Along the banks of the Gipping

The Gipping at Sproughton

Along the Banks of the Gipping

A favourite poem of Mr E. V. Day, who was both my form master and my English teacher during my final years at Ipswich's Northgate School was 'The little waves of Breffny' by Eva Gore Booth, a minor late-Victorian poet. It takes its title from the third and final verse:

The great waves of the Atlantic sweep storming on their way,

Shining green and silver with the hidden herring shoal;

But the little waves of Breffny have drenched my heart in spray,

And the little waves of Breffny go stumbling through my soul.

Although I could never hope to express my sentiments so eloquently, I feel rather similarly about Suffolk's River Gipping.

No-one would claim that the Gipping is one of Britain's great rivers. It is certainly no Thames or Severn and it cannot really compare scenically with its own estuary the tidal Orwell, that flows from Ipswich to the sea. Yet it was along the banks of the Gipping and in the Gipping's water meadows that I spent some of the happiest times of my youth and adolescence.

It is unlikely that I appreciated it at the time, but the Gipping Valley, from Ipswich to Strowmarket and beyond, has a quiet and peaceful beauty of its own. Had John Constable's birthplace been some ten miles further north than it was, I have no doubt that it would have been Sproughton, Bramford and Great Blakenham rather than Flatford Mill and Stratford St. Mary, that would have been immortalised in oils, and would now be the destination of those seeking 'the Constable country'.

My parents, remembering the fast-flowing chalk streams of their native Berkshire Downs, had no very high opinion of the placid and slow-moving Gipping. They realized its potential dangers though. I was forbidden to go along its banks except in their company until I had learned to swim. I can't recall whether or not I observed that prohibition to the letter but fortunately before I was ten I had demonstrated my swimming prowess beyond doubt, and the embargo was lifted.

Thereafter, on sunny Saturdays and during school holidays, my destination was likely to be the Gipping tow-path. Often I'd be accompanied by one or two like-minded friends. Always I'd have at my heel (or running excitedly to and fro!) our wire-haired fox terrier Queenie who closely resembled, in habits if not in ancestry, William's dog Jumble in Richmal Crompton's classic children's stories. By the time I was fourteen I was familiar with every inch of the Gipping's course from the lock gates and weir through which, at two separate points, it flowed into the Orwell to beyond Fison's factory in Papermill Lane, between Bramford and Claydon.

At one time barges had been towed up and down river between Ipswich and Stowmarket. A series of locks had been provided at strategic points to enable the barges to 'climb' up and down hill. The days of barges had ended just before the 1930s, but the lock gates were still intact. They exerted a powerful attraction to us kids. Strong swimmers (and I reckoned myself to be one of these) would plunge into the deep water 'the pound' between the two lock gates. The less bold would disport themselves in the shallower water below the lower pair of gates, enjoying a shower from water jetting from leaks that always existed between the gates and round the sluices.

We would also, and at all times, stride boldly from one side of the river to the other across the top of the lock gates. This resulted in an incident that ended happily enough but which haunted my dreams and woke me in a cold sweat for years afterwards.

I was fifteen at the time. A cousin from London, a year younger than me, was spending his summer holiday with us. I took him to a favourite haunt of mine, the Chantry Lock, near the sugar beet factory, between Boss Hall and Sproughton. Workmen were carrying out some repair work on the lock and had just opened the sluice gate to lower the level of water in the pound.

We strode across the lock gates to the other side safely enough but, as we returned, my cousin lost his balance and fell into the pound. He was a strong swimmer but was being dragged inexorably towards the open sluice– and my arms weren't long enough to reach him. Fortunately, one of the workmen saw our plight and, lying on the ground, could just reach my cousins outstretched hand to drag him to safety. I met my cousin again in 1993, after a gap of well over forty years. His memories of that incident were every bit as vivid as my own!

It must have been when I was about thirteen that I became an angler. First of all, and with very basic equipment, I fished down-stream from 'the Black Bridge' (the railway bridge crossing the Gipping near Boss Hall), where angling was free for all. Perhaps because of this there was very little to be caught there. Upstream from the Black Bridge fishing was preserved by the Gipping Angling Preservation Society. For my fourteenth birthday, and for every subsequent birthday until I was called up with the Territorial Army in September 1939, my present from my parents was a GAPS angling season ticket. In those days this cost ten shillings and sixpence (52.5 pence) and, as far as I was concerned, was money well spent.

Gradually I improved my equipment and my expertise. Roach were plentiful and could be caught anywhere along the preserved length of the river. A good spot for perch was below the lock gates at Sproughton, while the best stretch of the river for pike was between Bramford and Fison's factory in Papermill Lane. In the summer I'd take swimming trunks with me and, if the fish weren't biting, I'd abandon angling and take a swim instead. There were occasions too when, after an over-enthusiastic cast, I'd have to go into the water to retrieve tackle tangled in midstream weeds or even in the bushes on the opposite bank.

Below the lock gates at Sproughton was a good spot for catching perch. These gates are just out of sight on the right-hand side of the picture. This was also a good spot for a swim

I liked fishing for pike with a specially shaped silver 'spoon'. The alternative was usng live bait. Although we were less humane (or perhaps just less squeamish) in those days, I didn't like impaling a captured roach on pike-hooks as bait.

Spinning involved casting the spoon as far as possible and then reeling it in quickly enough to make it spin in the water and attract the pike. The secret of success was to reel in sufficiently quickly to make the spoon spin, but not so quickly that the pike couldn't catch up with it. It could be a frustrating exercise. Often I'd see a huge pike (the ones that got away were always enormous!) following the spoon and snapping at it, but just missing it.

The first pike that I caught was over 2ft long (yes, it really was!) and snapped at me viciously with its razor sharp teeth. I was proud to be able to take him home to make a small contribution to the family larder.

I explored the banks of the Gipping, I plunged into the river from them, I fished from their banks and – oh yes – I did my 'courting' along them. During the magic fortnight at the beginning of World War II when Wanstead County High School was– by mistake, I am convinced– evacuated to Ipswich, I strolled with Heather Gilbert, my future wife, along the banks and under the shady trees of the river.

I was just eighteen, She was not quite sixteen. We were both agonisingly shy, thoroughly naïve – and hopelessly romantic! I was well-read but totally inexperienced of 'the real world'. My ideas of relationships between men and women were based on the novels of such authors Jane Austin, the Brontë sisters and Mrs Gaskell. Heather's virtue was never in the least peril (I was so scared of rejection that it was several days before I screwed up the courage to steal a kiss!) but we formed an attachment that was to endure for sixty-seven years.

Nowadays kids 'learn all about it' at school. They're down to earth, matter of fact, take the necessary precautions and don't bother with what we called 'courting'. Perhaps though, despite all the pressures, some do. I am sure that the others miss a great deal – both joy and heartache!

A few years ago, one April, I went back to the River Gipping, visiting some spots – the site of the Chantry Lock for instance – that I hadn't seen for well over fifty years. I was shocked to see that the water meadows where I had once played had been either ploughed over or were well-managed (but boring!) pasture. I was disappointed to see too that all the lock gates that I remembered so well had disappeared and had been replaced by weirs over which the water thundered. Had the gates been there I think that I would have been able to resist the temptation to stride across them!

It wasn't all loss though. Much of the old magic of the Gipping remained. Walking downstream, back to Boss Hall Road from what had been the Chantry Lock, the peaceful scene with the river flowing past great alder and willows made it almost unbelievable that, within a few hundred yards there was a busy factory and a bustling industrial estate.

I was very pleased too to find that the Suffolk County Council was taking an active interest in the conservation and enhancement of the Gipping Valley. The County Council has co-operated with the Mid Suffolk and Babergh District Councils in the Gipping Valley Project, launched in 1978 to encourage wildlife, conservation and countryside recreation, to maintain valuable landscape features and to increase community involvement in countryside matters.

The project manages three nature reserves and three picnic sites, maintains and promotes the river path (all seventeen miles from Ipswich to Stowmarket) and eight circular walks. It also provides advice and assistance on conservation schemes to landowners, parish councils and local communities, and provides environmental education and guided walks to schools and the public.

The Gipping Valley is currently threatened with an enormous riverside 'leisure complex' planned for Great Blakenham, within a few hundred yards of the bungalow in Barham where Heather and I made our first home way back in 1948. This, as always, promises to bring untold wealth and hundreds of badly-needed jobs to the area. It would also inevitably destroy the character of and important part of the Gipping Valley.

I don't think that I am alone in hoping that, on this occasion, the forces of Mammon will not prevail – and that they'll fail to destroy the magic of the River Gipping, that first entranced me nearly eighty years ago!

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