18/02/2013 Inside Out South East

Another time bomb for our trees - this time the oak and sweet

chestnut. The history of ordinary life in Kent and Sussex. Might be

that -- my business would collapse. Everybody in the industry would

lose their jobs. It would be an environmental catastrophe.

history of ordinary life in Kent and Sussex. This is living history

and we must keep it alive. And is the origin of English

literature to be found in Sheppey? When telling a good story, you need

a hero, a monster and an evil battle. I'm Natalie Graham with

untold stories, closer to home. From all round the South and South

Hello, I'm in Preston Park in Brighton home to some of the UK's

only surviving Elm Trees, now last series we told you about the battle

to protect our woodlands from foreign pests and diseases, since

then a fungus that's killing ash trees has swept the country but

experts are now warning that this isn't the only disease we should be

Ancient woodland, castle grounds, landscape parks, and manicured

gardens. Trees have their roots firmly fixed in the rich history

and culture of our region. But the countryside is in crisis. The trees

that define our landscape might not be around for much longer. Last

year, a deadly disease that kills ash trees hit our shores and the

headlines. And it's spreading right the way across the region. There

are now more than 40 infected sites in Kent and Sussex. I think that

Ash is finished for two generations I mean two human generations - we

are probably talking about 40 years. We'll only know the full extent of

the damage when the leaves appear on the ash trees this spring. But

the ticking time bomb of Chalara Ash dieback is by no means the only

danger to our woodlands. There's plenty of other time bombs out

there waiting to explode and we need to be careful about that we

need to be wise to that. Nearly all the UK's sweet chestnut grows here

in Kent and Sussex. It's vital to the South East's landscape,

biodiversity and economy. John Leigh-Pemberton owns Torry Hill

Farm in Doddington in Kent, he relies on sweet chestnut, coppicing

it and selling it for fencing and firewood. It's a useful tree. And

it's one of the few forms of woodland enterprise, which is

genuinely self-sustaining, and provides economic activity. And it

provides a significant amount of employment in the South East of

England, the chestnut industry. it too is at risk. Last spring, a

fungus called sweet chestnut blight was found on 30 trees in a Sussex

orchard. Thought to have been imported from Europe it's one of

only two sites identified in Britain. Particularly rampant, it's

already killed 3.5 billion sweet chestnut trees over in America.

blunt truth is that this would stop if we get Chestnut Blight here. My

business would collapse; everyone working in the industry would lose

their jobs. It would be an environmental catastrophe for the

South East of England. And there's another tree in trouble. Peter

Goodwin has been making furniture for 52 years, so home-grown timber

is vital to him. Specifically, oak. English people adore English oak,

make no mistake about it it's the number one in their hearts and

minds. But there's a new disease attacking mature oaks called Acute

Oak Decline. Acute Oak Decline was first identified six years ago, and

scientists believe that a combination of a new bacterium and

an insect called the oak jewel beetle are to blame for its spread.

And Peter thinks the attention that ash dieback is getting is taking

away the message about the threat to the oak. It's a far more

important tree in the British landscape than the ash. I hate to

say it - the ash has a very important role to play in certain

areas. But oak is the one which is really needed - it's iconic, it's

historic, it is England. So can our trees and our woodlands be saved

and can anything be learned from the way in which we tackled pests

and diseases in the past? Well, help might closer to home than we'd

think for the ash and other trees. Kent is world famous for its apple

orchards, and East Malling Research station is world famous for its

research on apple trees. Working here is geneticist Richard Harrison.

He believes he can help because East Malling Research didn't always

just focus on fruit trees. Through some work we've done in the past at

East Malling, we've amassed some very large gene banks from ash

clones from across the country. So lots of different individuals

collected as seed, and then grown up. And in that, there will

probably be, most likely be, resistance to Chalara. So you could

end up with a strain of ash that could then be planted in the woods

to replace the ones that are lost? Is that the idea? Well, partially.

You wouldn't want to take a single individual that was resistant and

plant it everywhere. The best strategy would be to identify what

are the genes controlling the resistance and then go back to

natural populations of ash. And then look for the presence of those

same genes in those natural populations. Richard's team is

pursuing funding for broadleaf tree research and believe they have

something valuable to contribute. feel we can take some of the

knowledge we've gained from working on our horticultural tree crops

across to other broad-leaf tree species. And relatively quickly.

course our trees being attacked is nothing new. Remember the horror of

Dutch Elm Disease back in the 1970's when the UK's population of

elm was obliterated? Part of the English Landscape disappears, for

the elm is one of the most distinctive of English trees.

days, Brighton is the only place to visit if you want to see what

England looked like before Dutch elm disease struck. And that's all

because of what the council did over 40 years ago. Today, there are

nearly 20,000 elm trees in the streets and parks of Brighton. And

Brighton and Hove now hold the UK's National Elms collection. Geography

played a vital role in saving the elms in Brighton and Hove. It's in,

like, a sort of geographic bowel, they've got the downs to the north

the downs to the east, the sea to the south. The only vulnerable side

was a sort of weak western flank along a plain area going out

through Shoreham. So the elms were naturally shielded on three sides

from the beetle that carried the fungus. The council then controlled

the infestation by pruning and removing the trees on which the

beetles bred. They also paid private land owners and even their

western neighbours at Adur district council to do the same. So they are

now completely protected a sort of highly protected bowl protected on

all four sides now. And the council is still on guard today. Between

June and September each year, it's a major part of our task to keep

inspecting all the trees in the parks open spaces in our streets

its helped by the public we get people phoning in even our refuse

street cleaners they often report things to us so there is a lot of

people out there and there has been over the whole period who have

contributed to the actual success of the programme. Whereas elm has

essentially been wiped out in all four corners of the country, they

still have 20,000 elms in Brighton, which is absolutely amazing and

people should take their hats off to them. It took a good a deal of

innovation for Brighton to beat the battle against Dutch Elm disease,

but more than anything else it took money. Peter Goodwin agrees. He has

set up a charity called Woodland Heritage, and over the past three

years they have donated �300,000 towards helping staff the

government's research team looking into Acute Oak Decline. 100 we're

making progress but they are having to help. So we asked the government

why a charity is having to help pay the salaries of their scientists?

But Dr Terry Mabbett thinks the government needs to do even more.

We need more urgency, more funding and we need the government to go

out there and say yes we can do this and not to keep on saying

sorry we can't do that for whatever reason. With the future of the

South East's trees and landscape at stake, what's clear is that action

is needed if we are to save our Coming up on Inside Out: Did the

Isle of Sheppey inspire the ancient legend of Beowulf? We have this

creature of cinema ushers round here, he barges then and he ripped

it apart. Dead bodies everywhere and if you get rid of him, cover

History is usually recorded in terms of high drama. Victories,

catastrophes, heroes and villains. Those as the kinds of people and

the types of events that make it into books like these. But what

about when nothing happened, a normal day in the past when

everything was just a bit ordinary? Many believe that there is just as

much historical value in ordinary life as there is in accounts of the

powerful and famous. Today, documenting your own unique history

is becoming more popular and in the 21st century there are loads of

weight to record your memories. One way of doing this is through a

process called oral history, which involves interviewing people about

their personal experiences. Oral history can do -- reach the parts

that documentary archives can't. It gives you the voice, the person and

it can also give you the memory. At today, students from Moira House

School in Eastbourne are taking part in an oral history project

funded by Heritage Lottery called Womens Lives, Womens Voices.

girls will be interviewing Dorothy, June, Louisa and Maureen about jobs,

fashion and rationing after World War II. Thank you for coming in

today. We were going to talk to you about when it you were young. First

of all, what was it like growing up? Because the war had ended and

we thought, this is a new life. We had spent most of our live so

during the war. -- will live fors. -- our lives are. We probably only

had one dress through the year. I wore my one and dressed to the

dance and there were a lot of sailors and I had a date with one

of them. The next day I wore the same dress and he said, you wore

that yesterday! I said, yes, I did, but I didn't tell him it was the

only one I had! Me and two of our friends, we knitted a bathing

costume. I did it one in brown and yellow and I looked like a

bumblebee! It looked wonderful on the beach and I went into the water

and when I came out it was down to my knees. Actually meeting the

people that made the history, we hear about who make -- who makes

the wars and the legislation but we don't hear about the people who had

to live with the legislation. We need oral history for that method.

For the older people, we find that the people we interviewed perhaps

feel that life is heading towards the end, what part did they play,

what was their value? When they meet the younger people and have

the interviews, they realise that their place in history was quite

important. Without them there was a whole piece of the jigsaw missing.

Today's digital technology has made recording it easier than it was. 75

years ago most people used pen and paper. I have come to see the Mass

Observation Archive at the University of Sussex. It was

founded in 1947 when a team of writers was recruited from members

of the public to document the lives of ordinary people in Britain. It

is updated every year and it is available for anybody to read.

have some fantastic, interesting document at. These were recorded in

Brighton in the 1930s and it is all about the quality of the pubs, but

darts, the stout, and they are talking about how all of the women

were talking and the men were drinking in silence. We have for

series of questionnaires that we send out three times a year. It

normally has three themes, which can be about general aspects of

life, they can be personal, very much based on events that have

happened in the world. They are returned to last sometimes within

weeks but sometimes months. Some people hand right, some people use

typewriters, some people draw pictures. -- some people use

handwriting. It is very much based on how the individual wants to

respond. During the war period we have nearly 500 diaries of people

that they kept throughout the period. We were brought up with the

idea of the British brick -- Blitz spirit but often the diaries show

the more painful side, but people felt they could not necessarily

express to their friends or family. You know, we are having a really

hard time, and what was the cost of the in -- to the individual. So the

spoken and written word might be one way to record your life story

but, as we all know, a picture tells a thousand words. And now it

is cheap and easy for everybody to have a go at taking snaps. 365: A

Year in the Life of Whitstable is a project organised by Kent creative

arts. Residents and visitors take photographs of the seaside town and

submit their photos to the project website. At the end of the year a

panel of judges will so -- will select one photo to represent each

day of the year. My name is Stephen and I took this picture because I

like the Church in this no. My name is Ruth. I took this photograph

because it was a bleak and blustery day and I wanted to have an

archival feel to the piece of work. We are at the tail-end of this Ali

and my picture is my husband and my son stuck at the end. -- of this

lane. Anybody can take a photo. I don't think people will be

uncomfortable with it. You might be uncomfortable with writing or

talking or painting, you might need some skills, but everybody has a

camera or a mobile phone. People love to leave a little bit of

themselves. We are racing towards oblivion so to leave a bid of

yourself behind is a magical thing to do. Back in Eastbourne, students

at Moira House School are coming to the end of their interviews. At the

recordings will be regarded as a valid historical document to be

stored at the East Sussex Record Office fare anybody to view.

Everybody has a story to tell. Everybody's story has a value. One

of the things about oral history is that it has bought into the

historical picture whereby many voices had previously been unheard.

You can get a sense of the world they lived in that just does not

exist any more. They are interested in what happened to us. It is nice

to discuss things like that with them. They had so much to give an

so much wisdom to share. It amazes me and we can learn so much from

them. You mustn't let your history die. This is living history and we

must let -- keep it alive and we hope they will tell their children

about what they told them. Hopefully it will live on forever.

Sticking with our or history theme, once upon a time is a classic line

that has opened many wonderful stories, but where did all of our

stories come from? After her discovery by attend archaeologist,

there is a chance that the birthplace of our world-renowned

English literature is right here in the South East, as Vince Rogers

discovers. We have been telling each other

stories for centuries. Long before computers, televisions or even

books, people would while away dark it evenings telling tales of

Adventures, heroes and villains. But how did the stories begin?

Where did they come from? And what was the first? It all began with a

poem called by a wall. For it was a poem -- it was the first in English

literature. -- Beowulf. It is where all of our great stories begin.

start -- to tell a grim story you need a hero, a monster and a battle

between good and evil -- good and evil, and Beowulf has them on.

Until now it was thought it was set in Denmark but could it be possible

that the location of this epic was based here on the Isle of Sheppey?

Like every good story, we begin with a journey. The tribes that

would later become the Saxons were packing their bags and hitting the

road and according to historical writer Stephen Pollington they

brought with them a wealth of culture and stories. Modern notions

of nation-states and national identity don't really mean a great

deal at that time. The whole thing was in a state of flux. According

to Kent-based archaeologist Dr Paul Wilkinson, travelling with the

settlers was the anonymous author of Beowulf. He has a theory that he

may have taken inspiration for the poem from the Isle of Sheppey and

its coastline. What other clues? -- what are the clues? They would have

approached the clips, seen them shining, and there is a town called

Sheerness, which means Shining cliffs. They land at a place called

Land's End and above that is the warden or, and, lo and behold,

those clay cliffs are called Warden's Point. In Beowulf the hero

picks his way down the cliffs and we have clay cliffs.

In the story, Beowulf arrives at the mead-hall in Heorot to Brit the

kingdom of the monster called Grendel and his evil mother. There

is a knock on the door, the door opens and they sit down and the

King says, it is good to see you. We have serious problems, we have

this creature living in the marsh land. It visit every night after we

get drunk, barges in and rips the place apart. Dead bodies everywhere.

If you get rid of him I will certainly awards to gold. -- Award

But I still need convincing that Beowulf was written about north

Kent. I have never seen any mention of Sheppey. We had Sheppey here but

this place here that used to be an island is called Harty. In the

Domesday Book it is called Harty and prior to that in the 7th

century it was called Heorot. So this island has the same name as

the place where Beowulf has his entrance. Beowulf kills Grendel and

Grendel's mother and the kingdom of Heorot is safe once more, but is it

happy-ever-after for our hero? In the story, 50 years after the

events on Heorot, Beowulf is now on hold came. Everything is peaceful,

until his kingdom is threatened by a dragon. And it is this part of

the story that makes a local historian, Griselda Mussett,

believe that Beowulf is similar to the Sheppey legend of the Grey

Dolphin. The Grey Dolphin is a horse that can swim, owned by a

night, and he is told that the horse will kill him, so he cuts the

horse's head off and kicks the horse's skull and the bones of the

skull going to his foot and he dies of gangrene. When the Christians

arrived they did not like that at all so they made the horse into a

monster. I think Beowulf is a Christian version of a much older

legend. It ends with Beowulf killing the Dragon -- not killing

the dragon, but been killed by the Near the end of the story, after

Beowulf's death, his people build him a massive Barrett -- burial

mound, fit for a king. Dr Paul Wilkinson thinks he has found the

inspiration for the barrow across the water in Faversham. It is

between those two pylons. Below the cables there is about the height of

it, 15 metres high. We have pictures taken of it when it was

being demolished to build up the sea walls after the massive floods

in the 1950s. It has a Scandinavian name. At and that is the

inspiration? -- and it has. There are many other theories about the

origins of Beowulf. Kent is the most recent suggestion and there is

a long-standing tradition that the whole thing was set in Denmark, on

the shores of the Baltic. sure. Experts will probably never

agree on the true setting of Beowulf, but wouldn't it be great

if English literature began here, on the Isle of Sheppey? It is a

Don't forget, if you want any more information about tonight's show,

you can visit our Kent or Sussex websites. You can also watch the

show again on iPlayer. Go to this address. Coming up next week...

The family but ended up over �400,000 in debt. -- and that ended

up. How have you coped with the pressure? I have lost six years of

my life through worry and I can't see any end in sight. And, when

Kent was nuked. We discover the film the BBC banned and the people

who were in it. I happened to be there when the film crew turned up,