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OPEN COUNTRY
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SatÌý 6.10 - 6.35am
Thurs 1.30 - 2.00pm (rpt) |
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Local people making their corner of rural Britain unique |
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This week |
SaturdayÌý6 January 2007 |
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At at the mouth of the river, she meets local historian Derek Sharman, who takes her on a walk around the town’s walls. The only complete set in England, it takes about twenty minutes to walk round them, and as they travel along, Derek explains to Helen the history of this small market town. Once the biggest town in Scotland, it changed hands between England and Scotland no less than 13 times in the middle ages.
Next, Helen meets up with the Director of the , Nick Yonge to learn how the grime of an industrial history has been changed so that now the river is one of our most unpolluted rivers.
hasÌýbeen a mainstay of the river for hundreds of years, and George Purvis’s family have been fishing there for seven generations. He explains to Helen the old technique of sweep netting, which starts with knitting the nets themselves, and then trawling the river in specially-designed boats called cobles.
And although George and his family still fish the old way, the River Tweed is at the forefront of 21st century science when it comes to maintaining fish stocks. Biologist James Hunt from the Tweed Foundation works with the , whichÌýphotographs each and every fish on a tributary of the river to find out just how many fish there are, and why the spring run of salmon travel to this particular destination. Infra-red beams, video cameras, electrofishing and even electronic tagging are all used to trace the fish.
But it’s not only fish that the river is famous for: It’s the base for Britain’s second largest mute swan moulting colony. David Rollo is a local vet whose passion for wildlife led to the formation of theÌý after two serious pollution incidents on the water. At the Trust’s headquarters, Helen meets some injured swans and finds out why they’re so important to Berwick.
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