Fury at Farage’s absence from Thames campaign

By Harvey Morris

In the spirit of the times, I am moved to sound the alarm over the latest covert attempt to chip away at our ancient English freedoms that date back millennia to the time of Boudica and Hereward the Wake [Eds: Please get Mr. Gove to supply the exact dates]. My present concerns, however, must surely trump the narrow allegiances of these worthies to the liberties of suburban Essex and the Norfolk Broads. I raise my banner to preserve unrestricted access to the Thames Path.

Since the mists of 1996, this fluvial trail has allowed every free-born Londoner to walk alongside the watery artery from the Cotswolds at the thin end to the Thames Barrier at the thick end. This ancient freedom is now under threat. And not, for once, from Mr. Juncker.

First some background. The Thames downriver to Westminster was always fairly accessible to the casual urban rambler, mainly because not much got in the way. East from the Pool at London Bridge was another matter. Both banks, north and south, were a near solid wall of dock gates, factories, brewery yards and warehouses. It didn’t much matter, because who wanted to go near the smelly old Thames anyway? Certainly no one willingly chose to live there, which is perhaps why it’s where post-war local councils plonked some of their tenants.

But what a transformation! These days a bike shed with a river view will probably set you back half a mill. Since the docks moved out and the factories shut down, nearly every inch of the old industrial riverside has been upgraded to prime residential, whether it’s converted warehouses or new builds, with prices and residents to match. OK, so that’s meant a smarter set has moved in. Nothing wrong with that. Blokes who work in the City have every right to have a roof over their heads. Otherwise they might be sleeping under flyovers or in parks and behaving inappropriately towards our womenfolk at closing time because of their lack of cultural awareness. (Sorry, I think I just had a Farage moment).

Anyway, one of the things that drew newcomers to the river was the Thames Path, first proposed almost 50 years before its inauguration. It opened up areas into which the wary would not previously have strayed. Who would have dreamed that one day people would boast of gazumping their way into a pied-à-terre in Silvertown?

When the developers moved in, the deal was broadly speaking that new blocks had to maintain public access along their river frontages. No point having a Thames Path if you can’t walk down it, right? The downside is that not every incomer likes the prospect of the hoi polloi tramping past the balcony window at all hours of the day and night. The freeholders of some of these developments have found a solution – keep the gates shut, stick up a few spikes, CCTV cameras and a couple of Private Property signs. Then you can con the casual stroller that he’s straying into forbidden territory.

(I should perhaps add a note here for any foreign readers: contrary to popular belief, an Englishman’s home is not necessarily his castle. We have this weird form of tenure called “leasehold”, which means that you can cripple yourself with a lifetime mortgage and still not technically own the ground beneath your feet. The freehold is frequently held by anonymous entities that have names ending in Jersey LLP or Cayman Islands LLP. Like much else in modern Britain, London property has been great for hedge funds.)

Where does it come from, that “hedge” bit? I always visualise a hedgerow full of frantic wildlife squirrelling away the goodies for winter, with the bigger ones trying to make sure the little ones don’t get a share. But maybe I’ve got the derivation wrong.

It’s a funny old thing, language. You can so easily get the wrong end of the stick. For instance, I may not know where a hedge fund comes from, but I do know about business. Mothers at one time used to yell at their young offsping through the loo door to find out if they had “done their business yet”. For many of us of a certain age, it was our first introduction to the word. I still get a faint flush of pudeur when someone says, “I want to grow my business” or “business is the lifeblood of the economy.” Perhaps our generation’s resistance to doing anything as useful as going into business had less to do with politics than with infantile copraphobia.

But I digress. To get back to the right Path, I would urge all urban ramblers to head off down to the Thames – preferably east of the Tower – and assert your right to walk. Occasionally, this may involve remonstrating with some job’s-worth who’s intent on blocking your right of way. It’s a classic use it or lose it situation. Unless we insist on our right to roam on this public pathway, the developers will be able to say that their bits of it aren’t public after all. Along stretches of the path, north and south, you sometimes rarely encounter another soul. At Wapping and at Deptford, grass pokes up between the paving stones, a sure sign few have been past. It’s not all bijoux blocks. There’s plenty to see, of which more at a later date. So just get out there.