Nick tells the astonishing tale of the Great Storm of 1703, the most
devastating weather event ever to hit southern Britain, when lethal winds
whipped in from the Atlantic to claim the lives of one in five seamen of the
Royal Navy. Thousands perished and Nick reveals how the winds of this mighty
storm set more than 400 windmills ablaze and blew ships from our shores all the
way to Norway. So deadly is the Norfolk coast to shipping that some 200 years
ago it also gave birth to one of Britain's earliest emergency services, known
as the 'The Beachmen', Nick meets descendants of this hardy band of boatmen who
managed to turn peril from the seas into a profitable rescue business.

Coast newcomer, poet and storyteller Ian McMillan, uncovers the forgotten story
of another shipwreck which held Britain transfixed at the outbreak of the First
World War. For two terrible days in 1914 more than 200 victims aboard the
hospital ship Rohilla fought for their lives within sight of the Yorkshire
fishing port of Whitby. Mary Roberts, one of those rescued, had survived the
sinking of the Titanic just two years earlier, but said her experience on the
Rohilla was even worse. With historic lifeboats, relatives of the victims, and
extraordinary 1914 newsreel footage, Ian McMillan relives the tragic events
that changed our lifeboat services forever.

Tessa Dunlop reveals what a perilous workplace it was for the men building
Britain's first iron warships in the mid-19th century. Naval dockyards like
Chatham were transformed into a new industrial hell, with workers suffering
terrible injuries, but did their experience also lead to the birth of one of
our most famous institutions, the National Health Service? The iron-clad ships
were so vital to the British Empire that the men who built them were given
special privileges, including free health care, which were normally enjoyed
only by the very rich. But was this elaborate system of benefits introduced in
the Royal Navy's dockyards a precursor to the modern Welfare State that emerged
a century later?

On the tiny Scottish island of Tiree, Dick Strawbridge reveals a remarkable
story from the Second World War of how the timing of the D-Day landings was
determined by the heroism of RAF weather forecasters, flying hazardous missions
far out into the storms of the Atlantic. As their vital missions routinely took
them head-on into storms that would have grounded all other flights, many
aircraft crews were lost and their bodies never recovered. Dick meets one of
these veteran flyers to discover how they managed to fly just feet above raging
seas, with lightning striking the aircraft itself, in an attempt to find a
break in the weather that would give the troops on the beaches of Normandy a
fighting chance.

And off the island of Alderney in the Channel Islands, zoologist and former
soldier Andy Torbet goes in search of a seabird that is famed in folklore as
the harbinger of foul weather - the rare and elusive storm petrel. These
feathered little forecasters are astonishing, hardy creatures that spend almost
their entire lives far out at sea. Fishermen call them 'Mother Carey's
Chickens', but will they come home to roost for Andy?