Two Men in a Boat: rowing two rivers

Two Men in a Boat: rowing two rivers, Martin Andrew, Journey Books, 2021, 329 pages, black and white illustrations, hardback.

Reading this book, I was taken back in time to one of my schoolboy heroes, Captain Horatio Hornblower RN, whose naval escapades in the Napoleonic Wars were an early obsession. The Hornblower books, written by CS Forester in the 1920s, are now somewhat neglected. But among the fans of this romantic adventurer are Martin Andrew, the author of Two Men in a Boat and his fellow oarsman Richard Robinson.

Their inspiration for the two river journeys that form the essence of the book was the escape by Hornblower from capture by the Napoleonic troops by rowing a small boat down the River Loire from Nevers to the sea at Nantes, as featured in Forester’s book Flying Colours. Not content with rowing down one river, our modern-day escapees made a trial run on the River Severn, rowing from the Welsh border to Tewkesbury before launching their boat on the Loire.

As well as a prolific author on medieval history and architecture, Andrew is a conservationist and a member of the IHBC. The focus of the book is not so much the heroics of Hornblower as the fine historic buildings, bridges and towns they explored on route. There are also accounts of their woes – falling overboard at Atcham and an involuntary dip at Ousson-sur-Loire, and losing the boat altogether in Gien – as well as the varied hostelries they visit and some of the people they meet on route.

Their preferred guidebooks are Severn Tide (1939) by Brian Waters and John Murray’s Handbook for Travellers in France (1844), although they are willing to consult the 2nd edition Pevsners. Their architectural passion is the Norman style (UK)/Romanesque (France). They also describe the natural landscape, waterfowl and wildlife as seen from the rivers.

What comes as a surprise is how treacherous the two rivers are, with sharp rocks just below the surface, shifting sandbanks, sunken trees and rapids. If you were thinking of following in their wake, beware the pitfalls. Yet the genial banter between our two adventurers and Andrew’s eye for oddities draw the reader along as if a third passenger on board this small boat.

This article originally appeared as ‘Pitfalls and genial banter’ in the Institute of Historic Building Conservation’s (IHBC’s) Context 172, published in June 2022. It was written by J Peter de Figueiredo, reviews editor of Context.

--Institute of Historic Building Conservation