Downstream

have worked on the river for
25 years,’ he told the press,
‘and I have seen a number of
bodies pulled from the river.
This guy didn’t have long to
go.’ But locals such as TV
personality and author
Bamber Gascoigne still enjoy
river swimming. His first
time in the Thames was
during his schooldays at Eton
in the late 1940s: ‘it was a
tributary, a sluggish
backwater, and a normal