Atlantic Britain (C4)

Who Killed Thomas Becket? (C4)

IT sounded as if the Mitchell brothers had returned to Albert Square when Adam Nicolson began talking about "big, tough, angry, violent".

He was actually referring to conditions along to the Cornish coast which the Atlantic makes one of the most dangerous and hostile coasts in the world.

You can understand the sense of adventure that might want to make the columnist and author leave his three Scottish islands, five children and 200 pigs, sheep and cows to embark on a sailing that coast. But he might have learnt to sail first.

He re-mortgaged his house to buy The Auk, a 42ft wooden sailing boat in which to undertake the journey despite having sailed in nothing bigger than a dinghy previously.

Skipper George Fairhurst was much more experienced, with half a million sea miles under his belt. But within hours of setting off, the boat was being tossed and turned by a particularly angry sea. "The first night out and it's doing this to me," moaned Nicolson as the sea heaved like a novice sailor about to lose his lunch.

This was not so much a baptism of fire as a baptism of water that induced in this novice sailor a mixture of terror and excitement.

This first of eight episodes chronicling Nicolson's sea voyage threw up, if you'll pardon the expression, some interesting diversions as he sailed from Falmouth to the Sicilly Isles.

While sailing this coast can be hazardous - numerous mentions were made of shipwrecks - living on the Sicillys is safer. Nicolson had heard that crime was so low that people left their car doors unlocked. He put this to the test, trying doors in a row of parked vehicles. Not only were they unlocked but windows left open and keys in the ignition.

Lundy Island in the Bristol Channel has been the scene of more than 200 shipwrecks, although the sheltered east side is a haven for flora and fauna. The Lundy cabbage grows nowhere else in the world, and the beetles found on the cabbage are unique too.

Nicolson abandoned ship temporarily to go climbing on the cliffside to net some of these creatures, an activity less dangerous than being appointed Archbishop of Canterbury by Henry II.

Who Killed Thomas Becket? tried hard to put a sensational spin on the story of the four knights who took their lead from the king and decided to rid him of that troublesome priest in "the most sensational murder the medieval world had ever known".

The experts, aided by the dramatic reconstruction, took great delight in reliving - several times - the gory murder, particularly the bit about one sword blow slicing off his crown. Professor Anne Duggan noted that as the priest lay on the ground "his brains were scattered about the pavement" and a voice cried (needlessly, you might think) "He's dead, he'll never rise again".

As for who killed Becket, the answer was the same one - the four knights. The mysterious fifth knight, Ranolf de Brock, didn't cast a blow but egged them on. First of all, they went unarmed to arrest the Archbishop, seeking sanctuary in Canterbury Cathedral.

De Brock helped them into full armour and sent them back inside. He had most of gain as he was raking in a fortune in rents from Becket's land in his absence.