By John Ashbrook for FFON.

Dear FFON Readers,

It’s Simon King here, delighted to share with you a heartening tale of environmental stewardship from our very own shores. In this feature, we meet James Elliott, affectionately known as “The Canoe River Cleaner” of Grimsby’s River Freshney. James’s story (crafted by writer John Ashbrook for FFON) is not just about cleaning up a river; it’s a narrative of community, perseverance, and a deep-rooted connection to nature. As we follow his journey from furloughed worker to local eco-hero, we see a remarkable transformation – not just of the river, but of the community’s relationship with their natural surroundings. Join me in exploring how one man’s simple act of paddling and picking can ripple out to inspire an entire town, reminding us all of the power we hold in making a positive environmental impact…

James Elliott calls himself “The Canoe River Cleaner” – which is a fairly self-explanatory description of what he does – he paddles down the river Freshney in Grimsby, fishing out the rubbish that the everyday folks leave behind. But, that doesn’t sufficiently communicate the impression he has made, locally.

His example has become a focal point of civic pride, bringing others out, armed with litter-pickers and bin-liners, to keep the river clutter-free for, pretty much, its entire length, until it empties into the basin at The Riverhead. Jim is encouraging and empowering locals to care about their river in an unprecedented way.

When he began paddling and picking litter, he soon learned that he is not alone in seeing the beauty and the value in our long-disregarded river.

As Jim says: “Nature doesn’t want anything from us, just to be left alone.” So, he spends his time making as little impact on nature as possible, whilst patiently persuading the rest of us to do the same.

A lot of Jim’s success comes from knowing how to speak to people on different levels and knowing how to approach them to yield the most positive reaction. As he puts it: “The river doesn’t look as nice as it does because I’ve just run around shouting at everyone”.

It’s all about winning hearts and minds. Jim understands that the river isn’t as important to everyone as it is for him, but with a steady stream (!) of positive social media messages and good PR, he can make everyone understand the river’s environmental value, and that may make them hesitate, think twice, then take their rubbish home with them.

“I’m not turning everyone into Greta Thunberg,” Jim observes, “I’m just trying to shed a positive light”.

It’s worth mentioning that Jim doesn’t see himself as an entrepreneur, and certainly has little desire to be ‘inspiring’, but he is both those things.

Yes, the river looks better when it isn’t full of floating debris, but – more importantly to Jim – removing the litter takes away the hazards that might kill the animals or endanger the plant life. Picking the litter is a means to an end, not an end in itself.

Sometimes, local anglers will bemoan the fact that the river now has otters in it. Jim will point out that the presence of otters is proof that the river is a healthy and thriving habitat that is able to support a wide variety of wildlife because, if it wasn’t, an apex predator like the otters wouldn’t be there. Nor, for that matter, would many of the fish the anglers come for.

Launching The Canoe River Cleaner

It all began during lockdown. Jim was on furlough, forced into idleness, and he’s not the kind of person who copes well with being bored. So, he bought himself a canoe. Y’know, as you do.

This allowed him to reintroduce himself to nature, which he’d really been missing since his childhood days exploring the countryside around the Wybers estate, where he grew up.

It’s worth noting that there had been various reports in the local news that the river was so choked with rubbish that the rats could walk across without getting their feet wet.

So, on the fateful Boxing Day of 2020, Jim decided he’d had enough. “That’s one of the things that annoys me most,” he admits, “People moaning about the litter, moaning about the mess, but not doing anything about it.”

So it was that Jim’s wife, Lindsey suggested: “If you want to do something about it, jump in your canoe and … do something about it”. So, he did.

Jim launched himself into The Haven (the stretch of The Freshney that runs through the town centre) to give it a tidy. As his canoe filled up with detritus, a few passers-by noticed what he was up to, took a few photos, shared them on social media and suddenly Jim was a phenomenon.

It’s worth pointing out that Jim wasn’t the first person to take personal responsibility for doing something about the rubbish in the river. A lot of good people had been – and still are – quietly doing great work, fighting against the rising tide of trash.

But, partly because it was Boxing Day and partly because he was using his canoe, Jim just caught the imagination of the Twittering classes. Social media picked up on the story and Jim had inadvertently paddled into the spotlight. He was suddenly enjoying his fifteen minutes of fame.

The Freshney Comrades

Since then, Jim has galvanised all the other local heroes who care about the river, and has assembled his own team of garbage Avengers: The Freshney Comrades.

Different teams look after different sections of the river. Jim has supplied them with the tools of a litter-picker’s trade and, a couple of times a week, they organise themselves (mostly without Jim’s involvement) to take a walk and litter-pick down the banks. If they find something that’s out of reach, or is too heavy, or dangerous, they’ll contact Jim through their group-chat and he’ll sort it.

Friendships have blossomed among this hardy breed. They certainly share an ethos with Jim, as well as a love of the river. So, he’s certainly found his tribe.

Why is feeding bread to ducks a problem?

One of Jim’s most passionate campaigns concerns the feeding of ducks. Taking kids to the river to feed stale bread to the ducks is something that generations of parents have done. And, it turns out, for generations, we’ve all been doing it wrong.

The bread isn’t good for wild birds and can even stop them eating the food they actually need. What’s more, when people throw full slices of bread into the river, they’re really just creating pollution. The birds won’t eat the bread, so it’ll rot and create mould which poisons the water.

One of the things Jim wanted to achieve when he first started taking responsibility for the health and welfare of the river, was to communicate this message about not feeding bread to wildfowl.

It’s fine to feed ducks and swans proper wild bird food – especially in the winter when they have few other sources of nutrition – but bread is just a bad idea at any time of year.

As with the ‘don’t drop litter’ message, he has found a softly-softly approach to be far more effective than approaching people and running the risk of embarrassing them in front of their kids. As he was out and about litter picking, he’d always have a few bags of wild bird food about his person and he’d offer a trade: your-bag-of-mouldy-bread-for-this-bag-of-nice-fresh-bird-food. Everyone was happy because everyone was getting something – most especially the swans and ducks.

But approaching one person at a time wasn’t especially efficient. What he really needed was some signage. But it had to be something permanent, that wouldn’t get torn down or surrender to the weather. Something that would talk to the young people he wanted to reach.

Something like QR codes!

Then Jim approached the council to get permission to put up simple metal plaques. Much to his surprise, ‘The Man’ said “yes”. So, firmly screwed into the fishing platforms or benches around the lake in People’s Park and along the Freshney, you’ll now find these plaques, with a QR code that will take you to this article, written by Jim, explaining what’s best to feed wild birds and why.

Just FYI: Jim’s wild bird-food of choice is supplied by local legends, Haith’s – who offer a wide range of bird feed options, covering both garden birds and waterfowl. Jim trusts their business ethos and their quality.

Indeed, when Jim wrote his article, he consulted Haith’s director, Simon King, as well as Veterinary Professor, John E. Cooper. in order to be sure he was offering the very best advice.

Grimsby: The Rising Tide

Grimsby is important to Jim, because it’s his home. He’s raising his kids here. But, he doesn’t have that affinity with our fishing heritage that informs a lot of people’s civic pride. Instead, Jim sees Grimsby as a biodiverse habitat for wildlife and the river is central to that.

It wasn’t always so! “When I was a salesman, I’d go to work at eight, sell a car, come back and open the whiskey bottle. So, Grimsby was just the background. My relationship with people was based on taking money from them.”

But what he does now, means he’s constantly meeting good, inspiring, positive people – like himself. Or, at least, the himself that no-longer sells cars and feels stressed about it.

“There’s good people everywhere.” Jim now says, “You just gotta look. I think, in Grimsby, because of the lack of money for, well, anything to do with art, or with being creative, we’re culturally quite far behind more well-developed cities. But, that struggle has had a positive effect in that we all kind of lean on each other.

“I feel that every creative person I meet, every CIC I speak to, everyone who wants to make Grimsby a better -place – they want to help each other, because we’re all in it together.”

Grimsby can be perceived (certainly from outside) as something of an underdog and some people (again, typically, from outside the town) are quick to judge Grimsby on things that may have happened years ago, not on what’s happening now.

Furthermore, for someone who loves nature, there are a lot of green spaces to be found. If you feel the need for a spectacular sunrise – head for Cleethorpes on a Sunday morning, grab a coffee and enjoy the light show. If, on the other hand, you want to ramble through traditional English countryside – head for The Wolds.

Grimsby is perfectly situated to offer nature-lovers a wide variety of habitats and experiences. Wherever you are, you’re about a ten-minute drive from the beach or from the countryside. Grimbarians often allow themselves to forget that, as they trudge along, looking at the pavement or their phone screen.

Finally, I asked Jim about his plans for the future. What lies downriver?

“Nothing. I have no dreams, no hopes, no desires!” He’s laughing while he’s saying this, but he means it. He’s happy where he is. The happiest he’s ever been, in fact.

“I’ll be honest, I’m really content. I just want to rinse and repeat what I do every day. I don’t want to compromise it by doing anything different. I’m by no means lazy or complacent; but this just works. I could do this forever. Or, at least until my knees give out.”

The pandemic did this to him. Jim and his wife, Lyndsey, had some serious conversations about it and they both decided it was okay to manage on a lot less. Consequently, Jim has reached that point of contentment where he’s no longer striving to chase after things. He knows that comes at a mental cost and it comes at a financial cost. If you have dreams, you have to pay for them. So, Jim has transformed his reality into his dream.

How You Can Help

Jim has deliberately limited ambitions – but he still lives in the real world of bills and mortgages and tax, so he still needs an income.

If you’re a local business, a great way to help Jim to continue doing his great work would be to get in touch and discuss a possible sponsorship or partnership.

If you fancy buying one of his one-to-one canoe trips, or a fun and informative nature walk for your family, you can visit his online shop. Both also make for a unique gift.

Or, for less than the price of a cup of caffeine-flavoured frothy milk, you can chip-in a tip on Jim’s Ko-Fi page: https://ko-fi.com/thecanoerivercleaner.

It’s all about the flow … of cash.