Watching the salmon leap up the rapids and carving our names in the rock alongside generations of other Rothbury folk. Hearing the strange underwater echo of voices and laughter as you jumped in. There was one particular spot where it was almost considered a leap of faith to jump across.

Funnily enough, this was also the spot that the infamous King of the Gypsies Willie Faa leapt over when being persued by Lord Clennel's men after kidnapping his three-year-old child – and threatening to hurl him into the racing brown water unless they gave up the chase. The kidnapping was a retaliation for Clennel burning out Faa's encampment between Keyheugh and Clovencrag, and led to a tit-for-tat Coquetdale feud that lasted 30 years.

When Clennel was fighting for the Royalist cause during the Civil War, he was taken prisoner by Roundhead troops at the battle of Worcester and handed over to the Faa's who deemed to have him shot at dawn. Faa had Clennel hooded so his executioner – Clennel's own son that Faa had threatened to throw in the Thrum – could not identify him.

But in a strange twist of fate, Elsbeth Faa – a former wife of Willie – stepped forward and warned the young man that he was about to kill his own father. They returned to Northumberland unharmed and took Elsbeth with them.

There are numerous other spots over water up the valley known as Reiver's leaps where border bandits, laden down with booty and a sheep on their back, are supposed to have jumped and fallen in, drowning under the weight of their plunder.

But the Thrum Mill is the most impressive spot. Watching the ripples on the water as the fish rise to feed and the slender long-legged grey heron eyeing them before spearing them with a long sharp beak, the copper leaves falling from the trees and settling at the edge of the frothing white foam.