\n But, in more ways than one, all is not as it seems.\n<\/p>\n
\n This is a Covid lockdown, and Debbie Campbell \u2014 like many people \u2014 is feeling the stress. By 2020, she and her husband Neil have lived in the Cotswolds (decamped from London) for nearly eight years, and both love it. Now, with young two children, life is good: but there\u2019s no getting away from it \u2014 enforced home-schooling can be very, very hard work.\n<\/p>\n
\n She needs a break.\n<\/p>\n
\n For Debbie, relaxation equals water. Riding the waves on a surfboard; swimming for charity; dipping in the natural pool she and Neil have dug at home (even at minus 1: there\u2019s a photo of her daughter holding up a sheet of ice they broke for Debbie to go in one Christmas).\n<\/p>\n
\n So, inevitably, when she needs a fillip in lockdown, she knows what will soothe and restore. A friend has pointed her towards a wild-swim app: put in your location and you\u2019ll get a list of safe places.\n<\/p>\n
\n Debbie in her modelling days (Image: John Wood)\n<\/p>\n
\n When she gives it a go, the Windrush flashes up.\n<\/p>\n
\n (\u2018I felt really excited,\u2019 she says, as she recalls the moment for me. \u2018Got into my yellow jeep with Dude, the dog, and left my husband to look after the kids for a bit.\u2019)\n<\/p>\n
\n She parks up, walks a couple of miles through beautiful woodland, and thinks: \u2018This is great. No one around \u2014 literally just me, the dog, and the trees.\u2019\n<\/p>\n
\n In fact, once in the water, she doesn\u2019t even notice (to begin with) the plastic bottles floating alongside her. Or that the river has swapped its usual clear blue for a murky grey; its pure waters, that should run off skin like liquid silk, for a clingy slime.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u2018Afterwards, I got changed, walked two miles back to my car, and felt weird. I decided maybe it was being in the cold water or the thought of going back home!\u2019\n<\/p>\n
\n Once in the shower, though: no getting away from it. A smell of raw sewage.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u2018As the day got towards early evening, I went to the loo and threw up. I was so ill, I couldn\u2019t do anything for four days.\u2019\n<\/p>\n
\n England, the Cotswolds. The River Windrush\u2026\n<\/p>\n
\n Our River Windrush.\n<\/p>\n
\n Cleraning the pond (Image: Supplied)\n<\/p>\n
\n Oh my gosh, it\u2019s cold! Bone-chillingly, teeth-rattlingly cold.\n<\/p>\n
\n Debbie Campbell \u2014 AKA river girl \u2014 (bobble hat; padded coat) opens up the back of her smoked-haddock-yellow jeep with the registration H2O.\n<\/p>\n
\n (Ha! How hard was it to get that?\n<\/p>\n
\n \u2018Easy, believe it or not. On the internet.\u2019)\n<\/p>\n
\n Inside is a tangle of wellies, waterproofs, jam-jars. (\u2018This is what my jeep looks like most of the time\u2019.) Impressive-looking boxes emblazoned with \u2018HANNA\u2019: \u2018Testing-kits: the green one for phosphate, yellow for ammonia: we use these if we think there are any issues in the rivers; generally above and below a sewage works or agricultural land.\u2019\n<\/p>\n
\n What\u2019s a good reading?\n<\/p>\n
\n \u2018Almost zero, basically.\u2019\n<\/p>\n
\n Does she ever get that?\n<\/p>\n
\n \u2018Yes, which is always great. But it\u2019s a real shame we have to do this job because the Environment Agency should be doing it\u2026\u2019\n<\/p>\n
\n She pulls on a huge pair of trousers ending in boots: \u2018I stand in rivers pretty much every day. I\u2019ve size 4 feet and, I can tell you, it\u2019s very hard to find wellies small enough. When they\u2019re too big, it feels like walking on the moon.\u2019\n<\/p>\n
\n And we walk along Abbey Way in Cirencester, down a small grassy bank to the River Churn. A few feet from us, incessant traffic is streaming over a small bridge, busy with intent. In front of us, the clear waters of this Thames tributary stream past, equally committed to their task.\n<\/p>\n
\n In the cars above, it\u2019s worryingly easy to forget this little river of life is even there.\n<\/p>\n
\n On the banks where we crouch, it\u2019s delightfully \u2014 surprisingly \u2014 easy to forget the rattling traffic, filtered out by the scene in front of us.\n<\/p>\n
\n Loveliness in an unlovely setting.\n<\/p>\n
\n Debbie in a yellow jeep (Image: Supplied)\n<\/p>\n
\n In summer 2025, the lack of rain in Cotswold rivers \u2014 the lack of rain everywhere \u2014 meant levels were very low; with so little water for dilution, pollution was high.\n<\/p>\n
\n Then came the storms.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u2018And it\u2019s great to see the rivers coming alive again, being free, but it doesn\u2019t mean health.\u2019 High Cotswold hills and deep secret valleys attract visitors and admirers all year round. They also signal water run-off: from farmland (though we are generally very lucky with farmers in this area), roads, tyres.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u2018So many of the drains are blocked and the water has nowhere to go. It gushes all the way down, straight into the river and breaks banks. When we have heavy rainfall, I\u2019m often quite emotional. There\u2019s a sewage map, which I\u2019m always looking at\u2026 Sewage works are allowed to dump when it\u2019s heavy rainfall.\u2019\n<\/p>\n
\n So \u2018heavy\u2019 means\u2026?\n<\/p>\n
\n Hmm. \u2018They can never tell us\u2026. Or they sometimes make an excuse out of a quarter of a millimetre of rain: that is how weak regulation has become.\u2019\n<\/p>\n
\n Debbie\u2019s current job is as community engagement officer for the River Coln; she and her 40 trained volunteers, \u2018river guardians\u2019, are constantly at the ready with their HANNA test kits: \u2018Thousands of chemicals, micro-plastics, phosphates, nitrates, ammonia.\u2019 Pollutants that suck up oxygen until the river is suffocated to death.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u2018Some people think, \u2018Oh, it\u2019s clear\u2019 \u2014 but clear doesn\u2019t mean clean.\u2019\n<\/p>\n
\n Recent readings have been especially high. In Andoversford: \u2018Ammonia and phosphate: sewage-dumping for three or four days.\u2019\n<\/p>\n
\n Burford and Bourton, too. (Bourton, FGS! Once known as the Venice of the Cotswolds for its similar beauty; now the synergy also lies in filth).\n<\/p>\n
\n Today, the stretch of Churn in front of us looks as a river should. Gin-clear; vibrant green weeds that fish love; gravel for spawning; stones for shelter. A good height; free-flowing; bank frilled with watercress.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u2018We\u2019re right by a road but there\u2019s three metres of weed in between: it tends to filter any run-off.\u2019\n<\/p>\n
\n It does look good \u2014 but the flashes of orange I see turn out to be leaves.\n<\/p>\n
\n Debbie nods: \u2018Really, there should be more going on in there. Some of my best memories with my grandparents and my parents were catching amazing-coloured sticklebacks: there would be thousands!\u2019\n<\/p>\n
\n We peer into the surface.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u2018So a lack of fish: this is another indicator that our rivers are slowly dying\u2026 but,\u2019 she adds, determinedly, \u2018we are trying to do our absolute best to improve them.\u2019\n<\/p>\n
\n She pulls out a waterproof leaflet showing gloriously-named waterweeds to identify \u2014 sweet-grass, canary grass, white water lily, duckweed, bladderwort, frog bit, fennel, water crowfoot\u2026 submerged plants, floating-leaf plants, reed swamp.\n<\/p>\n
\n And another showing riverfly, carefully pictured with \u2018easy-to-identify\u2019 hints.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u2018Shall we see what the river\u2019s like?\u2019 she asks, wading in.\n<\/p>\n
\n Under the first stone, we (I use the term loosely; I\u2019m staying on the bank) find a wriggling cased caddis that Debbie transfers to a water-filled tray to study: \u2018I love these guys! They collect all the little stones or leaves and make themselves a case. Caseless caddies come without the dress.\u2019\n<\/p>\n
\n Another is harder to identify.\n<\/p>\n
\n She pulls out a magnifying glass: \u2018Does it have three tails? Does it have small leaf-like gills? OK, that\u2019s an olive.\u2019\n<\/p>\n
\n Her favourite are mayfly: \u2018You used to see swarms of them with their beautiful, beautiful wings. Sadly, their lifecycle means they\u2019re in the rivers for a few years: then they get their wings, mate, and die.\u2019\n<\/p>\n
\n She points to another section of the leaflet: \u2018These guys, on the other hand \u2014 freshwater shrimp: in great conditions, I find hundreds because they can be very tolerant of some pollution; but, in some of the worst places, the numbers can drop to tens\u2026 or worse.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u2018It\u2019s great because fish eat them but they\u2019re not a good indicator of health.\u2019\n<\/p>\n
\n Debbie cleaning drains (Image: Supplied)\n<\/p>\n
\n So let\u2019s go back to that day in lockdown: the source of Debbie\u2019s river story.\n<\/p>\n
\n A keen surfer \u2014 the result of childhood holidays, as well as a spell living and studying in Cornwall \u2014 she was already taking part in Surfers Against Sewage when she took her disastrous dip. During a meeting with Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, her local MP, she related her horrific Windrush anecdote.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u2018He said to me, \u2018Have you seen the Panorama programme? You\u2019ve got to meet this guy called Ashley\u2019.\u2019\n<\/p>\n
\n He was referring to the BBC\u2019s River Pollution Scandal, first aired in 2021, which uncovered, on national TV, how much the public had been misled over river pollution levels.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u2018I sat there watching it, crying; thinking: This is not OK. We pay our water bills \u2014 this money should have been going into the infrastructure long ago!\u2019\n<\/p>\n
\n And Ashley?\n<\/p>\n
\n The amazing Ashley Smith \u2014 one of the key figures in the documentary \u2014 from campaign group Windrush Against Sewage Pollution (WASP). A man who dedicates his life to trying to improve rivers.\n<\/p>\n
\n When he and Debbie finally got to meet, she told him, too, about her post-river sickness.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u2018He said, \u2018Where were you swimming?\u2019\n<\/p>\n
\n \u2018So I gave him the location.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u2018He looked into it and found out that, four days before, there had been a sewage dump.\u2019\n<\/p>\n
\n Debbie\u2019s anger was instant. \u2018But I didn\u2019t sit there thinking, poor me. I instantly thought about the wildlife, the fish. I love wild swimming; it makes us feel great. But it\u2019s a luxury. We have a choice: \u2018You know what \u2014 this is dirty; I\u2019m going to leave\u2019. The fish don\u2019t have a choice.\u2019\n<\/p>\n
\n She began volunteering with WASP, leading to a two-year contract to help police the rivers. Today, her work on the Coln is funded by local residents. Wading through freezing-cold rivers is a far cry from the modelling career she used to have in a previous life (and still does when she can).\n<\/p>\n
\n But this is a calling.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u2018I see rivers as alive. I sometimes wonder what THEY are thinking right now. But I don\u2019t want doom and gloom. We\u2019ve seen otters, water voles, kingfishers! Let\u2019s really enjoy the rivers and remember that this is what we\u2019re doing it for. We want more of this.\u2019\n<\/p>\n
\n Debbie taking a dip (Image: Supplied)\n<\/p>\n
\n So we know there are brilliant people such as Debbie and her volunteers; Ashley, of course; Professor Peter Hammond, a retired lecturer in computational biology at UCL, who works alongside him. Withington Parish Councillors, including Margaret Wright who founded the River Guardians, the volunteers who work with Debbie. Cotswold Flyfishers, a club contributing to excellent river restoration.\n<\/p>\n
\n Freshwater UK; the Rivers Trust; all the willing volunteers who collect data that can be used to prompt campaigns; to try to hold water companies to account. And many more river heroes besides.\n<\/p>\n
\n But is that enough?\n<\/p>\n
\n Because we know there are the \u2018baddies\u2019, too. Pretty powerful ones.\n<\/p>\n
\n The River Severn \u2014 and the UK in general \u2014 has just recorded its lowest-ever salmon numbers. No single stretch of river in England is in good overall health.\n<\/p>\n
\n And still the water companies discharge sewage at an alarming rate.\n<\/p>\n
\n Why isn\u2019t this illegal?\n<\/p>\n
\n \u2018Well, a substation amount is illegal. They say they haven\u2019t got the money, the resources. But pollution has become profitable. Last year, Chris Weston, the boss of Thames Water, was pictured on a fishing holiday [in Argentina]\u2026 We\u2019re paying for that.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u2018Then there are more and more houses being squeezed onto floodplains; more and more new-builds being serviced by already-inadequate sewerage systems.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u2018We need to give the rivers a voice; to educate people, and schools. We need the next generation to know about it \u2014 because this is the mess we\u2019re leaving for our kids\u2026\n<\/p>\n
\n Debbie with flyfishers (Image: Supplied)\n<\/p>\n
\n \u2018Sorry \u2014 I get\u2026\u2019 She pauses, lost for words.\n<\/p>\n
\n How would she like offending polluters dealt with?\n<\/p>\n
\n \u2018Prison \u2014 for four or five years,\u2019 she says, without hesitation. \u2018They keep fining [the water companies]; they can pay the money. They don\u2019t care.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u2018I\u2019d just like to see the money from our bills going into the infrastructure.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u2018There are problems with agricultural run-off, too. And, yes, we can probably blame a few farmers and landowners. But, on the whole, when I meet these people, they want to do the right thing. There was one issue I had where the landowner didn\u2019t even know about it. He said, \u2018I\u2019m so sorry. Let\u2019s farm it this way, instead.\u2019\u2019\n<\/p>\n
\n She looks around her, at this unbeautiful, beautiful spot: a river by a road, hemmed in by buildings. A tiny stretch of river that still exudes a rare peace and tranquillity so missing in our everyday lives.\n<\/p>\n
\n England. The Cotswolds. Our rivers.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u2018Do you know,\u2019 Debbie Campbell says. \u2018Everyone I\u2019ve ever met around the Cotswolds\u2026 They all care.\u2019\n<\/p>\n
\n Look out for Debbie Campbell\u2019s new podcast @rivergirl and website rivergirl.co.uk<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"But, in more ways than one, all is not as it seems. This is a Covid lockdown, and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":748455,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3843],"tags":[728,70,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-748454","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-science","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116029391082630763","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/748454","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=748454"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/748454\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/748455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=748454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=748454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=748454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}