A couple of weeks back I wrote about Phil McCarthy, the father of a lady called Dinah Ballantyne, who was a member of the Home Guard given the responsibility for protecting Penton Hook Lock during the dark days of the Second World War.

Sometimes people come up with brilliant ideas out of the blue – an innovative way of attacking a problem that suddenly reveals the obvious solution from a fog of uncertainty.

One of the things I love most about writing this column is that every now and again I’m contacted by someone with a lovely story to tell connected to our stretch of the Thames.

Mystery journey of derelict boat that had sunk to the bottom

I was absolutely delighted to receive an email from Alan and Jean Barrett of Walton following on from my piece about the restoration of the old paddle steamer, the Medway Queen, in last week’s Herald and News.

Regular readers of this column will know that I’ve been following the progress of the restoration work being undertaken on the paddle steamer Medway Queen and I thought it was about time to post an update.

It's always nice when old friends come back to visit and that was certainly the case for the members of Weybridge Ladies Amateur Rowing Club (WLARC) a couple of weeks ago.

I've mentioned before in this column that I have a certain amount of sympathy for the Environment Agency because, in this age of austerity and Government cutbacks, it has struggled to meet all its commitments to river users because of a lack of funds.

Young sailors from the Thames Valley and London competed amongst over 1,000 Olympic hopefuls at the RYA zone championships held at the end of September.

My brother and I took Terra Nova out for a last jaunt of the season on Saturday. One thing that struck me as we wended our way along was the number of boats that look as though they have been abandoned.