Great British Railway Journeys (2010–…): Season 4, Episode 14 - Inverness to Plockton - full transcript
In 1840, one man transformed travel
in the British Isles.
His name was George Bradshaw,
and his railway guides inspired
the Victorians to take to the tracks.
Stop by Stop
he told them where to travel,
what to see and where to stay.
Now, 170 years later,
I'm making a series of journeys across
the length and breadth of these isles
to see what of Bradshaws Britain
remains.
I'm continuing my journey
through the Scottish Highlands.
This morning, I boarded
the overnight sleeper train from London
on its last leg to Inverness.
Today, I'm looking forward
to vistas of land and sea
and to discovering how tracks
laid in Victorian days
helped to inspire authors
and even a cultural revival.
On today's leg,
/ride a picturesque railway...
I have no words.
I'm out of superlatives.
Visit Scotland's smallest station...
Nearly everyone has joined the queue
to get off at the single door
that opens at the incredibly short
platform at Beauly.
And I go on a spa break,
Victorian style.
After you've been hosed down
with warm salty water,
your doctor will probably have
prescribed you
a glass of sulphurous water.
- And would I be cured?
- You might well be.
Using my 1880s "Bradshaw's",
this trip started in Stirling,
passed through Perthshire, moved on
to the granite city of Aberdeen
and is now taking me west to Banffshire,
thence to the classic lochs
of the Highlands,
to finish at John o'Groats.
On today's leg, I'm taking
a detour west, along a Highland railway.
From Inverness, I'll head first
to Beauly, then Dingwall,
and finally cross-country
to the coastal town of Plockton.
My Bradshaw's tells me
that Inverness lies, as it were,
"at the back of Scotland, in a part
formerly little visited or accessible."
"Invernesians speak purer English
than any other Scotch people."
I'm wondering whether it was
the previous remoteness of the city
that led its inhabitants to speak such
refined version of the English tongue.
Dubbed the capital of the Highlands,
over the centuries,
Invernesians have spoken
at least three languages.
First inhabited by the Picts,
whose ancient language has disappeared,
the area was then occupied
by Gaelic-speaking Irish settlers,
but subsequent invasions pushed Gaelic
to the brink of extinction
and English to the fore.
I wonder whether the townsfolk rejoice
that “Bradshaws” dubs them
"speakers of the purest English",
or whether they feel prouder
of their Gaelic heritage.
Hello. I'm just wondering,
are you from Inverness?
Not originally.
Not me, but my parents are.
(Michael) Did you ever hear it said,
as my guidebook says,
that the purest English
is spoken in Inverness?
I never understood
why people would say that.
There's a very distinct accent here.
- Any of your family speak Gaelic?
- Erm... very few, actually.
- Hello.
- Hi, there.
(Michael) Do you hear people
speaking Gaelic in the town?
(woman) Not usually, no.
Do you think it's a pity
if Gaelic is not much spoken today?
Yeah, yeah...
I think it should be taught more
in schools and stuff like that.
I think it would be nice to,
you know, keep it going.
So, it's only as you get older
you start to appreciate, you know,
what it means to keep your traditional
languages and stuff like that.
In the 17th and 18th centuries,
Scotland's Privy Council
called for the abolition of Gaelic
and wearing tartan was criminaiised.
But in the 19th century, Queen
Victoria's love affair with Scotland
made all things Highland fashionable...
(man speaks Gaelic)
Ever since, there's been a gradual
thawing of antipathy toward Gaelic.
And here at the BBC,
the language is nurtured.
This is BBC nan Gaidheal,
a Gaelic-language radio station,
and Donald Morrison is just finishing
his morning show.
- And you're off air.
- An hour and a half, that's it.
So, how long have you had
the Gaelic-language radio station'?
It started off very small, to be honest.
When Gaelic first came to Inverness,
there was the Gaelic minute.
They had a minute a day.
Now, from Inverness, we broadcast
this hour-and-a-half news programme
in the morning.
That's in combination with all
the other output of Radio nan Gaidheal,
which is a Scotland-wide radio station.
Why do you think the broadcasts
in Gaelic are so valued?
Well, because it's... it's...
I think an academic once,
a few years ago, described Gaelic radio,
Radio nan Gaidheal as the cement that
binds the Gaelic communities together.
Bear in mind the Gaelic communities
are spread from the Western isles
to mainland Highland,
an enclave here in Inverness, Glasgow,
throughout Scotland.
I think the radio is the thing
that brings them all into the one
son of community pot, if you like.
It's also in their own language,
of course.
Have you any idea whether the number
of Gaelic speakers in Scotland
is going up at the moment?
It's stabilised at the moment.
When the figures for the new census
come out, we'll have a better idea.
It's a pretty worrying situation.
You know, for years,
Gaelic has been declining.
The policy at the moment for the
language developers is to stabilise it
and then to grow, but, you know,
here in Inverness,
a minority language like that is in a
pretty precarious state, unfortunately.
Since 1871,
the Gaelic Society of Invemess
has also been trying to rejuvenate
the language.
Allan Campbell is a former chairman.
- Which language did you learn first?
- Gaelic was my first language.
I went to school at the age of five
in the west of Skye, without...
Maybe I had one or two words of English,
but I'm still learning English, Michael.
- When did you start to learn English?
- Oh, the day I went to school.
Although my primary school teacher
was a native Gaelic speaker,
we were forbidden to speak Gaelic
in school.
(Michael) And, so, here, in an area
that was formerly very remote,
Gaelic, at one time, predominated?
(Allan) Oh, yes.
Gaelic was, at one time,
the language
of a large proportion of Scotland.
What happened to Gaelic
before the 19th century?
Quite a lot. Many people will say today
it's astonishing that Gaelic survives,
because it has been the subject
of persecution
and legal suppression for centuries.
The Gaelic Society has seen
two relatively recent successes.
Several schools now teach in Gaelic,
and the society's lobbying led to the
Gaelic Language (Scotland) Act of 2005,
which recognises Gaelic as equal
to English as a Scottish language.
Why does it matter?
Well, I think it matters
because Gaelic is pan of this country.
Gaelic belongs to Scotland.
As you make the journey
through Scotland, Michael,
and you see all these mountains,
rivers and railway stations,
many of them will have names
whose origin is Gaelic,
and you might actually learn a bit
of the language as you go along the way.
I hope you do, and enjoy it.
Would you, for the moment, send me
on my way with a farewell in Gaelic?
Well, indeed...
(speaks Gaelic)
That's very, very kind of you.
Thank you so much, Allan. Bye-bye.
We been a struggle to keep Gaelic
cherished as a living language.
As I leave Inverness,
I turn my attention to another thing
for which the community
has had to fight.
My next stop is Beauly,
which Bradshaw's tells me
is a place of importance
on account of its cattle fairs
and belonging to Lord Lovat.
Lord Lovat was deputy chairman
of the Highland Railway Company
and had a private waiting room
at Beauly Station,
but, even so, train services
ceased there in 1960.
But I'm alighting there today,
so clearly,
that wasn't the end of the story.
And We heard that to keep down
the cost of rebuilding the station,
its platform is minute.
- Are you getting off at Beauly?
- (woman) Yes.
- And it's a good service?
- Yes.
(Michael) I'm told there's only one door
we can get off at.
- Yes, that's right.
- Which one's that?
That one there.
So, do you have to form yourselves
into a queue to get off the train?
(woman)
Yes. You'll see that in a moment.
(Michael) Oh, will I? I can't wait!
You'll be caught in the rush.
(Michael)
This is the most extraordinary sight.
Nearly everyone in this carriage
has joined the queue to get off
at the single door that opens at the
incredibly short platform at Beauly.
Beauly Station closed in 1960,
but a campaign led by Frank Roach
succeeded and it reopened in 2002.
Hello, Frank.
Hello, Michael. Welcome to Beauly,
the shortest railway platform
in Britain.
It's wonderful to see such a small place
that has railway services still
and you had something
to do with that, didn't you?
That's right. The station actually
closed in 1960, pre-Beeching,
and gradually, over the years,
congestion has increased.
There is a bridge into Inverness
that gets a lot of congestion
in the morning peak.
So, I decided it would be interesting
to try and reopen the station,
so I put the funding package together
and persuaded various parties
that a short platform would be
an obvious solution.
Well, Frank, I think while I'm here,
I need to measure this phenomenon.
Perhaps you'll join me...
as we pace it out?
One, two, three, four, five,
six, seven, eight, nine, ten,
11,12,13,14,15,16,17...
18 on the Portillo scale
equals 15 metres.
Frank, any prospect of
opening other mini stations on the line?
Yes. We've got pretty advanced plans
to re-open Conon Bridge,
six miles up the track.
Again, a mini platform
looks to be on the cards
and predictions suggest 40,000 people
could use it every year
and this from a village
of under 3,000 people.
Just itching to get back on the tracks.
Absolutely. They've seen the success
at Beauly and want to be pan of it.
Sadly, the town for which I'm bound how
hasn't succeeded
in reopening its station,
so I shall use a car
from the next stop, Dingwall.
My next destination
is the village of Strathpeffer,
where, my Bradshaw's tells me,
"the large Ben Wyvis Hotel,
156ft long,
has been built
over an excellent sulphur spa."
Taking the waters and bathing
enjoyed a vogue in Victorian times,
and I'm anxious to know
how the little Strathpeffer
joined the elite of British spa towns.
Originally no more than a few farms,
Strathpeffer grew when sulphurous
springs were discovered in the 1770s.
The first pump room was built in 1819,
but Strathpeffer truly flourished from
1885, once it had a railway station.
Grand hotels and substantial Victorian
villas were built to accommodate
the steady stream of visitors
who came to take the waters.
Local businessman Steve MacDonald
takes Strathpeffer's history seriously.
- Steve, hello. What a splendid machine!
- Pleased to meet you.
I'm wondering whether George Bradshaw
might have ridden on one of these.
He died in 1853. Were these popular
in the mid-1800s?
They were, yes. They were
very popular then. That was the heyday.
Let's park that fellow up somewhere,
shall we?
Now, after the glorious opening
of Strathpeffer railway station in 1885,
presumably people were really pouring
in to take the waters?
(Steve)
Trains came directly from London.
Patients of Harley Street doctors
came to houses that had been built
especially for patients to the area.
People promenaded around the village
and went to tea dances, took the waters,
went for healthy walks. Mid-to late
19th century, it was the place to be.
I'm a Victorian gentleman
with a skin complaint.
I'm coming to Strathpeffer for
my health. What routine can I expect?
Well, when you get up
in the morning, your doctor
will probably have prescribed you
a glass of sulphurous water,
which you'd drink,
probably sip, during the day.
After you'd recovered from that,
you might well have a bath in peat
mixed with sulphurous water.
You would probably lie in that
for an hour.
It might be followed by a massage,
after you've been hosed down
with warm salty water.
Then you might well go for a brisk walk
on one of the paths
that have been laid around here.
In the afternoon,
you may well go to a tea dance,
and have dinner in the evening
at the regular time,
and then repeat every day
until you're cured.
- And would I be cured?
- You might well be.
- (both laugh)
- I wouldn't like to say.
The Ben Wyvis Hotel,
as advertised in my Bradshaw's.
I believe that the peat baths
have now given way to hot baths
and I shall reject a sulphurous drink,
because I believe that the Highlands
have a better tipple to offer.
Rested, refreshed and refuelled,
I'm excited about the day ahead,
which will take me along
one of the most remote lines in Britain.
In the quiet of this isolated station,
I could hear the train maybe a mile away
clattering its way through the glens,
and now here it is,
approaching the platform.
I'm now travelling on what my Bradshaw's
calls the Dingwall and Skye Rail,
"a line 53 miles long that runs
westwards through fine mountain scenery
near Ben Wyvis and Rogie Falls."
In the years just before
my guide was published,
this area had been opened
for the first time to train passengers
and judging by the large numbers
on board today, I say, "Rejoice!"
This rural and remote railway
is resurgent.
First train of the day
and it's heaving with people.
Is it often like this?
(man) It started to get very popular
with bus parties,
so we get bus parties joining the train
at Inverness, the bus moves up to Kyle,
and they get picked up there,
and it's part of their package.
The last four or five years,
it's proved very popular,
which is great for the line.
(Michael) Let's hope more people
find out about the wonders of this line.
(man) Definitely.
(Michael) May I ask,
do you travel on the line very much?
Yes, quite often. Every second day
in the summer, anyway.
(Michael) Why is that?
I study in Skye, doing Gaelic,
so I get the train to Kyle,
and then get a bus to Sabhal Mòr Ostaig,
the university there.
(Michael) Do you feel lucky
to have such a beautiful commute?
(girl) Yes, it's very nice.
(Michael) Do you still watch
the beautiful countryside go by
or have you become blasé
about it?
No, no, no! I always watch it.
It's lovely, especially on a nice day.
The Highlands have been associated
with Romanticism
ever since
the Victorians began to explore them.
In 1880, Scottish author
Robert Louis Stevenson
may have alighted here at Garve
because, during a holiday with his wife,
Fanny, he stayed in Strathpeffer.
He visited my next destination,
Rogie Falls, on the Blackwater River,
where I'm meeting
professor of literature, Linda Dryden.
Magnificent!
- It's the most glorious sight.
- Isn't it?
(Michael) Enough to inspire
any Romantic writer, don't you think?
Indeed. In fact, Robert Louis Stevenson
actually came here
and wrote a letter to his literary
agent, literary friend,
Sidney Colvin, about this very place.
He says to Colvin,
"I've lain down and died."
"No country, no place, was ever
for a moment so delightful to my soul."
"Give me the cool breath of Rogie
Waterfall henceforth and forever,
world without end."
And he signs off saying, lets us know
what a good time he's having,
"May you have as good a time
as possible, so far from Rogie..."
In other words,
"I'm having the best time in the world."
Most interesting. Do we think
that his visit to Robie Falls
had an enduring impact on him?
It's very difficult to say,
but when he was writing Kidnapped,
he set a lot of that in the Highlands.
This passage here, to me, looks exactly
like what we're looking at up there.
"And with that, he ran harder than ever
down to the waterside
in a pan where the river
was split in two among three rocks."
- One, two... Can we see three rocks?
- Yes, hm-hmm.
"It went through with a horrid
thundering that made my belly quake,
and there hung over the Lynn
a little mist of spray."
"Alan looked neither to the right
nor to the left,
but jumped clean upon the middle rock,
and fell there on his hands
and knees to check himself."
It looks it, doesn't it'? You can just
imagine looking at that waterfall there.
Is Robert Louis Stevenson regarded
as a great hero of Scottish writing?
It's with the publication
of Treasure Island
that we get a great success
for Stevenson.
He becomes famous not just in the UK,
but in the States,
particularly after Jekyll and Hyde.
(Michael) This is the problem
with Robert Louis Stevenson.
We read Treasure Island, Kidnapped,
Jekyll and Hyde when we're children,
probably never go back to those books
or to Stevenson.
Absolutely. If you mention Robert
Louis Stevenson, what comes to mind?
Treasure Island, Jekyll and Hyde
or Kidnapped. Yes.
With my mind full of swashbuckling feats
of derring-do, I'm back to Dingwall
and onward through this rugged terrain
to the west coast
and my next destination, Plockton.
I'm fulfilling a long-held ambition,
to ride the Kyle of Lochalsh line.
Two hours of train travel with hardly
a human habitation glimpsed.
Radiant greens, imposing terrain.
The line has been described
as a symphony in three movements.
First, pastoral, then mountainous
and, finally, marine,
as the line, at last, reaches the sea
and the symphony reaches
its glorious climax.
Oh! Every curve
brings a more spectacular vista.
This line is wonderful.
I have no words.
I'm out of superlatives.
My Bradshaw's says, "Several fine lochs
penetrate the Atlantic coast,
such as Loch Broom, Loch Ewe,
Gairloch, Loch Torridon,
and Loch Carron, where the Dingwall
and Stromeferry rail terminates."
But it doesn't terminate there
any longer
and I want to know why this railway line
to distant hamlets
was pushed yet further away
from any centre of population.
The Dingwall and Skye Railway is
one of the most picturesque of routes,
but Victorian rail companies had to be
more businesslike than romantic.
I want to know about the economics
behind this vast
and expensive engineering project.
I'm hopeful that local historian,
Pat Myhill, will enlighten me.
I'm wondering why a line like this
to such remote places
was built in the first place, Pat.
The Victorians were great improvers,
great entrepreneurs,
and, so, they saw what a lot of people
would regard as a wilderness
as an untapped resource,
particularly the fisheries,
which were considered
to be inexhaustible at the time.
But I think, really,
what it comes down to
is a group of very, very large
landowners saw the benefits to them
of bringing improved communications in.
There was a measure of altruism,
certainly,
but there was also a great deal
of self-interest in it for them.
How much difference would it make
to the fisheries first in Stromeferry
and then in Kyle having a railway line?
Massive, because the price of fish
depends on the speed with which
you can get it to the market.
The best markets, like Billingsgate,
wanted very fresh fish,
so the price wasn't as good if you
couldn't get them to market so quickly.
Therefore,
if you could get a railway line in,
and you could get the fish down
to London in little over 12 hours,
you're going to get
a much, much better price for them.
And, of course, that helped to develop
the fisheries industry itself.
I rode along the line today
and it was a lovely gentle ride.
Give me an idea of what it would have
been like in its early days
at the end of the 19th century.
Uncomfortable,
especially on a day like this.
The original carriages
were six-wheelers,
that's a rigid wheel base, and this
is a twisty, tortuous switchback line,
lots of sharp bends
and lots of ups and downs,
so they gave you a bumpy ride.
They were wooden, no toilets,
no heating.
I really enjoyed my journey today.
How would you sell it
to a prospective tourist?
Oh, as the greatest scenic, coastal
railway journey in the country,
quite probably in the world.
That's pretty good, isn't it?
In Bradshaws day,
the catch around Plockton
consisted mainly of white fish and crab,
but now the waters of Loch Carron
are fished for prawn.
Bob Rowe has agreed
to show me how ifs done.
- Hello, Bob.
- Hi, how are you doing?
- How are you?
- Not bad.
(Michael) Where are your markets
for prawns?
(Bob) We land to a company
based in Dingwall
and they're trying to develop
a market in Britain,
so a lot of their stuff goes to hotels,
restaurants in the British isles.
(Michael) Fresh?
(Bob) Yes, fresh.
Well, alive. They send them live.
When they're landed,
they go into this tank,
which is spraying fresh water on them
to keep them alive.
Nowadays, I guess you're not sending
the catch by train.
No, they don't go by train now.
Most of them go by road.
I think that's more... Well, it's...
Because the bulk of it, you know,
it's so bulky, and also timetabling.
I hadn't thought of that. In the days
of the train, you had to fish to the...
- Fish to the timetable, yeah.
- To the timetable.
(Bob) So if the train was timetabled
for five o'clock,
then the fishermen would have to have
their catch ashore and packaged up,
ready to go on the train
for five o'clock.
So, nowadays because it goes by road,
they're not under that same pressure.
These days, fishing boats are under
pressure to maximise their catch,
so they'd do well to leave me ashore.
I'm baiting the creel in order
that it can go back into the water,
ready for the next lot of prawns.
I have to put this bit of herring
in the middle here
and it just needs to be secured
in that position
by sliding down that knot.
Now, the creels, with their bait,
are going back overboard again
to try and catch more prawn,
and while Bob chucks them over the side,
the rope is running along the deck
and I'm standing clear,
because I don't want to go over
with the creels.
Being a fisherman is still a pretty
tough lot, isn't it?
(Bob) Yeah, well, it's still the most
dangerous job in the world, I think.
Well, you certainly have my respect.
(Bob) Well, you did pretty good
for a beginner, I think.
I'll be thinking about you the next time
I'm on a warm train journey.
(Bob) I'm sure you will!
I'm sure I'll never make a trawlerman.
I think my skills lie
at the consuming end of the food chain.
Since I'm in sight of the sea,
I thought this would be a good time
to taste the catch of the sea.
It must be really fresh.
- Oh, thank you!
- (waitress) Your fish platter.
That looks wonderful.
So, what have I got there?
Some langoustines and squat lobsters
from a local Plockton creel boat.
The crabs and the mussels are from Skye
and they're hand-dived scallops
from Lochalsh, near Kyle.
- (Michael) Wonderful! Thank you.
- Enjoy your meal.
Mmm, start with the scallops.
Glorious. Glorious!
Today, I have enjoyed a feast
of Scotland's natural beauty
on tracks laid by 19th-century
railway builders.
The trains were the means by which
fishermen in the remotest places
could supply their catches, still fresh,
to distant cities.
Now, the line is thronged with tourists
who, like Queen Victoria herself,
are attracted by the majesty
of the Highlands.
On the next stretch of my journey,
I'll learn now one man's vision
helped to bring train travel
to the Highlands...
He really saw the social value
of railways
and in opening up the county
of Sutherland.
.. Discover how farming's
changed since Bradshaw's day...
We have about a ton
in the grain tank there.
That would hopefully produce
about 400 litres of neat whisky.
WOW!
And re-live the drama
of Scotland's Victorian gold rush.
Gold! We've found gold!
in the British Isles.
His name was George Bradshaw,
and his railway guides inspired
the Victorians to take to the tracks.
Stop by Stop
he told them where to travel,
what to see and where to stay.
Now, 170 years later,
I'm making a series of journeys across
the length and breadth of these isles
to see what of Bradshaws Britain
remains.
I'm continuing my journey
through the Scottish Highlands.
This morning, I boarded
the overnight sleeper train from London
on its last leg to Inverness.
Today, I'm looking forward
to vistas of land and sea
and to discovering how tracks
laid in Victorian days
helped to inspire authors
and even a cultural revival.
On today's leg,
/ride a picturesque railway...
I have no words.
I'm out of superlatives.
Visit Scotland's smallest station...
Nearly everyone has joined the queue
to get off at the single door
that opens at the incredibly short
platform at Beauly.
And I go on a spa break,
Victorian style.
After you've been hosed down
with warm salty water,
your doctor will probably have
prescribed you
a glass of sulphurous water.
- And would I be cured?
- You might well be.
Using my 1880s "Bradshaw's",
this trip started in Stirling,
passed through Perthshire, moved on
to the granite city of Aberdeen
and is now taking me west to Banffshire,
thence to the classic lochs
of the Highlands,
to finish at John o'Groats.
On today's leg, I'm taking
a detour west, along a Highland railway.
From Inverness, I'll head first
to Beauly, then Dingwall,
and finally cross-country
to the coastal town of Plockton.
My Bradshaw's tells me
that Inverness lies, as it were,
"at the back of Scotland, in a part
formerly little visited or accessible."
"Invernesians speak purer English
than any other Scotch people."
I'm wondering whether it was
the previous remoteness of the city
that led its inhabitants to speak such
refined version of the English tongue.
Dubbed the capital of the Highlands,
over the centuries,
Invernesians have spoken
at least three languages.
First inhabited by the Picts,
whose ancient language has disappeared,
the area was then occupied
by Gaelic-speaking Irish settlers,
but subsequent invasions pushed Gaelic
to the brink of extinction
and English to the fore.
I wonder whether the townsfolk rejoice
that “Bradshaws” dubs them
"speakers of the purest English",
or whether they feel prouder
of their Gaelic heritage.
Hello. I'm just wondering,
are you from Inverness?
Not originally.
Not me, but my parents are.
(Michael) Did you ever hear it said,
as my guidebook says,
that the purest English
is spoken in Inverness?
I never understood
why people would say that.
There's a very distinct accent here.
- Any of your family speak Gaelic?
- Erm... very few, actually.
- Hello.
- Hi, there.
(Michael) Do you hear people
speaking Gaelic in the town?
(woman) Not usually, no.
Do you think it's a pity
if Gaelic is not much spoken today?
Yeah, yeah...
I think it should be taught more
in schools and stuff like that.
I think it would be nice to,
you know, keep it going.
So, it's only as you get older
you start to appreciate, you know,
what it means to keep your traditional
languages and stuff like that.
In the 17th and 18th centuries,
Scotland's Privy Council
called for the abolition of Gaelic
and wearing tartan was criminaiised.
But in the 19th century, Queen
Victoria's love affair with Scotland
made all things Highland fashionable...
(man speaks Gaelic)
Ever since, there's been a gradual
thawing of antipathy toward Gaelic.
And here at the BBC,
the language is nurtured.
This is BBC nan Gaidheal,
a Gaelic-language radio station,
and Donald Morrison is just finishing
his morning show.
- And you're off air.
- An hour and a half, that's it.
So, how long have you had
the Gaelic-language radio station'?
It started off very small, to be honest.
When Gaelic first came to Inverness,
there was the Gaelic minute.
They had a minute a day.
Now, from Inverness, we broadcast
this hour-and-a-half news programme
in the morning.
That's in combination with all
the other output of Radio nan Gaidheal,
which is a Scotland-wide radio station.
Why do you think the broadcasts
in Gaelic are so valued?
Well, because it's... it's...
I think an academic once,
a few years ago, described Gaelic radio,
Radio nan Gaidheal as the cement that
binds the Gaelic communities together.
Bear in mind the Gaelic communities
are spread from the Western isles
to mainland Highland,
an enclave here in Inverness, Glasgow,
throughout Scotland.
I think the radio is the thing
that brings them all into the one
son of community pot, if you like.
It's also in their own language,
of course.
Have you any idea whether the number
of Gaelic speakers in Scotland
is going up at the moment?
It's stabilised at the moment.
When the figures for the new census
come out, we'll have a better idea.
It's a pretty worrying situation.
You know, for years,
Gaelic has been declining.
The policy at the moment for the
language developers is to stabilise it
and then to grow, but, you know,
here in Inverness,
a minority language like that is in a
pretty precarious state, unfortunately.
Since 1871,
the Gaelic Society of Invemess
has also been trying to rejuvenate
the language.
Allan Campbell is a former chairman.
- Which language did you learn first?
- Gaelic was my first language.
I went to school at the age of five
in the west of Skye, without...
Maybe I had one or two words of English,
but I'm still learning English, Michael.
- When did you start to learn English?
- Oh, the day I went to school.
Although my primary school teacher
was a native Gaelic speaker,
we were forbidden to speak Gaelic
in school.
(Michael) And, so, here, in an area
that was formerly very remote,
Gaelic, at one time, predominated?
(Allan) Oh, yes.
Gaelic was, at one time,
the language
of a large proportion of Scotland.
What happened to Gaelic
before the 19th century?
Quite a lot. Many people will say today
it's astonishing that Gaelic survives,
because it has been the subject
of persecution
and legal suppression for centuries.
The Gaelic Society has seen
two relatively recent successes.
Several schools now teach in Gaelic,
and the society's lobbying led to the
Gaelic Language (Scotland) Act of 2005,
which recognises Gaelic as equal
to English as a Scottish language.
Why does it matter?
Well, I think it matters
because Gaelic is pan of this country.
Gaelic belongs to Scotland.
As you make the journey
through Scotland, Michael,
and you see all these mountains,
rivers and railway stations,
many of them will have names
whose origin is Gaelic,
and you might actually learn a bit
of the language as you go along the way.
I hope you do, and enjoy it.
Would you, for the moment, send me
on my way with a farewell in Gaelic?
Well, indeed...
(speaks Gaelic)
That's very, very kind of you.
Thank you so much, Allan. Bye-bye.
We been a struggle to keep Gaelic
cherished as a living language.
As I leave Inverness,
I turn my attention to another thing
for which the community
has had to fight.
My next stop is Beauly,
which Bradshaw's tells me
is a place of importance
on account of its cattle fairs
and belonging to Lord Lovat.
Lord Lovat was deputy chairman
of the Highland Railway Company
and had a private waiting room
at Beauly Station,
but, even so, train services
ceased there in 1960.
But I'm alighting there today,
so clearly,
that wasn't the end of the story.
And We heard that to keep down
the cost of rebuilding the station,
its platform is minute.
- Are you getting off at Beauly?
- (woman) Yes.
- And it's a good service?
- Yes.
(Michael) I'm told there's only one door
we can get off at.
- Yes, that's right.
- Which one's that?
That one there.
So, do you have to form yourselves
into a queue to get off the train?
(woman)
Yes. You'll see that in a moment.
(Michael) Oh, will I? I can't wait!
You'll be caught in the rush.
(Michael)
This is the most extraordinary sight.
Nearly everyone in this carriage
has joined the queue to get off
at the single door that opens at the
incredibly short platform at Beauly.
Beauly Station closed in 1960,
but a campaign led by Frank Roach
succeeded and it reopened in 2002.
Hello, Frank.
Hello, Michael. Welcome to Beauly,
the shortest railway platform
in Britain.
It's wonderful to see such a small place
that has railway services still
and you had something
to do with that, didn't you?
That's right. The station actually
closed in 1960, pre-Beeching,
and gradually, over the years,
congestion has increased.
There is a bridge into Inverness
that gets a lot of congestion
in the morning peak.
So, I decided it would be interesting
to try and reopen the station,
so I put the funding package together
and persuaded various parties
that a short platform would be
an obvious solution.
Well, Frank, I think while I'm here,
I need to measure this phenomenon.
Perhaps you'll join me...
as we pace it out?
One, two, three, four, five,
six, seven, eight, nine, ten,
11,12,13,14,15,16,17...
18 on the Portillo scale
equals 15 metres.
Frank, any prospect of
opening other mini stations on the line?
Yes. We've got pretty advanced plans
to re-open Conon Bridge,
six miles up the track.
Again, a mini platform
looks to be on the cards
and predictions suggest 40,000 people
could use it every year
and this from a village
of under 3,000 people.
Just itching to get back on the tracks.
Absolutely. They've seen the success
at Beauly and want to be pan of it.
Sadly, the town for which I'm bound how
hasn't succeeded
in reopening its station,
so I shall use a car
from the next stop, Dingwall.
My next destination
is the village of Strathpeffer,
where, my Bradshaw's tells me,
"the large Ben Wyvis Hotel,
156ft long,
has been built
over an excellent sulphur spa."
Taking the waters and bathing
enjoyed a vogue in Victorian times,
and I'm anxious to know
how the little Strathpeffer
joined the elite of British spa towns.
Originally no more than a few farms,
Strathpeffer grew when sulphurous
springs were discovered in the 1770s.
The first pump room was built in 1819,
but Strathpeffer truly flourished from
1885, once it had a railway station.
Grand hotels and substantial Victorian
villas were built to accommodate
the steady stream of visitors
who came to take the waters.
Local businessman Steve MacDonald
takes Strathpeffer's history seriously.
- Steve, hello. What a splendid machine!
- Pleased to meet you.
I'm wondering whether George Bradshaw
might have ridden on one of these.
He died in 1853. Were these popular
in the mid-1800s?
They were, yes. They were
very popular then. That was the heyday.
Let's park that fellow up somewhere,
shall we?
Now, after the glorious opening
of Strathpeffer railway station in 1885,
presumably people were really pouring
in to take the waters?
(Steve)
Trains came directly from London.
Patients of Harley Street doctors
came to houses that had been built
especially for patients to the area.
People promenaded around the village
and went to tea dances, took the waters,
went for healthy walks. Mid-to late
19th century, it was the place to be.
I'm a Victorian gentleman
with a skin complaint.
I'm coming to Strathpeffer for
my health. What routine can I expect?
Well, when you get up
in the morning, your doctor
will probably have prescribed you
a glass of sulphurous water,
which you'd drink,
probably sip, during the day.
After you'd recovered from that,
you might well have a bath in peat
mixed with sulphurous water.
You would probably lie in that
for an hour.
It might be followed by a massage,
after you've been hosed down
with warm salty water.
Then you might well go for a brisk walk
on one of the paths
that have been laid around here.
In the afternoon,
you may well go to a tea dance,
and have dinner in the evening
at the regular time,
and then repeat every day
until you're cured.
- And would I be cured?
- You might well be.
- (both laugh)
- I wouldn't like to say.
The Ben Wyvis Hotel,
as advertised in my Bradshaw's.
I believe that the peat baths
have now given way to hot baths
and I shall reject a sulphurous drink,
because I believe that the Highlands
have a better tipple to offer.
Rested, refreshed and refuelled,
I'm excited about the day ahead,
which will take me along
one of the most remote lines in Britain.
In the quiet of this isolated station,
I could hear the train maybe a mile away
clattering its way through the glens,
and now here it is,
approaching the platform.
I'm now travelling on what my Bradshaw's
calls the Dingwall and Skye Rail,
"a line 53 miles long that runs
westwards through fine mountain scenery
near Ben Wyvis and Rogie Falls."
In the years just before
my guide was published,
this area had been opened
for the first time to train passengers
and judging by the large numbers
on board today, I say, "Rejoice!"
This rural and remote railway
is resurgent.
First train of the day
and it's heaving with people.
Is it often like this?
(man) It started to get very popular
with bus parties,
so we get bus parties joining the train
at Inverness, the bus moves up to Kyle,
and they get picked up there,
and it's part of their package.
The last four or five years,
it's proved very popular,
which is great for the line.
(Michael) Let's hope more people
find out about the wonders of this line.
(man) Definitely.
(Michael) May I ask,
do you travel on the line very much?
Yes, quite often. Every second day
in the summer, anyway.
(Michael) Why is that?
I study in Skye, doing Gaelic,
so I get the train to Kyle,
and then get a bus to Sabhal Mòr Ostaig,
the university there.
(Michael) Do you feel lucky
to have such a beautiful commute?
(girl) Yes, it's very nice.
(Michael) Do you still watch
the beautiful countryside go by
or have you become blasé
about it?
No, no, no! I always watch it.
It's lovely, especially on a nice day.
The Highlands have been associated
with Romanticism
ever since
the Victorians began to explore them.
In 1880, Scottish author
Robert Louis Stevenson
may have alighted here at Garve
because, during a holiday with his wife,
Fanny, he stayed in Strathpeffer.
He visited my next destination,
Rogie Falls, on the Blackwater River,
where I'm meeting
professor of literature, Linda Dryden.
Magnificent!
- It's the most glorious sight.
- Isn't it?
(Michael) Enough to inspire
any Romantic writer, don't you think?
Indeed. In fact, Robert Louis Stevenson
actually came here
and wrote a letter to his literary
agent, literary friend,
Sidney Colvin, about this very place.
He says to Colvin,
"I've lain down and died."
"No country, no place, was ever
for a moment so delightful to my soul."
"Give me the cool breath of Rogie
Waterfall henceforth and forever,
world without end."
And he signs off saying, lets us know
what a good time he's having,
"May you have as good a time
as possible, so far from Rogie..."
In other words,
"I'm having the best time in the world."
Most interesting. Do we think
that his visit to Robie Falls
had an enduring impact on him?
It's very difficult to say,
but when he was writing Kidnapped,
he set a lot of that in the Highlands.
This passage here, to me, looks exactly
like what we're looking at up there.
"And with that, he ran harder than ever
down to the waterside
in a pan where the river
was split in two among three rocks."
- One, two... Can we see three rocks?
- Yes, hm-hmm.
"It went through with a horrid
thundering that made my belly quake,
and there hung over the Lynn
a little mist of spray."
"Alan looked neither to the right
nor to the left,
but jumped clean upon the middle rock,
and fell there on his hands
and knees to check himself."
It looks it, doesn't it'? You can just
imagine looking at that waterfall there.
Is Robert Louis Stevenson regarded
as a great hero of Scottish writing?
It's with the publication
of Treasure Island
that we get a great success
for Stevenson.
He becomes famous not just in the UK,
but in the States,
particularly after Jekyll and Hyde.
(Michael) This is the problem
with Robert Louis Stevenson.
We read Treasure Island, Kidnapped,
Jekyll and Hyde when we're children,
probably never go back to those books
or to Stevenson.
Absolutely. If you mention Robert
Louis Stevenson, what comes to mind?
Treasure Island, Jekyll and Hyde
or Kidnapped. Yes.
With my mind full of swashbuckling feats
of derring-do, I'm back to Dingwall
and onward through this rugged terrain
to the west coast
and my next destination, Plockton.
I'm fulfilling a long-held ambition,
to ride the Kyle of Lochalsh line.
Two hours of train travel with hardly
a human habitation glimpsed.
Radiant greens, imposing terrain.
The line has been described
as a symphony in three movements.
First, pastoral, then mountainous
and, finally, marine,
as the line, at last, reaches the sea
and the symphony reaches
its glorious climax.
Oh! Every curve
brings a more spectacular vista.
This line is wonderful.
I have no words.
I'm out of superlatives.
My Bradshaw's says, "Several fine lochs
penetrate the Atlantic coast,
such as Loch Broom, Loch Ewe,
Gairloch, Loch Torridon,
and Loch Carron, where the Dingwall
and Stromeferry rail terminates."
But it doesn't terminate there
any longer
and I want to know why this railway line
to distant hamlets
was pushed yet further away
from any centre of population.
The Dingwall and Skye Railway is
one of the most picturesque of routes,
but Victorian rail companies had to be
more businesslike than romantic.
I want to know about the economics
behind this vast
and expensive engineering project.
I'm hopeful that local historian,
Pat Myhill, will enlighten me.
I'm wondering why a line like this
to such remote places
was built in the first place, Pat.
The Victorians were great improvers,
great entrepreneurs,
and, so, they saw what a lot of people
would regard as a wilderness
as an untapped resource,
particularly the fisheries,
which were considered
to be inexhaustible at the time.
But I think, really,
what it comes down to
is a group of very, very large
landowners saw the benefits to them
of bringing improved communications in.
There was a measure of altruism,
certainly,
but there was also a great deal
of self-interest in it for them.
How much difference would it make
to the fisheries first in Stromeferry
and then in Kyle having a railway line?
Massive, because the price of fish
depends on the speed with which
you can get it to the market.
The best markets, like Billingsgate,
wanted very fresh fish,
so the price wasn't as good if you
couldn't get them to market so quickly.
Therefore,
if you could get a railway line in,
and you could get the fish down
to London in little over 12 hours,
you're going to get
a much, much better price for them.
And, of course, that helped to develop
the fisheries industry itself.
I rode along the line today
and it was a lovely gentle ride.
Give me an idea of what it would have
been like in its early days
at the end of the 19th century.
Uncomfortable,
especially on a day like this.
The original carriages
were six-wheelers,
that's a rigid wheel base, and this
is a twisty, tortuous switchback line,
lots of sharp bends
and lots of ups and downs,
so they gave you a bumpy ride.
They were wooden, no toilets,
no heating.
I really enjoyed my journey today.
How would you sell it
to a prospective tourist?
Oh, as the greatest scenic, coastal
railway journey in the country,
quite probably in the world.
That's pretty good, isn't it?
In Bradshaws day,
the catch around Plockton
consisted mainly of white fish and crab,
but now the waters of Loch Carron
are fished for prawn.
Bob Rowe has agreed
to show me how ifs done.
- Hello, Bob.
- Hi, how are you doing?
- How are you?
- Not bad.
(Michael) Where are your markets
for prawns?
(Bob) We land to a company
based in Dingwall
and they're trying to develop
a market in Britain,
so a lot of their stuff goes to hotels,
restaurants in the British isles.
(Michael) Fresh?
(Bob) Yes, fresh.
Well, alive. They send them live.
When they're landed,
they go into this tank,
which is spraying fresh water on them
to keep them alive.
Nowadays, I guess you're not sending
the catch by train.
No, they don't go by train now.
Most of them go by road.
I think that's more... Well, it's...
Because the bulk of it, you know,
it's so bulky, and also timetabling.
I hadn't thought of that. In the days
of the train, you had to fish to the...
- Fish to the timetable, yeah.
- To the timetable.
(Bob) So if the train was timetabled
for five o'clock,
then the fishermen would have to have
their catch ashore and packaged up,
ready to go on the train
for five o'clock.
So, nowadays because it goes by road,
they're not under that same pressure.
These days, fishing boats are under
pressure to maximise their catch,
so they'd do well to leave me ashore.
I'm baiting the creel in order
that it can go back into the water,
ready for the next lot of prawns.
I have to put this bit of herring
in the middle here
and it just needs to be secured
in that position
by sliding down that knot.
Now, the creels, with their bait,
are going back overboard again
to try and catch more prawn,
and while Bob chucks them over the side,
the rope is running along the deck
and I'm standing clear,
because I don't want to go over
with the creels.
Being a fisherman is still a pretty
tough lot, isn't it?
(Bob) Yeah, well, it's still the most
dangerous job in the world, I think.
Well, you certainly have my respect.
(Bob) Well, you did pretty good
for a beginner, I think.
I'll be thinking about you the next time
I'm on a warm train journey.
(Bob) I'm sure you will!
I'm sure I'll never make a trawlerman.
I think my skills lie
at the consuming end of the food chain.
Since I'm in sight of the sea,
I thought this would be a good time
to taste the catch of the sea.
It must be really fresh.
- Oh, thank you!
- (waitress) Your fish platter.
That looks wonderful.
So, what have I got there?
Some langoustines and squat lobsters
from a local Plockton creel boat.
The crabs and the mussels are from Skye
and they're hand-dived scallops
from Lochalsh, near Kyle.
- (Michael) Wonderful! Thank you.
- Enjoy your meal.
Mmm, start with the scallops.
Glorious. Glorious!
Today, I have enjoyed a feast
of Scotland's natural beauty
on tracks laid by 19th-century
railway builders.
The trains were the means by which
fishermen in the remotest places
could supply their catches, still fresh,
to distant cities.
Now, the line is thronged with tourists
who, like Queen Victoria herself,
are attracted by the majesty
of the Highlands.
On the next stretch of my journey,
I'll learn now one man's vision
helped to bring train travel
to the Highlands...
He really saw the social value
of railways
and in opening up the county
of Sutherland.
.. Discover how farming's
changed since Bradshaw's day...
We have about a ton
in the grain tank there.
That would hopefully produce
about 400 litres of neat whisky.
WOW!
And re-live the drama
of Scotland's Victorian gold rush.
Gold! We've found gold!