The Tweed is one of the world’s great border rivers, says Jeremy Paxman. Really? Up there with the Congo, the Ganges, the Danube, Rio Paraguay and Rio Grande? Anyway, it’s the first of his Rivers With Jeremy Paxman (Channel 4), that’s why he’s bigging it up. And travelling down it, all 97 miles of it. By Land Rover, mostly.
First, Jeremy has got to find the source. “It looks as if it just oozes out of the bog,” he says, looking crossly at the map. Not exactly Dr Livingstone, looking for the source of the Nile, is it? Luckily, help is on hand: Mr Manning I presume. Neil Manning, local sheep farmer, accompanied – appropriately for these parts – by his border collie. They shepherd Jeremy to the correct bog, although there’s not an awful lot to see, Neil says, apologetically.
“There’s absolutely bugger all to see,” complains Jeremy, standing in a puddle. “For a very important river, it’s a very pathetic beginning, isn’t it? To say one’s underwhelmed would be exaggerating ...”
Oi, leave off, it’s not Neil’s fault. And he’s neither a politician nor a smartypants university student; he’s a proper real person, so be nice to him and behave.
The river, and Jeremy’s mood, pick up downstream; he even remarks on the fineness of the countryside. But then he enters a “great dark excrescence”. Uh-oh, not another gloom, the big black border collie maybe ... no, actually it’s a forestry plantation, one of those lifeless woods of evenly spaced conifers. They are usually depressing, but this one holds a magical secret: nesting ospreys.
“Fantastic,” whispers Jeremy, impressed, as one of the parents flies overhead. It holds a fish in its claws, freshly caught from the Tweed, something Jeremy will later try to do himself. Tony is the osprey man. He even speaks osprey, translates the adult’s call to its young as meaning: “There’s something here that shouldn’t be here, just lie flat on the nest and keep still.” I think it’s saying: “Watch out, Jeremy frigging Paxman’s here!” But Tony’s too polite to let on.
Anyway, the two chicks need to be ringed, so Tony climbs 70ft up the tree to the nest, pops them into his rucksack and lowers them, while Jeremy, on the other end of the rope, keeps the rucksack away from any obstacles. Arrr. Can it really be Jeremy Paxman gently preventing baby birds from getting bumped? Has he gone soft?
Or maybe he just prefers birds to people. “If you love birds like me, you’ll realise just what a spine-tingling moment this is,” he says, sounding moved, as they are taken from the bag. Not so baby after all, they’re enormous. Paxman, not unhawklike himself, holds one; they look look each other in the eye.
And then, when the birds are ringed, they’re christened PX1 and PX2 in honour of their gentle lowerer. So now the man they are named after will be able to track them on the GPS, all the way across the Sahara to west Africa in winter. To the river Niger perhaps, now there’s a border river. No twee, or wee in Niger ...
Anyway, back to the mighty Tweed. Well, after Jeremy has performed a tricky 15-point turn (the Land Rover is of the long wheelbase variety) that has him cackling like a maniacal hyena. Then he follows – and scoffs at – myths and legends. He dives not into the river itself, but into the world of Sir Walter Scott, whose stories were much inspired by visits to his grandparents’ place by the river. He visits the scenes of centuries of warring between Celts and the English. What the Tweed may lack in geography it makes up for in history, conflict, literature, mythology and song. Size isn’t everything, even for rivers.
And because there is a law that says that in the making of this kind of travelogue/documentary the presenter – even if it’s Jeremy Paxman – must get involved and have a go at something, he shears a Cheviot sheep. Neither of them look happy about it. The wool will be made into tweed the cloth, which has been making a fashion resurgence ... well, it was before Paul Nuttall. Has he been to Scotland, though?
Jeremy looks more comfortable in the river, trying to catch a salmon for himself. It – fishing – gives him a reason to be in a beautiful place, he says. And this one is undeniably beautiful. Even if the haul, on this occasion, is bugger all.
