

This is the detector

0:52:380:52:41

that was used very extensively, everywhere, all over the world

0:52:410:52:46

to...to the last conflict in Iraq.

0:52:460:52:52

But nobody's ever HEARD of Lieutenant Kosacki!

0:52:520:52:55

He has been forgotten about completely.

0:52:550:52:58

He has,

0:52:580:53:01

partly due to the fact that this invention was top-secret

0:53:010:53:05

during the war

0:53:050:53:07

and after the war, people wanted peace.

0:53:070:53:10

They didn't want to talk about war inventions and things like that.

0:53:100:53:14

It was a great invention of the last century,

0:53:140:53:18

not appreciated enough.

0:53:180:53:22

It saved countless thousands and thousands and thousands of lives.

0:53:220:53:26

Josef Kosacki's invention was never patented

0:53:280:53:31

and he received no money for it.

0:53:310:53:34

His only reward for the ingenious mine detector

0:53:340:53:39

that helped clear our beaches and battlefields around the world was a letter

0:53:390:53:43

from King George VI and a Polish Silver Cross medal.

0:53:430:53:48

We're nearing the end of our journey down the industrious

0:53:520:53:56

east coast of Scotland.

0:53:560:53:58

It's fitting that our route south takes us across

0:54:110:54:15

one of the most enduring symbols of engineering achievement

0:54:150:54:18

in the UK.

0:54:180:54:19

No landmark sums up the pioneering spirit of the east coast of Scotland better than this -

0:54:240:54:29

the Forth rail bridge.

0:54:290:54:31

One of the greatest wonders of the industrial world,

0:54:310:54:35

the bridge endures as a symbol of what man can achieve when pushed beyond the normal limits.

0:54:350:54:40

The world's first major steel bridge is 360ft high

0:54:410:54:46

and 1½ miles long.

0:54:460:54:48

It took 5,000 men 7 years to build.

0:54:520:54:55

As many as 80 lives were lost during its construction.

0:54:550:55:00

Workers on the bridge could be as young as ten years old.

0:55:040:55:08

The youngest recorded death was a 13-year-old

0:55:080:55:11

who fell from a great height and died at his father's feet.

0:55:110:55:15

There are calls now for a memorial to be erected

0:55:150:55:18

to those who died, but for the time being, this bridge itself

0:55:180:55:22

is a testament to the engineers and to the workers who risked their lives to build it.

0:55:220:55:27

The bridge opened for business in March 1890.

0:55:340:55:37

115 years on,

0:55:370:55:40

it still carries up to 200 trains a day

0:55:400:55:43

and remains an integral part of the east coast mainline.

0:55:430:55:47

I love this bridge for the elegance of its engineering,

0:55:530:55:56

for the raw strength with which it strides across this enormous gulf.

0:55:560:56:00

It's a stunning memorial for the endeavour that we've seen along the whole of this coast.

0:56:000:56:05

What a way to end our tour of the enterprising east coast of Scotland!

0:56:050:56:09

We're heading for the English border and Berwick-upon-Tweed.

0:56:130:56:18

On the Northumbrian coast, we rebuild Britain's first house

0:56:180:56:22

5,000 years older than the Pyramids.

0:56:220:56:25

We explore the spiritual isle of Lindisfarne and meet one of the coast's great survivors.

0:56:250:56:29

Further south,

0:56:290:56:31

where coal was king, I investigate how ship-building has given way to ship-breaking.

0:56:310:56:36

Industry and isolation, a coast of two halves...

0:56:360:56:39

the North-East of England.

0:56:390:56:42

E-mail [email protected]

0:56:490:56:52

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