(Big Ben chimes)
All aboard!
NlCK CRANE: Coast is embarking on a new quest...
...connecting the capital to Cornwall,
linking Scottish isles to Welsh valleys...
...and taking us far beyond home waters
to the Baltic Sea and to the shores of Sweden.
A newjourney with familiar faces.
For this, our first adventure,
we're bound for Belgium
but setting out from London's commercial heart.
Alice is in search of the British seaside landlady.
So did you all have loads of rules?
Only if people were late.
- Late for what? - Meals.
NlCK: ln beautiful Bruges, a seaport stranded by time and tide,
Mark is hunting down the bricks that built Britain.
MARK: Perfect!
NlCK: Miranda is riding her luck to go fishing.
(Laughs)
NlCK: A surprise attack by Hitler is keeping Neil occupied in the Channel.
We might as well have been out there in a rowing boat with peashooters
for all the use we were.
NlCK: And at Albert Einstein's coastal hideaway,
l'm getting fired up by atom power.
This is Coast and beyond.
We're heading for one of Europe's most prosperous ports,
crossing the Channel to Antwerp,
but ourjourney starts in our own trading capital, London.
Tidal rivers bring the coast into the heart of many of our big cities,
and with the water comes wealth.
For as long as we've been a trading nation,
the sea's been our commercial highway,
and the winding Thames links London directly with that global thoroughfare.
THE KlNKS: Waterloo Road
lt was sea trade that made the capital rich.
The Thames shaped the city, and its influence still runs deep.
Now in the docklands of London,
ships have been replaced by skyscrapers.
lt's a story of spectacular rise and fall
that may yet have a twist in its tale.
The world once unloaded its goods in London.
Now could that trade be reinvented by a new generation?
The 1 9th-century businessmen who carved out these huge enclosures
were bold entrepreneurs.
Sometimes they built before they had customers.
London's docks helped make Britain a superpower.
They were the engine room of an empire.
Sugar and hardwood from the Caribbean,
tea from China,
even in the days before refrigeration, ice from Norway,
it all landed here.
Being in the docks, said one worker in the 1 960s,
was like geography come to life.
And London's geography also changed.
Around the docks grew the East End.
But as fast as the docks grew...
...the ships would outgrow them.
Once there were ocean liners berthed at the end of the road.
Now there's London City Airport.
lt was container ships, those great seagoing warehouses,
that changed everything.
ln the '60s, when containers first appeared on the commercial seaways,
many of London's docks simply couldn't cope.
Eventually the cargo ships stopped coming.
But there's a new bid to bring the big ships back to the capital
20 miles downstream.
THE CLASH: London Calling
This is Marieke, a dredger,
laying the foundations for a brand-new port,
the first of its kind for 20 years.
This ship is sucking up 1 2,000 cubic metres of sand and gravel
from the estuary every day.
The Marieke is a giant vacuum cleaner,
clearing a channel in the bed of the Thames,
a passage deep enough to accommodate supersized container ships.
This dredged material is being pumped onto an ever growing artificial island.
Eventually it's going to be a wharf some two miles long
for loading and unloading ships.
A colossal project, at least a decade in the making.
London Gateway.
lts builders are taking their cue from those early 1 9th-century entrepreneurs,
confident that if they build the dock, the ships will eventually come.
London's aiming to catch up with huge European ports like Antwerp,
where l'm heading on my journey.
lt'll reconnect the capital with the mighty estuary
that brought wealth and power into the heart of Britain.
Curious things grow up along this coast.
At the mouth of the Thames estuary is Canvey lsland.
Once a popular holiday destination, traces of its heyday are treasured now,
like the recently restored Labworth Cafe.
lt's a real gem,
designed by the architect behind Sydney Opera House.
But Canvey lsland couldn't match the glamour of foreign shores,
and when the holidaymakers stopped coming to Canvey in the 1 970s,
the oil companies moved in.
Against this backdrop emerged four local lads
who shook up the world...of rock.
Liverpool has the Beatles.
Canvey has Dr Feelgood.
l saw you out the other night...
35 years ago, Dr Feelgood helped kick-start a musical revolution
that became known as punk.
My name's Wilko Johnson
and l'm a musician, a guitar player.
l was born on Canvey lsland. l grew up on Canvey lsland.
l'm one of the baby-boom generation, you know, after the war.
Canvey lsland then was kind of a swamp with some shacks on it, l think.
And Dr Feelgood, we came from Canvey lsland.
The island is surrounded by oil refineries,
gives a kind of ferocity to the landscape,
flames glowing in the night-time and so forth,
and in many ways that kind of music seemed suited to it.
l think the music in the early '70s was, l don't know, a lot of hippies, really.
People were in frocks.
Singing about pixies and goblins.
Yeah, nonsense.
You know who l'm talking about.
Dr Feelgood were playing a kind of rhythm and blues music.
We just wanted to, you know, do a bit of rock 'n roll.
London's burning
l became friends with many of these punk musicians, you know,
the Pistols and the Clash and that.
And most of them had, in fact, seen Dr Feelgood
and been inspired, if you like, by Dr Feelgood.
When we were kids, we used to go fishing for crabs
along this wooden jetty down here.
You can do it with a piece of string and a lump of bread, right,
and you hang it over the side and the crabs catch it and you pull them up.
They're fairly stupid creatures, crabs.
l've been all around the world and l've seen a lot of things,
but there's just something, some spirit,
something beautiful about this estuary, and l think it's wonderful.
Crossing the Thames estuary, we find the Kent coast.
This is home to some of Britain's first seaside resorts
and the jewel in its crown,
the golden sands of Margate.
Most see the beach as a place to relax,
but others see a business opportunity.
Alice is seeking out the story of some seaside entrepreneurs
who sparked a sexual revolution around British shores.
ALlCE: 1 80 years ago, artist Joseph Turner was down here from London
painting up a storm.
lt was steam ships that linked the capital to Margate,
and l've got a postcard here.
lt's a water colour sketch by Turner of a steamship here at Margate,
and, by the look of it, a cloudy and blustery day a bit like this one.
We still have his impressions of the town,
but much less is known about the other big attraction
that drew romantic Turner to Margate, a woman.
Her name was Sophia Booth and she wasn't just Turner's lover.
She was his landlady.
But while Turner gets the limelight,
Sophia Booth and the army of landladies like her
who helped to create resorts like Margate have been largely forgotten.
This modern piece of art dedicated to Mrs Booth
doesn't really give us an image of who these hard-working women were.
So l'm in search of the mysterious, almost mythical, seaside landlady.
Helping me to uncover this hidden history
is social historian Susan Barton.
- So shall we look for some landladies? - Yeah, it'll be really fun.
ALlCE: There are still plenty of small hotels in Margate,
but we're looking for evidence of the women who ran its boarding houses.
These were often family homes,
where all the available rooms were rented to holidaymakers.
Now, this is what l expected to find, the typical...
With the arms crossed like an old battleaxe.
A typical image of the seaside landladies.
ALlCE: Boarding houses were the backbone of any seaside resort.
Cheap, no-frills accommodation,
guests were expected to provide the basics like food and linen.
Look at these rules. Breakfast at nine o'clock, luncheon at one.
No card playing on Sundays.
Our search for the origins of the seaside landlady has brought us here,
to a row of typical seafront lodging houses in Margate
dating from the 1 800s.
What do the records reveal about these formidable women?
SUSAN: lf we look at these documents, these are the census from 1 881 ,
and it can actually tell us who was living in the houses.
Do we know if there were landladies renting rooms out?
We do, because Catherine Howard, who's the head,
whose occupation is lodging-house keeper, and she was born in London.
We've got these women recorded as being the heads of the household.
They are, which means that these were businesswomen.
What l've noticed is that 7 out of 1 0 of these households were headed by women.
l find it remarkable that these women are able to be financially independent,
running their own businesses, and this is a time before women have the vote.
ln the late 1 9th century, the seaside landlady was a pioneer,
breaking down the social barriers that prevented women from owning businesses
decades before the women's rights movement.
ln 1 938, the Holiday with Pay Act changed workers'lives.
By the 1 950s, 1 7 million people a year came to the coast.
Hello, boys and girls!
From Bridlington to Brighton,
working-class families were able to afford their week on the beach,
thanks largely to the seaside boarding houses and their tireless landladies.
WOMAN: l've been running this boarding house now for 1 3 years.
l do all the cooking, all the washing and the ironing.
As for the food, l get sick of the sight of the food.
ALlCE: But there's no getting away from it,
landladies had a bit of an image problem.
They were characterised as rule-making, clock-watching tyrants,
the butt of seaside humour.
So do they deserve this dragon image?
Time to meet the ladies.
Between them, these ladies have more than 1 00 years'experience
of running guest houses.
Lovely to meet you. You must be Patsy. Hello.
So, first things first, were they the kind of landladies
that laid down the law to their guests?
- Only if people were late. - Late for what?
Meals. Because we had it on a set time.
lt was dead on one o'clock, five o'clock.
ALlCE: Tough love maybe, but their guests couldn't get enough of it.
That's Maud and Hubert. They came year after year.
- Maud and Hubert. - Yes.
BRENDA: Maud and Hubert said to my mum, ''We love coming here.
We're very fond of Brenda and Steve. They look after us so well.''
And my mother said, ''Well, l wouldn't go to the same place every year.''
JEAN: We went everywhere with some of the people.
They just treated us like holidaymakers.
They took us on day trips to France, any entertainment.
We were one of their family, you know.
l've got some photographs here.
What l really like about them is that the guests are all lined up
on the steps of the guest houses.
So was there great camaraderie amongst the guests?
- Yes, course there was. - They'd be very shy Saturday night.
But by Sunday afternoon, you couldn't get in the dining room for the noise.
HAZEL: lt wasn't just mum and dad in one room.
lt was mum, dad, two children or three children in one room,
because it was desperate after the war.
People would say, ''Can't you just put a bed up in the bathroom?''
ALlCE: Really? - Which we have done.
We did have a dead body once, and it was a bit like Fawlty Towers,
get it out of the way quick, you know,
Actually, it was a relation, a distant relation had come to stay,
and we'd given him bacon and eggs in our quarters
and he suddenly fell forward into my bacon and eggs.
ALlCE: No. - And he was dead.
Were they that bad, your bacon and eggs?
Yeah, there you are.
HAZEL: Look at the size of our kitchen. ALlCE: Tiny.
HAZEL: But we used to cater for 25 meals in that.
ALlCE: Really? Do you miss it, Hazel?
No. The day we sold up, l didn't miss a thing.
l didn't realise until l took an office job and l'd finished
that l'd worked so hard.
ALlCE: The seaside dreams of millions were built on that hard work.
But the delights of the B&B couldn't compete with cheap breaks abroad,
and increased regulations brought the golden era of the seaside landladies
to a close.
Yet for so many, our holiday memories are inseparable
from the redoubtable women who made them possible.
They gave us all a home from home by the sea.
NlCK: Even on this busy coast there are open spaces
where the rich and famous have come to get away from it all.
ln the 1 950s, novelist lan Fleming
bought one of these houses on St Margaret's Bay
from the previous owner, Noel Coward.
Whatever secret schemes Fleming may have dreamt up
looking out over the channel,
Mr Bond's fictional cliff-hangers couldn't match the reality
of one daring mission played out just around the corner
off the coast of Dover.
Today taking the ferry to France is as easy as catching the bus,
but 70 years ago a Channel crossing was a deadly affair.
As Britain looked out on Europe under German occupation,
the Channel at least seemed secure.
But at the height of the war,
an entire German fleet sailed past the guns of Dover
and survived to tell the tale.
Neil is on the trail of the Nazis' Channel dash.
lt's 1 2th February 1 942.
Out there in the Channel, three of the German navy's most fearsome battleships
are steaming at full speed just a few miles off the south coast of England.
The Scharnhorst, the Gneisenau and the Prinz Eugen.
They'd been wreaking havoc in the North Atlantic,
responsible for destroying 22 Allied ships.
Not surprisingly, British naval intelligence
had been keeping a close eye on them.
They thought the ships were undergoing repairs,
berthed at the French port of Brest, almost 500 miles away from Dover,
but they weren't.
ln a breathtakingly audacious move, the Germans had somehow managed
to sail up the Channel in broad daylight,
right under the nose of Britain's defences.
ln the aftermath of the ensuing battle, the Times reported,
''Nothing more mortifying to the pride of British sea power
has happened in home waters since the 1 7th century.''
So how were the British so badly caught out?
Historian Nick Hewitt and l are plotting the events
that led up to this remarkable episode.
So, Nick, where were these German ships coming from?
The German ships are coming from here in Brest.
The German navy would quite like to refit them and keep them in Brest
where they can threaten Allied trade out in the Atlantic.
Adolf Hitler wants them brought home to Germany and sent to Norway.
- And what Adolf wants, Adolf gets. - Absolutely.
NElL: By late 1 94 1, Hitler feared an Allied invasion of Norway.
He believed his warships at Brest were essential to prevent this attack.
With German troops engaged across Europe, Russia and North Africa,
he needed his battleships back right away.
The decision is taken to get them home
by the shortest, dirtiest route possible,
straight through the English Channel and the Straits of Dover.
But it's only three battleships. You'd think they could slip through.
The thing to remember is at this point it's not just three battleships.
What the Germans had been doing
is that they'd been bringing through escorting ships,
so by the time the heavy ships sail from Brest,
there are 63 warships around the fleet.
And it's not just ships.
At no point is there anything less than 1 6 aircraft
over the top of the ships from dawn to dusk every day.
So this is a huge force moving through the Channel.
NElL: Hitler's aim was bold.
Drive his battle fleet through the Channel at full speed.
Right under Britain's big guns.
The Nazi propaganda machine, confident of success, put cameras on the ships.
This is the film they shot.
Surprise was vital.
Preparations were so secret, even the German crews didn't know the plan.
We're going to find out what happened next,
that stormy day in February 1 942.
Our historian, Nick Hewitt, has tracked down a remarkable eyewitness.
lt's the first time August Brunmyer has visited British soil,
but he has seen Dover Castle once before,
from the deck of the Prinz Eugen.
NlCK: How did you feel when you were told
that you were going through the English Channel?
NElL: lf the mission was a surprise to the German crews,
it sent the British defenders into a panic.
They'd been caught on the hop.
The German ships had left port undetected.
The British admiralty were convinced
the Germans wouldn't venture into the Channel in daylight.
Shrouded by fog, the fleet wasjust an hour from Dover before it was spotted.
Britain's defences were already stretched to breaking point.
Now, with the Germans on their doorstep, they scrambled all they had,
a handful of small ships and six extraordinary biplanes.
This is a Swordfish.
Now, it might look like a throwback to the First World War,
but this old-fashioned biplane packed a deadly punch.
A torpedo dropped from one of these could hurt even the biggest battleship.
ln fact, a Swordfish attack had crippled the Bismarck earlier in the war.
The pride of the German fleet had been left dead in the water
by the flimsy biplanes.
Lieutenant Commander Eugene Esmonde
was the leader of that sortie against the Bismarck.
He'd been decorated for his bravery.
Now Esmonde was facing the largest German flotilla of the war.
The plan was to protect his Swordfish attack with five Spitfire squadrons.
But the Spitfires are late,
and the German battleships are steaming beyond range at a rate of knots.
Against overwhelming odds, Esmonde presses on with the attack.
As the German ships slipped into the Channel,
the fog lifted and they could almost touch the white cliffs.
(Siren wails)
NElL: All too clearly, Esmonde and his men
were now the front line of Britain's defence.
From a British torpedo boat, Reg Mitchell witnessed the battle.
Hello, sir.
Reg saw the powerful German fighters begin to pick off the British biplanes.
REG: The Fokker Wolfs were coming up behind them
with their flaps down and their wheels down,
and they were revving up all the time to try and stop themselves stalling
so they could get a good burst in.
And we would watch them, watch the tracers going into the Swordfish,
and they got shot down one after the other.
NElL: The German flotilla sailed past Dover unharmed.
Left in the water all six Swordfish, 1 3 of their crew dead,
among them Eugene Esmonde.
The boldness and power of the German fleet found Britain ill-prepared.
But those few who did press home the attack were not forgotten.
Esmonde was awarded the Victoria Cross.
This is the citation, together with the stamp of King George Vl,
that accompanied the medal.
''He flew on, cool and resolute,
serenely challenging hopeless odds to encounter the deadly fire of the enemy.''
''Undismayed he led his squadron on, straight through this inferno of fire. ''
NlCK: The Channel has always been our great natural border,
a barrier in times of war
but also our link to the trading ports of Northern Europe.
l've crossed the Channel to Dunkirk.
The most northerly French port, its name evokes British fighting spirit.
lts beaches still bear the scars of conflict.
ln the aftermath of two world wars,
a new trade alliance grew up along these shores,
dedicated to breaking down borders.
lt would become the European Union.
The founding principle of the original union
was to make war not only unthinkable but materially impossible.
lt's made it rather difficult to find any borders.
l'm about six miles northeast of Dunkirk
and l'm looking for the border that marks the edge of France.
You'd think they might have put a flag up or something.
l've got the coordinates of where the border should be
in this little GPS unit and it's telling me to go up here.
This cannot possibly be a border post.
l think l'm on a wild border chase here.
OK, l've seen something but on the wrong side of the fence.
This is the border marker.
There's an F on this side for France...
...a broken N, that must be the Netherlands,
and here a date, 1 81 9.
Well, that is not the Netherlands any more.
1 90 years ago, when this marker was put in the sand,
the country we're about to enter didn't even exist.
lf that seems a bit confusing, the change in the landscape at least
leaves you in no doubt you've entered a new country,
as wild open spaces transform into something a little more concrete.
Welcome to Belgium.
Looks like they've had the builders in.
PLASTlC BERTRAND: Ca Plane Pour Moi
One of Europe's most densely populated coastal countries,
it also has one of its shortest coastlines, less than 50 miles.
But, boy, do the Belgians make the most of it.
There are no fewer than 1 6 major holiday resorts
packed in along this tiny coast.
And what links it all is the Kusttram, the coast tram.
Starting near the border town of De Panne,
the track runs more or less the length of the Belgian coast,
loops around and comes back down again,
85 miles all told,
making it the longest single-track tram in the world.
No need for walking boots when you're taking the tram.
l think a change of outfit is in order.
l'm curious to know how the tramline
helps the Belgians cram so much into their coast.
So at a station in a rare break between high-rises,
l'm meeting tram man Dirk Schockaert.
- You must be Nick. - l am Nick.
This is one of the extraordinary rail stations l've ever been to in the world.
lt's on a beach.
Yes, it's a tram stop in the middle of nowhere.
NlCK: Why was the tramline built and when?
DlRK: The tramline was created in 1 885.
ln the beginning we had three train stations at the coast,
so all the rich tourists came from the inside of the country
to their holiday here at the coast,
and they were stuck at their place, so they were thinking,
''Well, we will create a tramline so that we can transport people.''
Mostly rich tourists.
And, for example, l have here an old poster.
NlCK: That's wonderful. DlRK: Touristic poster.
The image in the picture is very much of a seaside paradise
waiting to be opened up.
DlRK: Yes, at that time our coast was like that,
and now there are everywhere buildings.
- l'd better give you that. - Yes, indeed.
lt just shot past. Well, we missed that one.
lt was the Kusttram that really shaped the Belgian coast.
The resortsjust grew up along it.
But the arrival of the tram did squeeze out a simpler way of life.
For generations, a band of horse-riding fishermen have hunted shrimps
in the sandy shallows off the Belgian coast.
Today horse-back fishing's a dying art.
Miranda's off to see how it's done before it's too late.
These days if you want to find the homes
of the shrimp fishermen and their horses,
you have to head inland.
Coastal construction has forced the shrimp men
to live miles from the beach,
but they still work to the sea's traditional rhythms.
Catching the tide means an early start.
Morning, Dominique. How are you doing?
Very good, thank you.
At 21, Dominique Vandendriessche
is the youngest of the remaining shrimp fishermen
and part of this local tradition which has gone on for generations.
Fishing from horseback was begun by local farmers
who used the leftovers as fertiliser.
Once there were almost a hundred shrimp fishermen,
Now only a handful cling on in this concrete jungle.
l must say, l do feel a bit conspicuous.
This is one of the last places anywhere that they fish like this.
How does it work?
DOMlNlQUE: Those two boards,
they are used to open the net in the water.
- Seven metres. MlRANDA: Right.
DOMlNlQUE: Once side floating on the water
and the other side stays on the ground because of the weight of the chain.
Yeah.
But the chain is really used to wake up the shrimps,
because the shrimps live under the sands.
And what happens, the chain makes a noise
and all the shrimps, they jump up
and they get caught between the two sides of the net,
they get pushed there in the end of the net, you see?
MlRANDA: But working in the shallows with this heavy gear
would be impossible without the right horse.
lt takes the exceptional strength of these huge Brabant draft horses
to drag the nets through the wet sand.
- What's your horse called? - Jim.
This is Jim. He's huge, isn't he? He's really built for the job.
How on earth am l gonna get up there?
You've got longer legs than l have, though.
MlRANDA: l'm used to riding,
but these giants are incredibly difficult to control in the water,
so l've got to hitch a ride with Dominique.
[Laughs]
OK.
(Dominique speaks Flemish)
So tell me a bit about Jim. How old is he? What's he like?
DOMlNlQUE: He's seven years old. He's a really relaxed horse.
He never worries about anything and he never complains.
MlRANDA: So what's it like for Jim in the water? ls it really hard work?
DOMlNlQUE: Yes, the faster he goes, the harder it gets,
because the water has not time enough to escape out of the net.
But after a couple of times the horse realises if he goes slower, it's easier.
The only thing they get scared of is when the waves come towards them.
When that happens and they are frightened,
you turn them round and you make them go backwards to the sea,
so they don't see the waves, and once they're in it, their fear is over.
MlRANDA: And you obviously have an amazing bond with Jim.
DOMlNlQUE: Yes, we know each other by heart and soul.
MlRANDA: Yeah?
MlRANDA: Wow!
This is what we've been catching, little grey shrimps.
So, Dominique, what's this sort of catch worth, then?
This, well, maybe two euros.
Two euros? That's not even enough money to feed your horse for the day.
No, no.
MlRANDA: Their meagre catch doesn't make for a living,
but a profitable sideline is opening up.
Their novelty has made the horsemen into a local attraction.
While fishing for shrimps, they're also being paid to haul in the tourists.
MlRANDA: So l can try one? Yeah? MAN: Yeah.
- OK? - Those are really good.
That's about as fresh a shrimp as l've ever eaten.
MAN: Yes.
MlRANDA: On this coastline,
embracing tourism and the changes that come with it
helps this traditional way of life to survive.
NlCK: We're on the Belgian coast,
riding the tram towards the pretty town of De Haan.
This small coastal retreat grew up
as a quiet alternative to Belgium's bustling resorts,
the station unchanged since 1 902.
Stepping onto the platform, you get the feeling that time is standing still.
lt certainly did for De Haan's most celebrated visitor
who was kicking his heels here some 80 years ago.
ln 1 933, this sleepy stretch of coast was the unlikely destination
for one of the most famous men in the world.
He was the face of physics, the image of genius.
Why was Albert Einstein here in De Haan?
By 1 933, at the age of 54, Einstein was world famous.
His theory of relativity had revolutionised physics.
lt would lead to the concept of the big bang and black holes.
He'd won the Nobel prize.
But the world his physics described was undergoing violent change.
Fascism was on the rise in Europe.
Hitler had become dictator of Germany.
Persecution of the country's Jews had begun,
sanctioned by the new Nazi government.
Einstein, both German and Jewish,
was in America when Hitler came to power.
A lifelong peace campaigner,
the physicist had spoken out against the Nazis,
calling for economic sanctions.
He returned to Europe in 1 933, stateless, unable to go home to Germany,
his life under threat and wondering how, as a man of peace,
to respond to the violent times.
So how did he end up in this small Belgian seaside resort?
l'm hoping Brigitte Baeten can tell me.
She's the town's unofficial guardian of all things Einstein,
including a statue dedicated to the physicist.
Are you just dusting him down?
Yes, a little bit. l like to have his hands clean.
(Both laugh)
NlCK: How did De Haan come to be looking after the great man?
BRlGlTTE: Well, actually, it was the royal family,
as he was a good friend of the royal Belgian family,
which is our King Albert l and the Queen Elizabeth.
lt is them who said he would better stay for a while in Belgium.
NlCK: lt was the friendship with the royal family
that bought Einstein to Belgium,
but it was the need for a quiet place to think,
a refuge from the turmoil in Europe, that brought him to De Haan.
BRlGlTTE: l have first of all... NlCK: Oh, my goodness.
What an incredible photograph. ls this him here?
He's not wearing any socks.
BRlGlTTE: He's not, because he used to say,
''Socks are the worst thing in the world. You always have a hole in it.''
Well, that's a logical approach. That's good. Yeah, l like that.
NlCK: He appears a man at ease,
but the great thinker had a lot on his mind.
Walking the dunes and avenues, Einstein wrestled with his conscience.
He believed in peace but also that Hitler had to be stopped.
- So where is Einstein's house? - This is the house of Einstein.
- This one here? - This one.
- There's a plaque on the front. - Look at the window.
BRlGlTTE: There he is. NlCK: How funny.
BRlGlTTE: lsn't that wonderful? - And the doors are unchanged.
lt's all unchanged.
Excuse me. l'm so sorry to interrupt your supper,
but we were just looking at the plaque on the front of your home.
What's it like living in Einstein's house?
Do you get fed up with people coming and leaning over the gate like we are?
Most of them being Belgian, they're pretty polite,
so it's not that much of a problem.
Now, what about this photograph here?
Could we go inside and try and match it up with you, if you haven't seen it?
- lt might be quite interesting. - Absolutely. Just follow me.
Thank you.
Wow.
Yes. Brigitte's already done it.
Yeah, l think you recognise that part of the house.
But the fireplace, it's the same one, isn't it?
- lt must be the same, yeah. BRlGlTTE: Yes.
NlCK: lt seems that sitting in this living room almost 80 years ago,
Einstein the pacifist became an advocate of war,
albeit a war against oppression and dictatorship.
Einstein told an American professor,
''To prevent the greater evil, it is necessary for the lesser evil,
the hated military, to be accepted for the time being.''
After a six-month stay, Einstein left Belgium in September 1 933
for a new life in America,
committed to fighting tyranny in whatever way he could.
What he couldn't have known is the part his physics would play
in the coming struggle.
30 years earlier, Albert had written an equation,
a formula for the conversion of matter into energy.
E for energy equals M for mass,
times C for the speed of light squared.
Now, the speed of light squared is a huge number,
so you only need a tiny amount of mass to equal a lot of energy.
Cram that mass into a bomb and the results are devastating.
ldeas change the fate of nations,
and nature changes the fate of the coast.
Now the city of Bruges is connected to the port of Zeebrugge by a mighty canal.
But 700 years ago it was a different story.
Mark is exploring how mediaeval Bruges
once had a much closer connection to the coast, and to us.
For me, this is a very emotional journey.
l first came here to Bruges aged 1 3.
l was obsessed with medieval history.
Now l'm back to rekindle my old passion for the place
but also to explore an intriguing connection to England
l discovered all those years ago.
The city's canals give us a clue to its rich maritime past.
Sea trade made the burgers of Bruges very rich
in the 1 3th and 1 4th centuries.
Believe it or not, this was once the main canal into the heart of Bruges,
where ships from all round the world came and unloaded their cargos
in the water hall in the middle of the town square.
700 years ago a bird's eye view of Bruges
would have been radically different.
A sea inlet reached the outskirts of the city,
linking it directly to the North Sea
and historic ports like lpswich and King's Lynn.
Those links between East Anglia and Bruges
l discovered for myself as a 1 3-year-old
armed only with a roll of paper
and a wax crayon.
Sint-Salvator Cathedral is a wonderful place for a spot of brass rubbing.
Unfortunately, it's now discouraged in Belgium.
But l did a few earlier.
40 years earlier.
The thing about these brasses
is they show the shear wealth and prosperity of Bruges.
This is a brass of one of these merchants.
There he is with his wife and his daughter,
and you can see down at the bottom there is an image of a ship.
But these brasses also tell us about trade between England and Bruges,
because in lpswich there's an almost identical brass.
lt shows Thomas Pownder.
He was a cloth merchant, a very wealthy man.
There's his merchant's mark.
He was not satisfied with inferior English brasses
but went all the way here to Bruges to get his memorial,
and this is it.
The link between Bruges and Eastern England l'd stumbled upon as a boy
was centuries old,
part of a trade alliance known as the Hanseatic League.
This enormous medieval room would have been a warehouse
stacked high with East Anglian wool.
On their return, the empty ships were so unstable,
they had to be filled with Flemish bricks.
Bricks were in big demand 700 years ago in England
because back then we weren't making any of our own.
l'm hoping historian David Andrews can tell me why.
The Romans, of course, had made bricks,
but with the collapse that came after the fall of the Roman Empire,
the technology was lost throughout much of northern Europe,
maybe parts of the Mediterranean as well.
So when is brick making rediscovered?
ln the 1 2th century, the Cistercians are making bricks,
and the Cistercians built this wonderful barn here.
lt's like a cathedral, isn't it? With the sort of east window in brick.
DAVlD: With tracery in brick, yes.
MARK: Cistercian monks may have revived the art of brick making,
but in England we're a bit slow on the uptake.
Rather than make our own, we bought them from the Low Countries.
DAVlD: We had ceramic technologies,
we could make pottery, we could make roof tile,
but we don't seem to have bothered with brick.
MARK: And what do these Flemish bricks actually look like?
DAVlD: Well, l've got one from Essex here.
MARK: So these are really grotty. You can just see how soft they are.
You can put the powder everywhere.
Yes, they aren't marvellous bricks,
but they work and they're quite long-lasting and quite durable.
MARK: After 700 years, this Essex brick has come home
to where it was made from the polder clay,
the layer of mud left behind when the sea retreated from the land.
Art Vandendorpe is going to show me how to turn clay into bricks.
He's restored some of Bruges' most ancient buildings
using the oldest instruction book there is.
So this is the original description of how bricks were made in those days.
ART: They take the clay and they mixed them with sand,
they put it on the table and they make the brick.
And then they put them here in the clamp.
- ln the clamp. - One million.
- MARK: ln one clamp? - Yeah.
- So that's from the polders? - Yes, from here.
- Just from underneath the riverbank? - Yes, yes, yes.
Tap.
MARK: Perfect!
Bits of old brick, the odd shell. That's what makes the brick strong.
Right.
After several hundred years of the Flemish showing the way,
English brick makers had just about got the hang of it.
ART: Oh, this is an English brick.
MARK: Unlike me.
But it was the clay, the very stuff the bricks of Bruges were made of,
that finally cut the city off from the sea.
When the inlet silted up, gone went that trading route to Europe.
Leaving Bruges high and dry
but preserved in all this medieval splendour.
NlCK: Ancient trade roots connect us to the Belgian coast,
but we also share a deep and abiding love of chips.
PAOLO CONTE: Via Con Me
But, of course, these aren't any old chips.
These are Belgian fries.
My name is Bernard Lefevre.
l am president of the National Union of Frituur'tsteen,
which is the Belgian word for fry shopkeepers.
Like l can imagine that British people couldn't live without tea
or Frenchmen without wine, Belgians need fries.
The first fry shops date from the period that Belgium was founded,
the early 1 800s.
We use round pots because a good fry needs good space to swim in.
They are having fun now, that much fun that what we say,
they are starting to sing,
and when the song is finished, well, they have to jump out.
Our special element of the Belgium fry is the size.
lt can change a little bit from the French border,
where they are smaller, about 9mm,
going to the German border to 1 4mm.
Standard size of Belgian fries is 1 0mm thick.
lt's a meal on itself. We don't need fish.
We are not really a fish country.
We only have a little part of coast.
Voila.
NlCK: The end of Belgium's coastal tramline delivers me to Knokke.
lt looks pretty conventional on the outside,
the seafront dominated by this grand 1 930s casino.
l'm told all is not what it seems here.
Apparently there's something surreal to see.
And it's tucked away in a back room.
- Hello. WOMAN: Hello.
- l'm Nick. - Delphine. Nice to meet you.
Very nice to meet you.
NlCK: ln the 1 950s, Belgian surrealist Rene Magritte came to stay in Knokke
and this is what he left behind.
(Nick laughs)
My goodness.
lt's quite a thing if you see it for the first time, right?
Yeah, it certainly is, isn't it?
NlCK: lf you don't know Magritte's name, you might well recognise his images.
This 360-degree mural displays some of his best known work.
lt's a dreamscape, isn't it?
Not necessarily a very healthy dream.
We've got a woman with a fish's head
and the Leaning Tower of Pisa restring on a feather.
How do the citizens of Knokke react?
They rather like it, l think.
NlCK: ln 1 953 the casino owner here
persuaded the surrealist and former wallpaper designer
to make a rare visit to the coast
and decorate the walls of this establishment.
Magritte called the end result The Enchanted Domain.
Enchanting maybe, odd certainly,
but look closer.
Magritte's vision seems strangely in tune with the Belgium we've experienced.
The surrealist re-imagined the world in the name of art.
But another local visionary,
who re-imagined the world for practical reasons,
is waiting at the end of my journey.
Because it was along this coast
that a 1 6th-century map maker of huge significance
spent his formative years.
He also happens to be a hero of mine.
His name, Gerard Mercator.
Ships like this navigate safely today
because of a method of map making devised by Mercator.
Even in here, surrounded by all of this hi-tech equipment,
this modern map carries the name of a man born 500 years ago.
Mercator cracked a complex puzzle.
Paper maps are flat, but as you step back from the world,
it's clear the planet isn't flat at all.
He worked out the maths to project the 3-D world
onto a two-dimensional sheet.
Mercator's projection meant seafarers could, for the first time,
navigate precisely around the three-dimensional globe.
ln Antwerp you can see the original chart that changed the world.
This is it.
This is the map that turned Mercator into the first modern map maker.
lt was completely revolutionary. lt's really a navigational device.
What he did was to keep all the lines of longitude parallel,
Of course, normally on the globe, they all converge at the two poles,
but what he did was prize them apart and straighten them.
What you end up with is quite a distorted map,
but the sheer brilliance of this map
is in what it does with the use of compasses.
lf you lie a compass on this map,
for example between Bristol and Cuba, and want to get the bearing,
you take your bearing off the map
and then you can stand on the deck of your ship
and the identical bearing will take you straight from Bristol to Cuba.
No other map projection will do that. lt was a work of sheer brilliance.
Mercator called it the squaring of the circle.
Mercator's genius vision,
his projection of the earth onto accurate navigation charts,
opened up the globe to Europeans.
Trade blossomed and mighty estuaries became gateways to the world.
People, goods and ideas flow between nations connected by their coastlines.
lt gives us a common bond with our neighbours,
stories we continue to explore around our coast and beyond.