I’ve fallen behind with my Year on the Thames project. Life, and death once again leaving me out of my depth and floundering around in July and August, not exploring places I’d planned.
For the Queen’s platinum jubilee I was warmly invited to join a boat called Old Guilder on the Thames. The riverbanks from Shepperton to Sunbury were lined with people waving. Riverfront gardens hosted little parties or solitary figures standing formally, one saluting the cardboard cut-out of the Queen we had on deck. I was standing next to her for much of the journey and found myself waving back, emotional at times, indeed almost believing I was royalty.
The Murdochs and extended family on Old Guilder. Platinum Jubilee river pageant from Shepperton Lock to Sunbury Weir and return.
It was still light when we finally moored up and I decided to cycle along the Thames path to Kingston, then catch a train to Waterloo, near home. On the way I met four lads who were floating in a boat. Despite the fact they didn’t have any oars and the engine had run out of battery they were in buoyant spirits. By the time I’d waited to see if they capsized and took some photographs, it was almost dark.
I continued along the towpath. Between Hampton Court and Kingston my face was bombarded with thousands of insects. I probably ate 200 flies and my eyes were peppered with legs, wings and bodies. It was truly horrific. Approaching Kingston, I could see a gathering on the bank. The mayor of Kingston was on a boat, preparing to light a beacon for the jubilee. I politely asked if I could climb on board to take a photograph for this project but was declined. So I took a rubbish photograph from the bank, headed to KFC near the station to cheer myself up, bought a chicken meal and ate it on the train. I thought: “I know real royals don’t experience this. How lucky I am.”
I confess I never thought I’d attend Henley royal regatta again. The first time I was 19 years old and nannying in a gap year.
My ‘charges’ were two young boys called Charles and Andrew. (I’m not making this up.) There is a strict dress code at Henley and no exceptions would be made for me, a dungaree-wearing, Kicker-booted, messy-haired tomboy.
Henley regatta in all its excessive Pimm’s and ceremony.
Wearing a calf-length dress, a ludicrous hat and hideous shoes felt as alien to me back then as suddenly not talking with a Yorkshire accent. I was so awkward and uncomfortable. When, not an hour after our arrival, carrying one-year old Andrew in my arms, I felt the damp warmth of wee down my dress, it was actually a relief and I relaxed.
This time around I’m wearing trousers, the dress code has thankfully caught up with the 21st century and the initial surprise that a photographer from “the lefty rag” has turned up is more amusing than irritating. Everyone I talk to is kind, generous-natured and good fun. Maybe it’s because they’re tanking back large flagons of Pimm’s, betting on winners or perhaps just simply adoring rowing.
I am mesmerised by the whole event, escorted round by a wonderfully tolerant press officer, and I absolutely love it. I meet a family who were steeped in the tradition of it all and which, way back, crewed a winner, and a man with half a moustache drinking neat vodka from a jug who spots me later, some distance away, from a boat with his friends. They all yell, whistle and holler like drunken sailors.
Chris and Purita Gasson lives nearby but this was their first time the regatta. They often come into Henley to walk their dog called Nikon. He is named for Chris’s love of photography, despite his using a digital Canon.
I am fascinated by how many hat boxes I see. Such unwieldy objects to carry around or place on deckchairs, like the Henley equivalent of towels on sun beds. Despite owning a Canon, I enjoy a good chat about photography with Chris, who has a dog called Nikon. Some ladies confess to me that they aren’t wearing knickers. I only watch one race. Everything else is too interesting.
I hope I’m invited back.
Children from Bisham school in Marlow asking questions to the swan upping team
The Queen’s – now King’s – swan uppers travel along the Thames over the course of five days to round up and ring the birds before releasing them again.
The same goes for the colourful spectacle of swan upping, the annual census of the birds’ population on the Thames from Sunbury to Abingdon in July. What an honour to share an afternoon with the Vintners and the Dyers, all volunteers, taking holidays from their day jobs, which are almost exclusively river-based. After applying liberal amounts of suncream and sharing out sweets they casually cruise the Thames looking for birds. Some riverside residences traditionally host afternoon tea parties for them, and on the day I join them there’s a grand lunch, as befits their status, at Henley’s historic Leander private members club.
In Trewsbury Mead, three Israeli brothers on a reunion enjoy a rest on the almost impossible to read marker stone at the source of the Thames. The river has dried up at its source near Kemble. It will be interesting after more rainfall to see if it will return again.
I was keen to see the source of the Thames, paradoxically in a drought. Rain was forecast and winging it, as ever, I set off with my friend Michael, regretting not booking bike spaces on the train from Paddington to Kemble, squandering two hours waiting for a one that had room for us.
After heaving my bike (and child seat) over the fourth metal kissing gate on the Thames path, I cursed taking it and pushed it instead along the riverbed, somewhat alarmingly, completely dry until Somerford Keynes, a village about five miles from the source. There was a distinct autumnal feel in late August, dry yellow leaves blanketing the ground.
A view of Day’s Lock in Oxfordshire.
I didn’t explore some places I’d planned this summer, but on the Thames trips I did manage I witnessed its comforting rise and falls, and up river, hardly discernible mere ripples, acutely aware that without rain and replenishment it will disappear.
Golden moments are a complete joy. A gentleman towelling down after an early evening swim, two brothers fishing, Moldovan friends forever. Bella pushing elderly Blanca in a pushchair, a boatyard still open at 9pm. A surprise birthday picnic for Patsy and unexpectedly crashing another birthday bash, being handed a burger and marshmallows, as well as offered a lift to a station which I almost regretted I declined. The Chilterns isn’t the easiest place for transport links.
On wildly beautiful little Penton Hook island some lads initially refused me a portrait, but then one by one clambered up from a little wooden jetty, lined up and struck a pose in a fashion only teenage lads can. And just round the bend, fishing the river since he was 10, was 64-year-old fisher Bob from Hammersmith. “It’s one of the greatest rivers in England,” he said.
Bob, 64, from Hammersmith, at Penton Hook island.
While “mum’s looking after the kids”, Lisa and Billy bubbling away an hour in a whirlpool bath. Peony walking through buttercups. Runners under Runnymede Bridge. Blokes on a barge fitting new fenders near Tower Bridge. I’ll never figure out why the Barge Driving Race from Greenwich to Westminster isn’t more widely celebrated. Those barges are unwieldy vessels that literally weigh 30 tonnes.
The Great River Race was cancelled because of the death of the Queen, but a memorial river procession was held instead.
Waterloo Bridge proved an excellent vantage point for the Great River Race, slowed down to a memorial procession for the Queen. As did HMS Belfast, with 150 sea cadets all standing proud as a slow drift of illuminated boats passed by like fireflies against the colour-drenched dappled water.
150 illuminated boats, including the Queen’s barge, Gloriana, sailed from Chelsea to Tower Bridge as a tribute to the Queen, making a river of light. The Reflections flotilla was originally planned to celebrate the Queen’s platinum jubilee but instead honoured the monarch after her death on 8 September 2022.
The oldest boat race in the world, Doggett’s Coat and Badge was cancelled because of hot weather so I set out to cycle on the Thames path to Windsor. I’d had a Facetime call from Dad, who was very frail and in bed. I jokingly teased that I was going to have a swim and he was smiling. Moments after I saw a group of horses and their riders on the bankside. They’d all been in the river.
Family and friends from north London, east London and Kent cooling off with their horses in the Thames at Laleham.
“Would you like to go?” one asked.
“I’m fully dressed” I replied. “Yes please.”
I played Dad the video of me sitting on a horse, swimming in the river, on the day he died.
Tom Jones boatyard near Windsor assisting a late customer.
It was dark when I arrived in Windsor that day. Dad always said the Queen would outlive him.
