Downstream

was not too cold, and it’s not
big seas, though it can get
choppy, and I was going with
the tide.’ But he says
Derham’s crossing in the
1920s ‘would be a no-no
now, you couldn’t take the
course he took because of
shipping’. Just as with
Matthew Parris, who swam
across the Thames in central
London, Peter says, ‘Yes I
would do the estuary again;
living here and looking at it