Life of a Chalkstream: We have won the first battle. Now we need to win the war.

Greetings!

If you care about rivers, these are the names to sear into your memory: David Black, Thérèse Coffey, Tony Juniper, Alan Lovell and Rebecca Pow. You probably recognise some of the names as they are in the order listed Ofwat Chief Executive, Defra Secretary of State, Natural England Chair, Environment Agency Chair and Water Minister. It is fair to say, without exaggeration, this quintet could readily set in train a water policy that saves our rivers.

Am I being fanciful? Well, I hope not. The fact is that though the fishing community (and surfers) have been banging on about water quality for years (actually decades) nobody has been listening. EA. Ofwat. Defra. NE. For the general public these are the alphabet slurry of government policy making which most people, understandably, tune out of their daily discourse.

But, thanks to some headline grabbing fines, truly egregious behaviour by the water companies and high profile campaigns by household names such as Feargal Sharkey and Paul Whitehouse the state of our rivers has burst into the sunlight afforded by mass public opinion. This is, from a PR point of view, a happy place to be but the achievement is just one battle won. Turning our rivers back to the way the way they should be is a whole war in itself.

It is at this point we need to be careful. Far too many people want to make this political, railing against parties, ownership rights, politicians and business as if screaming slogans in the echo chamber of social media and giving cosy fireside chats to agenda driven media will clean up our rivers. It will not. It will drive reasonable people to stop listening and alienate those who have their hands on the levers of power.

Let us start with parties because this should not become a shrill Conservative party bad, everyone else good polemic. I have researched this enough, going all the way back to Victorian times, to tell you this not about who you vote for – they are rarely any votes in s**t. Nor is it about private vs. public provision. The record in Wales, mostly nationalised and Scotland, all nationalised is no better than England. In England, where in the post war era we have been from private, to public and then back to private ownership the record has been one of consistent decline. In fact, if you really want to get on a high horse, it is readily arguable that the 21^st century privatisation mess was inherited from the 20^th century nationalisation car crash.

As to the argument that all the ills of the water and sewerage industry may be laid at the door of rampant capitalism I have to aver. It is a low return investment in a heavily regulated sector. Of course, plenty ramp up the rhetoric by talking about £60 billion in dividends (aka profits) since privatisation but when you get all granular about those sort of numbers it is a profit of just £1.35 per household per week since privatisation.

I know many of the recent announcements by our gang of five such as banning wet wipes and power showers have been much derided and to a certain extent, like the banning of drinking straws to save the planet, I agree. Likewise, some of the spending pledges ware woefully inadequate and the rhetoric woolly.

However, I’ll bet that if you sat down with any of the five for an off-the-record chat they’d agree with my ‘woefully inadequate’ summation. And that is where we have won the first battle. A year or two ago they would have all tried to deflect. Say things were not that bad. Today there is no hiding from the facts by anyone.

Next time I’ll tell you how we can win the war.

As it rains in March so it rains in June

I am as bad as everyone with weather records, as we apply the Gregorian calendar to weather patterns as if the gods of wind, rain and sun really give a damn whether it is the last week in February or the first week in March. And such is our belief in reordering nature to fit human chronology that every year 3% of all world weather records are broken; it is a charter for arguing anything you like either side of the climate change/global warming debate.

Now, having said all that, I am going to celebrate the figures for March which, after a painfully dry February have really recharged the aquifers with springs breaking left, right and centre with those little side streams in our Hampshire villages finally sparkling with flow.

As you will see from the table below the south had more than double average rainfall during March, with even East Anglia, that has been way behind everyone else making up some ground. Ultimately, it is the column on the far right for the past 12 months that matters most and it can be seen that we are pretty well on par across England though the aforementioned East Anglia is still behind.

Source: Environment Agency rainfall and river flow: weekly reports for England

River flows are, unsurprisingly in a month where it rained significantly just about every day, healthy in all but north Norfolk though with a distinct north/south divide across England with the north generally Normal and the south Above normal, Notably high or Exceptionally high. The early signs for April are for a wet month.

And a final thought: If you are planning your outfit for Royal Ascot, or perhaps a summer wedding, take heed of a bit a country folklore, “As it rains in March so it rains in June”. If that is right you are going to need a sturdy umbrella to protect that Shilling creation.

Unbelievable! A Working Country Life

Over the years I have known a few river keepers who have written books of which Frank Sawyer was perhaps the most notable. Others that come to mind were Bernard Aldrich’s Ever Rolling Stream, a lovely account of his time at Broadlands where he taught a young Prince Charles to fish and Ron Holloway’s life on the River Itchen above Winchester. But as to biographies there are fewer, the only one I can immediately think of being John Waller Hills’ The Life of William James Lunn, the famous Houghton Club head keeper on the River Test and inventor of the Houghton Ruby and the Lunns Particular.

To this latter category we now need to add Unbelievable, the life and times of Martin Aris, River Avon keeper. The book is a funny, and often irreverent tale of a Cotswold country boy who made his life in the next door county, the tales relayed to the page in Martin’s distinctive Gloucestershire-cum-Wiltshire dialect by river owner and writer, Victoria Walsh with illustrations by a local artist Alex Crump.

Martin, very much 'on message' with beer in hand at his book launch in March

It takes a few pages to dial into Martin’s way of talking (and thinking!) but once you do his home spun philosophy and observations about the countryside make for a novel view of a river keeping life. You will catch up with Martin if you are fishing Coombe Mill this season as this is his beat, and has been for a great many years.

Unbelievable! A Working Country Life: The story of Martin Aris: farmer, river keeper and mischief-maker is available in hardback and Kindle editions from Amazon. I’ll be giving a signed copy away as one of the April feedback draw prizes.

Ash to ashes

For a while when ash dieback first came to Britain, I held out hope that some would survive along our rivers as many seemed as healthy as ever for quite a number of years. But they are all now succumbing, from the very old to the relatively immature; only very young trees seem unaffected.

Before & after at Abbots Worthy

At Abbots Worthy the big ash was felled this winter before it fell over and here at Nether Wallop Mill the island tree gave up the ghost by degrees over three seasons. It is a shame because ash are one of the top five trees for insect life, but hopefully dieback resistant offspring will shoot from the stumps.

At Nether Wallop we have replanted a self-seeding sapling from the wood behind the cabin. As yet, no sign of spring shoots but it is early days. I will keep you posted.

Nether Wallop Mill dawn mist