Britain and the Sea_3of4_Trade and Romance
Transcript
00:00The west coast of Scotland, remote mountains and moors.
00:17A magnificent coastline, locks and islands, linked by wild and often treacherous seas.
00:28A romantic place, Britain's last great wilderness.
00:38This is now an often empty landscape, but once it thrived.
00:44For hundreds of years people worked, travelled and traded here.
00:50I'm going to search out these trade routes of the west coast of Scotland.
00:57Travel narrow canals blasted through the highland rock,
01:02and explore the arteries of industry that made the heart of Scotland rich.
01:26We're sailing in my boat Rocket, taking a shortcut through the Crinnan Canal,
01:46down the western coast of Scotland around the Isle of Bute,
01:51and from there up the great river Clyde to the second city of the British Empire, Glasgow.
02:12My starting point is the small village of Croove Haven.
02:17Before we set sail, John Holden, my sailing companion, wants, as ever,
02:21to buy a few more bits and pieces for the boat.
02:25Hello. Good afternoon. How much is this by the way?
02:29£2.50 a metre. How much?
02:31£2 a metre. £2 a metre. Fine.
02:33So we want, um... 14. 14 metres. 14 metres.
02:36I'll do that for you. Do we need anything else while we're here now?
02:39Five and a half pounds. No, you're fatal if you look around.
02:42Keep spending. Yeah, keep spending.
02:47Joining us on Rocket are the rest of the crew.
02:50Veteran sailor Peter Lucas.
02:53Don't get your beard caught in it. Try not to, yeah. It's very cosy.
02:56My younger son Fred.
02:59Oh, and John's dog, Stanley.
03:02OK, Fred, just give us a little push. Yeah.
03:07Lovely. Thank you.
03:10This is the first time Rocket's been in these waters
03:13and it's very exciting to be here.
03:15It's a very untypical day.
03:17The sun is shining, the sea is flat, there's just a little breeze.
03:21You could be in the Mediterranean.
03:23But these waters are dangerous waters.
03:26They have strong tides and currents and whirlpools
03:29and when the westerly gales blow, they come all the way from America.
03:34Keep that gaffs. It's gaffs falling down.
03:37Who's on the peak?
03:39Stanley, you're really not allowed to sit there for this bit.
03:42OK?
03:44Lovely. Let's have the jib then.
03:46John, can you get Stanley out of the way?
03:48We can't use the jib cos Stanley's sitting there.
03:51Stanley, come on. We can go down here.
03:53Are you ready? Get ready when you are.
03:56There's not much wind, so we've set all sail,
03:59hoping to beat the tide
04:01to see the mysterious whirlpools of Doris Moor.
04:06You see the rough sea there?
04:08It's just a great whirlpool.
04:10Look, it's calm everywhere else and suddenly here,
04:13it's just a great whirlpool.
04:15It's just a great whirlpool.
04:17It's just a great whirlpool.
04:19It's just a great whirlpool.
04:21It's just a great whirlpool.
04:23It's calm everywhere else and suddenly here, we're in rough water.
04:27And this is a quiet day.
04:29You imagine this when there's a real gale blowing.
04:31Very, very nasty place to be.
04:34It's difficult to get through here.
04:36The boat spins as we go.
04:38Look, here we are. We're turning.
04:40We're being turned there to port.
04:43Can't control it. Look.
04:45This is all the current swirling underneath the boat.
04:50It's very exciting.
04:54This is a part of the world
04:56where people couldn't for centuries travel over land.
04:59There were no roads.
05:01This was how people travelled, by sea.
05:04These are the pathways marked between headlands,
05:08into locks, up creeks.
05:10For centuries, this was the only way of getting about.
05:15Sailing down the Sound of Jura,
05:17we're entering one of the locks
05:19which for centuries has been a gateway
05:21to the heart of the Scottish Highlands.
05:25Territory once ruled by the powerful Scottish clan, the Campbells.
05:33This is Duntroon Castle,
05:36standing proudly on its outcrop of rock,
05:39built over 800 years ago.
05:42And it protects a very important route
05:44from the Western Isles to the Scottish mainland.
05:47And it's said to be the longest inhabited castle
05:50in the whole of Scotland.
06:00Fred, you get in and get yourself sorted.
06:02John will take the bow line, Pete's got the stern line.
06:05The water here is too shallow for rockets,
06:07so we're going over by dinghy.
06:09Are you ready?
06:11Ah, I have...
06:13I tell you, I've fallen out of shape.
06:15I have... I tell you, I've fallen out of this dinghy before now.
06:19I don't intend to fall out this time.
06:21Lovely, thank you very much.
06:24OK, let's go.
06:26Thank you.
06:28See you in a bit.
06:38Over 200 years ago,
06:40the Campbells sold Duntroon Castle
06:42to another Highland clan, the Malkhams.
06:47Turn you a little bit on your right.
06:50And I think we go in here.
06:52Yeah, cos that's it, it goes up there.
06:54Robin, the chief of Clan Malkham,
06:56still lives here with his wife, Trish.
06:59Hello.
07:01Welcome to Duntroon.
07:03Thank you very much indeed.
07:05Hello, how do you do?
07:07Nice to see you. Do I call you Chief? Chieftain?
07:09Robin, please.
07:11Chief Malkham.
07:13They do that in Scotland. In America, yes.
07:15This is wonderful.
07:17800 years old.
07:19The ground floor,
07:21the bit above, 400 years old,
07:23and there's a bit round the back,
07:25200 years old.
07:27But it looks...
07:29It looks rather grim from the sea.
07:31Is it liveable?
07:33It looks like a prison to me from down here.
07:35Come inside and we'll show you.
07:37It's damp and it's drafty.
07:39And it leaks like a sieve.
07:43The castle was built on this promontory
07:45to guard the trade route
07:47that passes through the lock
07:49from pirates, marauders
07:51and rival clans.
07:53Look, a courtyard.
07:55This is extraordinary.
07:57It doesn't look as large as this from outside.
07:59It's deceptive from the outside, isn't it?
08:01So when do you think the last time
08:03it would have, so to speak,
08:05fired a shot in anger,
08:07when it was very seriously used
08:09for the defence of the coast?
08:11Between 1560 and 1580.
08:13Right.
08:15That was when the Camels and MacDonalds...
08:17MacDonalds were at their peak, I suppose, then.
08:19Yeah.
08:21But they were seen off by the Camels
08:23and never tried again.
08:25But when were the first invasions of this coast?
08:27Cos you've been...
08:29It's been permanently, it seems, under attack.
08:31Permanently at war with somebody.
08:33I don't think we were alone in that.
08:35Well, hitting Britain all round the coast.
08:37Cos I'm a Viking myself.
08:39Yes.
08:41We're Vikings. Dimbleby's a Viking.
08:43Dimbleby's a Viking, are you?
08:45Yes, they're from Lincolnshire.
08:47There's a village in Lincolnshire called Dimbleby
08:49where we come from.
08:51We pride ourselves on our Viking blood.
08:53So your lot would have attacked...
08:55Rape and pillage is our forte.
08:57Yes.
08:59Anyway, can we have a look inside?
09:01Please.
09:03A military past.
09:05Wonderful.
09:07You see, we're on the ground floor,
09:09but you're looking down.
09:11Yes, but you're at the very bottom of the castle.
09:13But, yeah, we're looking right down.
09:15And down on the beach.
09:17And there's this rubbish chute
09:19where they chucked their rubbish out.
09:21Oh, yes.
09:23So where are we going up to now?
09:25The main room.
09:27This is an original staircase.
09:29Yes?
09:31Wow.
09:33This is lovely, isn't it?
09:35It's a great room.
09:37This is wonderful.
09:39And what would this have been then?
09:41400 years old?
09:43Yes, 400.
09:45Described in 450, something like that.
09:47Described as the Great Hall
09:49and old plans of the place.
09:53As a garrison castle,
09:55Duntroon would have been austerely furnished.
09:59But Trish is no fan of the austere.
10:05This is my private bath.
10:07Oh, my goodness, I don't believe it.
10:09This is crazy.
10:11Look.
10:13Look, a power shower in the castle.
10:15This is incredibly grand.
10:17It's brilliant.
10:19And a huge bath.
10:21Well, Robin's large.
10:23But when we first did it,
10:25this was all plastered over.
10:27And then we found that there was a huge stone up there.
10:30It was about being held up by dust.
10:32And it was about to fall on my head any minute.
10:35And I said, I don't mind meeting my maker,
10:38but not with my knickers down.
10:47An hour's walk across the glen from Duntroon,
10:51but 800 years further back in history,
10:54are the remains of a much earlier civilisation.
10:58I'm at the heart of the ancient Gaelic kingdom of Dalriada,
11:03the home of the people called Scotty,
11:06who gave Scotland its name.
11:13This is the top of Dunadd Fort.
11:15This was the headquarters, if you like, of the kings of Dalriada.
11:19This is where they were crowned.
11:21This is where they had their seat.
11:23But they weren't isolated here.
11:25This great walled encampment
11:27actually traded with places as far away as France.
11:32600 AD, we're talking.
11:34There were traces found here of pots that contained wine and corn.
11:38There were precious metals.
11:40There were jewels.
11:42In other words, this place was not what it is now,
11:45just an empty landscape.
11:47This was a thriving centre of industry of the time.
11:50Most of the evidence of that earlier prosperity
11:53has now been reclaimed by nature.
11:56This is the kingdom of Dalriada as we know it today.
12:04Back on board Rocket,
12:06we're crossing the lock to the little harbour at Crinnan.
12:12Where are you taking us to? I'm not sure.
12:14Get down to the hotel. I'll go wherever you want.
12:18Head towards Crinnan is a better way of putting it.
12:20I can't see where you're standing at. OK.
12:28We don't need to put the cover on the top, do we? No.
12:31We're dropping anchor here and heading off for an early night.
12:37Tomorrow, we're up against a man-made wonder of the landscape,
12:42the Crinnan Canal.
12:48MUSIC FADES
13:01The Crinnan Canal is a marvel of the industrial age.
13:05Only nine miles long,
13:07it cuts out a journey of 120 miles by sea round the Mull of Kintyre.
13:13It was opened in 1801 to carry trade from the Western Isles
13:18to the Clyde and Glasgow,
13:20a symbol of Scotland's prosperity at the beginning of the 19th century.
13:25It took 600 men eight years
13:28to build one of the most picturesque shortcuts in Britain.
13:32Like a staircase, it climbs up from Lock Crinnan
13:35and then down again to Lock Fyne.
13:38Of the 15 locks, all but two are operated by hand.
13:42OK.
13:44Thanks.
13:52On the back.
14:04Rockets going on ahead,
14:06but I'm travelling the first stretch of the canal
14:09in the way it was designed to be travelled,
14:12by Clyde Puffer.
14:16Hundreds of these steam cargo boats were working the Western Isles
14:20and used this canal in the 19th century.
14:23Vic 32 is the last working sea-going Clyde Puffer.
14:28Nick Walker has owned her for 35 years.
14:32So, hello. I mustn't shake hands with you
14:34for some reason that I can't remember.
14:36It's a marine superstition that we'll both be dead by nightfall
14:39if we shook hands over water,
14:41so either I come on the land or you come on the boat.
14:43I'll come on the boat. You come on the boat.
14:45Thank you very much. Say hello, Dave.
14:52The first Clyde Puffer dates back to the 1850s
14:56when sailing barges were converted to steam power
15:00and had a wheelhouse added.
15:02They were the lorries of the sea lanes,
15:04carrying whisky from the west coast and islands of Scotland to Glasgow
15:08and going back with coal and grain.
15:17Is this you coming up to my wheelhouse?
15:19This is terrifying. Right, this is the nervous centre.
15:22I'll talk to you from here. Yep, that's fine.
15:25This is so narrow, I can't believe you can do that.
15:27This bit of the canal is absolutely fine for a sailing boat, for a yacht.
15:31No problems, but for a puffer that is 18-foot beam
15:35and 8-foot six draft, we struggle a bit.
15:39I like the idea that you're following a tradition of 200, 300 years, really.
15:45Quite. In making, not this journey, but making journeys around these islands.
15:49Yeah, well... These cliffs here. I know.
15:51Is this all blasted away? All blasted away by hand.
15:54Really? Yeah. Is that the highest bit of cliff here?
15:57No, there's another bit coming up. There's another bit coming up, yeah.
16:00The word puffer, what's the word come from?
16:02It's onomatopoeic. Puff, puff, puff, puff, puff.
16:05You're not making any sound at all? No, well, we don't puff.
16:07We condense the steam and we make it back into hot water.
16:10But in the old days, the puffers...
16:12Puffer steam, puffer smoke, puffer steam, puffer smoke.
16:15Apparently, they used to blow smoke rings.
16:25Where do I go from here? Just keep coming down, David.
16:28Oh, and then down one more? And one more, yeah.
16:30Narrow ladders lead deep down inside the puffer to the heart of the boat.
16:35Look at this. Oh, this is like a Victorian steam engine.
16:39Lyle Simpson understands the mysteries of the steam engine.
16:43I mean, even though the vessel was built in 1943,
16:47all the technology in here dates right back to about 1905.
16:52So what have we got? What's this, the boiler?
16:54That's the boiler. Yep, that's the main ingredient of the boat.
16:58Where does the coal go in?
17:00So just there in front of you, David.
17:02Oh, here? Is that hot?
17:04Yeah, if you just grab hold of the handle quickly and open the door.
17:07What? Ah!
17:18Just like that? Just like that, yep.
17:22Don't put too much on.
17:27How often do you have to put more in?
17:30Well, running at this speed along the canal,
17:33it's probably only about every 15 minutes or something like that.
17:51It's pure magic sailing down this canal,
17:53this boat that barely fits.
17:55We're touching each bank from time to time
17:58and occasionally touching the bottom,
18:00and yet gliding tranquilly down, the steam engine making no sound,
18:04just turning peacefully like that as it goes along.
18:07So narrow that you feel you're like toothpaste being squeezed out of a tube.
18:12And yet, on the other hand, this, of course,
18:14is the heart of the Industrial Revolution in Scotland.
18:18These boats, backwards and forwards to the islands
18:20and across to the mainland, bringing industry, creating wealth
18:24and changing Scotland, in effect, from a country that was impoverished
18:28to one that began to experience proper prosperity.
18:35We're drawing in to the basin at Bellinoch to rejoin Rocket.
18:40One mile down, eight to go.
18:44The canal was designed by the Scottish civil engineer John Rennie,
18:48who also built London and Waterloo bridges on the Thames
18:52and many other canals, locks and lighthouses.
18:56By the middle of the 19th century, apart from whisky and coal,
19:00it carried 2,000 cattle a year, 27,000 sheep
19:04and 33,000 passengers.
19:35The secret to going through a lock is to take it slowly
19:38and keep the boat straight,
19:40so that it can be moored snugly to the quayside far above.
19:43Here you are, Peter.
19:49We've got a little bunch here.
19:55Oh, Fred...
19:57Fred, what happened there?
19:59You didn't pass it to me.
20:01Excuse me. You're going to get it wet this time.
20:06I usually expect my...
20:08He's a bit out today, isn't he?
20:21Opening the sluices.
20:26It's all right, it's fine.
20:32You OK there?
20:34Pete? Yes, good. Yeah, we're coming up nicely.
20:41So what we've done now is we're at lock number 10.
20:44We've come from 15, from the sea, right down there, at Crinnan.
20:48We're coming up here and we're almost at the top of the hill.
20:51We've got one more lock and then it's downhill all the way
20:55through new locks to the sea again, on the other side.
21:01MUSIC PLAYS
21:11The most famous boat to use this canal, apart from Rocket, of course,
21:16was a royal barge called the Sunbeam,
21:19in which Queen Victoria travelled in August 1847,
21:22the whole length of the canal, on her journey round Scotland,
21:26the famous royal route she took that drew so much attention.
21:29as she watched the horses that drew her and the four men with them in scarlet uniforms,
21:35she said it was a very tranquil, beautiful journey looking at the scenery.
21:40But she did find all those locks a little bit tedious,
21:45but, mind you, she didn't have to do the work that we've had to do
21:48to get through them.
21:53It's taken us all day to get through the Crinnan Canal
21:56and back out onto the open sea at Loch Fyne.
22:04It was Queen Victoria's love of Scotland, its locks and its glens,
22:09that made it a fashionable destination for the English.
22:13They came here to admire the scenery.
22:17Rugged and mysterious.
22:21An image exploited by many painters of the 19th century.
22:27But the first person to turn the drama of Scotland into popular romance
22:32was a now almost forgotten poet, James Macpherson.
22:38In 1761, he wrote an epic saga called Ossian,
22:42which became an international bestseller.
22:46Ossian tells the story of a mighty Gallic warrior called Fingal,
22:50who overcame the giants and demons of the highlands.
22:54Fingal was exactly the kind of hero to appeal to people
22:57who were looking for a powerful, primitive force,
23:01something that came from these wild highlands of Scotland.
23:05He was described as tall as a glittering rock,
23:09his spear like a blasted pine,
23:12his shield like the rising moon,
23:15and when he went into battle, his heel removed woods.
23:20Rocks fell from their place, rivers changed their course.
23:24You can see the attraction.
23:26And he was read not just here in Scotland, but in England and throughout Europe,
23:30where the whole idea appealed to a different romantic view
23:35of nature and of people.
23:38Interestingly, Napoleon Bonaparte always carried Ossian wherever he went.
23:45Indeed, he probably had it with him at the Battle of Waterloo.
23:55We're sailing down Scotland's longest sea loch
23:58to visit a famous herring port, the fishing village of Tarbert.
24:03They've been catching the fish here since the 9th century.
24:09Traditionally, teams of women gutted the catch on the quayside,
24:14then skewered them on long poles to be hung in the smokehouse
24:19and turned into kippers, one of Scotland's great delicacies.
24:25Fishing's always been a very important industry for Scotland.
24:29In the Middle Ages, medieval times,
24:31it was helped because the church banned the eating of meat
24:35on Wednesdays and Thursdays and Fridays, which, of course, boosted the industry.
24:39They also took tithes, the 10% of your income you had to pay to the church,
24:44in herrings.
24:46And you could even pay your rent in herrings.
24:50Try that today.
24:58I'm heading out to sea from Tarbert with two local fishermen,
25:02Ross MacKay and Peter MacLean.
25:07Fishermen were idealised by painters in the 19th century,
25:11given the Victorian virtues of independence, honesty, hard work.
25:19They were seen to be in touch with nature,
25:22still heroically battling the elements,
25:25not slaves to the Industrial Revolution.
25:33A boy marks where, a couple of days ago,
25:36Peter and Ross put out their baited baskets.
25:43Today, it's not herring they catch, but the shellfish longustine,
25:48eaten in Britain as scampi.
25:51That's a big one, is it?
25:53No. But they're priced on size?
25:55Aye. So who decides that's a one, you or the guy who buys?
25:59He decides. Right.
26:02When caught, the longustine are placed each in a separate compartment
26:06so that they don't fight.
26:08Then they'll be exported live all the way to Spain.
26:12Every year, 30,000 tonnes of longustine are caught in Scottish waters,
26:17worth £82 million.
26:19You have a very quick eye for them.
26:21Aye, you do. Aye, you do.
26:23You just know immediately what there is that you want and what you don't.
26:28Why do you throw those away?
26:30It's just squats. I don't keep them.
26:33I've eaten those in Glasgow. Aye.
26:36They have a little tiny scoop of flesh in the back.
26:39Squat lobsters, I've caught. Squat lobsters?
26:41They don't keep. What? Transport, like.
26:44Strange animal. Anyway, he goes back. Aye.
26:48Goodbye.
26:53So what's the strangest thing you've ever caught?
26:56I've caught a machine gun.
26:58A shooting gun? A machine gun.
27:00A machine gun? Aye.
27:02A general-purpose MP6, I think it was.
27:05Did you get a reward? No, no.
27:07Nothing? We thought we might get a reward.
27:09Yeah, I thought you would get a reward.
27:11So you've caught a gun. What else have you caught?
27:13Any bodies? No, no.
27:15No, that's good.
27:19We're just going to lift and we'll shoot the fleet back again.
27:21You're going to shoot them back? Aye, yeah. OK.
27:26Once today's catch has all been brought in,
27:28the baskets are baited again and put back over the side.
27:40Fishing and the fishing industry is so important
27:42that at the end of the First World War, in 1919,
27:45the Ministry of Reconstruction issued a proclamation.
27:48Peter, I want you to hear this.
27:50The inshore fisherman should be perpetuated at all costs
27:54for he comes nearer than any other type of man
27:57to embodying those qualities of grit and self-reliance
28:00which we all agree to be the greatest of national interests.
28:03Ah, well, there you go. There you go.
28:05I wouldn't have knew that unless you told me.
28:08State neglect of his interests would weaken the race.
28:12Ah, well. You learn something new every day.
28:15Do you feel yourself, do you feel that you come nearer
28:17than any other type of man
28:19to embody qualities of grit and self-reliance?
28:22Well, you get your hard days out there right enough,
28:24so I suppose you do.
28:25And you can take on the world?
28:27I can take on anything.
28:39Back aboard Rocket, we're leaving Tarbert.
28:45We're now sailing around the southern tip of the Isle of Bute
28:49on our way to its port of Rothesay.
28:53We seem to be making good progress,
28:55but according to my reading of our instruments,
28:58we're actually aground.
29:00Some mistake, surely.
29:02That's the 5.2.
29:04Oh, dear. Pete, you've gone on the rocks.
29:07He is actually on the rocks.
29:09Well, I'm getting headed all the time, so...
29:11We're going to have to start the app.
29:13No, but when I say you are aground, though, officially aground...
29:16No, no, no.
29:18No, because, look, it has...
29:20One nautical mile is that, and there's about that much space,
29:24so it's about a quarter of a nautical mile.
29:27May I take it?
29:28We're officially aground in 48 metres here, so...
29:31Is that all right? I don't mind.
29:35We're approaching Rothesay on the Isle of Bute,
29:38the nearest island to Glasgow,
29:40and an escape from the smoke of the city.
29:44Look at that house up there in the trees.
29:46It's a sucking great thing.
29:48Looks like crystal. Looks like green wine.
29:53These large houses were built as holiday homes by wealthy Glaswegians
29:57who took the 90-minute boat trip, Doom the Watter, to get here.
30:04Most of the Isle of Bute has been owned by a single family
30:07for the past 700 years,
30:09and they erected on the island one of Scotland's biggest
30:12and most romantic houses,
30:15St Stuart.
30:18Built in 1880,
30:20it was the lifelong passion of the third Marquess of Bute,
30:24John Patrick Crichton Stuart.
30:28The richest man in Britain, the third Marquess,
30:31inherited a fortune,
30:33made from the coalfields that powered the Industrial Revolution
30:37and the building of dockyards that traded with the Empire.
30:44The Marquess of Bute,
30:46the richest man in Britain,
30:48inherited a fortune,
30:50made from the coalfields that powered the Industrial Revolution
30:54and the building of dockyards that traded with the Empire.
31:04This is one of three libraries built here at Mount Stuart
31:08by John III Marquess.
31:10He was an absolutely fascinating man.
31:13He spoke 21 different languages.
31:16He was very well travelled.
31:18He was interested in religion and archaeology
31:21and astronomy and architecture.
31:24He helped people restore houses.
31:26He didn't just build this one.
31:28And it was because of the wealth that he inherited, huge wealth,
31:32that he was able to pursue these passions.
31:40Mount Stuart took 30 years to build,
31:43and with 127 spectacular rooms,
31:47it cost over £50 million at today's money.
32:03One of the most expensive homes ever built in Scotland,
32:07it's a lavish display of wealth.
32:1180 foot high, this is the centre of the house, the marble hall.
32:17Gothic arches, looking like a cathedral,
32:20indeed was taken from the design of a cathedral.
32:25Italian marble in different colours,
32:28wonderful ambers and greens and greys and white.
32:33And the tops of the pillars, the capitals, as they're called,
32:36are all of plants taken from Mount Stuart.
32:40For instance, there's seaweed from the seashore,
32:43roses and the Scottish thistle.
32:47And the ceiling...
32:50..decorated with the position of the stars
32:54when they first designed this house.
32:56They went out, looked at the night sky,
32:59drew the position of the stars and then reproduced them here.
33:05The Marquis was obsessed by his great project
33:08and nothing escaped his eye.
33:11His attention to detail was astonishing
33:14and his execution meticulous.
33:16Just look at these. These are door hinges.
33:18You wouldn't normally see them
33:20because when the door's closed, obviously you can't.
33:22We've opened it.
33:24Look at this.
33:26Vine with bunches of grapes.
33:28And there's a reason for them.
33:31Over here, the motif is repeated again.
33:36The bell push, with bunches of grapes all round it.
33:41And the reason for the grapes
33:43was that this was the room for eating and drinking.
33:46The dining room.
33:51And he decided, because everybody else was eating,
33:54the little frieze of birds round the wooden panelling
33:58should be allowed to eat as well.
34:00Come and see this.
34:04There's a little bird here, look, about to eat a butterfly.
34:08There's a snail being eyed by this bird.
34:14Along here, look, there's a caterpillar
34:17who for some reason seems to have escaped.
34:19This bird hasn't noticed him.
34:21And then right over here, look at his face.
34:24This bird looking down, about to snap up the fly.
34:29So everybody's feasting.
34:32Mount Stewart looks like it's been here since the Middle Ages
34:36with its Gothic arches and marble trimmings.
34:39But in reality, it was at the cutting edge of modernity.
34:43It was the first house in Scotland to be lit by electricity
34:47and one of the first in the world to have an indoor heated swimming pool.
34:53The Martianess's bathroom is well worth a look.
34:56It had all the latest equipment.
34:58Fine marble fireplace, of course.
35:00This rather wonderful tap bends over
35:05and...
35:08..a jet of water.
35:10And then there's a toilet there.
35:12And here, in the window, a bidet
35:16with all these controls and a mahogany seat.
35:19What does this say?
35:21Wave, douche, back shower, bottom shower.
35:25Let's try the bottom shower.
35:27Here we go.
35:29Oh, my goodness.
35:32That's the bottom shower.
35:35Help.
35:45Stand by to go back. Ready about.
35:57Leaving Rossay and the Isle of Bute behind,
36:00we're now heading to the entrance of the River Clyde, Towered Point.
36:13Towered Lighthouse warns vessels of the promontory and hidden rocks.
36:20It guides them up the River Clyde.
36:23Built in 1812 by one of our greatest lighthouse builders,
36:27the Scottish engineer Robert Stevenson.
36:36Lighthouses are a testament to Victorian engineering.
36:42But throughout the 19th century,
36:44they stood as a romantic image for artists.
36:49Not just elegant designs,
36:51but beacons symbolic of hope in the darkness.
36:56A guiding light,
36:58and man's heroic struggle against nature and the sea.
37:05Painters such as Turner exploited the fear of shipwreck
37:09to evoke terror and stir the imagination.
37:14One of his most famous paintings
37:16is the Bell Rock lighthouse off the east coast of Scotland,
37:20also designed by Stevenson.
37:25Stevenson's special genius
37:27was that he invented something called shuttering,
37:30the automatic opening and closing of the light,
37:33so that he could time the flashes that came from it.
37:36This one, for instance, flashes once every ten seconds.
37:40Other lighthouses will have different paces,
37:43once every three seconds, once every seven.
37:45So when you're at sea, you can look at the chart
37:48and you can identify which lighthouse you're looking at,
37:51and therefore what danger it is you're to avoid
37:54and where you are on the ocean.
37:57Robert Stevenson created a kind of family dynasty
38:00of lighthouse builders.
38:02His three sons all became lighthouse builders.
38:06The only disappointment to the family was his grandson.
38:10He was called Robert Lewis Stevenson,
38:12and he was a famous writer.
38:14He wrote Kidnapped and Treasure Island.
38:17But he too was very proud of what the family had achieved.
38:21He once wrote,
38:22when the lights come out all along the shores of Scotland,
38:25I like to think they shine more brightly because of their genius.
38:33We're now entering the mouth of the River Clyde,
38:36one of our greatest rivers,
38:38heading for James Watt Dock in Greenock.
38:47Quite by chance, we've come alongside the Waverley,
38:50the paddle steamer.
38:52Able to carry nearly 1,000 passengers,
38:55she's one of the last seagoing paddle steamers.
38:59Very pretty sight, isn't it?
39:06This line of red buoys marks a superhighway of the sea.
39:11You wouldn't think it today, looking at this empty expanse of water,
39:15but of all the seaways we've travelled in Scotland,
39:18this was by far and away the most important.
39:21This is where all the trade came up to Glasgow,
39:25bringing wealth to that city,
39:27making it the second city of the Empire.
39:33From the 18th century, ships laden with sugar, cotton and tobacco
39:38came here from the Americas.
39:41It was the shortest sea route.
39:43Bringing goods into Glasgow instead of London
39:46was up to three weeks off the journey time.
39:49A very big saving.
39:52By the second half of the 19th century, heavy industry took over.
39:56A quarter of the world's locomotives
39:58and a fifth of the world's ships were built on the Clyde.
40:06In the 19th century, this southern side of the Clyde
40:09would have been all docks and shipyards,
40:12where now it's just infill.
40:14And this scene was immortalised
40:16by the Victorian painter John Atkinson Grimshaw,
40:19painting the scene here at Gourock.
40:24Grimshaw made a profitable business out of painting romantic images
40:28of the thriving ports all along the Clyde,
40:31a far cry from the grim industrial reality.
40:36A fellow artist said,
40:38And when the evening mist clothes the riverside with poetry as with a veil
40:43and the poor buildings lose themselves in the dim sky,
40:47the whole city hangs in the heavens
40:50and Fairyland is before us.
40:57Today, the James Watt Dock has relaunched itself as a marina,
41:01though it can never recapture its glory days
41:04when it was the most accessible port for the largest ships.
41:11The Glasgow merchants were using bigger and bigger ships
41:14to bring goods from America to Scotland,
41:17but they couldn't get right up the river.
41:19Here at Greenock, they invested their money
41:22in building this magnificent dock, the James Watt Dock,
41:26and building warehouses behind, all for the sugar trade.
41:30These are known as the sugar sheds.
41:32It was so successful that in no time,
41:35400 ships a year were stopping here in Greenock.
41:41These sugar sheds date from 1886.
41:45By then, a quarter of all Britain's sugar
41:48was being processed here in 12 sugar refineries.
41:53It's an industry that continued in Greenock
41:56all the way up to the very end of the 20th century.
41:59It was the Act of Union in 1707 that changed Scotland's prosperity.
42:04It allowed free trade with the British Empire
42:07and, in particular, with the English colonies in America.
42:11And it wasn't just sugar.
42:13By 1750, more tobacco was coming up the Clyde
42:16than into all the English ports combined.
42:20It created huge wealth.
42:22The tobacco lords, as the merchants were known,
42:25lived like aristocrats,
42:27even had streets named after them.
42:34In the 18th century, most of the tobacco was turned into snuff.
42:37It wasn't smoked as cigars or pipe or, indeed, cigarettes.
42:41And it led to a great etiquette for taking snuff,
42:45which concentrated primarily on the snuff box.
42:50This one, for instance, a particularly good example
42:53with a tortoiseshell surround
42:55and then, in the centre, a portrait of George I.
42:59It's the kind of thing a Glasgow merchant might well have carried
43:02to show his loyalty to the crown.
43:05This is quite interesting.
43:07This is slightly later.
43:09That's where the snuff goes.
43:11And then, at the back,
43:13there's a little trap that opens for a snuff spoon.
43:17Women took snuff, as well as men,
43:19and sometimes they, so they didn't get their fingers dirty,
43:23just took it in a tiny silver spoon and sniffed it, like that.
43:28And this one, now, this is a very pretty one.
43:32Inlaid, it's silver, with a stone of moss agate set in it.
43:38When you hold it up to the light,
43:40you can see these wonderful swirls of green.
43:44And as it's got some snuff in it, I'll take some...
43:47Schoolchildren used to do this, because the school rules banned smoking,
43:51but they forgot to mention snuff.
43:53I remember taking it as a schoolboy, occasionally.
43:56It used to make me sneeze.
43:58This is how you take it.
44:00One way is just putting a little bit in the corner, like that.
44:04Sniffing not too hard,
44:05so it doesn't go right up to the back of your nostrils.
44:08Or you can just sniff it like this.
44:12And it's the sign of an amateur, if you sneeze.
44:16It shows you've taken too much snuff.
44:18I've got a handkerchief with me.
44:21Just in case.
44:25No, I think I'm all right.
44:27It's very delicious.
44:30Lovely.
44:33A couple of miles upriver,
44:35and once at the heart of the Clyde's great shipbuilding industry,
44:39is Port Glasgow.
44:44Ships have been built along the Clyde for hundreds of years,
44:48and in the 1950s, the industry was still booming.
44:58At its height, there were 35 shipyards along the Clyde,
45:02employing more than 100,000 men.
45:10More than two-thirds of Britain's iron steamships
45:14were launched from here.
45:18THE CLYDE
45:38Today, there's only one commercial shipyard
45:41still working on the Lower Clyde.
45:44It's built over 300 ships in its 110-year history.
45:49Today, there are only two small ferries under construction.
45:53But they both employ pioneering technology,
45:56powered by a diesel-electric engine.
46:01I asked Andrew Miller and Craig Osborne, engineers at Ferguson's,
46:05how the future looks.
46:07It's a bit quieter now. We don't build many ships on the Clyde.
46:10These two hybrid ferries we're building
46:13are the first ships we've built for a few years,
46:16and hopefully more to come.
46:19Why did it go downhill?
46:21I think just a downturn in shipbuilding in general.
46:25You've got other places like Korea, China and all that.
46:28They're just building them probably cheaper and faster
46:32than what we can now.
46:34They've learned other skills from...
46:36A lot of them have learned the skills from the Clyde.
46:38We taught them what to do, and now they've turned it back on us.
46:41Do you think there's something special about this part of Scotland
46:45that made people good at engineering?
46:47Cos that old joke about, you know, I can't remember what it was,
46:50that you put your head down the engine room and shout...
46:53Jock. Jock, that was it, yes.
46:55You shout jock and the chief engineer will come up.
46:58Do you think the spirit was different,
47:00the kind of mood of the place was different?
47:02I think in shipyards, you've always had what they call
47:05the shipyard banter, and it's what the guys use to get through the day.
47:09One of your most famous comedians, Billy Connolly, who was a welder,
47:12that's how he made it, because he had all the funny stories
47:15from the shipyards.
47:17There's not a day goes by that you don't come in
47:19and you have a belly laugh at work.
47:21You always have a day where you have a good... It's always funny.
47:24What's today's funny story?
47:26David Dunbar once come to the yard.
47:28LAUGHTER
47:35During both world wars, the work here on the Clyde was vital.
47:41In 1940, to boost national morale,
47:44the Ministry of Information commissioned the artist Stanley Spencer
47:48to celebrate the skills of the shipbuilders.
47:54This scene shows the burners, as they were called,
47:57cutting the sheets of metal with oxyacetylene cutters
48:00and making all kinds of different shapes
48:03that will form the hull of the ship when it's finished.
48:07All of them very focused, not talking to each other,
48:11not acknowledging each other,
48:13but absolutely concentrated on this very complex work
48:17of just cutting exactly down the line.
48:21They don't wear hard hats or any protective clothes
48:24except leather gloves.
48:26There's one person who seems to have exhausted himself,
48:29a young boy, mopping his brow.
48:31He's taken his cap off, his goggles.
48:34He's just exhausted, sitting on the plate that he's cutting.
48:38There's something almost spiritual, mystical,
48:42about the way Spencer paints these people,
48:45partly because the light all comes from the torches they're working on,
48:50so they're all lit like angels would be lit
48:54from some mysterious spiritual glow.
49:00And then down here, we come down here,
49:03the railway lines that were laid through the docks,
49:06somebody working on the rails here,
49:09and then one, two, three people
49:12hauling a trolley of steel bars.
49:15And then finally, at the end, the ship itself takes shape.
49:21The ribs of steel, all delicately
49:24and rather fantastically painted in different colours.
49:28And when the ship's completed, the wooden props will be knocked away
49:32and the ship will slide down into the Clyde.
49:36You just see this little glimpse of landscape here,
49:38a little breath of fresh air
49:40after the claustrophobia of the working in the shipyard.
49:43Here, the River Clyde, and above, the Green Hills.
49:52Leaving Port Glasgow, we're travelling upriver
49:56to one of the most historic sites on the Clyde, Dumbarton.
50:10In the 1800s, this part of the Clyde was regularly dredged
50:14so they could get trading ships up.
50:16In fact, they still dredge it every year now.
50:19But one of the advances of this
50:21was not just that the ships could go upriver,
50:23but they could build ships upriver too.
50:26In fact, in the years before the First World War,
50:29almost half the tonnage of ships built in the world
50:33were built here on the River Clyde.
50:37And one of the largest yards was just under here,
50:41under Dumbarton Castle, at Denny's.
50:50Little remains of Denny's today,
50:53but artists and photographers show us what it was like
50:57during its heyday towards the end of the 19th century.
51:08The Maritime Museum keeps the memory of Denny's alive.
51:12They built the first steamship to cross the English Channel
51:16and the first all-steel merchant ship.
51:19Their technicians were among the finest in the world.
51:23One of the key members of a shipbuilding team was the draftsman
51:27who actually put on paper the lines proposed for the ship.
51:31It looks easy enough to draw the shape of the cabins
51:34and, you know, the layout and all that,
51:36but what really mattered was to get the underwater shape
51:39so that the hull that had been chosen for efficiency and speed
51:43could be interpreted by the shipbuilders from the drawings.
51:47And these are drawings done by David Kikadi,
51:50one of the finest draftsmen of the era.
51:54These are the drawings of a paddle steamer called the Persia.
51:58After her launch, the Persia set the record for crossing the Atlantic,
52:03the Blue Ribbon, in 1856.
52:05A record she held for several years,
52:08crossing at an average speed of just over 13 knots,
52:11just over 15 miles an hour.
52:14These are immaculately detailed drawings and beautifully painted.
52:21The cross-section of the ship from the bow there
52:24right through the engine room...
52:27..and back to the stern,
52:29and then all the passenger cabins all along here.
52:42The drawings of the Persia that David Kikadi did
52:45were done after she'd been built.
52:47They were designed to illustrate the work of a draftsman
52:51and they were so good, apart from being exhibited in Paris
52:54and at the Royal Academy, he won this medal for them,
52:57awarded for a correct and beautifully executed drawing of the Persia.
53:01And the Maritime Museum has his notebooks that were done at the time,
53:06meticulous drawings of every little detail of the boat,
53:11with all the measurements...
53:14..done in ink.
53:16This work spread over three-and-a-half years.
53:20Here are all the cabins...
53:23..and the numbers of the cabins. You can see everything.
53:26The kind of mind that's needed to do this sort of work
53:31is obviously extremely meticulous and disciplined.
53:37And he was so disciplined
53:39that he kept this notebook of the hours that it had taken.
53:44Started in January 1857, finished in July 1860.
53:51Pencilling, 275-and-a-quarter hours.
53:56Inking, 292-and-three-quarter hours.
54:00Colouring, 643-and-a-quarter hours.
54:04Total, 1,213-and-a-quarter hours.
54:15Model-making, too, occupied thousands of man-hours in the industry.
54:21It was elevated to an art with no detail too small.
54:25The model of a newly-finished commission
54:28was a calling card for the next.
54:33This is a model of the passenger and cargo ship Buccleuch,
54:38which was built by Fergusons on the Clyde
54:41and launched in 1940 to go to St John's, Newfoundland.
54:45And it is... It's an exquisite model.
54:48I mean, starting at the bow, you've got the windlass,
54:51then coming back, you've got...
54:53Oh, up here, there's the binnacle, the compass.
54:56Then on the bridge itself, the telegraph,
54:59to signal to the engine room,
55:01full ahead or slow astern or whatever it is.
55:04Lifeboats in their davits with their block and tackle
55:09ready to lower them.
55:11And coming back, the mast, of course,
55:13all... everything absolutely perfectly modelled.
55:16And at the very back here in the stern,
55:18the emergency steering wheel and even a rope, neatly coiled.
55:28It's a beautiful model.
55:30I've always stopped and paused
55:32and looked in the windows of the shipping lines
55:35that have these on display,
55:37because I drool over the thought of going to the tropical islands
55:42or across the Atlantic or across the Pacific.
55:45Without the cost and discomfort of actually going to sea,
55:49this model just takes you there.
56:00We're now on the last leg of our journey,
56:03motoring up the Clyde to our final destination, Glasgow.
56:09The river is narrowing to 200m, and it's eerily quiet.
56:14Not quite how it would have been 100 years ago.
56:18The boom years on the river may yet return,
56:21but sadly, not quite yet.
56:27We're now on the last leg of our journey,
56:30motoring up the Clyde to our final destination, Glasgow.
56:39Ahead of us, though, is a symbol of Scottish prosperity at its height.
56:44The Glen Lee, built here on the Clyde in 1896.
56:50She spent 23 years carrying cargo
56:53between Glasgow, Liverpool, Australia and South Africa.
57:00Our journey's almost done.
57:02We're mooring up on the outskirts of Glasgow.
57:09The splendours of the city lie just upriver,
57:12a city that proclaims the wealth of the nation.
57:31From the earliest times, Scotland prospered by mastering the sea,
57:36first close to home, then trading with the wider world,
57:39with the Americas, with the empire.
57:42And it was this commercial triumph that inspired this great city,
57:47built on a heroic scale,
57:49justifying its claim to be the second city of empire.
57:53This truly is a country that rose from the sea.
58:07Next time...
58:11..I'm sailing along the coast of East Anglia
58:14to see how our view of the sea changed
58:17to a place for pleasure and escape.
58:21I'll explore how a day out at the seaside
58:24became an irresistible part of my life.
58:27And I'll explore how I can make the most of my time
58:32I'll explore how a day out at the seaside
58:35became an irresistible subject for artists.
58:38I'm stopping now.
58:40Artists of all kinds.
58:42She looks like one of those pilot things.
58:45And how it created a world that was and remains uniquely British.
58:55Here's to the British seaside.
59:01Here's to the British seaside.