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Making History

Factual: Life Stories

Factual: History

Popular history series where the past connects with the present.

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Making History: Coastal change: Overfishing and the death of the seaside

Coastal change: Overfishing and the death of the seaside

BBC Radio 4 - Making History, Coastal change: Overfishing and the death of the seaside

Tom Holland discovers when East Coast fishermen were very much a part of Europe.

Tom Holland is joined by Dr Matthew Green for herring, wine, a tour of the disappeared and why Southend's past shouldn't be its future.

Tom Holland is joined by Dr Matthew Green for a programme that's all at sea.

Helen Castor is in Great Yarmouth where local people voted overwhelmingly for Brexit. One of their major gripes with Brussels was the detrimental impact they thought EU quotas had on the town's fishing industry. Dr James Barrett is an archaeologist who researches the medieval fishing communities of Britain and he reveals that, 800 years ago, the fishermen of Gt Yarmouth worked closely with their counterparts across the North Sea to bring in unimaginable quantities of herring - along with Britain's main supply of wine.

Earlier this year and just a few miles north of Great Yarmouth, villagers living in chalets on the cliffs at Hemsby were evacuated as the so-called "Beast from the East" tore into the unstable, sandy cliffs. Several of these properties have since been demolished, while others have been the focus of a frantic attempt to protect them from the unforgiving sea. Such destruction is commonplace in the history of the East Coast. Geographer Sally Brown from the University of Southampton heads to East Yorkshire to meet Marcus Jecock from Historic England and find out how the North Sea has shaped the lives of people living nearby for centuries.

The British seaside resort has been an unloved place ever since package holidays took its clientele to sunnier climes overseas. Now funding bodies such as the Heritage Lottery Fund and the Arts Council have been investing in projects that seek to restore some of these places to their former glory. But how effective is this and does one seaside history fit every coastal resort? Guardian writer Tim Burrows goes home to Southend to ponder the death of the seaside.


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Coastal change: Overfishing and the death of the seaside

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