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Museum of Oxford Digital Exhibitions

The river and the riverbank

Iris Murdoch on swimming in the Thames.

"On hot days in the Oxford summer my husband and I usually manager to slip into the Thames... The art is to draw no attention to oneself but to cruise quietly by the reeds like a water rat: seeing and unseen from that angle, one can hear the sedge warblers' mysterious little melodies, and sometimes a cuckoo flies cuckooing over our heads, or a kingfisher flashes past."

People enjoyed the bathing places as sunbathing and socialising spots, especially in the summer. The riverside became the city's own holiday resort.

The river and the riverbank