Downstream

for little ones’. King George
V had been petitioned for
permission to create the
beach and, in a letter read out
by Lord Wakefield, he
assured local children that
they would ‘have this tidal
playground as their own for
ever’. Wakefield cut a white
tape to open the beach and
then, reported The Times, ‘the
ladder was lowered, to the
music of cheerful siren-blasts
from ships in the Thames’.