(Anita Rani) We live on an island of more than 1,000 beaches.

For many of us, they've been bringing fresh air, freedom, and fun for as long as we can remember.

But our beaches are also where Britain meets the outside world.

They're full of extraordinary hidden stories and big events that have shaped our nation and helped to make us who we are.

(dramatic music) I'll be uncovering those stories, meeting people with deep local knowledge.

-You look like him.

-He was a rather dashing good-looking man, apparently.

(Anita Rani) Enjoying pleasures on the beach.

Wow.

Hmm.

I'm standing, woo!

Diving into the world of work... (man) Yeah, you're not going back to Yorkshire.

-You're staying here.

-It's beautiful.

I'd stay here.

...and literature.

(woman) Of course the doc is Dracula.

(Anita Rani) I'll find architectural gems... Now we're talking.

Just look at it.

...and reveal how those stories still resonate today.

It's really shaped this community, -hasn't it?

-Definitely.

(Anita Rani) From the bustling beaches of Eastern Scotland, to the remoteness of South Wales.

From the iconic resorts of Devon, to the wildness of Yorkshire and Northumberland.

This is the secret history of Britain's beaches.

(waves crashing) ♪ (upbeat music) Today, I'm in the east of Scotland, with some spectacular city beaches, as well as some of the wildest and most remote beaches in Britain.

♪ With more coastline than the rest of the UK put together, the beaches of Scotland really have shaped its history.

Time and time again, they fought off threats.

The Scottish beaches have seen battles to defend its honor, its identity, and its freedom.

♪ From audacious royal events... Walter Scott was a PR whizz, wasn't he?

...to engineering brilliance.

Scan up to your horizon line.

(Anita Rani) There it is.

There are heroines and hidden treasures... Ooh.

Oh, that made me just get a chill.

...and every day folk putting their life on the line.

If you had put your hands in the wrong way, you hit the side of the ship, you let your ladder go, and you fell.

Sounds absolutely terrifying, John.

(chuckles) ♪ Welcome to the beautiful beaches of eastern Scotland.

♪ My journey begins about 70 miles north of Edinburgh, at Arbroath, on the Angus coast.

(dramatic music) There's been a human settlement here for thousands of years.

These days, the pretty, bustling harbor and the spectacular sandy beach are popular tourist haunts.

♪ But the remarkable story I'm here to tell isn't on the beach.

It's 11 miles off shore.

(suspenseful music) Bell Rock is a jagged, low lying reef, over 400 meters long and treacherously hard for vessels to spot.

(buoy bell chimes) Over the centuries, it's been lethal for shipping.

So notorious, in fact, that a warning bell is said to have been installed on the reef by the abbot of Arbroath in the 1300s, earning the rock its name.

By the 1700s, as Britain's maritime fleet grew, as many as six ships were being wrecked on the rock every year.

♪ And when a British warship foundered there in 1804, with the loss of the entire crew, it was clear something had to be done.

(music crescendos) Both England and Scotland were united by their desire to build the most ambitious lighthouse the world had ever seen.

So, in 1806, Parliament authorized the building of a lighthouse on Bell Rock.

The project was based here in Arbroath and it was constructed by the greatest Scottish engineer of the day, Robert Stevenson.

(dramatic music) Stevenson was born in Glasgow in 1772 and changed the face of Scotland with his many roads, bridges, harbors, and lighthouses.

His crowning achievement was Bell Rock.

♪ Regarded as one of the Seven Wonders of the Industrial World, Bell Rock lighthouse stands 35 meters tall and has resisted the waves and weather for over 200 years, making it the oldest sea-washed lighthouse in the world.

The story of its construction is one of the great epics of 19th century engineering.

To find out more, I've come to the Signal Tower, built by Stevenson, above the beach at Arbroath.

♪ Inside is a small observatory with a telescope to keep watch over the lighthouse keepers who stayed out on the rock for six weeks at a time.

It's now a museum and the visitor advisor is Karen Clarke.

-Hello, Karen.

-Oh, hi there, Anita.

(Anita Rani) It's quite some view up here, isn't it?

-Yeah, come on over.

-Fantastic.

Where is it?

Where's Bell Rock?

(Karen Clarke) So, Anita, if you look to our yellow post.

-Yeah.

-Scan up to your horizon line and then across to the right you will find the Bell Rock.

(Anita Rani) There it is.

Stevenson began work in 1807, cutting the foundations into the reef and laying down interlocking granite stones for a base 13 meters wide.

But try digging a hole that's submerged by the sea twice a day.

(Karen Clarke) Construction could only occur at low tide, and if we have water impeding on the reef then they had to pump it out, they had to get rid of that overflow of water so they could continue to build.

(Anita Rani) So, they're doing this huge construction job but they're having to contend with the fact they're out at sea.

(Karen Clarke) Certainly, and they're surrounded by it.

(Anita Rani) Special cranes and construction gear were designed for the task, but it was slow progress.

The workers would stay out at sea for days on end, building the base nine meters across.

They were looking at building it with granite on the outside, sandstone on the inside, but your granite's at that base.

The sandstone only starts so far up, so just above where the light keepers would have entered.

(Anita Rani) Was this all thanks to Stevenson?

No.

We have another player, which is John Rennie.

And he was granted the position of Chief Engineer.

Robert Stevenson, he was granted Assistant Engineer.

So, why don't we talk about Rennie building Bell Rock?

(Karen Clarke) Well, Stevenson had boots on the ground.

He was there.

He was with the men putting the Bell Rock together.

(dramatic music) (Anita Rani) John Rennie was the older of the two great engineers and there was some rivalry between them.

But Rennie made a key contribution, insisting on using interlocking stone work, used previously on Eddystone Lighthouse, near Plymouth, and not present in Stevenson's original plans.

The dovetail design of the interlocking stones, over 2,800 in all, fitted together like a jigsaw, giving vital strength to this slender tower, standing over 100 feet high.

It's a big part of the reason why it's still here after more than 200 years.

The lighthouse was completed in 1811.

It was over budget, but the total cost, around £5 million in today's money, seems like quite a bargain for two centuries of use.

The Signal Tower, above the beach, was specifically designed to allow basic communication with the team out on the rock.

♪ Both tower and lighthouse had a ball that could be raised or lowered at set times as a way of sending pre-arranged messages.

(Karen Clarke) So, this here is our signal mechanism.

So, if you were over at the Bell Rock, you are looking to raise your ball.

So, between nine o'clock and ten o'clock, that ball needs to be raised.

If it is not raised, we're gonna become concerned.

(Anita Rani) What does the ball, a raised ball tell them?

(Karen Clarke) The raised ball says everything is fine.

Two thumbs up.

If it's not raised, they may have run out of supplies, someone may be ill.

But we also have another one.

If you have a keeper who's gone out there for six weeks and his wife's pregnant, he wants to know if she has had that child.

So, we'd fly a petticoat for a girl, a pair of trousers for a boy.

Oh, that's hilarious, how often did that happen?

(Karen Clarke) Oh, I would imagine it happened quite a few times.

♪ (Anita Rani) Father of four and Bell Rock's very last principal keeper John Boath, didn't get his good news like that.

With the advent of radio in the twenties, the signaling ball was made redundant.

And when the Bell Rock became fully automated in 1987, John was no longer needed to work out on the Rock.

(John Boath) When you arrived at the Bell, you had to load all your stores into a tender, then you climbed over the side of the ship and down a wooden ladder.

And then as you were climbing down, the ship would be rocking and rolling.

So, when you went down, she was that way, you were all right, you were against the side of the ship.

When she rolled that way, you were hanging vertical.

And when she rolled back, if you had put your hands in the wrong way, you hit the side of the ship, you let your ladder go, and you fell.

Sounds absolutely terrifying, John.

Probably the Bell Rock was more responsible for lighthouse keepers resigning than any other lighthouse.

(Anita Rani) But not you.

(bright music) Bell Rock was manned 24 hours a day by three keepers who worked out here for six weeks at a time, and they were kept busy maintaining all aspects of the lighthouse.

♪ (John Boath) Well, it was like a child's chair with a rope.

You went over the side and the rope, you know, you just wound it round between your legs and you lowered yourself down.

You'd have two pockets of limewash either side and you just paint it white.

Did you enjoy it?

(John Boath) Oh, I used to scurry about the rocks like as soon as I could get out, I would go out, even if though it was only half an hour.

I found all the initials carved in the rock that were carved by the men that were there building it.

Mine is out there now, carved, and I spent about a couple months sitting down there with a hammer and chisel.

(Anita Rani) So, your initials are there.

And what was the accommodation like on the Bell?

(John Boath) It wasn't big.

You had your bedroom, but you couldn't swing a cat.

-How did you get changed?

-It was difficult, but to put your jumper on you had to open the door, you know, you couldn't go like that.

You know, you'd hit the wall or, you know, so, you had to sort of turn around and, you know.

(Anita Rani) With no running water, everyday tasks like bathing were no easy feat, but that wasn't the biggest challenge.

♪ (John Boath) The toilet itself was right at the bottom of the lighthouse.

Four flights down.

And sometimes it's been known to go up top, outside and do it on a piece of paper and roll it up like a bag of chips and throw it over the side.

(chuckles) I mean you couldn't walk down these stairs at two o'clock, three o'clock in the morning.

This is wild living.

Thank you, and thank you for making it so visceral.

Yeah.

Yeah.

(Anita Rani) The carved initials of generations of keepers, John Boath's the last, are a moving legacy to those who built and manned this engineering marvel, defending the lives of sailors for over 200 years in the world's oldest sea-washed lighthouse.

(intense music) Just up the coast, on one of Eastern Scotland's most dramatic beaches, is a much older story of defense, when a few brave individuals took on the might of Oliver Cromwell to protect the Crown Jewels of Scotland.

♪ (pleasant music) ♪ On my journey along the beautiful beaches of eastern Scotland, I've encountered pretty harbors and engineering marvels.

Now, I'm further north, in Dunnottar, scene of one of Scotland's most epic legendary tales.

(military drum music) Scottish beaches don't come more dramatic than this.

Rugged shingle curving round a steep sided cove, with the spectacular Dunnottar Castle perched above.

♪ Over 1,000 years old, the castle has witnessed gruesome events, including the killing of 4,000 English prisoners by William Wallace, Braveheart, and the imprisonment and torture of religious dissenters.

Quite the place.

♪ Most famously, though, it was here in 1651 that a small garrison held out against Oliver Cromwell's English army for eight months.

They were defending The Honours of Scotland, or the Scottish Crown Jewels.

And this beach just below the castle had a vital role to play.

(regal bagpipe music) The Honours of Scotland: Crown, Sword and Scepter are the oldest crown jewels in Britain, dating back to the late 1400s.

They're kept today in Edinburgh Castle and were, and still are, a potent symbol of Scotland's sense of national identity.

(intense music) But in 1651, with the British civil wars raging, The Honours were inside Dunnottar Castle, under siege, with an army of Oliver Cromwell's poised to break in, as Scottish history professor Laura Stewart explains.

In 1651, what was happening here?

So, the autumn of 1651, this part of Scotland would have been absolutely crawling with English soldiers.

They're being sent out to try and track down royalist resistance.

Dunnottar is significant because it's held out.

The English can't get in there, but equally the small garrison of about 70 people that are holding out in the castle, they can't get out.

(gunfire, sabers rattling) (Anita Rani) Most Scots supported the parliamentarian side against King Charles I in the English Civil War.

But for many, the execution of Charles, in 1649, was a step too far.

It put Scotland in a predicament.

What's key here is that Charles is executed as King of England, and so the Scots are put into a very difficult position.

Do they accept what the English have done?

Or do they do, in fact, what they ultimately do, which is declare Charles' son as King of Britain?

(Anita Rani) On January 1, 1651, at Scone, near Perth, Charles II was crowned King of Britain, using the precious Honours of Scotland.

It was a dangerous act of huge significance.

By doing that, by declaring him King of Britain, not just King of Scots, the Scots now pose a huge threat to the nascent republic in England.

(Anita Rani) So much of a threat in fact that Cromwell's army invaded Scotland.

Charles managed to make his escape.

But what about the precious crown jewels, The Honours?

The Honours would ordinarily have been taken back to Edinburgh Castle, but by the time Charles is crowned, Edinburgh has been occupied by the English.

(Anita Rani) So, what did they do with them?

(Laura Stewart) They take them here, to Dunnottar.

(Anita Rani) Legendary Scot soldier Sir George Ogilvy of Barris commanded the 70 men protecting The Honours, but how long could they hold out?

The answers lay on the beach below the fortress.

♪ How significant was this place in the siege?

It would be hard for the English to take this castle, but there's obviously a very great challenge for the people who are in it.

They can't come and go.

So, how are they going to get supplies?

And this is where the beach becomes important because you're able to bring in small boats, sneak them in without the English seeing.

You can land supplies here and take them up to the castle.

(Anita Rani) The garrison survived for an astonishing eight months, but in May 1652, they finally accepted the inevitable and surrendered.

When Cromwell's men entered the castle though, The Honours were nowhere to be found.

Sir George Ogilvy had devised a plan with his wife and her close friend Christian Fletcher, to get the precious regalia out.

(mysterious music) What happened to The Honours?

(Laura Stewart) There are two stories.

One, they pack up the regalia and they lower it from the castle, down the cliffs, onto the beach and on the beach a servant, Christian Fletcher, who is the wife of the local minister, James Grainger, she picks up the regalia and puts it in a creel and covers it in seaweed.

-A creel is a basket.

-Right, yes.

(Laura Stewart) How is she able to do this with all of these English troops swarming around the place?

'Cause she's a woman.

She's a servant.

She's down here collecting seaweed, no one's looking at her.

-No one's suspecting the woman.

-No one suspects.

The more plausible story is the one that's given out by Christian Fletcher herself.

Her story takes us away from the beach to the cliffs.

And her story is that she was able to come and go from the castle as a minister's wife, again, as a woman, the English soldiers aren't going to suspect her.

In three separate trips, she takes out the Crown, underneath her winter clothing, the Sword in a sack of flax.

So, it must have been a difficult job.

The Sword of State is enormous.

(Anita Rani) And terrifying.

And what a brave woman to have done this.

(Laura Stewart) Exactly, and she and her servant take a horse right along the cliff edge.

And that's important.

By riding along the cliff edge, she says, "I did that in case I was intercepted by English troops, and I was prepared to throw myself and the regalia over the cliff, into the sea, because my life is not as important as the regalia of Scotland."

(dramatic music) ♪ (Anita Rani) From the beach below the castle, Christian Fletcher, it's said, smuggled The Honours 16 miles down the coast to the village of Kinneff, and buried them at night, beneath the floor of her husband's church.

Right under where I'm standing with church trustee Michael Beattie.

So, this etching here is really interesting because they must have been stressed, to put it mildly.

(Michael Beattie) Oh, well, you know.

Every time I look at it and I see his countenance, the way he's just raised his head to look up at the moon coming in, but it's as if he heard something.

Can you imagine footsteps, soldiers approaching, and they were caught doing that.

No wonder he's looking a wee bit... (sighs) (Anita Rani) They are just ordinary folk.

(Michael Beattie) Just protecting their heritage.

(Anita Rani) Living in fear of certain death should the English Parliament discover their secret, Christian Fletcher and James Grainger kept The Honours hidden for nearly nine years, until the restoration of the monarchy, in 1660.

So, where did they hide them?

Well, they buried them underneath the pulpit.

(Anita Rani) And how do we know that this is where they buried them?

Because after they had done it and concealed it, he wrote a letter to the Countess Marischal, informing her where they were because he thought, "Well, wait a minute, if I lose my life or I'm caught, nobody's going to know where the hell they are."

I mean, I've got his letter.

I can tell you what he said.

"For the Crown and Scepter, I raised the pavement stone just before the pulpit in the night time and digged under one hole and laid down the stone just as it was before, and removed the mould that remained that none would have discerned the stone had been raised at all.

For it shall please God to call me by death before they be called for, your ladyship will find them in that place."

-Goodness me.

-So, it was almost like a wee insurance policy that if something happened, somebody would know where to... (Anita Rani) Well, what they're hiding is so crucial to... (Michael Beattie) Absolutely.

(Anita Rani) ...to the, what Scotland stood for, for the sovereignty.

(Michael Beattie) And if it wasn't for the heroism of that woman, saving it.

(Anita Rani) For King and Country.

(Michael Beattie) Absolutely.

(Anita Rani) Ooh, oh, that made me just get a chill.

-Yeah, well.

-I feel very, you know, when you're standing in a spot retelling the bit of history that took place right here.

(Michael Beattie) Yeah, yeah.

(Anita Rani) But the story doesn't end there.

When the Act of Union joined England and Scotland to create Great Britain in 1707, there was no longer a separate Scottish nation and The Honours were locked away in Edinburgh Castle.

(dramatic music) A century later though, they would be rediscovered for a royal event that put Scotland's greatest beach center stage.

♪ (upbeat piano music) ♪ On the beaches of Eastern Scotland, I've learned about one of the great engineering feats of the 19th century.

And heard the heroic tale of Scots defending their crown jewels from marauding English soldiers.

♪ Now, I'm in Edinburgh, home not just to a legendary castle and the world famous Georgian New Town, but to one of Scotland's most spectacular beaches.

♪ I'm here to uncover the remarkable tale of August 1822 when the nation's top author used a royal visit to this beach and the city to reinvent the very concept of Scottishness.

♪ The beach is called Portobello, Edinburgh's very own piece of coastal paradise, a few miles from the city center.

It attracts a huge number of visitors every year and is one of Scotland's most popular seaside resorts.

Two wonderful miles of golden sand, overlooked by the Georgian and Victorian houses of suburban Edinburgh.

Whatever the weather, you'll find locals here.

Only in Scotland is a woolly hat standard issue for sea swimming.

♪ The beach has always attracted the crowds, from the bathing machines of Victorian times, to the 1950s when the British seaside holiday was at its peak.

♪ For sheer crowd numbers though, nothing can quite top what happened here in August 1822 for the parade of King George IV.

(regal music) ♪ The 1822 state visit by George IV was a seriously big deal.

The first time a British monarch had stepped foot in Scotland since the Act of Union over 100 years earlier.

The spectacular military parade on Portobello Beach, on August 23rd was one of the highlights of the visit.

♪ (cannons firing) ♪ Around 3,000 cavalry and 4,000 troops performed for the king and an enormous crowd of 50,000 people.

Certainly one of the largest crowds ever gathered in Scotland.

(light piano music) It was described as the grandest military spectacle ever before witnessed in Scotland.

It was a brilliant use of this incredible beach, Edinburgh's unique asset.

Something that couldn't have been done this way in any other British city.

The whole visit was masterminded by Scottish lawyer and literary superstar Sir Walter Scott, author of novels like Waverley and Ivanhoe, who was determined to use the royal visit to create a new identity for Scotland.

(upbeat string music) Scott was also famous as the man who'd found the lost Scottish crown jewels, The Honours, which had lain forgotten in a chest deep in Edinburgh Castle for over a century.

♪ The Honours were paraded through Edinburgh in a grand procession watched by thousands.

♪ And several balls were thrown for the elites, who dressed in full Highland attire.

Tartan was a key feature for the whole visit, as Edinburgh University's Ewen Cameron explains.

It must have been quite a striking image to see George IV wearing tartan.

(Ewen Cameron) Yes, I mean this was one of Scott's key elements of the pageant that surrounded the king's visit in 1822.

We know that the king spent a considerable sum of money from a London tailor to kit himself out -with a tartan outfit.

-How much did he spend?

(Ewen Cameron) He spent over £1,000 in 1822 money, which by some calculations would be somewhere between £100,000-150,000 sterling in today's money, -so the visit-- -That's quite some tartan.

-This visit did not come cheap.

-No, not at all.

But what did this event and what did Walter Scott do for the Scottish identity though?

(Ewen Cameron) I think it is an attractive moment in that respect because one could argue that it was the moment at which these symbols which had really essentially been associated with the Highlands became symbols of Scotland as a whole.

Walter Scott was a PR whizz, wasn't he?

(Ewen Cameron) There was no doubt that Scott very skillfully stage managed the event and the public images the newspapers circulated in the aftermath of the event.

(upbeat music) ♪ (Anita Rani) For Walter Scott, and for the nation of Scotland, the royal visit was a big success, and traditions like tartan were certainly here to stay.

♪ (waves crashing) Further up the coast is a place that's said to be home to another great Scottish tradition, an edible one that I'm about to sample.

(mellow music) The place is called Auchmithie, around three miles north of Arbroath.

♪ The charming fishing village, perched on red sandstone cliffs, above a pretty shingle beach, claims to be the origin of the traditional local delicacy.

A type of smoked haddock called the Arbroath Smokie.

♪ Iain Spink is a fifth generation fish smoker whose family hail from Auchmithie and who takes great pride in smoking the traditional way.

Ah, Iain, does it get more fresh, does it get more wild than this?

Look at those, golden and beautiful.

(Iain Spink) Yeah, they look amazing.

(Anita Rani) So, how long have they been smoking in this barrel?

(Iain Spink) They've been in there about 40 minutes today.

(Anita Rani) And these are done in the traditional manner.

(Iain Spink) The true original way, in the barrel, in the ground.

(Anita Rani) This is an old traditional barrel, is it?

(Iain Spink) It's an old whisky cask actually, which I've lined with slates, and it's a hardwood log fire, so it's mostly oak and beech that I burn in there.

(Anita Rani) And are you the only person in Britain still doing this?

(Iain Spink) In the original way, yeah.

(Anita Rani) The Arbroath Smokie is not your everyday smoked haddock.

Salted overnight and cooked over an intensive smoky fire, the world famous smoked fish dates back centuries and continues to be a much exported specialty of Arbroath, still supporting an impressive ten smoking businesses today.

Oh, that bone's come out quite easily.

(Iain Spink) You always know a good fresh smokie when you see one.

It's lovely and pure white inside, just as it should be.

Look at that.

Ah, it smells incredible.

Oh, my goodness.

Wow, mm!

Salty, smoky.

Meaty fish as well.

That haddock's delicious, isn't it?

This creation is brilliant.

-What a product.

-Thank you.

Just haddock, salt, a bit of smoke, cooked over a log fire.

(Anita Rani) No, there's definitely magic.

I think it's something to do with them being from here.

This setting.

The traditional way.

(Iain Spink) The whole experience, yeah.

(Anita Rani) I know, and I feel like I'm tasting a bit of history.

It's heaven.

Absolute heaven.

Mm!

♪ The heavenly Arbroath Smokie is said to have been created accidentally when some haddock was burnt in a house fire here in Auchmithie centuries ago.

Whatever its origins, it testifies to the central importance of fishing to the lives of the people here.

♪ The 1800s saw a huge boom in fishing on Scotland's east coast.

By the 1880s, thousands of boats were being launched from Scottish beaches, supplying fish to markets in the UK and abroad.

♪ Back then, Auchmithie had its own fleet of fishing boats.

While the men were away at sea, the women did the smoking and much else.

Margaret Horn's grandmother was a fishwife during the village's heyday.

So, Margaret, who's in this incredible photograph here?

(Margaret Horn) Well, this is my grannie.

This is my mum.

My mum, for instance, was born in 1896.

By the time I was in the village, it was 1935.

Margaret, are you 86?

No, I'm just 85.

(Anita Rani) 85, 85!

(Margaret Horn) I'm not 86 until December (Anita Rani) Oh my goodness.

There's something in the genes.

So, tell me about your grandma, what was her name?

-Isabella.

-Isabella.

-And what did Isabella do?

-She was called Tibb.

-Tibb.

-And she was a fishwife.

She was just a wonderful lady.

She'd been widowed with five small children.

(Anita Rani) And so she was a widow, but she still worked as a fishwife.

(Margaret Horn) She had to work, yeah.

No social security in those days, you know, you worked or you starved.

So, my grannie would take her horse and cart, and they went miles and miles into the countryside and she would drop a child off to run up to the farm to sell the fish.

(Anita Rani) Isabella Spink was clearly a very strong woman, but then all fishwives had to be.

(dramatic music) (Margaret Horn) The men were out fishing, but the women had already carried the men onto the boats.

Taken off their socks and shoes and rolled up their skirts.

Just one, what, as piggybacks, so they'd have their husbands -and their brothers, or-- -Yeah, yeah.

-Why would they do that?

-So the men wouldn't get their feet wet and be sitting in the boat for maybe a day or a couple of days.

They were the sole breadwinners of the family, so it was very important that they kept dry and healthy.

(Anita Rani) Whilst the men were out in all weathers, it was the women that baited hooks and prepared lines.

(Margaret Horn) They would gut the mussels, it was mussels they used.

Umpteen hooks that they had to lay and they had to lay it very carefully in this big long woven basket, and they had to lay it so that when the men threw the line in, it wouldn't tangle.

(Anita Rani) And that was the job of the wives, to-- (Margaret Horn) That was, the wives did all that, yeah.

All the men had to do was go to sea, catch the fish, and give it to the wives to sell.

But they all, the wives also controlled the money.

The women were the strong people, you know, they were the ones that kept everything going.

(Anita Rani) Life for the 19th century working folk here was certainly tough and challenging.

(thunderous dramatic music) But a century later, the people of Scotland's east coast beaches were to face one of their greatest challenges ever.

It was time to defend their coastline from Hitler's invasion.

♪ (serene music) ♪ On my journey across the spectacular beaches of Eastern Scotland, I've encountered great engineers saving lives at sea, and witnessed the heroic defenders of the Scottish crown jewels.

Now, I'm on a beach called Cramond, on the great Firth of Forth, near Edinburgh.

These beautiful vast sands offer feeding grounds for birds and a tranquil space for those escaping the big city.

But in 1940, this beach, and others like it, was far from tranquil.

It was plunged into war.

(artillery shells whistling) (explosions) (motors puttering) (intense music) By 1940, the Nazis had conquered western Europe, Belgium, France, and Holland in just a few weeks, and it was almost certain that Britain was next on their list.

Churchill and his planners feared an invasion of the south coast, across the English Channel.

However, Hitler had also taken control of Norway and there was a very real possibility of an invasion across the wide open, easily accessible beaches of eastern Scotland.

♪ The whole east coast was vulnerable to attack, but defending the huge estuary of the Firth of Forth was especially vital because it led not just to Edinburgh but also to Rosyth, one of Britain's biggest and most important naval bases.

Rosyth had already been targeted by Hitler in the very first German air attack on Britain of the entire war.

It was October 1939, many ships were damaged and sailors killed.

The fear was that the Germans would be back to finish the job by sea.

(dramatic music) ♪ The causeway I'm walking along was in fact one of the biggest and most ambitious anti-boat barriers built during the war on Scotland's east coast beaches.

♪ It leads to Cramond Island, slap bang in the middle of the Firth of Forth.

It was the perfect location for gun emplacements, search lights and troops to defend the coast here.

Military historian Dr. Gordon Barclay tells me more.

(Anita Rani) So, Gordon, give me a sense of perspective, what was the threat?

What you're talking about is cruisers or destroyers, or more probably motor torpedo boats rushing in at night, taking advantage of the darkness and the confusion, to sink as many ships as they could manage.

(Anita Rani) Hitler's motor torpedo boats were deadly.

Heavily armed, very fast, they could easily sink ships much bigger than themselves.

(dark music) The defenses at Cramond were designed with them in mind.

♪ The massive barrier, with its concrete pillars over three meters high, stretches for more than a mile between Cramond Island and the beach on the mainland.

(Dr. Gordon Barclay) The anti-boat barrier was to stop motor torpedo boats at high tide rushing up into the upper part of the anchorage.

So, what would have happened had a German torpedo or a submarine tried to get up the Forth?

(Dr. Gordon Barclay) The defenses would be put on alert.

Patrol boats, destroyers, armed trawlers would head out.

I think there's this sort of feeling that they're all sitting here prepared could something happen.

But the Germans put a great deal of effort into convincing the British that there would be some sort of invasion from Norway, hence the strength of the defenses right up the east coast.

(Anita Rani) Maybe Hitler just got the memo that you don't mess with the Scots.

(chuckles) -Maybe, maybe.

-Maybe.

(dramatic drum music) (Anita Rani) But behind these beach fortifications is a remarkable, little known story of the Polish troops who helped defend Scotland during the war, and later came back to make Scotland their home.

When Poland fell in 1939, many Poles came to the UK to continue the fight against the Nazis.

Under Churchill's orders, around 17,000 of them were sent to help protect Eastern Scotland, building beach defenses and training for war.

Among them, men like Polish military policeman Ryszard Wroblewski.

I'm meeting his son Kazimierz.

I'm gonna have to ask what you're wearing today, 'cause these medals look very impressive.

(Kazimierz Wroblewski) Oh, on my chest here, this side are British campaign medals that probably every British solider received when they were fighting in Europe.

Ones to my right are my father's Polish medals.

The most important one is the far right, is the Cross of Valor, Krzyz Walecznych, My father got that for bravery for duties in Vallee in France.

(Anita Rani) So, what was your dad doing during the Second World War?

(Kazimierz Wroblewski) Well, at the very start he was in the military police in Warsaw, when war broke out.

Now, of course after two weeks, Russia invaded Poland from the east, so a lot of Polish soldiers had to escape via Romania and Hungary, and made their way to France, where they joined up with free Polish soldiers under General Sikorski.

A ship took several, a lot of soldiers from France, up the coast towards Greenock, which would have been my father's first arrival in Scotland.

(Anita Rani) Do you know how the Polish community was received, or the Polish soldiers?

(Kazimierz Wroblewski) Well, when they arrived in Glasgow the first time, they marched through George Square and Sauchiehall Street, and all these Scots saw these young Polish men in uniforms spic and span, they were cheered.

They were really greeted with open arms, you know.

(Anita Rani) In 1944, Kazimierz' dad, along with many other Poles, were sent from Scotland to France to join the battle to finally defeat Hitler's Germany.

(Kazimierz Wroblewski) My father received this medal of bravery.

He was asked by his officer to meet up with a convoy carrying ammunition.

They were going towards German troops.

His job was to meet up with the convoy and divert them a different route.

But on his way there, his Jeep broke down and they had to walk nearly five miles under fire to get these orders.

(Anita Rani) As the Polish troops advanced through Europe, Ryszard helped liberate a women's work camp in Germany, and met the love of his life Lucia.

So, all these Polish women heard these Polish voices and like you say, they fell in love.

A lot of soldiers married their newfound sweethearts.

Some found their old sweethearts.

They were reunited again.

So, it must have been a great feeling for everybody to... (Anita Rani) It's making my hair stand on end.

(Kazimierz Wroblewski) ...to hear these Polish voices and go, "Wow, we're free."

(Anita Rani) In 1946, Ryszard and Lucia were married.

Beautiful.

Oh, your dad was handsome, he's got the Tom Selleck about him, hasn't he?

(Kazimierz Wroblewski) Yeah.

(Anita Rani) With Poland under Russian occupation, returning home wasn't an option.

So, the newlyweds made a new home in Scotland.

(Kazimierz Wroblewski) My father just loved his time in Scotland.

A lot of them had good experiences.

So, they packed their bags, came to Glasgow and mum just loved living in Scotland.

(Anita Rani) They weren't alone.

In 1947, Parliament passed Britain's first ever mass immigration law, the Polish Resettlement Act, offering British citizenship to over 200,000 displaced Poles.

(tender music) Ryszard and Lucia among them.

Kazimierz was born in Glasgow, in 1965.

♪ What does it make you think when you look at that photo?

Oh, it's just pride and... emotional as well, you know, to see them again.

Great guy.

(Anita Rani) Yeah.

♪ Today, there are around 100,000 Poles living in Scotland.

This community, some of whose parents and grandparents came to defend the nation, have become an integral part of Scotland's identity today.

(inspirational music) ♪ It feels like the perfect end to my extraordinary journey.

The beaches of eastern Scotland have shown me time and again how this nation defies powerful forces.

Whether it's the elements or political enemies.

From defending the precious Honours, to protecting lives at sea.

From taking on the threat of Hitler, to reinventing the idea of Scottishness.

But the stories that really stand out for me are those of the ordinary folk, the men and the women, that have gone on to shape its national identity.

One of great pride, resilience and grit.

(serene music) ♪ (bright music)