Category Archives: RDA Journal

Nancy Blackett goes VI Sailing

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by Mark Taylor

Editor’s Introduction (Julia Jones)

I’m aware that we offer surprisingly little disabled sailing (or other diversity projects) on the Deben. (Shout at me if I’m wrong because I’d love to hear from you – [email protected].) HOWEVER there are many people from the Deben who volunteer at the Woolverstone Project on the Orwell and also at EAST, the East Anglian Sailing Trust. Among their activities they have a Visually Impaired Section which welcomes additional volunteers and yachts to get involved in their cruising programme. If you are interested in helping please email [email protected] or leave a voice message on 0333 0883278. This article by Mark Taylor, sailing secretary of the Nancy Blackett Trust, describes the day Nancy got involved. (Reprinted here by kind permission of the Trust.)

Nancy alongside at Suffolk Yacht Harbour.

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Woodbridge Regatta – an intergenerational event

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Interview with Geoff Holdcroft, former chairman by Julia Jones

Geoff Holdcroft moved to Suffolk in 1985, working for BT. At first, he missed the hills of North Staffordshire where he had grown up but soon discovered the different beauty of the River Deben. He learned to sail on the BT boats at Waldringfield, then bought himself a Mirror dinghy – and after that, a Jaguar 22.

(courtesy Alan Comber)

Within ten years Geoff had joined the Deben Yacht Club in Woodbridge and was involved with people who were involved with the Woodbridge Regatta. His first job as a volunteer for the DYC, however, was to gain advertisements for the annual handbook. This put him in touch with many more interesting people running businesses around the town and surrounding area. Among them was Alan Readhead, a colleague at BT who introduced him to the Regatta committee   ‘We need someone to do the same for the Regatta programme,’ said Alan. The Regatta handbook then ran to eight pages so the revenue from advertisements also helped support the costs of the Regatta infrastructure – items such as the public address system and First Aid attendance. Geoff took on the job.

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Conservation and Climate Change: The National Trust on the Suffolk and Essex Coast

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By Matt Wilson

RDA co-chair Colin Nicholson, NT countryside manager Matt Wilson and RDA vice chair Liz Hattan at the AGM

The speaker for this year’s River Deben Association AGM was Matt Wilson, countryside manager for the National Trust for the Suffolk & Essex Coast. His subject was Conservation and Climate Change: his topics were varied, reflecting the varied nature of his responsibilities in this area.

Matt’s title is countryside manager – and that gives him a wide remit, which he’s still exploring. He’s already spent 25 years working in Local Government, within green spaces and blue spaces including for Essex County Council, the London Borough of Barking & Dagenham, and Exmoor National Park authority. Now, with the National Trust for the last 2 and a half years, he has a team of Rangers (currently six) who undertake the practical management and wildlife monitoring on the ground while Matt’s remit is slightly more strategic. He has a particular interest in developing partnership work with other local conservation and environment groups, working at a landscape scale. The area for which he’s responsible runs from Northey Island on the River Blackwater in Essex, to Darrow Wood, over the Suffolk / Norfolk border.

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Flood Defence of the Estuary.  Are we facing a catastrophe?

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By Robin Whittle

Several articles have been written in the Deben Magazine concerning the river wall defences1,2,3,4.  This article concentrates on the immediate need for action on the river wall of Flood Cell 1: Bawdsey to Ramsholt.

The clay river walls of the River Deben have provided landowners and the local community with grazing marsh and arable land for the past five hundred years.  During this time the walls have been raised by about 0.6m/century to compensate for sea level rise and clay wall settlement (see Figure 1).

Figure 1:  River wall at Ramsholt being enhanced in 2015

Where breaching occurs, the wall is either eroded down to saltmarsh level or, where there is no saltmarsh, down to the embanked fresh-water marsh level.  The latter is very difficult and extremely costly to repair, usually requiring the use of helicopters.  Overtopping is not necessarily damaging to a wall providing the wall is largely level and the overtopping is less than 200mm over a landward slope of not less than 1:2. (see Figure 2).

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I just want to record my memories of this area

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A review of Shingle Beaches and Tidal Rivers: the River Stour to Southwold by Robert Simper

Published Creekside Publishing £16.50

By Julia Jones

This is Robert Simper’s farewell to the stretch of Suffolk coast that he has known and loved over more than 80 years. In its introduction he recalls his wartime childhood living at Bawdsey watching bombers coming and going and sometimes aerial dogfights between the RAF and attacking German planes. He was clearly an inquisitive child and one who was shaped by his East Coast environment. ‘The North Sea was in front of us. It looked a cold and unwelcoming place and as time when by I found out it was just that. However, I was fascinated by the rivers and places beside the sea and felt I had to explore them.’

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Maid Marion

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by Julia Jones

Maid Marion passing HMS Severn with the Association of Dunkirk Little Ships (ADLS).

Maid Marion (PZ 61) has been a familiar sight on the River Deben for over 60 years. It was in 1964 that her new owner John Hunt, together with David Mellonie of Small Craft Deliveries brought her from her original home in Cornwall to the mooring at Ramsholt, just down river from the Quay, which she has occupied ever since. This year, 2025, she reaches her 100th birthday.

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Environmental Protections for the River Deben

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By Liz Hattan, RDA Vice Chair

We are so lucky to live near the River Deben – many of us enjoy sailing and kayaking on it, walking by it, or swimming in it. It’s also special for its wildlife and landscapes resulting in it being designated under international and domestic law to help conserve it.   

The Deben Estuary is designated under international law by the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, and under domestic law (England and Wales) as a Special Protection Area, as well as a Site of Special Scientific Interest, and as part of the Suffolk and Essex Coasts and Heaths National Landscape (previously known as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty AONB).[1]  But why has the Estuary received such designations and why does it matter?  In summary, it is designated because of the Deben’s unique and invaluable biodiversity and special landscape features; by having such designations it makes it easier to protect and conserve the area, both legally and because it helps remind us all to take extra special care of it.[2]  

Curlew (courtesy Sally Westwood)

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A Two-Felixstowe-Church Walk

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Janet Harber and her sister Jackie Jones are the first to take up the challenge of linking two of more of the Deben churches described by Gareth Thomas in his four-part series last year. Their Felixstowe-based walk was published in The Deben magazine #70 and is reprinted here with additional photographs taken by Janet.

If you feel inspired to try to devise your own walks, linking different Deben Churches, you will find a list at the end of this article. Alternatively you might enjoy Sue Ryder Richardson’s circular walk from Hemley Church.

This five-mile route, a mix of coastal and surburban walking, links the churches of St Peter and St Paul in Old Felixstowe and St Nicholas at Felixstowe Ferry. The two churches are described in detail by Gareth Thomas in his RDA Journal series Churches of the Deben: Part 3B.

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Citizen Science – Fish Survey 2024

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Report from the Third Fish Survey conducted by the RDA and the Institute of Fisheries Management July 2024  by Steve Colcough

Introduction by Julia Jones

For the past three years, 2022, 2023 and 2024  the RDA has supported annual fish surveys in partnership with the Institute of Fisheries Management, represented by Steve Colclough. From the RDA side, enthusiasm and leadership come from Richard Verrill who initiated this project and has reported on it both here and in the Deben Magazine.

The 2024 survey also involved Suffolk Wildlife Trust as a new sampling site was located in the area of saltmarsh adjacent to Martlesham Wilds. Writing for the Deben Magazine Richard described the method of operating in this new site — setting a winged Fyke net across the creek at low tide, as well as using the seine netting techniques deployed at Bawdsey and elsewhere. 

Juvenile fish come in with the tide to feed on the saltmarshes and then are caught on their way out, counted and released back into the river. The quantities of fish caught at Martlesham in the 2024 survey were very impressive and a good indicator of the health of that area of the river — as well as a reminder of the importance of the Deben saltmarshes.  

Over the 2022, 2023 and 2024 numbers of juvenile fish have been good and the project is attracting interest from scientists in other areas. 

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