Tiny Islands

[serene music] NARRATOR: We are a nation of islands.

PAT O'DOHERTY: Come on, you two!

NARRATOR: Over 4,000 are scattered along our coastlines, with hundreds more in our lakes, lochs, and rivers.

VIDURA DASA: Being surrounded by water, it has a very calming effect on the mind.

NARRATOR: Many of these islands are tiny.

Many are remote.

AMIE PERREE: I love so much about island life.

NARRATOR: But over 200 are called home.

ROC SANDFORD: I don't own it because you don't own an island.

If anything, it owns me.

NARRATOR: With rugged cliffs and sandy shores, wildlife and family, and lives very different to most of our own.

Going over the edge here is a bit cheeky.

Shall we?

NARRATOR: These are the stories of our tiny islands.

AMIE PERREE: The fact that you just walk out your door and you're straight in to sea, that sense of freedom is amazing.

[lighthearted music] NARRATOR: This time, the skies and historic chapels of Orkney, The Calf of Man's rugged terrain, Lough Erne's newest residents, and a wander back in time.

80 miles from the south coast of England, the Channel Islands are actually closer to the French coast of Normandy.

There are seven inhabited islands in the archipelago, and one of the smallest is Sark.

It's just 3 and 1/2 miles long and 1 and 1/2 miles wide, with a year-round population of around 560.

Morning, guys.

Wakey, wakey!

[horse whinny] Sark is a tiny little island in the middle of a beautiful blue sea.

It's about 9 miles from Guernsey.

It doesn't have any cars.

It's got lots of cliffs and cliff paths, fields and flowers, and butterflies.

It's a beautiful place to live.

Great community and lovely life.

NARRATOR: Helen has lived and worked on Sark for the last 20 years, having spent much of her childhood here with family.

HELEN MAGELL: I was two when my grandparents moved here, so pretty much every single holiday we would come to Sark.

And then I worked school holidays and university summers here because I am obsessed with horses.

And as soon as I was 16, I wanted to work on the carriages.

So as soon as I was 16, I did that.

[hooves trotting] NARRATOR: Helen eventually took over the family business, which she now runs alongside her bed and breakfast.

As there are no cars allowed on Sark, the island has a horse-and-cart taxi service and Helen is one of four operators still maintaining this time-honored transport tradition.

Today, she's prepping the wagonette.

HELEN MAGELL: It's at least over 100 years old.

So we don't just do this to clean it.

Because it's very old and antique, we do it to check.

So we're checking the joints, and we're checking the paintwork, and we're just checking that everything's OK.

If you're careful, you can look after them.

They go on forever.

They're sort of symptomatic of our way of life, really.

Nothing's fast.

It's all sort of connected to nature.

And it's a lovely, lovely way to be.

NARRATOR: In high season, over 2,500 people travel to Sark each week, eager to witness the majestic sweep of its coastline and take in its rich history.

This brings vital income for Helen and her fellow taxi drivers and a busy day for horses like Philly.

Good girl.

Good girl.

I started driving on my 16th birthday because that's how old you have to be to be a provisional driver here on site.

You have to learn at least 10 days with an experienced driver before you take your test.

I love clip clopping slowly down a lane, talking to people with my horse in the sunshine, just having a nice life.

Honestly, it's the best job in the whole world.

I can't believe people pay me for it.

[laugh] I absolutely love it.

NARRATOR: As there are no vets on the island, Helen doesn't breed her own horses.

Philly is from a stud in France.

She's a Normandy cob, a breed that can pull twice their weight and comfortably travel 40 kilometers in a day.

HELEN MAGELL: Her proper name is Philanthropy Dupouy, and she's learning English, and she's learning about Sark, and she's absolutely lovely.

I think you do naturally slow down if you have to walk or horse or cycle somewhere.

Yeah, you're sort of-- you're on Sark time.

Yeah, it's just it's part of the whole way of life.

NARRATOR: Visitor boats arrive at the island five times a day in high season, mostly coming from Guernsey, which is 7 miles away.

Waiting for them, as there always has been, is a four-legged taxi rank offering guided tours of the island.

HELEN MAGELL: You meet nice people, and you're basically sitting in the sunshine talking about Sark.

So yeah, it's really nice.

Oh, yeah.

[mellow music] What's that tower that we've just passed?

HELEN MAGELL: This is the mill built in 1571 by the first permanent inhabitants.

It's built on a prehistoric mound as well.

SUE DAWSON: Is it?

OK.

I didn't expect to get a whole carriage to myself.

[laugh] It's lovely.

It's a lovely way to see it.

NARRATOR: Sark is part of a group of islands known geographically as an archipelago.

Each island is unique but also intrinsically linked to its neighbors.

650 miles north of the Channel Islands is Orkney, another archipelago that sits about 10 miles from the north coast of Scotland.

It's made up of approximately 70 islands, although only 20 are inhabited.

The island known as Mainland is the biggest.

And linked to it by a causeway is one of the smallest, Lamb Holm, at just over half a mile long and half a mile wide.

No one lives on the island, but it has plenty of visitors.

Today, Tommy is traveling by causeway from Mainland, the neighboring island.

His passion, though, is to get a bird's eye view.

TOMMY SINCLAIR: Just a little flat, green place.

It's a beautiful little place and I love seeing it from above right enough.

And the runways I've created make it look like a large hot cross bun.

[chuckle] I have a labor of love going on here because I've cultivated a little airfield that allows lots of people in Orkney to fly little airplanes.

[thud] NARRATOR: Tommy caught the flying bug when he was 28.

A farmer on an island with two livestock farms, he would fly around Scotland sourcing livestock.

But slowly, he realized it was the flying rather than the farming that he loved.

TOMMY SINCLAIR: I decided about the age of 50 that I'd had enough and I was going to have some fun.

[laugh] So this here feels part of the fun.

[clatter, splash] I was just taking the bugs off the propeller and the cowl here.

Every time you fly off the grass, you get bits of grass and the bugs out of it get sucked up and squashed against the airframe.

It's nice to keep it clean.

It's great to be a pilot anywhere.

But it has a special good purpose on islands because you can go anywhere you want, basically.

I used to have a Cessna aircraft when I was farming, so it put me within a day trip of anywhere in Scotland.

But when I decided to give up the farming, I had to find a cheaper way to fly, which resulted in beginning to build a home-build airplanes, which are much, much cheaper.

I've always loved working with machines and making and mending them.

You order up a kit, and it comes in a great big pallet, and you begin.

[laugh] And it takes about a year to put it all together.

NARRATOR: Tommy has built three planes himself and still flies two regularly.

Today, like many other days, he's taking out his absolute favorite, a Jabiru J430.

Engine oil is OK.

Every time you fly an aeroplane, you will check it thoroughly before you go flying in it.

4, 5, 6.

Good compressions.

[propeller whirrs] [frenetic music] I love to be airborne in any sort of airplane from a large passenger jet to the tiniest little airplane.

I just love being in the air.

Very seldom a week passes that I don't fly.

It's a sense of freedom.

You require discipline because human body is not designed to be free in three dimensions.

The causeways were built in 1959 as a result of a U-boat commanded by Commander Prien getting into Scapa Flow.

And he sunk the Royal Oak battleship, and that triggered the building of these causeways.

Islands are all special places, each one unique.

And this one's very unique.

I always liked the island.

It's just a big part of my life.

NARRATOR: Back on solid ground in Sark, the tourist boats have gone.

Which means Philly and her young apprentice, Reggie, get to indulge in an extraordinary bathing ritual underneath Sark's rugged cliffs.

HELEN MAGELL: It's the minute they start to go down the Harbour Hill, they're like, we know where we're going!

They've been sort of shuffling along very slowly all day so it probably is actually very good for them to get in the water and feel that freedom and move their bodies in a different way.

It's probably a little bit like water horse yoga or something.

[laugh] [splash] Oh, Reggie loves water.

He's like a child in a pair of wellies allowed to jump in big puddles.

He's like poof!

Yeah, he loves to splash me.

[laugh] Horses have always been used for all sorts of things here.

Less and less horses now, but they're still really important to the few of us that are left that still have horses.

It's still our way of life.

[clip-clopping] [surging music] NARRATOR: Many of our tiny islands that used to be inhabited have become nature reserves so that the wildlife that has always called these islands home can live and flourish undisturbed.

This is true of the Calf of Man that sits just half a mile off the Isle of Man's southern coast in the Irish Sea.

It's around 1 and 1/2 miles by 1 mile, with a seasonal population of just four wardens.

The word "calf" derives from the old Norse word "kalfr," which means a small island lying near a larger one.

This small island neighbor is owned by Manx National Heritage and is run as a nature reserve and a bird observatory.

Originally from Dorset, Kate is the estate warden employed to protect the island's beauty and its wildlife.

This is her first season.

KATE FOX: So there's only four of us that live on here throughout the open season.

So that's from early March to early November and there's no permanent residence.

So you can maybe say it's uninhabited.

But it feels weird when people say that because at the minute it's my home.

[chuckle] NARRATOR: The island's part time population stay in an old farmhouse and try to live as sustainably as possible.

Electricity is off grid, supplied by a generator, and there is no mains water supply.

KATE FOX: So every week, one of our jobs is to check the water levels.

This is my very sophisticated measuring stick.

So it's basically a piece of wood with 10 centimeter lines.

So if we count it 1, 2.

So we've got 100 centimeters of water there.

Now, the maximum is about 120 so we're doing pretty well.

So we get a lot of rain collecting off the roofs.

So we've got a big gutter system all the way along.

And then that then feeds into these tanks.

And then there's a pipe here that then sends that down through filters into our big water tank.

You just get used to having to save any amount of water that you can.

I think the biggest thing that people find a bit of a shock is us, as staff, can only shower once a week.

My hair's got used to it now, after over a year of island life here and elsewhere.

Yeah, it does really matter.

It just goes with it.

NARRATOR: While Kate checks the water, her assistant Dom is prepping their trusty tractor for this morning's task.

DOM ARKELL: I believe we're all set and ready to go to go out and give the flail a go.

Go and sort out some of the bracken.

NARRATOR: This Italian-made tractor has been here for over 20 years and is the island's hardest worker.

It's high summer, and vegetation needs management to encourage the island's rich biodiversity.

DOM ARKELL: The bracken grows incredibly quickly and it is a constant job requiring near constant vigilance.

You turn your back and it shot up 3 inches.

The main species that we're trying to look after when we do this is the chough, a schedule I protected species of corvid related to the crows.

And they really enjoy this short grass.

So we try and keep a lot of the fields clear of bracken so the chough can come in and forage for ants and that sort of thing.

KATE FOX: Every island has its own character, and being able to get to know the island is so special.

And I think coming here for the whole season, you get to see it in all of its moods, pretty much.

You come, and the island's asleep, and then it gradually kind of wakes up.

The vegetation starts to come alive.

The seabird colonies fill up again.

And I think that sense of connection is part of why it's so special.

DOM ARKELL: Now the heather is in flower, it's really stunning.

The scenery has changed so dramatically and so quickly.

If you turn your head, you look back and it's entirely new.

NARRATOR: At its peak, the Calf of Man was buzzing with a population of 25, growing crops and keeping sheep and cows.

In the '50s, the last families left, leaving a criss-cross of drystone walls as evidence of the island's long agricultural history.

Battered by wind and rain in the offseason, repairs to these walls are also on Kate and Dom's never ending to do list.

KATE FOX: So I brought the tractor down here to our sacrificial wall.

So this is the wall that we get our stone from to then repair all the other walls that need repairing.

The drystone walls are a massive part of maintaining and conserving the heritage of the island.

So we've got a great team of drystone wallers that come on.

The big bit is obviously really useful, but they even need all of this packing stuff just to, like, fill the gaps.

It kind of in a way, it doesn't-- It's not concrete, but it, kind of, has the same effect, I guess.

Obviously, they're the experts in building it.

But in preparation for when they come, Dom and I spend a lot of time just ferrying stone, kind of, going down with a tractor back and forth.

DOM ARKELL: A lot of drystone wallers will complain about Manx stone.

As you can see here, you can just pull it apart really.

KATE FOX: Yeah.

DOM ARKELL: It's cool from a heritage point of view that we're able to reuse it, but the drystone wallers don't like it.

Whoa!

[thud] NARRATOR: Not all our tiny islands are surrounded by sea.

Many are nestled in our lakes, lochs, and rivers.

But despite their relative proximity to the mainland, they still managed to provide unique island sanctuaries all of their own.

Lough Erne in County Fermanagh to the west of Northern Ireland contains over 150 islands within its waters.

One of these is Inishcorkish, a truly tiny island that's just 0.7 miles long and 0.3 miles wide.

No one lives here full time, but it's about to become a wonderful home to a herd of piglets.

Pat, a local butcher, is in charge of escorting them to the island.

6 inches forward, Fintan.

6 inches forward Oh!

Oh, oh, oh, that's you.

NARRATOR: It's a journey he's been making for over 20 years.

And today, he's being helped out by his son, Fintan.

He's the third generation to join their farming and butchery business.

FINTAN O'DOHERTY: These wee boys will get through that gate.

NARRATOR: 18 saddleback pigs are traveling over to Inishcorkish today.

Their name derives from the breed's distinctive white band or saddle.

Leaving their mums at 10 weeks old, the island will be their new home until November.

PAT O'DOHERTY: This day started for us probably about half 5:00.

And when you're moving animals, there's a wee bit of pressure there.

You know, you're wondering how it's going to go.

It's well organized, no, Fintan.

That was a game changer there.

They're on board.

No, them boards are-- I'll tell you the right size, nice and light.

Yeah.

[light music] PAT O'DOHERTY: The transportation of animals and equipment, machinery in the Fermanagh Lakelands has been going on for hundreds of years by means of a Lough Erne cot.

The cot is very unique to Fermanagh.

It was originally built as a wooden boat.

The one unifying factor with them is it's got a flat bottom.

The fact it's got a flat bottom makes it easier and more stable.

If you think a cot for a child, you're penned in.

So the cot on the lake pens in animals.

When it lands, it's almost like a landing craft.

It slips on to the shore.

[ramp clangs] FINTAN O'DOHERTY: That's it.

- This packing here.

Yeah.

NARRATOR: Pat bought Inishcorkish in 2005 as an experiment.

Putting his environmental science degree to good use, he wanted to see if he could keep pigs outside, foraging for themselves, free from the intensive farming methods often used on the mainland.

PAT O'DOHERTY: Nothing makes me happier to see animals arriving into a wild environment like this because 99.99% of any pigs never see the daylight, let alone grass.

Just bring the feed on up a wee bit.

Here, the pigs get an opportunity to live the life they want.

Come on, you two!

There's always someone late for dinner.

This is a wee bit of organic feed.

And for them, it's like us getting one of those lovely 99 ice creams, you know, on a hot summer's day.

So this is their-- this is their wee treat for crossing over this morning on the lake.

FINTAN O'DOHERTY: What we're seeing here is pigs that are having probably the best day of their life.

It's the first time they've ever been outdoors.

And not only are they outdoors, they've landed on pig paradise here.

When I was on this island for my first time, I was 10 years old and always remember coming over and my dad said, wait till you see this place.

You're going to love it.

And whenever I actually arrived, I seen what he was talking about.

And I've been in love with the place ever since.

It's the serenity.

It's the peace and quiet, seeing the pigs, being happy, seeing me being happy.

It's a place of happiness.

And to me, that's a big thing.

PAT O'DOHERTY: This is just the beginning for them.

And as they now ease in over the next wee into living in the natural world between the herbs they eat, the grasses, they'll realize how rich their world is going to be because of their diet.

And pigs, believe it or not, are omnivores.

So they actually eat wee things like creepy crawlies.

And so they have a whole variety of dietary requirements.

And out here, they will love it.

NARRATOR: It's this diet that helps flavor the award-winning O'Doherty family Fermanagh black bacon.

The island itself is also celebrated, protected as a site of scientific interest, thanks to the range of herbs and flowers that are found here.

PAT O'DOHERTY: They call this the signature plant of Inishcorkish.

[chuckle] We have seven different varieties of wild mint on the island.

You just rub the leaf, and you've got the most beautiful mint that you ever did smell.

This amazing plant is called silverweed.

During the famine in Ireland, this is responsible for saving tens of thousands of people.

When the potato crop failed, they had to resort to eating plants.

And the silverweed was probably one of the most beneficial plants that they ate.

Because when you dig down into the roots, it's full of starch.

What is potatoes is potatoes are starch.

And these are the roots that the people during the famine plucked to eat.

Now, it doesn't look like much.

But when you eat that, it actually tastes like parsnips.

The thing about it is you have to find a lot of them, but it's enough to keep you alive.

NARRATOR: Just along the shore, the piglets are settling in.

FINTAN O'DOHERTY: The pigs are going to be on this island for about seven or eight months now until the ultimate fate arise.

But it can be said that these pigs will have had the greatest life compared to other pigs who will-- who will end up in the food chain.

[pigs grunt] NARRATOR: From lush and green to rugged and desolate, the appearance of tiny islands varies a lot depending on their location.

Sitting around 20 miles from France's Normandy Coast, Sark in the Channel Islands enjoys a mild temperate climate.

It's ideal for growing food.

But unlike the rest of Europe, intensive farming has never been practiced here.

On Sark, the fields are small, with borders left to nature, clifftops undeveloped, home to an array of plants, including 160 species of wildflowers.

This hands-off approach is also reflected in islanders' gardens, including horse-and-carriage owner Helen.

HELEN MAGELL: I started gardening in '99, and I decided I wanted to be organic.

I think historically, it wasn't really a conscious decision not to use chemicals and things.

I think people here are really tight.

I didn't want to spend the money on it.

So I think it sort of developed its own organic lifestyle.

And then it became important for everyone to keep that, and it became part of what everyone does here.

Everyone's really interested in the wildlife, and they take a pride in their island.

NARRATOR: Helen maintains the garden, along with a busy life, running a B&B and a horse-and-carriage business.

But it's not just a hobby.

It's used to supply fresh food to a local hotel, which she also owns.

So this part of the garden is the orchard.

And we grow not just apples.

We grow pears, plums, apricots, all sorts of different things, but predominantly apples because my mum loves to make cider.

[laugh] And she loves to make calvados.

And the offside of that is the organic apple cider vinegar, which we feed to the horses.

So keeps them coats shiny and everything working very well in their gut.

Most of it does go to the hotel apart from the figs because I eat the figs.

[laugh] I walk past every day and just eat one or two.

And so they never see the hotel.

Cherries, I eat the cherries.

Yeah, most things-- most things I share, but those things no.

[laugh] [guitar strums] NARRATOR: In 2011, Helen turned a former pony paddock into another gardening project, growing vegetables and herbs for the hotel kitchen.

Today, she's harvesting comfrey.

HELEN MAGELL: We grow comfrey because it's really good for the soil.

There's lots of nutrients in it that plants need.

And we harvest it two or three times a year.

So chop it all up.

We'll either mulch around plants that need a mulch around it, or we'll compost it with water and make like a comfrey tea that feeds our tomatoes.

So Sark is at the end of the distribution chain if you like.

So by the time producers got to Guernsey, it's already a few days old.

By the time it gets to Sark, it's quite old.

We always joke that, oh, we get all the stuff that Guernsey doesn't want.

So if you want nice, fresh fruit, veg, that sort of thing, you do have to grow your own.

This is fertilizing.

It's also, if I put it along the seatpost, it's-- when the water comes out of the seatpost, it's going to stay in the soil.

So these spring onions are going to grow.

They're going to want the-- want the nutrients from the mulch.

But the mulch is also going to-- it's going to keep the water close to their roots.

So I'm trying to balance on these boards because it's a no-dig garden.

I don't want to walk on the soil and compact it because we don't dig this garden.

We just add the layers of the mulch.

[serene music] NARRATOR: Helen keeps wildflower borders in her gardens and plant species like giant Echium to encourage biodiversity.

This rare species is native to the Canary Islands but thrives in the mild coastal climate on Sark.

It's particularly attractive to bees and some of the 39 species of butterfly that are found on the island.

Vital pollinators for plants which lock in carbon and help reduce climate change.

HELEN MAGELL: We have lots of lovely wildlife in our garden, lots of bees and butterflies and insects.

We do manage quite a lot for wildlife, but then the wildlife helps us.

So we've got lots of ladybirds in the garden, lacewings, bees, all that sort of thing.

I think when you live somewhere small, you notice the small things and you celebrate the small things.

And that's-- yeah, that's lovely.

NARRATOR: 650 miles away, off the north coast of Scotland, the wind-battered Orkney Islands are mainly treeless.

Here, life is very different, but there is plenty of beauty if you know where to look.

As one of the smallest islands in Orkney, Lamb Holm has no permanent residents.

But it does receive over 80,000 visitors a year.

The visitors come to see a remarkable building built by Italian prisoners of war in World War II.

Helen is one of a team of custodians responsible for preserving its remarkable story.

Her day is beginning with a commute from Mainland, Orkney's biggest island.

HELEN HUME: It's just a 2-mile drive from home to work, and today is an absolutely beautiful day.

I enjoy going to work.

Comes the 25th of this month, it will be 32 years, I think.

The Chapel is possibly one of the top three visited places in Orkney.

I spent a lot of my time here, over the years working, quite privileged to preserve and help preserve the Chapel as well.

Hi.

CHAPEL VISITOR: Hi.

Two of us to go in.

- Yeah, no bother.

Us.

You could take photos, but avoid touching the walls when inside the Chapel.

- OK.

NARRATOR: During the 1940s, Lamb Holm was the site of Camp 60 where 550 Italian prisoners of war who'd been captured in North Africa were put to work building the Churchill barriers.

Originally built to protect the Scapa Flow naval base from U-boat attack, the barriers also created causeways between islands that are still used today.

HELEN HUME: They were brought here from North Africa in January 1942, but they did refuse to work because the causeways were being used as a defense.

So they ended up saying that they were linking the islands, and that's how they got around them working.

The prisoners were brought here in January.

So I mean, they must have found some difference from being in Egypt temperature wise.

And they worked on the causeways all day.

And then the one thing that they lacked was a place of worship.

So they were gifted these two huts, Nissen huts, in 1943.

Major Buckland sourced a lot of the materials for them.

NARRATOR: Led by artist Domenico Chiocchetti, many of the other prisoners were also skilled tradesmen and hid the hut's corrugated iron walls behind a facade of plasterboard which was painted over.

HELEN HUME: A lot of the materials were from the blockships that had been sunk.

The tiles up at the altar were from a bathroom on the ship.

Some of the candlesticks were made from stair rods off the blockships.

The font, the spring on it, was from a dumper truck.

So they were really into the recycling long before we ever were.

Was it eight?

Was it?

Did I say?

The next one is due in five minutes.

Which are-- Oh, they're Italians.

WOMAN: Yeah, bus of Italians.

Whole bus of Italians for you.

[laughter] HELEN HUME: It's interesting when Italian people come.

Some of them know about the Chapel.

Others know nothing about it, don't even know that it exists.

Some of those that come that do know or relatives get very, very emotional.

WOMAN: I am the person in charge to organize the travel for the family.

So I decide by myself-- I pay and, she organize.

No no no, we share.

I really love the island, all of them.

What I think about this chapel is that it's a strong sign against war.

Because a prisoner who forced to be here, they decided to reconstruct something that was important for them to have the opportunity to think about something about higher, a way to feel better.

[gentle music] HELEN HUME: By the time the prisoners came to leave in September 44, the Chapel wasn't quite finished.

Chiocchetti got leave to stay and finish the font.

CHRIS MATTHEWS: The signs on the wall there, what you call the 14 stations of the cross, they were a gift from Chiocchetti family.

Because Chiocchetti, he came back with Maria, his wife, with his children and laterally his grandchildren.

VISITOR: After the war?

After the war, yeah.

[mellow music] HELEN HUME: I don't really know why they refused to take the chapel down when they were dismantling the camp, but I imagine it was just that it was such a beautiful building.

NARRATOR: Sark in the Channel Islands is a community dedicated to a different way of life.

Apart from agricultural machinery, the island doesn't allow any motor vehicles, including cars.

Bicycles reign supreme.

But in the past, many islanders moved around by horse and cart.

And it's a tradition that continues today, although the number of operators is declining.

Helen is determined to do whatever it takes to keep her carriages going.

And today, she's enlisting the next generation, her son George, who's here to do some vital maintenance.

HELEN MAGELL: He loves to fix things.

He wants to find out how things work.

If I have any problems at all, he's always the first person I ask.

And he will always say yes.

What date is it today?

The 7th.

HELEN MAGELL: Thank you.

If we do anything to the carriages, we write it down with the date and what we did, just so we can look back and say, oh, this wheel, that looks like it's moved a little bit.

It's just a bit of a diary for maintenance and things like that.

Taking the hubcap off.

Now I'm taking off the first bolt.

And then we'll take off the second lock nut.

HELEN MAGELL: Are there any play in those two?

Do they feel OK?

The first one's a little loose, but they're OK actually.

NARRATOR: Helen has seven carriages of various sizes.

Most are over 100 years old, including the three she uses most regularly.

HELEN MAGELL: They're so much nicer than the new modern ones.

They've got history and character, and they're a part of our heritage really.

To me, it's really important that we keep them all going.

The other one is very special.

It's a Victoria that was made in 1850 by Ferrari and Orseniger in Milan.

And yeah, we just keep replacing little bits and painting little bits.

And people love the fact that they're old and-- and we're looking after them.

There we go.

I'm a plumber by trade, but mainly, mum had a problem with it.

She wanted me to have a look at it, so I took it apart.

Kind of looked at it, cleaned each bit up.

And then as I was taking it apart, you're going to make mental notes about how it works and then put it all back together the same way it came apart.

Unless something's broken, then you try and fix it with whatever you've got.

Chain oil.

If you grow up here, you learn very quickly how to do stuff rather than getting other people to do it.

It just makes your life a lot easier if you can do it yourself.

There we go.

All done.

See how we go?

- Yep.

Yeah, yeah.

We'll give it a go.

Give it a test.

[gentle music] Oh, she's falling asleep.

She is, yeah.

She loves a bit of a pamper, doesn't she?

NARRATOR: There are no saddlers on Sark.

Philly's bridle and harness were specially made for carriage pulling on the mainland.

The island has no farriers either.

Every six weeks, a farrier comes over and sets up shop in Helen's barn to shoe all the island's horses.

There's no shoeing today, though, just a test run of the wagonette's repairs and a chance for some mother and son bonding.

Oh, this is very nice, George.

Yeah.

[laugh] We haven't done this for a while.

Nice little treat, yeah.

George quite like riding.

He had a really lovely little pony called Minstrel.

George and his brother Ben, they like to ride the same pony, sit on the same big-- she's a big, wide 13, 2 pony and just fight each other with book bags as they went down the road, just smacking each other with the book bags on the way to school.

For one reason or another, the next generation don't really have ponies.

I think life's moved on a little bit.

Everyone's got electric bicycles now, and that's made a huge impact on the amount of horses on the island.

So yeah, the few of us that are still left with the horses still love the horses and we're still going.

You've done a great job, George.

Well done.

[laugh] Another good job.

NARRATOR: 330 miles away, the Calf of Man sits south of its big neighbor, the Isle of Man.

25 people used to live and farm here.

Now, it's a nature reserve with four wardens who stay for nine months each year.

Kate and her assistant Dom are the estate wardens, and they've been here for five months since March.

They generally work six days a week, but today is a day off.

KATE FOX: Keeping an eye for dolphins.

[light music] I'm very lucky that the work that I do, I do enjoy doing it.

There are times where you do just want to take a bit of a break.

One of the best things I like to do is just go out for a bit walk, do a little bit of bird watching, go for sea swims as well, or even just come and sit somewhere and just look out to sea.

Enjoy the peace, enjoy the tranquility of island life.

Because while you're here, you've got to make the most of it, give yourself that time to appreciate being here and slow down.

NARRATOR: Although his dad is originally from the Isle of Man, Dom was brought up in Oxford.

This is his first experience of island life.

And on his days off, he likes to fish.

The summer seas are warm, and the plankton is blooming, attracting gray mullet, mackerel, pollock, and cod.

This morning, we're down in an area of the Calf called the Puddle, and we're hoping to fish for some callig, or as they're called in the rest of the world, pollock.

So the best method for catching callig is using lures.

And I'm hoping that the callig, which are a predatory fish, will come along, assume that's a tasty morsel, and then end up with me for dinner.

This is my dad's old gear, in fact.

And he was fishing with this on the Isle of Man for 50 years really in the past.

So, oh!

What have we got?

We've got a hope it's a callig.

Oh, it is indeed.

Quite an impressive one as well.

That's the biggest that I've caught here.

KATE FOX: What do you think?

A couple of courgettes?

A couple of courgettes and some potatoes for the fishcakes tonight.

It's going to be so good.

The allotment is one of our little projects where it's nice to keep it going.

Because when people used to live in the farmhouse, when they were actually working the land, this would have been how they grew a lot of their food Oh, look at the size of that one.

Whoa!

[laugh] We do get our food order from Tesco, which is great.

But I think knowing that we've actually grown this ourselves is really nice and it's all organic.

It's so rewarding seeing it on your plate and thinking, we've grown this or we've caught it, is really, really good.

They just keep coming up.

KATE FOX: Some of these are massive.

Turns out we're excellent at growing potatoes.

KATE FOX: Who knew?

Obviously, we are on a nature reserve, so we do need to be really careful.

So in terms of biosecurity, for example, when we had the potatoes come in or any of the plants, we had to either grow them from scratch or have sterile plants because of things like invasive flatworms in the soil.

Little things like that that you might not even think of.

You just go to a garden center, get a plant, and then stick it in the ground.

We can't do that here.

We have to be really careful just to protect what we've got.

I can already tell they're organic radishes.

What?

Because of the shape of them?

No, because they've all been eaten.

[chuckle] I've just chucked two massive slugs out.

[laugh] We may be feral, but we're still clean.

[snort] NARRATOR: The other wardens are away on a bird survey today, so tonight's dinner is for two.

KATE FOX: I learn a lot of nice cooking tips from Dom, which is good.

Yeah, he makes the best garlic and herb pizza dip.

Yeah, I think that's the other thing on here is like, if you want something and you've forgotten it in your weekly shop, you've just got to work out how to make it.

DOM ARKELL: Do you want tartar sauce on yours?

I could try it, but I don't think that-- [laughter] Well.

[laughter] I'm putting mine on top cause I'm sensible.

NARRATOR: The presentation may not be Michelin starred, but you would be hard pressed to find a more beautiful restaurant or better dining companions.

You've got to get on well with each other.

But it's lucky because we do, which is nice.

Yeah.

I think it's a little-- we're like a little family, aren't we?

Yeah, I think a lot of people you might apply to a role like this might be doing so to step out of society.

But it's really not like that.

It's more stepping into a very small one.

Yeah.

DOM ARKELL: Hours of effort for this one small plate.

[laugh] [splash] [uplifting music] KATE FOX: You get used to it.

It's your day to day, just all the-- like, all this wilderness, having the place to yourselves, how stunning it is.

And then you go places where it's full of people.

You don't just get a beach to yourself.

There are cars everywhere and street lights everywhere.

DOM ARKELL: I think a great many people would pay a great deal of money or do a horrible thing to live in a place like this.

KATE FOX: [laugh] Yeah.

DOM ARKELL: And we're very lucky in that we haven't had to do either.

[splash] [frenetic music]