Joy of the Coast Coast

BIRDSONG

This is Coast.

Bunching together on beaches.

Hitting the waves.

Climbing crags.

Flying or fishing.

Pier or promenade.

We really do love to be beside the seaside.

For me, it doesn't get any better than this.

Hauling canvas, salt spray in your face.

But we all have our own passions for the pure joy of the coast.

We're setting sail in pursuit of those pursuits

that give us pleasure at our seaside leisure.

I'm heading for the Highlands

on a joyous journey to the Isle of Skye.

I'll be climbing for my life

in the steps of Victorian daredevils.

If you fall off one side, I go off the other side.

-I'll make sure that doesn't happen.

-Just stay on the crest.

-Yeah.

While I rejoice in the Scottish peaks,

the chocolate-box beauty of the South West

feeds the rest of the team's passions.

In St Ives, wordsmith Ian is drawn to the artist's life.

He swaps his pen for a paintbrush and comes over all creative.

Oh, and I might write a poem, as well,

because it is me job, after all.

At pretty Polperro, Ruth is casting off.

But it's not sailing that floats her boat.

I'm halfway to finishing my fisherman's jumper,

so I'm here to do some first-hand research with a fisherman.

You've got a double now.

Oh! I think I'm better at the old net-mending, somehow.

Oh, you'll get the hang of it.

And in Plymouth, Tessa takes the plunge

to soak up the delights of the coast 1930s-style.

Welcome to the lido.

We're on a voyage to explore the pleasures of seaside leisure

and experience the joy of the coast.

My odyssey of joy begins on Scottish shores at Oban.

The town's a gateway to the glorious Western Isles,

but can it also lay claim to having launched the package tour business?

It certainly hums with the holiday feel.

People are out of their work clothes.

For me, that means a chance to wear the suit.

MAN PLAYS BAGPIPES

This shoreline brings memories flooding back.

I grew up in East Anglia, which is a little bit flatter than this.

Then when I was a bit older, my father used to bring me up here

climbing mountains for a couple of weeks.

When I had my own family,

we started coming up here doing the same kind of thing.

Ferry ports like this are where it all begins.

These are the waiting rooms to adventure.

These days, they feel more like airports.

But there's still a palpable thrill of anticipation.

I love boarding ferries.

It feels like the authentic Scottish experience

that's captivated travellers throughout the ages.

But this scene isn't as timeless as it seems.

The tourist trade and this style of travel

is a relatively recent development.

Thanks in part to one far-sighted man, Thomas Cook.

The package tours to Scotland many enjoy today

were pioneered by canny Mr Cook in the mid 19th century.

Now I'm following in his wake.

When Thomas Cook first arrived here,

the tourist trade coming from England was tiny.

Largely toffs and the privileged well-to-do.

Cook spied an opportunity.

To sell this magical coast to the middle classes.

Thomas used the steam engine to power his package holidays.

Sailing ships were unpredictable,

but the new steamers ran like well-oiled machines

to strict timetables.

Thomas Cook realised he could now schedule

complex round trips with confidence.

The concept of Mr Cooks' tours caught on.

Tourists flooded out to the Isles.

So, how did remote communities like Tobermory cope with the crowds?

To see how travel transformed the town,

I've brought an artist's impression from the early 19th century.

Now I need to find the spot where it was painted.

Well, it's recognisably Tobermory.

The bridge is the one I'm standing on now.

But all Tobermory's famous painted houses we can see there,

they don't exist.

You just have this long wooded hill sloping down to the sea.

So before the age of tourism, Tobermory was just a hamlet.

Tours like those organised by Thomas Cook

created a new look to the quayside, as Brian Swinbanks knows.

Very good to see you in Tobermory. Wonderful day.

I think it was 1847, you could actually get a day ticket

from Glasgow to Tobermory and Oban. You could get up in a day.

That's a huge transformation from old sailing ships

that could take a week or two to get here.

And eventually, you got new hotels built.

And the Mishnish Hotel there, the Western Isles Hotel in 1883,

they were all built on the back and to provide for this tourism

to turn Tobermory into what they called at that time

the Scarborough of the North.

To share in the profits of travel, locals opened up their homes.

One of the famous houses was a Mrs Cuthbertson

who owned that house there, now the green house,

offered fine marmalade and fine hospitality.

And in fact, there's one traveller who actually said

that she actually bathed her feet for her.

And that is a great image, really.

I don't get that kind of hospitality these days.

The town bent over backwards to accommodate

the middle-class sensibilities of their new guests.

Furnished with Thomas Cook's guides,

tourists could take in the wild isles during the day

and return to luxurious comfort at night.

This is what a highland hotel is meant to look like.

For Thomas Cook, all this pleasure sprang from piety.

He was a follower of the temperance movement.

He believed that drink was evil.

Travelling the country spreading the word of sobriety,

he became a dab hand with the new railway timetables.

Thomas Cook first played tour leader in 1841.

He organised a trip from Leicester to Loughborough

for fellow Christians. He charged them one shilling each

to go to a temperance movement meeting.

Soon, Cook started tours purely for pleasure.

And travellers haven't looked back since.

My journey in search of coastal joy means it's time to check out.

Dressed for adventure.

I hope I don't need the brolly.

I'm heading over the sea to Skye.

I've always wanted to say that.

-Hello, Mark.

-Hello, Nick. Hi.

I'm bound for our most fearsome mountain range.

The colossal Cuillins.

A jagged cluster of black peaks bursting straight from the sea.

And I'm not going for the view.

My mission is to try and conquer the Cioch, this amazing pinnacle,

location for the swordfight in the film Highlander,

and my long-coveted challenge.

I've wanted to climb the Cioch for years.

And now it's just 31 nautical miles away,

I'm full of the joys of coast!

This theatre of stone is the perfect stage

for me to act out long-held ambitions.

But I'm not the only one seeking coastal highs.

While I delight in Scottish shores,

the joys of the south-west coast have enticed the rest of the team.

The Atlantic surf brings thrill-seekers rolling in.

Riding the crest.

Wind in their sails.

It's full-on fun.

But if you prefer a slower pace of life,

seek out the shelter of Polperro.

A quiet Cornish village ideal for unwinding.

While some stroll by the sea, others sit and knit.

Ruth is relaxing by trying to maintain her tension.

I've been working on this traditional fisherman's jumper for,

well, on and off for months now.

And I've had to get to grips with a whole range of new techniques

and fiddly difficult bits.

The Cornish coast to this day

still echoes with the click-clack of knitting needles,

so I've come along to pick up a few tips

and to learn something more

about how this fantastic fun pastime grew out of hard graft.

Fishermen throughout the UK

were always recognisable by their hand-knitted jumpers.

And in the 19th and early 20th centuries,

making them was, for some, the only way to put bread upon the table.

I'm casting off with Mary Wright,

who wrote a book on Edwardian knitters.

Mary knows the work that went into creating these coastal classics.

They're amazing things, aren't they?

I mean, they're not just any old jumper, these.

-No.

-They're special.

-Don't call them a jumper.

-What am I supposed to call them?

-A jersey.

-A jersey.

-Or guernsey.

-Or guernsey.

-Or knitfrock.

-Or knitfrock.

I like that word, knitfrock.

Knitfrock is the term used in Polperro.

-Don't say jumper.

-Never say jumper. But I can say gansey.

-You can.

-And I can say jersey.

-Yes.

And if I'm in Polperro, I can say knitfrock.

THEY LAUGH

This little village has its own knitting vocabulary.

These streets were once awash with women working on their knitfrocks.

Women enjoyed being outside.

The light was better, the social life was better.

They could see people.

And people who live in the villages say

that you could hear the clack of the needles before you turned the corner.

Ladies weren't just making gansies for the family.

There was money to be made selling them to merchants.

Polperro became a knitfrock factory.

Polperro was the centre of contract knitting in the 19th century

and in the 20th century.

So, where did the gansies that were knitted in Polperro end up?

They could be packed up

and dispatched to anywhere in the country.

Polperro's knitting was strung-out all around the coast.

Worn for centuries by seafarers,

and some still swear by it today.

I'm meeting Barry Mundy, a fifth-generation fisherman.

-Super.

-Oh, this is such a beautiful harbour, isn't it?

Oh, yeah. It's a lovely day out there again.

It's beautiful!

I see you're wearing a gansey. Was that just put on for us today?

-No. No. I wear that every day.

-Really?

-Yes.

-It's well over 30 years' old.

-Really?!

-Yes, yes. It keeps you warm.

-Yeah.

It's got that oily texture to it, so it's showerproof.

So the water just sort of stands on the surface rather than soaking in.

Yes, that's right.

It's more than workwear.

Fishermen have a proud attachment to their gansies.

When I was fishing first, you would have worn it to, er...

funerals and sort of special occasions.

It was really the...

Well, something like the uniform of a fisherman, really, I suppose.

Knitting and fishing have long been intertwined.

Sharing words such as casting off and fisherman's rib.

And some believe the dexterous hands of fishermen,

used to repairing fishing nets, were perfect for knitting.

Let's put Barry and that theory to the test.

So as a man who's worn a gansey for 30 years, can you make one?

Um...I think I'd struggle, I think.

-This is my beginner's knitting pack.

-Yep.

So we're going to go through the back of that loop towards there...

Yep.

-Then around the needle.

-Yes.

And then...through.

-OK.

-And slip it off.

Let's have a go. Let's have a go.

-SHE LAUGHS

-Right.

-It's through there...

-That's the one.

And...around there.

-And...

-By George!

Oh! You just took an extra stitch.

You just made it bigger. You've got a double now.

Oh! I think I'm better at the old net-mending somehow.

You'll get the hang of it. You're not bad.

And it is men's work, this is.

Knitting used to be one of those things

that everybody did, men and women both,

in order to earn a living.

The trouble is, if I get too good at this,

my wife is going to want me to knit her a gansey.

THEY LAUGH

A hundred years ago, knitting and fishing

were both part of the fabric of coastal life.

As the men worked at sea...the women waited.

But their hands were never idle.

This photograph shows a lady knitting

while watching for fishing boats to return.

And this is Polperro. But she's doing her knitting.

-Yeah. Some bloke lounging about behind her.

-Of course(!)

And she's not only knitting,

but she's keeping an eye on what's happening out at sea.

That's a good position to watch.

-While waiting for your man to come home.

-Right.

-Hm.

What was once a chore is now done for fun.

Polperro's women still like to sit and stitch.

And there's a further twist in the knitting yarn.

Along the coast, a band of women have taken up their needles

with a new mission in mind.

To weave a little magic.

These are the graffiti grannies.

They work incognito.

Keeping their identity under wraps is part of the fun.

We like to give whatever we knit away to the public.

Why are you all wearing masks?

Because we like to give it away anonymously.

We go out in the middle of the night

and we put it all around different towns and villages

so that people can take it and enjoy it.

It's a huge amount of work, so why do you do it?

We enjoy seeing the pleasure that other people get out of it

and we like to put a smile on people's faces,

and that's what we do.

THEY LAUGH

Following a century-old pattern,

the women of Cornwall still have this shore nicely stitched up.

SEABIRDS CALL

We're on a voyage to experience the joy of the coast

by exploring the seaside pursuits that give us pleasure.

My passion for climbing has brought me to western Scotland.

Calm seas belie a towering test of nerve

awaiting me on the Isle of Skye.

This is a moment I've long savoured in my imagination.

Now the reality of the task ahead is sinking in.

I've got a date with destiny.

Just across the water over there, there's a climb I've long coveted.

A gigantic anvil of ancient stone hidden away

in the depths of Scotland's most fearsome mountain range.

I'm heading for a jagged outpost on Skye.

The Cuillin Ridge.

These torn teeth of ancient rock run from coast to coast

and they conceal my challenge.

The Cioch.

A protruding spear of stone.

It was only climbed for the first time in 1906.

Now it's my turn.

These pinnacles witnessed some epic dramas of early mountaineering.

I'm going back to those days

to discover how the Cioch took centre stage.

It wasn't until the Victorian era

that gentlemen and lady explorers began climbing for pleasure.

By the early 20th century,

the Isle of Skye was becoming a Mecca for the new mountaineers.

That was largely thanks to two men who are still inseparable.

They forged a friendship on the rock etched for eternity in stone.

Here lies one John Mackenzie

head to toe with one Norman Collie.

These were the two pioneering mountaineers

who first completed the climb I'm about to attempt.

They rest in the shadow of the coastal peaks

they explored together for half a century.

This brooding landscape is shrouded in mystery.

John Mackenzie and Norman Collie

took many of its secrets to their graves.

To discover the endless joys they found in these mountains,

I need to see them through their eyes.

For over 100 years, climbers have begun their adventures on Skye

at the Sligachan Hotel.

This is Normal Collie sitting in this inn.

Collie was a gentleman.

A professor of chemistry at University College London.

He lived and he worked in the capital,

but his heart was here on the island of Skye.

He was to become one of the greatest climbers of the age.

And here is John Mackenzie on the summit of Sgurr nan Gillean.

And here he is again on the ridge of the Black Cuillins.

Mackenzie was a highlander, a man of Skye.

He worked as a gillie employed by gentlemen

who wanted to go hunting and fishing.

And that's how the Scot John Mackenzie

met the Englishman Norman Collie.

Aged 27, Collie came to Skye on holiday in 1886.

Dressed much like this.

Well, the boots weigh a tonne

and the soles are covered in steel teeth

to help them grip on wet grass and rock.

I'm not quite sure how this stuff will perform in the wind and rain,

but if this lot was good enough for the original mountain men...

it's good enough for me.

Young Norman Collie had all the gear,

but as yet, not a clue about climbing.

And to make exploring harder,

there were no detailed maps of the Cuillin mountains.

To show him the way, Norman engaged John Mackenzie.

Coincidently, my guide is also called John. John Lyall.

Oh! Perfect.

This track we've been following is pretty well-worn, isn't it?

But going back 150 years, why were the Cuillins so little known?

Well, no-one had any reason to go up there.

They're just rock. They're just massive rocky, spiky peaks.

And no-one, none of the local people had a reason to go up there.

Their animals grazed low down.

I first saw the Black Cuillins here as a teenager

coming up here mountaineering in winter.

And, er...I found them pretty intimidating,

I don't mind admitting it.

They're spikier, they're sexier mountains than any in Britain.

They just rise straight out of the sea and so much rock.

People say they're the nearest thing we have to alpine peaks.

But I think they're better than that.

And we've got this view out over the minster,

the Inner Isles and outer Hebrides.

There's nowhere quite like it.

With me as English gentleman Professor Collie

and John as his guide John Mackenzie,

we're going to attempt the route they created.

They were the first to find and climb the Cioch.

So this big cliff in front of us here is Sron na Ciche.

It's a thousand feet high.

And up in the middle of that is the Cioch.

I don't know if you can see, there's a big like X feature.

A big wide crack comes up

and then the Cioch is right in the middle of that X.

So X marks the spot.

You'd never think there's even a feature up there.

It just looks like a very rugged wall of rock.

It's not obvious how to get to it.

And that was what was part of the problem for Collie

was to try and find a way to it.

They set off with just a hemp rope,

hobnail boots and each other to put their trust in.

So, this is where we have to put the rope on to go further up?

Yeah. It just gets a bit more serious, the drops around us, so...

-I'll just get you to stop on this ledge and I'll run the rope.

-OK.

-OK, Nick.

-Coming.

We know their route, but those bold pioneers made it up as they went.

Wearing vintage gear including their footwear,

snaking upwards feels painfully authentic.

The boots are probably the most excruciating weapons of torture

I've ever fitted to my own feet.

Braving uncharted territory,

finally, in 1906, Norman Collie and John Mackenzie made a breakthrough.

-So there's the Cioch.

-Wow! Look at that!

Fantastic!

You can suddenly see it.

This great anvil of rock has haunted my imagination for ages.

And today's the day I get to climb it.

But even now, to stand atop the Cioch seems a faraway dream.

How did Mackenzie and Collie get to the edge?

I need to gather my thoughts and my courage for the climb of my life.

Seaside peaks are my idea of bliss.

Others find joy flat out on the water's edge, soaking up the rays.

It seems a timeless pastime,

but surprisingly, our love affair with sunbathing

is less than 100 years old.

To explore the birth of this new bronze age,

we're heading to Plymouth.

As the sun cult blossomed, so did their temples of worship.

Tessa's plunging into the joys of the lido.

In the 1930s, a new fashion

was changing the complexion of the nation's leisure.

After years of cowering in the shade,

Britons became fans of the tan.

Lidos sprang up as shrines to sunlight.

But in a time before sun cream,

for pale-skinned people like me, tanning was a tricky business.

So, who made the sun cool in the first place?

A leading light of glamour became the sun worshiper's high priestess.

For many, the poster girl of the new fashion was Coco Channel.

She had made waves in the early '20s,

returning from a holiday on the Riviera sporting a deep tan.

Once the sign of an outdoor labourer,

a suntan now marked out the super rich.

And the sun's benefits weren't just skin deep.

Science was casting light on its supposed healing powers.

In 1903, remarkable research into sunlight therapy

by the Scandinavian physician Niels Finsen

earned him a Nobel Prize.

Using huge lenses to focus the sun's rays,

he set up sunlight surgeries

to cure everything from ulcers to rickets.

The sun made us feel wealthy and healthy.

And we couldn't get enough of it.

Lidos became a feature of Britain's seaside scenery.

In the sun and in the swim. Perfect!

In 1929, the Met Office published its first sunshine records.

Eastbourne was a chart topper

with a singeing 2,081 hours of sunshine over the year.

How could they be so precise?

Meteorologist Sarah Cruddas is here to reveal the secret.

It's actually what's known as a Campbell-Stokes sunshine recorder

and it's actually a very simple, but very effective way

of measuring sunlight.

Just imagine it like a magnifying glass

with a beam of light coming from the sun.

This globe then concentrates the beam of light

onto this especially-treated card behind.

As the sun tracks across the sky,

its magnified rays burn a line across the card.

By the end of the day, we would actually get a mark

which would show us when it's been sunny. That's that line there. It's charred through.

Then a bit cloudy, so it hasn't charred it, and then sunshine.

And then you can tell on that day, it was slightly cloudier in the afternoon.

This is still the most common way of measuring the amount of sunlight.

For the resorts topping the sunlight charts, times were good.

# Hip-hooray, hip-hooray

# The sun has got his hat on

# Hip-hip-hip-hooray

# The sun has got his hat on and he's coming out to play. #

But what about sunburn?

Many fell under the sunbathing spell.

But with skin as pale as mine, it could be a painful pastime.

In the 1930s, sun creams were rare.

But the war was about to change that.

I wouldn't much fancy smearing this all over my body.

And yet it was a substance much like this that was used in the 1940s

by the American army in the South Pacific.

It was called Red Vet Pet.

The key ingredient is red petroleum jelly.

They didn't know exactly how,

but that's what protected against the harmful ultraviolet rays.

Post-war, scientists started to experiment with new sun lotions.

Chemist Andrew Shaw knows how they progressed beyond simple sun block.

Not that we'll need it today.

A simple block might be something like zinc oxide,

which is this, er...white powder here,

and simply mix it into an oil base

and it will form a nice little emulsion.

It will eventually go white to prevent the sun from coming in.

-Imagine that's the surface of your skin. Light comes in from above.

-Bouncing off the water.

I'll float something on the surface of your skin that will block it.

Light's not getting through that. It's a simple block.

Since then, sun creams have become more sophisticated, haven't they?

Yes. Chemists have discovered that molecules with small rings in them

are very good at absorbing just the ultraviolet that's dangerous to you.

To increase the Sun Protection Factor or SPF,

you can add more ring molecules to a sun cream.

A way to tune your tan.

Andrew has some magic beads to show the SPF in action.

In here, I've got some beads that are photoactive.

And when I open up, they're going to change colour

because of the presence of the UV light.

Even on the cloudiest of days, the UV still gets through.

-Oh, they go straight away!

-Look at that. It's quite clever.

If I take some of those beads and coat them with different SPF factor sunscreens,

they're going to change colour at different times.

So under here, we've got 10, 20, 30 and 50.

Here's the 10, it's beginning to change colour.

The 20 and 30 more slowly.

The one you might put on children, the factor 50,

is changing colour really very slowly indeed and hardly at all.

And probably for somebody as fair as me, I would go for that.

-I would, yes.

-You do, too, don't you?

-I do, yes.

-You're a bit peaky.

THEY LAUGH

I'll never be a convert to the sun worship cult.

Probably a good thing, given the great British weather.

But of course, the colder it is on the outside,

the warmer the water feels.

Holidays for the masses made a big splash on the south coast.

But not everyone finds joy in crowds.

For some, isolation is splendid.

And where better than lonely peaks at the meeting point of sea and sky?

The awesome Cuillin Ridge.

To lose yourself in the splendour of those hills,

head to the Isle of Skye.

Mountains and the sea, this is close to heaven for me.

The pure joy of the coast.

I ventured to a hidden gem concealed in the coastal peaks.

The Cioch.

Stage for a spectacular swordfight in the film Highlander.

This great spear of rock

has poked defiantly into the sky for countless millennia.

But amazingly, it was only discovered just over 100 years ago.

Highlander John Mackenzie, a mountain guide,

and English gentleman Norman Collie first conquered the Cioch.

Now we're taking on their trailblazing route.

My guide is John Lyall.

And our period footwear is an act of faith in the early climbers.

I'm not yet trusting these Victorian nail boots.

John keeps telling me I should do, but I'm learning.

Like the pioneers Mackenzie and Collie,

our only protection on this precipitous route

is a single hemp rope.

John's rope should stop me from falling, but what if he falls?

The leader never falls. That was the saying of the day.

Nowadays, people fall off climbing a lot,

but in these days, you just didn't fall off.

So you've got two cracks now for your feet.

One for your left and one for your right.

These old boots are like gigantic chocks, aren't they?

Yeah, yeah. You just wedge them in.

And they're so stiff, it means they're really secure.

So, John, is this the kind of protection

Mackenzie and Collie would have used when they climbed up here?

Yeah. Just using the rope.

In this situation, just jamming it into the crack

and then the friction of the rope running around that

and me pulling down in this direction.

If you fall off there,

the rope just jams further into the crack and you're secure.

And I'll go out across here.

Hold on.

-Wow!

-It's below us now.

-It's spectacular!

What do you think was going through Collie and Mackenzie's heads

when they came around the corner we've just come around

and they suddenly saw it in front of them?

"We've cracked it!"

They would have known this was it. They'd got it.

The best picnic site in Britain.

NICK LAUGHS

It's almost in touching distance.

It is.

It's like unlocking a maze.

We've been up and down, side to side

up cracks, along ledges down chimneys...and there it is.

It's got a bit of a sting in the tail.

How are we going to get along there?

You're going to walk along it initially.

Further down, it gets a bit more rounded

and if you want to get down on your backside, that's fine.

This is where the rope technique gets interesting.

A bit more alpine.

If you fall off one side, I go off the other side,

then we counterbalance with the rope. That's the idea.

I think we'd better make sure that doesn't happen.

-Just stay on the crest.

-Yeah.

Jeepers!

This is something else.

I used to slide down banisters as a small boy,

but this beats all the banister-sliding I've ever done.

Right.

That may not have been very elegant,

but it's still a technical issue now, which is getting up that.

Shall I wait here, John?

I really cannot believe this is happening.

Standing on top of the Cioch.

Unbelievable.

Oh!

Do you fancy a swordfight(?)

NICK LAUGHS

Look at that! There's the coast.

All the way. Fantastic Outer Hebrides.

Unbelievable!

Do you know, I reckon this is the most astounding spot

-I've ever trodden on in the British Isles.

-Mm.

I think it really is.

-It feels almost...

-Sacred.

I was just going to use that word. It's a sacred place.

Yeah. I think amongst climbers, places like this are special.

I can imagine Collie taking his friends up here,

sitting here with bottles of wine and having a picnic and talking,

looking out to this view.

It's, er...it's kind of special.

I think Victorians are meant to shake hands at a moment like this.

Well done, old boy.

Thank you, trusted guide.

-Well done.

-Thank you, John, very much.

Such moments of great joy are short-lived.

But the friendship of the men who were the first to stand here in 1906

endured for years.

Englishman Norman Collie went on to explore mountains around the world,

but climbed on with John Mackenzie,

always returning to renew the bond with his Scottish guide.

I can empathise, having made my own bond with my guide, John Lyall.

Together, Mackenzie and Collie

explored these mountains year after year.

That is until 1933, when John Mackenzie died.

His friend Norman Collie was a private man,

not used to public displays of affection.

But Norman penned an obituary for John. He wrote...

"There is no-one who can take his place.

"Those who knew him will remember him as a perfect gentleman.

"One who never offended by word or deed.

"He has left a gap that cannot be filled.

"There was only one John."

When he retired, Norman Collie left England for his beloved Skye.

He lived at the Sligachan Hotel

where he'd stayed on his first visit some 40 years before.

Norman commissioned a portrait

of his climbing companion John Mackenzie.

The picture kept him company in the hotel during his final years.

Norman Collie would sit alone in the window,

looking up at the mountains he'd shared with his friend.

A partnership reunited when Collie died in 1942.

In the tiny cemetery at Bracadale at his request,

Norman lies next to John Mackenzie.

The joy they found in the mountains of Skye is with them for ever.

Pushing our limits brings us all a sense of freedom.

Reaching the edge of the land facing the sea,

earthly concerns evaporate.

Resorts remind us of childish joy.

LAUGHTER

In days of youth, summer was one long game.

And they're still happy to play along at Bognor Regis.

Every summer, a puzzling site takes shape on the beach

when they line up for Bognor's most barmy event.

This is the Jig It Challenge.

A puzzle-off to complete a 1,000-piece jigsaw

racing against the tide.

Who can finish their picture

before the waves dash their dreams of victory?

Rising to the challenge are newcomers Kim and Gareth Morgan.

The first-timers have trained hard

in their bid to complete the puzzle and beat the tide.

Standing in their way, the reigning champions

Lynn Halcome and Claire Fitzwilliam.

Let the puzzling commence!

Three...two...one.

SIREN WAILS

Begin! And the very best of luck to you all.

-We're working on the edges first.

-Just try and get the edge there.

I tend to do the top and Claire tends to do the bottom.

So we don't get in each other's ways.

-How long have we being going?

-Half an hour.

Yeah.

That's a cod.

I'd say the tide is coming in quite quick now.

As well as wet feet, beach puzzling requires speed,

concentration and rock-solid tactics.

We've got some rocks prepared so we can weigh down our pieces of puzzle.

It's a race against time now, so...

Well, we've done the outside. Oops!

But as the champions race ahead, the sea surges in.

N-o-o-o-o-o-o!

No!

Please, I'm going to cry.

They're lifting their tables up!

Are we allowed to ask how the champions are actually doing?

-They're out.

-They're out?

-Yeah.

Right. Go on. Let's go.

We're going. Yeah, we're going. We're going.

As the rising tide stops play, it's up to the judges to decide

who's got the most pieces in their puzzle.

And the winners are...

the Misfits!

Who wants this?

The champions reign again. But all's not lost.

We didn't win the jigsaw, but we won the fancy dress.

Yeah!

It's been a day and a half, but we've thoroughly enjoyed it.

We're on a journey to explore the pursuits

that give us pleasure at our seaside leisure.

Here on the south coast, we love to steam around the shore,

swallowing up the sights.

But sometimes the most exquisite joy

is found when we stop and stare.

Then the views do the talking.

SEABIRDS CALL

This glorious shore makes our spirits soar.

But how do we capture its beauty?

It's a question they've been trying to answer in St Ives.

Professional artists struggle to depict

the fleeting light of St Ives.

But one gifted amateur succeeded in creating

extraordinary portraits of this coast.

A lust for the artistic life that has Ian intrigued.

I'm lucky enough to be a professional poet.

Describing the world through words.

Around here, though, they prefer paint.

Artistic folk get great joy soaking up the sites of St Ives.

One of the most remarkable painters around here who died some 80 years ago

and still stands out from the crowd is this man, Alfred Wallis.

He was only 4ft 6 inches tall!

I like him already.

And this is one of his pictures, String of Boats.

An amazing evocation of this harbour.

He was just an ordinary bloke.

He used to make his living as a fisherman.

Didn't give two hoots for the art establishment.

Alfred's fame came from a happy accident.

A gentleman artist strolling through St Ives in 1928

discovered Wallis working by candlelight.

Now his humble paintings hang in grand galleries,

like here at Tate St Ives.

They capture a child-like joy of the coast.

But are they as simple as they seem?

The gallery's artistic director is Martin Clark.

What does he reckon to Wallis' primitive style?

He's often talked about as a kind of naive painter,

or that the images are very child-like.

And I think it would be wrong to dismiss that

or see that as a criticism in some ways.

In some senses, that's its strength.

And I think, you know, children do have a way of looking

and connecting with objects and with images and with the world

which often, artists are trying to get back to.

Painters respond to that and can see that sophistication

and the other people that respond really well to his work

and connect with it are fishermen.

Maybe seafarers find in these simple pictures

a straightforward connection with life on the waves.

After all, Alfred Wallis had been a fisherman himself.

So, what made him pick up the paints?

Alfred abandoned the sea after meeting Susan Ward.

This is Susan later in life.

They married in 1876 when Susan was 41 and Alfred was just 20.

But after a long and happy life together, Susan passed away in 1922.

Left alone and lonely, Alfred began to turn in on himself.

Wallis became a recluse.

Here he is in the doorway of his house.

Hiding away at home aged 67,

Alfred began to paint for the first time in his life.

They said he turned to painting for company.

And I've got a letter here that he wrote to an art dealer in 1936.

And this is word-for-word as he wrote it.

"I am self-taught, so you cannot me like those that have been taught

"both in school and paint. I have had to learn myself."

Alfred never had an art lesson in his life,

yet his work was coveted by eminent collectors in the 1930s.

It might look like child's play, but is it?

Welcome to our school kids.

They're aiming to capture the scenes of St Ives that captivated Wallis.

Joining the kids are surfers and lifeguards who know the sea.

And some older folk, silver surfers,

closer to Alfred's age and experience of life.

Will any of these novice painters reproduce the world of St Ives

with the same style as Wallis?

-Just get it on.

-Just get it on and get the job done, I reckon.

-Try and get a bit of emotion, motion of the ocean.

-Yeah, I get that.

We look at the sea every day. It might...

I don't know, it might show in our paintings that we are quite good.

But looking at Harry's right now, I don't think it is.

Many of these would-be Wallises

have settled on a scene that Alfred constantly re-imagined in his work.

This lighthouse, Smeaton's Tower.

We'll unveil their artwork later,

but their pleasure at the easel is already on display.

Wallis desperately needed that joy from his painting.

After his wife Susan died,

Alfred suffered crushing loneliness and paranoia.

How did pictures of the sea help him recall happier times?

I'm meeting artist Eric Ward.

Eric is the great-grandson of Susan Ward, Alfred's wife.

I have a letter here that he sent

saying that he always painted inside.

It's a very interesting letter, this. It goes...

"I never see anything.

"I send you now it is what I've seen before.

"I've had to learn myself. I never go out to paint.

"Your friend, Alfred Wallis."

So sad that he just sits inside and yet the memories were all there.

Because he spent so many years doing things on the water,

these things soak into you over the years, don't they?

Old Wallis, he marinated his work for years, didn't he?

Because he didn't start painting until he was 67,

until perhaps the memories had had time to bed down.

His fishing days long gone, Wallis trawled his memories of the sea.

Intense portrayals of long-lost joy.

The coast of his imagination.

I'm no artist, but what moved Wallis to paint

has moved me to write.

It's called Soaking In.

Held in the sea's grip

Spat from the sea's lip

String of boats like a line of washing

Like on a beach in the old days

Washing, flapping like fish in a Wallis painting.

Alfred's world has hooked me in.

But has he given inspiration to our amateur artists?

These are the artworks St Ives produced earlier today.

So, what's it like now to see it in the gallery?

Pretty amazing.

It just looks absolutely amazing,

just to have my artwork hanging up in the gallery.

-I've been calling it a sphinx.

-I know.

Earlier on, didn't somebody call it a dog?

Somebody called it a dog. But in actual fact,

-it's the Smeaton's Tower.

-Yes.

As with Alfred Wallis,

the local lighthouse shines out from these works.

But the styles are very different.

The art establishment recognised Wallis as a singular talent.

For these amateurs, what makes painting worthwhile

is the joy of doing it.

Sadly, the same couldn't be said for Wallis.

Capturing the essence of this coast on canvas

brings a great deal of joy to many people.

But it brought no solace to the tortured soul of Alfred Wallis.

He cared little for the meagre money the dealers paid for his work.

He became preoccupied that some locals resented his fame,

believing he must be making a fortune.

I've got one of his last letters here that I'd like to read to you,

written to art collector Jim Mead.

"I'm thinking of giving up the paints altogether.

"I've nothing but persecution and jealousy.

"If you can come down for an hour or two, you can take them with you

"and give me what you think they're worth to you afterwards.

"These drawers and shops are all jealous of me."

And that, with all its misspellings and bad grammar,

gives you the idea of a man at the end of his tether,

for whom painting in the end, perhaps wasn't enough.

And yet he's left us such a fantastic legacy.

As Alfred gave up painting and his passion for the sea,

he gave up his trouble with the ache of life, too.

In 1942, at the age of 87,

Alfred Wallis died in poverty.

Alone and abandoned in the poorhouse.

I'd like to think that the image of this Atlantic seascape

that Alfred clung onto for so long inside his head

was with him at the end.

The final picture for his long voyage to that eternal sea.

We're exploring pursuits that bring us joy on our coast.

My journey has brought me to Scotland's Western Isles,

where I've conquered the Cioch to find my new favourite view.

Do you know, I reckon this is the most astounding spot

that I've ever trodden on in the British Isles.

And it was worth every blister.

This has been a real pleasure cruise, and it's not over yet.

I'm on the way to one of my favourite natural wonders.

This is one last sight I've just got to share with you.

Many say it's better to journey than to arrive.

But some destinations bring a special joy all of their own.

The unbridled beauty of Loch Coruisk is picture-perfect.

Nestled in the heart of Skye,

this cauldron of water stirs the soul.

How can your spirits not soar where sea and mountains meet?

We're blessed to have so many sites

of such stunning beauty around our shores.

Discovering the ones that have a meaning for you

is the real joy of our coast.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd