BEDSAC
goes “Wild” for “Rivercare”
Click here
for an official account of the event by the Council. Click here
for the article in Times and Citizen
These
events are community based, with volunteers from the local area’s all working
together to improve the enviroment along the River “Great Ouse” at various
locations selected by the “Rivercare” team.
The
first event for 2009 was arranged for the 25th April and was named; “Queen’s
Park Goes Wild”. This event was put on with help from BTCV, the Park Ranger
Service and local “In Bloom” groups.The plan was to clean out the River at
“The Slipe”which is an access road leading from “Queen’s Park” to
“Kempston” via a footbridge over the river.There would be Divers in the
water removing rubbish ,as well as “Viking Kayak Club” and members of the
public picking up litter from the embankments and river banks
along
the same stretch, add to this the other craft activities happening at the same
location and it all seemed too good an event not to take part in.
I
arrived on site early at 7.30am and was the only person there, so I decided to
take a walk down the road to have a look at the site. As I walked past the
“Gurdwara” Mosque, towards the river I thought what a lovely location this
was, with lots of open spaces and stunning Weeping Willow trees lining the
route.Eventually I reached the footbridge, a Wood and Iron structure, again very
impressive, blending perfectly with its surroundings.
The
weather had been fine all week and the colour of the water and visability looked
great, I went down to the river bank to assess the “entry and exit “ points,
which all seemed ideal as there were concrete abutments right next to path,
perfect for divers to access the water.
I
had a quick look from the centre of the bridge and from the river bank, all I
could see was an “office chair” and an “oil drum” in the water, not much
here I thought to myself.With this in mind I made my way back to the entrance,
to see who else had arrived.The next person to arrive was “Wendy” from the
Park Ranger Service, I introduced myself and we chatted about how the day would
go, until 8.00am when the “Bedsac”dive team all turned up suprisingly all on
time! Even Rebekah!!
We
had Tim Hunt, Inger Jonrup, Anne Bracey, Rebekah Kilpin, Joanne Dickenson and
myself, from the club, but Anne had thankfully voluntered her husband Mike and
son Chris as extra shore cover, which was great as we had lost Paul Wogan, Pete
and Steph Coleman to work commitments at the last minute. Mike Banner a diver,
who used to do the river clearance events also came along to give us the benefit
of his experiance and help out on the shore cover.
Everything
started to arrive on site even the “portaloo’s,” so we all drove down to
the embankment and parked together right next to the footbridge. As we kitted up
the Ranger Service put together their stalls and marquees and prepared for the
litter pickers and pond diggers to turn up. As soon as we where all ready we had
a short briefing, then Tim and Inger went into the water first. Within minutes
they were passing bicycles , the office chair, the barrel, shopping trollies and
a rucksack, from the river, I couldn’t get in fast enough, the anticepation
and excitement where overwelming, what else where we going to discover on the
river bed ?
Rebekah
and I were soon in the water too, the first thing you noticed was the slight
current, gently pushing you away from the area near to the bridge, we swam back
and then decended to the bottom.This too was not as easy as you would think due
to the shallow depth, about 1.8 metres in the middle, we both definately needed
more weight. Once we sorted out this problem we went down again, straight away I
found a cash register, with the cash drawer empty except for silt and stones, we
recovered this and attached a rope for the shore cover to pull it out. Next we
found a Mountain bike, this one had not been in the river long and was in
reasonably good condition. On the next decent we came across two shopping
trollies embedded deep into the river bed, they seemed to have formed a
catchment area for numerous items, I couldn’t
believe my eyes, the mound was huge with everything
tangled together, from here we recovered several bike frames, wheels, a
chair , childs trike, a scooter and more.This was achieved with the help of
Mike and Chris, throwing ropes from the bridge for us to tie off the
items and them to haul them out and pile up the rubbish ready for DSD to collect
later.As we returned to the side we came across another cash register, this one
was a big heavy one with a steel drawer and base with a plastic top and key pad.
I decided we would have to put a “lifting bag” on this one, as the shape
together with the weight would be impossible to pull out on its own.As Rebekah
and I attempted to do this we had to ascend due to loss of
bouyancy, which meant we lost the till in the process, we decided to go
for a break and look for it again later.
We
went back over to the exit point and a Photographer from “The Times and
Citizen” was there taking photo’s of us in the water.She asked Rebekah and I
to pose for some shots, which we did, passing out items from the water. We
climbed out and went for a well deserved break.
As
we had our break we watched Inger and Joanne
recovering more items from the water, the funniest thing I saw was when
Inger surfaced waving an metal crutch above her head, what ever next? I thought.
We
kitted up and went back in search of the cash register, after a while we managed
to locate it again, this time I tied a rope cradle to to base and inflated the
lift bag , which brought it to a couple of feet above the bottom, I also fully
inflated my jacket and held the lift bag at the surface.Chris threw me the rope
and I tied that on, then both Chris and Mike pulled me and the cash register to
the river bank and we all hauled it out.
By
this time “Anglia TV News” had turned up and were set up filming on the
river bank, they filmed an interview with Deborah O’Regan, who thanked us for
our help and gave them the background info about the day.
The
river clearance continued until about 11.45am by which time we were all getting
low on air, and DSD had to be cleared up and away by 12.00pm.We all packed up
our kit and changed into dry clothes,then went over to the food tent , where
there was lots of lovely samosas and sandwiches to help yourselves to.We stayed
and chatted to people about our finds and looked at
the other stalls on site.Finally we said our goodbyes and I spoke to
Deborah who thanked us again for our help, she informed me that there are to be
two more “Rivercare” events this year , and that every body that attended
would recieve “Pride Points” that can be exchanged for various leisure
activities in the Town.We should also recieve a copy of the “News” report
filmed by Anglia TV.
I
would like to say a very big thank you to all those people that volunteered to
take part in this event, it really was a huge public relations success for the
Club and showed that not only are we a pro-active club in our community but we
care about Bedford, the river and the enviroment.