- 1 week ago
The landscape we see today wasn't created by nature alone; it is a medieval, living ecosystem managed by local "commoners." Numbering around 700, they hold historic grazing rights, allowing their ponies, donkeys, cows, and pigs to roam entirely free across the open woodland New Forest: A Year In The Wild Wood.....
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AnimalsTranscript
00:01An hour's drive southwest of London is a forest as old as England.
00:09Step into it and you enter another world.
00:18A last glimpse of an ancient wild wood that once stretched the length and breadth of Europe.
00:32This forest is like no other.
00:36Here, pigs and ponies roam free.
00:42Secret pockets of Heathland shelter some of the rarest creatures in Britain.
00:49And people live a unique forest life that has survived since medieval times.
00:58Through the eyes of those who live here, this is our smallest and most intriguing national park.
01:20As the summer fades to a watery light, and autumn's hues are coming to life.
01:37Can we start something new, just me and you?
01:44Through low light and trees, a future unseen is a future I can believe.
01:59All through the winter, the forest has slept.
02:02But now, the sap is rising in the trees once more.
02:07The promise of spring.
02:11While you can't really explain it, it's just a feeling that you get after working in the woods for most
02:17of your life.
02:19It's just as if everything is sort of waiting to actually burst into life.
02:41Dave Dibden is a coppiser.
02:46Coppising is an ancient way of harvesting wood from trees by repeatedly cutting them back down to their stump.
02:54Dave has spent the winter coppising a small patch of neglected hazel woodland.
03:00Now, in early April, he's looking for signs that the cut hazel is starting to grow again.
03:09When you're cutting the winter, you think, God, nothing's going to come back here.
03:12You know, it's just that stub you've cut off.
03:14You think, well, will it grow?
03:17And then you start coming back in the springtime.
03:20You start seeing those little buds coming on.
03:25You start seeing the new shoots come up.
03:30The first little leaf forming on these new little hazel shoots.
03:33And it's absolutely marvellous when you start seeing that.
03:36And you think, wow, yeah, it's, everything's working.
03:39And it's amazing how it do work.
03:40Nature is absolutely wonderful.
03:48The budding of the hazel in Dave's small corner of the new forest signals the return of spring.
03:57As he works the coppise through the coming seasons, he'll play a vital role in uncovering the forest's rarest wildlife
04:05gems.
04:12As spring spreads through the forest, the canopy renews itself once more.
04:18Beech, ash, oak.
04:22These are the trees of the ancient wild wood, the green heart of England.
04:35For a thousand years, the new forest was a source of wood for warships and venison for kings.
04:48Today, it is a vital sanctuary for wildlife.
04:56But not all the animals here are completely wild.
05:02Wherever you go in the new forest, there are ponies.
05:08Ponies are so iconic of this place, they have practically come to define it.
05:18But though they roam freely here, they are all owned.
05:29What a lovely view tonight.
05:31Right away to the Isle of Wight.
05:33Robert and Lindsay Stride are New Forest commoners.
05:38Our family goes back quite a long way in the forest.
05:41It goes back hundreds of years.
05:44Look at the foal play.
05:46Commoners are farmers who since medieval times have had the right to graze their animals communally on the forest.
05:52Here he comes.
05:55Robert and Lindsay are taking an evening walk to check up on the spring's new foals.
06:00It's playtime before bedtime.
06:03I wonder how many foals we'll have this year.
06:07I don't know.
06:08It's amazing how many people who think that the ponies are wild and when you tell them that they are
06:14owned, they can't believe it.
06:16The ponies are sort of an integral part of our life.
06:20Yeah, nice baby, filly with two white feet beyond.
06:22Most people see the forest as a wild place, but we see it as a working forest that is an
06:28extension to our farm.
06:29I bet her mother's got a foal somewhere.
06:32She's away from her.
06:37She's allowed to be caught up and branded.
06:41Commoning here has never been an easy life.
06:45The new forest grows on poor soils, so is no good for agriculture.
06:51It's one of the reasons it still survives today.
06:55But over the centuries, commoners have found ways to work with the forest.
07:02And those traditions have been passed down from one generation to another.
07:10Come on, I'll pull you up.
07:12Robert and Lindsay are expecting twins shortly.
07:16It's like climbing Mount Everest.
07:19It is when you're pregnant.
07:21It's their hope that their children will want to carry on with this unique way of life.
07:26Poor view though, innit.
07:27But times are tough.
07:29The year ahead promises to be a challenging one.
07:38Today, we think of forests as places entirely made up of trees.
07:42But the new forest has never been like that.
07:46Between the swathes of ancient woodland are wide open spaces, heathland, bogs and grass lawns.
07:57Forest doesn't actually mean woodland, but comes from the old Norman word for a place reserved for the king to
08:04hunt deer.
08:07Nearly a thousand years ago, William the Conqueror needed a regular supply of venison to feed his court at nearby
08:15Winchester.
08:17This wild land was perfect for hunting and had deer in abundance.
08:24So in 1097, William made it his very first royal hunting ground, or New Forest.
08:37Ever since those early days, there have been keepers charged with protecting the royal deer and the trees that sheltered
08:44and fed them.
08:47Martin Noble is retired now, but while he was head keeper, he came to understand as well as anyone, the
08:54quiet but age-old battle between grazing animals and trees.
09:03This is a tiny little oak tree.
09:07Originally an acorn, of course, came from a nearby oak tree and managed to survive through the winter and in
09:16the spring was able to set down the root and now it's produced a shoot with three tiny little leaves
09:21on.
09:23Sadly, the prospects for this little tree are slim.
09:26I mean, it's a beautiful little tree and it's a bit shame to think it's going to get eaten, but
09:32at this stage, if the top has nipped out, and it probably will be, certainly by the winter, if not
09:37before, then it'll die.
09:40The good news is that an oak tree will produce many, many thousands of acorns and it only needs to
09:47have one surviving, one of those acorns surviving to produce a mature tree in 200 years to replace the tree
09:54it came from.
10:05Animals have always grazed the forest, but because ancient woodland has become so rare in Britain, Martin has had to
10:13learn over his working life how to give trees a helping hand.
10:25In the past, people were allowed to collect fallen wood for the fire.
10:33We now realise dead wood provides a vital home for wildlife, so today keepers ensure it's left alone.
10:47And there's an added benefit. Where a dead branch falls, it can cradle a seedling too.
10:55Well, this little oak tree has had the fortune to fall as an acorn into this patch of bramble.
11:01The bramble itself was formed because of a tree or branch of a tree which had fallen earlier and allowed
11:07it to get a foothold.
11:08And the bramble now is acting like a barbed wire fence effectively around the developing oak tree and providing it
11:16protection from grazing animals such as deer, ponies, cattle, etc.
11:23Hopefully, with luck, it will survive to a good old age.
11:29It's said that an English oak takes 300 years to grow, 300 to live and 300 to die.
11:38That is a life worth nurturing.
11:50Although first set aside as a hunting ground, it was the new forest's trees that became its most valued resource.
11:59As demand for timber grew, areas of woodland were fenced to protect them from grazing animals.
12:07Some of these enclosures grew the oak for Nelson's warships.
12:12Others protected coppices.
12:18Hazel was once a hugely important raw material for anything from broomstick handles to the wooden hurdles that fenced the
12:27nation's livestock.
12:30Today, the value of coppicing is being rediscovered and the forestry commission, who manage much of the new forest, are
12:38calling on the skills of people like Dave Dibden.
12:41I manage it for them on a rotation basis.
12:44So you've got ten acres, you do an acre one year, the next year you move on to another acre,
12:49until you've got to your tenth year.
12:52That's your ten acres done, and you're back to your first one, so you've got a continual diversity of growth
12:56of hazel.
12:59The benefits aren't just in a renewable source of wood. Where Dave has cut back the overgrown coppice, there's been
13:07a revelation.
13:13By clearing out all the old hazel, where it had been in the years before, just overstood, dark and cold,
13:20it's just as if you flicked a switch.
13:25I've allowed the sunlight to actually come in and re-germinate the seeds that are in the ground.
13:31They could have been laid dormant there for 50 years or more.
13:37Violets, stitchwort, spurge, plants like these were once the only way of banishing smells, flavouring stews or treating ailments.
13:55It's also good to see now that the hazel that I've cut in previous years, it's all come into leaf.
14:00It will produce a lot of habitat, a lot of cover underneath now for a variety of birds and the
14:06species that will come back there.
14:07Insects as well, you get the insects back and then you get all the small birds back after the little
14:12insects.
14:21Trees, left to their own devices, can crowd out everything else.
14:26But with his skillful management, Dave's ten-acre patch has become a miniature wonderland for wildlife.
14:41The new forest's diverse treasures also lie beyond the trees.
14:51Throughout the forest are unusual pockets of land.
14:55Where the soil is so sandy and acidic, trees find it hard to grow.
15:01Over his life as keeper, Martin Noble has become fascinated by these lowland heaths.
15:07So unique, they're of global importance.
15:11Now in his retirement, he continues his watch over some of the rarest animals in Britain.
15:18One of the things that I've been doing for years is monitoring certain areas of the forest for reptiles that
15:25live there.
15:28As the sun warms the heath in spring, male sand lizards begin chasing after females.
15:37In the late 1980s, Martin pioneered a program of captive breeding and successfully brought the lizards back from the brink
15:45of extinction.
15:49Sand lizards are so rare because this habitat is rare.
15:55The new forest has more than a quarter of Britain's remaining lowland heaths, and so is crucially important for heathland
16:02creatures.
16:04Martin's careful stewardship extends to those that might not have so many friends.
16:11One of my favourite reptiles is the adder.
16:14There are certain places where, in the spring, if you walk very carefully, you can see them out in the
16:20open, soaking up the warm sunshine.
16:25Adders are our only venomous snake, but they're really not aggressive.
16:29If you leave them alone, they'll just slip quietly away into the undergrowth.
16:38These heathlands are also home to some of Britain's rarest birds, like the tiny Dartford warbler.
16:49It survives through the cold months seeking out insect larvae, hidden in the gorse buds.
16:57But it's vulnerable to harsh winters, so exists on a knife edge, hugging the warm south coast of England, but
17:06at the northern limit of its range.
17:11For the Dartford warbler, spring never comes soon enough.
17:23Hobbies are migrants arriving all the way from West Africa.
17:30They rely on the heathland for feeding and breeding.
17:35I just love hobbies. They're just beautiful little birds.
17:38They're little falcons, similar to, but smaller than the peregrine, and hunting smaller prey.
17:42They hunt small birds, even dragonflies and things like that they'll catch on the wing. Wonderful flyers.
18:01The heathland is as much a part of the new forest as the woodland, and it all needs looking after.
18:09It's the responsibility that everyone who lives in the forest takes seriously today.
18:15Get you out in the forest.
18:17Take you back to see your offspring.
18:21See, this horse is 13 or 14 years old. He's been all over the forest now, hasn't he?
18:26It's early May, and Robert Stride and his father Richard are taking their stallion, Rushmore Playwright, out onto the forest
18:34to run with the mares.
18:38Rushmore's been kept on Richard's farm all winter, where he's been living an easy life, but that's all about to
18:45change.
18:47Hopefully the horse might lose a bit of weight.
18:52After a short journey to where the mares are grazing, it's time for Rushmore to be released.
19:17It's been a while since the call of a stallion has been heard on this bit of the forest.
19:39The mares coming from oil's array.
19:49It's too nice for grey mares.
19:50Yeah. Proper forest ponies. Let them go.
20:00There was a time when Rushmore spent all year with the mares.
20:04But recently, commoners have decided to reduce the number of foals born on the forest.
20:12Stallions like Rushmore now have just a few weeks of freedom.
20:18He didn't get them in full, actually, did he?
20:23I think he possibly will lose some weight.
20:28I think you possibly would if you had as many women as what he's got on the go.
20:34Very lucky chap.
20:41Though he has just a short time on the forest, the strides are hoping he'll sire around 25 foals, which
20:48will be born next spring.
20:54Commoners are all too aware that too many ponies leads to overgrazing.
21:01But no ponies would be the end of their traditional way of life.
21:07Look at that.
21:08Sad day if you don't see a stallion raining up the mares in the forest.
21:13The key for Richard and Robert is in balancing the old ways with what's ultimately best for the forest.
21:22He's been dreaming of that for 11 months.
21:26His dreams have come true.
21:28All right.
21:41Summer is always the busiest time in the forest.
21:49Millions of visitors flood into one of the most accessible bits of wilderness in Britain.
21:54But it's only 20 miles by 20 miles.
22:05At times like this, the forest can feel very small.
22:15But venture just a little way from the beaten track and you find another world.
22:29Once you walk off the road, walk off the path, you could be in the middle of a forest 100
22:36miles by 100 miles.
22:38You soon lose the sound of the road, the feeling of modern order.
22:44You soon have been there.
22:47Teprisha is a storyteller.
22:50She grew up here and knows the place intimately.
22:54The source of her inspiration is walking in the forest.
23:01One of the mysteries about being in your own favourite part of the forest, and many of us who live
23:08here have just one little part of the forest that we call our own really.
23:12Is that even though I've been here ever since I was eight, in and out, I never really know it
23:18off my heart.
23:20You know, I never quite know where I'm going next.
23:23I know the stream will be there and I know the trees and the time of year it is.
23:29But there's always something that surprises me.
23:35People often think nowadays in nature of it being very healthy to be out and about and very healthy to
23:42be moving through it.
23:44Using their eyes in a sort of a panorama.
23:46And actually the forest isn't such a panoramic landscape.
23:53It's just a curly queue of tiny different little experiences.
24:08It's a place of discovery.
24:10I mean, if you have an eye for the artistic, there are amazing shapes in this forest.
24:16Amazing things.
24:24The fear of getting lost in the forest is surprisingly real in all of us.
24:29Maybe it explains why many people don't venture very far from their cars.
24:34But the deeper you go, the more you discover.
24:42The forest is full of so many places.
24:47They're really places.
24:48It's not one forest that's all the same all the way through.
24:52And the mood created by different kinds of trees in different kinds of places is intensely different.
25:03Oh, I love beech trees.
25:06Their canopies are so thick in the summer that nothing grows beneath them.
25:11And so they create extraordinary spaces right in the thick of the forest.
25:18I had no idea this place existed.
25:24They're all in a circle.
25:27As if somebody's planted them like temple golems to stand there.
25:35And in between, it's a vast, vast, temple-like space.
25:53From the ground, the trees reach vertically up to the light.
26:00And high, high above is this beautiful green ceiling.
26:08The sun shining through gives the impression of stained glass.
26:12As delicate as in any cathedral.
26:20How much better to find yourself in a cathedral than in a car park?
26:43Tomorrow is the one, which means the potty and may be able to find nothing more.
26:50And they've got to be an axe for mine.
26:54When I'm cutting during the winter months, coppicing it, you haven't got time to sort too much of it out.
27:01Looks like a load of old twigs and a lot of old branches, which it probably is, but a lot
27:06of gardeners now are going back to the old way of growing things.
27:11And as I work the rows up, you'll see that I'll just sort through stuff that I can think would
27:17be the use for peen, bean sticks and anything else that comes out.
27:23And people generally do not like them that shape. I mean, some don't seem to worry too much, but I
27:28mean, the peas don't mind really what they grow up, but that's just a nice sort of shape that can
27:34set up alongside a fence in your garden.
27:37It's just another way of keeping our woodlands alive. And the more people buy this sort of stuff, the more
27:42we can work our coppices to where they used to be worked.
27:48Dogs are doing tug of war.
27:56Yeah, that's one a bit different. Look, it's a hazel. But when the hazel is growing, this is the honeysuckle
28:05that would be growing with it when it's young.
28:09And as the hazel grows, it gradually tightens up and gradually grows. You can see this bit here, it grows
28:13right into it.
28:14So I'm that's cleaned up and seasoned for a year. In the workshop, peel this honeysuckle off, trim it up
28:23and use that as a walking stick.
28:26When it's properly finished off, Dave can get over 30 pounds for one of his twisty walking sticks. He's well
28:33known for them.
28:35But the real rewards for his work are right here in the forest.
28:42This summer, he saw his first pearl-bordered fritillary in the coppice.
28:48The caterpillars of this rare butterfly feed only on violets, which have flourished here since Dave cut back the overgrown
28:56hazel.
28:59They used to call it the coppice's butterfly, as it followed the old coppices from clearing to clearing.
29:07As coppicing died out, it did too.
29:12Now the adults have returned for the first time in generations.
29:19It's like a big jigsaw. Things click into place. You can't push nature, but over the period of time, it
29:27will click, click, click, click, click, click.
29:29And in the end, you've got a big picture and things come back.
29:35The full richness of the new forest comes out only when people are part of the bigger picture.
29:49This is Edward Charles and Amelia May.
29:55The next generation of commoners arriving at the busiest time in the farming year.
30:04Most people take paternity leave.
30:07Luckily, it rained for the week they were born, so Robert could come to the hospital with him.
30:11Didn't have to go haymaking that week.
30:12But the following week, he did go haymaking, so we didn't see him too much.
30:22Like all commoners, the strides have some land.
30:26The rights to graze livestock on the forest are tied to that land.
30:30They can keep their animals here when they're not on the forest, and grow winter fodder for their cows.
30:37And if the sun's shining, haymaking can't wait.
30:41Even if you've just had twins.
30:45Haymaking is a fundamental part of a commoner's life.
30:47I mean, if you haven't got any feed in the winter, you're stuffed.
30:53When the sun comes out like this, it's a real haymaker.
30:56The grass wilks as you're looking at it, which is good for us.
31:00Makes our life a lot easier.
31:14By mid-summer, Robert's pastures need a rest.
31:20So he now leads his cows out into the forest to find fresh grazing.
31:38Dad always says it's good for a cow to go out in the forest.
31:41It keeps them active in their mind.
31:44You'll turn them out and away they'll go.
31:58Animals are not silly, are they?
31:59They know which plants to eat.
32:01If you had enough time to study what a cow eats in a day,
32:05you would have a surprise to what a cow would eat out in the forest.
32:09We're used to seeing cows in fields,
32:12but their ancestors evolved in the ancient forests,
32:15so they're quite at home here.
32:18And whenever they move back into their ancestral home,
32:21they join the ponies and the deer
32:23in having a profound effect on the nature of the forest.
32:37The ancient woods are not really the dense woodland that you might expect,
32:41because with the grazing pressure from ponies, cattle and deer,
32:45there are a lot of open spaces within the trees.
32:49One of the most visible elements is what we call a browse line.
32:52This is effectively a line up to which the ponies and other species can reach.
33:10It means that there's a clear visibility between the trees.
33:13When you're walking in the woods, you can see through,
33:17and it makes it a very attractive sort of walk,
33:19because you can see a long way ahead,
33:20although there are quite a lot of trees around.
33:28The open nature of these ancient woods
33:30isn't just a result of recent grazing practices.
33:34People and their livestock were helping to shape them from the earliest times.
33:40If you go back far enough into Mesolithic times,
33:43maybe 8,000 years ago,
33:45then this would have been the sort of land
33:46that most of Britain and a large part of Europe would have been.
33:50And I have a feeling that the reason that so many of us actually love the New Forest
33:54and love walking in it
33:55is because this is the sort of habitat which we would have lived in.
33:58It's something in our psyche which says,
34:00this is really what our habitat should be.
34:09The New Forest is the very last place in Western Europe
34:13where we can directly experience this link with our own forest past.
34:18It's a connection that some feel is fundamentally important to us today.
34:29I think the forest is rooted deeply inside all of us.
34:37As a storyteller, I tell folk tales that come from all around the world.
34:42But still for me,
34:44this is where the stories that I love most come from.
34:50Hansel and Gretel, Robin Hood, The Hobbit,
34:53so many of the stories we heard as children
34:56owe their genesis to the Wildwood.
35:05Many of the movies we see
35:07and the novels we read,
35:09even in urban settings,
35:11continue to play out the same themes.
35:14The forest draws you in,
35:16but at the same time you're frightened of what you might find there.
35:20It's a metaphor for life.
35:24We all carry this place around with us
35:27in our imaginations.
35:29But today, most of us have lost that physical connection.
35:33If you can actually get out into the forest,
35:37it can be a hugely powerful experience.
35:42The forest is not just a fascinating place.
35:46I think it's the ancient heart of our culture.
35:59Late summer in the new forest
36:01is the start of the annual pony roundups
36:03known as drifts
36:05and the first social engagement for the Stride Twins.
36:10It's a big thing in the social calendar of the forest.
36:14It looks like a bit of a Wild West show, actually,
36:17I think, to the outside world.
36:22The drifts are a once-a-year chance
36:24to gather up ponies for sale,
36:26but they're also a way of checking up on their welfare.
36:33You need a bit of luck
36:34and a lot of skill to catch ponies.
36:38You've got to use stealth.
36:40If they see you riding out through,
36:42they'll twig.
36:45They're usually split up into small groups
36:47and everybody knows where their positions are.
36:50You've got to come round
36:51sort of in a pincer movement
36:53and it's like a surprise attack, really.
37:09At the end of the day, it is a job.
37:11It's not just a jolly,
37:12but there's something about riding across the forest
37:14after ponies at speed.
37:15I mean, some people say we're absolute maniacs.
37:17Well, most people, actually.
37:19Idiots.
37:19Idiots.
37:28We do get fired up
37:30and we will get annoyed with one another
37:32and say,
37:32why the hell didn't you do this?
37:34Why the hell didn't you do that?
37:35Well, you always told me when I was a boy
37:37if you didn't get swore at,
37:38you wouldn't be any good.
37:40We're all all right again the next day
37:42or the day after.
37:43It might take a couple of days.
37:45Settle down.
37:50Usually, you go out three or four times on a drift.
37:53Sweep different areas
37:55to get as many ponies in as you can.
37:59You've really got to pit your wits against them
38:01to catch them.
38:04Some of the riders will be waiting in key positions
38:06to push them on towards the pound.
38:14But things don't always go to plan.
38:27Well, you don't all get caught.
38:33There's some very elusive ones.
38:38The plan worked.
38:40Three quarters of the plan.
38:41The ponies came right down to the pound.
38:43But the riders weren't up with the ponies
38:45and the ponies had a chance to think.
38:47And if you give ponies a chance to think,
38:49they'll outwit you.
38:50And they turn back before we could catch up with them.
38:55And once they turn back,
38:56that's the end of it.
39:03You have good days and bad days on drift.
39:05Last week, we had five mares and foals to take home.
39:08Today, we got nothing.
39:09But that's the way it goes.
39:10Even though I haven't got anything to go home with,
39:12somebody else has.
39:14It's their turn to take their ponies home this week.
39:17And next week, it'll be my turn again.
39:18So that's the way it is.
39:23By coming together at the drift,
39:25the commoners can collectively look after the welfare of the ponies
39:28and properly manage their numbers on the forest.
39:33The ponies are first wormed
39:35and then reflective collars are fitted
39:37to make them more visible to cars at night.
39:42To show that the fees for keeping them on the forest have been paid,
39:46their tails are cut.
39:48Each area of the forest with its own unique pattern.
39:54Any new foals that are staying on the forest
39:57are now marked with the owner's brand
39:59so that everyone can see who is responsible
40:02for the animal's well-being.
40:06Ponies that have been picked out for sale
40:08are now taken home by their owners.
40:12But they won't know whether they've made a profit
40:14until the pony sales in the autumn.
40:22Oh, my God.
40:57By late August, morning dews are growing heavy, and summer visitors are preparing to leave.
41:22Across the forest, heather is now in full bloom, the last of summer's nectar, with the first signs that autumn
41:36is not far away.
41:45In Dave's coppice, this year's shoots are now at head height.
41:49But until the sap is down again, he can't start cutting his next patch of hazel.
41:56With time on his hands, there's a chance to practice another lost skill.
42:04Charcoal burning.
42:06Once an essential part of every woodsman's year, and a way of using up any leftover hazel.
42:12You can get a real good fire going, a real good hot base.
42:16And then the drum, I raise it up about roughly about four inches with wooden blocks.
42:22You pack it in the drum as tight as you can, really.
42:28Well, it's looking quite good at the moment.
42:30It's building up a lot of heat, actually, inside the drum now, which is what we want.
42:38You don't want the wood to really burn, so you're more or less cooking it.
42:43But once you know it's well alight at the bottom, you can start shutting the air out.
42:49Then you're just keeping the fire, it's just turning over then.
42:53It's not roaring away.
42:55That's when it really starts cooking, then you get loads and loads of white smoke come out.
43:02Charcoal is formed when the heat from the fire drives off water and impurities to leave just carbon.
43:10The white smoke is the water being turned into steam.
43:15And you gradually see the smoke changing.
43:18It goes to sort of a yellowy type of smoke, and that's the minerals being burnt off.
43:25The real skill is in constantly reading the smoke.
43:29Get it wrong, and you can easily burn the wood and end up with a pile of ash.
43:35A lot of it, okay, you can read it all in books, but it's like a lot of these old
43:41crafts.
43:41It's done by the feel of it, listening to the way it's drawn up through the drum and using your
43:46instinct, really.
43:49When it starts to really turn to charcoal, very thin smoke starts coming off then, bluey colour.
44:00And that's when you can start really shutting it down.
44:02You shut all your gaps up around the bottom, then you shut the top off.
44:08Without the air getting to it, it would just naturally go out.
44:13Just let the drum cool down then.
44:17With a bit of luck, you'll have some nice charcoal.
44:21Just enough to make a few pound here and there on a bag.
44:26The charcoal from hazel coppices was once the most valuable source of fuel in Britain.
44:32It's almost pure carbon, burning hotter than coal.
44:36And for thousands of years was the only fuel hot enough to smelt iron.
44:43These days it goes for barbecues, so long as Dave can get it home safely.
44:49Sometimes it has been known, you've just got to leave a little spark in there and it can reignite again.
44:54So it's the first few hours, it's crucial because perhaps you'll be driving home and you'll say,
45:00what's that burning and your bags are lighting the back of the truck and you've got out of fire.
45:10It's the first pony sale of September and the biggest sale of the year.
45:20Tourists come from all over the world for the spectacle.
45:23But for commoners, it's much more important than that.
45:27On the great, 50, 40 and 30, where are you going to be?
45:35Robert and Richard Stride have brought 10 of their ponies today.
45:40I've got a bar behind him, have I?
45:42110, not 110 guineas, not 110, no money at all.
45:49The experts say that a forest pony's got the most placid, lovely temperament of any of the native breeds.
45:55They're usually easy to break in and handle.
46:10But the sale isn't going as well as hoped.
46:14Today's not been the best sale I've ever been to.
46:19Prices are very depressed.
46:21Some of the very best foals in there today didn't sell.
46:24They only had reserves of £50 on them, so it's a sad indictment of the times, I think.
46:31Richard and Robert have sold eight of their foals, but at a loss.
46:36In a recession, there's less demand for ponies, and that's coupled with higher production costs.
46:45Each pony sold has to have a passport and an identifying microchip, which is placed under its skin.
46:52It's the seller who has to pay for both of these costs.
46:57There's foals in there, lovely foals, for £10.
47:01I mean, the cost of production is close to £35, just for the paperwork and the microchip, so it's an
47:07absolute loss.
47:09It's pretty heartbreaking, really.
47:13It's not all about the money.
47:15I mean, it's the old traditions and the heritage of it all.
47:17But it would be nice if they did make a bit of profit instead of a loss.
47:27Even though times are tough, new forest ponies with their hardy nature and gentle temperament
47:33do still find good homes, and commoners have always been resourceful.
47:39We've got to evolve our systems to suit the market.
47:43It won't collapse, but it has got to change.
47:47Like my mother says, we've got to evolve with the times.
47:49It's no good being like a dinosaur, because look what happened to the dinosaurs.
48:14As autumn comes to the new forest,
48:17beech, birch, ash and oak, each in their own time,
48:21turn the landscape golden.
48:28As the leaves start to fall away,
48:30the forest echoes with strange new sounds.
48:40Fallow deer bucks are proclaiming their dominance,
48:43hoping to mate before the winter sets in.
48:53The oaks are always the last to turn,
48:56but first they become heavy with acorns.
49:01It's time for commoners to let their pigs into the forest.
49:21Cows and ponies can be poisoned if they eat too many acorns,
49:25but pigs are immune to their tannins.
49:30And as they hoover them up,
49:32they reduce the danger to other livestock.
49:37Meanwhile, the pigs get fat on the fruits of autumn.
49:56And for many, autumn is simply a time to get out into the forest
50:01and soak up a brief but glorious moment of colour before winter takes hold.
50:11What a joy to come back into the forest in autumn.
50:15You know, especially on a sunny day.
50:19It knows how to die.
50:21I think that's what's the joy about coming into the forest at this time.
50:26Just like after a really good party,
50:28everything sort of leaves at a different time.
50:30That family collects itself and says,
50:32right birches, out of here, on we go, we've done our bit, you know.
50:35And the oak says, yeah, I'm sticking on a while, you know.
50:38I still have things to do.
50:42And then the beaches go, well, before I leave,
50:47you know, I'll do a turn.
51:12It's light through colour, light through gold.
51:20And it's a colour that just feeds you.
51:26It makes you feel a real deep joy.
51:37I am of that age where suddenly you find yourself
51:42at more funerals than christenings.
51:45I've lost six close family members and two dear friends.
51:49And in the confines of my home,
51:54sometimes life hasn't made sense.
52:00But constantly, by myself, with my dog, with a good friend,
52:06I've gotten out into the forest.
52:08And there's a really deep sense of contentment
52:13and a deep interaction with things that are true
52:18and are just doing what they do.
52:21It's not the holiday world of time taken out of a real life.
52:25This is real life.
52:26This is a real place.
52:28And we so need to be in real places.
52:33When we're autumnal, when we're worn out,
52:36whether we're 16 and worn out or 60 and worn out,
52:41the forest will give something back.
52:45It's regenerative.
52:47It builds you up again.
52:48And it puts you back on your feet.
53:17And it puts you back on your feet.
53:24For over six months, the forest has been cloaked in leaves.
53:30Winter brings a new, stark beauty,
53:33as the bones of the forest are laid bare once more.
53:37It's now that the trees most clearly reveal stories from the past.
53:45There's a place I love called Sorely Beaches.
53:50A place that says as much to me about the new forest as anywhere.
53:57It's a group of beaches of such impressive proportions
54:00that you can't help but be moved by them.
54:08But these trees are not entirely natural.
54:11The reason they look like this is because they are pollards.
54:17The pollarding was an ancient way of harvesting the wood from trees
54:20by chopping the branches off at head height.
54:25And when pollarding stopped here over 300 years ago,
54:29these trees just kept growing,
54:30branching out from where they were cut
54:32to form these extraordinary shapes.
54:42Today, these new forest giants are coming to the end of their lives.
54:46And with them,
54:47the record of a lost practice dies too.
54:53But to think that such iconic trees
54:55were the result of a few woodsman's cuts
54:57so long ago
54:59tells us a great deal about the true nature of this forest.
55:07The thing I love most about the new forest
55:10is this deep sense of continuity with the past.
55:14Sorely Beaches for me is a clear reminder
55:17that this wilderness has been made by nature,
55:19but in a long alliance with people
55:22to provide something which I don't think exists really anywhere else.
55:32Nearly a thousand years ago,
55:34William the Conqueror protected this forest for its deer.
55:39Unwittingly,
55:40he preserved something that has become unique.
55:44In 2005,
55:46the new forest was made a national park
55:48to recognize the value of its landscape and wildlife.
55:52But just as importantly,
55:54the relationship between forest and people.
55:59Robert and Lindsay Stride believe
56:01the long tradition of commoning
56:03is fundamental to keeping the special nature of the forest
56:07secure into the future.
56:10Oh, that's better.
56:12The forest will always be facing challenges.
56:15But essentially,
56:17the forest will always be,
56:22and I hope that,
56:25you know,
56:26for the twins,
56:27they're going to have
56:28that same sense of freedom
56:30that we had as children
56:31and that they will learn to love the forest.
56:35Thanks.
56:36Good boy.
56:37Nearly every member of our family
56:39is still actively involved in common
56:41in one way or another.
56:42So I would hope that these two
56:44will carry on the traditions
56:46of keeping ponies and cattle and pigs
56:48and trying to keep the forest going
56:50in the traditional way.
56:55Without active commoners
56:57managing the forest and the landscape
57:00through their animals grazing it,
57:02the forest would be
57:03a very different place for everybody.
57:14For centuries,
57:15people have grazed their animals
57:17on the new forest
57:18and harvested its trees.
57:22Managed with care,
57:24it has phenomenal power
57:26to regenerate itself.
57:31Work against it
57:32and all will be lost.
57:35Work with the forest
57:37and you'll find it
57:38infinitely dependable.
57:41Come and start something new
57:44Further than you
57:47As death is to birth
57:50The moon to the earth
57:53Find a future I can believe
58:01Next time,
58:03we travel north
58:04to a vast wilderness
58:06where Britain becomes
58:07truly arctic
58:08Where conditions are so extreme
58:11that they challenge
58:13even the toughest of survivors
58:17The cairngores
58:19The moon to the earth
58:20The moon
58:20The moon
58:46The moon
58:47The ER
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