Downstream

made the river safer and
cleaner, and ‘reconciled the
diverse ways in which the
tidal Thames is used’. Out of
habit I turn to the index and
look up ‘Swimming’. There is
a single reference in the 230-
page book: the PLA’s
swimming club’s annual
open-air gala at the Millwall
Cutting at the West India
Dock in the early 1930s,
watched by 4,000 people. A
page on sport on the river