29 January 2025

Join The Conversation at St Martin-in-the-Fields. Robert Macfarlane and the plight of our rivers.

Last night I sat within one of London's gorgeous churches to listen to hear Robert Macfarlane in conversation with Peter Florence. This forms part of a series of events on Tuesday eves at 6.30pm through to May 6th.

Robert Macfarlane is a wonderfully engaging and inspiring man who has written many books about the world around us, how it affects us, and what we could and should be doing to protect, preserve and conserve our environment and, therefore, the planet. 

Last night, Robert talked about ecological degradation, how there are three million birds fewer birds in the US's skies since 1970, how this era we are living in will be evidenced by geologists in the future as The Anthropocene, how rivers worldwide are dying, that every UK water course in the UK is unhealthy. He posed the idea that if we were to regard our rivers as living beings perhaps we'd regard them with greater respect. He asked us to think about our local rivers as our neighbourhood friends. 

I thought about my local rivers. Hmm. I need to get on a bus to get to The Roding, The Lea, The Moselle and Dollis Brook. The ones closer to home, such as the Hackney Brook, The Tyburn and The Fleet were conduited into pipes below ground a long time ago, having been first turned into open sewers before being covered completely, the adjacent land being profitable for development. Although sections of The Fleet can be found on Hampstead Heath.

I decided that my local river is, therefore, The New River, which we all know, isn't new or a river, but a canal created in the 1610s to bring clean water to London from Hertfordshire because the rivers at the centre were already full of human waste. 

400 years of river abuse. Now, where shall I dump this trolley full of plastic bottles and face wipes?



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Thanks, Jane