Grafton by Virginia Astley

I made ‘Grafton’ when I could return to the river after lockdown restrictions lifted a little and while we still had hot days. Located in the Upper Thames Valley, on the upper reaches of the river, the piece focuses on Grafton, Chimney and Shifford.

June 1st was a day of intense heat. After visiting the small church of St Mary’s at Shifford I’d gone down to the reserve at Chimney. Shifford Lock was closed but just upstream a heap of bikes lay discarded on the riverbank. Four lads yelled as they dive-bombed into the river – all long shorts and gangly limbs. I wanted to cross the ford at Duxford and made my way through several meadows of ox-eye daisies and birds foot trefoil but, thwarted by a huge number of cows in the last field, I turned back. Turquoise damselflies accompanied me as I walked.  All in pairs, like a mass wedding. I thought about David Collins who I met some years ago downriver but who’d been born and raised at Shifford Lock. His grandfather had been lock keeper there for over fifty years. ‘It’s the only place I’ve been so at peace’ he told me.

That evening I camped at Grafton Lock. The previous lock keeper Keith Webb was here thirty-nine years. According to the Environment Agency the river was ‘closed’. But in lockdown it’s most definitely been open to the birds and animals that share it. I reflected on all these things while I camped in the lock garden, walking out on the weir the following morning to breathe the negative ions. The tune I have added is a local one, recorded up the road at Clanfield. Clanfield lies between Grafton and Shifford.