The view of steepled Lechlade across the flat meadows from St. John’s Lock is surely one of the loveliest prospects of cultivated countryside in the whole land, one might say in the whole world. Of a similar character, though less, is the view of Swinford Bridge, near Eynsham, looking towards Eynsham Lock.

Between these two places, the river — the stripling Thames of Matthew Arnold’s Scholar Gipsy — winds its slow course through a lush level valley, richly wooded and golden with barley and wheat at harvest time. Eight leagues of river are gently lowered by eight lovingly-tended locks, and yet this stretch is about the most deserted part of the entire south of England. The real reason is that just now and again the stripling becomes a mighty giant, and there are marks several feet above the locksides which tell the story; ‘Flood level, November 1894’, ‘Flood level, March 1947’. As a result there is no habitation of any size near the river after Lechlade until Oxford of the dreaming spires just below Swinford Bridge.

This is my island valley. You may think it a romantic notion, but cruising people are essentially romantic otherwise they would stay home and do useful jobs about the house and garden. Roar along this stretch of the river in a hire cruiser, fume at the delays at the locks, and you would wonder what I am on about. But sail this water in a dinghy in silence and in close contact with the surroundings and it will captivate you.

I have sailed through here twice before on extended down-river trips and always with a sense of regret as every mile takes me out of it until at Swinford it is all gone. Yet it is so pleasant that in August 1973, feeling too whacked to plan a new cruise, I felt I must go to Lechlade and set off downstream once more. I arrived at the Riverside cafe slip mid-day Friday with a fair westerly to waft me downstream.

By 2 pm I was lunched, launched, loaded and on my way. There is a convenient sandy beach below Grafton Lock and I put in here for the night after looking carefully round for cattle and finding none. But as I was walking across the moonlit fields from the Swan at Radcot the bullocks saw me and there was no shaking them off. I managed to reach the boat alone by a crafty manoeuvre in the low-lying mist but I was barely able to unmoor before they were pounding on the beach and by the light of the three-quarter moon I was to be seen rowing downstream to find a new berth while for a half mile, like hellish black demons, the bullocks cavorted along the bank in the hope that I would put in again. I found a new berth by torchlight under the willows at Radcot Bridge.

The next weather forecast brought my usual luck. I was heading east, so an anticyclone had formed itself to produce a light easterly. I did not mind too much because fine weather is always acceptable and I would be longer in the island valley. I stopped the next night near Newbridge and late on Sunday afternoon I was moored in sight of Swinford Bridge. It was hotter than in Hawaii and river bathing was the order of these days. The anticyclone had consolidated itself and the radio said that we were in for several more days of the same weather with easterly winds.

At this point I made a new decision. I would not go on downstream. I would stay in the island valley and I would sail back upstream over the slow current to the car and trailer in warm-stone Lechlade.

And that is what I did. I found the going upstream with the wind to be vastly easier than downstream against it, and it gave a new dimension to the trip. Each mile took me further in rather than out. Somehow every reach seemed more interesting for I was going towards the mysterious head-waters. Now and again there was a tussle at a blanketed bend where the course was against both the current and an enfeebled breeze, but I had my self-acting boomed jib. This had helped so well against the wind downstream, always doing just the right thing, that I decided to call it Joy. Coming back upstream with a following wind Joy was only occasionally wanted for tacking, but on the run she goose-winged herself so perfectly that she was a joy to behold. At an awkward moment I would think, “Leave it to Joy, she knows best.” Moreover Joy was no trouble at all at the low bridges when it was necessary to lower the mast as well as the gaff.

Wednesday afternoon Windflower (206) was lifted in St. John’s Lock and sailed free on the Lechlade reach, leaving Thursday available for walking to explore the derelict Thames and Severn canal. This had now become a linear swamp forest reminiscent of what one reads of the upper Amazon, impenetrable short of hacking your way through with machetes. The impression was helped by the total absence of any wind all the day to stir the hot, humid air. The Thames and Severn is lost as a canal but no doubt it is a valuable wildlife sanctuary instead.