Field of Dust

September 3rd, 1878. The paddle steamer SS Princess Alice is making a 'Moonlight Trip' from Northfleet on the Thames Estuary to Swan Pier near London Bridge. Close to Woolwich town, she collides with the collier Bywell Castle which slices her in two. Within minutes the Alice sinks to the bottom of the river. Six hundred and fifty Londoners lose their lives. It is the worst maritime disaster in Thames history. For days the bloated bodies of men, women and children are hauled out of the stinking river, watched by the children of The Creek, a dust-blown harbour community whose forty six cottages and three ale houses sustain the lives of the labourers and their families who toil in the cement factories lining the Northfleet riverbank.For the ordinary people who live, breathe, love and die amid the dust and grime, the choking atmosphere of the cement factories is taken for granted. For the factory owners, the air they breathe is fresh by comparison. They live above it all. After...