Everybody dies, don't think?

Everybody come back.

Isn't that so?

You tried to get into the locked drawn today, didn't you?

How do the dead come back, mother?

What's the secrets of they dead come back, mother? What's the secrets of dead come?

Thames Dark Halloween Ale by Tony Walker.

I'm a Northern boy in the big smoke, though for me it's not so much where you're from is what you end up that matters.

And if you end up by the Thames, sooner or later you

learn that the river has moods. It drags things up in us, not only the dead, but parts of the

living we thought we'd buried. Our greed, our cowardice, our corruption, the small betrayals London runs on.

Betrayals? Yeah. That's the word.

I came down in 87 when the dock still smelled of tar and diesel and you could rent a room above a pub without references or questions.

None of this identification they're so keen on now.

Then if you said you were called Tony, that's what you were called.

They didn't need you to produce five pieces of official identification

that showed you'd been christened John Anthony and then claim you were lying when you said you were called Tony.

Ah, forgive me, I'm a bit grumpy these days.

My knees and back give me jip.

Probably from hauling all those barrels over the years since it all began.

Anyway, like I say, I just kind of drifted into town.

I've been working on a local newspaper up north as a sort of cub reporter,

...