This is a day I’ll not forget! I had a day off and so did my friend Pete, we had planned to shoot photographs along the Thames…this was another one of those occasions when the best made plans don’t really work out. Actually, there was no real plan, we just planned to go and shoot, have some fun – Pete was going to dress up in his leathers, I would shoot. The banks of the Thames seemed like a good idea and a cool place to do a shoot, there wasn’t any thoughts or planning, it was just another one of my good ideas, or so it seemed.
It was still the good ole days of film, however, I wasn’t taking my Olympus gear with me on this occasion. I had recently bought an up-market compact camera, I think it was a Konica, though I don’t recall the model nor do I have it any longer though it survived this day, without a scratch. What I do remember about it was that it had a couple of neat tricks, one of which was to fire a rapid burst onto a single frame of film.
When the day arrived, Pete called round at my house and we walked to Clapham Junction and caught a 19 or 49 bus down towards Chelsea, getting off on our side of the river – Battersea. Remember no thought had been given about how we were going to get down on river, nor had we given any thoughts to tides and indeed if the tide was out so we could actually get down onto the bank – I’m stressing the lack of thought! These were days before the internet, no Google searches or anything at your fingertips. As I have already mentioned, we hadn’t given anything much thought. We were out for a bit of fun!
So, without any attention or knowledge of tides, as it happened, the tide was out and our luck was in, again no thought about how to get down to the river bank itself. However, we did find stairs going down from street level pretty easily, so off we went.
The first jolt assailed us before we even got onto the riverbank, with the tide out…it was the smell, or should I say stench! It was appalling. The next realization followed almost immediately as we stepped onto the riverbed and the thick, disgustingly cloying mud which clung to our shoes unmercifully. Still here we were and I was going to take photos, so we started and it ended pretty quickly!
I still have some of those photos taken long ago, they’re here somewhere in the house, but unfortunately you won’t see them today, as I can’t find them. I shot them on film, colour negative as I recall. Whatever was in our minds, as far as planning was concerned – not much remember, came to an unwelcome and abrupt end. I don’t remember how much time we spent down there; I know it was very short. The object and circumstances that brought about the end to our epic river adventure was a large boat. Yes, there are boats of all shapes and sizes on the Thames. I’m confident we knew this, but it hadn’t been factored into our thinking and now here was a large ferry going along it’s way…and it was creating a large wake. We stood in admiration at the sight and our proximity of this large craft - the magnificent wake it had created for a few, brief moments, when reality dawned on us that the magnificently large wake was heading our way! It was coming toward us fairly quickly.
I have no real memory of what was said at the point of our newly dawned reality, but, as one, we both made an abrupt about face and ran, as best we could, for the stairs and safety. However, there was the thick, cloying, putrid mud and it held onto our shoes with hateful vengeance, this wasn’t going to be easy and it wasn’t looking good! As we ran, mud splatted up onto us, it was cold and rancid stuff, but we didn’t care, we had to escape the large wake heading for us. I can’t swim!!
Everything was happening really fast, though it didn’t seem like that – it was like a dream – a bad one. I had a brief thought about drowning, I didn’t even like the film Titanic (1953 – that was the only one I had seen). This couldn’t possibly be happening, but it was. I stopped short when I heard Pete, who was behind me, call out in aguish – turning, I saw that he had fallen face down into the stinking, fetid mud. It was also, at this point, that I realized, the wake wasn’t going to reach us – phew! Pete, I think this was lost on him, in that moment, he was preoccupied with trying to get up. Something in the mud was holding onto him. No, it was just the mud. I don’t remember helping Pete up (sorry Pete), he was a real state, we both reeked of the stinking mud, but Pete smelled worse than I did, he was covered from (several failed efforts of trying to get up) head to toe with it. Whether or not people saw us and the amusing spectacle we presented, unfolding before them, I have no idea – we were beyond caring.
...well ~ I found one!!
The only thing left to tell you is the fleeting memory I have of our journey home – yes, on the bus. We stood at the back of the bus (a Route Master – you boarded at the back), we smelled disgusting, Pete looked like something out of a horror movie. No one came near us; we looked pathetic, we were miserable, we smelled ghastly – did I mention that? and we never spoke the entire journey home. I don’t remember anything else.
There were no more adventures that week.
As I don't have photographs from that day to hand, the photos in this post are from other days along the Thames.