The west coast of Scotland.
Remote mountains and moors.
A magnificent coastline -
lochs and islands,
linked by wild and often treacherous seas.
A romantic place - Britain's last great wilderness.
This is now an often empty landscape but once it thrived.
For hundreds of years, people worked, travelled and traded here.
I'm going to search out these trade routes of the west coast of Scotland...
..travel narrow canals blasted through the Highlands' rock
and explore the arteries of industry
that made the heart of Scotland rich.
We are sailing in my boat Rocket,
taking a shortcut through the Crinan Canal,
down the western coast of Scotland, around the Isle of Bute
and from there up the great River Clyde to the second city
of the British Empire, Glasgow.
My starting point is the small village of Craobh Haven.
Before we set sail, John Holden, my sailing companion wants, as ever,
to buy a few more bits and pieces for the boat.
Good afternoon.
How much is this, by the way? £2.50 a metre. How much?
£2 a metre. £2 a metre.
So we want... 14. 14 metres times two.
I shall do that for you. Do we need anything else?
Shall I have a look around? No! It will be fatal if you look around!
Keep spending! Yeah, keep spending!
Hello, Stanley.
'Joining us on Rocket are the rest of the crew -
'veteran sailor Peter Lucas...'
Don't get your beard caught in it.
I'll try not to. Yeah. Very cosy. '..my younger son Fred...
'..oh, and John's dog Stanley.'
Ready? Just give us a little push. Yes.
Lovely. Thank you.
This is the first time Rocket has been in these waters
and it's very exciting to be here. It's a very untypical day.
The sun is shining, the sea is flat and there is just a little breeze.
You could be in the Mediterranean.
But these waters are dangerous waters.
They have strong tides and currents and whirlpools,
and when the westerly gales blow, they come all the way from America.
Keep that gaff. The gaff's fallen down. Hey!
Who is on the peak?
Stanley, you are really not allowed to sit there, on this bit.
OK? Lovely.
Let's have the jib, then. John, can you get Stanley out the way?
John, we can't use the jib cos Stanley is sitting on it. Come on.
Ready? Ready when you are. Let's go.
There's not much wind so we've set all sail,
hoping to beat the tide
to see the mysterious whirlpools of Dorus Mor.
You see the rough sea, there, it's just a great whirlpool.
It's calm everywhere else and suddenly, here,
we are in rough water. And this is a quiet day.
You imagine this when there is a gale blowing.
Very, very nasty place to be. It is difficult to get through here.
The boat spins as we go. Look, here we are. We're turning.
We are being turned, there, to port. Can't control it. Look.
This is all the current swirling underneath the boat.
It's very exciting.
This is a part of the world where people couldn't,
for centuries, travel overland. There were no roads.
This is how people travelled - by sea.
These are the pathways marked between headlands,
into lochs, up creeks.
For centuries, this was the only way of getting about.
Sailing down the Sound of Jura, we are entering one of lochs
which, for centuries, has been a gateway to the heart of the Scottish Highlands.
Territory once ruled by the powerful Scottish clan, the Campbells.
This is Duntrune Castle...
..standing proudly on its outcrop of rock.
Built over 800 years ago,
and it protects a very important route from the Western Isles
to the Scottish mainland, and it's said to be the longest inhabited
castle in the whole of Scotland.
Fred, you get in and get yourself sorted. John will take the bow line.
Pete's got the stern line.
'The water here is too shallow for Rocket
'so we are going over by dinghy.'
Are you ready? I am.
Ah. I tell you, I have fallen out of this dinghy before now.
I don't intend to fall out this time. Lovely.
Thank you very much. OK.
Let's go. Thank you.
See you in a bit.
'Over 200 years ago, the Campbells sold Duntrune Castle
'to another Highland clan, the Malcolms.'
A little bit on your right. Now, I think we go in here.
Yeah. That's it. It goes up there.
'Robin, the chief of Clan Malcolm,
'still lives here with his wife, Trish.'
Hello. Welcome to Duntrune.
Thank you very much indeed. Hello, David. How do you do?
Nice to see you. What do I call you? Chief? Chieftain?
Robin, please. Chief Malcolm.
They don't do that in Scotland. In America, yes.
This is wonderful. 800 years old. The ground floor.
The bit above, 400 years old,
and there is a bit round the back that's 200 years old.
But it looks...
It looks rather grim from the sea. Is it liveable in?
It looks like a prison to me.
Come and see. Come inside and we will show you.
It's damp and it's draughty and it leaks like a sieve.
The castle was built on this promontory
to guard the trade route that passes through the loch
from pirates, marauders and rival clans.
Look, a courtyard. This is extraordinary.
It doesn't look as large as this from outside.
It's deceptive from the outside, isn't it?
So, when do you think the last time it would have,
so to speak, fired a shot in anger?
Been really seriously used for the defence of the coast?
Between 1560 and 1580. Right.
That was when the Campbells and MacDonalds...
MacDonalds were at their peak, I suppose, then.
They were seen off by the Campbells and never tried again.
But when were the first invasions in this case? Cos you have been...
It has been permanently, it seems, under attack.
Permanently at war with somebody. I don't think we were alone in that.
The Vikings went about hitting Britain all around the coast.
I'm a Viking myself. Yes. We are Vikings.
The Dimblebys are Vikings.
The Dimblebys are Vikings? Yes. From Lincolnshire.
There is a village in Lincolnshire called Dembleby, where we come from.
Oh, really? We pride ourselves on our Viking blood.
So your lot would have attacked our lot. Rape and pillage is our forte!
Anyway... Can we have a look inside? Please. Do.
The castle is a family home now
but there remain traces of its military past.
You see, we are on the ground floor but you're looking down. Yes.
But you are at the very bottom of the castle. Yes.
We are looking right down.
And there is this rubbish chute,
where they chucked their rubbish out. Oh, yes. I see.
Where are we going up to now? The main room.
This is an original staircase.
Yes. As far as we know. Probably. As far as we know, yes.
Wow!
This is lovely, isn't it? This is a great room. This is wonderful.
What would this have been? It's described...
400 years old, this bit?
Yes, 400... 450, something like that.
Described as the Great Hall in the old plans of the place.
As a garrison castle, Duntrune would have been austerely furnished,
but Trish is no fan of the austere.
This is my private floor. Oh, my goodness! I don't believe it!
This is crazy! Look. Look, a power shower in the castle!
This is incredibly grand. It is brilliant.
A huge bath! Well, Robin is large.
When we first did it, this was all plastered over.
We took the plaster off and then we found there was a huge stone
up there that was being held up by dust
and it was about to fall on my head any minute. I said,
"I don't mind meeting my maker, but not with my knickers down!"
THEY LAUGH
An hour's walk across the glen from Duntrune,
but 800 years further back in history,
are the remains of a much earlier civilisation.
I am at the heart of the ancient Gaelic kingdom of Dal Riata,
the home of the people called Scotti, who gave Scotland its name.
This is the top of Dunadd Fort.
This was the headquarters, if you like, of the kings of Dal Riata.
This is where they were crowned, this is where they had their seat.
But they weren't isolated here.
This great walled encampment actually traded
with places as far away as France - 600AD, we're talking.
There were traces found here of pots that contained wine and corn.
There were precious metals, there were jewels.
In other words, this place was not what it is now, an empty landscape.
This was a thriving centre of industry at the time.
Most of the evidence of that earlier prosperity
has been claimed by nature.
This is the kingdom of Dalriada as we know it today.
Back on board Rocket,
we're crossing the loch to the little harbour at Crinan.
Where are you taking us to?
I'm not sure. Get us to the hotel. I'll go wherever you want.
Head towards Crinan, is a better way of putting it.
Dad, I can't see when you're standing there. OK.
We don't need to put the cover on the topsail, do we? No.
'We are dropping anchor here and heading off for an early night.'
Tomorrow, we are up against a man-made
wonder of the landscape - the Crinan Canal.
The Crinan Canal is a marvel of the industrial age.
Only nine miles long,
it cuts out a journey of 120 miles by sea around the Mull of Kintyre.
It was opened in 1801 to carry trade from the Western Isles
to the Clyde and Glasgow,
a symbol of Scotland's prosperity at the beginning of the 19th century.
It took 600 men eight years to build one of the most picturesque
shortcuts in Britain.
Like a staircase, it climbs up from Loch Crinan
and then down again to Loch Fyne.
Of the 15 lochs, all but two are operated by hand.
Thanks.
Wind it back.
I don't know whether you can reach.
Rocket's going on ahead
but I'm travelling the first stretch of the canal
in the way that it was designed to be travelled - by Clyde puffer.
Hundreds of these steam cargo boats were working the Western Isles
and used this canal in the 19th century.
VIC 32 is the last working seagoing Clyde puffer.
'Nick Walker has owned her for 35 years.'
Hello. I mustn't shake hands with you because for some reason
that I can't remember, you're not supposed to.
Marine superstition that we will both be dead by nightfall
if we shook hands over water.
So either I come on to land or you come aboard. I will come on.
You come on the boat and I can say hello, David. Thank you very much.
How do you do? How do you do?
The first Clyde puffer dates back to the 1850s,
when sailing barges were converted
to steam power, and had a wheelhouse added.
They were the lorries of the sea lanes,
carrying whisky from the west coast and islands of Scotland
to Glasgow, and going back with coal and grain.
Is this you coming up to my wheelhouse? Terrifying!
This is the nerve centre. I will talk to you from here. That's fine.
This is so narrow, I can't believe you can do this.
This bit of the canal is absolutely fine for a sailing boat or yacht,
no problems, but for a puffer with its 18-foot beam
and 8 foot 6 draught, we struggle a bit.
I like the idea that you are following a tradition of 200,
300 years, really. Right.
In making not this journey but making journeys around this area.
Look at these cliffs, here. I know. Is this all blasted away?
All blasted away by hand. Really? Yeah.
Is that the highest bit of cliff? No, there's another.
Another bit coming up, yeah. Why "puffer"?
Where does the word come from?
It's onomatopoeic. Puff, puff, puff, puff.
But you're not making any sound at all. We don't puff.
We condense the steam and make it back into hot water,
but in the old days, the puffers - puff of steam, puff of smoke,
puff of steam, puff of smoke.
Apparently they used to blow smoke rings.
Where do I go from here? Keep coming down, David.
And then down one more? One more.
'Narrow ladders lead deep down inside the puffer to the heart of the boat.'
Look at this! This is like a Victorian steam engine.
'Lyle Simpson understands the mysteries of the steam engine.'
Even though the vessel was built in 1943,
all the technology in here dates right back to about 1905.
What have we got here? What is this? That's the boiler.
Yup. That is the main ingredient of the boat. Where does coal go in?
Just there in front of you, David. Is that hot? Yeah.
If you just grab hold of the handle quickly and open the door... What?
What? What? God Almighty! HE GROANS
Oh, my God!
Just like that? Just like that, yes.
I won't put too much on.
How often do you have to put more in?
Running at this speed along the canal,
it's probably only about every 15 minutes, or something like that.
It's pure magic, sailing down this canal.
This boat that barely fits, touching each bank from time to time
and occasionally touching the bottom
and yet gliding tranquilly down, the steam engine making no sound,
just turning peacefully like that as it goes along.
It's so narrow that you feel like you're like toothpaste
being squeezed out of a tube and yet, on the other hand,
this, of course, is the heart of the Industrial Revolution in Scotland.
These boats backwards and forwards to the islands
and across to the mainland, bringing industry and creating wealth
and changing Scotland, in effect,
from a country that was impoverished
to one that began to experience proper prosperity.
We are drawing in to the basin at Bellanoch to rejoin Rocket.
One mile done, eight to go.
The canal was designed by the Scottish engineer John Rennie,
who also built London and Waterloo bridges on the Thames
and many other canals, lochs and lighthouses.
By the middle of the 19th century, apart from whisky and coal,
it carried 2,000 cattle a year, 27,000 sheep and 33,000 passengers.
The secret to going through a lock is to take it slowly
and keep the boat straight,
so that it can be moored snugly to the quayside far above.
Here you are, Peter.
Around there.
We've got a little bunch, here.
Oh, Fred! Fred, what happened there?
You didn't throw it far enough. You didn't pass it to me!
Excuse me!
You're going to get it... You're going to get it wet this time.
I usually expect my...
He's a bit out today, isn't he?
Opening the sluices.
That's all right, looks fine.
You OK there? Pete?
Yes, good, yes. We're coming up nicely.
So, what we've done now is, we are at lock number ten.
We have come from 15, from the sea, right down there, at Crinan,
we're coming up here and we're almost at the top of the hill.
Got one more lock, and then it's downhill all the way,
through new locks to the sea again on the other side.
The most famous boat to use this canal,
apart from Rocket of course,
was a Royal barge called the Sunbeam,
in which Queen Victoria travelled, in August 1847,
the whole length of the canal on her journey around Scotland,
the famous Royal Route she took that drew so much attention.
And she said, as she watched the horses that drew her
and the four men with them in scarlet uniforms, she said,
"It was a very tranquil, beautiful journey looking at the scenery."
But she did find all those locks a little bit tedious.
Mind you, she didn't have to do the work we've had to do
to get through them.
It has taken us all day to get through the Crinan Canal
and back out onto the open sea at Loch Fyne.
It was Queen Victoria's love of Scotland, its lochs and its glens,
that made it a fashionable destination for the English.
They came here to admire the scenery,
rugged and mysterious...
..an image exploited by many painters of the 19th century.
But the first person to turn the drama of Scotland
into popular romance
was a now almost forgotten poet, James Macpherson.
In 1761, he wrote an epic saga called Ossian,
which became an international bestseller.
Ossian tells the story of a mighty Gaelic warrior called Fingal,
who overcame the giants and demons of the Highlands.
Fingal was exactly the kind of hero to appeal
to people who were looking for a powerful, primitive force,
something that came from these wild Highlands of Scotland.
He was described as "tall as a glittering rock".
His spear like a "blasted pine".
His shield like the "rising moon".
And when he went into battle, his heel removed woods,
rocks fell from their place, rivers changed their course.
You can see the attraction.
And he was read not just here in Scotland,
but in England and throughout Europe,
where the whole idea appealed to a different,
romantic view of nature and of people.
Interestingly, Napoleon Bonaparte
always carried Ossian wherever he went.
Indeed, he probably had it with him at the Battle of Waterloo.
We are sailing down Scotland's longest sea loch to visit
a famous herring port,
the fishing village of Tarbert.
They have been catching the fish here since the 9th century.
Traditionally, teams of women gutted the catch on the quayside
then skewered them on long poles
to be hung in the smokehouse and turned into kippers,
one of Scotland's great delicacies.
Fishing has always been a very important industry for Scotland.
In the Middle Ages, medieval times, it was helped
because the Church banned the eating of meat on Wednesdays,
Thursdays and Fridays, which of course boosted the industry.
They also took tithes, the 10% of your income you had to
pay to the Church in herrings.
And you could even pay your rent in herrings.
Try that today!
'I'm heading out to sea from Tarbert with two local fishermen,
'Ross McKay and Peter McLean.'
Fishermen were idealised by painters in the 19th century,
given the Victorian virtues of independence, honesty, hard work.
They were seen to be in touch with nature, still heroically
battling the elements, not slaves to the Industrial Revolution.
A buoy marks where, a couple of days ago, Peter and Ross put out
their baited baskets.
Today, it's not herring they catch, but the shellfish langoustine,
eaten in Britain as scampi.
That's a big one, is it? Aye.
But they're priced on size? Aye.
So who decides that's a one - you or the guy who buys?
It's me that decides, like. Right.
'When caught, the langoustine are placed in separate compartments
'so that they don't fight.
'Then they will be exported live all the way to Spain.
'Every year, 30,000 tonnes of langoustine
'are caught in Scottish waters, worth £82 million.'
You have a very quick eye for them. Aye, you do. Aye, you get that.
You just know immediately what it is that you want and what you don't.
Why do you throw those away? It's just squats. I don't keep them.
I've eaten those in Glasgow. Aye.
They have a little tiny scoop of flesh on the back.
Squat lobsters, they're called. Squat lobster.
They don't keep for transport, like.
Strange animal.
Anyway, he goes back? Aye.
Aye. Goodbye.
So what's the strangest thing you've ever caught? Probably a machine gun.
A shooting gun? A machine gun. A machine gun?! Aye.
A general-purpose MP60, I think it was.
Did you get a reward? No.
Nothing? We thought we might. Yeah, I thought you would get a reward.
So you've caught a gun. What else have you caught? Any bodies?
No, no. No, that's good.
THEY LAUGH
We're just going to lift and shoot them back again.
You're going to shoot them back? Aye. OK.
'Once today's catch has all been brought in,
'the baskets are baited again and put back over the side.'
Fishing and the fishing industry are so important
that at the end of the First World War, in 1919,
the Ministry of Reconstruction issued a proclamation.
Peter, I want you to you hear this.
"The inshore fisherman should be perpetuated at all costs,
"for he comes nearer than any other type of man to embodying
"those qualities of grit and self-reliance which
"we all agree to be the greatest of national interests."
Aye, well, there you go. There you go.
I wouldn't have known that unless you told me.
DAVID CHUCKLES
"State neglect of his interests would weaken the race." Ah, well.
You learn something new every day.
Do you feel yourself... Do you feel that you come nearer than any other
type of man to embodying qualities of grit and self-reliance?
Well, you get hard days out there, right enough, so I suppose you do.
And you can take on the world? Take on anything!
Back aboard Rocket, we're leaving Tarbert.
We're now sailing around the southern tip
of the Isle of Bute on our way to its port of Rothesay.
We seem to be making good progress, but according
to my reading of our instruments, we're actually aground.
So what's the...?
'Some mistake, surely.'
That's the 5.2 nautical miles, there. Oh, dear.
Pete, you've gone on the rocks here.
He is actually on the rocks. Sorry about that...
We're going to have to start the...
No, when I say... You are aground now, officially aground.
There seems to be a sheep walking by, yeah. No, because look, Dad.
One nautical mile is that. Yeah. And there's about that much space.
So it's about a quarter of a nautical mile.
We are officially aground in 48 metres here, so is that all right?
I don't mind.
We are approaching Rothesay on the Isle of Bute,
the nearest island to Glasgow and an escape from the smoke of the city.
Look at that house up there in the trees. Great thing.
Looks like Agatha Christie... Looks like Greenway.
These large houses were built as holiday homes by wealthy
Glaswegians, who took the 90-minute boat trip "doon the watter"
to get here.
Most of the Isle of Bute has been owned by a single family
for the past 700 years, and they erected on the island
one of Scotland's biggest and most romantic houses...
Mount Stuart.
Built in 1880, it was the lifelong passion of the 3rd Marquess of Bute,
John Patrick Crichton-Stuart.
The richest man in Britain,
the 3rd Marquess inherited a fortune
made from the coalfields that powered the Industrial Revolution,
and the building of dockyards that traded with the Empire.
This is one of three libraries built here at Mount Stuart by John,
the 3rd Marquess.
He was an absolutely fascinating man.
He spoke 21 different languages. He was very well-travelled.
He was interested in religion, archaeology, astronomy
and architecture. He helped people restore houses.
He didn't just build this one.
And it was because of the wealth that he inherited, huge wealth,
that he was able to pursue these passions.
Mount Stuart took 30 years to build and with 127 spectacular rooms,
it cost over £50 million in today's money.
One of the most expensive homes ever built in Scotland, it is
a lavish display of wealth.
80 foot high, this is the centre of the house, the Marble Hall.
Gothic arches, looking like a cathedral. Indeed, was taken
from the design of a cathedral. Italian marble in different colours.
Wonderful ambers and greens and greys. And white.
And the tops of the pillars, the capitals as they are called,
are all of plants taken from Mount Stuart.
For instance, there's seaweed from the seashore, roses
and the Scottish thistle.
And the ceiling, decorated with the position of the stars
when they first designed this house.
They went out, looked at the night sky,
drew the position of the stars, and then reproduced them here.
The Marquess was obsessed by his great project,
and nothing escaped his eye.
His attention to detail was astonishing,
and his execution meticulous.
Just look at these. These are the door hinges.
You wouldn't normally see them, because when the door's closed,
obviously, you can't. We have opened it. Look at this.
Vine with bunches of grapes.
And there is a reason for them.
Over here...
the motif is repeated again.
The bell push, with bunches of grapes all round it.
And the reason for the grapes was that this was
the room for eating and drinking. The dining room.
And he decided, because everyone else was eating, the little frieze
of birds round the wooden panelling should be allowed to eat as well.
Come and see this.
There's a little bird here, look, about to eat a butterfly.
There's a snail being eyed by this bird.
Along here, look, there's a caterpillar who,
for some reason, seems to have escaped. This bird hasn't noticed.
And then right over here, look at his face.
This bird looking down, about to snap up the fly.
So everybody's feasting.
Mount Stuart looks like it has been here
since the Middle Ages with its Gothic arches and marble trimmings,
but in reality, it was at the cutting edge of modernity.
It was the first house in Scotland to be lit by electricity
and one of the first in the world to have an indoor heated swimming pool.
The Marchioness's bathroom is well worth a look.
It had all the latest equipment. Fine marble fireplace, of course.
This rather wonderful tap bends over and...
A jet of water.
And then there's a toilet there, oh, and here in the window, a bidet,
with all these controls and a mahogany seat.
What does this say?
"Wave, douche, back shower, bottom shower."
Let's try the bottom shower.
Here we go.
Oh, my goodness! Oops!
That's the bottom shower!
Help.
Stand by to go about. Ready about.
Leaving Rothesay and the Isle of Bute behind, we are
now heading to the entrance of the River Clyde, Toward Point.
Toward Lighthouse warns vessels of the promontory and hidden rocks.
It guides them up the River Clyde.
Built in 1812 by one of our greatest lighthouse builders,
the Scottish engineer, Robert Stevenson.
Lighthouses are a testament to Victorian engineering.
But throughout the 19th century,
they stood as a romantic image for artists.
Not just elegant designs,
but beacons symbolic of hope in the darkness.
A guiding light and man's heroic struggle against nature and the sea.
Painters such as Turner exploited the fear of shipwreck
to evoke terror and stir the imagination.
One of his most famous paintings is the Bell Rock Lighthouse
off the east coast of Scotland, also designed by Stevenson.
Stevenson's special genius was that he invented something called
shuttering, the automatic opening and closing of the light,
so that he could time the flashes that came from it.
This one, for instance, flashes once every ten seconds.
Other lighthouses will have different paces -
once every three seconds, once every seven.
So, when you are at sea, you can look at the chart
and identify which lighthouse you are looking at and, therefore,
what danger it is you are to avoid and where you are on the ocean.
Robert Stevenson created a kind of family dynasty
of lighthouse builders.
His three sons all became lighthouse builders.
The only disappointment to the family was his grandson.
He was called Robert Louis Stevenson and he was a famous writer.
He wrote Kidnapped and Treasure Island.
But he, too, was very proud of what the family had achieved.
He once wrote, "When the lights come out along the shores of Scotland,
"I like to think they shine more brightly because of their genius."
We're now entering the mouth of the River Clyde,
one of our greatest rivers, heading for James Watt Dock in Greenock.
Quite by chance, we have come alongside the Waverley,
the paddle steamer.
Able to carry nearly 1,000 passengers,
she is one of the last seagoing paddle steamers.
Very pretty sight, isn't it?
This line of red buoys marks a superhighway of the sea.
You wouldn't think it today, looking at this empty expanse of water,
but of all the seaways we have travelled in Scotland,
this was by far and away the most important.
This is where all the trade came up to Glasgow, bringing wealth
to that city and making it the second city of the Empire.
From the 18th century, ships laden with sugar,
cotton and tobacco came here from the Americas.
It was the shortest sea route.
Bringing goods into Glasgow instead of London cut up to
three weeks off the journey time, a very big saving.
By the second half of the 19th century, heavy industry took over.
A quarter of the world's locomotives
and a fifth of the world's ships were built on the Clyde.
In the 19th century, this southern side of the Clyde would have
been all docks and shipyards where now it's just infill.
And this scene was immortalised by the Victorian painter
John Atkinson Grimshaw, painting the scene here at Gourock.
Grimshaw made a profitable business out of painting romantic
images of the thriving ports all along the Clyde,
a far cry from the grim, industrial reality.
A fellow artist said,
"And when the evening mist clothes the riverside with poetry,
"as with a veil,
"and the poor buildings lose themselves in the dim sky,
"the whole city hangs in the heavens and fairyland is before us."
Today, the James Watt Dock has relaunched itself as a marina,
though it can never recapture its glory days
when it was the most accessible port for the largest ships.
The Glasgow merchants were using bigger
and bigger ships to bring goods from America to Scotland,
but they couldn't get right up the river.
Here, at Greenock, they invested their money in building this
magnificent dock, the James Watt Dock,
and building warehouses behind, all for the sugar trade.
These are known as the Sugar Sheds.
It was so successful that in no time,
400 ships a year were stopping here in Greenock.
These sugar sheds date from 1886.
By then, a quarter of Britain's sugar was being processed here,
in 12 sugar refineries.
It's an industry that continued in Greenock all the way
up to the very end of the 20th century.
It was the Act of Union in 1707 that changed Scotland's prosperity.
It allowed free trade with the British Empire
and, in particular, with the English colonies in America.
And it wasn't just sugar.
By 1750, more tobacco was coming up the Clyde than into all
the English ports combined.
It created huge wealth.
The Tobacco Lords, as the merchants were known,
lived like aristocrats, even had streets named after them.
In the 18th century, most of the tobacco was turned into snuff,
it wasn't smoked as cigars or pipe
or, indeed, cigarettes,
and it led to a great etiquette for taking snuff,
which concentrated primarily on the snuffbox.
This one, for instance, a particularly good example, with
a tortoiseshell surround and then in the centre, a portrait of George I.
It's the kind of thing a Glasgow merchant
might well have carried to show
his loyalty to the Crown.
This is quite interesting. This is...slightly later.
That's where the snuff goes.
And then, at the back,
there's a little trap that opens for a snuff spoon.
Women took snuff as well as men, and sometimes they,
so they didn't get their fingers dirty,
just took it in a tiny silver spoon and sniffed it, like that.
And this one, now, this is a very pretty one.
Inlaid, it's silver with a stone of moss agate set in it.
When you hold it up to the light,
you can see these wonderful swirls of green.
And as it has got some snuff in it, I will take some.
Schoolchildren did this because the school rules banned smoking,
but they forgot to mention snuff.
I remember taking it as a schoolboy occasionally.
It used to make me sneeze. This is how you take it.
One way is just putting a little bit in the corner, like that.
Sniffing not too hard
so it doesn't go right up to the back of your nostrils.
Or you can just sniff it like this.
And it's the sign of an amateur if you sneeze.
Shows you have taken too much snuff.
I've got a handkerchief with me, just in case.
INHALES SHARPLY
No, I think I'm all right.
It's very delicious.
Lovely.
A couple of miles upriver, and once at the heart of the Clyde's
great shipbuilding industry, is Port Glasgow.
Ships have been built along the Clyde for hundreds of years,
and in the 1950s, the industry was still booming.
At its height, there were 35 shipyards along the Clyde,
employing more than 100,000 men.
More than two-thirds of Britain's iron steamships
were launched from here.
Today, there is only one commercial shipyard
still working on the lower Clyde.
It's built over 300 ships in its 110-year history.
Today, there are only two small ferries under construction,
but they both employ pioneering technology
powered by a diesel-electric engine.
'I asked Andrew Miller and Craig Osborne,
'engineers at Ferguson's, how the future looks.'
It's a bit quieter now. We don't build many ships on the Clyde.
These two hybrid ferries we're building is the first ships
we've built for a few years.
And hopefully more to come.
Why did it go downhill?
Um, I think just a downturn in shipbuilding in general.
You've got other places like Korea, China and all that.
They're just building them probably cheaper
and faster than what we can now.
They learned all their skills from...
A lot of them learned the skills from the Clyde.
We taught them what to do and now they've turned it back on us.
Do you think there's something special about this
part of Scotland that made people good at engineering?
Because that old joke about, you know, I can't remember what it was,
you put your head down the engine room and shout... Jock.
Jock, that was it, yes.
You shout "Jock" and the chief engineer will come up. Yeah.
Do you think the spirit was different,
the kind of mood of the place was different?
I think, in shipyards, you've always what they call the shipyard banter.
And it's what the guys use to get through the day.
One of your most famous comedians, Billy Connolly, who was a welder,
that's how he made it,
because he had all the funny stories from the shipyards.
There's not a day goes by that you don't come in
and have a belly laugh at work.
You always have a day where... It's always funny.
What's today's funny story?
David Dimbleby's coming to the yard!
THEY LAUGH
During both World Wars, the work here on the Clyde was vital.
In 1940, to boost national morale,
the Ministry of Information commissioned the artist
Stanley Spencer to celebrate the skills of the shipbuilders.
This scene shows the burners, as they were called,
cutting sheets of metal with oxyacetylene cutters,
and making all kinds of different shapes that will form
the hull of the ship when it is finished.
All of them very focused,
not talking to each other, not acknowledging each other,
but absolutely concentrated on this very complex work of just
cutting exactly down the line.
They don't wear hard hats or any protective clothes
except leather gloves.
There is one person who seems to have exhausted himself,
a young boy, mopping his brow.
He's taken his cap off, his goggles,
he's just exhausted, sitting on the plate that he's cutting.
There's something almost spiritual, mystical,
about the way Spencer paints these people,
partly because the light all comes from the torches they're working on,
so they're all lit like angels would be lit
from some mysterious spiritual glow.
And then, down here, we come down here,
the railway lines that were laid through the docks.
Somebody working on the rails here.
And then, one, two, three people hauling a trolley of steel bars.
And then, finally, at the end, the ship itself takes shape.
The ribs of steel all delicately
and rather fantastically painted in different colours.
When the ship's completed, the wooden props will be knocked away
and the ship will slide down into the Clyde.
You just see this little glimpse of landscape here, a little breath of
fresh air after the claustrophobia of the working in the shipyard.
Here, the River Clyde, and above, the green hills.
Leaving Port Glasgow, we're travelling upriver to
one of the most historic sites on the Clyde, Dumbarton.
In the 1800s, this part of the Clyde was regularly dredged
so they could get trading ships up.
In fact, they still dredge it every year now.
But one of the advantages of this was not just
that the ships could go upriver, but they could build ships upriver too.
In fact, in the years before the First World War, almost half the
tonnage of ships built in the world were built here on the River Clyde.
And one of the largest yards was just under here,
under Dumbarton Castle at Denny's.
Little remains of Denny's today,
but artists and photographers show us what it was like
during its heyday towards the end of the 19th century.
The Maritime Museum keeps the memory of Denny's alive.
They built the first steamship to cross the English Channel
and the first all-steel merchant ship.
Their technicians were among the finest in the world.
One of the key members of a shipbuilding team was
the draughtsman, who put on paper the lines proposed for the ship.
It looks easy enough to draw the shape of the cabins
and, you know, the layout and all that,
but what really mattered was to get the underwater shape
so that the hull that had been chosen for efficiency and speed
could be interpreted by the shipbuilders from the drawings.
And these are drawings done by David Kirkcaldy,
one of the finest draughtsmen of the era.
These are the drawings of a paddle steamer called the Persia.
After her launch, the Persia set the record for crossing
the Atlantic, the Blue Riband, in 1856,
a record she held for several years,
crossing at an average speed of just over 13 knots, just over 15mph.
These are immaculately detailed drawings, and beautifully painted.
A cross-section of the ship from the bow there right through
the engine room...
..and back to the stern.
And then all the passenger cabins all along here.
The drawings of the Persia that David Kirkcaldy did
were done after she had been built.
They were designed to illustrate the work of a draughtsman.
And they were so good, apart from being exhibited in Paris
and at the Royal Academy, he won this medal for them, awarded
"for a correct and beautifully executed drawing of the Persia".
And the Maritime Museum has his notebooks that were
done at the time.
Meticulous drawings of every little detail of the boat.
With all the measurements...
..done in ink.
This work, spread over three-and-a-half years.
And here are all the cabins.
And the numbers of the cabins. You can see everything.
The kind of mind that is needed to do this sort of work is
obviously extremely meticulous and disciplined.
And he was so disciplined
that he kept this notebook of the hours that it had taken.
"Started in January 1857.
"Finished in July 1860.
"Pencilling, 275-and-a-quarter hours.
"Inking, 292-and-three-quarter hours.
"Colouring, 643-and-a-quarter hours.
"Total, 1,213-and-a-quarter hours."
Model-making, too,
occupied thousands of man-hours in the industry.
It was elevated to an art, with no detail too small.
The model of a newly finished commission was a calling card
for the next.
This is a model of the passenger and cargo ship Baccalieu,
which was built by Ferguson's on the Clyde
and launched in 1940 to go to St John's, Newfoundland.
And it is... It is an exquisite model.
I mean, starting at the bow, you have got the windlass.
Then, coming back, you've got...
Oh, up here, there's the binnacle, the compass.
Then on the bridge itself, the telegraph to signal to the
engine room "full ahead" or "slower stern", or whatever it is.
Lifeboats in their davits with their block and tackle,
ready to lower them.
And coming back, the masts, of course,
everything absolutely perfectly modelled.
And at the very back here in the stern,
the emergency steering wheel and even a rope, neatly coiled.
It's a beautiful model.
I've always stopped and paused
and looked in the windows of the shipping lines that have
these on display, because I drool over the thought of going
to the tropical islands or across the Atlantic or across the Pacific.
Without the cost and discomfort of actually going to sea,
this model just takes you there.
We're now on the last leg of our journey,
motoring up the Clyde to our final destination, Glasgow.
The river is narrowing to 200 metres, and it is eerily quiet.
Not quite how it would have been 100 years ago.
The boom years on the river may yet return but, sadly, not quite yet.
Ahead of us, though,
is a symbol of Scottish prosperity at its height - the Glenlee,
built here on the Clyde in 1896.
She spent 23 years carrying cargo between Glasgow, Liverpool,
Australia and South Africa.
Our journey is almost done.
We're mooring up on the outskirts of Glasgow.
The splendours of the city lie just upriver,
a city that proclaims the wealth of the nation.
CHATTERING
From the earliest times,
Scotland prospered by mastering the sea, first close to home,
then trading with the wider world, with the Americas, with the Empire.
And it was this commercial triumph that inspired this great city,
built on a heroic scale,
justifying its claim to be the second city of Empire.
This truly is a country that rose from the sea.
I'm sailing along the coast of East Anglia to see
how our view of the sea changed to a place for pleasure and escape.
I'll explore how a day out at the seaside became
an irresistible subject for artists...
I'm stopping now.
..artists of all kinds...
She looks like one of those pilots, you know. Argh!
..and how it created a world that was and remains uniquely British.
PEOPLE YELL Agh!
Here's to the British seaside.
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd