One of the joys of writing a column like Riverwatch is that I’ve met so many lovely people who have special memories of the Thames over the years.

A couple of months back I wrote a piece in this column exalting in the fact that Environment Agency inspectors had nabbed a significant number of boats on our stretch of the Thames which weren’t displaying the proper registration licence sticker and urging all boat owners to do the right thing and apply for the river equivalent of a tax disc.