On the Thames at Greenwich with the Tall Ships Festival part 1, sunset

Now one of the things I miss about living in Manchester is the River Thames.

It starts when the train pulls across the river towards Waterloo and I then know I have come home.

Friends in the North never quite understand that distinction between south east London and the rest of the city.

But there it is.  In my case it was Lambeth where I was born, Peckham, New Cross and Deptford where I spent my early years and Eltham where the family settled in 1964.

And so the Thames still has a pull on me long after most other bits of London have faded.

So I was especially pleased when my friend Bernard let me publish a series of pictures he took recently of the Tall Ships Festival at Greenwich.

Bernard and I have known each other since the September of 1966 when we were the two new boys starting in the Sixth Form at Crown Woods.

For a while we lost contact but as so often happens with old friendships they are never severed forever.

And that is about all I want to say other than that over the next few weeks some more of his photographs of that day will make their way on to the blog.

Pictures; the Tall Ships Festival at Greenwich, September 2014, courtesy of Bernard Major