Thomas, Macfarlane, Deakin, Clare, Mabey, Petit & Sinclair

Walking along an old country lane you stop to hear a bird call, and wait to hear it again. You notice the high banks on either side, as you wait, and wonder, how many before you must have trod this path for it to have sunk so. The path is wide enough to have taken a carriage but not a mechanised farm vehicle. The banks have grown inward through vegetation and now an earthen layer. In my dreams I re-live the experience of others where a very long walk is undertaken, one with purpose and possibly commercial, that requires the bedding down for the night under a tree or on a soft bank, Deakin and Macfarlane mention this. And Clare also, with Sinclair and Petit in his wake. Clare tended to knock on doors to sleep in barns and ask for scraps to eat. I would probably attempt to forage, building up a meal throughout the day's walk and settle down perhaps next to a small fire. In my dreams maybe I'd catch a rabbit and skin it, cook it over the fire. In times past such journeys that required such a stay under the stars would be out of necessity, now our lives are such that this would be choice. Or, one would think so.
Working and journeying along river banks occasionally I come across camps, tents etc of people that actually live in the woods. It is possible that we are coming full circle and that there is a new breed of transient communties travelling and living off the land. Finding the old paths and ways around, out of necessity. TBC...

Urban Rivers in Context flyer Feb 2013

URIC: Understanding our environment through experience

Here is the overview of the project for 2013
A series of walks and wades for students and academics over the last few years along the River Ravensbourne in South East London has now evolved into 'Urban Rivers in Context', a more coherently structured access-to-nature project. I was asked initially in 2010 to take a group of students from UCL for a wade along the river to explain my thesis 'From First to Second Nature: A study of the River Ravensbourne in South East London'. Some of the themes that have been explored on these early walks have been perceptions of wilderness, citing some of William Cronon's work; river regeneration and the question of 'regenerate to what?' and a discussion around the subjectivity of such projects; a little bit of political ecology and an introduction to Actor Network Theory, citing Noel Castree's work on the River Cole and finally some theoretical interpretations of nature's battle against development and the use of nature as a resource under capital. While these may sound 'heady', especially ANT, which I've often found a little intense, there is a good deal to be gained from getting waders on, getting into the water and letting nature come to you.

UCL MSc students 2011

More recently I've taken a small group of academics from UCL and University of Manchester and University of Chicago for a few hours visiting regeneration sites for an urban ecology/urban planning based walk/talk. One member of the group, Prof. Matthew Gandy (UCL), has a particular interest in urban ecology and also landscape and art and the evolution of Sutcliffe Park proved to be of particular interest as there has been a marked evolution from a straightforward river habitat into a wetland, thus bringing in a wider range of flora and fauna. Also, from a political ecology standpoint, there was great interest in the role of the Quaggy Waterways Action Group and other volunteer groups in making the case for regeneration there in the first place.
Landscape and art is a new area of development for Urban Rivers in Context in 2013. The landscape in and around urban rivers is constantly shifting, it is never a neutral or objective medium but one continuous with the act of perception. The riparian environment may be a rich palimpsest of cultural, social and industrial history but the constant movement of changing populations of flora and fauna and slower rise and fall of urban development also create a fertile ground for shaping and interpreting the landscape. City & Guilds School of Art have expressed an interest in bringing groups of students down to the river this year. Viewing an urban environment from within the river creates a completely different perception of the world around us and it is hoped that some interesting work will come out of this particular engagement.

UCL MSc ESS wade 2012

All wades and walks are fully risk assessed, equipment is provided and, where possible, back-up will be provided by Lewisham's Ecological Regeneration office. If you would like a walk or wade for a group along this river then please email your requirements to Lawrence Beale Collins and I'll send more information and a costing structure. Thank you, LBC 2013

The Boatman's call

Some four months after my father died in the mid 1990s we had a summer sailing his boat before it had to be sold. It was moored in a marina in Hamble and it was called Hera and it was a Maxi 95, the first Hera was a Westerly Centaur and a barge of a boat compared to the Maxi, which sailed very well at full trim. So much so that when with even wind you could take your hands off the helm and it would sail, rather like a model on a pond. On one trip we, brother Matt, his partner Sarah and other brother Harry and myself, sailed to Lymington, Yarmouth, Cowes etc. We felt like renegades, out of the club my father fondly belonged to, the club of clubbiness, of yachtspeak and formality. We lived off the boat's store of tinned pulpo and crap beer. Lymington especially we loved for it's clubhouse of wankers and various bankers, we tried to break entry codes into the shower room, we had long hair and had the crustiness of Joshua Slocum. Sailing from there to Yarmouth and against a very strong tide we missed a huge bouy, a rivetted iron ball about half the size of a bus, by inches. We were sailing east and saw it coming, we had tacked away but the tide was so strong it made no difference so at the last minute we fired up the engine and powered our way clear by a scrape, a big 'fucking hell' moment. We moored in Yarmouth against a pile of nonsense and got a lift from the harbour master to shore. This cunjoured up earlier memories of when my dad was still around and we made the journey back to the boat in our own inflatable, three big blokes and me, some drunk, and the water lapped over the sides but no-one cared. They laughed of course but it was close, fond memories from afar. From there we sailed up to Cowes, we started late so by the time we sailed up to the Folly Inn it was dusk and I am reminded now of The Boatman's Call by Nick Cave, we were moored midstream and flashed a torch toward the Folly and called out, eventually the perpetually drunk boatman turned up. He said 'this is Bill's boat' yes I said, come on board for a snifter and I dug out a musty bottle of something from the galley, he drank more and we finally went ashore for a meal. We made it back to Hamble eventually and the boat was sold for 18k, a bit of a gift. One final tale, and probably one the new owners should be aware of. Two weeks after our trip we all sailed the boat to Lymington again from Hamble, this time we had his widow Sally on board. We docked at Lymington and because Sally had 'owner's rights' we accessed the whole shebang. We went out to eat that evening at a sort of provincial pasta place in Lymington, and strangely as we walked in they were playing my favourite Miles Davis album at the time, Sketches of Spain. The next day we set off for the sea off Alum Bay to throw his ashes overboard. As we got to the place some 600m offshore, with a fully laden boat with some dozen characters onboard, including his old mate Brian Dowling, the call went out for the ashes. Now Sally had already laid a trail of rose petals across the water, the ashes meanwhile were in the galley with Chris and myself. The ashes had fallen off the table moments earlier and had gone all over the carpet. Shielding the disaster from the rest of the crew, we found a dustpan and brush and recovered most of it but there was a layer of fine dust in the carpet which we left. So the ashes were duly delivered with probably 20% left in the carpet, they are now sailing around with the new owners of the boat and good luck to them. At least my dad still sails the Solent and beyond.

Films of the River Quaggy 2012

Here is a link to the four films we made along the River Quaggy in 2012. Prompted by the imminent departure of Quaggy Waterways Action Group stalwart Matthew Blumler, it was decided to wade the Quaggy to record Matthew's thoughts on the 'state of the river' between the confluence in Lewisham centre to Sundridge (as far as we could go). Please follow this link

Mapping London: Bombs during the Blitz

This is particularly relevant as I'm told they pulled a bomb out during the regeneration of Chinbrook Meadows, home of the River Quaggy, in 2002. Wickham Road SE4, close to where I live now, had more than its fair share of bomb damage with many houses destroyed during the Blitz and a handful of unfortunate souls losing their lives. Here it has been mapped. London Blitz Map
My mother Rubina, who was an SRN trained at UCH, road the ambulances around town attending to those injured during the Blitz in Central London.To say that she had 'seen it all' before she had me was an understatement.

Neil Smith 1954-2012 - A tribute

We are all deeply saddened by the news that Neil Smith has died at the tender age of 58. There is a small collection of his open access work on Environment and Planning D HERE. I met Neil in March 2012 following his lecture at King's College, London. He relayed an updated critique of Neoliberalism, in much the same vein as David Harvey, his Phd supervisor, had done in Euston four months earlier. During our conversation in the Geography Dept at King's, Neil talked of his love of bird-watching and how he liked nothing more than to take a boat out into the ocean and watch the sea birds soar in the wake. In academic terms, Neil Smith was a legend and no reading list should be without Uneven Development. He agreed to come along for a wade up the Ravensbourne the next time he was in London for any prolonged period, I had told him of the breeding kingfishers we have in Lewisham and he was fascinated by this. Myself, and my colleagues, all agree how lucky we were to finally meet the man behind the theories that spun such a cohesive web around our written work at UCL. It must be desperately sad for his students, in New York and Scotland, who must have looked forward to the new academic year with an enthusiasm only Neil Smith could generate.
Erik Swyngedouw left a note on the Centre for Place, Politics and Cuture's forum stating that Neil Smith was an inspiration for all, that is HERE. He will be missed hugely.