Programme One: Dover to Exmouth
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The White Cliffs of Dover. The starting point for the
11,700 mile journey around the entire coastline of the United Kingdom.
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"The coast is where the story of a nation - its history,
geography and above all, its people - is told most vividly," says Nicholas
Crane, as he sets out on his epic adventure visiting the coastline
of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
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"This is life on the edge and the coast as you've never
seen it before."
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The first leg of the journey travels 330 miles along the
south coast of England from Dover to Exmouth. It is the UK's frontline
coast, and is pockmarked by a legacy of invasion and war.
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Beginning at a Martello Tower just outside Folkestone,
Nicholas reveals that 74 such towers were built in the early years of
the 19th century to defend us against Napoleon Bonaparte, who had already
overrun most of Europe.
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A bit further along the coast at Denge, Nicholas looks
at further coastal defence systems: Sound Mirrors. Ten were built between
the two world wars, designed as giant ears to help identify approaching
enemy planes.
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With the help of Open University and National Physical
Laboratory scientists - and a Tiger Moth - Nick puts them to the test.
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Just down the coast from Brighton at Selsey Bill, zoologist
Miranda Krestovnikoff goes diving to visit a world that
most of us never see. She films cuttlefish a few metres offshore. This
part of the south coast is teeming with cuttlefish, when the sea warms
in spring, because it is an ideal place for them to come and mate.
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Mark Horton discovers why Portsmouth
became home to the Royal Navy and Neil Oliver travels
out to Alderney in the Channel Islands, home to the only concentration
camp built on British soil. He gets first hand testimony from one of the
few survivors, and from one of the islanders evacuated from the island
before the Germans arrived.
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Nearing the end of the first leg, Alice Roberts
visits the 'Jurassic Coast', which in 2001 was designated a UNESCO world
heritage site for its outstanding geological significance.
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She also goes in search of fossil fuels and manages to
extract oil from the local shale.
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Producer/ Director: Oliver Clark
³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Birmingham
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Programme Two: Exmouth to Bristol
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The second leg of the journey covers the 384 miles from
Exmouth to the tip of Land's End and back up to Bristol.
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The south west peninsula of England bears the brunt of
the UK's worst storms, and is the land of wrecks, vanished villages and
ancient myths.
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It is also home to many childhood holiday memories and
the summer surf.
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Alice Roberts investigates how human greed led to the
entire village of Hallsands being washed into the sea in South Devon.
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Nicholas Crane unearths the little-known history of the
slave trade in Plymouth, and looks at the pilchard fishing industry in
Newlyn.
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He goes fishing with Stefan Glinski, a Cornish fisherman
and entrepreneur, who is making big money from small fish. By adapting
almost forgotten traditional methods, Stefan has increased his pilchard
catch from seven tonnes ten years ago to 400 tonnes last year.
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The Porbeagle shark is the UK's only native shark, though
little is known about it. Miranda Krestovnikoff goes in search of the
Porbeagle off the coast of Cornwall to find out more about this threatened
species.
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Meanwhile, Neil Oliver and Mark Horton put the Cornish
wrecking myth to the test using nothing but an 18th century lantern to
lure a ship onto rocks.
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Producer: Jonathan Barker
³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Birmingham
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Programme Three: Severn Estuary
to Cardigan Bay
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Covering 460 miles of the Welsh coastline, Coast heads
west from the Severn estuary down to the tip of St David's Head and then
back up to Fishguard.
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The south coast of Wales has the second highest tidal
range in the world. It's that tidal surge that brings with it the Severn
Bore, one of the world's most extraordinary natural phenomena.
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Using computer imagery, Nicholas Crane explains how the
Severn Bore is created, and follows the real thing - along with the considerable
crowds that turn out to watch it - as it heads up river.
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Cardiff became a city in 1905, and 50 years ago it became
the capital city of Wales. Neil Oliver explores the history of Cardiff,
visiting the coal exchange, where according to legend, the world's first
£1m cheque was signed in 1904.
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Mark Horton looks at the huge Kenfig dune system, and
speaks to a local historian who studies the dunes and has found evidence
of the massive destructive potential of the tiny grains of sand… to bury
an entire city.
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Alice Roberts gets acquainted with 'the Red Lady of Paviland',
Britain's first modern man. The ancient burial was discovered in Paviland
Cave in 1823 and it is the earliest burial in Britain, carbon dated to
about 30,000 years old.
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And a visit is paid to the most remote lighthouse in the
UK by Neil Oliver. The Smalls lighthouse is 20 miles out to sea, and Neil
explains how events in the winter of 1800 and 1801 changed the way lighthouse
men were allocated to duty across the UK. It's a tale of wild storms,
death and madness.
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Producer: John Trefor
³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Wales
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Programme Four: Cardigan
Bay to The Dee
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For centuries there's been a tale of a Welsh Atlantis
lost beneath the waves. The story goes that Cardigan Bay was once fertile
land, but was lost to the sea. Neil Oliver meets folklore expert Twm Elias
who tells him all about The Sunken Forest of Borth.
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The entire coastal waters of Cardigan Bay are a haven
for wildlife and a perfect breeding ground for seabirds. There is a wealth
of marine mammals, but there is one creature which goes to extraordinary
effort to reach this stretch of coast.
Miranda Krestovnikoff goes in search of the giant leatherback
turtles that for centuries have been making the long journey from Bermuda
to the bay beyond Porthmadog.
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Portmeirion is also on our route along the west coast
of Wales. Nick Crane turns 'prisoner' and relives moments from the Sixties
television series.
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Nicholas Crane canoes in some of the most treacherous
waters in the UK - the Menai Straits - to tell the story of two great
bridges and the engineers who built them.
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In the 1830s, the dash was on to get from London to Dublin,
and this resulted in Thomas Telford's designs for the Menai Bridge and
Robert Stephenson's 'box girder' bridge invention which was copied around
the world.
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Alice Roberts delves into the underground caves of the
Great Orme, a Bronze Age civilisation which sits side by side with the
holiday resort of Llandudno.
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Producer: John Trefor
³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Wales
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Programme Five: Liverpool
to the Solway Firth
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The fifth leg of the journey around the coast of the UK
travels from Liverpool up to the borders of Scotland.
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Liverpool's history reveals that the basis of the city's
prosperity was trade in people. It was slavery that took Liverpool from
being a modest little village into a major port.
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Nicholas Crane meets Eric Lynch, who has been running
tours on the slave history of Liverpool for more than 30 years. Eric has
his own story to tell, as his family descends from slaves.
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Just 15 miles north of Liverpool is Sefton Sands. It looks
like any beach, but is actually a launch pad for a pre-historic safari.
Alice Roberts investigates the footprints of animals - and people - that
are 5,000 years old and preserved in layers of clay on the shore.
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It's a unique snapshot of our ancestors from a moment
in time frozen for millennia. Alice discovers the remarkable detail that
these imprints reveal about the people and about the strange prehistoric
animals that were living on the coast 5,000 years ago.
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Nicholas Crane takes to the water in a 120-year old lifeboat
to investigate the worst ever lifeboat disaster. It happened in December
1886 between Lytham-St-Annes and Southport, when 27 volunteers lost their
lives going to help the German boat The Mexico, which had struck a sandbank.
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From there the journey continues to Morecambe Bay. There
is a long history of people who have perished in the sands there - most
recently a band of Chinese cockle pickers. But the dangers of the bay
haven't stopped people coming back, and it is one of the historic sea
side resorts.
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Neil Oliver visits the treacherous sands of Morecambe
Bay, accompanied by the 25th appointed Queen's Guide to the Sands - Cedric
Robinson - who as a sand pilot can read the bay like a book.
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Mark Horton travels to Maryport in the tracks of the Roman
conquest of Northern England.
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Producer: Nigel Walk
³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Birmingham
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Programme Six: The Northern
Ireland Coast
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Renowned as one of the best-known scenic coastal drives
in Europe, the Antrim coast road runs for 23 miles.
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This ribbon around the coast clings to narrow, man-made
terraces, under huge cliffs and links the port of Larne with the nine
glens of Antrim.
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Nicholas Crane explores how the building of the spectacular
Antrim coast road mirrors the troubled history of the province.
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When the Titanic sank, Thomas Andrews was aged 39 years,
two months and eight days. He boarded the Titanic as a first- class passenger
at Belfast, ticket number 112050, cabin A36. He knew the ship better than
anyone because he had designed her.
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Realising the supposedly unsinkable Titanic was doomed,
Andrews insisted that the order to abandon ship be given. Andrews was
Harland and Wolff's brilliant young designer who conceived three mighty
liners that would dominate the North Atlantic crossing: Olympic, Britannic
and Titanic.
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Historian Neil Oliver looks at the genius of Andrews'
work and uses computer imagery to rebuild the Titanic on its original
Harland and Wolff slipway.
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The Giant's Causeway is the UK's first UNESCO world heritage
site. The rocks are a strong visual icon for the Irish coast and sit right
on the north Atlantic coast between dramatic headlands and long white
sandy beaches.
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Alice Roberts heads to the Giant's Causeway and explains
how and when it was formed. She also looks at how it is now under pressure
from developers and learns that UNESCO has the power to remove the Causeway's
World Heritage status unless local planners can come up with one cohesive
and acceptable management plan.
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The most famous wreck on this stretch of coast (though
it has almost totally gone from the seabed) is the Girona, the treasure
ship of the Spanish Armada, discovered in 1967.
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It foundered on the Northern Irish coast in 1588, and
is one of the most important sites for marine archaeology in the whole
of the UK. Mark Horton explores the story behind its demise.
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Producer: Roger Ford-Hutchinson
³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Northern Ireland
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Programme Seven: The West Coast
of Scotland and Western Isles
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The west coast of Scotland has a unique geography of
deep sea lochs, islands and swift access to the North Atlantic.
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During the Second World War, Faslane was selected as a
naval submarine base. Today it is home to the entire UK nuclear submarine
fleet. At any given time, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, there is a
British Trident submarine patrolling the seas.
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Neil Oliver joins the crew of the Trident submarine HMS
Vanguard as they embark upon a series of gruelling sea trials that will
stretch the crew to their limits and test the safety of this 16,000 tonne
vessel.
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Minke whales are attracted to Scotland to feed. Miranda
Krestovnikoff takes her camera and joins conservationists to go in search
of the elusive whales.
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Seventy years ago, when Herr Gerhard Zucker heard that
Christina MacLennan gave birth to twins on separate Hebridean islands
two days apart because she couldn't get a message to the doctor on the
mainland, he travelled from Germany intent on solving the islands' communication
problems.
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His proposal was a mail service - not by aircraft but
by rocket! Neil Oliver and Mark Horton visit the Outer Hebrides to test
Herr Zuckers' rocket mail.
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Meanwhile, Nicholas Crane sails the beautiful Western
Isles - retracing the steps of King James V who in 1540 ventured deep
into the heart of clan territory to reclaim this rebellious corner of
his kingdom for himself. To help him achieve his goal his foremost navigator
Alexander Lindsay came up with a secret weapon - a detailed directory
of sailing directions or 'Rutter' that would enable James to fight the
clans on their own ground.
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Producer: Jane McWilliams
³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Scotland
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Programme Eight: Cape Wrath
to Orkney
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Cape Wrath in the Scottish Highlands is the largest bombing
range in Europe and is used for military training because air, land and
sea forces can be tested there.
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Nicholas Crane takes part in a NATO exercise at the bombing
range.
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The Highland Clearances were one of the darkest and most
notorious episodes in Scottish history. Tens of thousands of people were
forcibly removed from their homes. Neil Oliver meets the descendents of
people affected by The Highland Clearances and they march to the coast
in remembrance of their ancestors who were forced to relocate there.
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The Dounreay nuclear reactor was hailed as the new solution
to energy problems when it opened in 1959. The local community initially
welcomed it and the population of Thurso swelled from 3,000 to 8,000. But
today there are claims of pollution coming from the fastbreeder reactor.
Alice Roberts investigates.
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Every year survivors, relatives and servicemen gather
at Scapa Flow in Orkney for a memorial service commemorating the worst
loss of British naval life in domestic waters.
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In 1939, HMS Royal Oak was hit by torpedoes from a German
U-boat and sunk - 833 lives were lost. Neil Oliver talks to survivors
Kenneth Toop and Arthur Smith, who are there to take part in the memorial
service; it is Arthur's first visit back to Orkney in 60 years.
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Ken and Arthur were 'boy seamen' aged 16 and 17 years
old when the ship was torpedoed. They relive the worst night of their
lives and reveal the tragic story of HMS Royal Oak.
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Producer: Paul Overton
³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Scotland
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Programme Nine: John O'Groats
to Berwick-Upon-Tweed
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Coast starts from the famous landmark of John O'Groats
- the most north-easterly point of the British mainland.
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The Moray Firth has been home to bottle-nosed dolphins
for over a century. This is the most northerly population in the world
and they're 50 per cent bigger than their southern relatives.
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Channonry Point is a spectacular location to watch them
feast on shoals of salmon. Miranda Krestovnikoff goes to see them and
finds out why they face potential threat from tourist boats.
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Neil Oliver meets three generations of a fishing family
in Fraserburgh, who face a bleak future due to falling fish stocks. Sandy
and Zander West were one of 50 white fish boats - half of the Fraseburgh
fleet - that were forced to decommission 12 months ago. One year on, they
have both returned to fishing, and Neil asks them what their hopes and
fears are for the future of the industry.
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Nicholas Crane investigates how the oil industry has affected
life on the North Sea coast. Cruden Bay between Peterhead and Aberdeen
is a beautiful sandy beach.
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Underneath the sands is a pipe that, despite being only
32 inches wide, brings ashore the largest volume of crude oil anywhere
on the North Sea coast. But as North Sea oil is running out, new technology
is enabling the extraction of oil from previously untapped areas of the
oil fields.
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Nicholas also looks at the audacious feat of engineering
behind the Bell Rock lighthouse.
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By the late 18th century, the razor-sharp
Bell Rock is thought to have sunk an average of six ships a year. S itting more than ten miles off Arbroath and slap bang
in the middle of the main shipping route along the east coast of Scotland,
the rock was notorious across Europe.
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It took the sinking of HMS York
with the loss of 491 men in 1804 to turn a vague plan for a lighthouse
into reality for Robert Stevenson with work commencing in 1807.
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During the Second World War, Polish troops were stationed
in eastern Scotland; thanks to an agreement made between Churchill and
the Polish Government in exile, they were charged with defending the coast
against possible German invasion.
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While in Scotland, one of those Polish soldiers, Jozef
Stanislaw Kosacki, came up with an invention that would save countless
lives.
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He developed the first useable mine detector: this invention was
crucial to the progress of the war especially during the conflict at El
Alamein, and in the decades since has preserved lives in conflicts around
the globe.
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Further along the coast is the port of Dundee. This city
was once a major force in the British whaling industry. Dundee's famous
jute industry actually helped the declining whaling fleet to survive:
whale oil was needed to soften the cloth, bad news for the whales but
a lifeline for the men of the fleet.
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Alice Roberts looks back at Dundee's history of whaling
and meets former whalers who risked their lives in this now reviled industry.
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Producer: Paul Overton
³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Scotland
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Programme Ten: Berwick-Upon-Tweed to Robin Hood's Bay
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Nicholas Crane explores the holy island of Lindisfarne
- the cradle of Christianity and the home of the priceless Lindisfarne
gospels.
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Recently, the Northumberland coast produced evidence
for the earliest house site in England - dating back around 10,000 years.
The site at Howick has provided new insights into the lifestyles of early
colonisers of northern Britain.
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Alice Roberts heads to Howick to help rebuild Britain's
first house on the exact site of the 10,000-year-old original.
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What have been called the UK's first race riots took place
in South Shields during the Thirties. Sailors from all over the world
had settled and lived there in harmony for more than 20 years before the riots
broke out.
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Neil Oliver investigates what made a peaceful, multi-ethnic
community turn to violence.
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This coastal area of the North East is one where shipbuilders
have had to turn their hand to dismantling ships to keep their industry
alive. Nicholas Crane visits Sunderland - once one of the world's foremost
shipbuilding towns.
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Miranda Krestovnikoff visits the Farne Islands to get
up close and personal with grey seals. Though they were our first protected
species, their numbers have grown to the extent that the question of culling
is again raising its ugly head.
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Producer / Director: Oliver Clark
³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Birmingham
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Programme Eleven: Robin
Hood's Bay to The Wash
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This leg of the journey covers 209 miles. Starting in
Robin Hood's Bay, Nicholas Crane retraces the steps of 18th century
smugglers.
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With a jumble of houses, narrow lanes carved into the
cliff and secret vaults designed for illegal imports, smuggling was the
village's unofficial trade for 200 years.
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Reaching a peak in 1750, everyone including the local
squire got a share of the smugglers' booty.
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Here on the Yorkshire coast, Britain's fledgling chemical
industry began in the 17th century. Alice Roberts indulges in a
touch of alchemy - using some rather unpleasant ingredients - but making
valuable alum crystals: an essential element in fixing dye in cloth for
centuries.
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The first Butlins holiday camp was built in Skegness,
and opened its doors in Easter 1936.
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Six hundred chalets, three meals a day and on-site entertainment
all thrown in proved a roaring success. A week's full board cost
between 35 shillings and £3. Neil Oliver visits the camp to see why it
continues to be such a successful formula.
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The oldest boat in Europe - the 4,000-year-old Ferriby
boat - was discovered in the mud of the River Humber in 1963: it's one
of Britain's most important archaeological discoveries. Today a replica
has been made.
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Mark Horton tests its seaworthiness and speculates how
far it might have sailed.
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With the decline in fish stocks in British waters, the
fishing port of Grimsby now makes a large part of its income from fish-processing.
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Nicholas Crane visits a fish finger factory where ten
million are produced every week, and samples some unusual new fish recipes
which might be coming our way soon.
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The Wash is one of our most important sites for wading
birds. Most of the birds are travelling through on a long migration. Miranda
Krestovnikoff goes out with a wader ringing group to catch some birds
using a canon net.
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Through this humane ringing method, the group have become
world experts on the breeding habits, migration routes and numbers of
waders.
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Producer: Jonathan Barker
³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Birmingham
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Programme Twelve: The Wash
to Dover
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In 1953, a terrible tidal surge flooded the entire East
Coast of Britain from Northumbria down to the Thames Estuary.
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Three hundred and seven people were killed and 24,000
homes were damaged or destroyed.
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Nicholas Crane visits Canvey Island, one of the areas
affected, and meets Graham Manser.
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Graham was seven when the water reached his home in the
early hours of the morning, and talks to Nick about the devastation it
caused and the loss of his three younger brothers in the tragedy.
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Alice Roberts visits Cromer to find evidence of early
human migration across an inter-ice age landbridge to the continent.
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Peter Boggis is waging a one man war against coastal
erosion. Over the past two years he has dedicated his life to building
his own defences to hold back the North Sea to protect his childhood home.
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Nicholas greets Peter - a modern King Canute - as he explains
how it has added years onto the life of the area.
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Neil Oliver celebrates Trafalgar 200 and unearths a little-
known eyewitness account of the battle.
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During the final stages of his journey, Nicholas swaps
notes with Simon Osborne, the British kayaker who circumnavigated Britain
to raise money for charity in memory of his brother Mark.
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The programme ends where it began: Nick once again stands
on the white cliffs of Dover having completed 11,700 miles and 12 episodes
of Coast.
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Producer: Nigel Walk
³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Birmingham
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Programme Thirteen: Coast
- the Summary
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The final programme of the series takes a more detailed
look at some of the issues highlighted in the earlier episodes and addresses
their impact on our future.
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From sea level rises and erosion, to the health of our
seas and the wildlife around our shores, would we choose windfarms in
our own backyards over the option of nuclear power?
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The five presenters revisit a part of the coast to further
explore the themes and issues close to their hearts.
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Along the way, there are highlights from the series,
celebrating the diversity of the people and places that have been encountered
along the way.
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Nicholas Crane examines how the coast is a dynamic, changing
environment - back to the last Ice Age, when our whole landmass began
tilting southward, and forward to a time when large parts of the east
coast have become unrecognisable through erosion and incursion by the
sea.
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Anthropologist Alice Roberts travels to a wind farm off
the North Wales coast to look at future energy options: renewables like
wind or wave generation versus nuclear power.
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The coast, more than any other part of our country, is
likely to bear the brunt of the decisions that are made over the next
20 years.
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Zoologist Miranda Krestovnikoff is on Lundy Island, one
of the most diverse wildlife habitats in the British Isles. Their "No
Take Zone" may provide a model to be followed on other parts of the coast.
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While ten per cent of land in the UK is protected, the
same is true for only about 0.001% of our seas.
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Miranda looks at how the UK's wildlife is doing: winners
and losers in the fight for limited resources in an increasingly polluted
marine environment.
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Archaeologist Mark Horton opens the book on who owns the
coast.
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The main custodians are the National Trust, the Crown
Estate and the Ministry of Defence, alongside a number of individual
land-owners.
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Each country of the UK offers a different level of access
to the coast - but how much freedom do people have in England, a land
where "right to roam" doesn't yet mean a right to roam freely on the coast?
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And historian Neil Oliver asks the question: "Do we love
our coast so much we're ruining it?"
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In many parts of the UK, second home-ownership and over-development
have become urgent issues. But people need jobs, and development can bring
work to often remote communities.
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This final programme looks at the future of the coast
and, using computer imagery, looks forward to 2050 and what the coastline
will be like then - with a positive yet realistic look to what might be
on the horizon, a summary of the series and a great celebration of our
coastline and people… in all its glory.
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Producer: Michelle Davie
³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Birmingham
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