Newsletter Issue 14 Summer 2016

OUR NEW BABY At the beginning of April we took delivery of a pre-owned three tonne Thwaites dumper. This was totally due to a very generous donation from an anonymous source. The acquisition of this vital piece of equipment will enable us to fully utilise our digger on the Pipps Ford project as well as undertake a variety of other tasks. A bargain at £7500 plus the dreaded value added tax.

Chard keeps a watchful eye as Pete loads the new dumper

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I have been

certified It was a bright sunny Wednesday morning at Pipps Ford and the work parties were being organised by our Restoration Manager, Martin. What was I going to do today I mused. Removing bricks from the old weir, strim the grass around the lock or assist our resident pyromaniac burn an old oak stump. Imagine my surprise when Chard tapped me on the shoulder and said you are going to be trained as a dumper driver. So over the next few hours I was put through my paces learning the ins and outs of dumper truck driving.

Chard is quite a task master as well as being a very good instructor. He took great delight in making me drive past my own car, which was parked on a slope, six times. We were collecting a sawn up tree that had been fly tipped in a gateway along the lane to Pipps Ford. This part of the lesson did help focus the mind to pay attention to the terrain and any objects that needed avoiding.

On my first trip with a full load of soil he took great delight in watching me get stuck on a muddy incline. “Give it more wellie next time” was the instruction. So I did and it worked. A few more trips and a lot more advice and I became more confident in handling the beast. After completing the paperwork Chard said I was certified to drive a dump-er. Others in the work party thought I was certified years ago. I am now awaiting my official dumper drivers licence from the IWA.

Over the next few weeks others will be suitable trained in both digger and dumper driving so we have a good pool of people on hand to cope with demands of our current projects. It just goes to show that being a volunteer on the work parties is never dull.

Les Howard

(les.jan@hotmail.co.uk)

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Phil Whittaker by the bridge at Pipps Ford

Jo Churchill the MP for Bury St Edmunds attendance at our AGM brought about a rec-ord attendance. Under the expert Chairman-ship of Brian Annis OBE the formal aspects of the meeting were over and done in seven minutes. This too may be a record for our AGM’s. An address by the MP then followed.

She gave wonderful and colourful insight into all aspects of Parliament which kept the attendees spellbound for some 40 minutes.

Jo Churchill recounted how it felt to arrive as a newcomer to this great establishment, the formalities involved and the interaction with some of the elder statesmen ( Ed. or should it be statespeople).

Her passion for the constituency she served was very evident and she told the gathering about the many acts going through Parliament that affected the region and Suffolk in particular. In her concluding re-marks she empathised with the bold plans the RGT has in going for-ward and offered support. Brian gave a heartfelt vote of thanks and the attendees responded with appreciative applause.

LOCAL MP HERALDS RECORD

ATTENDANCE AT OUR AGM

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“A tunnel was made under the track to allow the passage of the river boats that carried the flint and the chalk away from the quarry”. That was the sentence that caught my eye on the Santon Downham Village website.

The subject is St Helen’s Well, just north of the river Little Ouse, about two miles upstream from Santon Downham. A “holy well”, later much altered, first by the excavation of a chalk pit and then by the building of the railway from Thetford to Brandon in the 1840s.

The site can be approached from an information board on the track which runs westwards from near the Two Mile Bottom picnic site, roughly parallel to the rail-way. A very steep path leads down the west side of the old chalk pit.

Two things strike one when you make it down to the waterside - the bridge under the railway is clearly navigation-size, not culvert-size. And the remarkable clarity of the water - not to mention the volume - at least in January. This might well be a candidate for the title of the Shortest Chalk Stream in Norfolk. You can stand right by where the water emerges from the ground in the centre of the old pit.

Around you is open scrub growing up from the uneven floor of the former chalk and flint quarry. Beyond, the steep, but not vertical sides of the pit, lead up to the rim perhaps 60 feet above.

The watercourse is straight, and passes under the railway about 100 yards below the spring. You can follow it with dry feet because there is a narrow walkway through the bridge, cantilevered out over the water. Presumably put there for the benefit of railway maintenance workers, though no attempt is made to discourage anyone else from using it - provided they are prepared to bend double. Downstream, it is another 100 yards to where boats must have turned right and followed a backwater a short distance to join the river navigation about a mile above the site of Santon Staunch.

The information panel says that what the makers of the quarry were after was not only chalk, but floorstone flint needed for making gunflints -in great demand at the time of the Napoleonic Wars - which coincided with the high-noon of inland naviga-tion. Here where the outside of a bend in the Little Ouse cuts into higher land, the floorstone bed is only about three metres below the surface - compared to 13 me-tres down at nearby - and much older - flint mines at Grimes Graves. Brandon, once the centre of the world gunflint industry, is just four miles downstream.

A VERY SHORT ARM

Story and photos by Fergus Muir

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This arm has a certain similarity to the straight, silted, arm on the east side of the River Gipping just below our work site at Pipps Ford which also led to quarries. At Pipps Ford 1884 six-inch Ordnance Survey map shows “Old Chalk Pit” and “Old Sand Pit” sited just behind Pipps Farmhouse - near where volunteers nowadays park their cars.

At St Helen’s Well the quarrying has obliterated any signs of the medieval setting of the well, but excavation in 1961-62 showed that below the surface the foundations remain of the remote church of St Helen that stood guardian on the bluff above the well. In the days of the church standing alone on heaths above the river valley it must have been a wild and evocative spot and a welcome one for those seeking clean water.

Now the surroundings are mostly Forestry Commission plantations, though the val-ley-bottom itself is not planted-up. If you are thinking of visiting the arm, the na-tional grid reference of the bridge is TL840873.

The information board is on the east-west track that goes from near the Two-Mile Bottom picnic site on the A134 to the St Helens picnic site and beyond. The access road to the St Helen’s site starts at TL 819880, between the river and the railway. Expect a bit of a scramble to get down to the waterside.

Main photo shows the bridge, seen from near the spring. Top left a view looking upstream from the walkway under the bridge.

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RGT VISITS SUEZ Putting Suffolk's waste to good use

An intrepid party of RGT members recently visited the waste to energy facility that has been built at Great Blakenham. My, were they impressed by what they saw and learned.

SUEZ recycling and recovery UK and Suffolk County Council are working together to manage residual household waste in Suffolk over the next 25 years, diverting it from landfill and putting it to good use. To reduce the amount of Suffolk’s waste that goes to landfill and the associated cost to council taxpayers, the Suffolk -from-waste facility uses the waste left after recycling – from homes and some businesses across Suffolk – to generate enough electricity to power 30,000 homes. The facility, which was built and is run by SUEZ, began operating in December 2014.

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Top left.

RTG members try their hand at matching power output in the visi-tor centre.

The visitor centre is very interactive and highly informative as the two pictures below show.

It is amazing what

people put in their

rubbish bins. This

photo illustrates the

non combustible

items that are

removed from the

incinerators. The

scrap metals are

recycled by a local

company.

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Only a bloke like ‘im would take on a bird like that. I never met her, but he told me many a time he was flash and all, back then. And how, you might ask? On ac-count of during the World Wars he collected scraps from all the London restau-rants and markets, and used them to make pig pudding. It was called Tottenham Pudding and everybody’s pig was eatin’ it, and it only cost ‘im pittance. He was laughin’, that ’un. When I knew him in the 80’s he was just an old boy, Ernie Onians or ‘the old scrooge’ to me lads at the pub. But all of us knew what he was after the wars – the Pudding King.

What made him rich, see, was his own shrewd ways. After the First War every-body with a pig in their back garden needed some way of feeding it. What was wanting was proper feed. So he sees his chance and starts collecting all the food scraps he can get. Can’t say as how he went from point A to point B, but next thing you know he’s got loads of food coming up the River Gipping on barges what he already has connections with and it all comes out to him at old Baylham Mill. He’s got the mill all set up to grind the scraps and make puddings out of it. And them ingredients cost ‘im nearly nothing save the people what picked it up and hauled it, and knowin’ him he didn’t pay pittance for that.

So there he is, V-E day over and done, and everybody’s celebrating and rebuilding, and as he says, he was right flash, dead on the money if it’s all the same to you and me. Oh, he had the best cars, suits as you only see toffs wear in the city coun-cil department. And her, she was posh, very upmarket. A London model, as he told me. Daphnewas much younger n’him, May-December, all that sort of thing.

It was her what had an eye for the art. You can read about it for yourself, since the Sotheby’s cock-up put it all in the papers and glossies for everyone to see, which I can say in my case was a right shocker since I never quite believed he was that wealthy, rich as a skunk ‘n all. My wages was always as low as he could get it.

When I met the old boy she’d been in the ground a good six, maybe seven years beforehand. I never saw him as he was back in them glory days – and hard to im-agine, mind you. He looked as poor as a porpoise, and just slightly better when he had on his tuck and whistle for the old bank manager. The housekeeper said he had loads o’ dosh, but since the very day when them burglars broke in and tied them up, he changed.

To make sure nobody would even think about stealing from him again, he kitted himself out in old suits – even though they was proper ones; old gentleman’s button-up trousers, old jacket very tatty, weren’t very clean neither. Here he was quids-in, all the while looking so skint the girls at the charity shop felt sorry for ‘im and sometimes they wouldn’t even let ‘im pay. Looks weren’t half deceiving and that’s the way he wanted it.

Now, when I met him, I wasn’t doing nothing but enjoying the country air. Well I was on his property as such, but then I told him, I was really standing on a public path fishing in the river, which was just off the public path. He says right, then, on your bike, and we had a bit of a discussion. In the end it comes out we had a com-mon interest. I’d just finished at a garage what I’d lost in the recession, so he could see I knew what I was about when it comes to cars and motors.

ERNIE ONIANS “THE PUDDING KING”

The following narrative was written for an American audience by Sally Latham Lawrence the wife of Eddie Lawrence, who once worked for Mr Onians. These events took place over 30 years ago and are entirely his personal memories of that time.

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I stopped by more times after that, as he had good stories and all. (Never did so much as think on fishing in his stream, though, for all the years I was there. Cor no-body fished on his property, he was that tight. I did do some eeling for ‘im though.)

In them days I was never in a hurry to get back to me missus (she was that mad about my business packin’ up), which worked in his favor. He had loads of repairs what needed doing. First he was on about his car wouldn’t start, so I helped him with that. Then I was cutting back shrubs and tidyin’ up the garden. Then we moved on to the house. He had an electrified alarm system strung strung about the place, and he was after me to keep it running. It was all bare wires everywhere and at one stage he’d even electrified the door knobs. I put a stop to that right off. Terroristic, that was.

It wasn’t long before I was spending more and more time in the old mill. There was holes in the roof, all dusty, loads o’ rats and pigeons everywhere. It’d been run down and what I could make out, the Historical Society wanted him to deal with it, as it was gettin’ right dangerous. Just in terms of infestation I caught dozens of rats and loads of pigeons. I had me own little girls out to kill the last of ‘em with sling shots. Dead-on they was, even the youngest.

In the three or four years I was there, we got most of the mill working and the exte-rior painted. He wanted me to work on the water wheel but we never got around to it. You couldn’t test some parts without water. See, in the ‘60s there was some change to the waterways. I don’t know much about it, except the lock gates were broken on the River Gipping and nobody would pay for their repair. Therefore Bayl-ham Mill and all the others are broken down for good.

But that’s not the end of the Onians story. What nobody knew, especially them at the Historical Society, was that the silly old fool was hoarding a whole slog of quality art-works, not to mention all them grandfather clocks (only two was working when I was there, so not as noisy as if all twenty-odd was bangin’ away). He had loads of antique violins hangin’ about his bedroom, in addi-tion to all the ready cash he’d stashed ‘ere and there about the place.

Now you might think I’d classed him as wealthy what with all them paintings he had, but they was nothing new to the aver-age English bloke back then. After the wars, anyone could have an historic painting in exchange for a week’s wage. My parents had art from a manor house in Norfolk. As me dad said, everyone had a chance at the time, but it was the shrewd ones what done it.

Onians was different in that he wasn’t just shrewd, God no. He had the dosh and his lady’s good eye. That’s how he got Richlieu’s old bit o’ canvas, the very one what put it all in the news; which that Rothschild bloke got hold of in ‘99 and now hangs in Jerusalem. There hangs an artwork what I might’a held in me own two hands. And cleaned it with vinegar too.

Portrait of a Gentleman by Paul van Somer

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The housekeeper stayed in the mill house, in her own room. I heard she got the house to live in all the rest of her life, and lucky to have it since Onians could be spiteful. He spent many an hour working out how to cut his step-son out of his will. Wanted his money to go to a trust, ever since someone in the family ordered pipe-works run up to the house without permission. It’s a right irony too, since I spent loads of time in his own well, repairin’ the pump and puttin’ the bricks back up around the walls. Just so he could drink river water.

Not that the housekeeper didn’t earn the right to live in the house. Neither of us got paid much of anything when I was about. We both just did as we was told. It was her lot to live in a place what was packed to the brim, dark and dusty even on the best days. We did make her a garden so she could grow her own veg and flow-ers. She did love to dry flowers, had ‘em hangin’ all about the place.

On the rainy days Ernie sometimes had us ‘round to a special door between the living room and the mill. That was how we got to them artworks. The papers say the paintings was in a chicken shed, but they wasn’t, unless he moved the shed up between the buildings so he could get to it from inside. What I saw was a secret room with his artworks all stacked inside.

Sometimes I actually done up the missing bits in the frames with plaster of Paris. It was just like doin’ body work on a car. I made moulds to match the rest of the frame, as you can see on Portrait of a Gentleman. Then I would rub on gold leaf to match the rest. I had to redo ‘em, or he would try with his own hand. He did some of it himself; rip up a bit of old blouse and paste it to a tear in a canvas from the back. It was all I could do to keep him from getting’ out his pots o’ paint to touch up the fronts.

When I think back on it, I hope I done some good. They might find under the frame-work I did a cock-up on it. He was pleased with it all. We worked until dark and I’d say I’ve got to go out now. He’d say all right, let’s pack this away, do it another day.

It’s amazing now, looking back and remembering them artworks, the violins, which come to find out some was Stradivarius, rare as hens teeth. Then there was the car.

Sometime about 1950, Onians bought a 1934 Alvis 20SC. I seem to remember him saying he wanted his wife to have it. She drove it once and that was the end, full stop. An Alvis, only a few made and it only had something ridiculous like 20,000 miles on it. She was a beauty, that car. When his missus didn’t want it, he parked it in an old Quonset hut and kept it there.

I liked to look at it and he’d come up beside me, always kept saying, “I’ve got to pull that out one day.” We nev-er did, though. I re-member one bloke what always wanted it, even offered £10,000 for her several times while I was around. In the end he got it for £16,000 at the auction and the old man got nothing. Absolutely nothing.

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Besides getting the mill to work he had loads of other projects and rent houses which I repaired. He even tried to convince the Historical Society at Great Yar-mouth I was his hired contractor to do up Market Row. That was a right mess, floors with gaping holes, roof timbers about to fall in, and the very descendants of them old shop keepers still living in it. He brought out a ladder, showed me how I ought to climb up to the third story and carry the slate across. I put a quick end to that notion and he in any case City Planning had him hire a proper company to do the job.

What I did do, I rebuilt a Ford tractor, probably original from the 1930s. I put in a new bottom end and bearings, head gasket. Got it all done and running right as nine-pence. He drove it ‘round the barn to be sure I done it right, and then put it under an old green lorrie tarp. The only time he allowed me to take it out was to do the hay baling (I had to fix the mower and the baler for that).

As time went on, I had other jobs going. Me wife and I found a thatched cottage at Wattisham and restored it. She was off at school then, studying goats. Each time the research lab was set to put down a goat, she brought it home. We might have had the largest herd in Suffolk, I don’t know. Ernie let us bring them across his land on our daily walks. Eventually we moved to Sudbourne where I set to work rebuild-ing a Victorian garden there.

As for Ernie, I suppose in the old boy was the same from start to finish. He could afford to have pretty things close by. His paranoia cost ‘im his dignity, I guess, but what was he anyway? The Pudding King. He was laughin’ all right. To ‘is dyin’ day.

Our photo shows Mr Ernie Onians the “Pudding King” by the door of the Mill House at Baylham

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RGT VOLUNTEERS RESCUE RUNNER

I represent the running group Run For Your Life and I am writing to you to acknowledge the help and support offered and provided by the team working at Pipps Ford on Saturday 9 January. I was with a group of fellow runners enjoying the challenge of running the Gipping Valley path from Stowmarket to Ipswich. We waved and acknowledged your team as we went by, exchanging friendly banter. But within a few meters of passing them one of our group slipped in the mud and landed awkwardly, hurting her ankle. Unable to put weight on it we real-ised she needed urgent medical attention. Holly Gibson was helped back to the bridge and to the workers' hut where the three men (forgive me but in all the concern for Holly we did not ask for their names) came to her aid before helping her by wheelbarrow and then by car to the main road where her husband was able to pick her up. She was taken to A&E where a broken ankle was diagnosed. The men were extraordinarily friendly and helpful, ensuring Holly's spirits remained high. In the meantime, if you can identify the members of your team please will you pass on our sincere thanks and very best regards. Sincerely David Bartholomew

The heroes involved were Spencer Greystrong (orange jacket), Dale Green (front left) and John Hayes (third left). Dale was the wheel barrow pusher and John drove her along the driveway to the entrance at Pipps Ford to meet her husband.

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Phil Whittaker by the bridge at Pipps Ford

FINANCIAL UPDATE

Income was nearly £1000 less than last year and this was entirely due to the reduced income from the sale of scrap metal. Last year we were able to sell our scrap ferrous metal for £95 a tonne but this year the price dropped to a low of £35 a tonne. However, the prices for other types of scrap such as aluminium, copper and lead have held up well. Old car batteries are also always worth money so if you’ve got anything like that, please let us know.

Other sources of income include membership renewals, donations from groups for whom we do talks about our work and gift aid.

The two largest items of expenditure were against restoration work at Pipps Ford (£2000) and the purchase of some new equipment. We donated £2000 to the Ipswich Branch of the Inland Waterways Associ-ation. With that money and their own resources they bought a 1.5 tonne excavator and a trailer on which to move it between sites.

We have £7500 in our reserves which is about right for our normal day-to-day operations. The time will come when we will need signifi-cant funds for our plans to install lock gates and run a trip boat but that will require some special efforts involving large scale donations.

Spencer Greystrong

Treasurer

When not looking after

our finances Spencer

Greystrong, our treasurer

is a dab hand with

helping keep our

equipment in good

working order.

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This year the Trust has again focused most of its restoration activities on further works at Pipps Ford, seeking to restore the functionality of the lock by re -creating the silted up bywash. Making the lock usable once again is part of the wider aims of the Trust in seeking to establish a navigable stretch of river between Needham Market and Baylham. Away from Pipps Ford we have carried out further maintenance work to the towpath and removed fallen trees from a stretch of river below Baylham.

Bywash restoration at Pipps Ford At the last AGM I reported that our proposals for the bywash were awaiting approv-al from the Environment Agency. We were obliged to carry out a further wildlife survey which then identified an active water vole burrow exactly in line with the proposed entry point for the bywash, as had previously been agreed with the Environment Agency.

Further negotiations were then required to re-locate the en-try point further downstream and final approval under the flood defence regulations was obtained in November 2015. An Extraction licence and Impoundment licence have also been obtained, and an Exemption from a licence requirement for depositing the spoil from the excavation.

The line of the bywash was then trench excavated to within 5m of the entry point to the river before the wet winter weather stopped further excavation. Our thanks to Shawn Partridge for the loan of an excavator and dumper for this work. Grading of the banks has now been delayed as a King-fisher has created a nesting hole in the trench bank. It is an-ticipated to restart in late July after the breeding season. While the ground conditions have been against further exca-vation, we have commenced clearing the ditch which will join the river below the weir by removing two very large tree stumps, the remains of old oak trees which were diseased and fell earlier this year.

MARTIN BIRD OUR RESTORATION

MANAGER REPORTS ON PROGRESS

Pictures show the flooded footpath between Baylham and Pipps Ford. The cause was eventually discovered as a serious leak in the main water pipe that feeds Stowmarket. Anglian Water carried out repairs and the path is now open.

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Restoration of 1790’s Weir The work on consolidating the remains of the old weir and opening the bywash area between the old weir and the footbridge is nearly complete. We first had to remove the causeway constructed during repairs to the lock chamber in the 1970’s. The causeway consisted of rubble with two overlying concrete tracks. The rubble was carefully retained and re-used to fill gabions which now reinforce the new banks. The watercourse has been excavated to the proposed final level. The brickwork of the remaining sections of the weir has been made good using re-cycled bricks from on-site. We are in the process of re-capping the brickwork with coping stones re-covered from the rubble from the causeway. In addition we are replacing the broken brickwork on the weir slope.

Volunteers taking a well earned break after clearing mud from the weir. The fine weather in April allowed them an alfresco eating experience.

This is the new culvert that replaced a rotting and very slippery wooden bridge along the path near the lock at Pipps Ford. The pipe was recycled from the bywash and put in place using our new digger

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Other Works

During the winter period we have removed three fallen trees from the river course adjacent to Baylham Rare Breeds Farm, undertaken footpath clearance, removing brambles and encroaching blackthorn on the footpaths below Baylham and also below Pipps Ford.

Flooding on the Gipping Way

Flooding first occurred in September 2014 adjacent to the railway line between Baylham and Pipps Ford. After much research work and pressure from the Trust it was revealed that the water was issuing from a broken joint in an Anglian water supply pipe This was mended and no further significant flooding has occurred.

Most of our work this year has been concentrated at Pipps Ford where much of the preparatory work for the excavation of the bywash is now complete and the work to the area around the old weir and new footbridge finished. Progress has been improved since we purchased our own small digger, which has greatly eased the heavy manual duty tasks of spoil and root removal and the moving of heavy coping stones. I am also pleased to report that our regular loyal team of volunteers has been boosted by three new members this year, who have not only reduced our average age considerably, but brought new skills and enthusiasm to the group.

Martin Bird our Restoration Manager trying his hand at painting!

Ian Petchy and Les Howard playing with fire

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PHOTO ROUND UP

Top left and right: Partial profiling of bywash channel. Middle left: Burning a fall-en tree that is obstructing a ditch at Pipps Ford. Middle right: Work on the weir

Bottom left & right: John Last uses his skills to manoeuvre a large concrete pipe over the bridge at Pipps Ford. Martin & Les help put the pipe in place to create a new safer passageway over a ditch along the footpath.

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The sluice at Baylham is regularly checked for blockages. This is a typical example following a heavy rainfall when the river level rises. The main culprit causing this build up was a 20ft long 15 inch diameter tree trunk. After much effort from a small work party led by Trevor Cutting it was fed through the sluice gates and re-trieved from the mill pond.

Top left: A large tree has fallen at Baylham and is being cut up. Top right & below: The ‘possible’ Kingfisher nest found in the bywash at Pipps Ford which is delaying completion.

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A party of RGT members recently visited Muntons. They were given an insight into the manufacturing processes that take place on site and told of the wide use of malted products. The party was taken on a detailed tour of the waste treatment plant. All the treated water is discharged into the River Gipping and meets the highest environmental standards. Muntons recycles 99.8% of its waste products. The company has an anaerobic digester plant to convert production residue into fertiliser and electricity, supplying 25% of their annual site electricity demand. The highlight of the visit was a tour of the specially created wildlife walks which can be enjoyed by staff and visitors. There is a great diversity of wildlife to be seen in both the managed and the wild floodplains.

Stowmarket is the Headquarters of Muntons and home of the Group’s activities. Their purpose-built facility provides the space and technology for product develop-ment, renovation, innovation, of malt and malted ingredients and retail products. Muntons are a leading global player in the supply of malts, malt extracts, flours and flakes and many other malted ingredients relevant to the food and drinks industry exporting around half of its production. In addition Muntons also manufacture an extensive range of beer, wine and cider making kits, which are also sold globally.

The three million hectolitre brewhouse and evaporator produce a wide range of liquid malt extracts, which can be dried into fine, free flowing powders. These ex-tracts can also be hopped to provide a natural source of sugars and flavourings for brewers. The Stowmarket milling plant produces crushed malts for microbreweries, breweries and a complete range of malt flours and flakes for the Food and Baking Industries. Home beer and winemaking Muntons beer and wine making complete the manufacturing profile of Muntons Stowmarket.

MUNTONS PASSIONATE ABOUT MALT

The group pose for a photo by the water treatment plant. Inset shows the anaerobic digester.

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EDITOR: LES HOWARD 406 Woodbridge Road Ipswich IP4 4EH

01473 712696 les.jan@hotmail.co.uk

The views that are expressed in this newsletter are not necessarily

the views of the River Gipping Trust or its Trustees.

SPENCER MAKES HIS VIEWS ON

THE W.F.D. KNOWN ON TV

Our hardworking treasurer Spencer Greystrong recently appeared on BBC Look

East. He was being interviewed by Richard Daniel about the Water Framework Di-

rective legislation and its impact on our work on the River Gipping. According to

Spencer, Richard and his cameraman were shooting for about 90 minutes. Unfortu-

nately Richard told him that we will get a report that lasts about 3 minutes! Some

of the interview took place with the reporter in a canoe inside the lock at Pipps

Ford. Photo shows Spencer (right) with the BBC reporter