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00:01Rock lighthouses.
00:03No matter what the sea throws at them, they stand firm.
00:08This is awesome.
00:09Join me for a voyage to the last outposts of civilization.
00:14Oh, come on.
00:15Where you need to invent your way out of trouble if you want to survive.
00:20Over the edge of the cliff, bucket of concrete, filling in the rabbit holes.
00:25He was listening to his daughter playing piano
00:28and came up with this concept of a fog horn.
00:31I mean, these are absolute game changers.
00:33It's a story of adventure.
00:36Fire!
00:38Oh, now I get to breathe again.
00:41And danger.
00:43They weren't above wounding or killing people who got in their way.
00:46We'll discover how they were designed.
00:49This really was a stroke of genius.
00:52And meets their hidden heroes.
00:54There was this absolute sense of mission.
00:57The night stays lit, come what may.
01:00These are the secrets of some of the most extraordinary structures ever built.
01:07This time...
01:08This coastline is epic!
01:11On a jagged, storm-blasted precipice...
01:14I turned round to see the wave.
01:16I thought we were done for.
01:18OK, ready?
01:19A dangerously exposed lighthouse.
01:23I mean, for any keepers inside at the time, it must have been so frightening.
01:27That not only protected a coastline, but an entire nation.
01:31The way that they got the radar to work was through an upturned bicycle handle.
01:37The indestructible Muckle Flugger.
01:50Perched upon a rock off the Shetland Islands, at the furthest edge of the United Kingdom, is a light that
01:56will not go out.
01:58Defying reason, logic and the laws of nature, forged from war and engaged in a never-ending battle against the
02:07elements, stands a lighthouse that shouldn't exist.
02:20The seas around the northeast coast of Scotland have some of the largest waves on Earth.
02:26Dreaded by mariners for centuries, navigating these ferocious waters is fraught with danger.
02:33And 200 years ago, these northern seas were the scene of the worst disaster in Royal Naval history.
02:41Three ships en route for Britain were struck by hurricane-force winds.
02:47There was nothing anyone could do, as winds, mighty swell and ferocious rocks claimed their victims.
02:55And over 2,000 sailors were drowned.
02:58More than twice the number lost at the Battle of Trafalgar.
03:09With this in mind, I'm meeting skipper Kevin Tulloch to experience the seas off Shetland for myself.
03:15How are we looking out there over the sea today? Are we going to be all right?
03:18That's not going to be brilliant, but I think it's going to be workable, yes.
03:22OK, workable. I can go with that.
03:36This coastline is epic.
03:39Let's look at the scale of these cliffs and these rocks.
03:43It's beautiful.
03:45Always a big one.
03:47Yeah!
03:51Out in these treacherous waters is where the Atlantic Ocean meets the North Sea.
03:58It's wild, it's desolate and it's inhospitable.
04:03I'm heading to the northerly most point of the whole of the British Isles.
04:12The Shetland Islands lie between Denmark's Faroe Islands to the northwest and Norway to the east.
04:20At its most northerly point, just off the coast of Unst, is a precipitous pyramid of rocks,
04:26with nothing but sea between it and the Arctic Circle.
04:29This is Muckle Flugga, from the Old Norse Mikla Fluggi, meaning Great Precipice.
04:38Legend has it that Muckle Flugga was created when two giants fell out over the love of a mermaid.
04:46And in time-honoured tradition, they decided that to win her heart, they'd throw boulders at each other.
04:54And the rock formations you can see today are the result of that battle.
05:01The reality is a little less poetic.
05:04In fact, 400 million years ago, two sections of continental crust collided, thrusting these rocks upwards.
05:12Then 65 million years ago, the crust split again, letting the Atlantic Ocean in.
05:20The Shetland Isles is where two seas meet.
05:22On one side we have the Atlantic Ocean and we've got a large body of water where wind transfers its
05:28energy to the water.
05:29This is known as the fetch.
05:31And this process actually creates large currents, large swells.
05:36We have the same process happening on the other side, on the North Sea.
05:40And Muckle Flugga is right in the middle of that.
05:45We go from an area of deep water into actually quite shallower water.
05:49And this forces the waves to actually increase in height.
05:53And they can reach such huge heights, they can actually overtop Muckle Flugga itself.
06:03Kevin has been sailing the waters around here for most of his life.
06:08I imagine it's worse in the winter months than it is in the summer.
06:11From a distance you could watch the waves nearly go into the top of the lighthouse.
06:14But even in summer, it's got me out. I have a healthy respect for that area.
06:19Do you?
06:20Yeah, more and more so every time.
06:22There's such strong tides there, like a boat with not much power, or a sailing boat or whatever.
06:28The tide could drag them under rocks quite easily.
06:31Even on a relatively calm day, in terms of wind and swell, the tides at Muckle Flugga can still cause
06:38you trouble.
06:39Oh, absolutely, yes.
06:40Combine that with the great big deep, like the Atlantic swells coming in from the west.
06:45They meet Muckle Flugga and they only go one way and that's they go up the way.
06:53It would be easy to imagine that this great precipice beset by gales was best avoided.
06:59But back in the 1850s, with war with Russia looming, the British government had plans for Muckle Flugga.
07:07During the Crimean War, which started in 1854, the Royal Navy was deploying a major squadron into the Arctic Ocean
07:14and into the White Sea to blockade the Russian base at Archangel.
07:18And it needed a navigational marker at the top end of the British Isles and that's Muckle Flugga.
07:25This was going to be the launch point for heading north up the coast of Norway and around on the
07:30Norwegian coast and then into Russian territorial waters.
07:35And increasingly, there's British trade going up in this area as well. So this is busy water.
07:41It's a very exposed coast. It's highly indented. Lots of rocks and reefs. And actually, it was very badly lit.
07:51They were endless wrecks all the time.
07:56The only way the Royal Navy could reach Russia was to sail north around the top of Scotland.
08:03So the Admiralty demanded two new lighthouses be built around the north and the east of the Shetland Islands to
08:10guide the fleet safely through these stormy seas.
08:15Building had already begun on the outskerries light on the eastern coast of Shetland and Muckle Flugga was to be
08:22the site of the second lighthouse.
08:24But the newly appointed chief engineer of the Northern Lighthouse Board, David Stevenson, wasn't convinced.
08:32David Stevenson, when he was wrecking Muckle Flugga, found some really difficult conditions.
08:38It's almost impossible to find anywhere to land. And therefore, it's difficult to get close to surveying the site.
08:50When you do land and start shinning up the rock, it's a sheer precipice. It's wave-washed, so obviously it's
08:57very slippy.
08:58You're dealing with really extreme weather conditions a lot of the time, kind of fours, eight and above.
09:05He was certainly used to extremely difficult conditions, but he was, I think, terrified.
09:15Not one given over to exaggeration, David Stevenson's report was blunt.
09:22He said it is not practicable to erect and maintain a lighthouse on these rocks.
09:29It would be risking the lives of the workmen, it would be risking the lives of the keepers, and therefore
09:34he wanted nothing to do with it.
09:37For him to be so adamant that it wasn't possible was out of character and gave a sense of how
09:46important he thought it was to make this point.
09:49That it really wasn't possible to build a light or mug or flugger. It was just too extreme.
09:55But the Admiralty insisted, and they're paying the bills.
10:00The Navy wants the light in the right place, and the right place is at the top end of the
10:05Shetlands.
10:07Not only did the government want their lighthouse, they wanted it working within six months.
10:16David put as much time into preparation as he possibly could.
10:20And what he did was to manage to get 120 tons of materials to the site, which the workmen then
10:31had to carry up literally on their backs.
10:33So if you imagine mountaineering up a rock with glass, stone, iron, cement, lime.
10:42It was unbelievably dangerous, unbelievably difficult, and unbelievably physically challenging.
10:51It was estimated that 5,000 individual journeys were made to and from the rock.
10:57Yet despite all the challenges, the tower took 20 masons just two and a half months to build.
11:03And its light shone out for the first time on the 11th of October, 1854.
11:10For the first time, mariners now had a beacon to warn them of the perilous dangers of these waters.
11:17It seemed like the Admiralty's gamble had paid off.
11:20But with winter came disaster.
11:24In December 1854, three violent storms pounded Muckleflugger Rock.
11:31And the consequences for Britain's most northerly lighthouse would be catastrophic.
11:54In 1854, with Britain at war with Russia, the government wanted a lighthouse to guide its fleet as they headed
12:00into battle.
12:01They ordered Northern Lighthouse Board Chief Engineer David Stevenson to construct it on the weather-beaten rock Muckleflugger.
12:10Built during the summer months when seas were calmer, it was completed in a mind-blowing 26 days.
12:17But the victory was to be short-lived.
12:20On the 2nd of December 1854, the first of three devastating storms struck Muckleflugger Rock.
12:30Within two hours, the island was being battered by hurricane force winds.
12:37And this is where you have to remember that it's the northernmost point of the British Isles in the teeth
12:42of the Atlantic gales,
12:44with waves running up the rock well over 200 feet high, crashing over the buildings, crashing over the temporary light.
12:55For the poor temporary lighthouse keepers, it was terrifying all the time because they didn't know whether the sea was
13:03going to sweep the building off or whether it was going to take them with it.
13:08About a week later, another storm hit.
13:11This time, the wind and the waves were so strong, they catapulted rocks up against the tower with such violence
13:20that they smashed painted glass in the lantern and almost extinguished the light.
13:27There was this absolute sense of mission which permeated the whole of the Scottish Lighthouse Service, which was the night
13:35stays lit come what may.
13:37But it made them realise how incredibly precarious the temporary light was.
13:45The terrified keepers were soaked and exhausted.
13:50Stevenson raised the alarm.
13:52Their lives were in danger.
13:56The Admiralty were in a tight spot.
13:58They still needed a lighthouse and keepers on Muckleflugger.
14:02It was agreed that David Stevenson should come up with a structure robust enough to withstand the mighty winter storms.
14:11To help tackle this immense challenge, he was joined by his younger brother, Thomas Stevenson.
14:17His speciality was in wave measurements.
14:21And he invented something that looked a bit like a train buffer, which measured the strength of waves called dynamometer.
14:29The dynamometer gave Thomas a really defined sense of just how strong the forces were that they were dealing with.
14:37And I think I'd found a way to show the power of the waves smashing into the rocks of Muckleflugger.
14:44In the winter, the force of the waves smashing into the rocks of Muckleflugger is immense.
14:51But I want to get a better sense of what that raw, unharnessed power actually looks like.
14:57With a bit of help from my friends, the East Sussex Fire Brigade.
15:06For the purposes of this experiment today, we're not going to be directing this water at fire.
15:12We are going to see what happens when we point the power of this jet of water at something a
15:19bit more solid.
15:43The power of the water shooting out of this hose there is bucking a punch of around 13 kilowatts.
15:50The power of the water shooting out of this hose there is bucking a punch of around 13 kilowatts.
15:50That's about a quarter of the tidal forces in play at Muckleflugger.
15:54Now, on the back of an envelope, I've worked out that for a wave to reach the height of the
15:59original Muckleflugger lighthouse,
16:01you're looking at around 45 to 50 kilowatts of power,
16:07which to a firefighter might look something a little bit like this.
16:14And go now!
16:32If water power on this scale can make such quick work of a one-and-a-half-ton van...
16:38It's time to supersize things.
16:41We're going to get those same four jets onto this truck, which is 20, 25 tons.
16:47Now we're going to test the power, the raw power of water.
17:02Come on!
17:08Yeah!
17:10Come on!
17:21Some of the firefighters out there with me might have been a bit dubious as to whether we could get
17:26that truck moving or not, but...
17:29Once it was going, there's no stopping there.
17:31And there's a heck of a force required to get that thing moving.
17:36And if you translate that, the power of those four hoses together is the equivalent of just one wave striking
17:44Muckleflugger in the winter.
17:46I mean, for any keepers inside at the time, it must have been so frightening.
17:51And I guess even though the lighthouse survived in its sense and the keepers survived,
17:57it proved that something had to be done to ensure that the light at Muckleflugger couldn't be drowned out.
18:11The Stevensons began building a permanent lighthouse on Muckleflugger that could withstand the winter storms in 1855.
18:20The construction techniques that they had to use had to be able to deal with those kinds of forces on
18:27a sort of permanent basis.
18:29They couldn't just rely on tried and tested rock lighthouse methods on this unique site.
18:35They were going to have to experiment and hope it worked.
18:40I have here a copy of some of the initial plans drawn up for Muckleflugger Lighthouse.
18:47Or North Unst Lighthouse, as it was known then.
18:50You can see these are from 1855 and they've been signed by D and T Stevenson, David and Thomas.
18:59While the temporary light measured 21 feet tall, the permanent lighthouse would stand at 64 feet.
19:06But even though the Stevensons were under pressure to help reduce costs and make the whole construction quicker, they refused
19:14to compromise.
19:15The Admiralty wanted to reduce the thickness of the walls. David Stevenson dug his heels in and he won.
19:24So he decides on a brick wall three and a half feet thick.
19:30They had very sophisticated cements by this point that actually would survive the onslaught of the sea.
19:37I think landing materials was always difficult.
19:41A hod of bricks is just a hell of a lot easier than a three and a half ton lump
19:46of perfectly dressed sandstone.
19:52An inclined plane with a steam engine at the top was used to transport the bricks, saving time and manpower.
19:59And the Stevenson brothers' complementary talents also played a huge part in overcoming the challenges presented by Muckle Flugger.
20:07David is doing the building and Thomas is doing the light.
20:13And the fact that the second optic on the permanent lighthouse appears not to have been changed till 1927 or
20:22thereabouts says quite a lot about it.
20:26Had it not been for their persistence, for their integrity as engineers and their refusal to compromise despite the pressures
20:35of war and financial challenges,
20:37Muckle Flugger Lighthouse might not still be with us today.
20:49And there it is, the magnificent Muckle Flugger Lighthouse.
20:56You can always tell the Stevenson lighthouse.
20:59They're beautiful, painted white and then the windows picked out in sort of ochre.
21:05They're just very wonderful to look at.
21:09Muckle Flugger was David Stevenson's outstanding achievements.
21:14It's an amazing lighthouse.
21:18You know, it's said that thanks to the genius of the Stevenson's engineering,
21:23not a single drop of water has ever managed to get through the walls.
21:28I mean, that's not to say that the waves haven't crashed up to the top of the tower there.
21:33After one storm, a live fish was found in a pool of water up at the summit.
21:40It was an easy supper for the keepers that night.
21:44The North Unst lighthouse, as it was known at the time, was the making of David and Thomas Stevenson.
21:53To discover what was behind their genius for innovation, I've come to meet Michael Strachan,
21:59collections manager at the Museum of Scottish Lighthouses at Kinnaird Head in Fraserburgh.
22:06So, Michael, David and Thomas Stevenson were part of this long line of lighthouse engineers.
22:13When did this all start?
22:14It all started with their grandfather, Thomas Smith.
22:18He was able to make parabolic reflectors, which was the cutting edge technology of lighthouse engineering at the time.
22:24So, how did this parabolic reflector improve the lights and the safety around the coast?
22:30Well, essentially, it made the light appear larger.
22:33So, what you have is the flame in the centre.
22:35Yep.
22:36The reservoirs at the back were the whale oil.
22:38And when the flame was lit on the wick there, it would reflect off all these squares of mirrored glass.
22:45There was one big problem, though, that crude whale oil doesn't burn very cleanly.
22:48And that's why we have the additional chimney to try and get rid of as much smoke as possible.
22:54Wow. So, suddenly, I'm imagining, let's say, 17, 20 of these in one space, all burning.
23:02I mean, that must have been quite dirty.
23:03Oh, yes. It was dirty and also smelly.
23:06There was a joke in Fraserburgh that you could see the light for 12 miles and you'll smell the keeper
23:12at six.
23:13Because the whale oil was just so disgusting.
23:16The parabolic light established Thomas Smith as the first northern lighthouse engineer
23:22and opened the door for his family to follow.
23:25First in was his stepson, Robert Stevenson.
23:29I often describe Robert Stevenson as being the father of the lighthouses in Scotland.
23:33Have we got some of his work here?
23:36Yes, we do. We have an example of a Stevenson reflector over here.
23:41How much more effective was this parabolic reflector design than what had come before?
23:48As well as being able to produce a brighter light,
23:51Robert Stevenson was able to make these rotate in a frame.
23:54So that's when you start to see the first flashing lights being introduced to Scotland.
23:58So Alan Stevenson was Robert Stevenson's son.
24:02And what was his involvement?
24:04You have this magnificent lamp here.
24:06This here?
24:07This one here, yeah.
24:08Oh, now we're talking.
24:10I mean, this is quite a step forwards from what we've seen previously.
24:14Well, when you stop using reflector, you have a different type of lamp altogether.
24:18So this would have been a lamp used with a first order lens,
24:22which is the largest size of lens that was available at that time.
24:25Look at the decoration around it.
24:27It's not just function.
24:28There's beautiful form about this item as well.
24:34The Stevensons liked to keep it in the family.
24:37And Alan's successors were his brothers, David and Thomas.
24:42Their northernmost masterpiece was built as a result of war.
24:45And 90 years later, conflict was once again descending on the rock.
25:05The Stevenson brothers' impossible lighthouse has been protecting mariners
25:10in the North Atlantic for over 160 years.
25:14Sending a clear signal to the ships navigating the perilous waters
25:18at the tip of the Shetland Islands.
25:22Every lighthouse has what's called its own particular character.
25:26That's the pattern of light that identifies it to shipping,
25:30so mariners know exactly where they are.
25:33For example, Muckle Flugger light flashes white every 20 seconds.
25:39The keepers at Muckle Flugger not only had to signal to ships out at sea,
25:44they also needed to communicate back to the mainland.
25:48And for that, they used a secret language understood by only a few.
25:54What is semaphore then, Michael? Give me an explanation.
25:59Well, semaphore is a number of signals which are demonstrated by flag movements.
26:04These two square flags are what's used in the internationally recognised system of semaphore.
26:11They signal letters and numbers depending on which position they're held in.
26:16And this was introduced across the board in the early 1900s?
26:20Yes, around about 1905, every lighthouse in Scotland,
26:23every NLB lighthouse, was sent signal flags from Edinburgh.
26:26They basically told they had to be efficient in using these flags to send messages.
26:31And the reason it was every light, everyone had to know it,
26:33because the key were removed around quite frequently.
26:37These were standard flags at all stations, including Muckle Flugger.
26:43The distance to the shore station from Muckle Flugger's lighthouse was a mile.
26:49And before radio, these flags were the only method of communication.
26:53How good's your semaphore, Michael? Are you fluent, would you say?
26:57Well, when we're using this, I'm fairly fluent.
27:01See if I can send you a message using semaphore.
27:03I am going to need this international code semaphore.
27:06No problem. Cheat sheet.
27:09To try them out, I'm about to climb the impressively elegant staircase
27:14to the top of the Kinnaird Head lighthouse,
27:17which was designed by David and Thomas Stevenson's father, Robert, in 1824.
27:27All right, here we go.
27:29There's Michael down there. Give him a wave.
27:31So, our primitive communication works.
27:34Let's see if we can do something just a little bit more complicated using semaphore here.
27:40Let's think of a message. All right.
27:42OK. OK. Ready? Here we go, then.
27:45So, my first one.
27:48That.
27:49All right.
27:53That's an S.
27:54Yeah, he's written that down. OK.
27:56Right hand is down there.
28:01E.
28:03This one's a good one.
28:04I like this one.
28:06That's an easy one.
28:07That's N.
28:09Yeah, so right hand is up high.
28:18Typically, semaphore was used by keepers to check in daily with the shore station
28:23or with the boat that brought supplies and transported keepers on and off the lighthouse.
28:29One person sent the signal, one read the reply using a telescope,
28:34and the last person wrote it down.
28:39OK, now this is my last one.
28:41So, my right hand's down there.
28:43And the left one's up there.
28:47Oh, yeah.
28:51That's a big grin from Michael down there,
28:54because I think he's understood my message loud and clear.
28:57Let's go and have a look.
28:59See how well semaphore worked for me.
29:08How did it get on?
29:10You did very well, yes.
29:11Two words?
29:12Two words.
29:14Message came through loud and clear.
29:15And?
29:16What did you think the message was?
29:17Send cake.
29:18Send cake!
29:20Well, I'm pretty pleased with how that went.
29:23I should be proud.
29:24I mean, is there any cake to have been sent?
29:26I'm afraid it's my cake.
29:28Fair enough.
29:28OK.
29:29Fair enough.
29:30It seems to me that semaphore was all well and good for regular messages.
29:34But what happened if the message was urgent?
29:37Was there a shorthand?
29:39You would have certain signal flags to indicate very important messages.
29:44Probably the best example is if you were on the tenders coming to the lighthouse,
29:49the keepers at the station will have to say if a landing is possible.
29:52Well, because of the conditions?
29:53Because of the conditions, yeah.
29:55So, if there was no landing possible, they have the N flag for that,
29:58which means no landing.
29:59Is that one here?
30:00Yes.
30:01So, this is the N flag.
30:02Right.
30:03So, this is the one you don't want to see if it's your turn to come off.
30:06So, it's a very quick and efficient way of communicating something very specific
30:12and something very important.
30:17As war once more broke out, the British fleet were based off the coast of northern Scotland
30:22at Scapa Flow.
30:23Their main aim, to prevent the German Navy from entering the Atlantic.
30:30The Royal Navy's main base is at Scapa Flow in the Orkneys
30:33and its main job is to blockade Germany by keeping the Germans locked into the North Sea
30:38to stop them accessing the rest of the world
30:40and to stop their warships getting out into the Atlantic.
30:46In 1939, the Navy and the RAF had begun setting up radar stations in Shetland and Orkney,
30:54an early warning system against German activity at sea and in the air.
30:59The first was at Sombra Head Lighthouse in southern Shetland.
31:10What is it that's helpful about installing it here within the grounds of Sombra Head Lighthouse?
31:17We've got the North Atlantic on one side, the North Sea on the other.
31:20The ability to look out to strategically significant stretches of water that could be used by aviation,
31:26that could be used by military shipping.
31:29So what would the lighthouse keepers have thought of this, of suddenly within their grounds, if you like,
31:35it's almost becoming militarised in a way?
31:38There was an awareness that this was for the national good.
31:42In many ways, this was a fait accompli by the military saying,
31:46technology exists, it needs to be installed to be able to look out to the skies and the seas
31:52and to be able to defend Great Britain.
31:55Radar was developed in the 1930s specifically for military use.
32:00The technology was so new, the radar station here was known as the Admiralty Experimental Station
32:06and it's recently been restored to its original wartime state.
32:11Oh, it's this here. This is it.
32:13I mean, this is classic World War II, isn't it? Get it up quickly. It's a concrete block.
32:17Prefabricated.
32:20This is nice.
32:23Yeah, so if this was a transmitter room, what was going on in here
32:26and how did that work with the system generally?
32:29So there was a transmitter building and a receiver building.
32:31The receiver building was also here at Sombra Head?
32:33On the same complex, the transmitter pulsing radio waves into the sky,
32:37looking for aviation, looking for shipping and the receiver building retaining that information.
32:44Radar works as radio waves from the transmitter reflect off objects in its range
32:50and return to the receiver, thereby giving information about an object's location and speed.
32:58So there was a complement of 18 people that were working here, naval staff.
33:03Some were operating the radar, some were telegraphists, some were office staff
33:06and they were based both in the receiver building and in the transmitter building.
33:11The way that they got the radar to work was through an upturned bicycle handle to rotate the dish around.
33:19That's amazing. I love that.
33:20So, I mean, when you do think of radar, you think of those slowly turning, I don't know what you
33:26call it, frames of some sort.
33:28So they're emitting and then receiving those radio waves.
33:32And that turning motion, that rotation was done with this, this little bicycle handle, this crank handle.
33:41Yep, absolutely.
33:42I mean, it is quite simple and quite primitive in a way compared to the leaps forward in radio technology
33:49that was being used.
33:50But I guess there's a war on and you do whatever you can.
33:53Get it up as quickly as possible. If it works, it works.
33:57Do we know how effective the station here was in terms of the war?
34:02One particular night in early April 1940, the 8th of April 1940,
34:07this radar station here at Sumbra Head was able to pick up and establish that it was a very big
34:14German air raid heading towards Scapa Flow in Orkney,
34:18where the British home fleet were at anchor.
34:21The radar station were able to get word to Orkney a huge barrage was put up to repel over 50
34:28German bombers.
34:29That kind of damage, that kind of attack being successful,
34:32it could have possibly affected the outcome of the war.
34:34Effectively, the North Sea could have become a playground for the German Navy,
34:38which would have raised the significant prospect of invasion from the north.
34:44Sub-Lieutenant Clifford Evans was in charge of the radar station that night.
34:49He said when he stepped outside, he could see this barrage illuminating the clouds as the German air raid was
34:55repelled.
34:56And he said he stood outside and he heard the loudest continuous sound that was ever made in the British
35:02Isles.
35:02And he told his crew on that very night, on the 8th of April, that if his team did nothing
35:07else during the course of the Second World War,
35:09they had already justified their entire existence.
35:12What you've described there, Chris, it reinforces again to me the strategic significance that the Shetland Isles have.
35:21From Sombra Head to Muckle Flugger, where a radio beacon was commandeered to transmit coded military messages,
35:29the lighthouses on the Scottish islands were vital to the nation's defence.
35:35But it was the decades after the war that saw the biggest change for Muckle Flugger.
35:55Shetland's lighthouses came of age during World War II.
35:59And the mighty tower David and Thomas Stevenson built, dubbed the impossible lighthouse,
36:05had proven its worth across two major conflicts.
36:08In 1964, the North Unst lighthouse was rechristened.
36:13After a hundred years, clinging on to the very tip of the Shetlands,
36:19Britain's most northerly beacon was renamed after the rock upon which it sits, Muckle Flugger.
36:28But the biggest change to life on the Flugger, as it was known by its keepers,
36:33came in 1995, when the lighthouse was automated.
36:37Its lights are now controlled remotely by the Northern Lighthouse Board in Edinburgh.
36:44But the first lighthouse was automated well before the age of computers.
36:48To find out how, I've come to explore a treasure trove of lighthouse history.
36:57All right, so welcome to our stores.
36:59The stores?
37:00Yep.
37:02Oh, I tell you what.
37:04Michael, there's all sorts in it.
37:05What is all of this? What kind of stuff have you got in here?
37:08Well, this is mainly our industrial collection, so we go from lighthouse lenses to lamps,
37:14notices, even down to Singer sewer machines.
37:17And that's come out of a lighthouse somewhere, hasn't it?
37:19It has, yes.
37:20They have to be very resourceful and mend their own things.
37:23Do you mind if I have a little poke about?
37:24Well, feel free to have a wonder, yeah.
37:26Oh, this is awesome.
37:30Oh, mate, there's some fantastic mechanical systems in here.
37:35There's all these lenses.
37:40This one's from Muckle Flugger.
37:44I'm here to see the piece of machinery that was so important in enabling lighthouse automation.
37:50So this is what we call the sun valve.
37:52It was invented by Gustav Dallin in 1907,
37:56and essentially this would undertake one of the key tasks of any light keeper,
38:00and that would be to extinguish the light and light the light in the evenings.
38:06Hang on, this is a valve that detects that there's light in the daytime
38:11and shuts off the lamp, and then does the opposite.
38:16Detects that it's got darker at night and ignites the lamp.
38:19Yes, the way it does that is by detecting heat from the sun.
38:23So you'll see there's a big black rod in the centre of it.
38:26Yep.
38:26The idea is that when the sun comes up, it will attract the heat from the sun and expand.
38:32And when it expands, it will suppress the gas supply to the light and turn it off.
38:39This technological breakthrough was so significant,
38:42it won Gustav Dallin the Nobel Prize for physics.
38:46This is a huge leap forward in lighthouse technology, isn't it?
38:50I mean, this is one of the first steps towards where we are with lighthouses today,
38:54in that they're fully automated.
38:55Yes, I mean, this can do one of the jobs a light keeper does,
38:58and that's to turn on the light when it's dark and turn it off when it's not.
39:00So it was a big step.
39:04Automation in 1995 saw the departure of the last keepers on Muckleflugger,
39:10and it now has a helipad to enable periodic maintenance visits.
39:18But in the 1970s, boatman Jonathan Wills was a crucial link to the mainland.
39:24And I'm meeting him at Bressey.
39:26Completed in 1858, it's yet another of the Stevenson brothers' Shetland Island lighthouses.
39:33Jonathan, what were your main responsibilities as boatman to Muckleflugger?
39:38My job was really very simple. I had to get the keepers out to the lighthouse
39:42from the shore station three and a half miles away,
39:45and I had to get them back again, safely. That was the tricky bit.
39:48The tides are quite often very bad.
39:51Even on a fine day, if there's a swell running and the tide's against it,
39:54you'll get a life-threatening sea there, a breaking sea.
39:58Do you remember, on any particular journeys,
40:00that the conditions being terribly bad?
40:03I do remember one very bad trip where it looked okay, and we tied up.
40:08And everything was going fine, and then I looked at the bowman's face,
40:12because he was looking behind me, and he could see the wave that I couldn't.
40:16And I turned round to see the wave, and it was breaking right across the cove.
40:20And all he could do was hold on. I thought we were done for.
40:23But it just swept over us. We all got very wet.
40:26And we got the hell out immediately.
40:29It was very hairy at times.
40:33Ian Duff, a keeper on Muckleflugger in the 70s,
40:37remembers the disappointment at getting stuck on the rock in bad weather.
40:41You could be frustrated, because you would strip your bunk ready to go home,
40:46and then you'd go down the tower, and then the sea would be too bad,
40:51so the boat wouldn't have come out.
40:52So you'd then hump your kit bag back up to your bedroom,
40:55make your bed up again, and then repeat the procedure the next day,
40:59if it didn't have come.
41:00I think a lot of people thought they wouldn't like it there,
41:04because it's the most northerly point of the British Isles.
41:07But speaking to most of the keepers that had been there,
41:11after they got there, they thoroughly enjoyed it.
41:14I mean, I did. I thought it was great.
41:16And regular deliveries from the boatmen
41:19were a crucial part of keeping morale high.
41:22What items were you dispatching out to the lighthouse?
41:26All their food for the next month.
41:30Their hobbies, boxes of books from the Shetland Library used to go out.
41:34And all the fresh water had to go in special trips we made for fresh water.
41:38All the diesel for the generators, we had to take that out in barrels.
41:42Quite a lot of equipment.
41:43A lot of cargo handling.
41:44And all of those items, they'd be what hoisted from the boat in large boxes on that?
41:50All hoisted up. We were the only means of transport.
41:54And in your years, working the boat to Muckleflugger,
41:57everything went successfully.
41:59A Christmas box was going up the wire after we'd left, actually.
42:03A gust of wind hit it and the contents emptied on the ground,
42:07into the sea.
42:09So, including a tin of beer,
42:11which on New Year's Eve turned out to contain salt water.
42:14A little awkward.
42:15They're not supposed to have beer on lights, you see.
42:16Right, yes, yes.
42:18But come on, for Christmas.
42:19There must have been times when you were out there,
42:21but it wasn't necessarily the most favourable conditions for doing what you needed to do.
42:26There were some bad days.
42:27There were marginal days when the keeper thought, sitting on the rock, on the radio call,
42:31he'd say, we might be able to do it when the tide turns.
42:35And so you'd go and try. And you wanted to please them.
42:38But against that, you had to balance your safety and the safety of the other keepers.
42:42That was a matter of judgement.
42:45And usually, well, I'm still here, so I got it right.
42:48But only just sometimes.
42:50Do you think you were ever aware at the time of the importance of the role that you had,
42:56not just to the lighthouse keepers, but to mariners out at sea who needed that light
43:02to be able to sail safely around those treacherous waters north of the Shepherds?
43:07It was never stated, but it was very clear to everybody why we were there.
43:10Really?
43:10I loved it. It's one of the best things that ever happened to me.
43:20This lighthouse, born as a necessity of war,
43:23was forged through battle with Mother Nature
43:26and stands as a monument to the prodigious skill and ingenuity
43:31of engineers David and Thomas Stevenson.
43:36The fact that it was impossible,
43:38one can only admire their A, their genius, and B, their bravery.
43:44Muckleplugger is awe-inspiring because it really is
43:48a lighthouse on what looks like a small version of the Matterhorn.
43:53It's on the pointiest piece of rock you've ever seen.
43:58There's something incredibly powerful about it.
44:01It's like a sort of full stop at the end of Britain.
44:05150 years on, the impossible lighthouse is still shining.
44:11A beacon of hope at the most northerly tip of the United Kingdom.
44:27Next time, a trailblazing beacon.
44:31We can see it further.
44:33What's preventing it is the curvature of the Earth.
44:36Dogged by disaster.
44:37More than 700 people died in that storm.
44:39Wow.
44:40It wouldn't surprise me if it was considered cursed or something.
44:44And caught in the crossfire of civil war.
44:47They blow up the lighthouse in an act of just pure spite.
44:50America's first lighthouse.
44:52Boston Light.
44:56Witness the challenges of crew life on board a warship at a time when the Royal Navy are busier than
45:02ever.
45:02Brand new Wednesday at 8.
45:04Coming up, it's the source of life on Earth, but how much do we really know about it?
45:09Secrets of the Sun with Dara O'Brien reveals all.
45:12...next.
45:13l
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