The old disused canal that carried away the cargo from the tall ships is overgrown now, only a foot wide rivulet twists and winds its way through the reeds and rusting metal history that lay in his shallows. The same sun still illuminates and dapples ripples on the same source of water and rainbow oils; trickle, and move along the canal due East to the Dickens marsh. Follow the old tow path through the corrugated industrial ghost town, buildings of excellence four stories and over. Hosanna Crane gantries herald your arrival and form a guard of honour thirty foot overhead, still creaking in anticipation of another load, they hang sad in red lead and black gloss peeled away by fifty years of summer days. The ghosts of slavering Alsatian and Bull Terriers still tear the silence apart with voiceless barks, men in overalls soaked with diesel and Thames water still appear in quiet doorways smoking a Navy Cut, having a quiet break, the shift soon over. I still remember the ghost town feel, so much latent energy so very quiet, huge hangers that housed heavy machinery and masses of cable, the hanger halls echo with occasional flaps of pigeon wings. Flap flap flap flap flap, there always seemed to be five flaps of flight between perch.
The miles of marsh lay ahead; can't see the river much these days, the sea defence wall keeping an eye on the cattle and sheep grazing the delta pastures. Arched metal iron shelters define ownership along with piles of burnt out cars on the no man lands, the offshore breeze playing whistling sounds through a rusty glove box, inanimate performance art. Lush lush green fields punctuated with impenetrable copse, overlooked by the slowly revolving army green radar that towers high in the distance in search of moving metal, Estuary Delta world. The canal disappears into a juicy swollen ever changing green vein and directs itself into the horizons evening sun tall shadows of wood and Poplar, wind breaking the Rape and Hops.
Never too far away from the Thames, old industry decays, disused Wisteria choked one pump petrol stations still whiff of four star, monolithic silo's, tons and tons of rusting cement kiln iron, red tiger striped from each rivet caused by decades of salt water spray, slowly, relentlessly decompose most of what was man made.
Nature slowly takes it back, camouflaging and swallowing the ideas of those long passed away. No use for the Thames anymore, no river traffic apart from the giant floating housing estates of container ships drifting silently to Tilbury. My childhood is still there somewhere if only in sunny day memories of ice cream, regatta's, coloured funnels and the occasional haunting sound from a Destroyer in the fog.
