Downstream

were taught to swim. In the
end Vinten was fined ten
shillings on condition of good
behaviour for three months.
I walk around the Cutty
Sark and turn right along the
Thames Path and there it is,
right in front of me, a scene
straight out of the archive
photographs I’ve been
looking at all morning. Here
is the exact same strip of
beach, the same unchanged
set of stone steps. But there