My first close acquaintance with the Stour was in November 1973 when a friend and I sailed my 28ft catamaran round from Benfleet to her new mooring at Manningtree, over a very cold and foggy night. We'd moved house a week or so earlier and had joined the Stour Sailng Club at Manningtree. That was to be our base for ten years of family cruising between the Swale and the Deben using the Catamaran, succeeded by a kestral 22ft clinker centreboarder and then a grp Leisure 23 Bilgekeeler. The 3 children had all been introduced to coastal cruising from about 6 months old.

By 1980 my son was itching to get into a kayak, so we joined Ipswich Canoe Club and were introduced to the freshwater Stour, of which we had seen very little. I became a BCU (British Canoe Union) instructor and did a lot of teaching with the canoe club and also with Samford Valley Scouts, whom my son had joined. I was roped in more and more and became Suffolk Scouts county canoe advisor for 1983 and 84. We made lots of use of the river between Sudbury and Cattawade for trips, some of them also involving Ipswich Waterways Club (members with learning difficulties). My son was soon attracted to whitewater and competitions, so once again I was roped into several years of training with him-flat water work on the Stour and all over the country for whitewater and surf; he made the national junior WWR squad after a lot of hard work.

We joined the River Stour Trust at the end of the eighties; I organised the small boat rallies in 1993 and 94 and I am currently the treasurer.