The Mysteries of the Isles Coast

Coast is home.

We're back to explore the most endlessly fascinating shoreline

in the world.

Our own.

The quest to discover surprising secret stories

from around the British Isles continues.

This is Coast.

We're about to embark on a voyage of discovery.

Our destinations are the glorious islands of the British Isles.

Jewels set in spectacular seas

with a treasure trove of secrets in store.

This is an epic adventure to explore the mysteries of the Isles.

Shrouded in cloaks of sea mist,

the Western Isles can seem like a shadowy, secret world.

Fertile territory for the making of myths.

Spectacular sights and tall tales

captivated a new breed of tourists around 150 years ago.

They departed from new gateways to adventure, like here at Largs.

Following in the footsteps of Victorian travellers,

Tessa's searching out the truth of an island tale

that seems much stranger than fiction.

In the late 1800s,

the sleepy town of Largs was a thriving tourist destination.

The golden ticket for travel hungry adventurers of the Victorian age,

was a grand tour of the Western Isles.

The new craze for paddle-steamer voyages

drew people here from far and wide,

especially those obsessed with a scientific sense of discovery.

One such traveller was French author Jules Verne,

a founding father of science fiction.

In 1879, Verne, in search of new wonders,

travelled to the Western Isles.

The man who wrote Around The World In 80 Days

and 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea

was inspired here to write a book about a natural phenomenon.

Part fact, part fiction.

The mysterious and elusive green ray.

In the book, Jules Verne describes a fleeting green flash of light

that reveals itself just as the sun sets.

He called it Le Rayon Vert,

meaning the green ray, more commonly known as the green flash.

The novel tells the story of a young woman, Helena,

who, having read of the green ray,

sets off on a voyage to the Western Isles

to try and see it herself.

Legend tells that the green ray destroys illusions

and will allow her to find true love.

Joining me as I begin my voyage into the islands, is Ian Thompson,

who has studied Verne's book.

Does the green ray really exist? Will we be able to see it?

Yes, the phenomenon certainly exists.

We don't know that Verne himself witnessed it.

There's nothing in the correspondence or diaries

to prove that, but it certainly does exist and has been witnessed,

photographed and I have here an example where we see,

just for a few seconds, this green flash or green ray.

That was what Verne's heroine was after.

And it's what I'm after too.

Like both Jules Verne and his heroine, Helena,

I'm boarding a steamer to travel to the Western Isles.

The green ray is very interesting in Verne's huge output,

because it's the one novel that follows exactly

his own travel and his travels in Scotland.

He adored all the myths and legends and history of Scotland

and he regarded it as more or less his ancestral home.

Why, in particular, are the Western Isles a good place

for seeing this green flash phenomenon?

The western coast of the Western Isles

offered a completely unblocked view of the horizon and sunset.

So, in other words, here, where we are right now, is no good.

You can't see over the horizon.

It's clearly not an easy phenomenon to capture.

It does require very specific atmospheric conditions.

What do you think our chances are?

Pretty slim.

To have any hope, I need to push on to the open sea.

Like Helena, I'm determined to witness the green flash.

Has anybody else here seen it though?

-I wonder, Sir, if you've ever heard of the green ray.

-I haven't, no.

-I don't suppose you know anything about the green flash, do you?

-No.

I haven't, I'm sorry, I don't.

-Have you ever heard of the green flash?

-Oh, yes, I have.

-Have you?

In fact, I've seen the green flash.

Just as the sun goes down, just as it disappears over the horizon,

there's a green flash.

It's quite amazing to see it.

Reassured, I continue heading west. It's a race against the sun.

Back in Verne's day,

the fashionable sets in London, Paris and Berlin

saw the Western Isles as the last wilderness of Europe.

It's clear that Verne too was captivated by this place.

As he made his way to the lochs and out to the islands,

natural wonders like the Corryvreckan Whirlpool fuelled his imagination,

as did the imposing island of Staffa and the wondrous Fingal's Cave.

With sunset approaching, the paddle steamer leaves me behind.

I've arrived at the island where Verne's heroine got her chance

to see the green flash.

But she had better luck than me.

I've got a view of the horizon, but the clouds have closed in.

The sun's nowhere to be seen, the elements are against me.

But I was brought up in Scotland, so I am not daft enough

to have left the green flash to chance. I've got a Plan B.

'I am meeting Johannes Courtial,

'who is giving me my very own green flash demonstration.'

How does a green flash actually work?

There's the sun,

and when it's setting, the light from the sun reaches the observer

by entering the atmosphere, where it gets bent.

when the sun sets on the horizon,

the light goes through a bit of atmosphere a bit like a prism.

-I happen to have one here.

-So if the atmosphere is like a prism,

what effect does that have on the light?

What this does is it splits the sun's light

into, effectively, a rainbow.

The red bit is at the bottom, the blue bit is at the top,

and as the sun sets below the horizon,

this rainbow disappears.

The blue is at the end, so that would set last,

but the green flashes green and not blue,

and that's because blue light is scattered by the atmosphere.

This is why the sky is blue,

and that's why, in this rainbow,

blue is missing and then the top colour is green.

The last colour that is disappearing below the horizon is a bit of green.

-When that sets, that's the green flash.

-Eureka!

-Can you recreate the green flash here?

-Well, we'll do our best.

We have all we need, I think. We have a fish tank with angled sides.

This will act like a prism.

'To make the tank mimic the bending power

'of the Earth's atmosphere, we fill it with water.'

'Add powder to scatter the light, and finally a torch, our sun.'

I can see some form of rainbow here.

I do see it actually, a kind of blue-y green rim.

But I thought that that green flash was meant to be at the top,

the last bit of the sun to disappear, not on the right-hand side.

That's because our atmosphere is standing on its side.

This way is up.

'With a little magic touch,

'it starts to look a lot more like the setting sun,

'complete with mysterious green flash.'

Given what we've been up against, I think you've worked wonders.

This is amazing. I actually understand it.

'And though I may have cheated a little,

'with the help of a German scientist and a plastic fish tank,

'I've joined the lucky few to have seen

'the rare and mysterious green flash.'

Around a hundred years ago, Scottish waters became a battle ground.

During the First World War, enemy ships stalked these shores.

To meet the German threat, the Royal Navy headed north to base on Orkney,

at the sheltered bay of Scapa Flow.

The Navy's mighty warships went long ago.

But intrigue lingers in their wake.

Neil's exploring how the most famous face of the First World War

came to lose his life here in the most mysterious fashion.

This is the curious case of the death of Lord Kitchener.

Our tale begins in the summer of 1916.

Scapa Flow is awash with ships of the British Grand Fleet,

the most fearsome instrument of war the world has ever seen.

On the 5th June, HMS Hampshire is about to slip out for a covert mission to Russia.

On board is one of Britain's most celebrated men.

His face was instantly recognisable and nearly 100 years later,

it still is.

Lord Horatio Herbert Kitchener -

the poster boy of army recruitment during the First World War.

When he arrived here in Scapa Flow on 5th June 1916,

he was suffering from no more than a mild bout of seasickness.

A few hours later, he was dead, and exactly how he died

and why puzzles some people even to this day.

Conspiracy theories surrounding Kitchener's fate swirl around these murky waters.

Ripples of intrigue remain after the shock of terrible events

that made grim headlines.

Look at this.

Not many people's death would warrant a full front page picture

of a newspaper in 1916.

But the nation was amazed and bemused by the loss of Kitchener.

Somehow, the warship he'd been travelling on

had sunk in home waters,

killing over 600 men, including Kitchener.

To the people, he was a hero, a patriot and a friend.

They'd heeded his call to war.

# We don't want to lose you

# But we think you ought to go...#

"Your country needs you" was his rallying cry,

and his country did not disappoint him.

From 1914 onwards, 2.5 million men answered the call.

Whole communities, mates from the same factories and towns

formed the famous Pals battalions.

By summer 1916, this band of brothers had become Kitchener's new army.

We were two years in the making and ten minutes in the destroying,

said one of Kitchener's new army.

Pals battalions were brutally butchered on the first day

of the Battle of the Somme in July 1916,

but Kitchener didn't live to see his men mown down.

He was dead before the battle could get under way.

While his soldiers and his country still loved him.

The nation demanded to know why HMS Hampshire sank,

as it set out from Orkney with their national hero on board.

An investigation was conducted to formulate the official answer.

-How are you doing?

-Good to see you.

I'm meeting historian Nick Hewitt, who's going to give me

the authorised version of HMS Hampshire's loss

and Kitchener's death.

So on 5th June, Kitchener is right here in Scapa Flow.

He is.

Is this photographic proof?

This is the last picture we know of Kitchener leaving the Iron Duke,

walking along the decks to board the Hampshire.

Why is Kitchener en route to Russia anyway?

Russia is on the verge of collapse

and Kitchener is the face of British military might.

He's a logical man to send around and put some pep in the Russians.

So what happens?

What they're looking to do is very simple,

to take Kitchener from Scapa Flow to Russia, which is in that direction.

The problem is, there is what's described as the worst gale of the century.

The Hampshire sets off from alongside the Iron Duke.

Into the teeth of the gale.

The captain sensibly starts to move her closer to the shore

to try and get some degree of shelter.

It doesn't help, but it's the right thing to do.

What they don't know is that off Marwick Head

there is a small German minefield

that's been laid secretly by a U-boat the week before,

and the Hampshire runs straight into one of these mines.

That's the official account the Government hoped would lay the story to rest

but some on the islands of Orkney remained uneasy.

They had witnessed mysterious events on the night of the tragedy.

We've reached the spot where Kitchener died,

about a mile and a half offshore.

The Hampshire lies upside-down on the sea bed,

about 70 metres below my feet.

The ship sank in minutes.

Over 600 men perished.

Despite the terrible storm,

islanders tried to help survivors struggling to get up cliffs.

The rescuers felt more men should have been saved, so why weren't they?

-Well, James.

-Hello.

-How are you?

James Sabiston heard strange tales,

passed down from his grandparents.

My grandparents and my mother lived here.

Two survivors managed to get to his grandparents' house

the night the ship went down.

I presume everyone was in their beds.

Yes. They were all in bed.

I think they came and knocked at the door at two o'clock in the morning.

And my grandmother went to the door,

and I think she was a bit worried, wasn't sure if it was a spy

or something may be coming, but she took 'em in anyway.

These are the photographs here, and that's one of Dick Simpson.

He's just a boy.

Yes, 20.

And that's Jack Bowman.

What did he say?

He said our ship's going down and we want some help.

There were some more maybe to be saved.

And so what did your grandparents do once they realised that there was a tragedy?

My grandfather went to the neighbour and got the men from there.

They got ropes and they took up three survivors that way.

Before they were stopped by the authorities.

Your grandfather and the rest were stopped from doing any more of the rescue?

Oh, yes.

What is the word on why anyone would stop a rescue?

That's what makes it so suspicious, I would say.

You'd think it was something going on somewhere.

Who do you think the authorities actually were?

I don't know.

Whether they were neighbouring authorities or police or who,

I don't know really who it was.

James's grandfather never did find out for sure

who'd stopped the rescue efforts, or why.

This is the bay where the sailors were struggling to get ashore.

I'm hoping Tom Muir from the local museum can shed more light

on the mysterious authorities who prevented the locals from helping.

There were troops down here, there was an order from the Admiralty

not to allow civilians down to the shore

because there might be sensitive papers washed up,

which they didn't want falling into enemy hands.

Right. So it's that paranoia stage.

Very.

Do you think it's possible that the conditions that night

were just so appalling that the authorities were right

in thinking that no-one could help in the water anyway?

They certainly could have helped.

The people around here were farmers but they were also fishermen,

so they knew the tides, they knew where the rafts would come in,

they knew that life rafts would come in here,

so when the life rafts did come in, there was nobody there to help.

There were just smashed against the rocks

and there was that feeling that if the authorities had allowed them

to go out and help, the human emotion, the desire

to go and help them was denied, and that cost lives.

Sailors Dick Simpson and Jack Bowman were two of only 12 survivors.

Lord Kitchener and the rest of the crew perished.

The islanders raised money for a memorial to the tragedy,

but the story would not die.

The secrecy that scuppered local rescue efforts

suggested sinister motives to some.

Was the Government hiding something?

The people may have loved Lord Kitchener in 1916,

but many of those in power did not.

As Secretary of State for War, he was accused of having overseen

the bungled and disastrous operation at Gallipoli,

with a cost of 100,000 Allied casualties.

And the army on the Western front had almost run out of shells at one point

while Kitchener was in charge of munitions,

so he had lost some influential friends,

but had he made some murderous enemies?

The fame he'd won in South Africa during the Boer War,

the violence of his death and the fact his body wasn't recovered

gave rise to conspiracy theories.

I'm going to run three of them past Nick.

Firstly, had Kitchener's misconduct in the war,

so infuriated ministers like Lloyd George

that his ship was deliberately sent into waters they knew were mined?

The key thing is they've already fired him.

In December 1915, he loses the operational control of the army.

He's got no control over the battlefield.

There's absolutely no need for the government to have him murdered.

OK. We can put that one in the bin.

Absolutely. In it goes.

This is a particular favourite of mine, without a doubt.

That Lord Kitchener goes to Russia

and there, turns himself into a chap called Joseph Stalin.

There's a moustache thing going on.

I don't think we should even dignify it with a response.

It's clearly ridiculous.

What a shame. What a movie it would make!

I suppose in some ways this would possibly be the most credible,

the legendary "spy", Fritz,

a South African, embittered towards Kitchener particularly,

and the British in general because his mother and sister died during the Boer War.

That this man had sworn vengeance and managed to get aboard the Hampshire,

caused the explosion and lived to tell the tale.

It's the hardest one to disprove, I'll give you that.

He wrote a memoir, obviously saying that he did it.

His claim that he gets on the ship and sabotages the ship

and swims away and joins a submarine and gets away with it,

when so many men were drowning in such appalling weather

is really, really hard to believe.

I think we have to put Fritz in.

Done.

The people of Orkney still live with the loss of HMS Hampshire.

They tend the cemetery of sailors claimed by the sea.

Men the locals couldn't save.

100 years on, what are we to make of the curious case

of the death of Lord Kitchener?

I can't help feeling that this sad episode has been hijacked

by the conspiracy theorists.

This isn't about the death of a national hero, mysterious or otherwise.

It's about a tragedy.

It's the loss of over 600 lives,

and the scars that remain on an island community that was unable to help.

One thing that unites us across these isles

is that we're all islanders,

whether we live on rocks in the sea that are very large or very small.

Maybe the joy of coming to the coast is that here,

we can still experience the very essence of our island story.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd