Pageant boats gather in West India Dock

Friday night, and the boats heading upriver for Sunday's pageant foregathered in the West India Dock. It wasn't well publicised and there were few poeple out on the quay looking at this unprecendented collection of canal barges, Dunkirk boats, wooden yachts, rescue boats and sundry craft. The RAF Rescue Boat 441 (pictured below) had only just been put in the water after eight years' loving restoration: see video. Another craft, a large open boat manned by a man and boy, had rescued 3,000 troops from Dunkirk's beaches.
Yet a stone's throw away at Canary Wharf thousands of finance workers were ten deep round the Friday night bars, oblivious of this historic moment. Tomorrow (Saturday) morning the boats will leave through the dock and head up the Thames to Putney and Barnes to moor overnight with the craft coming downriver, ready for the 1,000-boat pageant between Battersea Bridge and Tower Bridge on Sunday.