In St. Mary's Church down the road, there is a stained glass window commemorating the lives of ferry passengers who died in the Herald of Free Enterprise disaster.
After lunch on the beach, I talk to two silver swimmers, hale and hearty in their eighties, who are there with other older friends. They are called Jean and Rita. Rita tells me about her husband, who died at 81 with emphysema, and the hard work he put in to stay well. Rita prefers not be photographed, but this is Jean (and this is my lunch) . .
Rita's husband's condition was partly caused through his inhaling oil when his boat, the Lancastrian, sank in the English Channel during World War II. At the time, the loss of two to three thousand men was considered so serious for morale that Churchill had the incident suppressed.
