All language subtitles for Grand_Tours_Of_Scotlands_Lochs_S02E06

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