Yesterday was a shocker!

As many of you know, (from first hand experience), I spend much of the summer driving my boat and guests up and down the Thames. Yesterday was no exception.

What made yesterday different, was my guests, a family from Knightsbridge, skedaddled from the pub we had moored the boat at to be seen no more! I was left several locks from home with a round of drinks , a four tonne motor cruiser and no crew!

Two glasses of wine that were never drunk! pic.twitter.com/70gxv9kZQh

— Henry Tapper (@henryhtapper) August 16, 2015

No text, no calls – I just sat outside the pub waiting for them to return – then got my boat back up river (with the help of some kind souls who helped me through the locks).

Late last night I got a text explaining that the family had expected more after bringing a bottle of wine, some water and a home made chicken surprise! They were “uncomfortable at the situation and thought it right to leave”!

In short they had got bored of the company and decided to make their own way back to London!

It shocked me to be confronted by such behaviour. Every time I take out the boat, I am dependent on the good will of guests, to make the most of it. This general faith in others is – as my partner pointed out to me – blind! We have been going out for over 10 years now, several thousand people have been on the boat and we have never before had a mutiny!

My partner suggested I was too trusting – that I should not take people I did not know well on my boat. I could see where she was coming from, my faith didn’t seem touching, my judgement appeared “touched”.

And yet, had we not that faith in each other, there would be no boating, no pension play pen and society would be the worst for it.

I won’t name and shame the individuals involved . They have got extremely rich from financial services and I suspect they saw the delights of the day as a little too spartan for their rich blood.

Today I will be going out with 9 or 10 people who do not have the financial or social advantages of yesterday’s guests. No doubt we will have a fine time. When you are on a boat, you are at one with the river, other boaters and with the infrastructure of the locks and the river pubs. The Thames is no Knightsbridge.

The Pension Play Pen was set up so that everyone was the same, whether rich or poor, successful or not, senior or junior. The CEOs contribute on the same threads as their staff – it’s much like the river.

Much like the Bounty pub – from which my guests skulked off!

The old phrase “it takes all types” is never truer than when boating. Nowhere is it truer than inside the Bounty!

Sitting on Cockmarsh, connected with Bourne End by a walkway along a railway bridge, the Bounty is it’s own world (or socio-ecosystem).

The Laws of Common Sense apply!

Many of the people who own boats at Peter Freebody’s yard in Hurley are multi-millionaires. The Laws of Common Sense apply to them too!

Because their immaculate slipper launches and Rivas, depend on other boaters to behave irresponsibly – apply common sense – and be decent to each other.

These values are so obvious that they do not normally have to be stated.

But when you get some total cocks, like those we had on the boat yesterday, who think they are above the law of common sense, above looking out for others and above being a part of a boating crew, then you can understand where the problems in our financial services industry originate from.

The surfeit of money that has enabled some of us to get so obscenely rich that we have forgotten the laws of common sense – is the root of this evil.

And the way to get over it? Well spend some time on the beautiful river Thames! Come boating on Lady Lucy – as I will be today!

A new interior lovingly varnished by Helen Freedbody