Kept 'Camden'? Most people do, and a London paper would put it first, but where it happened tells a reader in Sydney or Ohio nothing about what happened, and the five needs the age, the woman, the verb and the man before it can afford a place. 'Jumped' is the other one people fight for, and it says how she got in; 'saved' says what came of it.
This one really happened. On a Friday lunchtime in September, Beatrice Millar, 71, was walking the towpath at Camden Lock with her husband when she heard a splash and saw a small crowd at the edge of the water, where a man was floating face down. Someone was asking if anyone could swim, and nobody was getting in. She took her shoes off, jumped in, held his head out of the water and brought him to the side, where they were both pulled out, and he came round with the paramedics. She told the Islington Tribune she remembered the life-saving drills she had learned at school aged about nine, that it was hard work because he was not a small man, and that she wanted to carry on with her walk afterwards until her husband talked her into going home to dry off.
Every word, accounted for
AtA little word. It only holds the sentence together.
CamdenWhere it happened, and the word most people keep. A paper in London would put it first, and readers in the rest of the world would still not know what was in the water or who went in after it. Where is the last thing the five can afford.
LockGoes with Camden. The market and the towpath, not the story.
aA little word. It only holds the sentence together.
71-year-oldWhy this is news at all. A crowd stood on the towpath asking if anyone could swim, and the one who went in was 71.
womanWho did it. Without this word the five could be about a man, and half of the people we tried it on assumed it was.
BeatriceHer first name, and the surname next to it already names her.
MillarThe woman who did it, and the hardest word here to let go of. The five keeps her age instead, because the age is the reason a stranger stops reading, and the name is the sentence straight after it.
tookGoes with 'off her shoes'. The detail everyone remembers, and still the moment before the thing that mattered.
offA little word. It only holds the sentence together.
herA little word. It only holds the sentence together.
shoesThe best detail in the sentence, and a detail is not the story. She took them off, and then she did the thing.
jumpedHow she got into the water, and the word the doubters reach for. It says what she did on the way in; 'saved' says what came of it, and the five has room for one of them.
inA little word. It only holds the sentence together.
afterA little word. It only holds the sentence together.
aA little word. It only holds the sentence together.
drowningWhy she had to be quick, and the word that turns a woman getting into a canal into a rescue. Leave it out and she fished a man out of the water; keep it and he was dying in front of a crowd.
manWho she saved. He was floating face down when she got to him, and he came round with the paramedics.
andA little word. It only holds the sentence together.
savedWhat came of it. Not jumped, not held, not brought to the side: the one verb that says he lived.
himA little word. It only holds the sentence together.
byA little word. It only holds the sentence together.
holdingHow she did it. The method, and the story is the result.
hisA little word. It only holds the sentence together.
headGoes with holding. What she kept above the water.
aboveA little word. It only holds the sentence together.
waterWhere his head was kept. The canal already said water.