167. Prologue and Kingston

Just as Jerome K Jerome had written his book in the late 1890’s, the author had originally intended to write, or in my own case, attempted to write a semi-serious boating guide to the many fine places found along the River Thames and to include a brief history of these places and landmarks. However, as soon as I started to put pen to paper and recorded the log, with help from my two companions after each day’s travel fuelled by drinking in a large number of hostelries, set in picturesque surroundings, the travelogue developed into a more of a modern day comical novel .As we got more and more into the journey, the humorous side of book took over, as did my imagination. However a conservative estimate would probably be that the book is 90%, factual 5 % invention and the final 5 % pure fantasy but not necessarily in that order, and, above all, not necessarily in those proportions stated above!.

One of the most liked things about the original “Three Men in a Boat” was that modern day critics point out that despite the book being ages old, the humour remains undated. Well that may have been the case “then” but this is “now” and so this book, attempts to bring the humour up to date.

The three men mentioned in the book are Jimmy Whittaker himself ( the narrator and Captain) and two real-life friends, Phil Wakeford (  the First Mate, who was  a senior manager in the water industry) and, Billy Blackwell (the Cabin Boy, who was  a bank manager).

The original title of Jerome’s book was “Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog)” but when asked about the dog ,Montmorency, Jerome admitted that the dog was purely fictional and was developed out of that area of inner consciousness which, in all Englishmen, contains an element of the do. In our case, the  canine element was probably beer , a catalyst ,which brought our inner inhibitions, extended our personalities and brought out both the good and bad in three modern day pensioners.

To some people Kingston upon Thames is an area in London most commonly inhabited by people who just like to pretend they're rich but then somehow can't afford to live in South Kensingston .If you ask a person in the streets where do they live ?  they always say in the Royal Borough of Kingston Upon Thames so that it doesn’t get confused with that drug ridden city in Jamaica, full of druggies, and would-be rapists, who like to wear tea cozies on their heads and walk along the streets with ghetto blaster belting out tunes in which the record needle appears to have stuck and the bass has only one position –maximum.

When you arrive at Kingston you suddenly realise how wide the Thames actually is and what a built up area it is.

The bridge at Kingston has long been a very important bridge since for many years it was the next upstream fixed crossing over the Thames after London Bridge.

As previously stated Kingston is a real borough, because the historians would like to have us to believe that seven Saxon Kings were crowned here and an ancient bit of rock outside the guildhall, called the Coronation Stone commemorates this, allegedly. In some circles including ours, there is the belief that historians write stories about our heritage and then to try con us into believing who we actually are, and historians having made up history then repeat it to other historians with the proviso that history never repeats itself but historians do.