Episode 1 The Taff: The River That Made Wales

'This is the River Taff in south Wales.

'It runs from the wild summits of the Brecon Beacons

'to the capital city, Cardiff.'

I love this river, I absolutely love it.

'40 years ago the Taff was declared officially dead,

'killed by centuries of heavy industry,

'but today it's one of the finest fishing rivers in Wales.'

How is that fish still on?

'My name is Will Millard, I'm a writer and a fisherman.

'I want to see how this river has come back to life.'

So cold!

'It may be short - you can walk the length of the Taff in three days -

'but it runs through a stunning landscape, packed with history.

'I want to get to know this river from source to sea.'

Salmon from the city centre.

What a river!

'This is the story of the River Taff.'

I moved to Cardiff seven years ago,

but had no idea it was home to such a special little river.

The Taff runs through the heart of the city.

And in recent years has seen a resurgence in salmon

and other fish species returning to spawn.

It's a fascinating place to fish.

Right, this is my magic box of tricks for today.

I've got a tub of maggots.

And then hopefully in here I've got some floats.

I first started learning to fish when I was four years old.

My grandad bought me a "welcome to coarse fishing" package from Argos.

It had this little red rod, this little steel thing,

so I learnt a lot off my grandad.

A proper waterway, it's never just going to give up its secrets.

The River Taff is such an unlikely river.

It's an urban environment,

and yet you've also got a genuinely clean river

that's got genuinely big fish in it.

Got it. I'm in.

Oh, it looks like a grayling.

Now, these fish will fight to the death.

They are as slippery as butter.

Oh, he's pulled out.

The amount of times that happens, you wouldn't believe it!

This 100 metre stretch of the river here,

I've been fishing it fairly solidly now for about five years,

and I feel that I know it intimately well.

Oh... Yes!

You know, I know that that trio of rocks behind there,

there's a bit of a gutter and it's a really good fish holding area,

I know that there's fish underneath that willow tree over there

and I know that there's fish directly downstream of that big

sort of rocky patch of fast water.

But if you take me out of here...

..I know nothing.

I don't know this river at all.

Upstream of here, I really don't have a clue.

From Cardiff, the Taff stretches north,

running through the industrial heartland

of the South Wales Valleys,

but its story begins high in the Brecon Beacons.

This is one of Britain's most popular national parks,

attracting over four million visitors every year.

And the most well-trodden path of all

is the trail to the top of Pen y Fan.

There are actually two River Taffs amid these hills,

the Fawr and the Fechan - the big and the small -

which come together further downstream.

And here it is, the summit of Pen y Fan,

the highest point in southern Wales,

and it's a very, very popular spot, as you can see.

It is simply stunning.

I can see almost everything out here.

This ridgeline here separates the two main arms

of the Taff Fawr on that side

and then the Taff Fechan down there.

And you can just make out in the far distance, the reservoirs,

and I can even see so far as the Bristol Channel,

so actually right here in this spot,

the whole stretch of the river

is encapsulated in one view.

Marvellous.

I want to follow the Taff from its highest point,

and that's the source of the Taff Fechan.

Oh, hang on. This looks promising.

Goodness me.

I think this could be it, actually.

Oh!

Isn't that just the prettiest thing?

A tiny, tiny little stream.

This is it.

This is the source of the River Taff.

And just in here, if I peel back this moss...

..I can feel the water running over my fingers.

Do you know what? That was actually quite easy!

I was expecting to spend most of the day out here looking for this.

From the Brecon Beacons the two Taffs tumble south,

growing in strength.

On the way, they flow through the heavily industrialised South Wales Valleys.

But the upper Taff is still a wild place,

where people come to lose themselves.

OK, tonight's scenario, then, for this training

is we have a casualty out on the hill...

'The job of finding them again falls to

'the Central Beacons Mountain Rescue Team -

'over 50 volunteers from all walks of life.

'And one who knows this stretch of the river better than most is

'Huw Jones, a civil servant, who's been with the team for 34 years.'

Dave, our navigator, now will pick up a point on the river

-that we'll aim for.

-Right.

-Get down to the river,

and then that's when the search will start in earnest.

'Tonight, another member of the team is posing as an injured hiker,

'lost somewhere in the valley.'

It's pretty wild out here.

Just looking at the volunteers now, fanning out in their search,

it is pretty much like looking for a needle in a haystack.

'The team covers over 1,000 square miles,

'but this uncompromising landscape sits cheek by jowl with the towns

'of the South Wales Valleys, some of the poorest places in the country.'

-RADIO:

-Control send a message, over.

'This presents a unique challenge for the volunteers...'

Hello, Kate.

'..who often find themselves called upon to search for vulnerable individuals -

'so-called despondents...'

'..some of whom don't intend to return.'

We get called to search for people who perhaps have gone off

with the intent of doing the ultimate,

and not coming back themselves.

Our urban searches, where we get called to search for,

as we classify them, vulnerable people,

missing from the valleys towns and communities,

can be up to as many times as we're called up to the Brecon Beacons

here for hill walkers, climbers and bikers.

-Is there an underlying social cause?

-Quite possibly.

Difficult to identify an exact reason for it,

but when you look at the course of the area the Taff flows through,

real strong legacies of mining backgrounds, industrial backgrounds,

ironworks, steelworks,

and is the infrastructure in place there

to help sort of safety net that once it has withdrawn from the area?

I guess is a question to ask, perhaps.

Maybe it is, maybe it isn't.

We like to think that by finding them and

getting them back down off the hill, we're giving them another chance.

The thought of somebody coming out here to commit suicide is...

..is quite a harrowing one, really.

And I think that for people like Huw and the volunteers,

it can't help but change the way you...

you view the countryside in your own back yard.

There is no getting away from the fact that

I am only 45 minutes from a city centre,

I'm only ten minutes away from a town,

but actually out here, right now,

in this forest, in the dark,

with the River Taff behind me, there, making its noise...

..I feel so, so far from home.

And I guess that's the thing about the Taff -

it's 45 miles long, that's it.

Yet, I'll challenge you to find any other river in Britain

that goes through such a varied landscape.

As I push on south, the mountain river has been dammed

to form a series of vast reservoirs.

This is the first sign of the Industrial Revolution

that took place along this river 250 years ago,

a revolution that changed the Taff, Wales and the world.

In the mid-1700s, iron ore was found in abundance

just downstream of here, and an industry was born.

People poured into the valley, but such rapid growth proved lethal -

both for the river and for the local population.

Waste, industrial and human, flowed into the Taff.

Cholera, typhus and dysentery were rife.

To provide clean water, this valley was flooded

around the turn of the 20th century, creating these reservoirs.

'The waters are dark and deep, and I can't resist casting a line.'

Oh, dear me.

Is something wrong with the hook?

No.

Must be a problem on the other end of the rod.

Oh. Yep.

This one is well-hooked, he's not coming off.

There we go. Look at that in the light.

Fantastic little perch.

He's still fighting. Pugnacious animal.

Just look at that.

I mean, he has absolutely engulfed that lure. That is ridiculous.

That has to be the greediest fish in Wales.

You can see, there, that is just built for predation -

big spiky dorsal fin,

armoured gill plates,

beautiful dark stripes down the body,

impossible to see from the top.

Pale underneath, can't be seen if you're underneath it.

If you are a fish of this size or smaller, you are history.

There we go.

Let's pop him back and see if we can find his mum.

I'm approaching Merthyr Tydfil, once the biggest town in Wales.

But on the way, I pass through one of the Taff's best kept secrets.

I'm in the Taff Fechan Nature Reserve

and this has got to be one of the most beautiful pieces

on the whole River Taff.

And I'm here to meet a group of community volunteers that do

more than anyone else to keep this place as stunning as it is.

'It's a magical place

'and Wildlife Trust officer Carys Solman is responsible for keeping it that way.'

Hazel isn't really a tree, it's more of a shrub,

and so, if you chop it completely down it will just all sprout back.

'She grew up just south of here, in Merthyr,

'and leads a team of dedicated local volunteers.'

If you're not from around these parts a lot of people

wouldn't even realise this place is here, would they?

No, loads of people don't.

They don't and lots of local people still are yet to discover it.

It's, yes, a really well-kept secret for Merthyr.

The Gurnos Estate is just up there, Trefechan Estate is just up there,

so it's sort of sandwiched between the two but you'd think

-you're in the middle of nowhere, you wouldn't know.

-Absolutely.

It's a lovely place.

'The river has carved its way through the rock over millennia,

'creating a deep gorge, lined on either side by thick woodland.

'But somehow, a car has ended up in the river.

'There's not much left of it now,

'but fallen trees have become jammed against it, causing a blockage.'

Why is it important to remove it, though, Carys?

Why can't you just leave it where it is?

Um, well, apart from the sort of...

you know, it doesn't look nice,

it does form an obstruction for migrating fish.

We've got trout in here and recently, very recently,

we've started having Atlantic salmon come back up these rivers,

so we want to make it a place for them to come and breed.

A research project was tracking them with radio satellite signal,

and it got this far, and it kind of turned around and left again,

so we are working to make this part of the river more welcoming.

Carys is running things from up top,

Paul's running things from down below.

And I'm stuck in between like a lemon.

Not doing anything!

How's it going, Paul?

-Going pretty well so far.

-Yeah?

-Yeah.

It's not going to sweep you downstream then?

With a bit of luck, no!

The guy that was here manning the safety rope

which presumably is attached to Paul,

to stop him from disappearing down the river, has gone.

I've got him.

I can't wait to see this out of the river.

There it is. SHE CHEERS

You've been looking at that on all of your walks, haven't you?

-It's been annoying me. Oh!

-Absolutely.

'The volunteers are drawn from Merthyr and the villages around.

'They find peace working in the woods,

'and a cup of tea shared with friends.'

There's a whole world out here

and pick up a log, or look in the river,

and you see something you've never seen before

and suddenly the world's bigger.

'For some in the group, volunteering

'has made a real difference to their lives.'

I needed some sort of outlet cos I've just lost my mother,

and my doctor said I should sort of face it head on.

Then one day I saw this poster,

they're looking for volunteers for the Taff Fechan Nature Reserve.

I thought, "Why not? I'll give that a go."

It helped me a lot cos I could have been sat in the house,

dwelling on things, and probably go on a downward spiral.

If anyone else has gone through the same, I recommend they should get out,

do a bit of voluntary work, or whatever is right for them,

help them get over something that's happened in their lives.

It gives you a lot of strength to carry on.

The River Taff and Merthyr, people associate that with industry

and possibly the river as being maybe polluted

and quite industrial, but if they did just stop

and have a look at the river here,

it is really beautiful and they'd really be surprised, yes.

Just south of the reserve is the confluence of the two Taffs...

..where the Fechan meets the Fawr

in the shadow of the Cefn Coed viaduct.

The contrast at this point is quite remarkable.

Up there it still looks very wild and very natural

but down there,

well...

the hand of man is quite obvious.

This is beginning to look like a river that's being harnessed.

You'd never know,

but this was once one of the greatest industrial sites on Earth -

the Cyfarthfa Ironworks.

People flocked from far and wide to work here.

At its height it employed over 5,000 people.

The waters of the Taff turned a massive 50-foot high waterwheel,

that powered the furnaces.

This is the site of the Cyfarthfa Ironworks.

-Oh, it is impressive, isn't it?

-It is impressive, yes.

'Local historian Chris Parry is going to show me around

'this lost wonder of the industrial age.'

-Massive, isn't it?

-It is. It's 50 feet in total, really.

'Under the control of the pioneering and powerful Crawshay family,

'these works had a profound effect on the modern world.

'But today this is all that remains.'

Six complete blast furnaces.

All dating back from the early 19th century,

and arguably even before that when the works were founded in 1765.

Wow.

You can count on one hand, if that, the amount of sites around the world

that have six complete blast furnaces dating back

to this early period, I mean,

the start of the Industrial Revolution in Britain.

When the furnace at Cyfarthfa started in 1765,

there wasn't a town, really.

Cyfarthfa was Merthyr's first true big success story.

It was Britain's biggest ironworks,

producing more than any other ironworks in Britain,

and arguably the world's largest ironworks,

so it wasn't just of huge significance to Merthyr,

it was of huge significance to the world essentially at this time.

'By the early 1800s,

'Merthyr was responsible for 40% of Britain's iron exports,

'but 100 years later, as the First World War came to an end,

'the works closed, and have since fallen into ruin.'

-As you can see, the site is vandalised pretty randomly.

-Yeah.

Cos kids locally... The local name for it is The Cave,

they don't really know what it is,

and that's partly kind of education's fault overall.

It's how can you expect any younger people to take care

of a site that they have no idea or no knowledge of?

-The A470's just there, isn't it?

-Exactly, yes.

Just behind here, so I've driven past the site

dozens of times myself, up to the Brecon Beacons,

and not even realised I'm driving over an ancient ironworkings.

What was it about this particular site that was

really ideal for ironworking?

Cyfarthfa is at the confluence of two rivers,

the Fawr and the Fechan, and so you're getting two very substantial

rivers flowing into one and you've got a nice access to water then.

The ironstone itself, which Merthyr had in abundance,

coal, which was totally and utterly needed,

and then limestone which again was everywhere

and so you had everything you needed, this kind of

perfect storm of ingredients and it all came together.

So it's fair to say then, Chris, that without the River Taff,

without Merthyr's natural resources and Crawshay's vision,

we probably wouldn't have had a British Industrial Revolution?

I'd argue that. Definitely I'd argue that.

This was one of four massive ironworks in Merthyr.

The flames and smoke from which would have filled this valley.

These furnaces wouldn't stop.

-They'd be going every day of the week for years.

-24/7.

-Yes.

-Burning pits.

-Yes.

I bet at night-time down here it must have looked pretty Satanic.

It did. Well, people often compared Merthyr to Pandemonium -

you know, in Milton's poems.

Pandemonium and hell and things like that.

People couldn't tell night from day when you came to Merthyr.

-Seriously. You must have been able to see this place for miles.

-Yes.

Yes, you could. As soon as you came over the valley, it was like,

it was just like hell, like you said.

'The conditions would have been at their most hellish

'inside the warren of narrow tunnels that lead to each of the furnaces.

'Today they're cold and dark, but

'over 100 years ago it would have been a totally different place.'

A very knowledgeable guy who wrote several books on the iron industry

called the men who were tapping out the furnaces

"cycloptic workmen" and what he meant by that is,

they were kind of always closing the one eye,

kind of struggling to keep their eyes open

and see what they were doing in work cos the light coming from

the molten mixture and from the fire was so intense.

Deafness, blindness, all these things were regular occurrences

working in an ironworks, because the light was so intense,

the noise was so intense, the heat was so intense.

All of these things could really take a toll on a person.

It's difficult to overstate the legacy of this place,

and the explosion of industry that happened here 250 years ago,

but it wasn't only metal that poured out of this valley.

The power of the ironmasters created such brutal inequality

that Merthyr became a hotbed for social change.

Workers' unions, the Labour movement and socialism were forged here,

with Merthyr electing Keir Hardie as the first ever

Labour Member of Parliament.

It's hard to imagine but the iron that was made here

built our empire, it built our industry, railways,

fought our wars, and here it is, just...

underneath a main road,

crumbling, litter strewn,

forgotten.

It's hard not to feel a sense of sadness about that, really.

It's an absolutely remarkable place.

In recent years, like many valleys towns,

Merthyr and its people have fallen on hard times,

blighted by unemployment and ill-health.

But to come here on a fine summer's day,

with the flies dancing on the river, it's hard to see why.

With the heavy industry all but gone,

the waters of the Taff run clear once more.

A funny old place to start a fishing trip, Dan, though,

with the city centre bus stop over there and

in the middle of a car park.

You do get some people who say, "Oh, there's no fish in there,

"it's too polluted," and stuff like that, but no.

-They say that and you catch a fish straight in front of them.

-Right!

Yeah. But there's plenty of fish in here

and I am sure we'll have a good couple today.

Dan Popp is a Merthyr boy and top trout fisherman.

He's seen first-hand how the river has recovered.

I'm pretty nervous, actually. I'm not going to lie to you.

This water is considerably faster than I'm used to.

I'll follow you.

We have to jump over a fence here now, mind.

-Oh, right. Brilliant.

-And down onto the river bank.

-Yes, put the bag down here.

-Yes, over we go.

It's a bit high, mate.

No!

Just watch your footing, for any big boulders.

-There's a big boulder here.

-Steady on.

-You ever fallen in, Dan?

-Yes.

I think I'm all right, Dan, but...

I'm not so macho that I won't ask you for your hand if I need it.

It's a funny old feeling, Dan,

to be effectively stood, wedged between an A road

and a car park in...

-You know, fishing in the middle of a town, basically.

-Yes.

It's surprising sometimes what an urban river can produce, isn't it?

'Dan hasn't just witnessed a change in the river,

'but in Merthyr too.'

The industries had all gone, there was nothing here

and it got a bit of a reputation then,

and it stuck unfortunately.

But the town itself has changed incredibly.

You've got to look around us here.

Now you've got a new college there,

and the town itself has been redone and they're still improving it.

I'm in.

-Can you feel anything shaking?

-Serious, mate, serious.

Oh, that's a big fish. Don't leave the line go slack.

Keep tension all the time. Reel in a bit.

Otherwise the fish is bullying you, you're not bullying the fish.

-Oh, right, got you.

-Not too tight, though.

If it needs to run, leave it run.

-Oh, Dan!

-Watch out for them boulders.

-The fish is bullying you now.

-BLEEP!

Oh, I'm shaking. Please stay on, please stay on.

-Keep his head above the water.

-This is brown trouser time, mate.

-Got it.

-Yes, get in!

HE LAUGHS

-Nice work. Nice fish, buddy.

-Buddy!

Oh, he's beautiful.

That is, by far and away, the biggest wild brown trout

-I've ever had.

-He's lovely.

It certainly is. He's wild by name and nature.

Just look at those markings, those iridescent spots,

running the whole length down him.

You know, sometimes you'll catch these fish and,

you know, you might get half a dozen or a dozen spots

but you see here it's gone all the way down

and that's the sign of a clean, clear river.

It has to create that incredible camouflage,

just to survive in a place like this, and he's obviously done

very well, hasn't he, cos he's got to a big old weight?

There it is.

That is absolutely extraordinary.

You don't know what's on your doorstep, some people, do they?

Absolutely. Absolutely.

There we are. One last look.

People would travel a very long way for a fish like that.

Wait till it gives that kick.

There he goes. You can feel that.

He's pretty strong, he's going.

Oh, mate! Put it there, son.

Thank you so much, Dan. Thank you so, so much.

Wow.

'Next time, I see how coal has shaped the Taff Valley...'

How is he holding that with one hand?

'..I fish a stretch of the river that once ran black...'

The fishing is just unbelievable.

'..and get to see the face of modern mining.'

Goodness me! Wow.