Wild Bryher

TV reporter John Doyle visits one of the inhabited Isles of Scilly, Bryher meaning hills in Cornish. The concern is depopulation. Life on the isle used to be based on subsistence farming but measures to encourage tourism have today reversed the trend. After jumping ashore from a gangplank of a small open launch called the Guiding Star, Doyle gives us his full appreciation of the Isle in 1973. The launch was built in 1933 in Cornwall's Portloe and is run by the Badcock family.

Aired in 1990 the TV programme Challenge Anneka built a new boat-landing jetty at Bryher and named it Annequay. The Isles of Scilly with some 2200 residents form an archipelago of five wards or civil parishes of St Mary's with its centre at Hugh Town, Tresco with New Grimsby, St Martin's with Higher Town, St Agnes with Middle Town and the isle of Gugh and Bryher with its hamlet known as The Town. A further 200 or so rocky islets make up the Isles of Scilly which are situated twenty-eight miles off Land's End and an area recognised as outstanding for wildlife. The Isles have a successful floral industry and attract many visitors annually. At low tide it is possible to walk among the isles of Bryher, Samson and Tresco.