Whitstable to the Isle of Wight Coast


Whitstable to the Isle of Wight

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Transcript


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It's good to be back.

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We love to be beside the sea.

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It's where we're free to express ourselves,

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and it's shaped our lives through thousands of years of trade,

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migration and war.

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Amen.

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But it's the mix of people in Britain

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that really connects us to the wider world.

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And in this new series, we're going further than ever before

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in search of those connections.

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'You'll feel a fair sensation of G.' Wow, yes!

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I'm definitely feeling G!

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We'll discover brand new stories close to home,

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and also journey beyond the edge of our islands to meet the neighbours.

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Far, far north to the coast of Norway...

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..and south to Normandy...

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..and out into the deep Atlantic

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to the Faroe Islands.

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Viking traders,

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Norman invaders,

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we share a common bond coast to coast,

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all part of the ever expanding story of our shores.

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It's a brand new adventure, but with some familiar faces.

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This time, Nick Crane explores lost worlds on England's largest island.

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Alice Roberts takes to the air, six inches into the air.

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There's quite big waves out here.

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Archaeologist Mark Horton searches for a Victorian railway

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that ran underwater.

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Ian, this is completely mad!

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And launching another expedition to uncover our coastal wildlife

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is naturalist Miranda Krestovnikoff.

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Me, I find new direction in life as a director

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re-living the glory days of Britain's own Hollywood on Sea.

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This is our Coast and beyond.

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For the first leg of our new adventure,

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we're heading for The Needles on the Isle of Wight,

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on a 200-mile journey along the South Coast.

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Our starting point is Whitstable, famous for its oysters.

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There's been a festival of one kind or another to celebrate

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the local catch ever since the Romans first invited themselves over

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around 2,000 years ago.

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'That's 2,000 years of coming down the sea for pleasure,

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'for nourishment...'

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Oh, my goodness! It's Moby Dick in here. OK, down the hatch.

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'..To build stuff.'

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Right, you show me what to do.

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Hereabouts the children don't make sandcastles,

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they build something called a grotter,

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tottering towers made from oyster shells.

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No-one's quite sure how it started, but the construction

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usually coincides with the ancient feast day of St James in July.

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At the end of it, these miniature shrines are offered up to the sea

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to be washed away by the tide.

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We do seem to have a tradition of building strange stuff on the coast.

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We're six miles offshore, north of Whitstable.

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Aren't these fantastic? From this angle they almost look

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as if they're moving, there's a hint of every robot monster

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that you ever saw in a sci-film, but more than anything

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to me, they look like the Martians in the War of the Worlds.

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This group of odd looking towers is the Red Sands Sea Fort.

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Built in 1943, it was a late addition to London's air defences,

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the vision of engineer Guy Maunsell.

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As building offshore in wartime was dangerous,

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Maunsell had to pioneer a new technique of construction.

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Each of the 750-ton towers was assembled on land,

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then floated out on pontoons and dropped onto the seabed.

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When in place, the individual towers of the fort

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were linked by aerial walkways.

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The fort housed up to 265 men,

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stationed here for a month at a time.

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This is a very strange place.

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On the one hand, it's all this rusted metal and rivets,

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it feels like the rusting hulk of an old battleship,

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but then you come in here, and there's beds,

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because since the war it's used intermittently as a radio station.

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It just adds to the sense of it being, I don't know,

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vaguely haunted out here, strange place.

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This was one of three forts built in the Thames Estuary.

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They were the result of hard lessons learnt early in the war

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when German bombers had used the Thames

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as a route to navigate to the capital.

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From the top of the towers anti-aircraft guns had a clear shot

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at planes trying to get to London.

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They destroyed 22 of them as well as 30 flying bombs.

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For Maunsell, it was an engineering triumph.

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Every now and again you can feel the whole thing move,

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and that's because, 750 tons or not, the strength of the fort

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comes from the fact that the legs can move, they can settle

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into the constantly shifting sand,

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and it can roll with the waves and the wind much like a tree does.

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They say that even if one of the legs was blown out,

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the individual tower would still remain standing.

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I don't really fancy trying that myself.

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Maunsell's sea fort design was to serve Britain

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one more time after the war.

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In 1955, the very first offshore drilling platform in the North Sea

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was adapted from his tower design,

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a clear inspiration for the oil rush ten years later.

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But whatever plans we have for building on the coast,

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it seems the coast has ideas of its own.

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800 years ago there was a major seaport here,

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now it's not even on the coast.

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Sandwich, although still a port in name, is two miles inland.

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Here, the coast has rebuilt itself.

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In the 13th century it looked out over the mouth of a sea channel,

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a shortcut from London to France.

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But centuries of silting up have reclaimed the land,

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and re-drawn the map.

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Whilst Sandwich may have taken a back seat,

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along the coast another port with an ancient pedigree

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is still very much on the front line.

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There's a ceaseless movement

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of people and goods at the heart of Dover.

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14 million people each year catch the ferry to France.

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As sea journeys go,

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the 20 miles or so to Calais is hardly an ocean cruise,

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more functional than fashionable,

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but Alice Roberts is finding out when a Channel crossing

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was THE glamour ticket.

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In 1974, local girl Angie Westacott applied for a new job.

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It was to be the start of a 20-year-long love affair

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with the hovercraft.

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I never ever got tired of seeing that, and to this day

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if it came up I'd still be looking at it and thinking,

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"Oh, wow, that's fantastic, absolutely amazing."

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So you got the job? Got the job, yes,

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and after a couple of days got used to the movement and the motion

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and absolutely loved it, and a lot of us did.

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It was the futuristic way to cross the Channel.

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This was the age of Concorde,

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the moon landings and giant passenger hovercraft.

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"With it's payload of 90 tonnes, it can carry 416 passengers

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"and 60 vehicles in airline-style comfort,

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"at a cruising speed of 65 knots."

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They flew for 30 years before being wound up

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and the hover port at Dover abandoned.

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So what happened?

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Didn't the passenger experience live up to the glamorous image?

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There's only one way to find out for sure,

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and that's to cross the Channel in a hovercraft ourselves,

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with Angie and some of her former crew-mates as our guides.

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But in order to get to grips with the highs and lows

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of hovercraft history,

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I'm going to have to go right back to the beginning

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to where it all took off.

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The passenger hovercraft was British through and through,

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the brainchild of Christopher Cockerill, engineer and boat builder.

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He started experimenting in the early 1950s,

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and actually worked out the physics in his kitchen.

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Hovercraft historian Warwick Jacobs is going to show me how.

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Warwick, these are the things Cockerill was playing around with.

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Yes, just household objects,

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pair of kitchen scales, coffee tins and an ordinary air blower.

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A hairdryer in fact.

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Let's see what that can lift with just a jet of air onto the scales.

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OK. Try it with one ounce first. So on this flat side.

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Yep, try it on the flat side, cos less air is going to escape.

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And that will easily lift one ounce.

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No problem. Let's see if it will lift the two.

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No, so what we're going to do now is to create, as Cockerill did,

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what we've got here is two tins, one tin inside the other tin,

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and the jet of air comes down between the two tins

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forming a curtain or jet of air, which stops this inner air escaping.

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That's much more effective than just having a single jet of air

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turning it into a ring. Exactly, the same amount of air

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doing twice as much work. Go back to one,

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and we'll see it should do that easily.

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No problem at all.

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Try it with the two.

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Easy. Yeah. Let's see if it'll do the three.

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Yes, and I'm still not touching the plate, moving around on it.

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Will it do the four?

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And if lifts four ounces.

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If you scale that up,

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the bigger it gets, the more efficient, and it works better.

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So it's a curtain of compressed air pushing down

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that gives the hovercraft its lift.

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The first successful cross-channel flight was in 1959,

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Christopher Cockerill hanging on for dear life on

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the front of his prototype to keep it weighed down.

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So how do you control what is effectively

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a big floating hairdryer?

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Time for a flying lesson.

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Whay!

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Wow, I'm just...

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I'm travelling on a frictionless cushion of air,

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but my instructor Russ tells me I'm not properly hovering yet.

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What you're doing is just blowing a big hole in the water

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and because you keep losing confidence, slowing down

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and turning too tight, you're falling into that hole in the water.

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Right, OK. You've got to keep moving,

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you've got to keep your turns gentle and keep you speed up.

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Wow, there's some quite big waves out here.

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I'm hanging on for dear life here.

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Those early pilots learning to drive these things

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really had their job cut out for them.

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Can I have another go, Russ? I don't see why not.

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Once mastered, I can see it was a lot of fun for the early pilots,

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and when the commercial service started in 1968,

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the public loved it too.

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What went wrong then? Was there something about the ride

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that made the thrill fade?

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To find out, we need some passengers. I've brought Warwick and my dad.

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He's an engineer, and he also rode on the hover service in the '70s.

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We're going to fly the old route to Calais in this 12-seater hovercraft,

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with former crew members Angie, Vanessa and Brian.

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Really strange, I've never been in a hovercraft before.

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It's really quite bizarre. It is like flying.

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What was the quickest you did a crossing to Calais in, Brian?

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25 minutes.

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Angie, you were handling drinks out to people. We were, yes,

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and in fact it was so quick that we didn't have time

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to serve all the passengers,

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so we'd phone the flight-deck and say, "Can you slow down?"

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Dad, I thought I'd find you up here with the pilot. Yes, of course.

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From what I can see you're skidding all the time, isn't that right, Rob?

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Like on ice, we're chasing a bar of soap around the bathtub,

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a bit like that, trying to grab this bar of soap

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and you can't quite grab hold of it.

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In its heyday, no other crossing could match the hovercraft for speed.

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The big craft could take on three-metre high waves,

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but it wasn't always a comfortable ride.

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Stylish maybe, smooth, that was another matter.

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30 bone-rattling minutes in,

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we're experiencing the ups and downs first-hand.

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Our pilot Rob has just decided to turn around and go back to Dover.

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We made it halfway across the Channel, but the swell got too big,

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just over a metre, so we're now heading back.

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White cliffs of Dover.

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But it wasn't the occasional rocky ride that brought about

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the end of the Dover service. Even when the Channel Tunnel opened

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passengers were still queuing to catch the hovercraft.

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Warwick, it seems like such a fantastic form of transport,

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so why on earth did it wind down?

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It was the ending of duty-free which finished the hovercraft.

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They could beat the tunnel, no problem, they were still faster

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right to the very end, but duty-free supplemented the hovercraft service.

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In fact, duty-free sales didn't just supplement the service,

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they became its main source of income.

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With spiralling fuel costs and no chance

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of replacing the ageing hovercraft, they were grounded in October 2000.

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After all those years of working on the hovercraft,

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it must have been sad to see them finally stop. It was. End of an era.

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It's still sad, actually. Coming on this today is just fantastic

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because it just brings it back even more.

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The hovercraft's inventor, Christopher Cockerill, predicted that

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we would travel across the Atlantic in huge nuclear-powered hovercraft.

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In the end, it was a dream that stalled in the Channel.

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When we've such a spectacular coastline,

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it seems a shame to leave it behind.

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For some, the Channel isn't a way out, it's a way round.

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These are outdoor swimmers, a hardy breed, experienced in the water.

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I'm Kate Rew, and I'm an outdoor swimmer.

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There is nowhere more exhilarating than the sea.

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Whatever mood I'm in, whatever kind of day I've had,

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however many spreadsheets, worries, or just tedious traffic jams,

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if you go for a swim, your day is made.

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I always make a point of talking to locals before I get in,

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and if I'm doing a sea swim

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I generally tell the coastguard where I'm going,

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because they're unused to the idea that anybody might swim

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along the length of coast. They'll try and rescue you

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unless you forewarn them.

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You just go along a length of coastline

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and you get to see everything from a very different perspective.

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Swimming at the bottom of the cliffs

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is just a wonderful experience because they look so majestic

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when you're bobbing along beneath them, 300ft of pure chalk above.

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Most outdoor swimmers around here

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would be heading off across the Channel, which I find remarkable,

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because like most people I share this universal fear of deep water.

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I get a feeling as I get further and further from the shore

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that something awful might be under the water.

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So, for me, I'm going to do two miles along the coastline

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and stay quite close to shore.

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I love the fact that it makes you fit, that it gets you outdoors,

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but I mostly like its psychological effects,

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that whatever mood you're in, by the time you get out,

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you feel you've had a really good day.

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25 five miles on from Dover,

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and the chalk cliffs have temporarily run their course,

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although their presence is still felt at Romney.

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Ten centuries ago, this was a sandy bay,

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but flint pebbles washed out of the nearby chalk formed a huge barrier,

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drying out the land behind and creating the Romney Marshes.

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Across the sparse terrain, a strange chorus rings out.

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CHIRRUPING AND CROAKING

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Like so many of us on these islands,

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these noisy little frogs can trace their ancestors to foreign shores.

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The local story says they were brought to Romney in the 1930s

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by a Mrs Percy Smith.

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She'd acquired them in France, intending to eat them.

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Unfortunately for Mrs Smith,

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they weren't the edible variety of frog.

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In fact, they weren't even French.

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They're actually Hungarian marsh frogs, not very tasty,

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but right at home in the wetlands of Romney.

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When Mrs Smith thoughtfully released them into her garden pond,

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they wasted no time escaping,

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and they've been making themselves heard ever since.

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Despite being Europe's busiest seaway,

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the Channel is rich in wildlife,

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and people take every opportunity to land a catch...

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..although sometimes it can be a frustrating business.

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The cliffs make it impossible to launch fishing boats.

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Even when there is a gap, nature doesn't make things easy.

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In Hastings, the efforts to build a harbour have either been washed away

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or run out of money,

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so the fishermen were forced to think again.

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Miranda Krestovnikoff wants to discover their ingenious solutions.

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When you don't have a harbour to launch your boat from,

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there's only one place you can go, the beach.

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Hastings is home to Europe's largest beach-launched fishing fleet.

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They've had to modify their boats,

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but for centuries they've also adapted their fishing techniques

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to suit the seasons and the different catches they bring.

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In winter, it's cuttlefish,

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a creature I've had a few encounters with myself off Selsey Bill.

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It's very big, couple of feet long.

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They're a popular dish in Italy and Spain,

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and for Paul Joy, who reckons his family have been in Hastings

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since William the Conqueror, it's a relatively new catch.

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These are cuttlefish pots, and we've worked with these generally

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for the last 15-16 years. How does it work, then?

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Well, you put a female cuttlefish in,

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then the males and females go through and they congregate.

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Next morning you pick it up, pour the cuttlefish out

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and put a fresh female back in, and so on the next day.

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What I find ironic about cuttlefish nets

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is that cuttlefish really like to lay their eggs here,

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and it seems a shame that those eggs are wasted.

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No, they're not wasted, we get them back in the sea as soon as possible

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for our next generation. Great stuff.

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Equal care and stealth is required for the summer catch, Dover sole.

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These flatfish live on the seabed, burying themselves for protection,

0:23:510:23:55

and so require a very specific kind of net.

0:23:550:23:57

This is one of your trammel nets then. Yes, this is a trammel net.

0:23:570:24:01

How does it work? Effectively, visualise a tennis net

0:24:010:24:05

sitting on the bottom of the sea and the lines are tied.

0:24:050:24:08

It only stands about four foot high at most in the slack water,

0:24:080:24:11

and when the tide is running, it's very low.

0:24:110:24:13

The fish comes swimming along near the bottom. It hits,

0:24:130:24:17

goes through the larger outer mesh, hits the inner mesh,

0:24:170:24:20

then forms a pocket behind the fish, like a system of traps.

0:24:200:24:24

Where does this net originate from?

0:24:240:24:27

We believe it originated from France,

0:24:270:24:29

but it could have come from the Mediterranean

0:24:290:24:32

where they've used this type of net, but much smaller mesh,

0:24:320:24:35

for many generations. So it's a very ancient tradition.

0:24:350:24:38

Trammel nets are an ancient fishery.

0:24:380:24:40

Flatfish are most active when it's dark,

0:24:420:24:44

so the trammel nets have to be left out overnight.

0:24:440:24:47

It's the crack of dawn, and it's a real struggle

0:24:500:24:53

just getting the boats down the beach into the water

0:24:530:24:56

so they can go and catch fish.

0:24:560:24:58

We're off to check the nets for Dover Sole, and it takes a while.

0:25:010:25:06

Each boat is painstakingly launched using ropes, winches and bulldozers.

0:25:060:25:11

Most of the craft are less than 10 metres long.

0:25:130:25:16

Any larger and they couldn't get off the beach.

0:25:160:25:19

And we're off, it's an absolutely beautiful morning.

0:25:230:25:27

We've got about 2.5 miles to sail out to sea to check the nets

0:25:270:25:30

and see if all that hard work's really going to pay off.

0:25:300:25:34

For Graham and his crew, the first haul is always an anxious moment.

0:25:420:25:46

There are no guarantees with this method of fishing,

0:25:490:25:53

even with their years of experience.

0:25:530:25:56

It looks as if they've hardly caught anything.

0:25:560:25:59

In fact, with their trammel nets,

0:25:590:26:01

they've managed to target exactly what they were after, flatfish.

0:26:010:26:05

This is average for this time of the year, not bad, just average.

0:26:050:26:10

I'm amazed at how selective the nets are here,

0:26:100:26:14

very little's coming up that's not a flatfish.

0:26:140:26:16

No, these are a selective way of fishing.

0:26:160:26:18

What's the smallest size you're allowed to take?

0:26:180:26:21

Cos there's a measurement, isn't there?

0:26:210:26:23

9.5 inches. 9.5 inches. Just under three years old.

0:26:230:26:26

So you're not catching fish so young they haven't bred yet? Yes.

0:26:260:26:30

Understanding the behaviour of the fish and their lifecycle,

0:26:300:26:33

how important is that when you're fishing? Very important.

0:26:330:26:36

We've had scientists onboard doing surveys with us, and they said

0:26:360:26:41

it is the most eco-friendly way of fishing that can be devised.

0:26:410:26:45

Working with the rhythms of nature in small boats with specialist nets

0:26:450:26:51

doesn't bring in huge a catch, but it has brought other benefits.

0:26:510:26:55

Fish stocks here have remained healthy, in some cases increasing,

0:26:590:27:05

which means the ancient beach fleet of Hastings

0:27:050:27:08

could be here for the long haul.

0:27:080:27:10

NEIL OLIVER: A stone's throw from the shingle beach

0:27:170:27:20

is a miniature Battle of Hastings.

0:27:200:27:22

There are golf courses all along this coast.

0:27:240:27:27

Even the smallest ones attract players from foreign shores.

0:27:270:27:32

It may seem crazy to us, but it's a serious business for them.

0:27:320:27:36

My name is Jouni Valkjarvi,

0:27:380:27:41

I come from Finland.

0:27:410:27:43

I came over here to Britain to play miniature golf.

0:27:430:27:47

I'm here in Hastings to prepare for the British Open.

0:27:470:27:51

Now that I've warmed up at the crazy golf course,

0:27:570:28:01

I'm going to try out this adventure golf course.

0:28:010:28:05

Adventure golf is more about the surroundings than the course itself,

0:28:060:28:10

with waterfalls and stuff like this.

0:28:100:28:13

When I approach a new hole I haven't played before,

0:28:130:28:17

I take many practice shots, I make a note of where I placed the ball,

0:28:170:28:23

where I tried to aim to find the best line.

0:28:230:28:27

Oh, dear!

0:28:270:28:28

We do have a lot of different balls we are allowed to use.

0:28:280:28:32

Those balls have different properties

0:28:320:28:36

in jump, weight and hardness.

0:28:360:28:39

If I think I need to play a rebound shot, or go straight to the hole,

0:28:390:28:43

I choose the right ball for that particular hole.

0:28:430:28:47

I've been coming to England for this tournament...this is my fourth time.

0:28:480:28:52

I hope to win. It won't be easy,

0:28:530:28:56

but I just hope I'm happy with my own game.

0:28:560:29:01

NEIL OLIVER: And if you're wondering, Jouni finished the British Open

0:29:050:29:10

in a creditable third place, beaten by two Swedish players.

0:29:100:29:14

Hastings has seen an ebb and flow of people

0:29:170:29:20

as much as any place on this coast.

0:29:200:29:23

But when the Normans arrived in their longboats,

0:29:230:29:26

it's generally acknowledged that they didn't land in Hastings.

0:29:260:29:29

Pevensey, 10 miles west, was ground zero in 1066.

0:29:320:29:36

From Beachy Head to Brighton, the chalk cliffs form a barrier

0:29:490:29:53

with only a few natural breaks.

0:29:530:29:54

One chink in this coastal armour is at Rottingdean.

0:29:580:30:02

It's been an obvious temptation to invaders and marauders for centuries,

0:30:060:30:11

but Mark Horton has been drawn here by Rottingdean's hidden treasures.

0:30:110:30:16

For me one of the best things about the coast

0:30:170:30:22

is the way low tide reveals lost secrets of the sea.

0:30:220:30:27

I'm looking for clues to a mad piece of Victorian engineering.

0:30:270:30:32

An electric railway that ran under the sea.

0:30:340:30:38

It was built by engineer Magnus Volk in 1896.

0:30:390:30:44

He wanted to create an electric railway

0:30:440:30:47

that could run along the beach, even at high tide.

0:30:470:30:51

Quite how he did it

0:30:530:30:56

would only become clear to me once the tide has gone out.

0:30:560:31:00

So I've time to look into why he would want to build it here

0:31:010:31:05

in the first place.

0:31:050:31:08

Volk, the son of a German emigre,

0:31:080:31:11

wasn't the first person with foreign connections

0:31:110:31:15

to influence the town.

0:31:150:31:17

By the Saxon pond, next to a Norman church,

0:31:190:31:23

the connections go even further.

0:31:230:31:26

Sue, Glenda and Catherine from the local Preservation Society

0:31:270:31:32

want me to see the former home

0:31:320:31:34

of a celebrated son of the British Empire

0:31:340:31:38

who put Rottingdean in the public eye.

0:31:380:31:42

I feel like a rubbernecking tourist!

0:31:420:31:45

So who's house is that? Rudyard Kipling's.

0:31:450:31:47

Do they really bring ladders to look inside? No, no.

0:31:470:31:50

One of the local pubs ran a double-decker horse-drawn omnibus

0:31:500:31:53

for the tourists, and they came round,

0:31:530:31:57

parked outside the wall, the tourists rushed to the top deck

0:31:570:32:00

and looked over the wall at Kipling, and this is where he was standing.

0:32:000:32:03

Kipling arrived in 1897, already a household name.

0:32:030:32:09

His most famous work, The Jungle Book,

0:32:090:32:13

had been published three years before.

0:32:130:32:15

And did Kipling living here, did it make a more famous place?

0:32:150:32:20

Absolutely, he brought all his famous friends, artistic friends,

0:32:200:32:23

and suddenly tourism started,

0:32:230:32:25

people wanted to see them, so they flocked here.

0:32:250:32:28

Rottingdean, popular with day-trippers,

0:32:290:32:32

now had celebrity status, a boon for Volk and his electric railway.

0:32:320:32:38

And now, exposed by the tide, is what I've come to see.

0:32:450:32:50

Ian Gledhill has written a history of Volk's eccentric railway.

0:32:520:32:57

Ian, this is completely mad!

0:32:570:32:58

It is unbelievable that there should be a railway along the beach.

0:32:580:33:02

The track ran on these concrete blocks, this is one set of tracks

0:33:020:33:05

and there was another set further over.

0:33:050:33:08

Hang on.

0:33:080:33:09

You can see its line running along here. Yes, four rails,

0:33:110:33:14

two rails on here, and two over there, 18 feet between the two,

0:33:140:33:17

it had the widest track gauge of any railway ever built.

0:33:170:33:20

It stretched for three miles towards Brighton.

0:33:200:33:24

The track was underwater at high tide,

0:33:240:33:27

so what sort of train could run on it?

0:33:270:33:29

This is a model made by Magnus Volk in 1893.

0:33:290:33:34

The final one looked somewhat different from that,

0:33:340:33:37

but that was his first idea of it.

0:33:370:33:39

Isn't that wonderful? It must have been an extraordinary sight.

0:33:390:33:43

It was absolutely enormous.

0:33:430:33:46

It stood on legs 24ft high, the deck was 50ft long,

0:33:460:33:49

on the top was a cabin that could carry 30 passengers in comfort

0:33:490:33:53

with stained-glass windows, chandeliers.

0:33:530:33:56

Can I just ask the simple question?

0:33:560:33:59

It operated by electricity. Yes.

0:33:590:34:01

It's going underwater. How did it work?

0:34:010:34:04

Well, there was an overhead wire mounted on posts alongside the track,

0:34:040:34:08

the current came through the motor and the return was through the rail,

0:34:080:34:12

so that meant at high tide, it was through the sea itself,

0:34:120:34:16

but there wasn't a Health Safety Executive in those days.

0:34:160:34:18

I don't know what they'd have said if he'd proposed it now.

0:34:180:34:22

And this is the only footage of Volk's creation, the Daddy Longlegs,

0:34:220:34:29

as it came to be known, at high tide.

0:34:290:34:33

But the Daddy Longlegs was created as an extension

0:34:340:34:39

to a railway Volk was already operating in Brighton.

0:34:390:34:44

This is him on the footplate on its opening day.

0:34:440:34:48

Over 125 years later,

0:34:490:34:51

it's still running along the seafront in Brighton.

0:34:510:34:56

I'm curious to know about Volk the man.

0:34:580:35:00

His granddaughter, Jill Cross, remembers him from the 1920s.

0:35:020:35:07

He was a very inventive person.

0:35:080:35:10

His house was the first one in Brighton to be lit with electricity.

0:35:100:35:16

Also he was an honorary radiographer

0:35:160:35:21

at the Children's Hospital.

0:35:210:35:23

As a teenager, Jill used to visit her grandfather

0:35:240:35:27

at his workshop, which is still being used by the railway today.

0:35:270:35:31

Such a small door.

0:35:310:35:33

Well, he wasn't very big himself.

0:35:330:35:36

About 80 years since I came here last.

0:35:360:35:40

What was this space used for?

0:35:430:35:45

They had the dynamos here

0:35:450:35:48

to power the electric railway.

0:35:480:35:50

Nearly there.

0:35:530:35:53

So, Jill, do you almost expect to see your grandfather there?

0:35:530:35:57

Yes, sitting at his desk, and keeping an eye on things out there,

0:35:570:36:02

watching the trains go up and down.

0:36:020:36:05

That's wonderful.

0:36:050:36:06

You can see why he chose this spot for his office.

0:36:060:36:09

Oh, yes, to see what's going on.

0:36:090:36:11

That's good.

0:36:110:36:12

So Volk's original railway is still here, but what happened to his Daddy Longlegs?

0:36:120:36:19

MAN: There was the most appalling storm in 1896.

0:36:190:36:23

Daddy Longlegs fell over and was totally destroyed,

0:36:230:36:26

and it had only run for six days.

0:36:260:36:29

Imagine the frustration Magnus Volk must have felt!

0:36:290:36:32

But he re-built it, and it ran for another four years after that.

0:36:320:36:36

That must have cost investors a huge sum of money?

0:36:360:36:38

It was probably half a million pounds in modern terms to re-build it,

0:36:380:36:42

and it never made money after that which was one of the reasons why it didn't last.

0:36:420:36:47

In the end, Volk had to abandon the Daddy Longlegs

0:36:490:36:54

because he couldn't afford to move the tracks to make way

0:36:540:36:58

for new coastal defences.

0:36:580:37:00

His electrifying attempts to conquer the waves were claimed by the sea.

0:37:010:37:07

NEIL OLIVER: There's been a steady flow of people with new ideas along this coast.

0:37:150:37:19

Brighton, officially the city of Brighton and Hove,

0:37:210:37:25

was in the 1820's the main terminal for ferry travel to France.

0:37:250:37:30

Before the railways it was the quickest route from London to Paris,

0:37:330:37:37

which may explain its earlier attraction to a bohemian crowd of artists and free-thinkers.

0:37:370:37:43

At the turn of the 20th century, they were joined by another group, pioneers in a brand new field.

0:37:450:37:52

They invented something so fundamental that we use it all the time while making Coast.

0:37:520:37:57

In fact, we used it just now,

0:37:570:37:59

and now,

0:37:590:38:00

and now.

0:38:000:38:02

These pioneers were Britain's early film-makers

0:38:070:38:11

and they helped create the modern movie, because they invented, among other things, the close-up.

0:38:110:38:17

In the late 1890's, when Hollywood was little more than a citrus grove on the West Coast of America,

0:38:200:38:26

the South Coast of England was a hotbed of movie making.

0:38:260:38:30

Long hours of summer daylight made it ideal,

0:38:320:38:36

but the very first films were pretty static by modern standards.

0:38:360:38:40

Simple records of daily life, these early films were known as "animated photographs".

0:38:420:38:48

They captured events as they unfolded in one continuous un-edited shot.

0:38:480:38:53

But George Albert Smith, a Brighton showman turned film-maker, had some new ideas.

0:38:560:39:02

Frustrated by these single-shot films, he was about to transform this infant medium.

0:39:020:39:09

Film historian Frank Gray is showing me how.

0:39:110:39:15

What Smith did was to begin to imagine you could build a film sequence.

0:39:150:39:19

Instead of conceiving of a single shot like the frame, you could move

0:39:190:39:23

from that and you could look at what I'm seeing now of you,

0:39:230:39:28

how you're looking at me, and also too the sense in which the sea,

0:39:280:39:32

the sky, the shingle and then the kind of wider space in which we're in.

0:39:320:39:36

'Just as we move OUR camera to get different shots, Smith did the same thing,

0:39:360:39:43

'except he was the first to think of it.'

0:39:430:39:46

And in this early film he shows another first, the close-up.

0:39:460:39:51

So does this approach enable the director to trick the audience?

0:39:530:39:56

All the time, film's always about trickery.

0:39:560:39:59

You're working with a set of shots which create an illusion of a

0:39:590:40:03

continuity of time and space, and I think that's why we love the medium.

0:40:030:40:08

THUNDER RUMBLES

0:40:080:40:10

Strange to think THIS is where the modern movie was created, around 1900.

0:40:100:40:15

It can't have been without its problems.

0:40:170:40:19

Moving the big hand-cranked cameras.

0:40:190:40:21

Working with actors instead of just recording life as it happened.

0:40:230:40:28

To understand the challenges they faced, we're going to try making

0:40:280:40:31

a movie using only the equipment available to those early film-makers.

0:40:310:40:37

Our drama will re-create this production from 1920, an adaptation

0:40:380:40:42

of Thomas Hardy's The Mayor Of Casterbridge, made by the ambitions sounding Progress Film Company.

0:40:420:40:50

They were based in Shoreham, a few miles up the coast from Brighton.

0:40:500:40:54

We're also using one of their original locations, an old fort.

0:40:540:40:58

Shoreham was a rather heady place in the 1920s.

0:41:000:41:03

Glamorous London actors spent their summers here,

0:41:030:41:07

a ready-made cast of luvvies for the Progress Film Company.

0:41:070:41:11

'But what was it like to make films here?

0:41:140:41:17

'Gillian Gregg's grandfather actually ran the Progress Studios and her mum was a child star.'

0:41:170:41:22

This is my mum. And what age is she there?

0:41:220:41:26

Only 16, she acted under the name of Mavis Claire.

0:41:260:41:29

And it's The Mayor Of Casterbridge, so this is a still taken during the film.

0:41:290:41:34

So if this scene here is being shot in a studio,

0:41:340:41:37

where were those buildings in relation to where we are?

0:41:370:41:40

Well, the best evidence I have of that is in this other album.

0:41:400:41:44

This was the glasshouse where they did a lot of the filming because of all the natural light.

0:41:440:41:50

The glasshouse was just down there on the shingle,

0:41:500:41:54

and the studio rest and the bungalows were all along the shingle along here.

0:41:540:41:58

So there was a Hollywood by the sea.

0:41:580:42:01

Yes, I think it was. What did your mum talk about when you got her onto the subject?

0:42:010:42:04

She talked a little bit about The Mayor Of Casterbridge, and they

0:42:040:42:08

went over to Dorchester to meet Thomas Hardy who watched the set.

0:42:080:42:12

Really?! Thomas Hardy?

0:42:120:42:14

Yes, Thomas Hardy. Fantastic.

0:42:140:42:16

I wonder how he felt seeing his book being adapted.

0:42:160:42:20

I think he was pretty pleased with it, and about my mum he said, "Mavis Claire, she is my Elizabeth."

0:42:200:42:25

Really, so he named-checked her personally.

0:42:250:42:28

Yes.

0:42:280:42:30

Most of the Progress Company's features have been lost, but luckily

0:42:310:42:35

The Mayor Of Casterbridge has survived.

0:42:350:42:38

And as an added bonus, I've got Gillian's mum's copy

0:42:390:42:44

of the original script, complete with director's notes, look at that!

0:42:440:42:48

Thomas Hardy handled this script, and now I've got it.

0:42:480:42:53

But for our film-making experiment, the first thing I need to get to grips with is the camera.

0:42:550:43:00

This looks more like a bit of furniture than a camera, John.

0:43:000:43:03

Yes, this goes back to the 1920s.

0:43:030:43:05

Early cinema enthusiast John Adderley is going to help me.

0:43:050:43:08

It's the gauge that Edison patented. For lining up, what you do is you pull it around to that position

0:43:080:43:14

and you can see there's a viewing system, and you can actually look through the lens.

0:43:140:43:20

And it's upside down.

0:43:200:43:21

Yes, yes. And you can see that's all the gubbins in here.

0:43:210:43:26

So gorgeous, though, look at it.

0:43:280:43:30

We've assembled our cast of local actors,

0:43:320:43:35

but there'll be no relaxing in the Winnebago for them.

0:43:350:43:39

Just as in 1920 we've no electric lights, so we must make most of the daylight.

0:43:390:43:45

All we need now is a director.

0:43:450:43:48

That would be me.

0:43:480:43:50

OK, everyone, silence please.

0:43:520:43:54

We're going to do a scene now.

0:43:540:43:56

First positions, please.

0:43:560:43:58

Mr Henchard, sitting down, thank you.

0:43:580:44:00

That's good, keep going.

0:44:010:44:02

'I have to get the cranking just right, a constant 16 frames a second,

0:44:020:44:08

'otherwise the action will appear jerky, unlike the original.'

0:44:080:44:11

We're burning daylight here you know.

0:44:140:44:17

And, action!

0:44:190:44:20

And if you're wondering about the bizarre make-up, so am I.

0:44:220:44:27

The film was autochromatic, it wasn't sensitive to reds, it's more sensitive to blue, so blue comes out

0:44:270:44:33

quite light, and red goes absolutely black, so that's why we put the blue on the lips, and around the eyes.

0:44:330:44:39

So, in an autochromatic film, they were look a good deal more lifelike and realistic

0:44:390:44:43

than they do to naked eye?

0:44:430:44:45

Yes, yes, hopefully.

0:44:450:44:47

We're moving the camera.

0:44:470:44:48

Haven't got all day.

0:44:490:44:51

'It's time to put George Smiths' ideas into action, and get a new angle on the scene.

0:44:510:44:57

'It's an involved process setting up a new shot.

0:44:570:45:00

'I can see why mainly early film-makers didn't move the camera at all.'

0:45:000:45:05

A bit faster. And, action!

0:45:070:45:10

'But on the plus side, as this is a silent movie, I don't have to be.'

0:45:100:45:14

Susie, step into the gap...

0:45:140:45:17

And cut!

0:45:170:45:19

That was good, yeah, yeah, cos you let it...

0:45:190:45:22

That's the first time you've said that.

0:45:220:45:24

SIGHS: There we go, wrapped my first movie, great fun.

0:45:240:45:28

The most satisfying part was that it was hand-cranked, you got a real sense of the moment being recorded.

0:45:280:45:34

It's definitely the future for me.

0:45:340:45:37

We've rushed the film to the labs for developing, and at the end of

0:45:380:45:42

the day, like the early pioneers, we nervously check our rushes.

0:45:420:45:47

Only the whole of Brighton seems to have been invited along.

0:45:480:45:52

Look at that close-up, look!

0:45:580:46:00

The cranking seems to have worked as the action is smooth, the light is good too,

0:46:070:46:12

and that autochromatic film has made the blue make-up look almost natural.

0:46:120:46:17

ALL: Ah!

0:46:200:46:21

80 years on from the original, it's still a crowd puller.

0:46:210:46:26

Selsey Bill.

0:46:520:46:54

Its shallows and riptides have made it treacherous for shipping for centuries.

0:46:540:46:58

As a result, much of the history of this headland lies at the bottom of the sea.

0:46:580:47:04

But these divers from Southsea Sub-Aqua Club aren't hunting for shipwrecks...

0:47:070:47:12

..they're in search of shells,

0:47:140:47:17

World War II shells.

0:47:170:47:19

And the tanks that never got to fire them.

0:47:210:47:26

There are two tanks and two bulldozers from D-Day,

0:47:260:47:31

they didn't actually make it across to the Normandy Beaches, and

0:47:310:47:34

we're trying to find out the types of tanks they are,

0:47:340:47:38

and also how they ended up lying on the seabed.

0:47:380:47:41

There are around 20 officially protected wreck sites along this stretch of coast.

0:47:440:47:48

Much of the initial measuring and recording is done by amateur divers.

0:47:480:47:52

Most recreational divers, they go down to dive

0:47:540:47:57

to just have a pleasant time,

0:47:570:47:58

to enjoy themselves, and hopefully come back safe and sound.

0:47:580:48:01

These divers have actually challenged themselves

0:48:010:48:04

to do a job of work, and they're doing it really well.

0:48:040:48:07

And finally they find those shells.

0:48:090:48:12

Intended for D-Day, they've been at the bottom of the sea for more than 60 years.

0:48:120:48:19

Just coming up should be the metal round plates which says that they're Centaurs.

0:48:190:48:26

There it is, there you go, definitely.

0:48:260:48:29

So there's your identification.

0:48:290:48:31

These Centaur tanks are pinpointed, recorded, and put on the map of the British coastline,

0:48:310:48:37

to become part of our maritime history.

0:48:370:48:41

Approaching Portsmouth,

0:48:480:48:50

looking out over the Solent, a reminder of the start of our journey,

0:48:500:48:56

sea forts,

0:48:560:48:58

and hovercraft.

0:48:580:49:01

The UK's only regular passenger service flies just above the sea out to the Isle of Wight.

0:49:010:49:09

On this restless coastline everything's on the move, even the land.

0:49:090:49:16

The Isle of Wight seems so permanent and immoveable, and yet it's on a monumental journey.

0:49:160:49:22

Nick Crane's crossing the Solent, in search of where the island's been,

0:49:220:49:27

and what's happened to it along the way.

0:49:270:49:30

Sailing around the Isle of Wight you get some sense of its size.

0:49:350:49:38

At 23 miles across its England's largest island.

0:49:380:49:46

It seems like a lost world.

0:49:460:49:48

In fact, it's a time capsule containing

0:49:480:49:51

clues to a journey the whole of the British Isles has been on.

0:49:510:49:55

On a lost world you'd hope to find dinosaurs, and you wouldn't be disappointed.

0:49:560:50:03

This is a dinosaur footprint,

0:50:030:50:05

the beach is absolutely littered with them,

0:50:050:50:08

they've fallen out of the cliff above me as the sea has eroded.

0:50:080:50:12

It belongs to a four or five-tonne Iguanodon,

0:50:120:50:14

and look you can see one articulated toe here, here's another one,

0:50:140:50:17

the third toe has been snapped off, and here is the heel.

0:50:170:50:20

These massive beasts tramp along this beach 130 million years ago,

0:50:200:50:26

except that back then this land wasn't even here.

0:50:260:50:29

And that's because the Isle of Wight has been on the move for ages, geological ages.

0:50:310:50:36

And the evidence of its epic voyage is everywhere.

0:50:380:50:42

This chalk is created from the remains of plankton which died

0:50:430:50:46

78 million years ago in a very warm, very clear tropical sea.

0:50:460:50:52

There certainly aren't tropical seas here now, so where was the Isle of Wight when the chalk was laid down?

0:50:550:51:02

Well, a lot further south, and at the time it wasn't

0:51:020:51:06

even an island.

0:51:060:51:08

10,000 years ago it was part of the landmass of Britain.

0:51:090:51:14

Step back 10,000 more and Britain was attached to the European mainland,

0:51:140:51:20

but rewind a colossal 135 million years to the time of the dinosaurs

0:51:200:51:26

when the continents were a lot closer together, Europe was 1,000 miles further south than now.

0:51:260:51:33

The Isle of Wight has seen a lot of action on its journey north, and not

0:51:350:51:39

surprisingly has picked up a few knocks along the way.

0:51:390:51:43

You can see the bruises from those knocks in the landscape.

0:51:430:51:49

Overlooking the multi-coloured cliffs at Alum Bay,

0:51:490:51:52

geologist Alasdair Bruce is helping me get my eye in.

0:51:520:51:56

What we're looking at it the huge fold in the earth's crust.

0:51:560:52:00

So if I elaborate by showing you this, that is essentially what we're looking at end-on.

0:52:000:52:04

So this bit of the book is that peninsula sticking out in the sea?

0:52:040:52:08

Yeah, those horizontal beds in the distance,

0:52:080:52:10

and as you come further into the bay and into the Alum Sands themselves, they've now been tilted vertically.

0:52:100:52:15

And that's the vertical part. That's the centre. This bit here?

0:52:150:52:20

Indeed. OK. So what caused the fault?

0:52:200:52:23

Well, millions of years ago when Africa thundered into Europe to create the Alps.

0:52:230:52:26

These are the plates covering the surface of the planet

0:52:260:52:29

that shift around. Constantly moving.

0:52:290:52:31

And as a result of that collision

0:52:310:52:33

we all had to make way, geologically speaking, and our contribution in

0:52:330:52:36

Britain was this large fold, and this essentially forms the backbone of the Isle of Wight.

0:52:360:52:42

Switzerland got the Alps, the Isle of Wight got the fold.

0:52:420:52:44

The chalk ridge running the length of the Isle of Wight, is in fact the last ripple of a colossal shockwave,

0:52:460:52:53

the result of a continental car crash between Africa and Europe 65 million years ago.

0:52:530:53:00

But even that didn't dislodge the Isle of Wight from the mainland of Britain,

0:53:000:53:06

and you can still see the evidence of where it was connected, at The Needles.

0:53:060:53:11

Alasdair, can you describe exactly what we'd have seen 10,000 years ago

0:53:130:53:17

if we'd looked from here towards what is now Dorset?

0:53:170:53:20

We'd have seen a line of white chalk cliffs, and behind that you'd have had sort of like cliff

0:53:200:53:25

tops covered in primitive grasses, and as you walked away from that sort of coastal environment,

0:53:250:53:30

you'd have walked into ancient woodlands and slowly down to shores of the estuary of the River Solent.

0:53:300:53:35

Sounds like a paradise. Indeed.

0:53:350:53:37

So how did that woodland paradise become an island?

0:53:390:53:42

20,000 years ago, Northern Europe and most of Britain

0:53:440:53:48

was covered with a layer of glacial ice over a mile thick.

0:53:480:53:52

It started to warm up, the ice melted and water levels rose,

0:53:520:53:57

but that wasn't the only thing that helped create the Isle of Wight.

0:53:570:54:02

The other process is best illustrated by two men with an inflatable bed.

0:54:030:54:08

OK, this is a primitive United Kingdom, we're going to have Scotland at one end,

0:54:090:54:13

and the Isle of Wight on the other end. This is the North?

0:54:130:54:16

It is, and it's very malleable as you can see.

0:54:160:54:18

So you're saying that the surface of the planet is this bendy in places? Yes, geologically speaking.

0:54:180:54:23

20,000 years ago, Scotland was covered with two kilometres thick of ice,

0:54:230:54:27

an enormous amount of weight, and I want you to be that weight, so in you go. I'm Scotland, covered in ice.

0:54:270:54:33

If I bring in the Isle of Wight, put that in place,

0:54:330:54:35

then we wind the clock forward to about 12,000 years ago,

0:54:350:54:39

the glaciers are melting away from Scotland really rapidly, so off you get.

0:54:390:54:43

This drops, sinks down a bit, that is called "isostatic rebound".

0:54:430:54:48

But what's happened to the Isle of Wight is, not only have we got sea levels attacking it,

0:54:480:54:53

sea levels rise from all the glacial water going into the sea,

0:54:530:54:56

but you've got the isostatic rebound happening, so the sea is now going to come churning around this particular

0:54:560:55:01

lump of rock and turn it into the Isle of Wight that we see today.

0:55:010:55:04

So it's being hit by a double-whammy.

0:55:040:55:06

It was this combination of rising sea levels and the sinking landscape

0:55:070:55:11

that would eventually separate the Isle of Wight from the mainland.

0:55:110:55:16

The sea was rising, biting away at this chalk cliff,

0:55:160:55:19

and at the same time the River Solent doing its thing at the back,

0:55:190:55:22

so there would come a point where it would become a very narrow knife-edge blade

0:55:220:55:26

going out across the sea, and then finally one stormy night it was breached, and the sea

0:55:260:55:31

basically flooded into this area, and got rid of what was the River Solent.

0:55:310:55:35

It took a few thousand years before the Isle of Wight was totally cut off as we see it today,

0:55:380:55:44

but that's a blink of the eye compared to its multi-million year trek,

0:55:440:55:50

and this restless traveller is still moving, still evolving,

0:55:500:55:55

part of the epic journey that the whole of the British Isles is on.

0:55:550:55:59

'At the end of MY journey I'm also off out to The Needles.

0:56:060:56:12

'It's not great conditions for studying rocks, but it is good for my passion.

0:56:120:56:17

'This is after all the sort of weather lighthouses were made for,

0:56:170:56:22

'and I enjoy a good lighthouse, me!'

0:56:220:56:25

So I couldn't resist a visit to this one, on The Needles,

0:56:250:56:29

especially when I found out they're about to clean the lens.

0:56:290:56:32

Everything about a lighthouse reminds us that we are connected to other shores.

0:56:380:56:43

As we come to this leg of our journey, I'm struck by how much we have reached out across the water.

0:56:450:56:52

From flying the Channel in hovercrafts,

0:56:520:56:55

to the ideas of Brighton's film-makers that travelled around the globe.

0:56:550:57:00

We're surrounded by water, but we're not cut off by it.

0:57:000:57:05

Even the specialist lens used in lighthouses is an invention from across the Channel from France.

0:57:050:57:12

How often does the lens get cleaned, then? Just once a year.

0:57:120:57:16

It's going to take about that long.

0:57:160:57:19

I'd hate to be responsible for a smear.

0:57:190:57:22

This really does feel like the edge of Britain,

0:57:260:57:29

but of course the light from here continues on, travelling far beyond our shores and actually

0:57:290:57:35

crossing the beam of the Gatteville lighthouse on the French coast.

0:57:350:57:39

Even the light wants to bridge the gap.

0:57:390:57:41

It kind of makes you want to reach out yourself and meet the neighbours.

0:57:410:57:45

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0:57:550:57:59

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