A couple of weeks back I wrote about Phil McCarthy, the father of a lady called Dinah Ballantyne, who was a member of the Home Guard given the responsibility for protecting Penton Hook Lock during the dark days of the Second World War.
During the 1950s, the River Thames was officially branded a biologically ‘dead’ river. It suffered from all kinds of pollution – both from industrial waste and from sewage – that was being pumped into it. Little could survive in the water and anyone falling into it risked major infection.
As most readers will know, I’m a big fan of historic boats of all kinds – everything from Thames sailing barges, through classic ‘gentleman’s yachts’ of the 1920s and 30s right through to Royal Navy warships.
