The Hidden History of Harbours 1 Coast


The Hidden History of Harbours 1

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Coast is home.

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And we're exploring

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the most endlessly fascinating shoreline in the world...

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our own!

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The journey to discover surprising,

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secret stories from around the British Isles continues.

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This is Coast.

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The sea is a great global highway.

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As an island people, it's in our nature to reach out and explore,

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the thrill of embarking on voyages big and small

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makes our harbours hum with excitement.

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In an age before air travel, these were our departure lounges.

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Harbours have always been gateways to adventure.

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With an insatiable appetite for those adventures,

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we've constructed around 1,000 of these global gateways.

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For centuries, people, goods and ideas

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have flowed in between harbour walls.

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If only these walls could talk.

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Well, now they can.

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We're here to reveal The Hidden History of Harbours.

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Down on the south coast,

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Tessa is exploring how, in the harbours of the Royal Navy,

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a fashion began that made a permanent mark on Britain.

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There's one naval tradition that remains largely hidden

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from public view, beneath sailors' uniforms.

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The tattoo.

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On the coast of Northern Ireland, we're heading to Portrush,

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where Mark Horton's disembarking to take a trip

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four centuries back in time.

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How did the lack of a harbour lead to the ruin of a remarkable town?

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Lost under the soil, like an Irish Pompeii.

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The decision to settle here at the castle,

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rather than the port over there,

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was a matter of life and death for the new town.

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The harbour I'm heading for is Newlyn in Cornwall.

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Soaring high above the Cornish coast,

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it's striking how perfectly

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people have moulded themselves into the landscape.

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Manmade walls extend natural headlands

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to create safe havens,

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harbours, our own perfectly-formed contributions to the coast.

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# In Newlyn Town

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# I was bread and born... #

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Last few barbecued pilchards!

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At Newlyn, the locals come to plug into the wider world,

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but the harbour also hides a hidden history.

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150 years ago, as tin mines were closing,

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fishing struggled to keep the community going.

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Down in the harbour, a new call was luring the men seawards.

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On the other side of the world, a gold rush has begun.

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# To South Australia we are born

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# Heave away, haul away

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# To South Australia round Cape Horn

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# We're bound for South Australia... #

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The fishermen of Newlyn knew that 12,000 miles of wild sea

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stood between them and the promised land.

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Who would risk all for riches?

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150 years ago, one little fishing boat made a remarkable voyage

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from here to the other side of the world.

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Have a look at this picture,

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it shows Melbourne harbour in Australia,

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absolutely crammed with shipping in the mid-1800s,

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but look at this little boat here, it's got a sail on it

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and on the sale is says Penzance, it's a boat called Mystery.

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The Mystery, with seven men onboard, left this quayside in 1854.

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Over 100 days later, they reached Oz.

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No fishing boat had ever made such a trip.

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Their incredible achievement was a triumph of hope over experience.

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They rode their luck in the roughest seas, gambling on a golden future.

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# We're bound for South Australia. #

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Two of the men who made that momentous decision

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were Philip Curnow Matthews and William Badcock.

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No photos of their five crew-mates survive.

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For years, their story has lain hidden.

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Now I want to discover why the men risked everything

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on that incredible voyage to Australia

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in the small fishing boat, Mystery.

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I'm meeting the Captain's great-great-great nephew,

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Douglas Williams.

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Hi, Douglas.

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As I understand it, back in the 1850s,

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you could buy for £20

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a steerage-class ticket all the way to Australia, one-way.

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Why didn't they do that and travel out there on an immigrant ship?

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The whole thing was based on an adventure which took off

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and came out of their control.

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They certainly saved a fair bit of money by going that way,

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the fact that they had a means of earning their livelihood

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with The Mystery when they arrived there,

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those were the two big factors.

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This was a new life and a new deal

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and they thought they'd have part of it.

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Do you think they understood the risk?

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I don't think they understood the risk,

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I don't suppose any of them had been further than the North Sea

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and around the Cornish south-west coast,

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but they had a first-class navigator in Captain Richard Nicholls,

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who was experienced around the world in cargo ships,

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and they recognised that and they had an absolute trust in him.

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Captain Nicholls' log details a great unsung feat

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of British seamanship,

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beginning on November 18th, 1854, leaving Newlyn.

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Phillips Matthews, William Badcock and their crewmates

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had barely sailed beyond the sight of land before.

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Now, off the tip of Africa,

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they braved gales as they pressed on to Melbourne.

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Of all the British vessels to make it to Australia, The Mystery -

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the smallest and pluckiest of all - would never see home shores again.

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The Mystery didn't come back to Newlyn,

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but I've come along the coast to Plymouth.

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Here, the spirit of Mystery lives on.

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This is an exact replica of the boat

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in which Captain Nicholls and his six crew set sail.

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Bringing her back to life

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was the dream of Cornishman and legendary sailor Pete Goss.

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I can't believe that I'm going out to sea in this boat.

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It's an amazing story.

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We started with a chainsaw, looking for fallen oak trees to...

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to make the frames to build the boat.

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Fashioning the Cornish oak into a seagoing craft

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was a ten-month labour of love,

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to honour the achievement of the original crew.

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Really what this is about is celebrating, you know,

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1854, those seven amazing men who, really, through hardship

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and I think a bit of romance - they wanted an adventure themselves -

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sailed her to Australia, which is staggering, really.

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For Pete, there was only one way to appreciate fully

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Mystery's epic voyage down under, to try it himself.

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Later, I'll be discovering how they battled raging seas,

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just like the original crew.

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And what became of those Cornishmen who reached Australia 150 years ago.

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Newlyn is just one of many harbours that have waved off bold explorers.

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But these safe havens are home to two-way traffic -

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for every boat that leaves, one is returning, richer for the journey.

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Like down on the South Coast, at Portsmouth.

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The harbour here is familiar

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with the comings and goings of large ships,

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but they aren't only built for pleasure.

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This is the historic home of the Royal Navy,

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where warships set off to make their mark on the world.

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What's less well known is how the Navy's harbours

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were gateways for the wider world

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to make an indelible mark on the British people.

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As Tessa Dunlop's here to explore.

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The Royal Navy's known as the Senior Service,

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proud to display its centuries-old seafaring history.

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But these days, there's one naval tradition

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that remains largely hidden from public view,

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beneath sailors' uniforms.

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The tattoo.

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Today, some five million Britons

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see ink on their skin as a fashion statement,

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but how did the Navy's sailors start this trend for tattooing?

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It all began in far-flung harbours.

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When Captain Cook returned to England from southern seas,

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his sailors showed off the skin designs

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they'd first seen on Polynesians.

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Tattoo historian Paul Sayce is showing me how it was done.

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Now this looks pretty scary, where's this one from?

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That's a Samoan handsaw, it's tapped into the skin,

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and that's why the name of tattooing in Polynesia is called tattao...

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Oh, really?

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..cos the Polynesian word for tapping is tattao.

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So they're actually cutting and hitting the skin at the same time?

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Dip it in the ink, put it on the skin

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and they'd tap it with a little piece of wood like a mallet,

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and it goes along like that as they're tapping.

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That must really hurt. I mean, it must bruise as well as cut.

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The bruising's terrible,

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you get about bruising about six to eight inches either side.

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This is a Japanese hand tool,

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but it's very similar to what we would have used,

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and it would have been about four or five inches long,

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with the needles tied on, and you really just poked it in.

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What, and the ink then pours down into the holes, does it?

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Yeah, well, you dip it in the ink and then you poke it in.

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Painful, certainly, but while tattoos were rare outside the Navy,

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in the mid 19th century they also became a sought-after status symbol.

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Surprisingly, tattooing even got the royal seal of approval.

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During his madcap youth, Edward Prince of Wales -

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later King Edward VII - visited the Holy Land,

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where he had a Jerusalem cross tattooed on his arm.

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Tattoo parlours started to spring up outside our harbours,

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as high society followed the future monarch's lead.

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In 1879, the New York Times observed,

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"In England, it is regarded as customary and proper

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"to tattoo the youthful feminine leg."

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By the early 20th century,

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mechanisation was making inky skin a mass-market commodity.

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And this is one of the first mechanised tattooing machines, is it?

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Yeah, it is, it's one of the first machines

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and it's still the same as we know it today.

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Inside there, there's two coils and a hammer and it goes up and down,

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when the power goes on and off, the needles go through here,

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you dip it in the ink and you go around the skin like that.

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And of course when the more commoner sort of people, in inverted commas,

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started to get it done, your higher society stopped getting it done,

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cos as is anything else, if anything gets popular the...

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the rich don't want it.

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Body art swings in and out of fashion,

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but is always at home in the Navy's harbours.

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Serving sailors can be a secretive bunch.

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So I'm here to meet veterans on a Second World War vintage destroyer.

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Old salts who can talk tattoos.

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There used to be an old song which said you're not a sailor

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till the sailor's tattooed,

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and, of course, silly boys like me had a tattoo.

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Wouldn't do it again but, er...

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It's interesting, none of you would do it again.

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We've grown wiser as we get older.

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I like your tattoos. In fact, who does have the biggest tattoo?

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Don't know. Nobby, I think, on his chest.

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Oh, it's enormous!

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THEY LAUGH

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It's a sailing ship.

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-With a cloud, I see it now and birds, yes?

-Yes.

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And where was that from, India?

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-No, Singapore.

-Singapore.

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Yeah, I think a postcard home

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would have probably been a better investment.

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THEY LAUGH

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It isn't just tattoos that the Navy keeps covered up.

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Once it strikes out from harbour,

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the Senior Service fights its battles in secret.

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They show off their ships in exercises,

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but the grim business of war takes place in far-flung foreign waters.

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That is, of course, unless you go to Scarborough.

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Those in the know go beyond the sea walls of the quayside

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to a hidden little harbour that sees explosive action

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in the holiday months.

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Every summer, we wage war here in Scarborough.

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In the crazy days of summer, the crowds wait for war to break out.

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Meanwhile, the corner of the council boating pond

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is transformed into an impromptu naval base.

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In top secret, warships are made ready for battle.

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It looks like miniature boats.

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The lid comes off and a council employee...

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SHE LAUGHS

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..climbs inside and the lid is put back on,

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and there you have your dreadnaught.

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-There you go, good luck.

-Thank you.

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For 80 years, Scarborough has staged the summer war

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from a little harbour in Peasholm Park,

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a grand tradition familiar to Friend of the Park, Christine Mark.

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The naval battle started in the 1920s

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and they started to celebrate World War I sea battles and that was fine

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but then World War II came along

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and, after that, they decided that it would be a really good idea

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to celebrate the first battle, the first major sea battle

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of World War II, which was The Battle of the River Plate.

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At the Battle of the River Plate off the coast of South America,

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the German heavy cruiser Graf Spee suffered a humiliating defeat

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to the Royal Navy.

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A propaganda victory that Scarborough has re-fought for years.

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It was pretty jingoistic

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and that was fine for the time.

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Nowadays, the conflict is more politically correct.

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Don't mention the war, or the Germans.

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So now we have the Allies and the Enemy.

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I'm the enemy.

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I've been doing this now about 14 years, on and off,

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never won a battle yet - do 30 a year and lose every one.

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Scarborough Council's naval commanders

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batten down the hatches.

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Welcome to Scarborough's unique holiday attraction,

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the naval warfare, our sea battle in miniature.

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I'm just waiting to see if the submarines appear.

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Lurking in the lake, an enemy sub launches a sneak attack...

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..aimed at HMS British Pride.

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The magazine could go any...

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EXPLOSION

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Oh, it has. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear,

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but she's spotted an attack by bombers from the Arc Royal.

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The dive bombers are a hit with the crowd...

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..when they work.

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Oh, we've got one!

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Inside the Jervis Bay, her skipper presses home the attack.

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Oh! What a mess she's in.

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HE COUGHS

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Don't forget, she's not really a fighting ship,

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but isn't she doing wonderfully well there?

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That's a direct hit on the conning tower.

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With the submarine neutralised,

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the Allies can finally attack the enemy harbour.

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Oh, look - the top's coming out now.

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Ahh.

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So that was it then, half an hour and the Allies won again...

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-Yes, as usual.

-Quelle surprise!

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Here on the Yorkshire coast, they re-live battles from distant seas

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that forged the fighting spirit of naval seamen.

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But our shores also shape the character of sailors closer to home,

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like here in Cornwall.

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This craggy coastline is sculpted by a sea

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that crashes against granite,

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and builds boatmen of steely resolve.

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Historically, each little harbour was connected to its neighbour

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by the sea, not the land.

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The boats that used to chase the mackerel

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rarely strayed far from the coast.

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Except for one remarkable mackerel boat, The Mystery.

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Her seven crew sailed in 1854 from Newlyn.

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It was a voyage that took them out through the Bay of Biscay,

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down the coast of West Africa, past Cape Town and on to Melbourne.

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A 12,000-mile gamble on riches in gold rush Australia.

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When those Cornishmen set sail in 1854,

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some of them had never been out of sight of land before.

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I'm on an exact replica of their ship, Spirit Of Mystery,

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to relive a great unsung feat of British seamanship.

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To appreciate their astonishing achievement,

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Cornish sailor Pete Goss

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faced again every crashing wave from the original crew's trip.

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Pete built his boat from the plans of an 1850s lugger,

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correct in every detail.

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I can't help noticing, Pete, that you haven't got any winches

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or mechanical aids to help you get these huge spars up the mast.

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No, no, this was as they would have sailed, so it's a handful of blocks,

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a bucket and rope, needle and thread, go anywhere in the world.

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Battling the wind, I get a feeling of just how tough it was

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for the crew aboard The Mystery in 1854.

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-There must be a knack to this.

-You're right, it'll come.

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You'll be running around by the end of the day.

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That's it. Ready.

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That'll do. Yep.

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Sails hoisted, the Cornishmen faced over 100 days in open seas,

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with the same fearsome horizons.

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Up here on the bow, Pete, looking back,

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I'm actually a little bit shocked at how small this boat is.

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-It is a tiny, tiny boat to sail to Australia in.

-It is, yeah.

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The further away you get from land, the smaller it becomes,

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and you do, you know, down in the southern ocean,

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there is a sense of vulnerability, you're just out there

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and you hope for the best and deal with what comes along.

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Pete's crew did have a few home comforts

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their intrepid counterparts couldn't have dreamt of.

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Pete, this is incredibly cosy down here,

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but, in the original Mystery, this was a fish hold, right?

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Yes, it was. This area here, our sort of cabin top,

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would have been a fish hold, but we know that they decked that over

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and we know that they put bunks and accommodation down below.

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Are these working oil lamps, is this how you lit the cabin down here?

0:23:520:23:55

Yeah, we had oil lamps, we used a sextant to navigate.

0:23:550:23:59

The objective was to shine a spotlight on their voyage,

0:23:590:24:02

and get to Melbourne with a real sense of their achievement.

0:24:020:24:06

Phillip Curnow Matthews was one of those who made it to Australia,

0:24:060:24:11

and, now, one of his precious possessions

0:24:110:24:14

has come home to Cornwall

0:24:140:24:16

This is his little personal compass.

0:24:170:24:21

How extraordinary.

0:24:210:24:23

Do you think that was sort of like a lucky charm

0:24:250:24:28

that he had with him on the voyage? It's very beautiful, isn't it?

0:24:280:24:32

I like to think it was, I kind of see that tucked in his waistcoat.

0:24:320:24:36

Matthews and his five crewmates put their life

0:24:370:24:40

in the hands of the skipper, Richard Nicholls,

0:24:400:24:44

who survives in the writings of his log.

0:24:440:24:48

And I love this bit, "Our gallant little vessel riding beautifully

0:24:480:24:51

"and not shipping any water whatever."

0:24:510:24:54

And your life is contained on this little Cornish walnut.

0:24:540:24:59

Captain Richard Nicholls was a man of few words,

0:24:590:25:03

but they sum up the extraordinary nature of the voyage.

0:25:030:25:07

"December 6th, 1854.

0:25:070:25:11

"Several flying fish came on board during the night.

0:25:110:25:15

"Crew overhauling rigging and cleaning mast,

0:25:150:25:18

"airing nets and restoring hold."

0:25:180:25:21

Captain Nicholls refers to his crew simply as "the people",

0:25:230:25:27

when the boat was becalmed, he'd exercise them

0:25:270:25:30

with the fisherman's walk, six paces up and down the deck, endlessly.

0:25:300:25:35

After 50 days at sea, The Mystery stopped over

0:25:370:25:41

at the tip of South Africa.

0:25:410:25:43

Nicholls noted the excitement.

0:25:430:25:46

"There were a great many visitors on board.

0:25:460:25:49

"The Mystery being the smallest vessel ever from England."

0:25:490:25:53

But, departing Africa, excitement soon turned to terror

0:25:550:25:59

in turbulent southern seas.

0:25:590:26:01

The southern ocean is the big focus, that's the big one, you...

0:26:010:26:04

you step into that and we had probably...

0:26:040:26:07

Every five days, on average, we'd have a big gale come through.

0:26:070:26:11

Walls of water pounded their tiny boat.

0:26:120:26:16

Pete's crew were fighting for their lives,

0:26:160:26:19

just like the original men of the Mystery, 150 years before,

0:26:190:26:24

as the Captain's log records.

0:26:240:26:26

"5th March 1855, a complete hurricane, mountains of sea."

0:26:270:26:34

Pete only captured the start of this storm on his little camera.

0:26:360:26:40

Hailstones rattled down, then their world turned upside-down.

0:26:400:26:45

Just saw this great big sheer wall of water and shouted,

0:26:470:26:52

and then it's like a car crash, you only remember bits,

0:26:520:26:54

and I remember it went all dark,

0:26:540:26:57

getting knocked around in the hatchway

0:26:570:26:58

and then it felt like standing in a storm drain

0:26:580:27:01

with water pouring in and pushing up against it.

0:27:010:27:03

Andy was in the starboard bunk, he woke up and grabbed the boat

0:27:030:27:07

and swung over and realised he was sat on the ceiling,

0:27:070:27:10

so we'd got knocked upside-down.

0:27:100:27:12

Miraculously, the boat righted itself,

0:27:120:27:16

but deckhand Mark suffered a badly broken leg.

0:27:160:27:20

I'm sure I heard it, it was like a rifle crack.

0:27:210:27:26

I mean, my foot was tucked underneath the bench

0:27:260:27:28

and my foot caught on the post and that's what caused it to break.

0:27:280:27:32

In Melbourne harbour,

0:27:340:27:35

a hero's welcome greeted The Spirit of Mystery.

0:27:350:27:38

THE CROWD CHEER

0:27:380:27:41

When the original Mystery reached Melbourne in 1855,

0:27:430:27:47

she was the smallest craft ever to complete the journey,

0:27:470:27:52

but her seven-man crew sold Mystery to start new lives.

0:27:520:27:56

Phillip Curnow Matthew married and became a land surveyor.

0:27:590:28:04

He is buried in Melbourne.

0:28:040:28:06

Captain Nicholls eventually returned to Cornwall,

0:28:080:28:12

only to be killed by a horse-drawn carriage in 1868.

0:28:120:28:17

Who says worse things happen at sea?

0:28:170:28:20

After a spell in Australia, William Badcock and three shipmates

0:28:240:28:28

also came home to Newlyn harbour.

0:28:280:28:31

Perhaps the lure of Cornwall was just too strong,

0:28:330:28:38

but maybe what had really driven them on

0:28:380:28:41

wasn't the desire for a new life in Australia

0:28:410:28:44

but the spirit of adventure.

0:28:440:28:47

Sailors love striking out towards new harbours.

0:28:530:28:58

Many head for the stunning inland sea at Strangford Lough

0:28:580:29:03

on the shore of Northern Ireland.

0:29:030:29:06

The Irish coast is studded with safe havens for shipping,

0:29:060:29:10

around which great cities have sprung up.

0:29:100:29:14

Creating a new settlement by a harbour seems an obvious choice,

0:29:170:29:22

but then you had towards Portrush.

0:29:220:29:25

In the Middle Ages, this was a violent coastline.

0:29:320:29:36

Castle strongholds brooded on inaccessible cliffs

0:29:360:29:41

because harbours were open to attack from the sea.

0:29:410:29:45

So 400 years ago, when a Scottish lord came to settle the land here,

0:29:470:29:52

he turned his back on the natural harbour at Portrush.

0:29:520:29:57

A decision that would prove disastrous,

0:29:570:30:01

as Mark is about to discover.

0:30:010:30:03

In 1608, this harbour was completely undeveloped.

0:30:060:30:11

But the Scottish clan who claimed this land

0:30:120:30:15

chose to build their settlement not here at Portrush,

0:30:150:30:21

but here at Dunluce Castle.

0:30:210:30:23

The castle is just three miles up the coast from Portrush.

0:30:320:30:37

Back in 1608, with its walls intact, it seemed to offer security.

0:30:370:30:43

But times were changing.

0:30:450:30:49

The decision to settle here at the castle

0:30:490:30:53

rather than at the port, over there,

0:30:530:30:55

was a matter of life and death for the new town.

0:30:550:30:59

Those green fields are a clue as to what eventually happened.

0:30:590:31:03

Just beneath the grass, archaeologists have unearthed

0:31:100:31:14

the foundations of homes lost for over 350 years,

0:31:140:31:20

an Irish Pompeii.

0:31:200:31:22

I'm meeting Colin Breen from the University of Ulster.

0:31:240:31:28

His team are excavating a village built for Scots,

0:31:280:31:32

brought here from over the sea.

0:31:320:31:35

This is a plantation,

0:31:350:31:37

so this is an attempt to bring foreigners to settle Ulster.

0:31:370:31:41

Yeah, it's a very complex period in Ulster's history.

0:31:410:31:44

What we're essentially doing is coming out of a period

0:31:440:31:47

of nine years of war and conflict,

0:31:470:31:49

where the rebellious Irish rose up against the English administration.

0:31:490:31:53

And, at the end of that period, the English crown decides

0:31:530:31:56

that the only way to pacify the Ulster landscape

0:31:560:31:59

is to bring settlers in from England and from Scotland

0:31:590:32:02

to civilise Ireland, to civilise Ulster.

0:32:020:32:04

The wild Irish.

0:32:040:32:06

The wild Irish, as they're often referred to.

0:32:060:32:08

And this particular town is established by Randal McDonnell

0:32:080:32:12

from 1608 through to about 1611.

0:32:120:32:15

Founded by Randal MacDonnell,

0:32:170:32:19

the new town was taken over by his son in 1636.

0:32:190:32:25

But, by then, things were going disastrously wrong

0:32:250:32:29

for their new settlement, sited next to Dunluce Castle.

0:32:290:32:32

Now, only mysterious mounds remain.

0:32:330:32:37

Why was the town lost to history

0:32:420:32:45

when the Scottish clan MacDonnell built it to last?

0:32:450:32:50

It's an amazing thing, the town itself is really quite elaborate.

0:32:520:32:56

What we're looking at is a central space within that town,

0:32:560:33:00

this paving surface here extends up as far as that farm building,

0:33:000:33:04

which was a 1623 courthouse,

0:33:040:33:06

it would have run right down to the castle itself,

0:33:060:33:09

and then there would have been rows of houses

0:33:090:33:12

lining either side of this central place, within the town.

0:33:120:33:15

So this isn't just a small town, this is a MAJOR investment.

0:33:150:33:19

Very much so.

0:33:190:33:21

With no proper harbour, the new town relied on trading vessels,

0:33:230:33:28

barely changed since Viking times.

0:33:280:33:31

The ships' shallow bottoms meant they could be pulled up

0:33:310:33:35

easily onto the beach.

0:33:350:33:37

You could drag them up here on West Strand

0:33:370:33:40

and East Strand, just outside Portrush.

0:33:400:33:42

But, by the time they hit the 17th century,

0:33:420:33:45

they literally weren't equipped

0:33:450:33:46

to deal with the new globalised economy,

0:33:460:33:48

which was developing at this time.

0:33:480:33:50

What you see is a fundamental shift from local trading,

0:33:500:33:54

local production into the trading in bulk commodities,

0:33:540:33:57

with much larger vessels.

0:33:570:33:59

These new larger cargo ships needed something

0:34:010:34:05

that Randal MacDonnell's Ulster new town didn't have,

0:34:050:34:09

a harbour.

0:34:090:34:11

By the time he realised he needed one,

0:34:110:34:15

Randal MacDonnell had given away

0:34:150:34:17

the only natural harbour on this coast.

0:34:170:34:21

Those living by the castle watched the big ships sail past.

0:34:230:34:28

Bypassed by traders, the new town, just 30 years old, was already dying.

0:34:280:34:36

The dig reveals how the money ran out.

0:34:380:34:40

Few coins are found from the 1630s onwards.

0:34:420:34:46

Around that time, this merchant's house was sub-divided -

0:34:460:34:50

a small room created on the left to house pigs,

0:34:500:34:54

alongside a once-prosperous family.

0:34:540:34:57

In the new era of commercial sea trade, they just couldn't compete.

0:34:590:35:05

When Randal MacDonnell builds this town in the early 17th century,

0:35:050:35:09

he makes a fundamental mistake.

0:35:090:35:10

He builds it on the edge of a very steep cliff,

0:35:100:35:13

in excess of 80 metres high, looking out over the north Atlantic,

0:35:130:35:16

and there's simply no room to be able to build a harbour

0:35:160:35:20

in this particular location.

0:35:200:35:22

Randal himself was not prepared to let go of his ancestral castle,

0:35:220:35:26

his ancestral home,

0:35:260:35:27

and he wasn't in that mind to move away from the medieval period

0:35:270:35:32

into the new globalised world.

0:35:320:35:34

They just got left behind?

0:35:340:35:36

Very much so.

0:35:360:35:37

The town's Scottish settlers turned their back on the sea

0:35:410:35:45

because the castle seemed more secure,

0:35:450:35:49

but they were wrong.

0:35:490:35:51

Longstanding resentment towards settlers from Scotland and England

0:35:510:35:56

reached a head when the native Irish rose up against the incomers.

0:35:560:36:02

The attack wasn't from the sea, but from within.

0:36:020:36:06

In 1641, during the Irish rebellion, the town was attacked

0:36:090:36:12

and it was essentially burned to the ground overnight and abandoned.

0:36:120:36:16

So we've just got these cobbles, we're standing where they stood.

0:36:160:36:20

Yeah, if we removed all of the grass from beneath this whole landscape,

0:36:200:36:24

the perfectly intact foundations of a 17th century town survive.

0:36:240:36:29

What a tantalising thought

0:36:290:36:31

of what might lie under all these fields.

0:36:310:36:34

After the uprising, this site was left to go to seed.

0:36:370:36:42

Castles were the past.

0:36:420:36:45

The future depended on gateways to the sea.

0:36:450:36:49

Harbours were the beating heart of a modern Britain,

0:36:560:37:00

built on global trade.

0:37:000:37:02

The sea is still our lifeblood.

0:37:030:37:06

It carries 95% by volume of everything we import,

0:37:080:37:15

and around one third of our food arrives by ship.

0:37:150:37:20

But while sea trade sustains our bodies,

0:37:210:37:24

it can also change our minds.

0:37:240:37:26

The fortunes of a coastal town ebb and flow

0:37:290:37:32

with the traffic through its harbour,

0:37:320:37:34

but it's not just goods that come and go,

0:37:340:37:37

sometimes the export isn't a commodity, it's an idea.

0:37:370:37:42

An idea that changed the world took life here in Birkenhead harbour.

0:37:420:37:48

Birkenhead sits in the shade of its bigger neighbour, Liverpool,

0:37:550:37:59

across the Mersey.

0:37:590:38:00

Around 200 years ago, Liverpool docks were booming,

0:38:030:38:08

so hard-headed businessmen with plans for a new harbour

0:38:080:38:12

looked to Birkenhead.

0:38:120:38:15

Little did they know they were laying the foundations

0:38:150:38:19

for a revolution in the world of leisure.

0:38:190:38:23

Ruth Goodman is digging deeper.

0:38:230:38:26

In the 1800s, Birkenhead was taking shape,

0:38:280:38:32

as merchants in these parts showed off their wealth in stone.

0:38:320:38:36

The grand homes of 19th century Birkenhead

0:38:380:38:41

rivalled their counterparts in London,

0:38:410:38:44

thanks to the wealth that was pouring to this Merseyside port.

0:38:440:38:48

Birkenhead was booming because it was on the coast.

0:38:480:38:52

It's fair to say that the harbour's seen better days,

0:38:540:38:57

but Glynn Parry knows its hidden history.

0:38:570:39:00

There's not much here now,

0:39:000:39:01

but it would have been extremely busy, wouldn't it?

0:39:010:39:04

It would have been with ships coming in, going out all the time.

0:39:040:39:07

And it was a huge number of people.

0:39:070:39:09

Oh, tremendous number of people.

0:39:090:39:10

In the period of about 20 years, the population had gone

0:39:100:39:13

from somewhere in the region of 120 to about 12,000,

0:39:130:39:16

they were coming in from all over the north west.

0:39:160:39:18

People were still looking for work

0:39:180:39:20

but they were coming in off the farms

0:39:200:39:22

because the rates of pay were greater.

0:39:220:39:24

The new harbour pulled in an army of new workers,

0:39:260:39:29

fresh from green fields.

0:39:290:39:31

Now, though, they were cramped together in regimented rows.

0:39:310:39:35

You're talking about back-to-back houses,

0:39:350:39:38

where there was no sanitation, no ventilation.

0:39:380:39:40

If you're living in that condition,

0:39:400:39:42

home is hardly sweet home that you want to come home to.

0:39:420:39:44

It's not somewhere to go to for peace and quiet.

0:39:440:39:47

The bosses were living in style,

0:39:480:39:51

but the merchants had good reasons to worry

0:39:510:39:54

about the living conditions of their employees and their children.

0:39:540:39:58

Within living memory, the workers of Manchester

0:40:010:40:05

had demonstrated for social reform.

0:40:050:40:08

18 died in the Peterloo massacre,

0:40:080:40:11

when cavalry charged them with drawn sabres.

0:40:110:40:14

Could similar social unrest be brewing

0:40:170:40:20

in the drinking dens of Birkenhead?

0:40:200:40:22

Was there a genuine possibility of everything exploding in revolution?

0:40:250:40:30

People would resent those who seemed to be better off,

0:40:300:40:33

those who were in control -

0:40:330:40:35

there could well have been a major revolution.

0:40:350:40:37

They'd had one in France, why not one in Britain?

0:40:370:40:40

To prise workers out of the alehouses,

0:40:400:40:43

the great and good of Birkenhead Council came up with a novel idea.

0:40:430:40:48

Use public money to create a grand green space.

0:40:480:40:53

Parklife was born.

0:40:560:40:58

In 1847, the first public-funded municipal park

0:41:030:41:08

opened its imposing gates.

0:41:080:41:10

There was nowhere like this on earth.

0:41:170:41:20

It was laid out by designer Joseph Paxton,

0:41:200:41:24

who'd go on to create the Crystal Palace in London.

0:41:240:41:28

This space was social networking, 19th-century style.

0:41:280:41:32

That's what's so special about this park,

0:41:320:41:35

it's a time machine that takes us back

0:41:350:41:38

to the birth of modern urban Britain.

0:41:380:41:40

If only we can learn to see it with old eyes.

0:41:400:41:44

Back then, everything ran to a plan.

0:41:440:41:48

The park taught people to play nicely together,

0:41:480:41:51

and conform to polite society.

0:41:510:41:54

I've got a copy of the bylaws here, for the park.

0:42:000:42:03

It's a rather formidable document.

0:42:030:42:06

They're quite interesting.

0:42:060:42:07

No carpet beating, no fires, no pitching tents,

0:42:070:42:11

no leaving piles of building materials all over the place,

0:42:110:42:15

no preaching.

0:42:150:42:17

SHE LAUGHS

0:42:170:42:18

But visitors did spread the word -

0:42:180:42:21

public parks popped up all over Britain and beyond.

0:42:210:42:26

Where Birkenhead led, the world followed.

0:42:280:42:32

The designer of New York's Central Park, Frederick Olmstead,

0:42:320:42:36

was inspired by his own visit to Merseyside in 1850.

0:42:360:42:40

And Birkenhead's haven of tranquillity

0:42:430:42:47

remains Britain's only Grade I listed municipal park.

0:42:470:42:51

It's funny to think that when these docks were built,

0:42:570:43:00

it was all about importing wealth into the local area,

0:43:000:43:03

but the public parks movement -

0:43:030:43:05

born here in Birkenhead because of the new docks -

0:43:050:43:08

was exported to the rest of the world.

0:43:080:43:11

A wealth of hidden history lies in store

0:43:250:43:29

for those who explore our harbours.

0:43:290:43:33

Tales of enterprise, triumph and trade tell how Britain was born.

0:43:330:43:40

For me, the coast is most alive when you can see it at work,

0:43:420:43:46

and harbours are where you can see that happening,

0:43:460:43:49

where land and sea and people all come together

0:43:490:43:53

and where adventures are born.

0:43:530:43:55

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