This was a convenient way to ‘somewhere’ and back again. Every week, at 10 years old, I did the family shop at a grocery store at Lower Swanwick.  I was to take this journey along the Hamble, from our houseboat at Crableck until we moved into a house 2 years later.

The Hamble flows from the Southampton water and is subject to a double tide; first the tide flows from English Channel into the Solent between the mainland and the Needles then it flows from the east around the opposite end of the island up the Solent from Portsmouth. While, this has a positive value to the Southampton Docks and the ships coming and going, the constant flux on the shoreline was trying for the vulnerable users

There was no clear path, any foot prints were washed away with the tide and covered with debris depending on the season and…