If you are from Birmingham, the sea will always have a special magic. To this day, I am slack-jawed in wonder at every first sight of it. When I went to university in London I was disarmed to make the acquaintance of people who lived by the sea all year round. I have never lost my sense of wonder about these people either. For the last few months it has been my job – as much as I can ever call it work and keep a straight face – to meet the people of our coast. It’s for a series, starting this Friday, ingeniously called Our Coast.
So off this metropolitan landlubber of a sea-lover went to coastal communities around the Irish Sea with an expression of kindly concern on his face. My general thrust was: “Lovely spot you’ve got here, but how are you making ends meet? It must be terribly difficult, you poor things.” I was geared up to feel a bit sorry for them; I’m delighted to report that I think they ended up feeling rather sorry for me.
Many communities are struggling but others are finding a way. In Portpatrick, in Dumfries and Galloway, the locals had a share issue to raise the money to buy their dilapidated harbour, to rebuild, refurbish and breathe new life into the whole area. Life goes on, and improves. Filming the pulling up of a lobster pot with a fisherman, we told him we had the shot and could return to the harbour. “No we can’t,” he said. “I’ve got 15 more to get in yet.”
When we finally moored we were made to get out of his boat five times so we could be filmed from eight different angles, including from a drone. He asked me if my work was always such a faff. I didn’t get the sense from any of our contributors they were keen to swap lives any time soon.
• Adrian Chiles is a broadcaster and writer
