Goldfish and the Self-opening Tin Box Company.

Fifty-five years ago I was sitting on a grassy bank, threw some crumbs from my lunch into the river and watched the goldfish rise up through the murk. This was not a pond in an East London park but Barking Creek, which begins its journey as the River Roding in Great Dunmow, flows through Abridge, Epping Forest, Wanstead Park, Ilford and empties into the River Thames at Creekmouth. In Barking it ran along the perimeter of the factory in which I was working during the summer holiday. I was fifteen and the factory made paint cans, which it imposingly named self-opening tin boxes. My part in this company, which had invented the first cans not to require a tin-opener, was to operate the machine which made the holes in the tin sheets for the handles. Joan called the machine the caplunker and said she liked it. "But I've been working on it all week, I'm so bored!" I complained. "How long have you been on it, Joan?"
"Twenty-five years," she said.
I see on Google maps that the Self-opening Tin Box Company (and Joan) have been replaced by a Tescos but the river Roding flows on and the grassy bank is now a footpath.
One day, I shall return with a sandwich and feed the goldfish.