This adventure is a path well trodden. There are no two paths that diverge in a wood, just a linear route from source to sea. The Thames is so integral to our history that it has been written about exhaustively. Millions of people live along its banks which means it should hardly be adventure at all! Peter Ackroyd’s wonderful, informative book ‘Sacred River’ has inspired my plans. I am totally in awe of his knowledge and insight; he has either done a lot of research or he has a lot of brain power.
Less in awe and more in jealousy I watched Baldrick on Channel 5 dipping into stretches of the river on his own journey. I bet he didn’t walk it though and did a Bear Grylls in the evening, retiring to a Boutique Cotswolds hotel. Despite myself I have been enjoying his informative bulletins of fun as he meets Thames types to catch crayfish or re-enact Dads’ Army. Blogs and web-sites also detail the route, offering various degrees of insight. It is now hard to know if my ‘incredible insight’ is not just a re-hash in a more ‘illuminating’ manner.
I kept finding reasons to avoid the trip and now the weather forecast ‘Storm Imogen’. I checked the river levels; might there be flooding? They were a metre below problem levels. Nettles and thistles? Wear long pants.It looks like a fair portion of the path skips the river so might a canoe be an option ?
I could wait no longer… we all have our own style so I’ll do it my way.. less procrastination and bimble on…
Cotswold Airport provides an unnerving start at the back of Kemble station. A Jumbo in a Cotswold field is an inauspicious sight amongst rural bliss. US Air Forces used the site to dismantle jets and monsters of the sky and the Red Arrows had their base here for a while until the 80’s. Air-force bases line the Thames which acts as a motorway toward Europe with Heathrow as the arrowhead. RAF Fairford is close by and my walk is haunted by looming presences overhead as eerily quiet bombers circle like carrion cruisers. I imagine they are training pilots which is no less unnerving, as is the knowledge that Trump is keen to use us as a first line of defence.
I get into my stride after Kemble station heading upriver, for the only time, toward the source. I start thinking of language which is always the key to discovering place. Thames. Tamesis, maybe of Indo European origin signifying darkness This seems to be the common theme linking the river with the horror and bloodshed of conquest and tribal division. It has been a dividing line for millennia; Dane and Saxon, Briton and Roman and even became the home guard’s own Maginot line in case of German invasion, a line marked by hundreds of pillboxes along the Northern bank built hurriedly after Dunkirk. I like the theory that two rivers ‘Isis’
I like the theory that two rivers ‘Isis’and ‘Thame’ have been linked to create Thamesis as the mighty river is a receiver of many tributaries. By the time of the Magna Carta, concluded on the banks of the Thames at Runnymede, it was called Tamisiam. My favourite theory is that it was the Thame below Dorchester and Isis above, a title which is still used by Oxonians slighted at London imperialists dropping the Isis off the end. Research into the etymology keeps returning to the theme of darkness but I prefer the idea that the birth mother Isis nurtures the waters in the upper stretches adopting youths as she goes and caring for the myriad siblings in their infancy. Once she meets Old Father Thame at Dorchester this unification provides the mighty stretch of the Thames which gave birth to modern society; the life source of democracy and empire. Whence Conrad set forth to explore the heart of darkness only to find that it was the Thames all along.
Old Father Thames draws me and Isis seduces me with all her tributaries.
The source in Trewsbury Mead, 360 feet above sea level, is identified by an unedifying block of stone in the corner of a field. With no water in sight, it is guarded by a ropy looking Ash; I felt rather deflated and was glad this was the start of the journey. The mighty Ash Tree of my imagination was going to mark the start of a journey across 9 counties.
In fact looking at photos in Ackroyd’s book there was a more imposing Ash tree next to the stone not so long ago. Its surviving neighbour also looked like it was disappearing, maybe through Ash dieback caused by a fungus, which has already decimated Ash trees in the UK after it was imported from European nursery stock. A Brexit metaphor is in there somewhere for those inclined. While we move food and flora around and across continents we are bound to share diseases. Yggdrasil the Norse tree of life was dying.
As boys we had our own Yggdrasil on Cannock Chase and in our ironically charged, youthful wisdom we chose a gnarled dead Ash tree, heavy with symbolism for such adolescent Smiths fans. I climbed the tree of life at 16 to find it was dead already. The mythical Ash tree at the source of the Thames did not suggest that it connected nine worlds of the cosmos so I was determined to find a more potent source.
Ludd’s or Lydd pool, named after the Celtic God of healing, was featured in Tony Robinson’s trip down the Thames and I was convinced it was the true source; cunningly hidden on private land to prevent hordes descending upon this sacred spot. Baldrick even makes a votive offering of a spoon attesting to its spiritual significance. It looked like the magical place I was yearning for where the waters bubbled up from limestone depths; a secluded and mystical portal to the underworld. As I clambered over barbed wire I imagined the local farmer either cursing Baldrick’s exposure of this place of pilgrimage or wondering whether to open up a new tourist attraction. I found only neck high weeds and grasses and impenetrable undergrowth under a quite random selection of evergreen and deciduous trees, as if planted hastily and haphazardly to defy the intrepid. I could hear the gush of water tantalisingly close but beyond me lay bogs. I had to admit defeat and take solace in the romantic notion that it remained secret and unknowable. Until next time…
The Severn Cross of Gloucestershire
Green for Apples Blue for the River
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