a day ago
I write novels from my boat, Betsy, on the Thames
From her gently swaying 'writing boat' — a converted narrow boat that's tethered to her floating home on Taggs Island in the Thames — the novelist Georgina Moore is watching the river come alive for the summer season.
'At this time of year it becomes a party town again,' says Moore, 52, noting speedboats, novelty inflatables and people sunbathing on the decks of their boats. 'I can hear dance music coming from the nearby cricket club, oars clattering from the rowing club and people shouting from island to island. There are swimmers with pink buoys, the loud birdsong of parakeets darting from tree to tree, and the geese, which are excitable all the time.'
During these highly sociable summers on Taggs, 'I love to be up early, to catch the river when it is private and just ours, as the sun rises over the weir,' Moore adds. 'Then, as the day progresses, everyone opens up their doors, windows and terraces on to the river, as if we are all sharing a communal space.'
Over the past century, this six-acre outcrop near Hampton Court Palace has seen numerous attempts by the island's former owners to turn it into a pleasure resort for high society, with floating palaces, ballrooms and resident orchestras. There were even plans in the 1920s to make it a mini-Palm Beach with imported palms and sand to mimic its Floridian namesake.
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For Moore — a book publicist who released her debut novel, The Garnett Girls, set on the Isle of Wight, in 2023 — the island provides fertile territory for fiction. Her second novel, River of Stars, which is published on July 3, is set on Walnut Tree Island — the ancient name for Taggs.
The story sees its 'ageing party girl' protagonist butt heads with the island's new owner, who wants to sell the land to property developers. 'It's about keeping the legacy of islands like this while allowing the community to move on,' she says.
Some early readers of her new novel, pre-publication, have commented that they wish such a place existed. Well, it does, 15 miles from central London, with a resident population of about 100, spanning all generations, all living on houseboats that are moored around the island's perimeter and on its inner lagoon.
Moore's large four-bedroom floating home, The Lookout — where she lives with her husband, James, 54, a psychotherapist, and their children, Sonny, 14, and Daisy, 13 — has a garden on the island large enough for James's home office and a mini-Astro football pitch for the kids.
And then there's her writing boat, named Betsy, which sits in a secluded spot overlooking the weir. The 23ft long, 6ft 10in-wide boat — which cost £17,000 to build — arrived as an unadorned shell, on which Moore spent a further £10,000 turning it into her creative nook.
'I added windows and doors, lovely skirting, wood panelling and cupboards, LED lighting and a little electric stove that looks like a fire,' she says. 'When I'm on Zoom calls in summer, people are fascinated when paddleboarders drift past the windows, and it's so peaceful at night when fireflies dance over the river and you hear only the water.'
Winters have their own charm. 'Our house is attached to steel pontoons, so I hear the creaks and groans when the tide shifts, and the wind carries every sound,' says Moore, who moved to the island 16 years ago, to join James. 'He's been here so long he's part of the river mud.'
Like all of the island's homeowners, they were cash buyers as there are no mortgages available on these floating homes. Other residents own or lease their houseboats under a variety of mooring terms.
On sale at the moment is a two-bedroom houseboat overlooking the lagoon, with a 999-year lease and no mooring fees, for £725,000; and a one-bedroom houseboat with a 20-year renewable licence for £429,950, both through Water Side Residential.
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Sonny and Daisy are at that age now, Moore says, 'where they ask why they can't live in a normal house like everyone else. But then their friends come round in summer and they all go off kayaking or paddleboarding, and they realise the benefits.'
Besides, her children have never known a life in which their home is accessed by anything other than a gangplank. The family's holiday home is a houseboat too — an old Thames lighter that they have converted into a luxurious four-bedroom home called Sturdy, in Bembridge harbour on the Isle of Wight.
It was there, while watching a family emerge from a large house overlooking the beach, that Moore, a lifelong Londoner, found inspiration for The Garnett Girls. 'I was intrigued how it would feel growing up in a waterfront community like Bembridge, where everyone knows your name and history.'
It's a similarly close-knit community on Taggs, she says. 'Just walking to the nearest bus stop can take time as you'll stop to chat to 20 people on the way.'
Small-island living comes with great benefits too. 'Inevitably, part of the community is ageing and that comes with challenges when you are living on the water. But if you are ill or need help, the community is massively supportive. Living here is a great way to combat loneliness.' Moore ponders how easy it will be to jump on and off Betsy when she's older.
But for now there's the next novel to consider — set on an island, naturally, only this time in the Hamptons. No doubt her gently rising and falling window over the water will help to fuel her imagination again. 'Island living anywhere,' she says, 'is about the tight-knit community and living so close to nature.'
