Downstream

his father worked as a granary
foreman in the old Surrey
Docks. When she was
seventeen she joined the PLA
as a typist. ‘The social life
was wonderful,’ she recalled,
‘the main thing I can
remember is the swimming
club they used to have [and]
swimming galas there in the
West India Dock.’ She
belonged to the Lewisham
Ladies Swimming Club,
separate from the PLA but