Downstream

arrived in Reading he
declared ‘the river is dirty and
dismal here’. But that didn’t
stop bathers, although the fact
they were naked, as
elsewhere on the Thames,
was a ‘public nuisance’,
according to the press. In the
summer of 1888 ‘Disgusted
of Wargrave’ complained that
‘a dozen or more men and
boys lark about the banks in a
state of nudity’ at Reading
and Caversham.