The Thames Path (warning - contains emotional material....)

And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith so that I could remove mountains, but have not charity, I am nothing.....

Deathbed

I have said much of this before.... I have wrought my emotions to the core.  My grief, my sorrow, my sense of loss and all that have been offered to my friends, and I know that life has to go on, and that everyone else has their stories, their loneliness, their pain.....

When you read this, I may be near Oxford, or in Oxford, or at home.... My intended walk from the source of the Thames into and around the city of Oxford may have happened, or perhaps may have been aborted, though the intention was always there....

Sarah, Amanda, Hannah

[And the intention was/is?  Ed]

Laste in the day

Despite some health problems, and with three score and fifteen years on my back, my intention was to walk a mile for every year my late wife Amanda (nearly) lived, and, with enormous gratitude to my close friend (who assisted and encouraged the project), it seemed opportune to walk the Thames Path from the source to approximately Oxford..... 

Monte Amiata, some thirty years ago

Amanda was my world, and is still there in my life and very much in the lives of our daughters, Hannah and Sarah. She was a sweet, caring person, loved by all she met, and could not have been a better mother and wife. She was never ill, and lived what can only be categorised as a healthy life.

Monte Amiata, about forty years ago

Sadly, in her mid fifties, something went wrong, and she was afflicted by what was eventually diagnosed as Frontotemporal Dementia (Semantic Variant).

In the Abbruzzi, when all was well

Little did we realise, then, what this meant, so gradual was the decline, but now we look back and think of our past:

Our wedding day with the Clifton Suspension Bridge behind us

The girl I didn't even know:

With Vidal Sassoon in Rome

Was to become my partner, my wife, the mother of our children, and my companion until death us did part.....

And there you go....

From this:

To this:

In the wink of an eye, without so much as a 'scuse me.....  Here we are, in Italy, knowing that things weren't right:

Beginning that slow slide towards oblivion that some call retirement.....

And then, moments later, you are wondering what happened, why you cannot understand each other, where the time went, how a loving god could be so cruel.....

Don't get me wrong.  Amanda was lovely to the very end.  She knew things were falling apart, but she didn't complain.  She faced the awful loss of language and control and independence, and the loss of all that went with the life she had had a right to expect, and she folded down, rather as a bright and happy birthday balloon will do when it is spent....

Gradually, almost gently, falling apart before our eyes.

A terrifying decline for a sentient being.  From mother and lover, to incontinent child.....

Needing to be wheeled from flower to flower:

And then looking at you, incapable of speech, her eyes crying out for mercy, for understanding, for peace......

This is why, in my madness and in my own decline, I am hoping that when you read this I may have walked some sixty or seventy miles of the Thames Path.  I want to draw your attention to how lives can be affected by the stealthy creep of dementia.  I am not competing with anyone.  I know there are thousands of worthy charities out there that cry out for support.  I know that many people in many parts of the world are suffering at this moment with the pains of war, the terrors of political repression, the horrors of starvation and disease.  

My story is nothing.....

But it is my story.

Should you wish to know more about the National Brain Appeal (which provides much-needed funds to support The National Hospital for Neurology & Neurosurgery and the UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology – together known as Queen Square. This is one of the world’s leading centres for the diagnosis, treatment and care of patients with neurological and neuromuscular conditions. These include stroke, multiple sclerosis, brain cancer, epilepsy, Parkinson’s disease, and dementia) please see:

https://www.nationalbrainappeal.org/

And should you wish to support me and my family, and help others in the long term, then please click on this link:

https://www.justgiving.com/page/richard-gibbs-8?utm_medium=FR&utm_source=CL&utm_campaign=lc_frp_share_transaction_fundraiser_page_donation_received_-_nth_donation

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Dedicated to Amanda and to Hannah and to Sarah

And also to my friend, who is helping me through all this, her life having been similarly affected

*****

PS, from "Your Local Paper", May 13th 2026:

Down Memory Lane

The Thin Blue Line

The blue bell is the sweetest flower

That waves in summer air;

Its blossoms have the mightiest power

To soothe my spirit’s care.

Emily Brontë

When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child....

1 Corinthians chapter 13 verse 11

King James Version

And also when I was a child I rode my bike as a child, played in the woods as a child, climbed trees as a child, and loved the world around me as a child.....

And much of that time was spent in the Chilterns, roaming free in the countryside and the woods, watching the seasons roll around with flowers, leaves, trees, birds.....   Those were carefree days; little bothered me (as far as I can remember) but they were long ago.  Time has evaporated.....

And in the passing of time, so have family and friends passed away, and life has had its excitements and its depressions. So much has changed, so much has developed...... But, If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.....

We retrace my steps.  In the gardens of Ashridge House Queen Elizabeth I had walked as a child.  I was following a thin blue line back into the past, but I am reminded that life goes on, that flowers grow again and again, that trees stand their ground, that without the interference of despots and tyrants the world can be a beautiful place.....

So, If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing....  These words, in various forms, keep coming back to me, echoing over the decades (my brother Simon read them as we gathered at the end of one school year). 

Or as Deon Jackson so gently hinted in 1963:

Without love, flowers wouldn't grow in spring

And without spring, yeah, the birdies just couldn't sing

Yeah, everybody needs love

though some might add:

Spring is sprung, the grass is riz.

I wonder where the birdies is.

They say the bird is on the wing, but that’s absurd.

I always thought the wing was on the bird.

Hey....

Ho!

So, back in the Chilterns, in Ashridge, walking in Dockey Wood, the air fragrant with bluebell dust, the wind scintillating the fresh green beech leaves.... It is wonderful. I love it all.  And it is love that makes the world go round.....

The carpet so rich, so fine, so evanescent. A week or two and it will be gone, lost to the pollinators and the onlookers for another year, unless captured by an artist......

We move on. The next morning Tring Park is fresh and airy, the sap spiralling out into the new leaves as the temperature rises and the days lengthen:

Then we wind back to the Dunstable Downs and to the Whipsnade Tree Cathedral, created by Edmund Blyth to commemorate his friends who lost their lives in the First World War. This is an enchanted place, and we lie under the flowering cherries in the Easter Chapel, the sun scattering its rays through the petals:

I will not mention the unmentionable, and I am not one to quote biblical phrases lightly, but, given the unnecessary and unimaginable suffering unleashed by the ignorance and greed of certain men, the words of the damascene convert hover above me in the glorious light that (almost) blinds me:

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres....

1 Corinthians chapter 13 verses 4-7

New International Version

We walk around and over Ivinghoe Beacon, the start of the Ridgeway, and a splendid viewpoint over the Vale of Aylesbury, where cowslips gloriously flourish:

Then dive back into Ashridge Forest for a last wonder at the thin blue line:

And a surprise encounter with an earnest badger, doing the housework at the sett's back door, another reminder that the world is diverse and wonderful:  

I am told that Badgers eat hedgehogs, and that therefore they are not to be loved, but please read this piece from the website Hedgehog Street:

Hedgehogs and badgers share what’s known as an asymmetric intraguild predation relationship. Badgers can affect hedgehogs in one of three ways:

Competition; the two species compete for many of the same food sources. These include soil invertebrates such as earthworms and beetle larvae.

 

Predation; badgers can predate hedgehogs.

 

Avoidance; hedgehogs will avoid areas where badgers have been active. Where there are many badgers, hedgehogs are likely to be less common.

While badgers do prey on hedgehogs, this is natural predator-prey interaction. Although badger numbers have boomed in recent years, there is little evidence that suggests they are the main reason why hedgehogs are in trouble. Indeed, hedgehogs are struggling in rural places where we know few badgers live, like East Anglia. Where conditions are favourable and invertebrate food is readily available, the two species can co-exist.

The two species have co-existed for thousands of years, which suggests that recent human activity has been a more prominent factor in the decline of hedgehogs.

Or, as the British Hedgehog Preservation Society says:

Pointing the finger at a single cause, such as predation by badgers or road casualties, likely misses the bigger, more complex picture.

Before we leave we pay our respects to Bob's Oak, a four hundred year old tree that, despite the weariness of age, is still sprouting fresh foliage from the tips of its twigs. A youth in the reign of Charles I, this veteran reminds us that peace and love can transcend the foibles of the mad and the vicissitudes of wind and weather.

This spring, and especially these last few days, has/have been glorious. Yes, I have been wandering down memory lane, but nothing is as important as the infinitely expanding present. As Alan Watts (in Become What You Are) said: Life exists only at this very moment, and in this moment it is infinite and eternal. For the present moment is infinitely small: before we can measure it, it has gone, and yet it persists forever....

There is a silent eloquence

In every wild bluebell

That fills my softened heart with bliss

That words could never tell.

Anne Brontë

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For CJ

If you walk, just walk. If you sit, just sit. But don’t wobble.

Yunmen Wenyan

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