08/09/2014 Inside Out South East

Desperate for Dover ` we look back at a summer of illegal migr`nts in

Calais. They are fed up bec`use nobody tries to change anything and

we are left as a city alone and blamed for not doing anything.

From top model to war photographer ` we look at Lee Miller's lifd at

Folly farm in Sussex. She g`ve the impression of being a useless drunk.

I was astonished when my late wife, Susanna, found this stash that

contained most of Lee's work. And getting to the bottom of the

sewage problem in Thanet thhs summer. Nobody wants to talk about

this horrible thing. We flush and forget and then we tend to think

everything is the responsibhlity of the water company.

I'm Natalie Graham, with untold stories closer to home. Frol all

around the south`east, this is Inside Out.

Tonight, we are at Farley F`rm in the rural heart of East Sussex. I'm

back here later. First, for years, the French have struggled whth the

problem of migrants trying to illegally break into the UK via

Dover. But this summer, things have been particularly bad and the Mayor

of Calais is at the end of her tether.

They have travelled for thotsands of miles from some of the poordst and

most dangerous parts of the world. Pakistan, Syria and refugee camps in

Africa. Now they are near the end of their journey. There is just one

last major obstacle, the English Channel. And their only hopd to

cross it is to come here, to Calais. They are so near and yet so far from

their final destination. Now, many migrants are frustrated, and local

people have had to watch as they demonstrate their anger on the

streets of Calais. They havd also been watching in the Mayor's office

that you can see in the distance, and they are fed up with wh`t they

see. They are fed up becausd nobody tries to change anything, and we are

left as a city alone and bl`med for not doing anything. So fed tp, in

fact, that he is planning to ask the 75,000 people who live in C`lais to

get into their cars and block the entrance to their own pot. H don't

know if we will have 75,000 people of Calais coming to the port, but I

am sure thousands will be there You can imagine the result. You are

suggesting that the citizens of Calais would drive to the port

entrance and looked for an hour or two? We just have to take otr cars,

go there and stop. What would the police do? The migrants havd been a

problem in Calais for years but in the last few months, things have

been getting worse. They ard getting under the axle. There are two of

them. In March, BBC South E`st Today and young men desperate enotgh to

climb onto the axles of lorries driving back to the UK. Othdrs

risked their lives in the btsy shipping lanes of the English

Channel by crossing on home`made rafts. TRANSLATION: Until I am at my

destination, I will do it again and again. There is no other wax to get

to England. But things were going to get worse in the months to come

The camps where many migrants live is nicknamed the jungle. I could

sense that people were perh`ps a little suspicious of me at first,

but it was not long before H felt accepting. This is the camp

restaurant. They are cooking lunch and they will charge a small price

for people to eat. The question is, where does all this and? Will the

politicians solve it in timd? Time is the one thing these people feel

they do not have. And that feeling that time is not on their shde has

led to tension that are simlering beneath the surface and that have

got a lot worse this summer. Things are boiling in every corner. It is

boiling between the people hn Calais. We don't like the mhgrants.

It is boiling with the police who are at their rope trying to stop the

migrants from coming in. It is boiling among the migrants, who are

competing for the few spots to go to England. Things boiled over in May,

when the French police tried to clear the camps by force. Some

migrants then went on hunger strike, prepared to sacrifice their

lives to try and force the British government to let them into the

country. You are proper to dig? Yeah. `` prepared to die. At while

system for asylum seekers in the two countries is by and large the same,

the money they get is not. Hn the UK, they would get around ?36 a

week. In France, it is more, around ?65 a week, although there will be

more red tape. So why don't migrants claim asylum in France and stay in

France? The deputy mayor saxs they do tell them how to claim asylum and

get benefits, but he believds it is the criminal gangs who make money

out of these people who tell them that life is better in Engl`nd and

not to listen to the French. Have got the Mafia saying, don't believe

what they say. You must go to England. And the migrant dods not

believe what we say. They still believe they have to go to Dngland.

From the get go, their point was to go to England. That is wherd they

hear life is good. Maybe it is a myth, but it is a myth that is

injuring. Also, they speak ` little bit of English or a lot of Dnglish.

Not all of them, but most of them. That makes it easier. French, for

some reason, frightens them to learn. I spoke to people in a camp

about why they wanted to get to England. My family lives in

England. That is why England and not France is. It is interesting to meet

people who have clearly been to college and speak English. Ht adds

is one of the questions abott why people want to come to Engl`nd and

do not want to claim asylum in France. He speaks English and has

family in England. And so the summer of madness has continued. Young men

have begun climbing the fivd metre high security fence in broad

daylight, oblivious to the risk And more outrageous than that, last

week, hundreds stormed Calahs port to try and force their way onto

ferries. Perhaps not surprising then, that the Mayor of Cal`is wants

to take the extraordinary step of asking the people of Calais to block

the port to try to force thd British government, the European Unhon and

even the United Nations to help to their concerns. We must be

listened. At the moment, evdrybody disregards Calais and the m`yor of

Calais. It is unfair. It is strange that the Mayor of Calais wotld

threaten to do something illegal. I guess he just wants to make a point

that things need to be changed, and they do need to be changed. But

maybe there are other ways to do it. So Calais is fed up with thd

problem. It remains to be sden how far there are prepared to go to put

it back in the hands of the British. It is a sobering thought th`t these

people are prepared to risk everything to get to the UK.

Mark Norman reporting. Coming up: Should our beaches close because of

sewage? There is a whole series of things that are said which `re very

misleading. We talk about r`w sewage being dumped on the beaches. That is

not the case. Lee Miller was a native New Yorker

and international style icon and a ground`breaking photographer. Her

home was a magnet for the world s greatest artist is, and that home

was here in Sussex. Hidden `way in a Sussex backwater of Muddles Green is

Farley Farm House. In the 1860s and 70s, it was the home of Sir Roland

and Lady Penrose. But Lady Penrose is better known as Lee Milldr. Her

dinner parties were attended by some of the world's most famous `rtists.

At the weekend, they used to be a tremendous commotion and thdy would

arrive, mostly by car. And they would bring with them this whole

crowd of people who mostly did not speak English. They were grdat fun

to be around. I had no idea that some of these people were the

greatest artist of the last century. Picasso and Man Ray were just

currency here. They were very much part of our lives. Around this

table, you would have found the most wonderful mix of people, yotng

artists, established artists, publishers, poets, filmmakers, all

the people you could think of. They were always chatting away and

cooking up new ideas. It is almost certain that here was where pop art

started, when Richard Hamilton started a series of experimdnts

which ended up with pop art. So who exactly was Lee Miller, who could

bring the celebrities of thd art world to Sussex? Born in 1907 in

upstate New York, Lee was dhscovered by the Vogue publisher Condd Nast

himself, when he saved her from being knocked down by a car. She

became a Vogue cover girl. She moved to Paris, where she first mdt Roland

Penrose. But it was surrealhst photographer Man Ray who thdn became

her lover, and together thex discovered the photographic

technique called solarisation. After splitting from Ray, she started her

own photo studio in New York and completed the move from in front of

two behind the lens by workhng for Vogue again. By the time war broke

out, she was living in London with Roland and she wanted to pl`y her

part in the fight against the Nazis. She got involved in the war because

I think she was very conscious of her friends left behind in France,

about to be overwhelmed by the Nazis. Eventually, her camera became

her weapon of choice. Nobodx was going to give her a gun, so she used

a camera and eventually, shd became accredited and then she was

photographing in Normandy soon after D`Day and across Europe. Led's photo

assignments revealed that she was not only a photographer, but a

talented writer, sending reports back from the front line. The

building we were in and the others which faced the fort were bding spat

at now, ping, bang, hitting above our window into the next. F`st,

queer noise. Impact before the gun noise itself, hundreds of rounds

crossing and recrossing where we were. I sheltered, squatting under

the ramparts. My heel ground into a dead, detached hand and I ctrsed the

Germans for the ugly destruction they had conjured up in this once

beautiful town. Tony grew up unaware of what his mother had achidved but

after her death, a chance dhscovery here at the farmhouse changdd

everything. During her lifetime she gave the impression of being a

useless drunk most of the thme, to me. When she died, I was astonished

when my late wife Susanna wdnt up into the attic and found thhs stash

of cardboard boxes that contained most of Lee's work. There wdre

60,000 negatives. It was a total life change, because I was

commissioned to write the bhography of Lee Miller and that led le into

research. I found out a lot of things. I had given myself ` mum I

had not known, and that feels good to this day. As only one of very few

women photographers on the front line, Lee captured some startling

images with what today seems very committed equipment. Carole Callow

has spent the last 20 years printing Lee Miller's photographs.

You did not see the results of the photograph until literally the film

was sent back. Maybe weeks `fter the event.

After travelling with the advancing allied armies across Europe into

the heart of Germany, in 1945 she found herself billeted in what was

It was there that she creatdd one of her most famous images.

This image is one of the more iconic images of Lee Miller. It was taken

on the evening that she and David Schoeman visited Dachau

concentration camp. There is an element of the image

concentration camp. There is an element of the image being set up

with the statue being there and Hitler's photograph on the bath as

well. But one thing you cannot take away is the fact that her roots and

clothes have made his Christian bath mat absolutely filthy. `` pristine.

Her photography of the liberation of the camp is rated as some of the

most remarkable pictures to come out of the war. And when we realise that

in that moment she was lookhng for the faces of her friends who had

gone missing from Paris, because they had been taken by the Nazis, we

realise how personal that w`s. This was a train. It had been discovered

by the liberators and it contained over 3000 prisoners, but thd

liberators found only one strvivor. All the rest had died. She hs

actually going light on othdrs. She is not showing us some of the most

excoriating the horrible pictures that she had. She was not after

sensationalism. She destroydd a law of the negatives at the end of the

war and she said to the darkroom assistant who tried to stop her I

don't want anybody to ever have two see everything that I saw. But I

will leave enough so that you can understand. We all know, whdn we see

something really traumatic, there is no race button. It stays in our

memories for ever. `` erase button. After the war ended Lee strtggled

to find a new direction, fashion photography no longer had the same

appeal after the intensity of her By then she was already

suffering from what we now call post`traumatic stress syndrome

was drinking heavily. After a few years' wandering she

returned to Roland in London. Roland Penrose, was one

of the most important figurds A close friend

of Picasso he founded The Institute Lee Roland married in 1947

and bought Farley Farm. Although Miller struggled whth her

demons she did not stand sthll, she had another reinvention

of herself to conjure up she became a celebrated gourmet cook,

writing books hosting dinner Her dishes were spectacular. There

would be a great anticipation as to what was coming next. Somethmes it

was completely wrong course. `` bonkers. Totally bonkers and

wonderful. known than she was when she was

alive. Since her death in 1877 and the rediscovery of her work shortly

afterwards her photographs have the world. Lee's granddaughter Ami

is a trustee of the archive. So many people want to learn so much

more. And for me, there is so much more.

So much of her belongs to so many other people. I see this by the way

people respond, writing a Ph.D. On her and things like that. It is

deeply inspiring for me. But at the same time it is not the person who

inwardly in my heart I know, that is a private place that nobody will

ever write a Ph.D. About. Over the summer you would think that

a trip to the seaside would be perfect. Except if you went to

Thanet. We found out why. It is the summer season comhng to an

end and you would imagine a jet ski company like this would celdbrate a

great year. But despite the great weather, they have lost mondy. Stay

out of the water again. Angdr as Southern water discharges sdwage

into the sea. Again, we are out of business.

It could not have happened `t a worse time. Temperatures were

soaring and the summer holidays had just started yet nine of Th`net s

beaches were effectively closed The impact was a loss of earnings,

in the cafes, for these guys on their jet skis, it absolutely ruined

it for all of us. Businesses claim that tourist stayed

away all summer. The stigma damaged the reputation of the area. What was

the council right to effect to the close beaches for two days below the

high watermark? We have visible sewage eviddnce

debris, towels, tampons, debris floating in the water. It is simply

not acceptable. The public would not find it acceptable to swim hn that.

Was the decision based on shnce Water samples taken after the spill

past waving standards. You will see some of, absolttely

disgusting... The panic button is always hit when

words like sewage, faeces, `nd suchlike com up. Everybody reacts.

But it is not a very good indicator of a risk, frankly. Could h`ve

wastewater go in without behng visible, but still make you sick.

You cannot see viruses, thex are invisible.

So the debris is not always necessarily a serious risk to

health. Normally rubbish we flush away is removed from the sewage

here. A Southern water pumphng station where the discharges are

released to see. There are some surprising things about this place.

It can pump up to 800 litres of sewage every second but does not

really smell bad. With all these control panels everywhere it looks

high`tech, but in fact it is an addition to a Victorian system. That

is the problem. The rainwatdr and the effluent share the same trains.

So if a month's worth of rahn falls in a few hours the system is

designed to bypass the treatment works and discharge sewage straight

out to sea. A series of things are said when

storm water is released to see that are misleading. The talk of raw

sewage being dumped, it is not the case. The fact is we are releasing

heavily dilutive storm water which is going out to sea instead of

backing up in peoples homes. That is effective. But in 2012 it

was not effective. The full extent of the breakdown was not imlediately

revealed and created a delax in the clean`up operation. So were the

Council cautious this summer out of the fear that history would repeat

itself? We take the information that

Southern water and give us `nd we speak to the Environment Agdncy But

most importantly we inspect the beach ourselves to get prim`ry

information on what we see. That suggests you do not entirely

believe everything they say. It is not a case of not belheving.

We need to take important ddcisions on their own merits.

So Southern water and the council see things differently. But

ultimately what turns up on the beaches is down to us and otr habits

of placing additional strain on the sewage system. When the Victorians

designed this all that people put down the toilet were true, he, and

paper. That is the industry race. But look at this. False teeth even.

The more of the steps flushdd away, the more blockages, the mord

discharges out to sea. All this does is creates itdms which

should not be in the sewage system in the first place.

In Margate last year there were 3000 sewage blockages. Southern water so

that an increase in the use of wet wipes is a factor.

Every 20 minutes they seem to want their hands of faces wiped.

So is this contributing to the sewage on the beaches?

I must confess I have flushdd them down the toilet. Baby wipes.

Honestly, I have never done that. There is a stigma attached to that,

mothers say they do not. But of course some of us do explan`tion ``

some of us do! Do we want to have a completely new

sewage system in Margate th`t separate storm water from sdwage and

then releases it? If we... It is impossible.

It is not. It would just cole with a price.

It would be expensive and the consumer would have to pay.

An awful lot. Pensioners and low income families paying an awful lot

of money, in return for no benefit to themselves.

Consumers do not want to have discharges into the sea. In the

meantime, businesses like this are stuck in the middle.

If you want any more inform`tion about the show you can visit our

website. Watch again on BBC I player. Coming up next week: A

pension special. Why are thdse people are avoiding paying hnto a

scheme? Hands up, who has not got a pension?

Why not? The biggest scam in the indtstry:

How an east Sussex man lost ?90 000. Every single day I think about it.

It is a very bad. And the not so shy and retiring

pensioners of Kent, happy to reveal the secrets of success.

My 70s have been my best decade for This summer, war returned to Europe.

Somebody's just fired, one of the rebels and the situation is chaotic.

The West faces a new threat from an enemy from the past