By Nick Cottam
Distance: Approximately 16.8 km or 10.5 miles
Time to complete: 3.5 to 4 hours Continue reading
Author Archives: Bertie Wheen
River Deben Swimming and the Elephant in the Room
By Ruth Leach
This is an extended version of Ruth Leach’s article ‘The Deben Bluetits Swim Group’, published on The Deben #68. It’s written in her capacity as co-founder of the Save the Deben campaign group and contains an update on water quality. This topic is scheduled for panel discussion at the River Deben Association’s forthcoming AGM, April 24th 2024.
During the recent pandemic our lives were deconstructed in so many ways, ‘free time’ – that precious commodity, was suddenly in abundance for many of us. People reconnected with their natural environment and for those fortunate enough to be near a blue space the love affair with nature soon flourished. Continue reading
Volunteers Running an International Event
By Alice Thorogood
Credit: Corinne Whitehouse
The UK Cadet Class World Championships take place in Plymouth this summer. They are completely volunteer run. Alice Thorogood of Waldringfield Sailing Club explains what’s involved and how you can show your support for these young sailors:
How did we get into this? A personal introduction
My eldest, Gwen, was just eight when she first stepped onboard a Cadet with Waldringfield sailor Hattie Collingridge and disappeared across the Deben. We didn’t plan it, we had never thought about sailing as a hobby for our children; I’m not from a sailing background at all and though it turns out that my husband, Frank, has the water of the Deben in his veins, he too had very little experience of dinghy sailing. That world felt “other” to us, with its strange new language and an elitist image that felt slightly difficult to navigate. However, we were charmed by Hattie and her clear love of the sport, that teamed with the easy welcome of Waldringfield Cadet Squadron and we were as hooked as Gwen clearly seemed to be when she came bouncing up the beach all wide eyed and exuberant from her first taste of Cadet sailing. Continue reading
Lord Deben’s Climate Change Talk: ‘Net Zero—where are we now?’
By Tristan McConnell
Members of the River Deben Association (RDA) in October had the opportunity to hear an important and wide-ranging talk on climate change by Lord Deben, the former chair of the UK Climate Change Committee, and former Conservative Secretary of State for the Environment and MP for Suffolk Coastal. Continue reading
Churches of the Deben: Part 1
By Gareth Thomas
The Church of St Mary of Grace in Aspall
Several months ago (probably almost a year but time flies by so fast!), I was asked by the editor if I would consider writing an article about the Churches of the Deben. With entirely misguided confidence I replied in the affirmative with the proviso that, due to some more immediate commitments, there might be some delay. Continue reading
Remembrance Sunday 2023: Two Films from Tim Curtis (We Fought Them in Gunboats & Stanley’s War)
By Julia Jones
Tim Curtis.
On November 12th 2023 the Riverside Cinema Woodbridge will show two wartime documentaries by Woodbridge-based director Tim Curtis. Tim is probably best known to RDA Journal readers for the highly successful Life on the Deben project – 6000 DVDs and Blu Rays sold in the first year, more than 15,000 cinema and festival viewers and over £5000 donations made to Deben good causes. Earlier this year (2023) Tim made a short film ‘How Polluted is the Deben?’ which was shown together with ‘A Surge of Memories’ (not by Tim) commemorating the floods of 1953 and tidal surge of 2013. Continue reading
Felixstowe Ferry and Flyingboats
By Phil Boak
Between the years 1913-1962, Felixstowe was a major flyingboat base, with the aircraft operating from the River Orwell on the site now occupied by the Docks. Operating during WW1, flyingboats partook in anti-submarine patrols of the North Sea. In the interwar years, the focus switched to research and development, with the performance of the seaplanes and flyinboats carefully evaluated through tests and trials. On completion of their operational lives, several of the larger flyingboat hulls were taken to the hamlet of Felixstowe Ferry and repurposed as houseboats, providing picturesque, if not cramped accommodation. This short article brings together before-and-after images of six such flyingboats, with a summary about what is currently known about them. Continue reading
Protecting the Lady
By Julia Jones and Charles Payton
On August 9th 2023 Historic England put out the following press release:
The iron hulk of the Lady Alice Kenlis, designed by the same shipwright as the Cutty Sark, has been granted protection by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) on the advice of Historic England.
The Lady Alice Kenlis was an iron steamship designed by Hercules Linton in 1867. He is the designer of the internationally renowned Cutty Sark, launched two years later in 1869. The Cutty Sark (now at Royal Museums Greenwich) was a state-of-the-art Victorian tea clipper. It was one of the fastest of its time, making the journey from Sydney to London by sail in 73 days.
Geese on the Deben
By Sally Westwood
Plate 1: Canada Goose
Source: rspb.org.uk (2023)
Canada Goose
You may have observed large flocks, or a gaggle of Canada Geese1 (Branta canadenis) (see Plate 1, below) on the mudflats and surrounding marshland of the Deben. It is the most familiar goose on our river. It is perhaps not surprising that the Deben functions as a habitat for four geese, including the Canada, the Barnacle, the Brent and the Greylag goose, since the Deben and the surrounding marshes and farmland has a wide range of food available for geese. The Deben estuary has narrow mudflats at the mouth of the river and wide mudflats on the inner section of the estuary. The majority of the land to the side of the estuary is agricultural farmland and this is flanked by grazing marshes. The estuary is also heavily fringed by Saltmarsh, as well as small side creeks, the largest of which is Martlesham Creek at the northern end of the river. Continue reading
Help clean up our beaches
by Kate Osborne
I remember the first time I ever saw someone collecting rubbish from the beach. It was a beautiful white sand cove in Corsica. What struck me as odd wasn’t the fact that he was stark naked (it really was a deserted beach!) but that he was carrying a torn white plastic feed sack and he was using it as a sling for all sorts of other litter. I’m ashamed to say I laughed – whether inwardly or outwardly I’m not sure – but I’m still friends with him and the rest of his family, so it can’t have been that obvious.
Continue reading