Our North Sea Coast Coast

-All the way, guys!

-EVERYONE:

-Heave!

Two, six, heave!

We're back at the very edge of our isles.

But now, we're on a whole new kind of adventure...

A unique great guide to our coast.

But this is a guide beyond anything you'll find in your average

tourist brochure - a guide crammed with local knowledge,

amazing discoveries and stunning secret spots.

Coast and their expert crew have spent over ten years

navigating this ever-changing natural wonder.

And now, we're bringing it all together and more to give you

the ultimate guide to our coast.

We've selected eight stretches of British coast...

North, south, east, west, and some of the best bits in between.

Each week, we'll be taking to the sea

in a remarkable array of boats and ships.

We'll have a completely fresh perspective on the coast.

We'll seek out charismatic characters...

-Andy, fancy seeing you here!

-..momentous events...

This is Britain's most deadly shoreline.

..secret spots and surprising stories.

There's no denying that there's a charge to be had from holding

something like this.

A brand-new view of our coast with all the inside info you need

to enjoy these shorelines like a local.

All the way, sailors! All the way!

This time, I'm heading for the North East.

This is Coast...

The Great Guide.

On England's North East, Scotland's South East,

a coast like no other - the North Sea coast.

It's a coast where a powerful sea pounds...

..sculpts...

..sustains and washes in a world of opportunity.

The Coast experts have sought out the stories and places that

make this shore so special...

..tiny islands that teem with wildlife...

It's absolutely splendid. Never seen so many gannets in all my life.

..proud industrial towns with a unique local lingo...

-Two, two and a quarter.

-Two and a quarter rivets.

-Two, two and three quarters.

-Two, two and three quarter rivets.

..and mega ports that run 24/7.

Wow! This is absolutely enormous!

Now we are back.

We're heading into the North Sea for our Great Guide to

a coast of great contrasts.

I'll be making voyages,

stopping off at some stunning sites for our guide,

hopping onto different boats and learning from locals

the stories that shape this coast.

The hurricane broke with tremendous, deafening ferocity and

carnage happened within the space of just a few minutes.

I'll embark from the Firth of Forth, voyaging down to Eyemouth,

then on to the Farne Islands and the unmissable Lindisfarne, Holy Island.

Along the way, I'll be compiling our Great Guide from a wider

canvas of stories that stretches all the way from Edinburgh to Hull.

Our Great Guide begins at one of our and the world's great bridges,

a global superstar -

the majestic rail route across the Firth of Forth.

The seaway I'm on, the Firth of Forth,

connected Edinburgh to the world

but it also cut the capital off from the north of Scotland

on that shore over there.

But the sea couldn't stop the Victorian railway and so,

the Forth Bridge was born,

and it takes pride of place in our Great Guide.

The project to span the sea started in 1882 and didn't finish

until 1890.

Designed by Sir John Fowler and Sir Benjamin Baker,

this 53,000-tonner was Britain's first all-steel bridge.

4,600 men were employed to construct it.

More than 60 died in the process.

The construction drew tourists who came to marvel at the huge

cantilevers arching out to meet one another.

It was finally opened by the Prince of Wales,

later King Edward VII, on the 4th of March, 1890.

It was the engineering wonder of the age.

But this superstructure wasn't immune to the salt and

sea air that corrode coastal crossings.

Building was one thing but maintaining the signature

Forth Road red paint job became a byword for an endless task.

As soon as one coat was finished,

they had to go back and start again and again and again.

When Coast first came over ten years ago, the scaffolding was up.

But no more. Five years ago, the endless task ended.

Hi-tech paint borrowed from the North Sea oil industry means

this coat should last for 25 years. But it doesn't come cheap.

How about a statistic for our Great Guide?

A coat of that paint on a wall of your house would cost

about £6 a square metre.

To apply it to the bridge costs £370 per square metre.

370 quid a square metre!

Thank goodness they've finally put the brushes down!

It stands proudly painted in full Victorian glory.

200 trains thunder across each day.

But the best way to sweep across in style is on the restored

Flying Scotsman - a match made in engineering heaven.

TRAIN WHISTLES

When steam locomotives gave way to motorcars,

it called for a brand-new crossing.

By 1964, there was a road held aloft by suspension - another feat

of engineering and the longest suspension bridge in Europe.

But, exposed to the elements,

behind the good looks lay a ticking time bomb.

The thin wires making up the massive suspension cables

were starting to snap.

Just how quickly were the thousands of wires wasting away?

A question for our Great Guide.

Alice Roberts was there from the off to ask the engineers

with the inside info.

How can you know what's going on inside those cables cos

-presumably, you can't open them up?

-No, absolutely.

We can't open up the whole length of the cable.

-The only way to do this is to actually listen to the cable.

-Right.

And what we have here are microphones,

-which are attached to the cable.

-Those there?

That's the microphones there, and they're listening for any

wire breaks that may occur inside the cable.

So, that's like a stethoscope listening out to the health

of the cables?

Exactly, the difference being that we have 15 microphones placed over

the entire length of each cable, and we're listening all the time.

The microphones began their round- the-clock vigil in August 2006,

and straight away the computers began to pick up strange sounds

hidden in the background noise from the traffic.

CLICKING NOISE

These innocuous sounding clicks are actual wires snapping.

A plan to stop the corrosion by injecting dry air

into the cables was only a partial success.

Defective steelwork under the carriageway was an added

complication, and the bridge was temporarily closed in December 2015.

Now, work is underway on another attempt to bridge the gap.

Five years in, it's at a crucial stage,

and christened with a new name.

The Queensferry Crossing.

I've hopped ashore to find out more from bridge manager John Russell.

What kind of scale of civil engineering project is that bridge?

You're talking about over 30,000 tonnes of steel.

You're talking about 30,000 miles of cable.

It is similar to what we've got at Forth Road Bridge. It is massive.

What are the challenges?

Clearly, it's a big, wide stretch of water, so what are the challenges?

The main challenge, as always,

is access to these type of things, and weather conditions.

You know, the weather in the Forth is pretty windy.

As soon as you get above 20 or 30mph,

you can't lift anything.

If you look out there today, they're not really lifting

the deck sections on because the wind is too heavy.

Living close by here,

I am always aware of how often high winds close that bridge.

Will this bridge be as vulnerable?

No, the advantage of this bridge is they've introduced a windshield,

so it means the trucks etc that we divert from the Forth Road Bridge

at the moment will be able to cross that bridge

in relatively high winds.

The joke always used to be that the old bridge was built

to let you see the rail bridge.

-Now we've got a bridge to let us see the other two!

-Yes.

The best viewing platform.

I mean, I've worked on the Forth Road Bridge for 29 years,

I think that's the best one.

But everybody that comes to see the rail bridge,

and that's the Forth Bridge. That's the proper one.

It's three different designs, three different centuries,

all in one small space over the Forth Estuary.

It's a fantastic achievement,

and you don't get this anywhere else in the world.

Man-made marvels make it easy to overlook the natural wonder

of the Firth itself.

I'm heading out to a wartime stronghold

on the Firth that's now been reclaimed by wildlife.

The island of Inchmickery.

As the freshwater estuary gives way to the sea,

the Firth becomes a haven for some of nature's big hitters.

Dolphins,

seals,

and even whales have all been spotted here.

But it's the special flocks of our feathered friends

that go into our Great Guide.

And the best way to take it all in?

Up there.

Three years ago, Nick Crane got airborne

for a bird's-eye view of the place they call home.

We're now over the sunlit seaside, aren't we? It's completely changed.

Absolutely, yes. We are right out in the outer estuary now.

The freshwater influence is a long way behind us.

The beaches are sandy.

If we were down at sea level now,

what kind of birds and so on would we be looking at?

Auks like razorbills, guillemots, puffins.

You've got fulmar, you'll have kittiwakes, gannets.

You know, real marine species

that you'd never find in the freshwater parts of the estuary.

Sea birds now rule the roost on Inchmickery,

a small island in the Firth,

where big guns were once mounted to deter German Navy raids.

It's where I'm heading.

Local legend has it that Inchmickery's fortifications

were designed and built to mimic

the outline of a warship's superstructure,

and so scare away an enemy.

Now, airborne invaders have the island all to themselves.

Ron Morris has come along from the local sea bird group.

What species are to be seen on here?

Birds like the fulmar and the shag, gulls, etc.

These buildings have actually mimicked their more natural

nesting places, like the window ledges there, like cliff ledges.

Caves in the buildings.

So it's actually been advantageous for the wildlife?

It has been very advantageous.

Most of the birds you're looking at,

wouldn't be here were it not for these derelict military buildings.

And if you look at the buildings,

they were all turf covered during the war for camouflage from the air,

and that just made them ideal nesting habitats for the terns.

And they nested in varying numbers for quite a few years.

However, in the '60s and '70s,

-gull numbers started to rise quite dramatically.

-Why?

Because we are very poor at disposing of our waste -

rubbish tips, land fill - and gull numbers shot through the roof.

And, unfortunately, the terns, being migratory,

their territories were then occupied by the gulls,

much bigger, stronger birds

and basically forced them off the island.

So it's been a bit of a battlefield for the birds?

Yes, it is still a battlefield.

Further down the estuary, another island dominated by sea birds.

Bass Rock is a kingdom of gannets.

Miranda Krestovnikoff gained access in peak summer season for our guide.

This is absolutely splendid.

I've never seen so many gannets in all my life.

To bring the birds in, we've got some

really disgusting smelling haddock heads here,

and some herring as well.

The herring gulls have moved in,

and now the gannets are coming in as well.

We're getting some plunging there. Look at that, it's fantastic.

Look at that!

All of a sudden, they've just come right in.

As the biggest northern gannet colony in the world,

with over 150,000 of them, Bass Rock flies straight into our Great Guide.

The rugged, untamed stretches of this shore

have their own awe-inspiring magic.

But some of the wonders encountered here are entirely man-made.

Natural beauty rubs shoulders with some heavy industry on this coast.

Without a doubt, a big story on this North Sea coast is shipbuilding.

Big ships.

I will be heading for Rosyth, where I've secured special access

to the biggest vessel we're building in our isles.

But the next story for our Great Guide

comes from a town intrinsically tied to a golden age of shipbuilding

on our North Sea coast.

In fact, Sunderland could once boast

it was the biggest shipbuilding town in the world.

This massive enterprise, like the vessels it produced,

was held together by a small, but vital, component.

The rivet.

These connected the ship's giant panels to one another.

Some would say the rivet didn't just hold ships together,

they underpinned Britain's naval strength and trading power.

Who were the coastal riveters keeping our ships afloat?

Dick Strawbridge investigated for our Great Guide.

-Brian.

-Good to see you.

-Good to see you.

-And you.

This is where the shipyard was

that you actually built ships?

The slipway where this one was built is the other side there,

100 yards away.

How many rivets a day do you reckon

-a good team would put in?

-At least 800 or 900 a day.

We're really proud of the fact,

the steel plate would come in there,

when it left here, finished job,

it could go straight to sea and work.

How much did they get paid for riveting?

-Eight and nine pence per hundred.

-Eight and nine pence per hundred.

That was shared out amongst the squad.

Mary Power was a catcher on Phil's team.

Mary, come and join us.

-You used to work with Phil?

-Yes.

-It's a very physical job, Mary.

What was it like as a woman,

being amongst all these men that were doing all this riveting?

Well, you didn't think anything about it.

You just wore the overalls and the boots,

and you just got on with the job.

What was the environment like? Was it noisy?

-It was very noisy.

-You couldn't hear yourself speak.

At the start I didn't know what they were on about

-cos they used to speak with a sign language.

-Sign language?

-Yes.

-Two two-and-a-quarter.

-Two-and-a-quarter rivets.

-Two two-and-three-quarters.

-Two two-and-three-quarter rivets.

-That's the size?

-Yes.

-So you're calling for the size of the rivets?

-Yes.

As a riveter, did you take pride in every single rivet you did?

Certainly. Yes. I was a good riveter.

You know that when you're working for Gray's,

you're one of the best shipbuilders, there's no two ways about it.

The Wearside shipyards produced 1.5 million tonnes of shipping

for the Second World War.

Ship building was the lifeblood of Sunderland's prosperity

and defined the town and its people.

By the 1950s, ship orders were falling.

The Far East could mass-produce faster and cheaper.

It ushered in two dark decades

when Sunderland's shipyards closed one by one.

A proud industry may have slipped away,

but these shores still cherish their seafaring heritage.

At Hartlepool's dockyard is Trincomalee,

a proud veteran of the Royal Navy, and a must-see for our Great Guide.

Launched in 1817, she served on anti-slavery patrols,

and is now our oldest fighting ship afloat.

But, 150 miles up the coast, it's our newest warship I've come to see.

As ships go super-sized, how exactly do you put them together?

A question I've come to Rosyth to answer,

at a state-of-the-art shipyard in full swing on our North Sea coast.

The leviathan moored over there is the HMS Queen Elizabeth.

She's the largest warship the Royal Navy has ever built,

and "large" doesn't do her justice.

She is truly epic, and she is definitely going in our Great Guide.

This is unprecedented access.

You'll never see the Queen Elizabeth like this again.

Below the water line,

she has to displace 65,000 tonnes of water to stay afloat.

Huge components made at six UK shipyards converge here at Rosyth

to create Queen Elizabeth and her sister ship, Prince of Wales.

Commander Darren Houston has the inside knowledge

on how the blocks are put together.

It's like a big Lego kit, isn't it, I suppose?

-How do you join it up?

-Right, well that's the tricky bit.

Over my shoulder,

you'll see the large dock that the Prince of Wales is sitting in.

That's where all the sections were lifted into place by the

large Goliath crane, and then each section was then brought together

and welded and sealed up.

Every inch of that has to be just right, doesn't it?

For the lifetime of the ship,

every joint that is made now has to be true.

Absolutely, and it has to be absolutely millimetre,

or to the micro-millimetre accurate,

to make sure that all the pieces join up in the right place.

She is so big, it's actually difficult

to get a sense of the scale of her.

It is. I mean, the ship itself, 65,000 tonnes,

280 metres long, that's the same size as the Houses of Parliament.

She has a 4.5-acre flight deck.

We're looking at the equivalent of

about two and a half international football pictures.

She is absolutely massive.

And how many people are involved on a project like this?

On any one day, there's about 1,500 people on board,

on both the ships,

which makes a workforce of about 3,000 in this particular area.

So millions and millions of man hours.

Gosh, it's lifetimes of work that have gone into this.

Absolutely. It is, yes.

All of the monumental cost, all of the millions of hours of hard graft,

it all comes down to this, the flight deck.

This is a mobile airport that can be positioned anywhere in the world.

This is our Great Guide to Britain's North Sea coast.

On our journey along this shore,

we'll visit magical islands where wildlife found sanctuary,

thanks to Britain's earliest environmental campaigner.

And we'll enjoy the tranquillity of one of our coast's

most spiritual retreats.

I've swapped boats,

and I'm heading south to a small fishing port with a sombre history.

But the next story in our guide is at Culross in Fife.

This is the starting point for one of this coastline's great tales.

An epic story of how it has fired Britain for centuries.

Past, present and future,

our experts explored how this coast has supplied us with fuel,

from the birth of coal mining...

..to the heyday of coal-fired power...

..to a future of renewable energy.

We began with Hermione Cockburn,

going back to the birthplace of British coal mining,

more than 400 years ago, during the reign of James VI of Scotland,

and Elizabeth I of England.

Our guide salutes entrepreneur Sir George Bruce.

A visionary who looked to the coast for coal,

tunnelling into coal seams beneath the seabed,

two centuries before the Industrial Revolution.

But to find out what was truly remarkable about Sir George Bruce,

Hermione had to journey a third of a mile out to sea.

Just about two metres below us,

we can feel that solid stone.

That's the top of a mine shaft.

This was a second access point for a mine which entered the ground

just below the castle behind us,

dived down, following a seam of coal,

reaching to this extent almost 240 feet below us.

The offshore vertical shaft was a radical innovation.

It meant Bruce's coal miners could breathe fresh air.

What would've been here? What would it have been like 400 years ago?

If you imagine something of the nature almost of a chimney,

a gigantic great chimney, 50 feet in diameter,

coming out of the water here,

and going up perhaps 30 or more feet, straight up above us.

This towering great chimney, with the coal coming

directly up onto the platform, ships could come alongside,

just as we are floating here in this boat,

they could load the coal directly

and of course sail off and take it to the marketplaces.

So it was really a bit like an offshore oil platform?

This is one of the greatest technological achievements

of late medieval Europe, and that the project was even contemplated,

let alone put into practice, is just mind-boggling.

Culross launched the fuel that would fire Britain for centuries -

coal.

And ships from the North Sea coast exported this black gold

around the world.

Coal also transformed another sleepy backwater

into Britain's biggest port.

Further south, Immingham, still awash with the black stuff.

But now, the traffic is going in reverse.

Rather than shipping it out,

huge boats are now importing tons of coal.

Nick Crane explored why for our Great Guide.

This might look like a minnow nudging a whale,

but these tiny tugs are incredibly powerful, and they have to be

because some of the ships sailing into Immingham weigh 200,000 tonnes.

Overseeing this mountainous operation is port director

John Fitzgerald.

How much coal is actually passing through this port now?

This year, we're on track for about 14 million tonnes.

I'm quite surprised because I'm sure I'm not the only one

who thought Britain was decarbonising,

heading towards renewable fuel,

and yet we're surrounded by literal mountains of the black stuff.

Nearly 50% of all the electricity generated in the UK

is generated from coal,

and that effectively means that the coal here at Immingham

is powering well over three million homes.

For centuries, coal has been king in firing up Britain's industry,

but what could replace it?

Nick found one possible answer already taking shape,

right there on the quayside at Immingham.

Wow, this is absolutely enormous!

This soaring tower is being built to store a new generation of energy.

This is biomass,

mainly wood pulp from sustainable forests.

Such biomass may provide up to a tenth of our electricity.

The pellets are stored in these huge silos.

Our small isle would struggle to grow enough trees,

so we rely on the sea for imports.

Biomass could cement an exciting future for this port,

harnessing the coast to the changing needs of our country.

The North Sea coast, our energy coast.

For ten years,

our experts have scoured these shores for their secrets.

But if you were on a whistle-stop tour,

what would be the unmissable sights to say you have seen this coast?

This is our flying visit to the North Sea coast.

The North Sea coast,

all the way from the Firth of Forth in the North

to the Humber in the South.

You might start your journey at Pittenweem.

A magnet for holiday homers and commuters to Edinburgh,

but still an active fishing port.

Travel on to Aberlady Bay for an underwater secret.

The watery grave of X-Craft,

midget subs that took on the German Second World War battleship Tirpitz.

At Gullane, push yourself to your limits on the infamous Murder Hill.

It became part of Scottish football folklore when the players of

Glasgow Rangers used it as a training ground in the 1970s.

These days, amateur teams pit themselves against Murder Hill.

It's hard! I didn't expect that at all.

Murder, man. Murder!

Coastal erosion means Murder Hill isn't quite as murderous

as it once was.

At the Tweed, we cross from Scotland into England,

and Berwick, England's most northerly town.

Home to an impressive Elizabethan fort.

For beautiful beaches, travel south to windswept Bamburgh.

Sitting on a basalt outcrop, the imposing castle,

surveyor of the coast beneath.

This coast has its pick of bridges in every conceivable design.

The famous Tyne Bridge,

little brother of the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

Built by the same company.

And at Middlesbrough, the Transporter Bridge,

uniquely designed for tall ships to pass through.

If fishing floats your boat, head for Whitby.

Four years ago, we set off on a trip with Divine Charura and friends.

-And again.

-Whoa! Beautifully caught!

Can somebody take a picture of me and this man?

-Smile, boys!

-He's the man!

Divine is still organising the group fishing trips.

The record is 600 mackerel in a day.

This is the life! That's what we're talking about.

Scarborough, second only to London for domestic holiday-makers.

Locals boast it was the birthplace of the seaside resort.

When I was there 11 years ago,

they told me it rivalled the Bay of Naples.

Oh!

Oh!

Oh, I tell you what, it might look like the Bay of Naples,

but it doesn't feel like the Bay of Naples!

At Spurn Point,

you'll find the country's only full-time lifeboat station.

But don't get stranded when the North Sea rolls in.

At Hull, an ominous reminder of World War II.

Guarding the Humber estuary,

this fort was targeted by German U-boats and aircraft.

Now for sale, it needs a bit of work.

But if you have a spare £350,000, it's yours.

Grimsby Dock Tower and the Humber Bridge mark the southern end

of our North Sea coast - industry at its tip and tail.

But why settle for a whistle-stop tour

when there's so much to discover?

Follow us for the bigger picture in our Great Guide.

I've arrived at Eyemouth.

Whether it's the legacy of industry, or the bracing North Sea,

they breed them tough on this coast.

This is an unsentimental shore

that's had to deal with hard times on land and on the sea.

Nowhere is that more true than in Eyemouth,

a traditional Scottish fishing village,

whose statues and artworks are a clue to a tragedy

that once tore this community apart.

Seafaring folk around the coast know they must live with a cruel sea

that occasionally comes to claim them.

But some disasters at sea are so dreadful they soak into the psyche

of a community and are remembered for generations.

Just such a tragedy happened here at Eyemouth 130 or so years ago,

and it's so keenly felt on this shore

that it's going into our Great Guide.

On the 14th October 1881, a storm hit along the North Sea coast.

This is a copy of the Berwickshire News,

the local newspaper for these parts, and it's dated October 18th, 1881,

so that's just four days after the event.

That's pretty good going for news reporting of the day.

There's a headline here.

"Terrific gale. Fearful loss of life. Wreck of fishing boats."

It goes on to detail to a great extent the loss of life.

"The greatest calamity

"that ever befell the fishing industry of this coast

"overtook it on Friday,

"when many of our brave fishermen, exposed to the violence

"of a hurricane seldom equalled for severity,

"went down to a watery grave."

It's been remembered most vividly of all here in Eyemouth,

and, in fact, so vivid and so poignant are the memories

that they still refer to it around here as Black Friday.

The scale of the disaster was staggering.

189 men perished at sea.

93 widows were left on land.

267 children lost their fathers.

For some families, it was made even worse

by the fact they could stand on the harbour wall,

look out at sea,

and watch their menfolk drown in front of their eyes.

-How are you doing?

-How are you doing? Welcome aboard.

-Thank you.

Welcome to Eyemouth Harbour. I'll show you over here.

To discover what happened, I'm heading out with journalist

Peter Aitchison, a descendant of one of the fishermen killed that day.

Why would the fleet go out when they knew a storm was coming?

1881 had been a dreadful year.

The weather had been horrendous from the very beginning of the year.

It had kept the fleet into the harbour many, many days.

It was difficult times for the fishermen.

Now they knew they were in the eye of that storm but the Eyemouth way

was that if one boat decided to sail, the entire fleet, by honour,

was duty bound to follow.

And there was one boat, a boat called the Press Home.

It had been newly delivered that week by the boat builders

here at Press Home harbour.

An average age of just 26, virginal sails of white and these

young men were absolutely desperate to get out to sea and when

the men of the Press Home decided they were going to go out,

all the other 44 boats in the fleet

decided there was nothing for it but they would go as well.

Given that, obviously, they were in the habit of going out

in fair winds and foul,

why did so much go wrong that time?

Eyemouth was in the centre, in the eye of the most tremendous

hurricane to have hit the east coast of Britain for 100 years.

And the hurricane broke with tremendous, deafening ferocity.

The little fleet was scattered.

Some had sails up and they were shredded.

Others only had bare poles and they were overturned quickly.

And carnage happened within the space of just a few minutes.

The fishermen were faced with a stark choice -

to stay at sea and ride out the storm or risk making for home

to harbour fringed with fatal rocks.

Some were lucky but many perished.

Many of my family were killed in the disaster.

My direct link is my great-great-grandfather

who was a man called James Purvis

and he was the skipper of a boat called the Myrtle.

We've got a photograph here and you can see that's old Jim Purvis there.

And that's Jane Mack, his wife.

She, along with the other women,

had rushed down to the harbour when the storm erupted.

One of the boats that made it in, early on that afternoon,

she rushed down and said,

"Have you seen my husband? Have you seen old Jim Purvis?

"Have you seen the Myrtle?"

And one of the men said, "It's fine, Janey, don't you be worrying."

Because he strapped himself to the tiller of the boat.

And then two days after the disaster a crew who had

made landfall in Yorkshire arrived back in the town and they

said to Jane, "Jane, we saw the Myrtle and it was overturned

"on a single lump of water and pulled to the deep."

And old Jim Purvis strapped himself to the tiller and there was

no way he could have survived.

That was a tragedy which has been passed down through our family

right to now and I still feel it, as a son of the sea in a way,

and I still remember the tears of my grandmother telling me that story.

The women of Eyemouth produced a tapestry to mark

the centenary of a tragedy

that still resonates with the townsfolk today.

My great-grandfather was on the Harmony

and on that boat was his brother,

an uncle and a cousin so, I mean, the whole family had been affected.

My grandmother was 11 and her brother was 7.

And they actually stood on...

near the beach watching the disaster happen

and they could do nothing about it.

I feel quite emotional about it.

You know, to have had relations involved and it must have

been awful for the families that were left behind.

I heard from my mother

who was told by her father

who had been two at the time of the disaster

that his earliest recollection was

of being held in someone's arms

down there on the bantry watching

for his two oldest brothers,

aged 23 and 21, in their boats and they were lost.

We have to keep reminding future generations, you know,

of what happened here.

I think it's very important.

That's why I'm trying to make sure that my family know which is their

great-grandfather on the memorial.

Eyemouth harbour had suffered decades of underinvestment

due to a quarrel between the fishing fleet

and the Church of Scotland over taxes.

Just six weeks before the disaster, the fishermen put forward

a plan for harbour improvements which had looked likely to go ahead.

It looked as though we were going to get this big, new harbour

which would have created the safest fishing port in the entire

east coast and, tragically, six weeks later,

the hurricane comes down, the fleet is wrecked, a third of the men

are killed and the government says,

"Eyemouth's dead, Eyemouth's finished."

And people who come and stand at the harbour or on the beach,

I'm sure they do as I do and you think back to what happened

on that horrible day

and what the future for this town might have been had that day

not happened at all.

This coast reveals a dark record,

a danger zone of wild waters and hundreds of known shipwrecks.

Apt then that our North Sea coast

gave birth to Britain's first coastguard,

thanks to the efforts of one man.

Going into our great guide is Dr John Sharp,

a clergyman who turned Bamburgh Castle in Northumberland from

being a fortress of war into a cradle of life saving.

Nick explored how John Sharp made our shores safer.

It's the late 1700s and Sharp is receiving weekly reports

of drowned bodies being washed up on these shores.

Sharp grows increasingly disturbed by the relentless loss of life

and becomes obsessed with making our wild waters safer.

There was no nearby lighthouse,

no ship to shore communication, no distress flares.

So what did Sharp come up with?

A set of instructions.

It was a watch and rescue system.

When the mists came down, all the waters turned wild.

It was all eyes on the coast for those at Bamburgh Castle.

He'd invented the first coastguard station.

In every great storm, two men on horseback are sent from

the castle to patrol from sunset to sunrise.

A bell on the south turret will be rung out

in every thick fog as a signal.

A person is to attend every morning to look out

if any ships be in distress.

If any were spotted, those at the castle jumped into action.

First, a gun signalled the location of the wrecked ship.

Prepare to give fire.

One shot for the islands.

Two for north.

Three for south.

But how could you communicate with stricken vessels?

Sharp's solution was a flag and a speaking trumpet.

Ahoy there.

Help is at hand.

John Sharp was a visionary who conquered these wild waters.

This hero of the waves gave rise to a crucial rescue service

that still watches over our coast today.

From southern Scotland, my journey's brought me to northern England.

A coast of cliffs and sand but few islands.

Those they do have are rather special.

I'm heading to Holy Island, Lindisfarne,

to hunt for an early monastery.

But first, I really want to take in another spiritual spot.

The island of Inner Farne.

Home to the patron saint of northern England, St Cuthbert.

It's a bit of a personal quest.

I've had St Cuthbert on my mind.

This chap here with the wild hairstyle.

And not because of his spiritual work.

Something much more surprising.

He was the first environmental campaigner this part of

the world had ever seen.

And the story has to do with these guys, eider ducks.

St Cuthbert visited the Farne Islands around AD 675

for a period of solitude and reflection...

..and forged an attachment to some feathered residents, eider ducks,

Britain's heaviest and fastest flying duck.

Then he discovered that the locals ate them and their eggs and so

he passed the first bird protection laws specifically to protect

eider ducks and the rest of the sea birds in this part of the world.

It's thanks to St Cuthbert the ducks are still at home on the Farnes...

..although they're still fair game for herring gulls.

On land and in the water,

this is a little slice of heaven for wildlife...

..and a must for our great guide.

The Farne Islands are also home to one of the largest colonies

of grey seals in the UK.

Their numbers are closely monitored.

Miranda came here 12 years ago for a lesson in seal counting

for our guide.

I mean you can see how easy it is to get really close up to one of

these things. They don't run away.

This is quite a good one, I must confess. This is really easy.

However, in the middle of the island where a lot of females haul out,

that's where the problems start.

SEAL BARKS

David and his team mark the newborn pups with

a coloured dye so they know which ones they've already counted

and then can estimate the number of seals on the islands.

And that doesn't harm the seal pup at all?

-No.

-That's all right?

-Not at all.

Before mother comes back, we'll just retreat.

The pups only keep their white fur for about 21 days

before shedding it and gaining their pristine adult coat,

free of David's dye.

After we've done the work,

it's good to see we haven't had much of an effect on them.

-Yeah.

-We can actually back off and enjoy the animals for what they are.

Yeah, beautiful.

David has recorded 357 pups so far this year

and, with hundreds left to count, he estimates that

the Farne Islands may be home to as many as 3,800 grey seals.

Up close, it's not hard to see why Cuthbert made this

his spiritual retreat.

The Farnes might not be far from the mainland but there is

definitely a sense here of being on the edge.

Being at the end of the world, in a sense.

And you're not just away from the world but you're away from

the world of humankind.

And whether you're religious or not, I think it's hard not to be

impressed by the resolve of that man of the early Church,

choosing to come out here and be alone just do contemplate

and to think.

And if you wanted to think about something big,

this is the place to do it.

Here in this little speck where the sea meets the sky.

Time and the elements have removed all trace of the first

monastic buildings occupied by St Cuthbert.

But in the 14th century, a church was built in his memory.

St Cuthbert's coastal chapel.

SQUAWKING

To be quite honest, you'd struggle to get peace and time for

reflection out here now.

My last port of call is just a short boat ride away,

the most spiritual of spots.

I've reached the final stop on my journey.

The Holy Island of Lindisfarne.

And it's quite apt really.

You've virtually got to walk on water to get here.

I'm following in the footsteps of St Aidan who arrived here in 635 on

a simple yet extraordinary mission -

to convert pagan Anglo-Saxons to Christianity.

I'm searching for his lost monastery.

The religious community that St Aidan established on

Lindisfarne made this place a must-see destination

on the North Sea coast and it does of course go into our great guide.

It may look timeless

but this religious mission has had a turbulent history.

It laid the foundations for a new era of worship and learning,

only to be ransacked by marauding Viking raiders

who laid waste to this house of God

when they first arrived on our shore in 793.

This priory, the one all the tourists and pilgrims come to see,

was built much later.

The challenge now, that's being paid for by crowdfunding,

is to find, somewhere out there,

that first community established by Aidan.

A geophysical survey appeared to show the outlines

of mysterious buildings so archaeologists and heritage

group DigVentures opened up two small trenches to investigate.

Among rubble and human bone, they made a remarkable discovery.

A rare fragment of a carved name stone, probably

a burial marker, with an inscription that appears to

end in Frith, a common element of Anglo-Saxon names.

It dates to the seventh or eighth century,

the exact period of Lindisfarne's first monastery.

It's an exciting and hugely important find.

It could be the first evidence of the early medieval community

where Aidan and his followers devoted themselves to God.

Forget all this fine masonry, we're talking about buildings made

of timber, walls of wattle and daub, thatched roofs maybe or turf.

The area would have been surrounded

by the fields that they worked to grow some of their food.

There would have been a church where they worshipped and that's

what really all of this was about.

It's a community of men who had cut themselves off from everything

else so that they could busy their hands with simple labour

and concentrate their minds and their energies

on the worship of God.

And it's hard to imagine a better retreat from

a busy world than this peaceful place.

On our Great Guide to the North Sea coast,

we've crossed from Scotland into England...

..explored man-made marvels...

..natural wonders...

..and a proud industrial heritage.

Our Great Guide has revealed a coast of contrasts.

Tragedy and courage, innovation and success.

All of it has washed up here on our North Sea coast.

And now we've explored some of the highlights, it's over to you.