The Tideway

I loved living by the river in London with first Nick and then Sanna, Ben and Lindsay. Sanna and I used to go for the odd run along the towpath to Hammersmith and back and I bought a sculling boat from lightweight champion Peter Haining which I kept in Thames rowing club that was literally at the bottom of Bendemeer Road (view from my bedroom window). I was not very good at sculling and had a few hairy moments at high tide when the Thames can get rather choppy! But I also remember beautiful evening outings after work when it was like a mill pond between Putney Bridge and Richmond Lock. Later when I bought my first place in Mortlake, I kept the boat under the arches of Chiswick bridge (view from outside The Ship pub in Mortlake). I took the boat to Durham on the roof of a hire car but sold it to an undergrad at St John’s college because I figured (rightly) that I would have no time for sculling in my curacy.