When you read discussions in the UK about the future of the BBC, you get deeply, deeply concerned. There isn’t much about Great Britain these days, but the BBC is one of the greatest gifts they have given the world. It’s a pity that people with the power to do so feel the need to talk darkly about the need for reform.
Coast is one of their unsung gems. Genuinely I don’t think they get anywhere near enough credit for a series the main remit of which was to introduce Britons to the news that actually, they lived on an island and had a deep relationship with the sea. They have done some fascinating pieces on shipwrecks, watersports, mining in Cornwall. Tonight they were in Brittany.
Brittany is a place which is extremely close to my heart. I lived there for a while shortly after I graduated, and I’ve been very deeply attached to the place since the age of 14. For the most part, you’d have expected me to be living there rather than in Dublin now, shacked up somewhere between Quimper and Vannes. When I lived there, I lived in Auray, which lies between Vannes and Lorient.
This programme had lots of little pieces of interest. The U-boat station in Lorient which I have never seen but I do know that Lorient had to be built almost from scratch post war because it was very heavily bombed in a bid to disrupt the U-Boat campaign.
But I have been to the standing stones in Carnac. And I have been to the Pointe du Raz. And I know the salt farms in Guerande. I know many other parts of Brittany as well of course.
For me, one of the things which was particularly interesting was a little cameo they did about a photograph. I’m a marine photographer (you can see evidence of this on Living for Light). The photograph is one of the most famous oin the world and it was taken by Jean Guichard. It’s part of a series called Lighthouses in the Storm.
Many years ago I met a man who sold marine books and pictures and memorabilia who told me that he had been the one to tell Guichard where to send the photograph. It’s the photograph of a lighthouse keeper at La Jument, standing at a door just before the lighthouse was engulfed by a huge wave. He actually got back into the lighthouse before the wave broke over it. I’ve seen this photograph all over the place. 15 years ago in Germany, on seeing my collection of lighthouse photographs, a young English man asked if I knew of it; it’s been in at least 2 houses that I have visited with a view to buying; I’ve seen it in the odd restaurant. It is one of the biggest selling lighthouse photographs in the world; the other high profile one is a Plisson one taken in a different part of Brittany.
They took Jean Guichard to the lighthouse keeper with a beautiful print of the photograph. I think the lighthouse keeper lives in Ouessant, a windswept island off the northwest coast of Brittany. I remember being told that no one there took too much notice of the photograph because it was hardly uncommon conditions for them there.
I am a nerd for Breton lighthouses. I like lighthouses in general but I particularly like the French ones and I suppose it is a mark of my lighthouse nerdery that I recognised every single lighthouse that featured in the film tonight and I suppose it’s an additional point of extremism to know that I’ve been to the foot of 2 of them, and looked at another two of the off-shore ones from the closest land point I could get to. From where I am sitting, I can see 5 books about lighthouses, three of which concentrate on the Atlantic lighthouses and two more general ones. And one of those Atlantic ones is by Jean Guichard.
Next week, they will be visiting Wales. I am looking forward to that.
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