Britain's Whale Hunters: The Untold Story

Writer Adam Nicolson is granted rare access to the ruins of the whaling stations on the remote British island of South Georgia. Amazing rarely-seen archive footage and first-hand testimony from the last of Britain's whale hunters reveals what it was really like to have been a whale hunter in Antarctica, providing Europe with essential oils for soap and food. Putting our modern environmental guilt to one side, this provocative series looks at how and why whale populations were so drastically reduced in the 20th century, and attempts to see whaling through the eyes of the time.

Writer Adam Nicolson continues to explore the forgotten role that British whalers played in Antarctic whaling as late as the 1960s. Granted rare access to the ruins of the whaling stations on the island of South Georgia, he charts the boom and bust of this once multi-million-pound industry. He hears first-hand about the battle between science, politics and profit that brought whales to the brink of extermination just 50 years ago, and reveals the astounding role that Britain played in the international whaling industry.