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Good Reading : October 2007
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general non-fiction word of mouth Thames: Sacred River Peter Ackroyd It’s surprising to learn, in the first sentence in Peter Ackroyd’s latest paean to London, that its river, the Thames, is a mere 215 miles (346 km) long, with a navigable stretch of only 191 miles (307 km). There’s nothing spectacular about its geology, either. It pretty much meanders across England from the gentle Cotswolds in the west to its estuary between the flat marshlands of Kent and Essex, without a single gorge or canyon or waterfall. But oh, the history it holds in its rolling water and on its once-grassy banks! Ackroyd takes the reader through the facts and figures, geology, naming, source (a contentious one, that, with Seven Springs and Thames Head and Lyd Well having rival claims) and tributaries before diving – as it were – into the history of the river, ‘as deep and as dark as that of any sea’. And this rich pageant, from the Maglemosians of thousands of years ago to today’s polyglot inhabitants, is described and analysed and explored in what is now the signature Ackroyd style, a gloriously entertaining and meandering smorgasbord of fact, anecdote, quotation and story. As the title suggests, Ackroyd delves into the spiritual side of the river – remember ‘The Piper at the Gates of Dawn’ in The Wind in the Willows? – but he also covers coronations and quays, the nature of water, barges and boats, bridges and tunnels, river law (the Thames police were the first regular police force in England, set up in 1798), ‘wreckers’ and witchcraft, prison ships, boatmen, river trade and commerce, pollution and neglect and revitalisation in the form of Docklands and the South Bank. A splendid section on the nature of the Thames ruminates on fog, flood, swans and trees – including, of course, the ubiquitous willows. A section on the river as a source of pleasure describes some of the agreeable hostelries along its banks, the regattas and carnivals associated with the Thames, races and processions. Its moods as captured by artists, musicians, novelists and poets are eruditely described, but Ackroyd also acknowledges the less salubrious aspects of the river: its employment as the city’s sewer, its ‘cargo’ of dead animals and other effluent, its connection with severed heads, suicide and murder. In the final section of the book, the reader is led mer rily down the Thames from Kemble to Canvey Island and told the meanings of the place names and sundry stories, such as John Wesley having to swim across the river on his horse when the fer ry foundered at Eynsham. Handsomely illustrated, this is a treasure chest of a book. ★★★★ Chatto & Windus $59.95 Reviewed by Alison Pressley
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