All in all, we Parishioners will be feeling reassured; with some justification sleep soundly in our beds at night.  Never has there been, so far as I know, quite so much rain descend upon us.  Yet, in almost all cases, there has been no flooding, no-one having to take to the boats.

All of which is due to the singular good offices of the worthy river Wandle. Worthy river Wandle?  Why, yes, of course, the most worthy river Wandle.

Nowadays, maybe, to a certain extent it has to look to glories past. But then, …….my word, what glories they were.  Trout?; watermills - about 30 of them?: ; watercress for tea?; dyed cloth to delight the ladies?; water for the drinking?

'Some 40 years ago', recalled Mr W. Courthope Forman in 1922, 'when the Wandle was very familiar to me, there were more than 30 mills between Croydon and Wandsworth.  There were tobacco-mills, snuff-mills, copper-mills, oil-mills, leather-mills, flour-mills, a parchment-mill; and at least two paper-mills.'

So where did it all go?  For this, I go straight to Ruskin – the poet, you know. I quote at length: what do you think of this, I wonder?  'Just where the welling of stainless water, trembling and pure, like a body of light, enters the pool of Carshalton, cutting itself a radiant channel down to the gravel, through warp of feathery weeds, all waving, which it traverses with its deep threads of clearness, like the chalcedony in moss-agate, starred here and there with the white grenouillete; just in the very rush and murmur of the first spreading currents, the human wretches of the place cast their street and house foulness, heaps of dust and slime, and broken shreds of old metal, and rags of putrid clothes; they having neither energy to cart it away, nor decency enough to dig it into the ground, that shed it into the stream, to diffuse what venom of it will float and melt, far away [first stop the ancient Parish of Merton? - ed.], in all places where God meant those waters to bring joy and health.'

Strong meat, this: no doubt about it. Perhaps is well it was written long ago.  And the Wandle has seen a great restoration since Ruskin's time: crystal-clear water; fish in plenty; even the odd watermill or two. I understand that Ruskin had something to do with all this, with action perhaps as strong as his words.

So now for us, we can delight in the Wandle. Can it be time for a Parish outing to quicken our delight - and to see where all our flood-water goes?

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