Saturday 17 March 2018

Stories of Woolwich and the River Thames ........... you never quite knew about

Now I have just gone off and ordered the book, Ferries of the Lower Thames by Joan Tucker on the recommendations of my old friend Tricia.

In fourteen chapters it covers the story of our river from Staines down to Yanlet Creek.

Now Staines I knew but Yanlet Creek I had to look up and discovered it is 54 km as the crow flies from London Bridge and was the formal limit of the jurisdiction of the City of London, and yes Staines marks the other boundary.

So that explains the fourteen chapters of which for many of us it will be the two covering the Isle of Dogs, Greenwich and Woolwich which will of real interest.

And Tricia picked out a fascinating description of the ferries and Tommy Tucker who was a captain on one of the ferries.

He will always be linked to the writer Edith Nesbit who lived at Well Hall.  It is a story I have written about in the past and will go back to.

Suffice to say at the time and even now the relationship was the subject of some poor comments on the part of people who misunderstood the couple and their politics.

Both were in the Woolwich Labour Party which over half a century later I joined aged 16 in 1966 and for the details having read the blog stories I suggest you go to Tricia's choice of a good read for January.

Picture; cover of Ferries of the Lower Thames by Joan Tucker, 2013 Amberley Publishing

Location; London

*Ferries of the Lower Thames, by Joan Tucker, 2013 Amberley Publishing,

**Edith Nesbit

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