Real stories, real people, real West Country
Somewhere between 'dreckly' and 'proper job' lies a whole world of language that's quietly slipping away. One former Devon schoolteacher has made it her mission to capture it before it's gone for good — one crackling recording at a time.
From the craggy headlands of Cornwall to the windswept shores of Devon, a dwindling band of keepers and community campaigners are fighting tooth and nail to preserve the West Country's beloved lighthouse towers. Automation may have silenced the keeper's lamp-room routine decades ago, but these coastal sentinels are far from finished — not if their guardians have anything to say about it.
Down on the Cornish coast, where the mornings smell of diesel and brine, one fisherman is quietly waging a personal war against the industrial tide. Mick Treloar still fishes the way his grandfather taught him — and he's determined to pass it on before the knowledge disappears entirely.
In a cluttered workshop on the edge of Dartmoor, Rob Trevithick is doing something almost nobody else in England still does — and doing it properly. We spent a morning with Devon's last working tinsmith to find out why a trade older than the Industrial Revolution is quietly finding its feet again.
Long before craft beverages became a marketing buzzword, the Hatchwell family of Somerset were pressing apples the way their great-great-grandparents taught them. We spent a morning in their orchard to find out how one family has quietly outlasted empires, supermarkets, and the rise of alcopops.