Synopsis

Following his 1930s Bradshaw’s guide, Michael Portillo journeys to Rye, an East Sussex port town remarkably untouched by time. There, he uncovers the poignant story of a generation of lifeboatmen lost at sea in 1928 and investigates a stark wartime pillbox. On Rye's beaches, Michael examines one of the twenty-eight thousand concrete fortifications built along the British coast during World War II, listening to a military historian recount how the country braced itself for a potential German i