I’ve always loved the pleasure boats that carry passengers up and down the Thames and I wrote in a recent column that as a youngster in the 1950s I used to enjoy watching the steamers coming and going from the pier at Richmond as they carried passengers upstream to Hampton Court or downstream to Westminster.
My heart goes out to the families and friends of those who died when a small boat carrying six people overturned close to Pharoah’s Island at Shepperton.
During the Second World War, people from all walks of life did their bit for the country in whatever ways they could – among them, helping to protect key installations like locks, bridges and weirs on the River Thames as members of the Upper Thames Patrol (UTP).
