Our river is special and sharing it is so rewarding

VOLUNTEERS with the Rivertime Boat Trust are passionate about making the River Thames in Henley as accessible as possible.

The trust, now in its 17th year, was founded by Pat and Simon Davis and has since helped more than 30,000 disabled, elderly or disadvantaged people on to the water.

It runs a 42ft boat, which is moored close to the River & Rowing Museum in Mill Meadows, and it is equipped with a ramp, hydraulic wheelchair lift, large disabled toilet and a sliding roof.

Twice a day from April to October, it takes up to 12 people from special educational needs and disability schools, care homes, local charities or families where a member has a disability on trips.

The trust employs one full-time skipper, Lucy Herbert, who has helmed the boat since the beginning and the activities allow guests to learn about the river and its functions in a relaxed environment.

Ms Herbert is assisted by a team of 30 volunteers, many of whom live in Henley and some are qualified to help skipper the boat. Others crew the boat, welcome guests and make them comfortable during the trips.

Sarah Deacock, 67, a retired clinical immunologist who lives in Henley, is about to take on her fourth season. After retiring four years ago, a friend encouraged her to help out.

She said: “I’m one of the crew volunteers who helps the skipper and the customers. We greet the carers and those with disabilities, adults and children, and assist them into the boat properly.

“There’s a special metal rim that we put across the bank on to the platform which we use to then help them to board. We then make sure everyone is settled in and we will make tea and coffee and, if they bring food, we will help to serve that. At the end, we help everybody to disembark.

“Usually there are two trips in the day and a two-hour cruising time, so we have to get there early to get the boat ready and then we tidy it all up and prepare it for the next group.

“A volunteer skipper, Geoff Probert, told me that it was a really good thing to do. I hadn’t heard of it before that but it is really worthwhile. People really enjoy the trips.

“We are all trained very well, so you don’t need to have lots of experience to be a volunteer. The skipper is always there making sure we know what we have to do, which bollard to moor against, which way to go in, they always tell us what to do in advance.”

Ms Deacock described seeing the reaction in clients who had never been on the river before as “extraordinary”.

She said: “I am amazed at the difference that you sometimes see between the children and also some of the disabled adults from when they arrive to when they leave. They may be quite frightened to board the boat or feel unable to speak to you.

“But with some of them, by the end of the two-hour trip, they are talking to you, looking out the window and pointing at things and saying ‘gosh, I’ve never seen that, what is it?’ It’s quite extraordinary.

“By no means is that everybody but for some people it is. There are people who would hardly have the courage to get on to the boat when they first arrive but are almost completely changed by their trip. That’s really rewarding.

“For their families as well, it’s a great day out for them, it’s something different, so it works for the carers and for the people who are disabled.”

Geoff Probert, 74, a retired company director, is one of the longest-serving volunteer skippers, having worked with Rivertime since the beginning.

He said: “I was previously involved with a charity called Power, which provided prosthetic limbs for landmine victims, so I have been somewhat familiar with the disability field and the disadvantages that people with disabilities face.

“Rivertime is the only boat that allows disabled people to access the river. I think the most rewarding thing is seeing the delight that people who don’t usually get to go on the river experience. We take it for granted but we shouldn’t.

“It brings fresh eyes to it when you’re trying to explain the wildlife and the things you see on the river, most kids won’t ever see a coot or a swan.

“We’re taking adults and children with physical or mental disabilities but also the carers and care home teams get an experience for the day, sometimes they get more out of it.

“You can see a real transformation in the time of a single trip. I remember one child who was scared to even get on the boat. It took a while to persuade them to come on but, when they got on, we were able to involve them in certain things.

“To us it might be trivial but to them it is fantastic. For example, when you make a turn, there are certain signals on the horn you have to do and I always try to get one of them to do the signal for me. I always explain that you have to do certain hand signals and we get them to do it and they just think it’s the most fantastic thing.

“In the end, we couldn’t get this child off the boat and they said that when they grow up, they wanted to be a skipper. Trips on the boat create that sort of transformation.”

Chris Spencer, a retired navy captain, has volunteered on the boat since 2016. He said that watching customers appreciate the river is the most worthwhile part of his work.

He said: “Our customers make it worthwhile. Here in Henley, it’s the only place on the river where lots of disabled people have access to the water.

“I was with some members of my walking group the other day and one of them asked me what I did and I said that I helped with Rivertime. They replied saying they had been on the boat with their late mother. They said that, for their mum, it was the highlight of her year, going out from her care home and on to Rivertime in the summer, she thought that it was amazing. I have nice colleagues, and it is a great charity to work for. It’s good fun driving the boat and going up and down the river.”

Mr Spencer said that many of the trips he had made with clients have stuck in his memory and he is always pleased to see people return for another trip.

He said: “We had an amazing trip two years ago with teenage girls who had been excluded from school. They were all very troubled and their lead teacher was pointing them all out individually saying, ‘oh, this girl doesn’t like the water, she doesn’t speak’.

“But we had a lovely day and they were so calm and so involved and chatty and interested in the river and the birds. The headteacher came over at the end and said that she had never seen them so calm. That was very memorable indeed.

“The river at Henley is very calming. It’s a beautiful stretch of the river up towards Marsh Lock. It’s interesting historically as well and there are all sorts of things to point out. I think the folks who come on board, young and old, really appreciate the calmness.”

Mr Spencer started helping with Rivertime in 2016 but did not join the crew officially until a year later and he became a skipper in 2019.

He said: “I was walking the dog along the river when I saw Rivertime and that was when I asked Lucy about helping out. I was once a captain in the merchant navy and this was the nearest thing to that I had found so I wanted to get involved.”

Darrel Poulos, a former Remenham parish councillor who moved to the UK from America with his wife Suri in 1985, has volunteered as a crew member since 2023.

He said: “I’ve known about Rivertime for years because I live on the river and Lucy would constantly be skippering past me. My wife used to run the Bluebells dementia programme in Henley and its members used the boat a couple of times a year.

“I really love the idea of people making use of the river and I wanted to help in any way, shape or form. There are lots of people who go down and make use of the river, they run, they walk their dogs, they row. But there are a lot of people for whom it’s difficult to get on the river and that’s one of the things that I really liked about Rivertime.

“The trust is allowing, not just people in wheelchairs, but all kinds of people, people who don’t often, or for many years, probably haven’t had any access to the river and it’s just lovely to see them enjoying what we all think is lovely about Henley.

David Guy has volunteered as a crew member since 2023. He said: “So many different groups of people are supported, elderly people in care homes, special educational needs children, learning difficulties, physical disabilities, it’s such a broad range of people and that’s why it’s so interesting.

“It’s a real eye-opener. I manned the boat during the Regatta for the Disabled in Henley and the children got so much out of it. We were handing out brochures because lots of them wanted to come back for other trips.

“I really like to work with people who are impacted by disability or other disadvantages and also like meeting their parents or carers who are looking after them. I really like to support those people by making their trip engaging and enjoyable.”

He added: “The other thing you realise is the real dedication of the carers looking after these people — they are amazing — they’re just so dedicated and so caring.”

Mary Webb, 67, who lives in Frieth, retired from her work as a pharmacist shortly after joining Rivertime in 2016.

Although the charity only requires that trained volunteers complete five days of volunteering each year, she prefers to do 10. Ms Webb said: “I heard about it through a friend at a sailing club who was then a skipper and he often talked about his Rivertime trips and it made me interested.

“I had fun on the river through my dinghy sailing but I’d also done family holidays on narrow boats, so I knew about locks and boat handling, all that sort of stuff. Rivertime seemed to match my experience.

“ I started crewing in about 2016 and I really enjoyed it. The rope work and the boat handling I really find quite easy. It’s almost second nature because I do it a lot.

“At the beginning of every year Lucy will take out a small crew and helm on the river and everyone will have a turn at actually steering and driving Rivertime.

“The idea is that, should the helm become incapacitated, the crew can at least safely bring the boat into the shore and then call for help

“I’ve learned more about how to communicate with people with additional needs, because they do have different requirements and they respond differently to how able-bodied people do.”

The trust is recruiting new volunteers. For more information, call 01628 780 700 or email manager
@rivertime.org.uk