The PaddlerUK magazine December 2015 issue 5 | Page 8

PADDLERUK 8

Eric Jackson
on the Zambezi

by his novel form of transport, is a little stiff for
readers of today. But if he wasn’t the best
paddler of all time (and he certainly wasn’t), he
was definitely the most influential. His
achievement on the water was “practically
inventing the sport of kayaking” (BCU).
The seed he sewed grew into all the branches of
kayaking we know today, and also had a big
influence on the development of sailing yachts,
leading to the lovely cabin yawls designed by
sort of wastrels that Dickens wrote about and
would take MacGregor to see on his famous
long, London walks.

Gun-toting paddler

MacGregor was a champion marksman (we will
return to gun-toting paddlers when we cover
my favourite of all, Walt Blackadar!), a competent
musicologist (from a later journey to the Middle
East, he brought back the first notations, by his
own ear and hand, of Arabic wailing songs), a
Cambridge graduate and could write in Latin
and Greek.
These days, his paddling exploits seem tame in
the extreme and his writing, while clearly relating
the joy of his ‘muscular’ and spiritual existence, as
well as some of the ecstasy of freedom afforded