Downstream

Others have loved
swimming in this stretch of
the river, too, like actress
Margaret Rutherford who
enjoyed bracing dips in the
mid-1950s. It was at Shiplake
that she taught a friend’s
grandson to swim – a young
boy called Antony Worrall
Thompson, now a well-
known chef. ‘She was a bit of
an outdoor swimmer,’
explains her biographer,
Andy Merriman, ‘she once