Sometimes you visit a place and you just know, from the moment you walk in there, that it’s right. The place is nice, the people are exceptionally kind and the atmosphere conveys a genuine and heartfelt welcome.
I recently revealed that the River Thames had won a prestigious international conservation award – the Thiess prize – as the world’s best cared-for river because of the way the quality of the water has been improved over the past fifty years or so.
I knew from a very young age that I loved the water. It didn’t matter whether it was pottering about in a small rowing dinghy on the Thames at Twickenham where I was born or flinging myself through breaking waves on the beach at Holland on Sea in Essex where we used to stay with my uncle and aunt most summers – I just loved the water.
