Southport to Whitehaven including the Isle of Man
This stretch of coast is not just the playground of the industrial
north. World events have reached here, and it has seen innovations that
have impacted on every part of the globe, making it a truly international
coast.
Southport
Beach - Aviation
The sand at Southport is flat and compact - which makes it ideal for use
as an airstrip.
Five years after the Wright Brothers, Claude Graham White landed a Farman
biplane near the pier at Southport in 1910.
At this time there were only fifteen qualified pilots
in the country - and five of those were flying on this coast.
Neil Oliver meets former pilot John Mulliner to find out about these
pioneer aviators.
He joins local enthusiast Nigel Reid and steps back in time, taking a
flight in a de Havilland 'Fox Moth' - used for pleasure flights in the
50's.
Formby Sands - Changing Coastline Formby
Sands has one of the most dynamic dune systems in England - whole features
have been wiped off the map here.
Its dramatic erosion is a combination of soft sand and a high tidal
range.
But how does the Ordnance Survey capture the changing line of this eroding
coastline?
They update their map base by carrying out aerial surveys from their base
in Blackpool using a high resolution camera.
Hermione Cockburn meets coastal engineer Paul Wisse and is brought to
the location of a 1958 caf茅 now half a kilometre out to sea.
Morecambe - The Midland Hotel In
the early 20th Century Morecambe was a key holiday destination.
In its hey day the internationally reclaimed Midland Hotel was an art
deco masterpiece, and icon of the town.
Built in 1933 it was an international destination for the sophisticated
holidaymaker.
Neil
Oliver meets up with Harry Adams who reminisces about when he worked at
the hotel as a porter in the 30's.
In 2003 the hotel was bought by developers. Site Manager Kieran Gardiner
shows Neil around the development.
Many of the hotel's original features created by Eric Gill are being
restored and it is due to be reopened in 2008.
Isle of Man Once
ruled for 200 years by the Vikings, it has one of the oldest parliaments
in the world - The Tynwald in 979. The Isle of Man is independent of the
UK and the EU - but who are the Manx people and what does the ancient
Norse symbol on their flag mean?
Neil Oliver meets up with local fisherman, 'Butch' Buttery, who gives
him a cookery lesson with a local delicacy, Queenies.
World War Two Internment Camps In
1940, 150,000 foreign nationals were rounded up and brought to the Isle
of Man for internment.
Hotels and guesthouses were requisitioned with women and children's camps
being in Port Erin and Port St Mary.
Men's camps were in Douglas, Ramsey, Peel and Onchan.
Alice Roberts meets up with Yvonne Cresswell who has researched the internment
camps history, and written a book about them called 'Living With the Wire'.
In
the Hutchinson camp in Douglas, there were so many German and Austrian
academics it became known as Camp University.
As a child, Rosemary Wood came here from London with her Austrian mother
and sister - they had an hour to pack up and leave. She talks to Alice
about her time in the camp when the Eagle Hotel became her home for part
of her time here, until she returned to London in 1942.
Isle of Man - Film location Tax
breaks and gorgeous scenery have attracted many film companies to use
the Isle of Man as a location. Over 80 films and TV dramas have filmed
here in the last decade; Keeping Mum, Waking Nedd and Churchill The Hollywood
Years.
Ferry Duty Manager and film extra, Charlie Henry, talks about some of
the forty productions that he has been filmed in.
Basking sharks Between
June and July basking sharks can be seen around the coast of the Isle
of Man.
The Isle of Man is bathed in warm water carried by the Gulf Stream.
As the summer warms the water, plankton is created which the sharks eat.
They
feed by filtering minute organisms that make up plankton from the water
- with the sticky mucus on their gills trapping the food.
The basking sharks are so popular here that there is a Manx Basking Shark
Watch and a regular update on local radio.
Miranda meets shark enthusiast John Galpin and joins Marine Biologist
Jackie Hall, to get close to the biggest shark in British waters.
Barrow-in-Furness - Submarines Building
boats here is a way of life - both on, and under the sea.
The Royal Navy's very fist sub was built in Barrow in 1901, followed
in later years by the Polaris and then the Trident class in the 80's.
In 1998 Barrow received a new commission and are now building some of
the worlds most advanced submarines.
The
traditional ship building techniques and skills of the Barrow work force
underpin this 拢3.5b project. Components are built as modules outside
and then inserted complete into the shell.
Mark Horton gets rare access to the construction of the next generation
of submarines which will be handed over to the Royal Navy in 2008.
Whitehaven & The American War of Independence John
Paul Jones set sail from New Hampshire in November 1777 to attack the
British Empire.
The plan was to row into the harbour at Whitehaven in the early hours
of the 23rd April 1778. They were to split into two teams, the first was
to go and disable the town's armoury of cannons and the other was to set
fire to an entire fleet of boats.
But what actually happened on that night? Well, there are conflicting
stories.
According
to the Americans the weather was against them, with torrential rain preventing
setting the fleet alight. Whereas the local newspaper The Lloyds Evening
Post, said that the sailors 'made free with the ale' at a local pub.
Neil Oliver meets up with both Gerard Richardson and Admiral Steven Morgan
to discover why Whitehaven was attacked and tries to get to the bottom
of this story.
Would you like to know what
music was used in this programme?
Southport to Whitehaven including the Isle of Man: Sunday 17 June,
8pm on 大象传媒 TWO
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