Sweet Thames flow softly

Like millions of others, I watch X Factor.

It doesn't mean I think it is the greatest television fare I have sampled, or that I consider the music, even at its best, much more than than superior karaoke.

But it is a rare event that brings the family together and it is undeniably entertaining.

One of the surviving crop of contenders, who may - depending on which version is to be believed - be either a humble painter and decorator or a posh lad coming on all working class, is called Matt Cardle. He recently rose above the rest, for me, with a superb interpretation of The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face.

And this is where my highly developed sense of inverted snobbery comes in. The song was not written by or even for Roberta Flack, who made it famous.

It was written by the late Ewan MacColl, a chippy, lippy, leftie folk singer, for his wife Peggy Seeger (another one). I believe he wrote it in 1962, a full 10 years before Flack had her hit with it.

MacColl wrote numerous other songs, arguably many of them better than this love ballad, good as it is.

And one was Sweet Thames Flow Softly, another love song, to which I dedicate this little pictorial relic of a walk along the banks of the river. Nothing special - all pictures taken with a mobile phone, to add technical limitations to my photographic deficiencies.

But I enjoyed the walk, and even enjoyed taking the photos.

Extract from Lyrics, which can be seen in full here:

I met my girl at Woolwich Pier
Beneath the big cranes standing
And oh, the love I felt for her
It passed all understanding

Took her sailing on the river
Flow sweet river, flow
London town was mine to give her
Sweet Thames flow softly

Made the Thames into a crown
Flow sweet river, flow
Made a brooch of Silver town
Sweet Thames flow softly

At London Yard I held her hand
At Blackwall Point I faced her
At the Isle of Dogs I kissed her mouth
And tenderly embraced her

(c) Stormking Music, Inc.
MC