John Betjeman always captures Englishness best. “Underneath a light straw boater/ in his pink Leander tie/ ev’ry ripple in the water caught the Captain in the eye.” Titled “Henley Regatta 1902”, four years before Betjeman was born, it was written in 1941, when people most needed to be reminded of a distant pleasure.

Some say Henley, which this year runs from 27 June to 2 July, is still essentially an Edwardian garden party with a bit of rowing tacked on. Betjeman’s “sheds of Brakspear’s Brewery” became a boutique hotel in 2002, but the “strings of pennants house-boat high” and “baskets of geraniums swinging over river-gardens” remain. This straight stretch of the Thames, where Oxfordshire meets Buckinghamshire and Berkshire, is a joy once you get there, for the traffic jam down Remenham Hill and the crush on the train from Twyford can be hell. Yet it is wrong to think of it as a never-changing social occasion.

It’s true that when the Regatta was first held in 1839 (it has been Royal since 1851), the mayor’s main motivation was to lure tourists to the town, but it has long provided top-quality sport, especially since foreign crews arrived from 1878 to test the on-course commentators. A few years ago I heard one announce “a race between Frankfurter Rudergesellschaft Eintausendachthundertneunundsechzig”, followed by a pause and then the slightly needless “… of Germany. Against Wallingford.”

At 2,112 metres, the course requires barely a dozen more strokes than an international race. But with two boats racing side-by-side, win or go home, rather than six seeking two or three qualifying spots, it gives a greater intensity, which is why leading coaches want to test their boats there. The British men’s eight who won the Grand Challenge Cup in 2015 all won gold at the Olympics the next year. 

The regatta is not afraid to change, though it did take 160 years to abandon the amateurs-only rule and women’s races were excluded for almost as long. Internationals Astrid Ayling and Pauline Hart entered the men’s double sculls in 1978 under their initials and maiden names, but were rumbled and kicked out. Women got their own trophies only in 1993.

Since 2017, however, there has been an equal number of events for men and women and a push to expand events beyond the traditional powerhouses. In 2021, Mossbourne Community Academy in Hackney, rebuilt on the site of the worst school in Britain, qualified to race Hampton in the boys’ eights. It has been brought to a wider audience by streaming races on YouTube, backed by drone footage.

Some change has come about through drastic measures

Some change has come about through drastic measures. In 1868, Walter Woodgate asked the cox of the Brasenose College four to jump overboard at the start of a Stewards’ Cup race to lighten the load. The crew, steering with a rope attached to the stroke’s toes, won and were disqualified; five years later it was agreed to make the Stewards’ a coxless race. The jettisoned cox, Frederic Weatherly, later found fame by writing “Danny Boy”.

The women’s dress code in the Stewards’ Enclosure was changed two years ago, dropping the strict rule of “no divided skirts, culottes or trousers of any kind” after 1,700 signed a petition. There is, however, no easing of the hemline rule — Henley is not yet ready to see a woman’s knees — nor can perspiring men strip without permission, which has happened only once since the heatwave of 1976.

But who would want to remove such gloriously technicoloured blazers? Henley makes a Pride march seem drab. When the Remenham Club, halfway down the course, was founded by seven London clubs in 1909 they couldn’t agree whose colours to put on their socks and ties so used them all: red, blue, pink, black, white and green. It was at Remenham, incidentally, that I heard a unique ice-breaker when Andrew Probert, a former Cambridge cox, distracted Lord Snowdon from his young female companions with the line: “I believe we are the only polio victims to cox a Boat Race.”

Henley offers something for everyone. Yes, there are the braying networkers who make you wonder if Bucks and Berks refers to them rather than the riverbanks, but you can avoid them. Most of the course doesn’t require a badge or blazer, never mind an old school tie. Take your picnic to the start by Temple Island and you will find a rural idyll where the only spectators are you and a few swans. Then amble back watching crews speed past every few minutes, accompanied by an esoteric commentary that flows over you somewhat incomprehensibly — like the Shipping Forecast: “Abingdon, on Bucks, rating higher, pass the Barrier in 1.52.”

Soon you hear the famous Remenham roar and the bars and stalls come thick and fast. Then, with the right clothes and a ticket, finish back in 1902 at Stewards’ with its brass band, deckchairs and ban on phones. It is there, where the applause can be as loud as the blazers, that you realise why Sir Steve Redgrave, who won 20 Henley medals, called it “the nearest rowers get to racing in a football stadium”. After that, you need another drink. I was always grateful that the press tent wisely served us free gin and tonic: watching rowing is thirsty work.