River
July
Berrylands to Richmond
The Thames and I are old adversaries. The river tried to drown me when, as a teenager, I attempted to row a skiff for the first time. After turning circles, the river tipped my craft over and I fell into its watery embrace. Into the murky brown liquid, airless and struggling, I emerged coughing and choking to be dragged to the bank. I swallowed enough river water that day to leave me sick for weeks after.
But you can never drown in the same river twice, and the waters of the Thames today have no memory of my immersion, they run softly on while I sing this song.
The Hogsmill and I emerge from suburbia to the Thames at Kingston. My old haunt is full of Sunday shoppers, busy with roast dinners and bargains. Down the steps beside the bridge I join the throng taking their pleasure along the Thames path. After so many solitary miles in the country, I merge with an endless stream of people, dogs, scooters, bicycles, and children as they weave their ways alongside the river.
Shaded by mature London plane trees, the path leads to the city but I feel I am the only one with that destination. The rest are enjoying a diversion, walking to ease their pain, stretching their legs, exercising the dog, attempting to tire the children so that they can enjoy a lazy Sunday afternoon. Got no mind to worry, close my eyes and drift away.
I walk on, accompanied by the spirits of my Teddington ancestors, who shopped in Kingston, drank at the riverside pubs, and learned to swim in the river. Same space, different time.
A hundred years ago my great-aunt Myrtle punted the family boat, Winkie along the water and up to Teddington lock, and perhaps thought of the three men on their journey.
“The river, playing around the boat, prattles old tales and secrets, sings low the child’s song that it has sung for so many years … and we fall asleep beneath the great, still stars, and dream the world is young again.”
No man steps in the same river twice, Heraclitus
Prothalamion, Sweet Thames run softy, Edmund Spenser
The Waste Land, Poem III, The Fire Sermon, T S Eliot
Lazy Sunday Afternoon, Small Faces
Three Men in a Boat, Jerome K Jerome
The Thames Path https://www.nationaltrail.co.uk/en_GB/trails/thames-path/
