The Flow - Rivers, Water and Wilderness

The speaker is discussing a book called "The Flow, Rivers, Water and Wilderness" by Amy Jane Beare. The book explores the author's experiences and insights about water, rivers, and their importance from physical, psychological, and cultural perspectives. The speaker praises the book for its beautiful writing and ability to explore the subject in depth. The author also discusses issues such as the protection of rivers, access to water sports, and the power of landowners. The speaker agrees with many of the author's viewpoints and appreciates her advocacy for communication and cooperation. The book has been shortlisted for a prestigious nature writing award. Hello, Jeremy Dieter, and welcome to the Insight Post for the 24th of August 2023, The Flow, Rivers, Water and Wilderness. With a few days left of the holidays before schools return in early September, you may be running out of holiday reading, so this week my insights are about a book I have been reading and nearly finished. Although it's not strictly relevant to what I do, there are valuable lessons to be learned for changemakers and those seeking a new purpose. I write this holiday week free from word count and SEO constraints, and it is a pleasure and joy. I love playing water. It has a mystical and physical attraction to me, and I know I am not the only one. I swam last year in the Jordan, and of course Lourdes, to which I return each year, is built on a spring uncovered by Bernadette in 1858 at the command of Our Lady. Today it attracts thousands seeking healing for their bodies and souls. I frequently walk on River Rye, where I live, and have skinned it in Scotland's cold and clear rock pools. There is a place on the Hodgebeck in Stythendale which seems sacred until it suddenly disappears before emerging to join the dove and then the rye. So when I returned from Lourdes a few weeks ago and found Amy Jane Beare's book The Flow in Kemp's, our local independent bookshop, I was immediately engaged. After checking I was in the Natural History section and not the Health section of the store, I browsed through it, and although I felt from the inside covers that the author was probably another individual with an axe to grind and a message to ram down our throats, I bought the book, and thank heavens I did. The Flow, Rivers, Water and Wilderness. It is a beautiful book, well written, lyrical and potent. There can take a place amongst those astonishing writers who can explore a subject from many different perspectives, such as Natalie Hayes, mythology, Hannah MacDonald and Jennifer Ackman, birds, Anna Lamott, writing, George Kinder, money, and Alice Roberts, archaeology and anthropology. If they have one thing in common, it is that they write from the intense experiences of those subjects, and have explored their poets right to the foundations of what they mean to humanity. We can learn so much from these writers. Beare is an experienced kayaker. She has paddled rivers all over Britain, as well as the Zanskar and the Indus in India. She has seen a close friend die in the water and would have lost her life but for the quick thinking of a fellow kayaker. After years of paddling, she reads running water as we might read the papers. She understands flowing water from a physical, psychological and cultural viewpoint. And so I am grateful she has put pen to paper. I only realised Beare was a local author when I read the book. Her description of the River Durban, which flows past her home on a beautiful stretch of the river near a ruined prairie not far from where I live, made me feel ashamed that I know so little about the river. Although I am not with anyone, Beare describes the rivers as hidden, unassuming, unvisited, unexplored and generally remarked upon only when it is built. However, her words made me realise I still have time to get on my walking boots and find out for myself. Judgment hurts and hampers. Far from being a narrow-minded zealot with a messianic desire to impose her viewpoint on the rest of the world, Beare is impressionably non-judgmental in her writing. She occasionally loses it, when she writes of water bowls, for a generous second radium to disappear from an ecosystem, something must be profoundly wrong. For them to be threatened with extinction across the entire country is an appalling indictment of our castalianship. She also writes passionately about access to rivers. In this country, water sports such as swimming, sailing and kayaking in rivers are a form of trespass on the countryside. However, she tries to see the situation from the viewpoints of the many who use rivers as a resource. Farmers, water companies, swimmers, anglers, kayakers and others. She reserves her vitriol for anglers, using most of those they use when they aggressively uphold their right to fish and the like. But again, Beare comments that not all anglers adopt this attitude, meaning I have to keep the dialogue open with other river users and landowners, as she confirms by conversing with an angler. Her advocacy of communication and cooperation is more likely to get results than taking an unvalued approach and not budging. This is such a valuable lesson for anyone looking to create beneficial change and have an impact on their lives and the lives of others. Beare reserves the most incredible vitriol for Humphrey Smith and John Smith Beare fame. She writes about the power of landowners and the protection of their rights and interests. Smith is signalled out because of his refusal, after he was asked to destroy the bridge over the River Wharf in Tancaster in 2015 to allow a temporary bridge to be erected next door, a logical and safe place, on land owned by the brewery. As a result, a temporary bridge was constructed somewhere downstream. I agree with Beare when she talks about a legal system that is all to do with protecting rights and very little to do with enforcing responsibilities. I recall the St Lawrence Ethics Forum in 2020 moved online because of Covid. The subject was the law and the main speaker, a high-powered lawyer, kept going on about the rights of individuals and corporations. At one point, feeling very hot under the collar about something he said, I asked him if responsibilities were not an issue. He responded that in the UK the law was about protecting the rights of others. Generally, the legal system is not concerned with responsibilities. I must disagree and include a sentence about the importance of taking responsibility for actions in my business manifesto. I am reluctant to take on clients who are not paid to take responsibility for their actions. Should she ever read this, I would point out to Beare that not all landowners are unskillful and not all businesses are money-grubbing profiteers. Many landowners and corporations are happy to sacrifice an element of financial profit and plug it back into safe sustainability and environmental projects. Writing worthy of an award, despite my initial reservations, I agree with much that Beare writes about. Sometimes our experiences, reflections, and language are almost identical, not least when it comes to kingfishers. I have seen three kingfishers in my life and on each occasion I have used similar words to Beare. Bloody hell, in awe and disbelief. The film has been shortlisted for the prestigious Wainwright Prize for Nature and Conservation Writing. I hope it wins. It deserves to.