The River Thames has appeared in 12 of my novels and I think of it as the lifeforce that runs through my work. I gave James Bond a shootout on Tower Bridge and Sherlock Holmes a gruesome murder to investigate on Bankside Beach. Alex Rider took on a gang of drug dealers working from a barge in Putney and in my last five books, Daniel Hawthorne has rented a flat next to Blackfriars Bridge.
I now live close to the river in Richmond and walk my dog along the towpath almost every day. In the summer, I even swim in the water. People walking past think I’m crazy but I swam in the Thames when I was a boy and I’m not going to let E coli, norovirus and sewage put me off. “Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song” is one of the most beautiful lines of poetry, written by Edmund Spenser and quoted by TS Eliot in The Wasteland. It’s the story of my life.
Bridges in suspension
I’m walking the entire river in sections with my friend, the author and journalist Danny Danziger – but it’s not easy.
The footbridge between Henley and Shiplake was found to be unsafe and closed in May 2022 causing a 2.7-mile diversion. It won’t open again until at least 2026. Just down from Richmond, it is no longer possible to walk to Kew or Barnes as the riverbank has collapsed and at present the council has only announced an “aspiration” that repair work will begin next summer. And of course, further downriver, the once vital thoroughfare of Hammersmith Bridge has been shut since 2019 and will stay that way for another ten years. Even a tiny bridge on the footpath to Ham House has recently collapsed and been left to rot.
Is this a metaphor for modern England? Everything falling to bits one piece at a time with no resources or inclination to do anything about it?
Surrounded by monkeys
One thing that Richmond council has found money for is a bizarre scattering of brass monkeys along the river and around the town. At least, they look like brass. They’re produced by “acclaimed artists Gillie and Marc” and I have two questions. How much did it cost to put them in situ (they weigh a ton), and when are they going to be taken away?
The monkeys, who have names such as Anya and Hugo, are said to be of educational value. As one of the plaques explains, chimps have been observed walking on two legs “looking very much like a human”. Amazing!
Every time I walk past these (literally) beastly things, I ask myself why, with a riverscape that has inspired artists such as Turner and Reynolds, and whose beauty encompasses swans, Egyptian geese, cormorants and herons nesting in some of London’s most beautiful and oldest trees with canoes and kayaks sliding past in the morning mist, is such a distraction needed? I’ll admit that tourists and children seem to like them and maybe it’s just me. But they make me go ape.
The slipperiness of “the slippery slope”
I’m watching with dismay as the assisted dying bill seems to be living up to its name and doing just that. Thirty years later, I’m still haunted by my mother’s last three months of life. Pancreatic cancer sent her on a hellish path of pain and degradation and my last memories of her aren’t memories I wish I had.
Worse still was a lovely young man, Paul, who lived in my home with motor neurone disease. He decided to kill himself with drugs bought on the internet, but first he had to make sure that everyone had gone out as he was fearful we would be implicated. So he committed this dreadful act alone and much sooner than he might have wanted if there had been other options.
I suppose I should respect the opinions of those who have opposed the bill, but I always find a certain high-handedness, even a cruelty, in their views. I particularly resent the “slippery slope” argument. It reminds me of when I was nine years old and teachers would refuse something because – “What would happen if everyone asked that?” It was a totally false hypothesis and they knew it, but they also knew that there was no way to reply. The invention of the car was the start of a slippery slope that has led to hundreds of deaths every year but that’s perfectly acceptable. An imaginary relative persuading Aunt Agatha to do herself in, apparently, is not.
Anthony Horowitz’s novel “Marble Hall Murders” will be published by Penguin on 10 April. He will appear at the Cambridge Literary Festival on 25 April
[See also: James Blunt live: a nostalgia karaoke]
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This article appears in the 19 Feb 2025 issue of the New Statesman, Europe Alone