A correspondent writes: While strolling down the London Embankment at midnight lately I stopped to watch the operations of a breakdown gang on the tramway line. The night was bitterly cold; yet there stood beside me a young man in an open-necked shirt, flannel shorts and white shoes. When I remarked that he ran a grave risk of pneumonia, he smiled and told me that his occupation demanded it.
"You see," he said, "I am a life-saver, or, at most times, a body-finder, and I get paid for it. There are many other men along here like me, but I usually work from Westminster Bridge to Blackfriars Bridge. You see, men and women who despair of life, climb the battlement and jump into the river. I go in after them. If I can rescue or bring one to Westminster Wharf, I get seven and six. At Lambert Wharf, further up, the fee is five shillings, but the men up there often swim down to Westminster. I then go home, get dry clothes and come back again."
He told me before going on his route that he sometimes earned as much as thirty shillings in one night.
The Irish Times, January 17th, 1931.