Last summer, Becker-Hughes decided to go rayballing for the first time since her childhood, after receiving the necessary permits. For millions of years, European eels have made their extraordinary migration from the Sargasso Sea across the Atlantic to the rivers of Europe. To successfully restore eels to Somerset’s waterways, they believe, they also need to be restored in the hearts and minds of the people who live here. “There’s something really calming and quite magical about the way that the eels move,” she says. Although there was DNA evidence of eels in the river, the waterways on either side showed very few or none.