Flotsam

I always thought that flotsam was carried out by receding tide or current and that jetsam was what was washed ashore, I was wrong.

Long ago, London had thriving docks much closer than Tilbury. On the Isle of Dogs (perhaps a corruption of Isle of Dykes, or Isle of Ducks but apparently not Isle of Docks) we had East India Dock, West India Dock and Millwall Dock, and across the river and closer to the City we had Surrey Docks. All of these docks supported a large community of dock-workers and their families, living close by in predominantly social housing.

Surrey Docks ceased operating in 1969 and the others followed suit during the '70s with the final closure in 1980.

In 1979 Margaret Thatcher came to power as a result of her profligate idea to sell off social housing to its tenants for a snip. It was as nonsensical as Brexit, and a more significant vote-winner.

Since then, the repercussions of Thatcherism have seen financial institutions grow obese and their staff snap up the riverfront. Where there used to be two storey cottages with front and back gardens there are now five-storey apartment blocks with balconies. And you'd never guess, but the communities who had lived there for generations can no longer afford to do so. Bit by bit they have floated downstream and come to rest in the mud of the Medway Estuary.

And with no local culture remaining, East London's Eel, Pie & Mash shops have also needed to drift downstream in order to survive.

This may look as though it has been there forever, but it opened here only four weeks ago.

God bless the resilient.