All language subtitles for Scotland from the Sky Series 1 1of3 BBC 1080p_ENG_Subtitles01

Scotland is a place of outstanding,
spectacular landscapes.

A country that seems shaped
to be seen from the sky.

For me, this is the best angle
on Scotland's magnificent scenery.

But the view from above is about
so much more than pretty pictures.

The view from above can offer
a whole new angle

on the story of Scotland.

For more than a century,

aerial photographs have opened
a window into our past.

For years, I've worked
with thousands of these images.

They've helped me discover just how
and why Scotland has changed.

I can't believe I'm about
to say this,

but I remember when all
of this was just fields.

The view from above can help us
plan our future.

And it can unlock the secrets
of the present day,

exploring our cities
and how they were designed...

..for better or for worse.

Could you imagine them putting
a motorway

through the heart of Edinburgh?

Our story begins at the dawn
of Scottish aerial photography.

An era of brave,
barnstorming aviators...

..risking absolutely everything
for a picture.

If you were a new pilot,
you might last a week or so.

We travel on through the
first century of aerial imagery -

bringing archive photography
to life,

recreating places that now
exist only as photographs.

Now, it didn't make us all rich,
but everybody had work.

From above, Scotland is
beautiful, exhilarating,

unpredictable
and never less than fascinating.

This is the story
of Scotland from the sky.

For almost all of human history,

this is what it meant to get
the view from above.

It was all very, very
straightforward.

You just climb up a hill.

And in Scotland, there are plenty
to choose from.

Ben A'an, above Loch Katrine,
is a personal favourite.

Wow.

That's just spectacular, isn't it?

Doesn't really matter how long
or how hard the climb is,

when there are views like this,
it's worth it.

Today, a Scottish hill can be
a day out,

a challenge,

a selfie opportunity.

But go back in history
and it was far more than that.

In the Scotland of old, lookouts
would come to a place like this

to spy on enemy clans advancing.

Roman surveyors would climb up here
to plan their roads

through the glens.

Farmers would watch over their
flocks.

All incredibly useful,

but all entirely dependent
on having, well,

a conveniently placed hill.

That all changed in the first years
of the 20th century.

The magical combination of
powered flight and photography

sparked a revolution.

Now the view from above could be
seen without the need for a hill,

and it could be
preserved and studied.

This was a technology
that would change how people

understood their world.

But it was a technology born in the
most desperate of circumstances -

in the killing fields
of the Great War.

These undulations are what remain of
British First World War trenches.

You can see them snaking away
through the long grass.

But this isn't the Somme,
it's not Passchendaele -

this is Belhaven Bay,
30 miles east of Edinburgh.

From above, the tooth-like outline
of these trenches

is remarkably clear...

..more than a century after
they were dug

out of the East Lothian soil.

But the big question is, why were
they here in the first place?

Allan Kilpatrick has studied the
deepest secrets of Belhaven Bay.

So, Allan, why were the
British military digging trenches

in East Lothian?

This is defined by the British as
a site where invasion could happen,

so it has to be defended.

And you defend it
by digging trenches.

If we were standing here,
100 years ago,

what would all of this have
looked like?

Well, in many respects,
just what it does now,

except that along the edge
of the beach here,

just at the high water mark,

there would be a set of barbed wire,
with machine-gun posts,

a communication trench at the rear.

So there's the defensive depth,
so it's a whole system.

And how much remains today?

Well, we're fortunate in that
there is some.

If I can put it in context,
we have, at Belhaven Bay,

around about 700 metres
of trench systems surviving.

If you went to Belgium, you wouldn't
find 700 metres in length

of trench systems
surviving anywhere in Belgium.

The defences that lined this coast
were vitally important,

and because they
were so important,

they were recorded and photographed,

which brings me to the second reason
that I've come here.

Because one of the earliest known
aerial photographs of Scotland

was taken just up there.

An image captured 100 years ago.

A permanent record of how we
prepared for an invasion

that, thankfully, never came.

The coastline
has changed dramatically,

with sea replaced by salt flats.

And behind the lines, the photograph
shows a network

of practice trenches,

used to train new recruits before
they were sent

to Belgium and France.

Today, those trenches are buried
under forestry.

Ten miles west in the town
of Haddington...

..another aerial photograph
shows an even larger set

of practice trenches.

Built on land along the River Tyne,
requisitioned from a country estate.

Today, it's the 11th hole
at Haddington Golf Club.

Everyone in Scotland was touched
by the war.

But these hardly-known photographs
show just how much the landscape

has changed.

War wasn't something that happened
somewhere else any more,

now it was on your own doorstep.

The aerial pictures of Haddington
and Belhaven Bay

were taken from airships.

Patrolling the skies above the
River Forth,

their role was to protect Royal Navy
warships, which, in turn,

protected Scottish men and women
from a German assault.

The view from above would
prove vital in this war.

And thousands of young recruits from
across the country were trained to

operate incredibly flimsy,
primitive aircraft.

Today, I'm volunteering
to experience

one of those aircraft for myself.

I'm already regretting it!

It's a Bristol BS2 fighter,
built exactly 100 years ago.

The Bristol was operated
by a crew of two -

the chap in front was the pilot,

the chap in the back was equipped
with a machine gun and a camera.

The photographs they took from above
the trenches would highlight

enemy positions,
which could then be attacked.

I want to see how I'll shape up

as a First World War
aerial photographer.

My pilot is the ever reassuring
Jean-Michel.

I'm in this man's hands
for the next 20 minutes.

That's not good news.

He looks like he knows
what he's doing.

Look, OK, you're going to be
photographing a bit more down.

Yeah.

I'm trying to recreate
First World War aerial photography.

I'm going to be photographing
four German flags

that have been positioned,
hidden around this airfield.

No-one's shooting at us today,
though, are they?

They're not shooting at us, no, no,
but we could simulate that.

I'd rather we didn't. No, no!

Up close, the Bristol bears
a worrying resemblance

to the balsa wood models
I built as a child.

There's not really much to it.

But I'm sure it's going to be fine.

Apart from its engine,

the Bristol is built from
wood and stretched canvas.

She's half the weight
of a modern family car...

..and she carries no parachutes.

Look, I'll come clean -

I'm feeling just a little bit
nervous here.

But it's too late to turn back now.

My mission is under way.

Three, two,

one, go!

Come to think of it, I could do
with a drink to steady the nerves.

In the open cockpit,
the backwash from the propeller

feels like a punch in the face.

Speech is pretty much impossible.

Worryingly, the only way to take
pictures of the ground

whizzing away 1,000 feet below me...

is by loosening my seat belt.

Minutes into the flight
and I'm starting to feel

a little less terrified.

In fact, I'm really beginning
to enjoy myself.

Right, I think it's time
for a few test photographs.

Which aren't up to much.

This is very tricky.

But in comparison to the actual
World War I photographers,

I've got it easy.

Their cameras were the size
of a briefcase.

They used fragile
glass plate negatives.

And they had people shooting
at them.

Back then, pilot and photographer
were known to write notes

to communicate.

We're getting by with sign language
and shouting,

like the best British tourists!

And our coordinated efforts are
now bringing a degree of success.

Not at all nervous, I adopt my own
personal brace position as we land.

I'm not going to lie, it feels great
to be back down again.

Done.

Flags photographed.

Easy.

Well, easy for me maybe.

Much less so for the men
who did it with bullets flying.

Alan Wakefield is an expert on the
aviators of the First World War.

People who flew
these two-seater missions

and flew in
reconnaissance squadrons,

none of them were aces.

They've largely been forgotten.

They didn't win many VCs.

And life expectancy for the
observers was very low, wasn't it?

If you were a new pilot,
a new observer,

you might last a week or so,
a week, two weeks.

The chances are, if you got through
that period,

you were basically learning
on the job,

so the longer you survived,
the more chance you had

of going on and surviving.

The people who were fighter pilots,
they were reported

in the newspapers,
people wanted good morale stories.

But at the end of the day,
it was these guys that

really sort of
won the war in the air.

But taking the pictures
was only the first stage.

The images captured from above had
to be examined closely

to discover just what the enemy
were up to.

This is a vertical neg from 1915.

You've got to remember, these are
the actual negatives

that were exposed over
the Western Front.

These are still in original
envelopes with the map references -

this is a map reference here -

date and the negative number.

And what can we see here?

Here we can see a road with trees,

you can see the shadows of the
poplar trees, typical French.

You know, road, country road,
very straight, lined with trees.

And then we've got German
front-line trench positions,

you know, the sort of
dogtooth positions,

communication trenches coming back.

And these, what look like
black spots, are actual shell holes.

And these, these were really used
to win the war, weren't they?

They were. In 1918,
2.5 million photographs

were taken by the British alone...

In that one year?
..just in that one year.

The pilots and photographers
risked everything

to bring their services
to the Army's top brass.

When the war ended, they saw their
opportunity to bring their talents

to a new audience -
the great British public.

And they started in London.

Here, a band of demob-happy wartime
aviators came together

to create Britain's first
aerial photography company.

They called themselves Aerofilms.

Wow!

Aerofilms flew primitive aircraft at
extremely low altitudes over London.

The results were spectacular.

Here, at Tower Bridge, they captured
a 1920s traffic jam.

Their cameras peered down
on Buckingham Palace.

CHEERING

They gate-crashed the rugby
at Twickenham.

And, unintentionally, the duck pond
at Southwark Park.

DUCKS QUACK

Their crews were dashing, thoroughly
modern and unflinchingly brave.

I'm on the west walkway
of Tower Bridge.

And this is a view that
won't appeal to everybody,

but I think it's
pretty sensational.

Aerofilms showed Londoners
an entirely new city,

a city they'd never seen before.

You could say it was
the gods' eye view.

This new technology,
imported from the military,

was little short of a revolution,

and the revolution was
spreading north.

Aerofilms arrived in Scotland
in 1927.

One of their first assignments
was inspired

by a great Glasgow tradition -

a pleasure cruise down
the Clyde coast.

Today, we're making that
same journey,

followed not by a Aerofilms biplane,
but by a modern drone.

Our mission is to recreate
a wonderful photograph

captured by Aerofilms
90 years ago.

It featured a paddle steamer
just like this,

the famous Waverley...

..as she arrived at Largs Pier.

And we're going to try to put
our drone in the same spot today.

Just bring it round.

Slowly.

That's it, that's it.

Perfect.

The Aerofilms picture was taken on
a beautiful sunny day.

90 years on and the grassy promenade
has been lost

to amusement arcades and a car park.

The empty site beside
St Columba's Church

is now a Largs institution -

Nardini's cafe.

You can see a crowd gathered
on the L-shaped pier,

adapted now for the modern ferry.

Aerofilms had captured a magical
moment from 1,000 feet above Largs.

A picture postcard memory,

shared by generations of Scots.

Of course, we don't see this
photograph in the same way

that the people of 1927
would have seen it.

Back then, just a few thousand Scots
had ever been in an aircraft.

Only a tiny fraction
of the population would have

seen this kind of view.

It must have filled them
with wonder, with awe.

Beginning that day in 1927,

Aerofilms would capture
100,000 photographs of Scotland.

Those images now form part of

Scotland's National Collection
of Aerial Photography,

held in the vaults of
Historic Environment Scotland,

where I work.

They are a fascinating window into
the forgotten worlds

of our parents and grandparents

and the places
they would have known.

The old Aerofilms albums are like
a flick book of the past.

This is one of my favourites.

It's Perthshire, where I grew up.

Pilot and photographer
would fly along,

ticking off a list of key targets,
and then afterwards,

they'd paste them in here,
one after the other.

It offers a fascinating insight
into how and where

these pioneer photographers
operated.

I've always wanted to see for myself
just how much, or how little,

Scotland's landscapes have changed

since those early
Aerofilms pictures.

And where better to start
than my old stamping ground?

So, I'm heading into the
Perthshire countryside

for another aerial experiment.

We're not using another
veteran aircraft, thank goodness.

We're using this.
It's a Twin Squirrel helicopter.

It's what used in the
film and television industry.

And this is what makes
all the difference -

a preposterously expensive
gimbal system.

It keeps the image perfectly steady
as the aircraft moves around.

The Aerofilms crews would have
set off with a target list,

and this is mine.

Starting at Auchterarder,
heading to Perth,

onto Blairgowrie
and then on northwards.

There's two vital parts
to today's mission.

First, to get a sense
of how Aerofilms operated,

moving rapidly
from target to target.

But also to use their photographs
of 1930s Perthshire

to see just how things have changed.

I'll be working closely with pilot
David Blane...

..and aerial photographer
Peter Jones,

to match up old and new images.

Our first stop is Auchterarder.

I've never flown over
my hometown before.

It's that wonderful moment
where the familiar

becomes something
completely different.

It takes a few moments
to get ourselves lined up

with the old photograph.

That church there
with the square, with the spire?

Yes, that one.

Over the tower? Yeah.

But when the two images
are perfectly aligned...

I think that's probably
not too far off there.

..you can see just how the town
has changed.

1930s Auchterarder had a population
of just over 2,000,

half the number of today.

It was known as the lang toon...

..with over a mile of main road
as its spine.

Now it's got some
middle-aged spread.

I can't believe
I'm about to say this,

but I remember when all of this
was just fields.

Everyone going north or south
used to have

to drive through Auchterarder.

Now it's bypassed by the A9,

a major road that didn't even exist
when the Aerofilms pioneers

flew onto our next destination,
Perth.

Aeriel photography can show
you remarkable changes,

but it can also show you
what stays the same.

Looking at the picture of central
Perth now, it's very similar.

It's remarkably well preserved.

But across the city,
away from the river,

the Aerofilms photographs point
towards some radical changes,

with entire industries wiped
from the map.

In 1930s Perth,
the Pullar & Sons dye works

was the largest employer in town.

2,000 people laundered
and dyed fabrics,

arriving on trains from
7,000 agents all across the country.

Today, the factories have all gone,

the railways have all gone.

And, like everything else,
it's a retail park.

Again, we're headed north,

through scenery that's attracted
generations of photographers.

Next stop, Blairgowrie.

The railway station and branch line
that once shipped tonnes

of locally grown fruit is now
a supermarket,

and that's not the only change.

Blairgowrie was a town that
was built around its mills.

Now they've all gone.

Industries that once employed
1,500 people...

..disappeared.

Just one short flight, armed with
a handful of old photographs,

really brings home the
relentless pace of change

in how Scotland lives and works.

Our final destination
is Blair Castle.

The official home of the
Duke of Atholl,

the only man in Britain
with a private army.

The castle was photographed
by Aerofilms in 1933.

Just three years later, it became
the first Scottish stately home

to open to the public.

A landmark moment for Scotland's
growing tourist industry.

It's still the sort of grand place
where you dearly

want to make an entrance.

Hopefully, this will do.

I've landed in the grounds of the
castle to meet Leslie Ferguson.

Leslie's spent years studying how
those Aerofilms pioneers operated.

Leslie, there was a huge variety
to the subjects that Aerofilms

were photographing,
from grand castles to market towns,

to big factories.
How did they choose their targets?

Well, you have to remember
that Aerofilms were a business.

They were out to make money.

And photographing places like this,
photographing factories,

they were wanting
to sell their photographs.

And they were looking at houses,
they were looking at hotels.

The tourism industry in the
1930s was booming,

and what more to attract people
to your hotel

than a nice aerial photograph?

And one of their
advertising phrases was,

"Looking down to build business up."

Exactly, and it was that -
this is different.

Few people see the company
from the air.

And in some of the photographs, you
actually see people on the ground

looking up because,
"Oh, there's a plane."

It was that rare.

For us, looking at it now, it's
telling the stories of the past,

the factories
grandfathers worked in.

That's what people
are interested in.

There's so many stories
to tell from the archive.

Back in the 1930s, Aerofilms pilots
and aerial photographers

would have been the astronauts
of their day -

glamorous, dashing risk-takers.

And few were as dashing
or courageous

as Douglas Douglas-Hamilton.

A Scottish aristocrat,
champion boxer

and RAF squadron leader.

In 1932, he was approached
by John Buchan, no less,

the famous author of The 39 Steps,

to lead an audacious expedition -

to photograph the summit
of Mount Everest from above.

I've come to Lennoxlove House
near Haddington to meet his son...

..Lord James Douglas-Hamilton.

This was almost like the space race
of its day.

It was. I think they saw it
as the last great challenge

on the world's surface
before space travel.

And they thought that the
Royal Air Force should have

a major role in this connection.

I mean, your father made light
of the dangers,

but actually this was an
exceptionally dangerous expedition.

Well, they had to be very careful.

If anything went wrong...

For example, the oxygen supply -
of course, they had open cockpits -

they could survive for half a minute
without losing consciousness,

but not much longer.

In February 1933,

Douglas-Hamilton and
fellow Scottish pilot David McIntyre

set out for India and Everest.

Lord James and I sat down to watch
the Oscar-winning documentary

that followed their progress.

And this is them about to head off.
They're about to head off.

They couldn't even have parachutes.

So, they knew that if anything
went wrong...

they wouldn't survive.

Is that the summit of Everest
we can see there?

It looks like it.

I believe it is.

Closing on the summit,
the aircraft were buffeted

by ferocious downdraughts,

and one of the cameramen
fractured his oxygen pipe.

He tries to tie his handkerchief
around it.

All this time, he would be getting
a little oxygen,

but nothing like the amount
he should be getting.

The two pilots pressed on,

and at 10:05am
on the 3rd of April, 1933,

they looked down
on the summit of Everest.

Does it make you feel proud
that he did this?

Well, I think it was a triumph
to have done it successfully...

..and to have lived
to tell the tale.

The two Scottish pilots brought
their crews safely back to base,

their RAF-issue
stiff-upper lips intact.

THEY LAUGH

The understatement of the century,
perhaps.

Well, he was.

But immediately after this,
they went for a swim

in a pool infested with crocodiles.

But the threat of crocodiles seemed
as nothing in comparison

to flying over the highest mountain
in the world.

There's no doubt that
Scottish aviation in the 1930s

was dominated by
moustachioed ex-RAF chaps.

But the photographs they took
captured rich and poor alike.

The men who worked
in the shipyards

that lined the River Clyde
knew poverty all too well.

In the early 1930s,
in John Brown's Clydebank yard,

construction on the
Cunard Line, Queen Mary,

was delayed three years
by the financial collapse

of the Great Depression.

A third of Glaswegians
were unemployed.

Yet, the shipyard workers
and the people of the city

still turned out in their
hundreds of thousands,

in the pouring rain,

to see the launch of the ship
that would become

the world's fastest liner.

NEWSREEL: Now the great day
has arrived.

A quarter of a million spectators
surround the huge vessel.

It's raining,
but that hardly matters.

The rudder at her stern
strikes the water,

and gracefully her long hull
glides down the slipway.

The Mary was launched
in September, 1934.

She slid into the Clyde
just over there,

and she was pulled back
into this basin.

She was so large, 1,020 feet long,

that the builders had to cut
this little V-shaped nick

into the harbour wall

so that her bum wouldn't
stick too far out into the Clyde.

A year after her launch,

the Queen Mary began her
first journey down the Clyde.

Every available plane at
Renfrew Airfield

was hired out to photographers.

There were so many cameras
in the sky,

the Air Ministry imposed
air traffic controls

to avoid mid-flight collisions.

Everyone wanted to watch the
most glamorous ship in the world

heading out to the open sea.

NEWSREEL: The Queen Mary begins
her mercantile career.

May she proudly carry the
Blue Ensign on 1,000 happy voyages.

John Brown's shipyard was just
over here, and directly below me,

2,000 of its men worked on the
Queen Mary.

But there's more. Come with me.

Over here, there was another
massive industrial concern -

the Singer sewing machine factory,

one of the largest factories
of its kind in the world.

At peak, it employed
over 16,000 people.

Singers had its own fire brigade,

police station
and ambulance service,

a pipe band,

football teams

and a host of clubs.

Today, all trace of
the factory is gone.

Replaced by green avenues
and a modern business park.

A world away from the place
Frances Railton

first encountered back in 1956.

Some of the departments
were actually quite scary.

Big machines all going,
so much noise,

and the smell of oil.

It's a funny thing,
but each factory seemed to have

its own individual oil smell.

You could tell a Singer worker
from a John Brown's worker

by the smell of their
overalls, you know?

And was there a strong social life
in the factory?

Yes, there was. People, for a start
off, made friends in here, as I did,

who have stayed friends
for the rest of their lives.

But there were lots of things
went on.

One of the main things, of course,
was having the Singer Gala,

or the games, people racing
and doing all that sort of thing,

and athletic things.

There was also, they would have
a Singer Queen.

Were you one of the Singer Queens?
No.

No, I'm afraid not.

How do you feel when,
you know, driving around it now,

to think of a structure,
a factory of that size,

that's now entirely gone?

It just seems so impossible.

All of these trees
and all these little,

low buildings bear no resemblance
to the big, old brick...

..edifices that they had, you know?

Today, the massive Singer factory
is just a memory.

A million square feet of work space

squeezed between
the Forth and Clyde Canal

and the Glasgow to Dumbarton
railway line.

At its peak, the factory
could produce some 500,000

sewing machines a year.

Rising above it,

the clock tower was once the
largest timekeeper in the world.

For Singers and Clydebank,
the clock stopped in 1963...

..and the factory closed completely
in 1980.

Do you remember it being demolished?

I think we were...
Most of us were...

..a bit too upset to really pay
an awful lot of attention to it.

When I think back to the size
of the clock, I can't...

It seems so hard to believe
that they were able

to pull all that down.

There's no monument or marker to
what was once

the world's biggest factory.

A key part of Scotland's
industrial heritage

is preserved only in photographs.

And as the 1930s drew to a close,

more sinister photographs
would be taken

of Clydebank's factories
and shipyards.

This picture was taken by
a German civilian aircraft.

The writing betrays its purpose.

It was a list of targets.

And target A
was John Brown's shipyard.

15 months after this photograph
was taken,

over 500 died in the
Clydebank Blitz.

In the build-up to
the Second World War,

the Luftwaffe started photographing
key sites all across Scotland.

It ranged from the obvious,

like the Rolls-Royce Spitfire
engine factory at Hillington,

and the oil refinery at Grangemouth,

to other more obscure targets,
like Benbecula.

All of Scotland was in the
crosshairs.

Aerial photography
was going back to war.

As the Germans took photographs
of the British,

the British took photographs
of the Germans.

Now using specially adapted
Spitfires,

then the fastest aircraft
in the world...

..with cameras that could capture
pin-sharp images

from tens of thousands of feet.

Some of the souped-up Spitfires
were based here, at Wick Airfield,

in Scotland's
far north-eastern corner.

And from one of those aircraft
came one photograph

that would change
the course of the war.

Just before 11am
on the 21st of May, 1941,

Flight Officer Michael Suckling

climbed into the cockpit
of his Spitfire.

His mission was to
find and photograph the largest ship

in the German fleet - the Bismarck.

The 20-year-old pilot headed north.

He refuelled at Sumburgh,

then set a course for the
Norwegian town of Bergen.

Two hours after take-off, at 1:15pm,
Suckling found his prey.

At a height of 25,000 feet, he
pressed the trigger on his camera.

At 2:30pm, Suckling landed back
at Wick.

The negative was developed
within minutes,

and Suckling himself
flew it on to London.

His single photograph set in train
a massive naval pursuit.

The Bismarck rushed for the
open waters of the North Atlantic...

..hunted down by the Royal Navy.

And six days after Suckling
took his photograph,

the Bismarck
and 2,000 of her crew...

..lay at the bottom of the sea.

In this war, the RAF's
eyes in the sky were deadly.

Aircraft could operate further
and faster behind enemy lines

than ever before.

What could and what couldn't be seen
was now of vital importance.

Less well known than the photograph
that sunk the Bismarck

are the efforts that were taken
to protect Wick's airfield.

Six miles to the south,
in the fields around

the village of Sarclet...

..an incredible plan
was put into action.

A band of local men brought
horses onto the peat bog.

They were in serious danger
of sinking deep into the mud,

but somehow they ploughed
this field.

Then they rolled it, spread
quarry dust and limestone on top.

What they achieved is almost
impossible to see from the ground,

but entirely possible
to see from the air.

What they had to build was a replica
of Wick Airfield's three runways,

at exactly 70% of the size
of the original.

And at night,
Sarclet's bogus airfield was lit up

by powerful electric lights.

All part of an elaborate ploy
to protect the genuine airfield.

And it was a ploy that worked.

The fake airfield was bombed
on a number of occasions.

Today, from the air,
the craters are still visible.

During the war, there was
an obsession with

staying dark, staying hidden.

But here, in Sarclet, their job
was to light up the night sky,

to distract the German bombers, take
them away from the airfield at Wick

to the dummy airfield
just over there.

They were putting themselves
and their families

right in the firing line.

World War II Caithness
was Britain's forgotten front.

Heavily defended against
the threat of German invasion,

with three huge airfields,

radar stations,

wireless stations,

and dozens of military camps.

I've been amazed at just how much of
World War II remains today.

None more fascinating
than Wick's old bomb store.

From above, its design is revealed,

with each building isolated
from the other by earth banks

topped by concrete.

Protection against explosion.

The bombs would come out
of these doors,

just north of the main runway,

and they'd be slung under
these rails above me,

and they'd be loaded onto aircraft
bound for Nazi-occupied Europe.

This was just one part of a
massive military complex,

spreading for miles
all around Caithness.

In May 1945,

Caithness and the whole of Scotland

celebrated victory in Europe.

In the aftermath, Scotland prepared
for a whole new battle -

to feed a hungry nation...

..to build homes fit
for wartime heroes...

..and to bring light and energy
to the most remote parts

of the country.

To understand how the landscape of
the post-war Scotland changed...

..I've taken the high road
to the west Highlands...

..to a windy mountain pass on
the southern edge of Loch Cluanie.

My normal commute's 20 minutes in
through the south side of Edinburgh.

You might hit a bit of traffic,
maybe some roadworks.

This is a bit different.

Believe it or not,
this potholed, overgrown track

was once a main road.

In the 1950s, if you were driving
from Skye to Edinburgh,

you'd quite possibly
have come along here.

The road's pretty overgrown now,

but actually if you look around,
you can still see the traces

of the old infrastructure,

the walls that were here.

This really was a major road.

Oh, that was a pothole.

Very bumpy.

Today, the road is privately owned.

But if you did travel along it,
hoping to reach Edinburgh...

..then I'm sorry to say...

..you'd be very disappointed.

It's not so much the case
that the road stops here.

It would be more accurate to say
that it continues, just underwater.

To understand what's happened here,

we need to look at some
aerial photographs.

These images were taken by the
RAF in 1947.

They show the road I've just taken,

winding its way south
to this very point

where it crosses Loch Loyne.

Today, as we've seen,
it's all very different.

The level of the loch is higher,

and the road across it is just
a memory.

Taken just a few miles north,

these photographs show
where my journey began,

at Loch Cluanie.

These were taken in 1948.

Again, the landscape has
changed dramatically.

Buildings alongside the loch
have disappeared

and the road that ran
just to the north

has climbed further up the hill.

So what was the magical power that
moved roads and raised the level

of lochs?

The answer, of course,
was electricity.

In the years after the war, only one
croft in every 100 had electricity.

To remedy that,
the nationalised hydroelectric board

built 78 dams and 54 power stations.

Construction took 20 years
and brought huge changes

to Scotland's landscape.

Even today, parts of Loch Cluanie
are fringed with tree stumps.

Their tops all lopped off
before the planned flooding.

The trees were not the only victims.

The men and women who lived along
the shores of Loch Cluanie

were flooded out of their homes.

But on special days,
when the water is very low,

those homes emerge
from the dark waters.

Duncan MacLeod grew up in a croft
alongside Loch Cluanie.

You knew people who lived here?
I knew the family that lived

in that house
where the chimneys are.

They were McCraes
and they were shepherds.

There was two brothers,
their mother,

one of the brother's wives,
and three of a family.

And how did they feel when they
were told they had to move?

I don't think they would
have been very happy because...

..in those days, work wasn't
that easy to get.

With the house being a tied house,

after they moved from here,
they moved from house to house.

I remember because
they had nowhere to go.

Were you ever inside these houses?

I was in this house. I was in this
house quite a number of times.

The road goes here across the bridge
and there was quite steep steps

going down to the front door
of the house.

I remember quite distinctly.

It wasn't a big house,
it was a very small house.

I remember it being
very, very small.

Of course, they had no electricity,
nothing like that.

It was all Tilley lamps.

And you used to play here
as a child?

I used to play here. I used
to play shinty here on the road.

It's only one of the flat areas,
there was no cars then.

You could probably play for an
hour before a car would come.

Sections of that old road can still
be seen, snaking through the glen.

As water levels rose
through the late 1950s,

it too was sacrificed
to the encroaching loch.

A new high road was built
to replace it.

But Duncan can remember
his father's last,

valiant attempt
to drive the low road.

We came along this road,
myself and my father.

We set off from Cluanie
and came along past here,

and all of a sudden, we came on the
loch where it had come over

the road overnight,
and we just turned back.

Was that an emotional journey
with your father?

It was, it was.
It stuck in my memory.

I remember it quite vividly.

And I think,
I remember my father's emotion.

That was the last time he was going
along this road, and that was it.

End of a story for him.

End of a story.

From above, it was clear the
landscape of post-war Scotland

was changing dramatically.

Hydroelectric schemes were one part.

But so too was the massive increase
in forestry...

..and also farmland,

as the country looked to become
increasingly self-sufficient.

This rush to put every acre
of the land to use

would inevitably
become controversial.

Particularly when progress
collided with Scotland's past.

I've come to the hills above
Newburgh in northern Fife.

1,500 years ago, the local people
chose this very spot

to build a well defended hillfort.

An aerial photograph,
taken in the 1930s,

shows the terraced defences that
once protected the top of the hill.

But in the 1950s,
after much controversy,

the government decided that the
archaeology on top of the hill

was much less important
than the stones beneath it.

And the ancient fort
gave way to this.

Clatchard Craig Quarry.

Within ten years,

the digging here would obliterate

all trace of the ancient fort.

For some, this was
cultural vandalism.

History lost to the bulldozers.

But for others,
the present was more important.

These stones would build
and improve roads and railways.

And with over 1,500 recorded
hill forts in Scotland...

..would we really miss one?

The arguments between preserving the
past and building the future

would continue, and the view from
above would remain at the heart

of Scotland's story.

Next time, our towns and cities.

How the view from above
has transformed

the way we understand them

and make them.

From the Georgian elegance
of Edinburgh's New Town,

to the present-day rebirth
of Dundee,

the aerial view
has always been vital.