Downstream

overboard.’ As he got older,
‘we just grew out of it, and
they shut up the stairs and
built up behind them. The
stairs were for ships mooring,
there were jetties for the
seamen to walk up and we
used them, there were no
barriers then.’
John Daniel, who worked
as a Thames lighterman in the
1950s, also experienced the
dangers of the river, as
recorded by his son, Peter,