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1946: Down the Thames, Martin Briggs -

When all is said and done, however, Henley lives mainly for its regatta ...
 
Henley is only quite all there in the hectic regatta days ...
 
The town has that curious absent-minded air, shared by places like Epsom and Lourdes, of always getting over, or just preparing for, the great and rare event ...
 
Then its commercial waterfront, full of slap-and-tickle-girls, bursts into life ...

Slap AND tickle! ...

LONDON OF TODAY [1890] An Illustrated Handbook
HENLEY REGATTA

Since the old pageants of Venice, nothing has been produced to excel the beauty of the scene at Henley during the regatta. It is far and away the prettiest festival of the kind London, or indeed England, has to offer.

Formal aquatic procession on the Thames has dwindled to the "Fourth of June" celebration at Eton, for the Lord Mayor's pageant no longer returns by water to the City from Westminster.

Athleticism has taken the place of antique ceremonial; and we have now at Henley, apart from the cause of the gathering, such an assemblage of parti-coloured boats, awnings, flowers, and flags, not to mention pleasant company, as could hardly be matched anywhere.

The River Carnival of July

Fine summer weather is indispensable to the full enjoyment of the regatta, for then the charming upper reaches of the Thames are seen at their best.

The visitor who can command the hospitalities of a "house-boat" is to be congratulated. At the annual season of festivity, all the hostelries and available ancillary lodgings of the little town are occupied. The only method left of enjoying the scene in reasonable comfort is that of having a home on the waters, a floating house of one's own (or a share of one with a friend), "a fluviatile analogue", as has been said, of the four-inhand at Ascot, and the family landau at "Lord's" during the Universities' or the Public Schools' cricket matches.

Excitement in the sport going forward is agreeably tempered by strawberries and cream, and "cups" and dainty drinks mingled and iced too wisely and too well.

From a little country jollification, Henley Regatta has, like Ascot Races, been growing to the proportions of a national holiday, though, luckily, the distance from London and the absence of a betting-ring, keeps the rougher people away.

The competition of rival clubs and crews at Henley is fiercer than of yore. The absence of the representative University crews, which formerly met there, has been amply compensated by the presence of the numerous boating clubs which have grown into existence since the Oxford and Cambridge crews rowed their first race over the Henley course.

As watermen's regattas and rowing matches fell into discredit on the Lower Thames, clubs of amateurs increased and multiplied. Selected crews of the best of these clubs, from the Oxford and Cambridge Colleges and the Public Schools, and occasionally from America and Fiance, combine to give a zest to the Henley Regatta, by exhibiting their "best form" in the several competitions.

Regatta, Ashley Bryant
You can see the tension in the shoulders - and the wash at the top of the picture confirms it -
they are being beaten!

Map: Swiss Farm International Camping

400 yards from river, left bank, 01491 573419 
180 pitches, 1st March to 31st October, WC, showers, laundry, wash basins, swimming pool, fishing lake, club house, play area, games room.

Fireworks 1837 - 2009 and 2011

On the Saturday evening, around 10pm, an unofficial part of the regatta are the fireworks let off on the left bank behind Fawley Meadow. Anywhere on the second half of the course is a good place to see them from. The river has in the past been very crowded with boats mooring several deep along the booms and banks. The crowd get quite carried away ... (And some of them have to be ...) I think some people must come for this alone and see nothing of the rest of the regatta. It used to look like this -

Henley Royal Regatta Illuminations

Fireworks 2005

And the difference? In Victorian days it was people who illuminated themselves and showed off their beautiful clothes with coloured lanterns - and now its all flash and bang in the darkness - and the people are just passive spectators.

Regatta Service

Henley Royal Regatta is the one great British sporting event which includes a Christian service on Sunday, (the finals day).
  At 9.30am [always used to be 10am] in Henley Parish Church there occurs what I can only describe as “Rowing Matins”.  With a full church the service starts with the National Anthem;  Anglican Chant is sung as lustily as it was fifty years previously in the chapels of the public schools by many of these very same people;  the chairman of the Stewards reads a lesson; the local choir sings beautifully; they dig out some rowing cleric to preach a sermon.  I am becoming a connoisseur of these sermons over the years.  They come in two flavours.  There is the rowing sermon and the “you are men of influence” sermon.  The rowing sermon largely centres around “we all swing together” or words to that effect.  We are reminded of the eight in the bible (St Paul talks of “the ark, wherein eight souls in all were saved” – and every rower knows coxes are damned – in the present if not in eternity).  Then there is the observation that the church is at the finish of the Henley Course.  The cox cannot see where he is going for all these hairy oars persons flailing about – but look above them and there is the church in the distance – aim for the church and you can’t go wrong.  One daring preacher used the parable of the Unrighteous Steward – but it was alright, it worked, they made him a Regatta Steward anyway.  [That was in 1986 - and he preached again to similar effect in 2011]
In 2005 we had - how to make progress seated facing backwards.  (This was, to my mind, a metaphor too far.  Christians ought to be radicals or they are nothing!)
Clearly somebody agreed because the reading on which the Bishop of Ely preached in 2006 had "Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the finishing line to win the prize ..."
In 2007 Professor Gomes of Harvard preached a delightful and encouraging sermon on "Be not afraid" - the words of Christ to the oarsman on the lake in the storm when he walked on the water.
"Be not afraid" of losing or winning. "Be not afraid" in this world of fear.
In 2008 the Rector of Henley preached on that same text with a slightly different twist. His sermon was full of humour starting with the words of the Regatta Chairman (or was it God - hard to tell the difference in regatta week) - speaking of the poor painting of the regatta headquarters "Repaint, repaint and thin no more!". He ended with a splendid misquotation of the Psalm - "They that go down to the sea in boats - have gone to far and missed the start and will be disqualified by the stewards!"
Finally in the service a visiting crew (Harvard University in 2007, Stellenbosch University in 2008) takes the collection, and though we would like to sing the National Anthem again, we can’t, because we have already sung it once, and so the service ends.  There is just time to get suitably refreshed for the first race at 11.30am [used to be 12 noon].

Umpires' Launches, Regatta - 1839 and before, 1840s, 1850s, 1860s, 1870s, 1880s, 1890s, 1900s, 1910s, 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2010s