The lost Eltham & Woolwich pictures ...... no. 48 ..... my river

Now after almost half a century of living away from south east London I still miss the river.

And I am the first to say that it was a noisy, smelly and grimy place which could also be capricious and dangerous but it was part of home.

I loved the smell and the colour of the water which often came with  oily streaks, and I loved the fact that there was always something going on.

It might be a tug or a stately sailing ship or just the birds following a line of barges on their way down river.

And in the evening outside the Cutty Sark sitting with friends, the stillness of the night might be interupted as the moored barges banged together on the swel from a passing pleasure boat.

This was one of the pictures I took of Eltham and Woolwich in the mid ‘70’s which sat undisturbed in our cellar.

But all good things eventually come to light.

They were colour slides which have been transferred electronically.

The quality of the original lighting and the sharpness is sometimes iffy, but they are a record of a lost Eltham and Woolwich.

And this one really is a lost scene for which no more needs to be said.

Location; Woolwich

Picture; looking across the River, circa 1978, from the collection of Andrew Simpson