Downstream

Beach, and means swimming
under the longest pleasure
pier in the world, just as in
Victorian times the Southend
Swimming Club held its
annual long-distance swim
from the pier head.
Jane Bell has done the
Great Pier Swim four times in
a row, and before she joined
the Redcaps she ‘had little
knowledge of how the tides
work in Southend, as I didn’t
grow up here. I was perhaps a