Working The Thames

Punting beer barrels, salvaging cars and piloting container ships, Stephen Frost and Mark Arden lead us on a journey down one of the worlds greatest working waterways.
Along the way they explore the continuities between the working Thames of the past and the river today. This enforced intimacy with the river unveils some surprising stories; revealing an industrial river that survives behind the picture postcard image of the Thames.
Starting from a small hollow in a field in Gloucestershire, and ending in the blustery expanse of the English Channel, each episode exposes the working life of the river Thames in all it’s grit and grime.
Steve and Marks hands-on approach to the river shapes their interaction with everyone they meet along the way. At the heart of each episode is a river related task that they can only complete by enlisting the help of the port pilots, lock keepers, dredgers and ferrymen they bump into. As they share their contemporary skills and stories, the rivermen provide the springboard to explore the working Thames of the past, an industrial waterway that linked the rural heart of England to the global Empire. In this informal way, Steve and Mark learn about the history, technology and ecology of the river from those who live and work on it.
The journey brings them into contact with a constantly changing cast of characters who share their insiders experience of river life; revealing the Thames to be both a working river, and a piece of ‘iquid history