Coast - Series 5 - Heart of the British Isles - A Grand Tour

The BAFTA-winning Coast journeys around the British Isles and beyond to see how shared seas unite us all. The series begins with a circular tour of the Irish Sea to visit every country of the British Isles. The hub for this wheel around the heart of the British Isles is the Isle of Man, where Neil Oliver explores why this small island is home to some big inventions such as the Great Laxey Water Wheel, the world's largest, as well as being the birth place of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. On the edge of the Irish Sea at Morecambe Bay, Alice Roberts gets trapped in quicksand to discover what makes it so sticky and so deadly. Alice learns survival tips and sees how the emergency services use specialised gear to rescue strugglers stuck in the sand. In Liverpool Mark Horton unearths the 150-year-old remains of the ship that broke Brunel's heart. The ill-fated Great Eastern was the famous engineer's final masterpiece and the largest passenger liner ever built, until Titanic took her record. In Northern Ireland, Miranda Krestovnikoff sees how seals cope with the struggle to find food as they bring up their pups in the beautiful inland sea of Strangford Lough. Ulsterman Dick Strawbridge uncovers the story of inventor Harry Ferguson, the first man to fly in Ireland, who went on to revolutionise farming worldwide with his ground-breaking tractor, the Little Fergie. Nick Crane is sea cliff climbing on the remarkable rocks of Anglesey, where he explores why this corner of North Wales is the site of some of Britain's biggest earthquakes. Coast is co-produced with The Open University. There is an OU programme support booklet, and the phone number to order a copy is 0845 300 8847.