Waders and sketchbook

I really enjoy the conversations that come up at exhibitions. At Brentford Creative Mile this month, two lovely snippets of Crane history came out of the many amazing conversations I had…

One was that there used to be a freshwater swimming pool with water supplied from the River Crane at the top of Mereway Road next to Kneller Gardens in Twickenham. It was called Mereway Bathing Place. After some online digging I found some old newspaper records and photos…

In this photo the river appears to open up into the swimming pool and, besides the structure, looks very natural! The name Mereway Road would suggest the pool was originally a pond as the Old English meaning of Mere is lake or body of water. Records from 1895 indicate building works being undertaken and an attendant appointed.

Thousands of school children learned to swim there and over one 6 month period, 40,000 swimmers were reported to have visited the pool.

The bathing place eventually had to be shut down in 1930 due to pollution by the creosoting works of the Great Western Railway and effluent from Hayes sewage disposal works. Hundreds of dead fish were reported. The council decided that the baths would be reopened “if and when the pollution ceased”. It was never reopened. Can I just say … plus ça change!

The other story was told by one of my studio colleagues, John Carbery, whose family garden backed onto the Crane and has many memories of the river. One that stands out though is his mother’s excitement when Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart came rowing down the river in a small boat past the end of his garden!

The African Queen, starring Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn (above), was being filmed at Isleworth Studios and apparently the River Crane was used for some of the filming. Although she was not in the film, Lauren Bacall, who was married to Humphrey Bogart, had wanted him to show her the river.

What great stories! I’m hoping there will be more along the way!

I’ve been thinking about making my own ink using oak galls and materials from the river for a while and then the other day I came across some oak galls and decided to get started. I couldn’t believe how easy – and miraculous – it was.

Ink made from oak trees has been used since the 12th Century. It is waterproof and gets darker with age. Oak galls occur when a gall wasp lays eggs in buds, acorns or roots and the tree protects itself by enclosing the developing larvae in abnormal growths. Around May, the lava eats its way out and the adult wasp emerges in June/July. The galls I collected had a small hole where the lava had escaped.

Oak gall ink recipe

2 oz crushed oak galls

1 oz ferrous sulphate (available from garden centres)*

1/2 oz gum arabic (available from art shops)

*An alternative to ferrous sulphate can be made by hand by soaking rusty old iron in white vinegar for a few days.

To make the ink, cover the oak galls with water in a pan and simmer for half an hour. The water goes a dark brown. Strain through a piece of muslin or thin cotton and leave to cool. Then add the ferrous sulphate and gum arabic (binding agent) and watch the water turn black! Pure alchemy!**

For my ink I took rusted metal from the river and soaked it in vinegar to get an iron rust solution, and I used river water to boil the oak galls in. The galls came from a tree near the A3 but I hope to find some from oaks beside the river. I want to make paper using river water too and will document my process.

I love the story that this creates and the sense of where everything comes from.

**I have to thank my friend and artist, Lizzie Brewer, who has been making her own ink and paper for her beautiful books for years and gave me the help and confidence to try!!