“It won’t go down,” said the farmer at Rose Cottage as he, his son, four geese and a herd of cows returning across the ford for the evening milking watched me launch Windflower (Otter 206). I replied that I would have a try, and if the boat could not get down, I would have to pull her back up.

I had brought Windy to Cricklade to attempt the navigation to Lechlade and beyond. The right of navigation on the Thames exists from here, but the stretch is considered to be canoeing water, and boating proper starts 12 miles further down at Lechlade, from which I had already cruised the length of the river to Southend.

At Cricklade, the infant Thames is still a natural country stream with rapids, pools and shallows. Because of the wet May and June, the stream had been in flood only a few weeks before, and now that the floods had abated it seemed a golden opportunity to try to complete the job with Windy.

She was launched with the spars lashed inboard, for this was definitely not a sailing job. The spars would be wanted for the canopy and for sailing after Lechlade. The cruising gear was loaded into the stern to keep the forefoot up and reduce the draught. An earlier reconnaissance had indicated that the best way would be to proceed stern first, like the Wallah-wallah bird in flight, so that I could see where I was going in the fast-running water and put the brakes on, if need be, by rowing hard in the conventional direction.

When all had been stowed and the car parked nearby in a field (by kind permission) I shoved Windy off the stones into the current, and we set off. The next miles were magic. Sitting on the thwart looking forward over the transom I had a fine view of the water. With just a flip from an oar from time to time to correct course, we glided quite fast downstream. Long tresses of weeds loomed in the clear water, and the bottom swam up and fell away. It was like floating in a balloon over hilly country. Large trout viewed us with mild suspicion but did not even hurry away.

At Eysey, the golden gravel loomed up but did not fall away again, and we were soon aground. Fortunately, Windy floated when I got out, and I was able to walk her to the footbridge. We stuck on stones at the rapid by the Water Eaton footbridge, but we were soon off again.

Below Castle Eaton there is a long chute with broken water but with deep channels. We were coming down here in virtuoso style when I tried to get a picture of Castle Eaton church en passant. In a jiffy we were stuck. This was less convenient, because the water round about was deep, but I was able to perch on a stone to push Windy into a channel and we careered down and round the bend to our overnight stop at a gravely beach which is the village bathing place.

I was lulled to sleep by the chuckle of the fast flowing water under the hull. Next morning, after a stroll in the sunshine along the path through the waist high wheat to Castle Eaton, which stands on a little rise overlooking the river, I set off again. Once more we proceeded in reverse, past sleepy Kempsford, once a busy stop on the Thames and Severn canal, the part-empty bed of which lies a field away from this stretch of the river. Then through a Sargasso of weed-clumps to Hannington bridge, the last obstacle, where there is quite a little rapid.

I took the north arch, which had seemed less obstructed, and we were just underneath when we grounded. Walking in the river was a bit tricky because of the force of the current and the uneven bottom. Windy had to be urged over the stones, but we were soon through onto the lower rapid, and then all was easy. A half-mile lower down and the river, still with long tresses of weed, deepened and slowed. Three miles further on at Inglesham, where I visited William Morris’s favourite little church, there were punt and boating parties up from Lechlade.

Given a fair wind one could have sailed these last few miles, if one wanted to prove something, but it should be noted that there is a live cable only sixteen foot over the water at Inglesham. Another mile, past the confluence of the Coln and the entrance to the old canal, brought us to Lechlade.

I sailed on for the rest of the week to take a new look at memorable sailing waters, and to explore some of the backwaters I had missed previously: at Shifford, at Cutton Courteney and at Clifton. I rowed as far as one could go up the Windrush and the Thame. It was a gloriously hot summer week, ‘like summers used to be’, in which the pleasant hours blend and blur. The winds were mostly light and variable, but always varied so as to be just dead ahead.

I finally tied up in sight of Brunel’s Moulsford railway bridge, and early on the seventh day caught a train to Didcot and another to Swindon. Then a bus to Cricklade brought me, for 70p in all, back to car and trailer.