OF ALL THE PLACES I HAVE SEEN

Of all the places I have seen the River Thames is my favourite, apart from my home that is.  East, west, home’s best, as the saying goes.  (What happened to North and South? For compass points they’re really cool, and compared to East and West are poles apart!)

I have travelled the River Thames from Oxford all the way down to Teddington Lock, past which the waterway is tidal and leads to London Docks.  Somewhere around there Thames Television had their studio, though I don’t know what’s there now; flats or a shopping centre perhaps?  Anyway, I hope one day to go up to Lechlade although it is not supposed to be so nice, being mostly fields and meadows with towns and villages few and far between.

‘The gleaming spires of Oxford’ is the way the University City is often described.  I do remember there being a lot of tall buildings when I visited as a girl, but as I was only four feet tall at the time, I doubt if I would find them so large now.  Maybe ‘imposing’ would be a better word.  One building we walked past was Brasenose College in High Street.  The name always made me laugh, because as a nine year old I read it as ‘Brassnose’ the first time, no doubt prompted by the brass knocker on the door which was shaped like a nose.

We moored alongside the towpath and there was an ornate white boathouse on the opposite bank which I believe is the University Rowing Club and is mock Tudor in style.  There were always lots of rowers around, in training for Henley Regatta or the Boat Race.

FROM OUR LOG

23/5/97

1612 Moored just below Abingdon Bridge.  Mum’s old mooring place for Gay Bahama III.  Afterwards we went to a fantastic pub called ‘The Mill House’.  It even had a doorman.  We had dinner there.

            We moored by a sort of common, with paths and benches and trees.  It was a very peaceful, pleasant place, even though it was near a road bridge.  On the opposite side of the River was Saint Helen’s Wharf, where we could see St Helen’s church, the

Old Anchor Inn and a boatyard, all of them old buildings and beside them, Long

Alley Almshouses dating from the 15^th Century.

            ‘The Mill House’ was just up over the bridge and we were amazed to have the door opened for us by a doorman, (not a typical bouncer type), as we had never come across this before in a restaurant.  The food was very nice and because it was Friday we had fish and chips as usual, and afterwards my sons, then aged eleven and seven, had enormous, free ice creams.

FROM OUR LOG

17/5/97

1638 Moored at Clifton Hampden

1700 Looked around Clifton

1828 Went to pub to eat.  Very nice pub.  Dad liked it.

Clifton Hampden gets my award for Most Memorable Village on the River, because of the impact the thatched roofs had on me when I first saw them at the age of nine.  The only word I can use to describe this Village is ‘quaint’.  The only other place I have seen which can match it is Shanklin, on the Isle of Wight.  Between the two they should ensure that the art of thatching does not die out.  It is lovely to see the different patterns on the roof ridges.  They are supposed to mean something, I think, like hope or peace or some such.   Very much like corn dollies, except those are made for fertility rites.  I knew a minister’s wife one, who had been a missionary in Ghana, and when she won a corn dolly in the church raffle, destroyed it because it was pagan and therefore dangerous.

            On our visit to Clifton Hampden in 1997, we moored in a field and walked into the village and across Clifton Hampden Bridge to the ‘Barley Mow’, a thatched roofed pub built in 1350.   The author, Jerome K Jerome, in his book ‘Three Men in a boat’ describes the village as having ‘quite a storybook appearance’ and I have to agree that he was right; it is a very picturesque scene.  The sort of place where you can almost see the rambling roses and ivy growing up the wall as you watch.

            Wallingford is another place which made a lasting image on my young mind.  Wallingford was the cleanest place I had seen; no rubbish on the streets and signs on the lampposts warning people that they would be fined if caught allowing their dogs to foul the pavement.  We had never seen this before in the ‘70s.  Another place I have visited which was just as spick and span was Giswil, Switzerland, where the grass looked as if it had been vacuumed and given an army regulation short back and sides; evenly green all over.  Everything looked like it had been polished, even the Neapolitan ice-cream coloured snails!)

            The other thing I remember Wallingford for is eating take-away fish and chips.  We rarely had take-away food as children; there were not so many fast food shops, unlike now where whole streets seem to be filled with them.  The fish and chip shop in Wallingford was called the ‘Lemon Plaice’ and we ate it out of newspaper, whereas at home we usually had plates.  Somehow, fish and chips always taste better eaten outdoors out of newspaper.

            At Goring there is a towpath running alongside the river bank with iron rings to tie up to, but no grassy area for children to play on.  The path is ideal for running races on though.  A hundred years or so ago there would have been plenty of towing going on by the horses which  pulled the barges along, and also smaller craft being towed, the occupants of which were taking a rest from rowing.  The only ‘toeing’ which goes on nowadays is that of runners training for the next marathon or fun run.

            I don’t think we really saw anything of Pangbourne, apart from the field we moored in, Pangbourne Meadow, just below the lock.  It was a place where we usually moored for lunch and the only thing I can remember is that it was always covered in waist high grass.  Well, it was waist high to anyone under the age of twelve.  Marvellous for Playing hide and seek in, popping up and down like meerkats to see who was about.

FROM OUR LOG

22/5/97

1230 Moored at Reading.

1235 Left boat.  Went to the park.

In the 1970’s, when we moored at Christchurch Playing Fields, above Reading Bridge, there was a wonderful play park, where my brother, sister and I played for hours (or so it seemed at the time).  There was a slide, conical climbing frame, swings and a roundabout, all made out of metal.   Now the equipment is much safer.  Playthings are always much lower to the ground now, (and I don’t think it’s because I am grown-up!), mostly made of plastic or wood, and the ground is either covered by bark or padded with rubber.  However did we survive the old style equipment and concrete flooring without doing ourselves some sort of lasting injury?

FROM OUR LOG

5/7/02

1645 Tesco (Kings Meadow).  Got some supplies.

We always used to stop over at Reading for the night and go across Reading Bridge to the town centre for a shopping trip.  Looking in at the shop windows as we passed, we saw a fibre optic lamp, one of those round ones with the fibres waving around like tentacles.  Stopping to watch as it glowed from one colour to another, my family was transfixed because it was the first time we had seen one, the technology being still new in the early 1970’s.

            These days there is no need to go window shopping on the way for supplies, because there is a great big Tesco Store at Kings Meadow, complete with path leading directly from the River and designated mooring points.  It leads up under an ornamental iron archway bearing the name of the store.  Much more convenient for shopping but not nearly so much fun.

FROM OUR LOG

18/5/97

1735 Moored above Sonning Lock

1741 Found a pub.

We moored just above the lock and walked along the towpath alongside the grounds of Holme Park, the Reading Blue Coat School, past the lock and on into Sonning.  My sons and I were really impressed when my husband led us almost straight away to the ‘Bull Inn’, even though he had never been to Sonning before.  When asked how he found it so easily, he explained that the best way to find a pub in a village is to look for the church.  The pub is nearly always close by, and since then I have observed that nine times out of ten it is correct.  I don’t know whether church goers needed to have a drink after a long and boring sermon, or more likely, the ministry wanted the drinkers to come in and repent their sins and denounce the demon drink.

            The ‘Bull’ (sounds like we were in Ambridge, not Sonning), was an old fashioned looking inn with oak beams, and great wooden settles to sit on.  Lots of people were sitting in a pretty courtyard, some were just walking home from church, but we decided to sit inside to enjoy our Sunday evening dinner.