Coast along with Edge Hill experts

Experts from Edge Hill will be shedding light on the history of the Formby footprints in a new BBC documentary series Coast, set to start this July. Annie Worsley, senior lecturer in physical geography joined Gordon Roberts of the National Trust on Formby beach last November when the BBC film crew captured them taking samples and investigating the famous human footprints. The result is to be broadcast on the 5th August as part of a programme dedicated to exploring the Liverpool to Solway Firth coastline. The 13 programmes celebrate the unique character of the UK?s coastal communities exploring human stories through a mixture of expert comment, contemporary storytelling and computer generated images. Annie Worsley is delighted to be a part of this groundbreaking series: "We were approached by researchers for the series following a conference of the Sefton Coastal partnership. The BBC were keen for us to share our findings, to help to create a picture of the environment that existed five to six thousand years ago." The human and animal footprints found at Formby Point unearth clues to the lives of ancient man. Evidence of family activity includes footprints of children playing and young pregnant women. "My part in the work has been to help reconstruct the local environment through a forensic examination of the sediments and organic remains held within the deposits. By discovering materials such as charcoal, pollen, spores, roots and leaves we can deduce that the coastal environment was the perfect setting for quite complex social activity such as hunting, cooking and even families at play." To tie in with Coast, 39 Discover your Coast walks are being made available to the public. The Liverpool walk is a mobile interactive one, with people able to receive information on what they see via their mobile phones. Producers hope to inspire families to rediscover the coast of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.