One of the most sensible decisions I made in our long weekend in York was to not go for a wild swim, or a swim as normal folks call it, in the high waters of the River Ouse. In truth, I didn’t need to make any kind of decision on the grounds that swimming in cold water is among the most unpleasant things known to man, along with skiing, eating snails and listening to Queen. In fact, the River Ouse was particularly terrifying, covering as it did vast swaths of the surrounding area. It came as no surprise to learn today that the waters included – and I hope you are not about to eat – ammonia, high levels of E.coli or clostridia, which indicates fecal organisms in the flood water. Helpfully, the Environment Agency advises against swimming in the area. No shit, or rather loads of shit, Sherlock.
Here in Bristol and the surrounding areas, people like to go swimming in places where one might think swimming would be total madness. Last summer, people were swimming in the waters around the Harbourside area. They had been advised by the authorities that water quality was good and safe. I wonder how they came up with that conclusion? Unlike me, I would imagine that the relevant authorities would be experts on the subject and will have decided that all the shit dumped from various boats and all the people who piss in the river, especially at weekends, does nothing to affect water quality. Perhaps I am putting too much store in previous reports of Weil’s disease previously found it the water and, more generally, what the water looks and on a warm day smells like?
Down the road in Clevedon, swimming happens in the Marine Lake, which is filled up with water from the high tides. I was in total admiration of those swimming in the ice cold (to me) waters of the Bristol Channel until a hardy friend of mine expressed his disquiet, reporting – and how do I phrase this delicately? – a human ‘log’ floating past his nose as he went about his breast stroking activities. I’d have instantly thrown up and probably drowned, but then I am made of less stern stuff with a strange aversion to getting someone else’s shit anywhere near my body. It takes all sorts, I suppose?
Reading about the state of the Rover Ouse in York, then, was quite disturbing, knowing now as I do for sure it is literally full of shit. As we crossed the numerous bridges across the river it hadn’t occurred to me this most picturesque of places had an open sewer running through it.
But then, this is Tory Britain for you, where everything is broken and nothing works. Are we really surprised that our waterways are full of shit, too? The list seems to go on forever, whether you are in York, along the River Wye, seeing as we did in 2022 the terrible state of Lake Windermere as it slides towards destruction and pretty well everywhere in the UK. And as with the railways, much of this is down to one thing: privatisation.
Never forget that Margaret Thatcher sold loads of things we owned to her friends in business, including water. And over many years, instead of syphoning shit from our waters, the bosses have been syphoning profits from the business. As they sit there counting their millions, which used to be our millions, our waterways get still worse. If you could come up with something to illustrate what this country has become, go for a swim and just hope you don’t get poisoned.
Long ago and far away, 39 years ago in Corfu to be precise, I went on my first Greek holiday. We stayed near the Bay of Garitsa in Corfu Town and it was an open sewer. In the height of summer, the smell was overwhelming. You had to go many miles out of town to feel safe when having a dip. Today, the waters around Corfu are far cleaner. For all I know, they may have their issues from time to time, but it is the UK which is gaining the reputation of the dirty man of Europe. We could learn a lot from the Greeks. If you’d have asked me in 1985 that one thing would have been keeping our water clean, I might have laughed in your face. No more.
Stay safe and don’t go near the water.
