Too Big River

 

The Thames was always too wide,

estuary gaping greys, muddy as midge marshes, 

a city tart corseted at Chelsea and not so fresh 

below Twickenham tickles under the bridge. 

‘50s fish bloated there in sweating summers 

as children were daily calipered by polio. 

Such are capitals – swank in the press, 

stench beneath pressings.

 

Don’t give us waterfalls, rills, burns, streamlets 

dithering from sources, groping ways to swill 

round tussocks at the low hills’ feet, 

slapping past stones to forward direction 

through urban dirt and the bleak of open sea, 

all beginnings lost in salt. Dilute the downthrust, 

fritter away the fresh; the fish don’t care 

and the end is always hopeless.

 

The canal, now! There’s sparkle on the no-flow 

except at sluicing time when boats chug to drop, 

no horses here to heave and snort, the perfect 

circle where a moorhen dibbles and dips, 

where the swans’ wake laps into reeds. 

Light flicks and nips at the crest of wavelets 

as down the while of long water a lone 

wren rattles and churrs.

Time to Write: London Swimming

 

My brothers and I were lucky as children. We were a short walk from the Latchmere Baths in Battersea, so learned to swim there, going at least twice a week until the polio epidemic struck in the 50s and my mother banned us from the baths for some years. But what she didn't know was something safest not to tell her until we were adults.

I must have been somewhere around 9 or 10, my brothers younger, when the three of us hit on a plan for secret swimming. I was deemed old enough to be in charge of my brothers and my parents had already introduced us to many of the local parks and commons in south London, including those that had stands of wild fruit of one sort and another. Weekend family picnics were common during the long summer holidays, but there came a time when we were trusted to go in a threesome with a basket of lunch goodies and to be back in time for tea. Barnes Common was a favourite because we'd found a secret dell which held blackberries, wild raspberries and crab apple trees. Nobody seemed to have found out about its existence as there was always plenty of fruit ripe for the picking.

One day towards the end of a very hot summer holiday, we came up with a plan. We begged my mother to let us go for a picnic to Barnes Common. She was probably glad to be rid of us for a few hours and agreed, also adding in 3 empty fruit baskets for fruit-pickings. On the picnic morning, my brothers and I donned our swim suits under our clothes. We didn't dare take towels because my ma would have guessed what we were up to. We went to Barnes, taking our daft red setter, Rusty, with us, had our picnic, picked the fruit and took the short walk down to the Thames, in which we and the dog were soon swimming. We knew we had to leave enough time to dry off in the sun and for my long hair and the dog to dry before we could go home, which we duly did.

It had been a hot, lazy day. There were dead fish floating on the Thames water and there was a polio epidemic thriving. Thames pollution in those days was high. My mother would have killed us all had she known!

We realised we were all pretty smelly as we dried off. To hide the evidence we walked the long walk home from Clapham Junction station because there was a horse trough at the top of Battersea High Street and we knew we had to get some of the Thames stink off the dog, my hair and our swimwear before we got home. That dog loved water of any description, so another opportunity for a dip meant no tussling with her. Then we ran around the back streets nearest to our grandparents on the way home, waving our swim suits and racing the dog so that all was dry by the time we reached there. Ma welcomed the fruit but kept asking about the odd smell! The three of us didn't dare to exchange conspiratorial looks because she would have guessed something was up. We'd all perfected dead-panning!

For the next couple of years and towards the end of the summer vac. we did the same. My mother was puzzled because we chose to go to Barnes Common so often. I learned to dive off the steps at Barnes as theThames tide went out and was well pleased with myself. Really sneaky kids, us!

I developed a bad allergy to chlorine in my early teens, so swimming was restricted after that as I didn't like swimming in sea water. But when at college and I was living in Hampstead, I remember swimming in the pond at Hampstead Heath. Not in winter, though; it was too cold. It was the only clean-water pool in London, but I wasn't that fond of the sqidgy mud under my feet  and chose to wear plimsolls after the first couple of swims.

I remember the Christmas we told my mother about our sneaky ways at Barnes. I must have been in my late 20s, my brothers a few years younger. We got the nagging then that we would have got as children, but laughed and said she hadn't complained about the fruit we'd brought back. Her final comment? "You could have died." True enough, but I reckoned what we must have been inoculated against on swallowing polluted London Thames water.

 

                                                    The Latchmere Baths