Downstream

just one newspaper article,
dated September 1895, which
explains, ‘we announced that
Sam Martin, of Woolwich
Baths, would attempt the
great swim from Blackwall to
Gravesend. He has done it –
that is the attempt. But he did
not quite succeed in the task.’
Only two others had managed
this nineteen-and-a-half-mile
course, Captain Webb and
Fred Bownes. Martin almost
made it; he only had half a