Peace beside the tidal Thames near Stanford-le-Hope in the county of Essex

Forty minutes walk from Stanford-le-Hope railway station, along residential avenues and a service road that leads to the nature reserve, past a single story brick built municipal transformer station that hummed in the hot afternoon sun, down a stony footpath where we stopped to pick blackberries and over the freight railway line to the nearby London Gateway deepwater container port  via the level crossing, we found this hidden away beach. It is set back from the main channel of the Thames in a small bay. The beach was empty except for one other family. We put the microphones to record in a sheltered spot and retired to brew tea on a camping stove, then relaxed to the lapping waves and the sound of the children playing happily in the sand. This is almost twenty four minutes of pure bliss As the tide goes out and the waves change. The engine of a marine vessel moored some way off emits a low bass note. Occasionally a deep industrial thud can be heard from the container port. Towards the end the mud slightly fizzes as it is exposed to the air. A lone bird calls faintly as it scours the fresh mud for food. A propellor plane hums distantly over in the South West.