Thames Britain’s Great River

Got to be worth a look, wonder what the focus will be on. ?
Must be difficult to get a new angle and not merely re hash the hundreds of previous efforts.
Good starting point could be the latest challenges the river faces, lack of funds and therefore expanding ways of generating money from all those benefiting from the existance of the Thames.
Water extraction and pollution, especially from agriculture, really needs to be looked at urgently.
 
Watched last night.
Not a difficult choice , looking at the alternatives on TV.Though Tony was a reasonable compromise between somebody you might have heard of with a bit a historical gravitas vs somebody just evicted from a cooking show.
A pretty good effort and from the point of view of a non local, rather interesting, especially regards the source moving due to water extraction.Most interesting and informative due to all my boats never being able to get that far up.
Possibly would have put the painful "Dads Army" interlude on the cutting room floor and the punts sort of filled a few slack moments.
Also timely demonstration, for those constantly knocking the EA , about the work going on behind the scenes.
Nice motorboat. :)
Looking forward to next episodes further down river, especially about the tidal section, where the real history is.
7 out of 10. :)
 
oldgit said:
Watched last night.
Not a difficult choice , looking at the alternatives on TV.Though Tony was a reasonable compromise between somebody you might have heard of with a bit a historical gravitas vs somebody just evicted from a cooking show.
A pretty good effort and from the point of view of a non local, rather interesting, especially regards the source moving due to water extraction.Most interesting and informative due to all my boats never being able to get that far up.
Possibly would have put the painful "Dads Army" interlude on the cutting room floor and the punts sort of filled a few slack moments.
Also timely demonstration, for those constantly knocking the EA , about the work going on behind the scenes.
Nice motorboat. :)
Looking forward to next episodes further down river, especially about the tidal section, where the real history is.
7 out of 10. :)
Click to expand...

It's not the whole of the EA that's getting knocked - just the management of the Thames navigation.

IIRC EA didn't want it - 'twas wished upon it by 'Government' when it was decided to get rid of the Thames Conservancy
 
thamesS23 said:
Really enjoyed the second episode. Great to see Richard at Abingdon lock, as we head off to moor up there in about 2 weeks.

you can watch it here:

https://www.my5.tv/the-thames-britains-great-river-with-tony-robinson/season-1/episode-2
Click to expand...

+1, gets better, more interesting as he goes further downstream.Thought both the Reading "Poo" visit and the wonderful slipper launches were interesting.
Surpised how cheap,sorry,how, inexpensive, they were, considering build time and craftsmanship.
 
180k for the "basic" model? They are amazing though, and are more work of art than boats. And now mainly electric. Typically our boat wasn't there when it was filmed - we've moored at Freebodys since 1984 but any time there's a photo shoot etc we seem to be away.
 
thamesS23 said:
Really enjoyed the second episode. Great to see Richard at Abingdon lock, as we head off to moor up there in about 2 weeks.

you can watch it here:

https://www.my5.tv/the-thames-britains-great-river-with-tony-robinson/season-1/episode-2
Click to expand...

Thanks for that link - we enjoyed watching the programme and wanted to -cough- save a copy, or at least watch it again - if I can't find a way to save it.
It'll remain on the server for another year! (at current BT progress we might have Fibre by then)
 
Watched both episodes yesterday on catch-up. Good programme, but a shame they missed out Marlow, Bourne End, Cookham, Maidenhead and Windsor! Even Runnymede!
 
Excellent evenings entertainment.............
Two grumpy old boyes in a boat sailing round the south coast
followed by
going down the Thames
followed by
Brian Cox and the Planets.
 
Parabordi said:
agreed...have never seen a TV prog on Thames where they actually 'get it'...
Click to expand...
The editor obviously had no idea that people know the geography of the river and jumped about all over the place. I particularly enjoyed the"buzzard" overhead, cleverly disguised as a red kite. Bet Sir Tony knew it's a kite.
As everyone has said,it was good to see Frank and Richard at Abingdon.
 
Surely its a national TV station attempting to portray the essence of the Thames in way to attract viewers in the UK as whole, not a detailed invetory of every stone and tree on the river.
You have 4 hours(less adverts) probably 3 ,to cover 150 miles of river and to put it bluntly all the interesting history is in the Pool.
Without being mean to, Marlow, Bourne End, Cookham, the differences between them is what exactly ?
 
Last edited:
If the Producers of the program are trying to promote the River Thames why so much time spent on a sewerage works and not places like Runnymede where the Magna Carta was signed ?
 
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