Long before I had even heard of the River Wye, as a child, just across the road from home were water meadows and the babbling River Misbourne. The Misbourne is a chalk stream and occasionally the fields were filled with cows belonging to the village farm. The river was sheltered by willows, and the water was cool as we waded through it on hot summers days, often with little fishing nets. Rarely was anything caught, but I would spend hours laying in the shade of those willows, watching the river bed. The water was crystal clear, and on special days a small brown trout might pass by. May flies would hatch in front of my eyes and rise out of the river doing their aerial dance, and dragon and damsel flies would land on the foliage around the river, at my eye level as I laid, quietly, next to the river. The soft babble would often make me sleepy and I would nap for a while, sometimes waking up to the call of the kingfisher and it was here I first saw those incredible birds fishing for tiny fish.
Not far from the water meadows the Misbourne meets with the River Colne, at a country park now decimated by HS2 works, but even now the meadows are intact and sometimes the cows are there, although the farm has become an industrial chicken producer. We used to wander down to the farm for milk, for meat to see the lambs being born. Where once there was a farm gate and a notice telling us to wander into the farmyard and shout if no one was about, there are now huge steel gates and no one can come and go, except the huge lorries that take the poultry into the supermarket distribution system.
Much of my life’s memories are based around rivers. The Aire and the Wharfe, the Swale and the Nidd, were the Yorkshire rivers of my youth, visiting every summer once we had moved south. The Humber and the Hull whilst I was at college in Hull. The Thames, the Wye, the Kennet in the south east, and then the Avon, the Frome and the mighty Severn in Bristol. And now the iconic River Wye is the river on my doorstep. The mouth of the Wye is visible less than 100 yards away, with it’s marshy fields, at this time of year with leaping lambs, and the first Severn Bridge, and I can see the Severn from my bedroom window. As we cross the Severn Bridge coming home in spring and autumn the dragons breath can be seen settling in the Wye Valley itself, winding around the corner and into the hills. All along the coast path there are information boards about the Wye from the Black Rock fishermen who caught salmon in the mouth of the river, to further upstream where the private fisheries are, bringing in anglers all year, but especially those anglers who dream of champion salmon.
When we first moved west and started to discover the Wye often there would be anglers in the river, just appearing out of the mists. But lately not so much. My husband was, as an angler, so excited to have the Wye on his doorstep, but now not so much.
Walk along the river in summer and the life is extraordinary. Birds, dormice, bees, butterflies all flock to the rivers edge, and to the water meadows around it. The flora is extraordinary, with every type of umbel you can imagine swaying in the gentle breeze, campions, ragged robin, hawkweeds and clover alongside those stunning ancient willows that remind me of the Misbourne. The sounds of the birdsong and the buzzing of bees, wasps and hoverflies is audible above the sounds of human life and every so often the sound of a damsel fly’s beating wings flies over head. Truly magical you would think.
When Andy started to fish the Wye he thought it was abundant and would always be slightly puzzled when he caught very little, if anything. Once we moved here, we began to understand why. Upstream the Wye is surrounded by industrial chicken farms and their run off is killing the river. Literally the river is dying in front of our eyes. Add to that human waste being let into the river when the systems are no longer able to work, and the beating heart of the Valley is failing. Last year less than ten salmon were caught in a river that is still called iconic and yet is so full of algae that the algal blooms take over the river as soon as it’s warm enough for them to spread. The river bed, once crystal clear, is covered in algae; the rocks and gravel slimey and greenish brown. And life in the river has all but disappeared.
The Wye Valley, full of mystery and history, relies on the river for so much. Tourism and angling are the lifeblood of many small communities. And without the river being in full health what hope for these communities and the skills and history they hold?
And all for our need for cheap chicken?
Instead of needing cheap, industrially produced food why can’t we live in a world where no one goes hungry because the minimum wage is actually enough to live on? Where benefits are set so people never need to make choices about whether they eat, or heat their homes? Where all food is produced with the planet at the centre of the production process, and where supermarkets plough their profits back into communities rather than shareholders?
Because so many rivers are at risk, which is why the Soil Association have opened a petition and are running a campaign, Stop Killing Our Rivers. Please sign the petition and fight for a river near you. Rivers are natures veins and the centre of some many small, and large, communities. They must be protected.
Farming like this should actually be illegal. Will keep sharing the petition xx
This is so beautifully written and so sad. I vividly remember canoeing on the wye as a kid. It’s so absolutely horrifying that cheap chicken production has been allowed to proliferate in this way when only a few years ago it looked like free range was the mainstream choice. And cheap chicken is EVERYWHERE. This should not be the price paid for such a cruel, pointless product, crammed with hormones that will do god knows what to the people eating it. petition signed, post shared x