Local campaigner wants to see the River Teme given rights

The Teme at Leintwardine

A Shropshire campaigner says the River Teme should be granted legal rights because it has become "unwell".

Inspired by the way the River Wye has become the first river in the UK to be given cross-border rights covering it from source to sea, Sam Jones has started a petition which has so far been signed by more than a thousand people.

Sam Jones told BBC News:

"Over the years I've seen decline. I've been a swimmer, kayaked in the past, I'm an angler… you notice things around you.

"It's 30 years since it's been designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest... we ought to bring the focus back to what we have on our doorsteps.

"As an angler, you see changes to insect hatches, there's less rising trout, there's fewer roach… invertebrate changes, biodiversity changes along the riverbank."

The Teme rises south of Newtown in Powys, then flows through Knighton, Ludlow and Tenbury Wells before joining the Severn south of Worcester. It forms the border between England and Wales for several miles around Knighton.

I'm not sure how a river would enforce its rights, and think our moral thinking is impoverished if we express it only in terms of individual rights. But if this move will help improve the health of the Teme, I can't find it in my heart to oppose it.

Northwood Lane, Bewdley: The Elan Valley Aqueduct, The Singing Detective and Jonathan Meades

Fire broke out beside the Severn Valley Railway (SVR) bear Bewdley yesterday, reports the Shropshire Star. I don't know if it was caused by a spark from a train, but many preserved lines have gone over to diesel-only operation because of the tinder-dry state of lineside vegetation this summer.

This fire took place near Northwood Lane, which is a long road that runs beside the River Severn north of Bewdley. And this post  is about three things you can see along its course.

The first is an aqueduct that carries drinking water from the Elan Valley reservoir in Mid Wales over the River Severn on its way to the Frankley Reservoir in  Birmingham. This 73-mile pipeline, which opened in 1906, was a wonder of its day. 

You'll find it marked on the endpaper maps of many books about the Welsh Border, and I suspect it was the inspiration for the plot about a Shropshire reservoir being blown up by German spies in the first of Malcolm Saville's Lone Pine books, Mystery at Witchend.

You can see the Aqueduct over the Severn and the rails of the SVR in the photograph above. Now on to two television connections...

There is a station beside Northwood Lane, and it was used as a location for Dennis Potter's The Singing Detective. It's in the scene where the young Philip Marlowe returns to the Forest of Dean after his mother's death in London and is met by his father, who is played by Jim Carter. You can see a photo of them above along with photos photos of the station and level crossing.

And then there's Jonathan Meades...

You may remember his film Severn Heaven, which visited the Bewdley plotlands. This is an interwar community of some 160 self-built properties, which appears to be under threat at the moment. 

I had a wander round it some years ago myself, getting off the train at Northwood Halt.

A journey along the Welsh Border in 1963

Wynford Vaughan Thomas and friend travel the length of the border between England and Wales in 1963.

But the tone of the commentary could come from a topographical book of 30 years before. Anything that smacks of modernity or progress is suspect and the old ways are to be supported, however silly. There's an obsession with market day, while farmers can do no wrong.

Also in line with such books, there is disapproval for visitors' buses, but the writer's own car gets a free pass.

Still it's lovely country and Montgomery is still a little-known treasure. And Knucklas Viaduct still carries trains despite what the film says about Dr Beeching.

What really interested me in the films are the remains of Victorian agricultural improvement on Long Mountain, because I once discovered them for myself.

I had stayed for the night at Colebatch, the first village south of Bishop's Castle. I set off the next morning to walk to Montgomery. At first I went cross country via Bishop's Moat and Mellington Hall to meet the Offa's Dyke Path.

In those days I sometimes carried a radio when I went walking, and I can remember sitting in the sun listening to The World at One. It was at the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union and there was an item discussing how an independent Ukraine would fare.

I remember laughing because such a notion would have been unthinkable a few days before, and perhaps because I had called at a pub for a lunchtime drink. Looking at the map, I think it must have been the now-closed Blue Bell near Pentreheyling.

Anyway, I passed the turn for Montgomery and kept going because it was only mid afternoon and I felt fine. That's why I found myself on Long Mountain, and wondering what these strange Victorian remains were, before I managed to snag a bed for the night in Welshpool.

Now you could find out online, but this was 1991. Yet, by another of those strange coincidences, there was an item about them in, I think, The Times a couple of days after I got home.

But Wynford Vaughan Thomas is getting impatient, so you'd better watch the video. But after you've done so, you might enjoy my review of All the Wide Border by Mike Parker.

Muller corner yoghurts used to block Powys public toilet

In awarding Headline of the Day to the Oswestry & Border Counties Advertizer, the judges were at pains to remind us that most "funny" headlines aren't funny at all if you think about them for even a moment.

Some poor sod had to clean this mess up.