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PROGRAMME INFO |
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From Shetland to the Scilly Isles, Open Country travels the UK in search of the stories, the people and the wildlife that make our countryside such a vibrant place. Each week we visit a new area to hear how local people are growing the crops, protecting the environment, maintaining the traditions and cooking the food that makes their corner of rural Britain unique.
Email: open.country@bbc.co.uk
Postal address: Open Country,
大象传媒 Radio 4, Birmingham, B5 7QQ.
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The Spurn peninsular is a slim, fragile finger of land on the edge of East Yorkshire. Washed by the North Sea on one side and the Humber river on the other, Spurn is buffeted by the tides and surf of two powerful masses of water and they're taking a heavy toll. Spurn is eroding fast, a yard of land is being taken by the sea every year and last winter one heavy tidal surge cut the peninsular in two turning Spurn into an island. The people of Spurn have to live in the present because the future and the past are constant reminders of it fragility and impermanence.
Richard begins the programme on the Spurn Lifeboat with coxswain Dave Steenvoorden.
Known as "Spanish" to his crew (because he served on a Spanish fishing trawler for years) Dave tells Richard how busy the waterway is and why Spurn is the only permanent lifeboat station in the UK. The meeting of the river and the sea creates a tidal flow that is unpredictable and dangerous. The pilot operation, guiding ships into the port of Hull, helps 100 ships a day to safety. Dave's callout rate for ships in trouble is one of the busiest in the country and, coupled with the claustrophobia of living permanently on Spurn, working on the lifeboat is a vocation suited only to a few.
Gordon Ostler meets Richard at the café in Kilnsea where, on the wall is a plaque giving the distance from the sea - the trouble is that that distance has halved in just a century or so. Gordon shows Richard a gun emplacement from the Second World War. It began life inshore but has now fallen into the sea, its foundations undermined by the power of the sea. Although there have been plans to defend the coast against the tidal surges, Gordon thinks it's not been enough and complains about the apathy he sees in the Government's attitude to the defence of Spurn. He says plans to build an offshore reef to lessen the power of the waves could save Spurn from disappearing.
Jan Crowther has retired to Kilnsea. She is researching its history and relates the story of the old village, which was said to be the prettiest village in Holderness. It had a windmill and a medieval church but it's all gone, lost to the sea. They didn't go without a fight, though, and the villagers clung on to their cottages and church until the very last minute - refusing to let go of their world until it was inevitable. Even the cemetery was washed away and Jan tells Richard how the bodies would be washed up on the beach with regularity, alarming the visitors but becoming quite commonplace for the locals.
Andrew and Sue Wells are farmers - in fact they could only afford a farm on Spurn because of the erosion. Because of the impermanence land is cheap and it allowed Andrew to live his dream. He says living on Spurn demands a certain mindset - if you can accept living in the present and not worry too much about the future, then it is a wonderful place to live. But he points out that living there is not for everyone - some people hate it, living with the vulnerability a windswept and exposed landscape can give you does wear you down and that can become too much.
Email Open Country: open.country@bbc.co.uk
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Z to Z Britain
Open Country looks back 2003
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