Downstream

finding a place where there
was a beach on public land
and you could get in and out.
Depth was the big issue; one
step and you could be out of
your depth, but we knew our
own strip.’
But in the mid-1950s she
stopped swimming in the
Thames because ‘it was seen
as something not to do, and
you had the alternative of a
clean warm indoor pool. And
one day I saw a steamer