Downstream

Gillian, meanwhile, wasn’t
allowed to take a boat out on
her own until she could swim
across the river to Fry’s
Island and back, so her uncle
taught her in the Thames
when she was around eleven.
‘We went in from our own
landing stage outside what
had once been Bill Moss’s
boathouse and continued to
swim from there every
summer. For others who
wanted to swim it was about