Happy Days in Wapping

My first job in England was that the Prospect of Whitby in Wapping, East London and it was here I met the person I was eventually married. (However, my marriage did not last long - he died in a car accident in 1995). When I worked at the Prospect (it was in the days where some pubs shut at 3pm and reopened at 7pm), some of us found our self at another pub called the White Swan & Cuckoo when we worked split shifts. Other times we enjoyed Pimms & Lemonade at Shadwell basin.

However, after my husband died, and needing a new place to live, I ended up back in Wapping, and my new watering hole become the White Swan & Cuckoo. Some of the old faces from my days at the Prospect were still around but others became new friends.

We had some crazy times down there and it was always nice to see some familiar faces on Friday night after a hard week in the office. Eventually I moved away and lost touch with the folks from the Swan but when telling new friend about Wapping it was always two people who I remembered with found memories and I did actually class as good mates.

Last summer I took a trip down memory lane and went into both the Prospect and the Swan but none of the old faces were about. But it was 10 years since I was there last.

But it made me wonder about what happened to my old friends. So, just before I went to Greece, I searched through Facebook, as you do when bored, for Vanessa and Roger. When I came across Roger's profile pic and saw he hadn't changed a bit, I sent of an email to him and was pleased to be added to his friend list, then the other day Vanessa contacted me (I did poke her awhile back) and yesterday we all started to reminisce.

I just hadn't realised that, considering that it was soon after my husband died, that this was together with my time in Greece, was a truly happy time of my life. Don't get me wrong I am also happy now but I think that it was a different happy.

With a bit of luck the three of us will manage to get together again at the Swan soon and hopefully this time we will all stay in touch.

The past couple of days remembering the Swan, Vanessa and Roger has been great and taken my mind of my letter to Greece, which is very good!!