‘Ownership’ is a tricky thing – and the ‘right’ to access what someone else owns is also tricky – as we’ve seen elsewhere in the county: UKC Articles – OPINION: Dartmoor Camping – Serfdom is back, and the future of the Ten Tors challenge at risk
When it comes to rivers – whether the banks or the fish or the waters – it can be just as tricky.
The celebrated lover of all things river is the subject of the latest Great Life on Radio 4:
Matthew Parris travels along the Thames to meet Nick Hayes – illustrator and author of The Book of Trespass – to discuss the life of Roger Deakin. They also enjoy a naked swim. Joining them, in his pants, is Patrick Barkham. His new biography of Roger Deakin is published this year.
Great Lives – Roger Deakin, wild swimmer and author of Waterlogged – BBC Sounds
The River Sid is not navigable, let alone swimmable – but Roger Deakin “challenges us to look differently at the commons”:
‘Waterlog,’ Roger Deakin, and the Case for Wild Swimming – The Atlantic
Robert Macfarlane on Roger Deakin and the Origins of Wild Swimming ‹ Literary Hub
And Nick Hayes challenges us equally on ‘the right to access’:
2.5 Nick Hayes: The Book of Trespass — Prompted by Nature
Here is one of Nick’s fabulous illustrations:
The Book of Trespass: Crossing the Lines that Divide Us: Nick Hayes: Bloomsbury Publishing