Dirty old river, must you keep rolling
Flowing into the night?
People so busy, make me feel dizzy
Taxi light shines so bright.

Ray Davies – Waterloo Sunset

The Thames now is a whole lot cleaner than when Ray Davies wrote about gazing out over the ‘dirty old river’ in 1967.  Just over half a century ago the waters at Tower Bridge were declared ‘biologically dead‘ whereas now the river boasts 400 species of invertebrate, 125 varirties of fish and sightings of seals and porpoises in its lower reaches are increasingly common.

But, as a nation, we still have a long way to go: the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) predicts Britain is unlikely to reach 2027’s EU targets for reducing river pollution. Dr Andrew Singer, senior scientist at the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology insisted last year that ‘there is no river in the UK that is safe to be swimming in’.

There are more than 18,000 sewer overflows across England and Wales ― and about 90% of them discharge raw sewage directly into rivers, according to the WWF:

Overflows are supposed to occur only during extreme rainfall to prevent sewage backing up into homes, but in 2017 the charity found 8-14% of overflows spilling sewage into rivers at least once a week, and between a third and a half at least once a month.

There is a logic, by the way, to illustrating the quote from Ray Davies’s lyrics with a picture of the Mersey. In a 2010 interview with the Liverpool Echo Davies, late of North London, revealed that he loved Liverpool, that his whole career had been inspired by Merseybeat and that the song had originally been called Liverpool Sunset.

Picture of the River Mersey from Rock Ferry ©Bobby Seal

Even the anatomy of a river was laid bare. Not far downstream was a dry channel where the river had run once, and part of the way to come to know a thing is through its death. But years ago I had known the river when it flowed through this now dry channel, so I could enliven its stony remains with the waters of memory.

Norman Maclean – A River Runs Through It and Other Stories

Picture of stream near Flodden, Northumberland ©Bobby Seal

In a breath, the river that flows through our Sunday walks is sparkling in the summer sun, is ruffled by the winter wind, or thickened with drifting heaps of ice.

Charles Dickens – David Copperfield

Picture of Hvítá River, Iceland ©Bobby Seal

It was remarkable how the races that had gone to his making had each left its signature on the river bank; often over and over, as children on gates and walls scrawl the names of those amongst them who are ‘courting’.
On one side of the harbour mouth the place-name was Gaelic, on the other side it was Norse. Where the lower valley broadened out to flat, fertile land the name was Norse, but the braes behind it were Gaelic. A mile up the river where the main stream was joined by its first real tributary, the promontory overlooking the meeting of the waters was crowned by the ruins of a broch that must have been the principal stronghold of the glen when the Picts, or perhaps some earlier people, were in their heyday.
And all these elements of race still existed along the banks of the river, not only visibly in the appearance of the folk themselves, but invisibly in the stones and earth …
Neil M Gunn – Highland River

Picture of River Tummel at Pitlochry ©Bobby Seal

The fountains mingle with the river
And the rivers with the ocean,
The winds of heaven mix for ever
With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the world is single;
All things by a law divine
In one spirit meet and mingle.
Why not I with thine?
Percy Bysshe Shelley – Love’s Philosophy

While ripples dance to the music of stones.

Picture by ©Bobby Seal