River cruise a lovely change for people with brain injuries

SIX clients of Headway Thames Valley, a charity supporting people living with brain injuries, cruised the River Thames aboard Rivertime last Thursday.

The trip was a gift from Henley Rotary Club, which has funded three trips this year alone and has been supporting the charity since it was launched in 2006.

Rotarian John Grout, 91, met with the passengers upon their return. He said: “We’ve been involved with Rivertime over the years, in fact when they first started, we gave them a bit of the money to buy the boat.

“It’s a lovely thing to do for people who can’t always access the river themselves.”

The passengers boarded the 42-foot, purpose-built boat, via a ramp and hydraulic lift specially fitted to enable those in a wheelchair to access the craft, at the jetty outside the River and Rowing Museum.

The boat is run by Rivertime Boat Trust, which was founded by Pat and Simon Davis 17 years ago and has since helped more than 30,000 disabled, elderly or disadvantaged people experience being on the water.

Once aboard, passengers were given bingo cards which had various birds and features of the river they were told to look out for throughout the cruise.

The passengers cruised towards Marsh Lock before turning around and heading back upstream along the regatta course before returning to Mill Meadows.

Christina, 63, has been a client of Headway for 19 years.

Her boyfriend, Michael, learned about the programme after she suffered a brain injury in 1987.

Christina said this was her second trip on the river with the charity.

She said: “My boyfriend is my full-time carer, and he found out about Headway and that’s when I started coming.”

She particularly enjoyed the music the group played on the boat, which was led by music therapist Jenny Bell, 42, of Stoke Row.

Every Thursday, Ms Bell works at the centre and takes one-on-one music therapy sessions as well as a group session.

She said: “We are using music for brain injury or what comes after brain injury and how that affects you in terms of your mental and physical health. Music connects so many parts of the cortex of the brain, but it is also something that can just connect a memory.

“It’s a really gentle way of connecting with clients and using music as that tool.

“For some of our clients, this is their main source of connection and community and some of the clients here have been coming for years and years and years.”

Philipa Rocks, resource centre supervisor at Headway, said the trips provide a rare opportunity to take clients out of the centre.

She said: “It’s really good for the clients because it gets them out. It’s a godsend where we can bring them on something like this.

“It gets them out and about, getting some fresh air down by the river — you couldn’t ask for more really.

“There aren’t as many opportunities to get out for a group like this, basically because they are less able.

Jamie Higgins, manager of Headway, said it would not be possible to take clients on Rivertime’s trips without the support of local charities.

He said: “Whenever we get the opportunity, everyone is so keen.

“The brilliant thing about having it gifted to us from Henley Rotary, is any extras like this are a luxury and it’s a real pleasure to be able to do it and we couldn’t do it without that sort of gift.

“It would be poor of us to be so close to the river and not be able to go on it. We try and do it a couple of time a year and it’s something that the clients love.

“It’s quite a large area that we cover — the whole of Berkshire and South Oxfordshire. Today we’ve got Christina from Bracknell, Cindy from Woodley, Nigel and Chris are both in Reading, and Andrew is from Burghfield, so we have got clients all over.

“Really if you’ve had a brain injury and you live in Berkshire or South Oxfordshire, unless you find us there’s no alternative, there’s no NHS provision once you’re out of hospital.

“The hospitals are amazing at keeping you alive but as soon as you’re discharged you are left to yourself.

“More and more people are finding us every year, our numbers are going up. That doesn’t mean there’s more brain injuries every year - it just means people are finding us, so we’re getting about 200 referrals a year.”