21stC tunnel at Droitwich - looking like a video game

Tunnel ready in £11m canal revamp - BBC Hereford & Worcester.

(I particularly like the video, which in the first few seconds looks like a trailer for a great, scary video game.) 

The Droitwich Canals Restoration is nearing completion, and stories of it are growing. 

I think British Waterways'  Non-Technical Summary of the restoration (PDF) is very good, and very well presented.  This document has only got a few bits of indigestible blairite jargon, such as 'stakeholder engagement' and 'project delivery timetable'; really it's quite readable, I promise.   

But 'boating' is only one-fifteenth of the 'environmental impact assessment, unfortunately.

The most charming part of the whole restoration, for me, has been the assorted memoirs from Max Sinclair.  He says he remembers seeing the Hawford Bridge filled in by Italian prisoners of war, in preparation for D-Day, and - as a hungry schoolboy - having them share their sandwiches with him. 

(Max, can I ask, did the Italians do it voluntarily?   Work on the bridge, I mean. I'm sure they shared their sandwiches voluntarily with you.   The reason I ask is because of nervous modern liberal sensibility.  Were they willing to help the Allied cause?   I mean, they weren't slave labour, were they?  But come to think of it, what did they have in their sandwiches?)

The best selection of photographs of the Droitwich restoration is probably on Peter Lee's Droitwich Canals Restoration in Pictures, which shows the entire length of the restoration, from the canal junction at Hanbury right down to Severn. 

Peter writes:

One set of pictures I really like is of Lock 5 refurbishment - there are 6 men employed doing the brickwork.  Of all the restoration, this is probably closest to the way it would have been 200 yeas ago when originally constructed: scaffolding and trowels and not much else necessary, plus lots of patience and skill.

All this must be enormously gratifying to Max Sinclair, a founder member of the Droitwich restoration campaign fifty years ago.

It's also enormously gratifying to me - because Peter's photos at Lock 5 show industrious workers not hamstrung with health & safety legislation!   Not everyone is wearing a hard-hat, nor is everyone wearing a hi-vis jacket.

And none is wearing a lifejacket , despite the canal waters being within fifty yards of where they are working.  Hooray!  Way to go!  People who are looking after their own safety! 

(It reminds me of my early days in PR in the catering business.  I remember outraged letters from environmental health officers when catering magazines published photos of Marco Pierre White not wearing a hat in the kitchen.  Good old Marco, my mate Marco!)

Comments

[Max Sinclai]

My memory is of cheese.The Italians were made to do civilian work, they wore brown uniforms with a yellow circle on their backs.
The picture of the culverts is if interest because I had never seen them. They were covered with vegetation when finished. Presumably to hide the road strengthening from Germen aircraft as it would reveal the invasion route from Liverpool Docks.