The Thames In Our Time
The official source of the Thames may lie in a grassy meadow in Gloucestershire, but Patrick Wright begins his journey in the estuary, convinced that it is only thanks to the sea that the Thames has become the source of so much of our national history. He finds forgotten stories and landscapes in the marshes and mudflats of Essex and Kent - a little explored part of the country where apparently natural hills are made of recycled rubbish and the apparently typical farmer may turn out to be a former used-car salesman who raises sheep in the ruins of an explosives' factory.
Wright's upriver journey takes him from the Cotswolds into a world of classy riverside living, regattas and lush waterside entertainment. The Thames of Henley and Eton is also the river of corporate hospitality, its banks lined with palaces devoted to management consultancy as well as retired rock stars and royalty.
From Runnymede to the counter-cultural bastion of Eel Pie Island, the Thames is a river of democracy as well as privilege. Culminating in London, a city of vision long before the Millennium Dome, this is a wry portrayal of England at the turn of the twenty-first century.
