Coast (2005) s09e01 Episode Script

The Channel

1 This is Coast, or "Bienvenue sur Coast".
Two languages linked by a mighty stretch of water - the Channel.
Funnelling between England and France, the narrow and surprisingly shallow channel plays a starring role in our island's story.
One sea separating two nations.
I'll be occupying what was once enemy territory - the shores of France.
From the white cliffs of Normandy to the white cliffs of Dover, the rest of the team are flying the flag in England.
Mark reveals how the distance between the British and the French brought us closer together.
I'm in Dover to discover how measuring across the Channel led to the creation of Britain's most famous map, the Ordnance Survey.
Miranda's mission is to shadow the force that polices the Channel's fisherman.
The HMS Mersey cruises up and down the Channel ready to stop and search any fishing vessel she fancies.
And Neil uncovers a forgotten ship of lost souls.
When she sank to the sea bed that cold February night, she took 647 men with her - still one of the worst losses the English Channel has ever seen.
This is the Channel Coast.
It narrows to just 21 miles wide, yet the English Channel is the world's busiest seaway.
Some 400 ships surge past Dover every day.
The Channel has carried both friend and foe, it's brought opportunity and disaster and it's been our defensive barrier.
And along its opposing shores, millions make their home.
I'm on French sands to explore our shared story.
My journey begins in Normandy, at Mont Saint-Michel.
Its distinctive outline dominates the land and seascape.
Pilgrims set foot on this holy isle over a thousand years ago, searching for the sacred.
Legend has it that a warrior archangel who battled Lucifer appeared here.
That archangel, Saint-Michel, gave his name to this glorious mount, but St Michael, as we know him, didn't limit his divine presence to this side of the Channel.
Here in Normandy, Mont Saint-Michel stands alone.
But cross the water to Cornwall, and a feeling of deja vu washes over you.
This is St Michael's Mount.
The Archangel Michael apparently appeared here, too.
Connections across the Channel, two shores divided by a remarkable sea.
I discovered on my last visit to France that only 600,000 years ago, I could have walked to England over chalk downs.
The downs formed a land bridge, holding back a vast melt-water lake.
When it gave way, the Channel burst into existence .
.
in a catastrophic mega-flood.
And the power of this sea can still be experienced today in its tides.
Very soon now, where I'm standing is going to be deep under water.
I can see the leading edge of the tide coming in now, and that wave is going to push across the lowest points on these mud and sand flats, and then the tide behind is just going to completely swamp them.
I'd better move.
Many lives have been claimed out here, victims tragically unaware of the tide's deceptive danger.
I'm having to run to keep ahead of it.
Only ten minutes ago, I was way out there on land surrounded by tidal streams and wading sea birds.
Now it's just sea.
This tidal surge at Mont Saint-Michel also impacts our Channel coast.
How do two countries share the power of the sea? It's easy to think of the tide as something local, a rise and fall of water at a specific place at a specific time.
In reality the tide is one immense body of water, a pulsating bulge, and as it moves from west to east, its power and its influence is felt in turn along the entire Channel.
Right now we're close to high tide here at Mont Saint-Michel, but this moving hump of high water was felt near the mouth of the Channel here at Polperro in Cornwall and at Perros-Guirec in Brittany about 20 minutes ago.
One body of water swirling along two different shores.
The beaches of Brittany's pink granite coast share high tide with the harbours in rocky Cornish coves.
Ten minutes later, the tidal wave reaches Plymouth, where the rising waters provide passage from Western Europe's largest operational naval base.
Next, the high water will hit the Channel Islands where it turns low-lying land into sea.
Jersey's Seymour Tower is cut off completely as the tide peaks.
In just under two hours' time, the high waters will envelope the Isle of Wight.
Here the tidal waters circle back on themselves, creating four tides a day, double the normal number, which lends a helping hand to deep-hulled cargo ships entering the port at Southampton.
When the high tide passes Hastings in five hours' time, it will be the fishermen's friend, allowing them to float their boats off the beach.
Finally, the tide passes the famous ferry ports of Dover and Calais at the far eastern end of the Channel.
As the sea retreats, the land breathes out.
Sands expand, until two countries across the Channel can almost hold hands.
No wonder ideas have winged over the water for centuries.
Norman conquerors taught us to construct stone castles.
But the French have made an even more permanent mark on our landscape.
Our maps of Britain owe much to cross-Channel co-operation at Dover.
Mark's going back over two centuries to the birth of our Ordnance Survey.
Don't tell anybody but the great British institution the Ordnance Survey only came into existence thanks to the scientific endeavours of our once-sworn enemy, the French.
Today, our isles are accurately mapped in minute detail.
By comparison, this 18th-century view of Dover is little more than a sketch.
But back then, remarkable map-makers were busy across the Channel.
During the 1750s, work began on a remarkable project - to map and survey every corner of France.
It took nearly 40 years, and this is how they completed it - by drawing triangles all over France.
How did this massive grid of triangles create more accurate maps than ours? Using the triangle created by Dover's lighthouses, let's think like an 18th-century Frenchman.
If they knew the distance between lighthouse B and C, by simply measuring two angles, map-makers could work out the distance to lighthouse A.
# Tra-la-la-la, triangle My life's in such a tangle Triangles give you angles, and with angles you can map locations accurately.
Having triangulated their way to the Channel coast, the French surveyors wanted to extend their mapping over the sea into Britain.
Impossible! Until 1783, and a brief period of peace.
It was just enough time for scientists on both sides of the Channel to join forces and to conduct a novel experiment.
Measuring across the Channel, they wanted to know exactly where Britain was in relation to France.
This great cross-Channel collaboration would use the French method of triangulation on a hitherto unseen scale.
But which country's surveying equipment would be trusted to measure the angles? Mapping historian Daniel Schelstraete has made the crossing to Dover.
Hi, Daniel! Hi, Mark, are you all right? A bit of a climb, I'm afraid.
The French favoured their tried-and-tested instrument, the repeating circle.
Daniel, this is it! Yes, this instrument is a new instrument, so the interest is, it's possible to measure horizontal angle for triangulation.
So where do you actually measure the angle? Oh, just here, with Vemier.
I can see, I can see the angle measurements.
The repeating circle is positioned between two fixed points.
You set one telescope to look at one landmark and a second telescope to look at the other.
A scale on the instrument reads out the angle between them, but you don't just do it once.
Upper, lower, together, etc, ten times, 20 times, 100 times, and only at the end you have the good angle.
So that is why it's called the repeating circle? Yes.
French map-makers were well-equipped and ready to go.
But how about us, on the British side of the Channel? I'm with historian Rachel Hewitt.
Britain did not have an accurate national map at this time.
France had begun their map based on a national triangulation 100 years before the British, and had a much more sophisticated sense of the use of maps in military defence.
Britain's military couldn't afford to be outdone.
We needed a survey instrument of our own.
King George III provided ?2,000 from the Royal coffers, and the British spent three years to perfectthis! The "Great Theodolite" was ready just weeks before the cross-Channel mapping experiment in 1787.
It was the first survey instrument with a measuring scale cut by machine, making it incredibly accurate.
The French repeating circle relied on hand-etched measuring scales.
To cancel out human error, repeated measurements had to be made.
Which country's technology would triumph in the challenge to map across the Channel? The English surveying team went to Dover Castle and to Fairlight Head near Hastings.
Right, and where did the French go? In France it was four stations - Mont Lambert, Cap Blanc Nez, Calais and Dunkirk.
So they already knew the distance between these stations on land, so they then had to look across the Channel? And by measuring the angles between these points they could then work out the distances.
And the battle between the Great Theodolite and the repeating circle? Well, both instruments came up with almost identical measurements.
With the precise distance across the Channel mapped, the new British theodolite had proved its worth to our military.
It gave them the impetus to create the Ordnance Survey in 1791.
The Ordnance Survey began to map the south coast in great detail.
Ten years later, Napoleon was on the verge of invading Britain.
New, accurate maps helped to plan our defence.
So there's actually a bit of an irony here that this Anglo-French collaboration actually enabled the British to create cartography to defend ourselves against a French invasion.
The Ordnance Survey, when it's founded in 1791, is built on the back of this cross-Channel triangulation.
That was a military map to defend Britain against the French.
HE LAUGHS Theodolites went on to map Britain's Empire.
Taking on India and the Himalayas.
Even Mount Everest was surveyed.
This experiment in cross-Channel mathematics from here in Dover helped launch the greatest mapping project that Britain had ever seen.
The Ordnance Survey put us on the global map.
Partners or potential invaders? Over centuries, the English and French have looked to their Channel horizon with mixed emotions.
We're looking along the edge for the connections that unite sea-washed neighbours.
This is the story of two coasts.
Two coasts that sometimes look surprisingly similar.
I'm at Mont Saint-Michel in Normandy, the spitting image of St Michael's Mount in Cornwall.
These cousins across the Channel have lived parallel lives.
In 1548, Henry VIII put an end to the monks on St Michael's Mount.
Monks remained at Mont Saint-Michel more than two centuries longer, until revolution rocked France.
Today, life on the islands is very different.
St Michael's Mount is a haven of calm.
Mont Saint-Michel hosts over a million visitors each year.
Yet the Mont also has a secret life.
Amelie Saint James is one of a permanent population of just 20 living on this holy isle.
So Amelie, how would you characterise Mont Saint-Michel, how would you describe it, what is it like? Depends on the time of the year.
If it's summer it's very crowded, you are hoping winter comes quite quickly, and when it's winter, it's totally empty and you're quite wishing the tourist will arrive again.
It's a real tourist throng today.
So Amelie has agreed to take me to one of Mont Saint-Michel's quieter corners.
Her home.
There are 162 steps to get to my threshold, so that's quite a job.
Then you're rewarded by beauty.
I mean, when I wake up in the morning I have the bay around me.
I have a 14th-century house, I have an Abbey on top.
I mean, this is not given to everybody, so it's definitely worth it.
The main street can be like the metro in Tokyo.
Sometimes people just open the door and they see my panties, and they ask, "Well, is it private?" "No, no, of course not.
" Privacy is hard to come by on Mont Saint-Michel.
Those pursuing a sacred life on-high compete with crowds below.
After Benedictine monks returned here in 1969, Father Andre Fournier followed them.
What were the contrasts between life at the top in the abbey and life down below where humanity mills around? Modern-day pilgrims who make the climb are rewarded with a timeless haven, sitting betwixt sea and sky.
This is an ancient scene utterly removed from the commercial hubbub further down the Mount, a place of calm and contemplation, suspended above the human ant hill.
Further along Normandy's shore, granite gives way to sand.
And spiritual life makes way for beach life.
England's Channel coast is a playground, too.
But 70 years ago, fun was in short supply.
In a time of war, beaches became battlefields.
As they can't forget at Arromanches.
Mysterious black shadows that mark the Channel's darkest moment, D-Day.
Memorials to sacrifice.
Artists Jamie Wardley and Andy Moss are sculpting a tribute in the sand to the fallen.
We have hundreds of people making 9,000 stencils of people that lost their lives in this area during the D-Day landings.
A visual impression of how many people actually died.
There's a lady who made a stencil that represents her father, she drew out the stencil and then she wrote her father's name on the stencil, and then it really was very moving.
After the landings began on June 6, 1944, D-Day's wounded and dying were treated on both sides of the Channel.
The memory of those who fell is etched in the mind of Andre Heintz, a resistance fighter who became a stretcher bearer on D-Day.
I was part of the French Resistance.
I had been told never to tell anyone that I was part of it, even my parents.
Across the Channel in Portsmouth, Mary Verrier was a junior nurse, just 19 years old, treating casualties shipped to Britain.
I was only a young girl then, just an ordinary girl.
Divided by the Channel, united in their struggle, this is their story of the fallen.
Mary watched the soldiers leave the relative safety of British shores.
Well, we knew something was up, because we were confined to the hospital a week before, no leave, and I'm sure quite a few of them knew that they would not be coming back.
On D-Day, I joined the Red Cross.
I had to bring British parachutists to the hospital.
It was full of people that had been wounded and couldn't be operated yet.
There was hundreds of men pouring in, walking wounded, stretcher wounded.
You must control your emotions, you must not be shown to be weak, you must be shown to be positive and caring.
Very difficult to do when your heart is breaking.
You must realise how dreadful it was.
One of my friends called me by my name, he was in bed.
Well, it was not easy because I could not recognise him.
I had to ask him his name.
One of the German boys, about 19, he was terribly burnt.
We shouldn't have had him, really, he should have gone to the padre cos he was going to die, and I put my hand on his knee so that he knew that somebody was there, and then I suddenly realised that he was going to slip away, so I stood up and put my arm under the pillow and put his poor burnt head and face on my shoulder, and I think he tried to say, "Kiss me, auf wiedersehen.
" I kissed him just on the forehead there, all the rest was burnt, and he died and that was my Achilles heel.
Of all I'd been through, that brought me right down to my knees.
I did all I could for my children, so that they won't keep the hatred I had, and I must say that I probably succeeded too well, because my oldest son married a German girl.
Finally the guns fell silent.
From the ruins of war came a peace which has persisted along this sea.
And at times of peace, the Channel can get to work.
Cargo on the move, holiday-makers in a hurry.
And the sea's hunters stalking their prey.
On both sides of the Channel, fishing boats put to sea.
But when two fleets are pursuing the same prize, tensions can arise.
To explore why fishermen stopped being friends, I've arrived at Erquy.
The Breton fishing town of Erquy has grown into one of Europe's most important ports for a delicacy prized on both sides of the Channel.
Right now, this is a picture of tranquillity, but the tide is coming in, and when the water's deep enough, a fleet of ships is going to sail into port.
This is the first catch of the season.
They've been waiting five months for this.
At Erquy, scallops are catch of the day, a favourite for discerning palates in France and the UK.
Restaurants in Paris and London shell out big money for scallops.
It was the pursuit of this much-loved mollusc that put peace in peril.
Just look at these headlines.
"British fisherman call on Royal Navy.
" "Fisherman await the next salvo.
" "French attack our boats with rocks in battle over shellfish.
" "Scallop Wars.
" In 2012, British scallop trawlers were surrounded by French boats.
Insults were traded.
THEY SHOUT IN FRENCH What provoked the Frenchmen's anger? Time for me to hit the front line.
I've never seen as many scallops in one place at the same time.
The Entente Cordiale was strained by a high-takes standoff, and maybe it's not surprising.
Scallops are big business, the appetite for them seems endless, but the Channel's stocks aren't.
With so much demand and a limited supply, the scales seemed weighted against the scallop.
Here on the French side of the Channel, they decided to redress the balance.
They put a limit on the length of the fishing season.
For the French fishermen, scallop fishing was banned from mid-May to October.
Not so for the British, who used wider EU rules to continue fishing legally all year round.
But when the Brits dropped their nets close to the French coast, the locals cried foul play.
The Scallop Wars rumbled on for a year before the two sides finally brokered a deal.
In exchange for agreed fishing days, the British put restrictions on when and where they catch scallops.
A deal sufficiently complex to keep everyone, and no-one, content.
At close of play on day one of the season, is there optimism that peace will prevail? Do you feel a bond with your fellow English fishermen on the other side of the Channel? A glimmer of hope, then, that two nations who share a sea can happily share its bounty.
It's not only the French and the British who fish the Channel.
They're joined by hundreds of vessels from other EU nations.
The rules to protect the Channel's fish stocks come from Brussels.
But the job of ensuring nothing fishy goes on falls to France and to Britain.
On our side, it's a challenge that's brought Miranda to Shoreham.
Today I'm signing on for a tour of duty with the Marine Management Organisation, the MMO.
Working together with the Royal Navy, they're the referees of our seas.
Morning, chaps.
Fishing quotas in the Channel are set by the EU.
In British waters it's the MMO, or Marine Management Organisation, who enforce them.
But it's no easy task.
Back-up is required in the shape of the Royal Navy and HMS Mersey.
Like a police patrol car, the HMS Mersey cruises up and down the Channel ready to stop and search any fishing vessel she fancies.
When you get a lift with the Royal Navy, you aren't winched aboard, the whole boat is! Ho-ho-hothat feels pretty weird, we're going up.
HMS Mersey is a nerve centre.
They must monitor every large fishing vessel in the Channel.
Sights are set on a nearby British trawler.
So it's our intention to send a routine inspection team to you, they'll be with you in the next 30 minutes.
MUFFLED INSTRUCTIONS Right, last one on.
MMO inspectors have a short time to ensure fishing methods match complex EU rules.
Does what the skipper says he's caught tally with what's in the hold? While his colleagues chase the paperwork, the MMO's Paul Johnson casts an expert eye on the latest haul.
From an inspection point of view you can see this net is operating in a reasonable manner, you know, there isn't a lot of juvenile fish, there's no indications in this catch to me that there's been any sort of adjustments to the net to decrease the mesh sizes.
So, as the net's been dragged through the water, the juvenile fish are actually able to escape? Exactly.
So you've got a bit of cod here, so he's got about 40kg which is about a box, so I'm happy with that.
Inspections must be swift and accurate - livelihoods are in the balance.
For rule breaches, crews can be ordered to port.
Fines may run into millions.
Everything appears in order, but there are plenty more trawlers in the Channel.
HMS Mersey is one of three vessels patrolling 80,000 square miles of British waters.
Isolated at sea, the crew spend their days looking after fish stocks.
How are they looked after on their floating home? It's quite cosy.
But you've got to think they're here for maybe four weeks at a time.
Look at this! It's a gym! Of course you need exercise when you're on a ship, this is where they work out.
And the Navy can't sail on an empty stomach.
It's Mexican tonight.
But there's very little rest for the team.
Straight after tea, it's back to sea.
Inspections run around the clock.
Now our target's a huge Dutch trawler, which is more like a floating fish factory.
MUSIC: "Gimme Shelter" by the Rolling Stones.
They can look to the documents, and after that they are ready.
Yeah, brilliant.
Boarding team safely embarked, proceeding.
This boat's hold is packed.
In just two days at sea they've caught and sorted nearly five tonnes of fish.
Lots of different species.
Cod is required to be stowed separately, we're in what we call the cod recovery zone.
And if we found cod hidden in there, that would be a problem.
Even in the middle of the night, Paul has to keep alert.
What you'll see is that nearly all these species are non-quota, apart from the mackerel and the cod.
Right, so they can catch as many as they like? As many as they like.
Are you worried about it? It's my job to worry about it.
There are caps on the number of days people can fish, those sort of things, that does keep a lid on things.
Whether it's a big enough lid, that's for scientists to answer and not me.
The team are heading back for some rest, but the Channel never sleeps.
All year round the hunt for fish goes on, and the sea's police must patrol.
British naval power has always been crucial in the Channel, where our nearest neighbours haven't always been our closest friends.
But our Navy alone wasn't sufficient guarantee against invasion.
Along the south coast, there's a line of fortifications.
Stony reminders of centuries of suspicion, when England eyed France nervously.
But fear cut both ways - the French too looked anxiously across the Channel.
By the close of the 17th century, they needed their own chain of forts.
I'm in France on a Channel journey that's brought me to a town that turned fortification into an art form.
Saint-Malo.
Medieval ramparts encircle Saint-Malo, a salt-stained shield recalling the threat of invasion.
But with the growth of English sea power, walls weren't enough.
To make Saint-Malo impregnable, the French king enlisted the formidable Sebastien Le Prestre de Vauban.
Vauban is revered as one of the greatest military engineers of all time, and in Saint-Malo he used nature to spectacular effect.
Here in the bay, a network of tiny islands, reefs, rocky outcrops offered perfect foundations for an extraordinary network of coastal forts.
Forming a jaw-shaped arch offshore, Vauban's forts were cleverly designed so they combined to foil enemy ships.
To discover the secrets of their success, I'm heading out with one of their custodians, Monsieur Marcel.
For English sailors, these strongholds must have seemed unassailable.
How many guns in this fort here? 20, and 160 men.
Vauban was a fabulous engineer and when it was finished it was impossible to catch Saint-Malo.
Sited by the channels into Saint-Malo, Vauban's forts caught enemy ships in a hail of deadly crossfire, keeping the port secure.
Now it's my chance to venture where our sailors never succeeded.
Time for an English invasion.
Monsieur Marcel has agreed to show me round one of Vauban's masterpieces, Fort Le Petit B.
Do you have help to re-build the port? Mm, sometimes, but it's very difficult to find good workers.
This is a beautiful door, is this your door? Yo
Previous EpisodeNext Episode