Swanage to Land's End (30min) Coast

This is exciting. I'm off on my hols.

I'm on a trip to the seaside which brings happy memories rolling back.

Here comes my time machine,

and it's on time.

I'm heading along England's south- west coast to the tip of Cornwall.

My journey starts en route for Swanage.

You've got to love a steam train.

But the first time locos like these chuffed down the tracks, they caused consternation.

Now, we might only be travelling at 30 mph,

but when Queen Victoria took her first trip on a steam train,

she found the speed distressing.

I've just got time to see how steam caused such a stir along our shore.

WHISTLE BLOWS

Tickets please.

Christian Wolmar's an authority on the railway revolution.

There's undoubtedly something that steam trains add. It feels much more like actually going on holiday.

Absolutely. It's part of the experience, part of the fun.

Until the advent of the railway, if you lived more than

20 or 30 miles away from the coast, you probably never saw the sea.

But here we are - we've arrived,

following in the tracks of townies taking on a brave new world.

The arrival of these pioneering visitors had a dramatic effect on Swanage seafront.

So Christian, before the railways connected the coast to the

rest of the country, what was here, what was in a town like this?

Well, frankly, not a lot.

Really, it was a place of just a few hundred people

who were left in peace most of the time.

So it was just like a working town that happened to be beside the sea.

Absolutely, just as with dozens of other places like this -

once the railway arrived, its peace was rather upset.

So the coast, as we think about it, the beach, the place for holidays

and weekends, this really was invented by and made by the railways.

It created a whole industry, you know, couple of hundred resorts in Britain

were created as a result of the railways.

And I'm going to see quite a few of them on this trip.

I'm heading down through Dorset,

through Devon and then into Cornwall, so it's kind of one of the meccas of beach holidays.

Absolutely, Torquay, Paignton, all those places, you'll see the same

pattern of development, the same houses built in the 19th century as a result of that.

And if it hadn't been for the railways, the steam engines, it would never have happened.

None of that would have happened at all.

This coast is a roller-coaster of ups and downs.

Vantage points rise up to bookend the beaches.

At over 600 feet, Golden Cap is the highest sea cliff on England's southern shore.

The peak towers over the town of Lyme Regis, giving great views over the harbour.

Miranda's down at sea level in Lyme Bay, searching for visitors who prefer to peek up from the depths.

Our waters are the playground for a wonderful variety of wildlife, most of which we rarely glimpse,

but occasionally, big marine mammals reveal themselves.

Bottlenose dolphins, porpoises and even minke whales are regular visitors to the English Channel.

The one I've come to see, we know very little about.

In fact, many people have never even heard of it.

I'm here in search of the White-Beaked Dolphin.

These creatures are rarely seen off our shores - they prefer the cold waters of the Northern Atlantic,

but excitingly, a family group's been spotted in Lyme Bay.

If there's the chance of a close encounter, I've got to try.

I'm with Marine Life, a group who monitor the local dolphin population, including the white-beaks.

I'm hoping they're out there, somewhere.

So what are our chances of seeing them today, then?

Well, we've seen them on the last five trips, so quite high in that respect, but on the other hand,

as you can see, there is a bit of a swell out here, there's white caps,

it's a bit choppy and that always makes it difficult to spot dolphins.

A lot of the dolphins that feed on shoals of fish have seabirds as well,

but when we see white-beaked, there's not really seabirds around.

We think that they feed towards the bottom of the seabed, 50 or 60 metres down.

We won't see them if they're feeding underwater, and to make matters worse,

they're only here because of a patch of chilly water in Lyme Bay.

This makes finding white-beaks even harder because we've got to hit

the elusive cold spot, which itself moves with the seasons.

The white-beak dolphins follow cooler waters, because that's where they find their favourite food.

Like us, they like white fish such as cod and whiting.

We've combed the bay over and over... nothing.

Wildlife can drive you wild.

The very few times we've been able to get out to sea this year, we've seen them virtually every time.

That's such a shame we've not seen them today.

A bit disappointing but it's the way it goes, I guess.

We gave it our best shot and we didn't see them, unfortunately.

We always say no guarantees with these things.

The group were lucky enough to get these great pictures early in the year.

Little is known about white-beaked dolphins, but sightings suggest there's around 60 in Lyme Bay,

and it's encouraging that a young calf was spotted for the first time.

For me, these enchanting creatures have proved elusive,

but it's great to know they're out there.

Dolphins may like the chilly water, but some of us like it hot.

Tourists are drawn to Dorset's warm sands.

Others are attracted to the cliffs and the rocks that come out of them.

Adrian Gray finds the stones a solitary inspiration.

I know this beach really well. Very isolated down here. You get very few people.

This whole area of coastline here is renowned for landslip,

so you have a constant supply of new rocks being washed out,

and then the wind and the rain and the ocean will wash them,

and of course they get shaped by the erosion as well.

My friends and I used to balance stones for fun on the beach,

and then about five years ago I decided that I was intrigued by that illusionary quality

of a stone balanced in a certain way, and I realised I was on to something, you know, quite special.

I need to have a look at it.

It's the paradox between fragility and solidity which basically

is like you've got two very big heavy stones, and they're balanced in a very fragile way.

I focus in completely - you close out everything else because

you have to have a sort of stillness within you,

and you listen to the rocks, you listen with your hands,

and you move them very, very gently, and then when you get a feel for it, you'll find a weightlessness.

'It's like scoring a goal or falling in love - that "yes!", you know.'

Gotcha.

And you can move away from it and look at it and you're, like, "How on earth is that staying there?"

I like to come down here. I like to work down here on the beach,

it's quiet, you can get into the zone, all my materials are around me.

This is where I like to do it really.

HE LAUGHS

Steam was the engine of progress on this coast.

Brunel's wonderful railway

introduced tourists to the tranquil Torbay.

The bay's town of Torquay, Paignton and Brixham

were branded the English Riviera.

The resort's reputation for glitz and glamour, British-style, became its selling point.

NEWSREEL: 'The call of the sea is irresistible to almost everyone.'

The railway started the rush, but by the late '50s,

steam was losing its pulling power, replaced by a new driving force.

On this bracing day,

Nick's come to see how road eclipsed rail.

I'm in holiday mode - no backpack, no boots, but I'm glad I brought the brolly.

'No summer holiday's complete without the joys of the British weather.

'So I'm very glad to be hitching a lift on a classic crowd pleaser, a welcome sight on a rainy day.'

-Hello, Nick.

-Hi Dave, what a magnificent coach.

Oh, thank you very much, a Yelloway coach, 1976.

It should be in a museum.

Well, come aboard, have a look around.

It IS a museum!

It is a museum, of course it is.

Dave Haddock's impressive collection harks back to the earliest days of motorised travel.

You've got stuff everywhere in here.

The very first coaches were steam-powered goods lorries,

converted at the weekends for the latest in passenger comfort.

-What were the seats made from?

-Er, church pews.

You're kidding!

-No, no.

-Hope they asked the vicar first.

Oh, well yeah, I think the vicar was amongst them, actually.

There were no Health and Safety in those days.

So this is the beginning of mass tourism.

You've got industrial workers from the North,

from the Pennine mill towns, going off to the seaside at the weekend.

Yeah, competing with the railways. They were trying to take people off the railways.

Dave's personal collection is his tribute to the rise of one of the coach companies, Yelloway.

From their first Lancashire charabanc in 1910,

Yelloway grew into a national network

transporting Northerners south to resorts like Torbay.

Glorious seaside holiday Tours 1939.

This is a half cab. It's called the Yelloway 1940s.

-That's beautiful, isn't it?

-Yeah.

And the colours of the coach really evoke the seaside, don't they, the yellow sand...

-A real holiday livery on it, yes.

-This was the passport to paradise.

Oh, yeah of course it was, and when I was a young lad I came on this type of coach, 1947.

It took 15 hours to get to Torquay from Rochdale,

and when we arrived at Leamington Road,

my mum said to me, the first words you said when you got off was

"Are we at the other side of the world?"

-I thought we were, we'd come that far.

-Would you take me for a spin?

Oh, yeah course, definitely, let's go.

-It's got a very evocative engine sound.

-Oh, yes, lovely, I love it.

-Reminds me of school trips.

-Yeah.

I used to come every year with my mum and my dad, and my grandparents.

They used to spend a week every year in Torquay.

It was just the most beautiful place you could wish to come for when you was a child.

The thing that surprised me most, Nick, was we played out all day long,

and when I looked at my hands at the end of the day, they wasn't dirty,

yet if I'd have played out for an hour at home in the industrial North-west, my hands would be black.

So your grandparents came down here from the north, your parents,

you did and your children, so that's four generations.

That's right, Nick, and then...

I even spent my honeymoon here.

So you came on your honeymoon on a coach.

Oh, yeah, and the driver gave us the front seat, special front seat, and

the passengers had clubbed together and bought a bottle of champagne.

Did they give you the back seat on the way home?

No!

HE LAUGHS

At their peak, coaches brought thousands of passengers a day

south to Torbay, and it's still Devon's most popular resort.

But on a day like this, the place is all but deserted.

Like everyone else, I've got to find something to do in the rain - that's where excursions come in.

The Paignton to Dartmouth steam railway promises shelter and a sea view.

The observation carriage has super-sized windows, like a greenhouse on wheels.

In the golden days of train travel, first-class passengers paid a premium

to sit in here and enjoy pre-dinner drinks - those were the days.

But with all this glass, it gets pretty hot in here.

'I prefer it back here in the cheap seats.'

And this way, I get to feel the wind in my hair.

The Tamar Estuary marks the Cornish frontier.

But the railway bridged the gap and rolled on regardless.

From now on, my journey has a more rugged outlook.

With its jagged shore and sheltered inlets, Cornwall is England's most coastal county.

Each step westwards brings subtle changes in the surrounding flora.

Lichen hate pollution, but they're plentiful here.

With little heavy industry and prevailing winds fresh from the Atlantic,

Cornwall has fantastically clean air,

yet there's always the smell of the seashore.

At the pretty little anchorage of Gorran Haven,

Alice is following her nose.

'There's something special about going down to the sea.

'There are those tell-tale signs that you're close,

'the sense of anticipation builds,

'and then it hits you and familiar feelings flood back.

'The beach bombards the senses,

'but if you just had your sense of smell, you'd still know you were by the sea.'

The seaside has this wonderful aroma,

it's the smell of summer holidays and happiness.

If only we could bottle it! But what is it?

'Water's odourless, so it must be something else in the sea that gives it that seductive smell.

'I'm in search of the solution with Professor Andrew Johnston.

'He thinks he's got the answer in his bag.

'He's brought bacteria.

'When these micro-organisms munch plankton, apparently they make a little whiff,

'a by-product of digestion.

'The bacteria belch out gas that gives the sea its distinctive smell.

'To bottle that seaside aroma, we've got to tempt Andy's bugs to start burping gas.'

-What else do we need?

-Well, we need some seaweed.

Right...

'At the moment...'

Yeah, it just smells faintly seaweedy.

Yeah, a little bit, so if we just put some water in here...

'This seaweed soup is our version of the microscopic plant life

'naturally found in sea water.'

-OK, that's fine.

-Another one.

-And now we need to add the other component, the bacteria.

-OK.

-So can I open this up, is that safe?

-Yeah.

Although it smells of something, it's not the seaside,

it's got a sort of musty smell.

-That's not the smell of the sea.

-No, we're going to do something magical.

-Right, so what's the next step?

-Well, what I'll do, is scrape some of that off,

add it to water, then add that back to the seaweed and see what happens.

So each of these loopfuls, I guess maybe a million, ten million bacteria, amazing numbers.

-Really?

-But they're very, very small.

'We're hoping that after we've added the bottled bacteria to our seaweed soup

'and given them a few hours to feast, the solution will start to stink,

'and we'll have bottled the smell of the seaside.'

Shall we go and have a pasty and come back?

'The bacteria need to bask in the warm sun to digest their weedy meal.'

-The moment of truth.

-OK.

So for the last two hours, the bacteria in this cloudy mixture

have been chomping away on the substance

in this seaweed, and producing something which you think I should be able to smell.

-Yes, I sincerely hope so.

-The moment of truth.

Yes, indeed.

Yes!

Absolutely!

That is really strange.

But it is undoubtedly the smell of the sea.

-THEY LAUGH It works!

-Yeah, I know.

'In a tiny test tube, Andy's experiment shows what's happening on a global scale.

'The scent of the sea comes from a sulphurous gas, dimethyl sulphide,

'also known as DMS -

'bacteria burps that are the by-product of digesting plankton.

'To us, it's the smell of seaside holidays,

'but to some birds and mammals, DMS is the smell of life.

'They home in on concentrations of the scent,

'knowing that where there's life, there's food.'

My last stop approaches.

One of Britain's most remote artistic attractions -

the Minack Theatre.

One of the great seaside traditions is taking in a show.

I'm not going to take in a show. Heaven help us all, I'm going to be in one!

On this windswept headland, stands the Minack,

a unique temple to the performing arts.

Less theatre of dreams, more place of my nightmares.

Well, would you look at that? You'd expect to find that in ancient Rome.

Maybe it's the scene of a Greek tragedy.

'My co-star in this personal drama is local thespian, Sarah Lincoln.'

-Hi, Sarah.

-Hi, welcome to the Minack.

They tell me I'm going to perform here.

You are, yes. Tonight, on this very stage.

Ohh... Show me what I'm going to do.

The very first performance that was given here on this stage,

was a production of The Tempest in 1932,

so we thought it was really apt that YOU would play Prospero, and I will be your Ariel.

-And here are your lines.

-Shakespeare, what a nightmare!

No, Shakespeare's easy, he tells you exactly what to do,

and he's great at commanding the elements, just like Prospero.

You've got the real sea and the real wind, and potentially even the real rain tonight.

-Right, let's go.

-Shall we start rehearsing?

-Let's go.

-Let's go hence to another place.

-SHE LAUGHS

'This extraordinary amphitheatre exists thanks to The Tempest,

'Shakespeare's play set on a small island.

'In 1932, Rowena Cade wanted somewhere suitable for her friends to perform it.

'She chose this spot, at the end of her garden.

'The play's lead part, Prospero, has starred all the greats -

'Redgrave, Gielgud, McKellen,

'and now me!'

-And our little life is rounded with a sleep.

-Brilliant.

So what does the venue bring that isn't there in another kind of theatre?

I think the first thing it brings is scale.

I think the fact that the theatre is surrounded by nature, surrounded by the sea, the elements, the cliffs,

and the fact that you've got a real horizon.

When you stand on stage, as an actor, often you have to create a horizon, and there it is, looking at you,

and the audience are looking at you with that fantastic backdrop.

The early performances of The Tempest

were such a great success it was repeated down the years.

Rowena Cade - and her long-suffering gardener -

spent the next 40-odd years building a unique theatre.

-Here we are.

-OK.

-Oh, the gorgeous white shirt...

-Nice blouse(!)

-Pair of britches for you.

-I'll look like little Jimmy Krankie!

I feel sick to my stomach.

-Slight problem, there!

-SHE LAUGHS

I offer you...Prospero.

Outside, suitably ominous weather,

and a frankly certifiable audience are rolling in.

-We're English, we do this all the time.

-It's all part of the fun.

Absolutely bonkers!

There must be something strange about the fact that behind you,

rather than a painted backdrop or a set,

there is uncontrollable...nature.

No actor on this planet can compete with a pod of 20 dolphins

doing a sort of, you know, moon-walking across the top of the water which they seem to...

It's like they rehearse round the corner and go, "We'll show them!"

and they come and do this fantastic display.

And do the audience...?

-Yeah, you haven't got a hope in hell.

-They just turn to the...?

To the dolphins. You can stand there stark naked, chop your own head off

and "Oh, look at the dolphins!"

This season, I had a performance I was directing

and we had to stop the show because there was an air-sea rescue.

This is not the easiest theatre in which to make one's debut, is it?

If the elements are raging, people really, really remember if you get through it, and they love it.

Well, the elements are certainly raging.

We've only a short scene, but I've never been on stage before.

Ladies and gentlemen, good evening. Welcome to the Minack.

I've never felt so ill in my entire life, I think I'll break my own leg.

There's something we want you to share with us this evening.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Our revels now are ended.

These, our actors, as I foretold you,

were all spirits and are melted into air, into thin air.

We are such stuff as dreams are made on,

and our little life is rounded with a sleep.

Come with a thought, I thank thee, Ariel, come.

Thy thoughts I cleave to. What is thy pleasure?

Spirit, we must prepare to meet with Caliban.

Say again, where didst thou leave those varlets?

I told you, they were red-hot with drinking.

So full of valour that they smote the air.

The trumpery in my house, go bring it hither,

for stale to catch these thieves.

I go, I go.

APPLAUSE

Land's End and journey's end.

Hollywood will never find me out here.

Well, the bard said "All the world is a stage." It turns out that's even true of the coast.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd