MixedThe Telegraph (UK)Maiklem’s storytelling shines when it’s focused tightly on her finds ... She collects everyday trifles like pins and bottle tops that might not fetch much at auction but offer a precious glimpse into how ordinary people once lived. Her imagined histories for her special finds read like waterborne fairy-stories, a hard kernel of truth clothed in mythical finery. Interspersed with these are somewhat less captivating diversions about the river’s broader history – retellings of well-known events that have received more detailed exegesis in comprehensive volumes ... Indeed, part of Maiklem’s premise is that most Londoners know very little of their river, but I’m not sure how well that claim stacks up, especially given her own large social media following and the popularity of other works on this topic ... Maiklem has also fallen prey to modern publishing’s insistence on inserting memoir into all non-fiction, no matter how relevant it may or may not be to the subject at hand ... By far the most arresting portions are those that deal with the practicalities of mudlarking. Reading it, I felt like I was down on the foreshore myself, sifting through the pages for titbits ... Yet these morsels are tantalisingly brief. The book contains an undercurrent of secrecy and competitiveness that seems inherent to the mindset of a passionate mudlark ... This is the paradox, which Maiklem lays bare: the erosion of the Thames foreshore is an environmental concern and a sad loss, but as the mud breaks down, treasures from ages past come to light. The mudlarks are snatching London’s history back from the river, piece by piece, before it disappears.
