Original subtitles

PAUL MURTON: The ancient land of Kintyre

is defined by the sea and the lochs

that surround it.

When people travelled by boat

and the seaways of the west were king,

Kintyre was well connected to Scotland's big centres

of population and industry.

But surprisingly, with the rise of the car,

the loch-side communities began to feel increasingly remote.

Lochs are Scotland's gift to the world,

a product of an element that we have in spectacular abundance -

water.

With so much of the wet stuff, it's not surprising that

there are tens of thousands of lochs in Scotland.

And they come in all shapes and sizes.

Long, fjord-like sea lochs,

great freshwater lochs of the Central Highlands,

and a multitude of lochans that stud the open moors.

In this series, I am on a loch-hopping journey

across Scotland,

meeting the people who live close to their shores,

and discovering how lochs have influenced an entire nation.

For this Grand Tour I'm exploring the communities

around Scotland's longest sea-loch, Loch Fyne.

My journey begins on the shores of Campbeltown Loch,

heads north up the Kilbrannan Sound,

chases ghostly shoals of herring to Tarbert,

then races from Lochgilphead across Loch Fyne to a geological marvel.

This is the famous Campbeltown Loch, renowned for many things -

especially whisky.

And guarding the entrance to the loch, the tiny Davaar Island.

To get to Davaar island you can either take a boat across,

or wait until low tide and walk across.

Heading across the tidal land bridge,

I see ahead of me a strange figure

making towards the island -

a place of mystery and imagination -

and the setting for a miraculous visitation.

The mystery of Davaar Island reached public attention back in 1887

when the local paper announced to the world the discovery

of a "curious painting" in a dark cave.

According to the paper, a yachtsman who had rowed ashore

and had wandered into the cave "struck a match to light his pipe".

What he saw in its flickering light caused him to faint on the spot.

The face of Christ.

But it wasn't an apparition.

It was a painting.

And it's still here.

Entering the cave I can see for myself

the extraordinary spectacle of the crucified Christ.

And perched on a rock below it, the artist Ronnie Togneri.

Now this really is an extraordinary religious image.

What's the story behind it, Ronnie?

Well, it started in 1887.

A guy called Archibald MacKinnon from Campbeltown.

He was a local art teacher,

Young man, would be about 30.

And he later claimed to have had a dream

in which he saw this sea cave

with a painting of Christ on the wall

and went out in secret and painted it over several weeks,

didn't tell anyone and it was discovered accidentally.

People thought it was the work of the Almighty,

there was divine intervention at work here.

A miracle had happened here at Davaar.

Yes and the Oban Times wrote a glowing review of the painting

praising its artistic merit.

The newspaper article opened a floodgate of visitors.

Thousands flocked to see the miraculous painting.

Some thought it would be the making of Campbeltown.

And then someone discovered it was MacKinnon

or he admitted it, I'm not quite sure what.

Just a local boy. Yup.

The mood changed.

The painting was condemned as a fraud,

and the scandalized town

turned against MacKinnon, who fled to England.

But eventually Campbeltown began to appreciate

the worth of the painting and invited Mackinnon home

to restore his now-faded art work.

He came back in 1902 and repainted it

because the first version which you can see here that he did

was very simple, rather naive...

It's a primitive interpretation, isn't it?

..but strong.

And then this is Mackinnon himself.

Is this him standing behind? That's him in his good suit,

He had his paintbrushes tied to his walking stick.

(LAUGHS)

Sadly, none of MacKinnon's original work has survived.

But in what seems to have become a tradition,

successive art teachers from Campbeltown grammar school

have painted their own versions of the crucifixion,

one replacing the other as the originals faded

in the damp conditions.

In the 1970s, it was Ronnie's turn.

The present painting is his second rendition.

I think it is a work of genius myself,

I think it is fantastic

you know, brilliant setting.

Leaving Ronnie, I retrace my steps ahead of the incoming tide

and head up the loch to Campbeltown -

famous the world over for whisky.

The whisky produced here is in a class of its own,

making Campbeltown one of Scotland's five unique whisky districts.

Today, there are just three remaining distilleries -

Glen Scotia, Springbank and Glengyle.

But during the glory days,

Campbeltown was known as whisky-opolis,

producing industrial quantities of spirit

from coal-fired distilleries.

And the whisky that flowed was exported around the world.

But success came at a price.

Quality suffered, and sales began to decline.

The secret element behind all this boom and bust was this stuff -

coal.

Now, coal, of course, was the key ingredient

in Scotland's industrial revolution,

and by far the bulk of it was found

in the Central Lowlands,

but uniquely in the Highlands,

the coal that was burned in Campbeltown was mined locally.

And coal means steam.

On the trail of Argyll's only coal mine,

this old map shows the route of a railway line

to the former pithead.

It ran from Campbeltown to Machrihanish,

although there's little to see today.

But until 1960, it was also possible to take a steam passenger train

known as the Machrihanish Express.

Now that would have been fun!

Unlikely as it may seem, journey's end is a caravan park.

It's hard to imagine that coal was ever mined here,

but the history of coal extraction at Machrihanish is a long one -

dating back to 1492

when enterprising monks had a mine not far from here.

The last mine closed in the 1960s.

To help me dig up the past,

are ex-miners George and Willie McMillan.

Gentlemen, we're sitting here in the middle of a caravan park,

but go back 50 years, you would have seen a completely different scene.

Oh, aye.

The last pit, the one that Willie and I worked in,

closed here in 1967.

How many men were employed here?

At one time it was just under 400. That included everybody.

Surface people, the electricians and all that sort of thing.

Was it good money?

Well, depending where you were at.

You had to wait your turn to get to the coalface.

You more of less had to wait until somebody died. Oh, right!

Isn't that right, George?

Aye, there were a few waiting on me going. (LAUGHS)

I'm still waiting on you!

A long wait! (LAUGHS)

So was that the best paid job?

At the coalface itself?

Oh, aye. Oh, definitely, aye. Was it dangerous work?

Well you probably would class it as dangerous. We got used to it.

It was just natural to us.

The big thing about being in the pit,

everybody had to do their job properly,

because you were dependent on the man next door to do his job

so the roof didn't come in on you, sort of style.

So it was a team effort.

You had to look after everybody there, you know?

Now, this, Willie, is a formidable-looking weapon.

Is that the kind of pick that would have been used

by the likes of yourself when you were down the pit.

That is exactly it! The point was like a needle.

You could split a big lump of coal just with that.

Wow. Aye, it was good. It's a good tool.

Mining has always had a reputation for hardship

and miners have often suffered

when the world's economic winds blow chill.

This was especially true during the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Desperate for heat and warmth,

miners started an unlicensed pit

at a place called Tirfergus

on a hillside overlooking Machrihanish.

Local farmer John Armour helps me to read the landscape.

Now, John, I'm looking for the entrance to this mine here.

Which you can see in this old photograph.

Now where are we standing at the moment? Are we anywhere near this?

We are standing right above where that was then.

The entrance is at the bottom of a hill

but it's been covered over with a landslide

and what you see now is where the mine was.

This landslide came down right on top of it.

So beneath our feet there is coal?

There is coal there, yes,

and I'm told the seam goes from here

all the way to Northern Ireland.

Here we are! Is that it?

Is that the old entrance? That's what is left of the entrance.

The trees have come right down and obviously over the years

the trees have grown a fair bit too.

So where there was any sort of sign of it, it's now gone.

It's all collapsed in on itself? Yeah.

And the coal, is there any of that still exposed?

Yeah, there is. There's some down here.

There's a seam that's kind of open just at the side of the road here.

We could maybe go and have a wee look at it.

See if I can swing this pick. I'm sure we'll find some.

Is that it? This is it!

That's it, Paul, that's what is left of the seam

the whole way to Northern Ireland.

Can I swing my pick? On you go, give it a go. See what you can get.

So this is it here? Yes.

Look at that, Tirfergus coal.

That's Tirfergus coal, yes.

It's rather poor quality, shaley-looking coal, is it not?

It's very poor.

I think it needs to be burned at a very high heat

to get any benefit from it at all.

But again, it shows just how desperate the men were.

Yeah, absolutely.

To come looking for this stuff.

You'll be the first person to have mined coal out of here

maybe for the last 80 years.

Well, I'm going to keep that as a souvenir,

it might bring me luck.

I think you should, yes. Maybe for a Hogmanay.

Take it round to your neighbour. Exactly.

That's all he deserves!

(THEY LAUGH)

Pocketing my lump of coal,

I head west towards the long arm of Loch Fyne,

passing along the shores of the Kilbrannan Sound

between the mainland and the Isle of Arran.

The sea lochs and islands here were once dominated

by the first Lord of the Isles,

Ri Innse Gall,

otherwise known as Somerled.

Half Viking, half Gael,

he set himself up in opposition

to the king of Scots.

But he paid a heavy price.

This ambitious warrior overreached himself

and died in battle against a royal army in 1164.

Tradition has it that he is buried somewhere here at Saddell Abbey

which was built on land he had granted to the church.

But the abbey has been a ruin for centuries,

and Sommerled's grave was lost long ago.

Somerled was the big daddy of Clan Donald.

And a recent survey suggests that up to 90%

of the six million or so MacDonalds across the entire world

share his DNA.

And it's an intriguing thought

that the bones of the great Somerled himself

might be mouldering in an unmarked grave

somewhere beneath my feet.

How the mighty are fallen.

Clan Donald and Somerled's descendants

lost out to the Campbells

who later replaced them as the power in the land.

Despite this, several ancient families

descended from Somerled

still live in Kintyre,

including the MacAlisters.

This is Torrisdale House,

home to Niall MacAlister Hall

and his family.

Niall, how long have your family been associated with Torrisdale?

Well, my great-great-grandfather rented the property

in the late 1700s, I think it was,

and then my great-grandfather bought it in around 1895.

So, several generations?

Yeah, I'll be the fifth generation to live here

with my children being the sixth.

But under different circumstances, I imagine,

because go back 100 years or so ago,

there would have been a lot of people living here.

Oh, very much so.

I mean the whole ground floor would have been domestic servants

and cooks, nannies, a butler

and then outside there would have been

foresters, shepherds, gamekeepers.

So the employees must have been 30 or 40 at least, I'd say. Oh, really?

So it was a really important part of the local economy?

It would have been one of the main employers in the economy,

absolutely, at the time.

Things have changed. You don't have a butler anymore!

We certainly don't have a butler, just myself, Emma and two children.

But how do you keep a place that size going?

Well, we've managed to diversify.

We run self-catering holiday houses.

We put a small hydro-electric scheme in just two years ago

and from that we run a gin distillery.

A gin distillery? Yeah, a gin distillery. Right, right.

Can I have a look at your gin distillery? Absolutely, come on.

We'll have a gin and tonic. Excellent idea!

Niall takes me down to the old piggery

where his wife Emma and a group of ladies

bottle gin for the home market and for export -

all thanks to a modest-sized contraption

that takes centre stage.

So this is the business end of your gin production

This is indeed. This is our 200 litre copper pot still.

So what ingredients do you have in here

to produce the taste that you hope people are going to be won over by?

We use 12 botanicals, 10 of which are commonly used in gin.

But two are special to us and that's Icelandic moss,

which grows on the trees round here.

You'll see the fluffy lichen that grows on the birch trees.

And we also use sheep's sorrell as well,

which grows commonly around here.

Have you not just given away a really important secret?

No, no we openly advertise that is what we use.

People just don't know how much we use.

Ah, I see, it's the quantities.

Yeah, that's the secret. The secret part of the recipe. Yeah, absolutely.

Bearing that in mind, we should move onto taste your gin. Absolutely.

Which is called Beinn An Tuirc.

Which is our company name, which is "hill of the wild boar",

from where the power comes, where the water comes from.

And our signature gin is called Kintyre Gin.

Well, let's give it a whirl, shall we?

Slange. Cheers.

That's refreshing, isn't it? That's good, on a day like this.

On a day like today when it's so warm... Excellent.

..I can't think of anything better, mm.

Life here has always been about harvesting natural resources,

whether botanicals for gin,

or riches from the sea.

This is Carradale, once a busy fishing port.

Loch Fyne was famous for the huge shoals of herring

that migrated to its waters annually,

attracting dozens of fishing boats

to harvest the marine wealth of the loch.

In time, a unique system of fishing was developed here -

the ring net.

The Shemaron is the last type of this traditional boat

and is run by the Ring Net Heritage Trust.

The skipper today is Sandy Galbraith,

whose family once owned this beautiful boat,

and he is among the last in a long line of ring-net fishermen.

So what was ring-net fishing?

Was it a technique of fishing?

Yeah, it's just your circle that...

If that is the shoal there, you drop the net there.

There, right round it like that.

And your work needed two boats. Uh-huh, oh, I see, right.

And then you closed it

and the boat who shot the net just pull it in,

if you're lucky enough to catch them!

(THEY LAUGH)

Sometimes it's not easy, but it must have been very labour intensive as well.

If you've got two boats... There were six men in each boat.

Right, so that's 12 men's livelihood dependent on that one catch.

Correct, yes.

But that's only one shot, you might have six shots during the night.

So you were fishing at night then?

Only at night, yeah. Why was that?

Well, the herring come up to the surface at night.

That's when the ring net suits. Right.

Or sometimes you'll see them in the water as well,

'cause they are up on the surface

'cause there's phosphorous in the water and they were bright.

If they moved at all they would brighten up

and you'd see the herring actually swimming.

Really? And the mackerel as well.

That's the things you remember, you see.

Throughout the ''60s and ''70s,

Sandy and the Shemaron chased the shoals of herring,

down Loch Fyne, beyond Arran and Campbeltown

and along the Ayrshire coast.

But then the fish disappeared.

What finished off herring fishing in Loch Fyne?

Well, it's partially that it just got overfished eventually

and they didn't come back again the herring, you know?

They were there for quite a long time, I have to say.

But they just got less and less and that was it.

There wasn't enough to...

It had to be a seasonal job

and you would have to go to something else.

Before the ring-net fishermen plied these waters,

there were the Vikings.

They gave my next destination, the village of Tarbert, its name.

'Tarbert' means a place where long ships

were dragged across a narrow neck of land.

Way back in the 11th century

the Norwegian warrior king Magnus Barefoot

forced the king of Scots to accept a peace treaty

which gave all the land navigable by boat to Norway.

In order to maximise his claim, Magnus Barefoot had his war galley

dragged across the narrow neck of land

that separates west Loch Tarbert from East Loch Tarbert,

which you can see on the map here is no distance at all.

So, having navigated and sailed his craft from shore to shore,

he was able to claim the Kintyre peninsula for himself.

Now, I think Magnus was doing more than just bending the rules here.

I think that he was taking the proverbial

and the Scots king was too weak to do anything about it.

And for a while at least,

Tarbert remained part of the Viking world.

Heading north, I follow the coast from Tarbert,

passing through the village of Ardrishaig at the eastern end

of the Crinan Canal and then on to a wide, shallow bay.

This is Loch Gilp, and the town that overlooks it is Lochgilphead -

the administrative centre for the county of Argyll.

Surprisingly, this loch-side town was the location

for a spectacular and unlikely chapter

in the history of the Scottish car industry.

It was here in the 1980s

that the super sports car

the Argyll Turbo GT was born.

I remember a press report in the Oban Times

announcing the launch of the Scottish supercar,

and a photoshoot

with the Duke and Duchess of Argyll, no less.

It made quite a splash

but that was almost 40 years ago

and since then the fate of the Argyll GT

has become something of a mystery.

Following a few clues and armed with an old address,

the trail leads to an unlikely location

on the edge of town.

Nice to see you. Have a look at the car.

And even nicer to see this, it's fantastic.

This is the Argyll GT, the fabled Argyll GT.

It is indeed In all its glory. Yeah.

Now, Bob I'm guessing the market that you were entering

was pretty kind of tightly packed

with some pretty powerful supercars at the time, like Maseratis...

Yeah, but they were big money. Yeah?

We reckoned we could do it for a heck of a lot less than that

and a lot of the stuff we could build ourselves economically here in Lochgilphead

and didn't have to sort of buy

silly and expensive things from other people.

So we were pretty independent here,

even though it was pretty remote in the hills

and nobody thought it was possible.

(LAUGHS) You wouldn't think it was possible

to build a car like this in Lochgilphead.

Bob is a man full of surprises.

He tells me that the inspiration for the Argyll

came from his earlier pioneering work with turbo chargers.

It evolved originally, I suppose,

because we were in the tuning and modification

of other people's cars

and that led us to be the first people doing turbocharging.

So you were producing turbo chargers here in Lochgilphead?

Yeah, we were the first to do turbocharging on petrol engines in the world.

I had no idea! Yeah.

So the turbocharging came first and then the car came after that.

Yeah, and that then took us from ordinary car, if you like,

into supercar power outputs.

The supercar that Bob and the team developed in the early 1980s

is truly remarkable.

It still looks futuristic,

yet glories in imperial measurements,

being 15 feet, four inches long and six feet wide.

The V8 engine develops a whopping 250 brake horsepower.

What's going to happen with this car now? Is it running?

Everything except the engine, yes.

It got left under a leaking gutter for many months

so I'm seriously thinking of taking the engine out

and either rebuilding it or putting...

I've got a spare engine in there

and this one only has a four-speed gearbox

and the other has got a five.

I should probably do a few miles on it to remind myself

what it was like in the good old days.

Leaving Bob to tinker with his turbo,

I hit the road and make my way up the western shore

of Loch Fyne to a forgotten coastal village

called West Otter Ferry.

Only the ruins of the houses remain of this once busy place,

which was a ferry terminus for goods and passengers crossing the loch

to the eastern shore.

The last occupant of the ferryman's cottage left in 1948,

ending a tradition that went back centuries.

To recreate this forgotten crossing,

I'm being ferried over in a modern RIB.

In 1791, the fare recorded to cross the loch

was 3p for a man

and 9p for a horse, which sounds reasonable,

but when you think about it

was probably the equivalent of a day's wages.

Perhaps it would have been worth it though

to avoid a massive detour around the head of the loch.

Landing on the opposite shore,

I find myself at the tiny village of Otter Ferry,

which surprisingly has little to do today with ferries or otters.

Although you can see otters down here from time to time.

the word 'otter' in Otter Ferry

is actually the corruption of a Gaelic word 'ottir',

spelt O-T-T-I-R,

which refers -

not to the animal Lutra lutra -

but to a gigantic spit of sand and gravel

that stretches almost across the loch.

Seen from the air, the ottir is dramatic.

It extends for almost 1.5km

and nearly cuts Loch Fyne in two.

It was formed thousands of years ago

during a glacial advance,

when the snout of a glacier stopped here,

dropping debris that almost created a land bridge.

But beware!

The ottir is a tidal feature,

appearing and disappearing with each ebb and flow.

Now, I've followed the ottir almost as far as I dare.

Now, this is not a place to linger,

especially when the tide is coming in,

which is what it is doing at the moment.

But what a spectacular location!

I'm in the middle of Loch Fyne,

making this the perfect place

to end my Grand Tour of Scotland's Lochs.

Captions by Red Bee Media (c) SBS Australia 2019