Granny Buttons

Great Mug of Ware

I'm sitting at my home desk, enjoying tea from a mug branded 'IWA Ware Boat Festival 2007'.

It's not mine; I stole it. Well, I 'salvaged' it. And I've always felt a little bit guilty about this.

The last time I was on the Stort, in early December 2008, I was passing down Sawbridgeworth Sheering Mill Lock at Sawbridgeworth when I stopped to photograph Granny beyond the lock beam - and  spotted the mug on the ground, in the far right corner (below).

I picked it up and put it on the lock beam, to give a sense of 'place' to the picture.  The 'Ware' reference spoke of 'Lee & Stort'.

The morning was frosty, and the mug had clearly been out all night. I thought it unlikely the owner was coming back.

What the heck, who'll be looking for it? If you'd left a cup behind, would you bother to come back for it - or expect to find it if you did?  (Even if you were a local boater; and it was likely this was a local boater, since Ware is only a day's cruising away.)

So I stole it.

In the last three years it's been perhaps my favourite cup, and  has been on Granny Buttons three times longer than the original owner ever had it - surely it's mine now?

It led me to thinking about all the other things I have which I've borrowed and never returned.  Things I daren't admit to  having - and yet the very fact that I love and treasure them is perhaps reason enough to keep them.

There's the staple gun, which I borrowed from an old girlfriend 25 years years ago, and it's the only tangible (albeit prosaically unromantic) item left from our relationship.  One of my most treasured possessions.

There's the Casio calculator a builder friend left behind when he was doing some decorating in my house in 1998.  He's dead now, so I can't return it. But he, in turn, borrowed an old clockwork photography darkroom timer of mine, and it became his wife's favourite kitchen timer so I never asked for it back.

There are other items too. These are my 'madeleines' - the guilt I have about them is enough to trigger a wave of memories each time I use them.

I thought about all this when a chap at Streethay Wharf, where I've been for the last four months, came up to ask me if I'd write about the Ware Boat Festival. He gave me a little poster, which of course I quickly lost. But not before I took it back to the boat and 'connected' it to my mug and felt guilty all over again.

Last week at the Little Venice Canal Cavalcade I saw the poster again, and the guilt came flooding back.

It would be nice to know if anyone remembers losing this Ware Boat Festival mug at Sawbridgeworth Lock, although I don't know if I'd give it back.

These customised mugs are jolly good PR value. The memory carries on. Whenever I'm drinking from my 'great mug of Ware' I think of the town, if not the annual boat festival. 

My grandfather was born in Ware. He liked to say to me "Ask me where I was born", and I'd asked him "Grandpa, where were you born?", and he'd say "Yes, that's right", and then he'd wheeze with laughter.

So whenever I see 'Ware', I think of my mug. My tableware.

By the way, is there a website for the Ware Boat Festival?  Waterscape & one or two other sites give it a cursory nod, but little more. It must be bigger than that to justify a celebratory IWA mug, surely?

Catching President and Kildare on their way to London

Over the last month, boats have been travelling to London for the upcoming Thames Diamond Jubilee Pageant.

Three weeks ago I was enjoying a relaxed Sunday morning inside Granny Buttons at Streethay when a whistle  tooted very loudly as a boat went past.

I knew immediately it was the steam narrowboat President towing Kildare, just like the chimes of Greensleeves tell you that ice cream is outside.

I rushed outside in a t-shirt, only to find a hailstorm starting.

Once I'd got back inside to put on a jacket , the boats had passed. I had to run a quarter-mile to catch up, and missed a chance for a decent photo. All I could catch was this snap of it passing under a railway bridge - although the steerer thoughtfully let off more steam when he saw my camera raised.

The Kildare crew were dressed for the part of the hailstorm and looked resigned but tolerant.

Just a couple of days later the pair were at Polesworth when press photographer Rod Kirkpatrick of F-Stop Press caught up with them and followed them up the Atherstone flight.

He enjoyed better weather, and the result was an excellent spread of seven photos in the Daily Mail showing President & Kildare set against the golden fields of rape.

Click here to see President & Kildare in all their glory on the Mail Online. 

I've never seen such good photos of President!  Leastways, none of such high quality all assembled together.

Incidentally, I know it's not fashionable to approve of the Daily Mail, but these days its website is truly an excellent publisher of good photojournalism, giving photographers the chance to showcase their work. 

It also gives a handy summary of each story in 'stacked headlines' like newspapers of old.

But that's just still photography. What about movie, what about video?

Assorted TV news programs gave them brief coverage on the way down to London. But if you want to see a nice clip of President passing through Berkhamsted, try Dee TV's "President chugs to Canalway Cavalcade".

(Click the picture above to view on the DeeTV website.)

DeeTV is a new local internet TV venture for the Berkhamsted area set up by veteran waterways supporter Lindy Foster-Weinreb and her family.

Lindy alerted us via an email that said:

Here is a film of President on her way to Cavalcade - feel free to use it on your web site or pass it on!

I assumed that meant we were invited to embed it, but after some time struggling I found that I couldn't.  It turned out that what she really mean to say was "Feel free to give us  a mention on your website."

Turns out they won't allow embedding, because the priority of the young business is to get advertising hits rather than to get the video viewed. 

To be fair, when I nagged Lindy and her daughter about this, they very kindly supplied me with a personalised embed code "just for you", but I couldn't get it to work.  Let me know if it works for you.

 

Still, it's a very nice little video, conveying a lot about President and Kildare in its 3:30mins - definitely one for canal fans.

DeeTV has different channels (see 'You Choose') for different subjects, and an 'In Your Area' section.  There's no 'Canal' category yet - I hope they add one and I look forward to more canal news from 'Berko'.

President & Kildare made it down to London in time for the Little Venice Cavalcade last weekend, and presumably for the rehearsal yesterday for the Thames Diamond Jubilee pageant, but I haven't heard about that yet.

Granny Ainsworth's Button Bags

American author Jim Ainsworth has written a charming piece on his blog, entitled Granny's Buttons. 

He records how his wife retained his mother's old spare button bags after she died:

My wife Jan spent a great deal of time caring for Mother in her final years. She cherishes the small things Mother left, things valuable only to those who loved her. Jan is a quilter, and she especially loved Mother’s collection of buttons.

For Christmas this year, she decided others needed to share this legacy. This is the note she wrote to the women and girls in our immediate family. The button bags were given to Mother’s granddaughters and great-granddaughters.

His wife's note to the next generation in the family begins:

Granny was very frugal, as were most women of her era.  As garments would wear out, Granny would cut off the buttons before disposing of the garment, saving them for future use. 

The buttons on your bag are some that she saved.  She would have thought it very special that they were placed on a bag made just for you, her granddaughter, with special keepsakes inside. 

Not a lot to do with canals, but I found it most charming, and - as you can see - it has a lot to do with buttons.  This counts as relevant to the subject of my blog, I think. 

Granny's Buttons by Jim Ainsworth

My own Mother wasn't a clothes button collector, although being brought up in WW2 she was frugal in her own way.  Granny Buttons acquired her soubriquet from her routine of always bringing packets of chocolate buttons to her grandchildren.

If you want a canal connection, here's another heartwarming story: 

Over five years ago I reported on how NB Emerald was burned by vandals at its moorings near Wolverhampton - and it only had the necessary 3rd-party insurance - owners Dave and Julie never imagined they'd be the target of arsonists.

The distraught owners were homeless, until fellow narrowboater Dave Pokhan stepped in to organise not just a collection to help rebuild it, but to arrange sponsorship from local businesses. 

The story is here on my post Emerald News and Friends of Emerald progress - and follow the links back to the original post).

Yesterday I passed Emerald, now beautifully restored.   Apparently it's now going to be called M2, or is it Em II?  It was hard to tell with our brief and shouted conversation as I passed. 

It took 18 months of restoration, but they got their home back, and more beautiful than before. It seemed churlish to ask them about insurance, but I'd love to know that side of the story.

Anyway, here's how it looks now - lovely, although rather more mauve or taupe than emerald.

Granny loses bid for place on the Thames Diamond Jubilee Pageant

Dismay!  I learned yesterday that Granny hasn't been accepted for a place on the Thames Diamond Jubilee Pageant , the 1,000-craft procession down the river on 3rd June 2012.

I was quick off the mark to apply, six months ago. Indeed, my application was the 116th received, so was in good time.

While there's sadness, then again it would have needed considerable effort and organisation for Granny to take part. And it would have required setting off for London a month earlier than planned.  So, really, everything is for the best.

As a consolation prize, they have offered me two tickets for a 'prime viewing area', which presumably means the right to be close enough to actually *see* the procession.

My ideal vantage point would be on London Bridge, looking towards Tower Bridge. There is no greater river view in the world. 

But all bridges will probably be closed on the day. They must be. Just think of all the juveniles waiting to droll and spit on the royal barge as it passes beneath. If you haven't been spat on by a yob on a bridge, you aren't a real boater.

I was spat on by a yob near Salford Junction last summer, and the humiliation was compounded by drops falling into a pint mug of ale I was about to drink. 

Some years ago Granny was about to pass under a bridge in Manchester and I waved to two young boys, who waved back cheerily. As I came out the other side, a rain of maggots fell on my head, and the boys whooped with delight, waving their now-empty bait bucket.

Maggots found their way down my collar, and I had to stop, change my clothes and spend an hour sweeping up the wriggling detritus. I still found maggots in the bedroom as I was getting ready for bed, and dreamed of alien monsters for days afterwards.

Hmm, when I come to think about it, I'd rather be on the bridge than on the boat.

Granny does the Four Counties

Granny has begun a week's tour of the Four Counties Ring, setting off from Burton-upon-Trent today, and returning next year.

(Sven Latham has an excellent account of the Four Counties Ring from a week's trip he did back in 2007).

There's a sense of change in the air for me. This is the longest voyage I've taken in 18 months, and the longest one Granny has been on since it returned to Willington last year.

I'll endeavour to return to a daily blog. You know, the way Granny used to be. The good old days.

30 Canada geese in a row on the Isle of Wight

Did you ever see my photo of Canada geese at Windmill End, south of the Netherton Tunnel?  I took it in a cold, rainy dusk at the end of 2006, counting up to 18 birds, and at the time I asked if anyone had seen a longer line of such birds on the water.

A year or so later - as I remarked in Yes, 23 in a row is a record - Neil of nb Herbie said he'd seen 23 'Canada goslings' following a single parent.

Alan Weight wrote to me last week: 

I was sorting through my father's photos last week when I came across one he'd taken when out sailing off the Isle of Wight and thought you might be mildly amused.

I can count 30 geese in the pic (taken on APS film) but as you can see, they continue off either side of the pic, so who knows how many there might have been!

 

Any advance on 30?  What surprises me about this is that they are on salt water.  I know there's a lot of coastline in Canada, but I hadn't realised Canada Geese were also seabirds.

Max Sinclair completes the dream

I've been running back in my mind through the special things that have happened this year.  One of my favourites is accompanying Max Sinclair and his family up the newly reopened Droitwich Junction Canal on September 3rd, two months after the full route was officially reopened to traffic.

Max has campaigned for over fifty years to get the Droitwich reopened.  He started, he told me, with a letter to the Birmingham Mail in 1959, protesting at plans to close and fill in another stretch (I forget which,  but his sharp mind will tell you if  you ask).

Assorted work parties laboured casually during the 1960s to stop the route being completely overgrown and squatted-on by local farmers, who'd grown used to extending their fields into the line of the canal. 

Finally, in 1973 the Droitwich Canals Trust was established and restoration, rather than just protection of the route, began.

Read the history of the restoration on the Droitwich Canals Trust at www.worcs.com/dct/newhistory.htm, but it doesn't mention those first fourteen tough, lonelier years for Max. I'm not sure if there's a website that chronicles his own personal struggles at this time.

Sadly, his wife Jocelyn,who helped so much in the early years, died a few years ago, before BW committed itself to finishing the restoration.  But it must have been gratifying for him to have the rest of his family with him, and to complete this journey on her behalf.

The slideshow here hosts a selection of the photos I took, including operation of the sideponds on the top locks. When

I think this is the first time sideponds have been opened for public use on the UK canals in many years (apart from the Foxton and Watford flights), and may set a precedent for reopening many of the others around the country. I'd never seen these sideponds in operation before and was intrigued.

When the Droitwich Junction Canal opened in 1854 it must have felt like a demanding and thirsty cuckoo to the longer-established Worcester & Birmingham Canal that fed it. 

This is because the first three locks are twice as deep as the W&B's locks above. 

So it was inevitable that BW had to bring the sideponds back into operation, setting a precedent for all the others around the country.  As ordinary boaters learn to use these useful lock 'extensions' and more are brought back into use, it might help ease the water problem around the rest of the country.

Above: The side pond starts to fill at Lock 2 of the Droitwich Junction Canal. Note the boat still high in the lock.

Below: And - voilà! - the boat is almost gone from view, as half the water drains from the lock into the pond, ready to be reused to half-fill the lock again when the next boat comes up.

This allows almost half-a-lock of water to be reused for each filling, reducing the canal's thirst.

Anyway, such a pleasant and rewarding day for Max and his family.  They cruised on Horik, a boat that Viking Afloat granted to Max for a long weekend in tribute to his efforts.