I recently had an outing on the Avon at Monkton with my old pairs partner from university days. It was amazing to be rowing with John again after a gap of nearly forty years and it set me thinking about the two Avons we'd rowed on, the illusory nature of time and how 'nothing is ever for nothing' as they say.
John and I attended rival rowing schools at Kingston upon Thames and had then rowed under Kingston R.C. colours before being thrown together as undergraduates at Warwick at the start of the second year of that university's existence. Whilst friends from our school VIIIs had gone on to earn Blues, Purples and Palatines, we were stranded, or so it seemed, in something of a rowing wilderness in deepest Warwickshire.
In our first year at Warwick, we organised transport twice a week to go and row at Stratford-on-Avon, but we received a less than warm reception from the 'old guard' there, who were hostile to the idea of undergraduates using anything but the most dilapidated of the club's equipment. Accordingly, John and I determined to found a separate university club. Canoeing down the Avon from Leamington Spa, I discovered an unexpected, private stretch of river extending some three miles from the weir at Warwick Castle down to the weir at Barford. Deep, broad in places and with some good, straight reaches - it was the answer to our prayers! Next, we set about discovering who owned the water and how and where to site a boathouse and raft. Fortunately, half the stretch turned out to be owned by a friend of the university who persuaded the other riparian owner, Lord Warwick, to allow us to row over the whole stretch. We were also given land with vehicular access and river frontage for £1 a year peppercorn rent. Lastly, we persuaded the university to dismantle and relocate a redundant builders' shed from the original university construction site and to construct a raft.
Our first competitive crew was a senior coxless IV stroked by Old Radleian, Diegan Morris whose parents lived near Wallingford. Diegan's brothers were Culain and fellow Old Radleian, Sean Morris (Oxford blue boat '63 and '65). I coached Culain's son, Jeremy in the '94 MCSBC 1st VIII and through the good offices of Sean we were put in touch with the Captain of Wallingford R.C. - incredibly, none other than Monkton's own Carl Purchase - who kindly let us have two old clinker IVs to start off the novices at Warwick. Moving closer still in time, James Nickless (whom I coached in the '96 MCSBC 1st VIII) went from Monkton to Warwick where he rowed in a successful university 1st VIII ...
Little did I realise forty years ago what a chain of events was being set off on two Avons. Thanks John, it was great to get out on the (albeit a different) Avon again and may both rivers continue to be homes to oarsmen and oarswomen for many years to come.