Aside from children catching and killing things for no obvious reason, the steady pace of change and the sheer volume of water being abstracted by the local authority, it is remarkable that these little bars of gold can still hold a toe in this watercourse at all.

One photograph didn’t make it into the gallery. It showed a council rubbish cage so full, and so long neglected, that it had created its own pool. Not unlike a beaver dam, except entirely man-made and entirely avoidable.

I’m told the water level is twelve inches lower than normal. That cannot be sustainable.

I’ve also read that the Environment Agency pulled funding from this stretch of water. Funding for what, exactly? For the volunteers who, once a month through the summer, removed the accumulated detritus from the stream. The cost of that support was two thousand pounds.

Two thousand pounds.

So why do we seem to think that a beautiful watercourse needs to be decorated with traffic cones, bicycles, and cans of every brand, shape, and size? What problem are we solving by allowing that to become normal?