Granny Buttons

Old dog learns new trick in lock shock

Aged dog jumped aboard Granny Buttons as it slowly sank in the lock alongside its own. We were well down the lock when it decided to hop aboard its own boat, in a scrabble of long claws and arthritic legs.  Noon, October 23rd 2006, Newton Harcourt.

Dog wants to go the extra half-mile

This dog on NB Mary Mary clearly wants to go the extra mile.  Near Kilby Bridge, Grand Union Northern Section, 11am, 23rd Oct 2006.

To Raynsway Marina

Cruising log: Leicester to Raynsway Marina, 1.30pm - 4pm.

Could have been quicker, had I not stopped at every lock to photograph and chat - as usual.  I'll leave Granny here for a week - perhaps two.  Safe in good company, and at £5 a night it's not unreasonable.

Sunday Mirror writes about canals

Take The Slow Boat - Sunday Mirror.

Sunday Mirror travel writer Gill Williams today wrote about hiring a canal boat.  She hired (or was lent) a boat from Clifton Cruisers, called Chatsworth.  Clifton name all their boats after English places. 

I think I met Chatsworth a few months ago - it had come adrift from casual moorings just south of Hillmorton, where the inexperienced hirers hadn't driven in the mooring stakes properly when they'd gone to the nearby pub for Sunday lunch.  I pulled the boat in, but the mooring stake was lost in the canal and I couldn't tie up the boat.  I couldn't go past, because every time I tried, Chatsworth drifted out again, and there was no one around to help.   

I called Clifton, and  guy there was very helpful and drove over very quickly to rescue the situation.  He arrived just as the boaters came back from the pub.

It must be an easy life being a travel writer, especially if you could take your own photos.  I reckon I could do the job, provided I only had to write about waterways holidays, nothing else.  Perhaps I could vary it now and then by going on cruise ships.

Watford Locks lock keeper in the old stables

Terry applied for the lock-keeper's job only last year, and by most standards he's a newbie to the canals.  He could scarcely believe his good luck - one of 200 to apply, perhaps the last out of his particular batch.  He almost didn't apply.  He says that if it wasn't for email (and his son's prompting), he'd have been too late.

How did he get the job?  My theory: British Waterways wanted someone who makes people feel welcome.  'Customer facing' is the ugly but practical jargon.  I sensed straight away that Terry isn't a jobsworth, and really is a 'people person', he loves seeing and helping boaters.   Witness my photo a couple of days ago of him pulling Granny Buttons in by the breast-rope.  Many other lock-keepers would have expected me to do it myself, instead of indulging myself by ceaselessly taking photos.

He doesn't stop smiling and I get the feeling he puts paperwork second to the role of making people feel welcome. 

Or rather, the paperwork comes third.  The locks come second.  Perhaps one day he'll hate his job and hate boaters, but I get the feeling he'll be long retired before then.  Until then he's a real, warm and human face to British Waterways.

Kilby Bridge to Leicester

Cruising log catch-up:  28th Oct 2007 - Kilby Bridge to Leicester Castle Moorings.  Noon to 6.30pm. 

Steady if slow.  Stopped at Kings Lock at 4pm, where I was delighted to find the tearooms, run by Tony and Julie.  This lock cottage was derelict when I passed through four years ago.   Now it's lived-in and a thriving (if rather seasonal) business.

Finally reached Leicester Castle moorings after dark, finding myself alone.  I was afraid I'd find them chocker with boats, but the pontoon moorings were empty.  I felt a bit disappointed at that.

No matter, after dinner I went roaming with my camera at midnight (as you do).  I'm kicking myself for not photographing the guy who vomit on the path opposite my boat, but I redressed the balance by photographing the young Eastern European oik who urinated in the river shortly after.  Ah, the sophistication of the big, big city.   

Husbands near Dayboat Bosworth

Dayboat on Sunday October 15th,  4pm, just north of Husband's Bosworth Tunnel (looking south towards the tunnel). 

Canalplan's gazetteer says that the first bridge going north from the tunnel is Honeypot Farm Bridge No. 46, five furlongs away, but surely this bridge looks bigger than a farm bridge and is closer to the tunnel than that? 

It's a delightful location, though, and in the right weather and climate it's close to heaven in atmosphere.  No better place to take a dayboat, methinks. 

Here, the husbands were obviously at the back, the children (and the Bosworth Tunnel) at the front, and the women - well, I assume they were inside, doing whatever women worldwide do indoors when the men and the children are outside playing.  I'm a man, so I don't know what women do indoors when the men are outside.  I know the men are talking about the women though.  I know.

Boaters gather round Emerald

You might have read the sorry tale of NB Emerald, burgled and then burnt by vandals at its home moorings at Coven Heath last month.   The BBC reported it here, the local Express & Star here.

Turns out that owners Dave and Julie Woodhead weren't comprehensively insured, and they've pretty much lost their home. 

Their story has tugged quite a few heartstrings, even though Julie originally didn't want to be named, because (in the words of the Express & Star) she "couldn't bare the sympathy". 

The Coven Heath Cruising Club  started a fund to help rebuild the boat for the couple, and has apparently already raised £4,500.   The initial estimate from a boatyard was for around £6,000 just to cut off the warped top of the boat and refit another.

Many local Birmingham boaters have generously offered free help in one way or another.  Dave Pokhan, an electrical engineer who lives on NB Ghostrider (right) at Ocker Hill says that next Saturday he'll be helping by towing the hulk to Tipton:

These people are total strangers to us.  Their moorings are 15 miles away from us and we had never met them before until this week.  But there is a lot of the canal community spirit in us, and maybe even a bit of a foolish ‘can-do’ attitude.  Our heart went out to them, and we believe we can rebuild Emerald.

We've negotiated free hard standing at a local boatyard, a free crane-out, and my wonderful employers have offered all cable and wiring accessories, and I'll do the rewiring. 

Friends will be trying to do as much of the job as they can for free. 

Dave's written a letter to local businesses asking their help - (copy here, in .doc format ) and he's twisted my arm for support too:

You, being the PR guru that you are, can you offer any help or advice in that direction?  How do we get people to donate goods or services for free?

Hmm, one of the dangers of these tsunamis of social goodwill is that like most tidal waves they can leave a lot of half-finished job stranded far inland when the good intentions subside.  I'll see what we can do, Dave ;-)

As for fundraising, I'm not much cop at organising whip-rounds or dunning people to contribute.  I know only about media coverage. 

Where you won't get much support is from the insurance industry, who are likely to look down their collective actuarial nose at someone who wasn't insured.

The disappointment tragedy of lapsed boat insurance pops up occasionally.  Earlier this year a splendid boat that had featured in one of the magazines - Purrfect, I think it was - was also burned out, days after their insurance expired.  In that case it wasn't arson, which must have left the owners feeling very lonely, because they had no one else to blame, and fewer people to give 'em a cuddle.  Story here.  The sad tale will feature in the next series of TV magazine series Waterworld.

Which reminds me - I have to drive back to Granny Buttons tonight, and my own car insurance is due for renewal this weekend.  Must go online and renew NOW.

Watford Lockkeeper works hard

Watford Locks, Grand Union Canal North, 8:25am, 15th Oct 2006.  Terry the lock-keeper works hard to help Granny Buttons through the flight.

It's worth pointing out to the art police that I've deliberately quadrisected this picture with two absolutely central lines - one literal and horizontal (the rope), one compositional and vertical (the nearest lock gate and the tree above it).  Unlike ropes, aesthetic laws were made to be broken and to hell with 'em.

Bristol Watershed loves me, I'm their best mate

Bristol Watershed bar entrance, Saturday night, 10th July 1am 2005.   I was barely 100 yards from Granny Buttons, in Bristol's Floating Harbour, and I felt amongst friends, even though they were only friends for moments. 

I loved mooring up in central Bristol for that week, but then I'm a night owl and I like noise.  But it's not cheap being a visiting boat in the Bristol Floating Harbour.  Cost me about £80 for the week, I seem to recall.

Narrow Boat redux

I don't have a telly, let alone a dish or subscription or a SkyPlus box.  But I've got a computer with a DVD player in its side, and a TV press officer on my side, so I've had an advance chance to watch episode of Narrow Boat Afloat.  This airs next Wed Nov 1st at 10pm on the Discovery Real Time channel.

It's a follow-on from last year's Narrow Boat, where Alan Herd was given a healthy budget to bring old working boat Dover back to life and beyond, into the 21st Century. 

I was pretty impressed with that last series - in concept, presentation and technical quality. It was the first canal series I'd seen with a fairly solid, single theme, and I watched it on my boss's semi-cinema plasma screen.  It had a lively on-screen presenter - not a voiceover artiste - who grabbed you by the scruff of your boatman's neckerchief and dragged you along with him.  And it stuck fairly tightly to its brief, which was to explain what they were doing and why.

Narrow Boat Afloat has another tight theme.  This time Alan Herd takes Dover from Birmingham to London (if you'll forgive the geographical circumlocution)  on the route it knew in its former life as a Grand Union Canal Company 'motor' boat.

On the way, he stops off at the significant waypoints of the canal and tells you why they were important and what relevance the boat, the canal and the stopping places had to each other. 

The first episode is the only one I've seen so far.  In it they go from Birmingham's Gas Street Basin, down Farmer's Bridge Locks, along the Digbeth Branch Canal to the Gun House or Proof House or whatever they call it, and Alan Herd gets the chance to make a lot of bangs, which reminds me of my old school chemistry lessons.  And it's jolly entertaining.

There's not too much about the process of boating itself.  But I guess it would be a trap of treacle for a programme like Narrow Boat Afloat to get mired in the how-to and what-to of operating the boat and the canal 'furniture'.

Anyway, I really like the 'Alan Titchmarsh meets Adam Hart-Davis' format.  I get the feeling that there's more of the former than the latter in Herd's approach.  He seems much more practical, more hands-on, less full of wonder and history than Adam Hart-Davis.  Probably more of a boater, in other words.

Meantime, Dover is for sale.  £110,000, says the online brochure, and it looks every penny. 

Apparently it's an opportunity to own "a piece of canal history".  I'm not sure about that; I think it's more like a piece of TV history.  After all, where does the heavily restored Dover end and the TV program begin?  As with any major vehicle restoration I suspect there's a lot more Discovery Channel than 'discovering the cut' in the boat itself.

I'll add this:  When it comes to history, interest, and cool content, Narrow Boat Afloat must surely trounce its sister programme Shed Of The Year!

Market Harborough Basin

Sunday morning, 22nd October 2006

Body language on Canal treet

Descending the 'Rochdale Nine', Canal Street, Manchester, July 2004. 

Christine's sophisticated in the ways of the big-city world and has many good gay friends.  Although she wasn't with me on this occasion, she looked at this photo later and said "oooh, from the body language you can tell it's definitely a couple of gay boys chatting up".

Me, I don't speak body language.  But just a couple of written words can sometimes speak whole vocabularies and grammars.

Cruising log: 23rd Oct 20o6, Kibworth Top Lock to Kilby Bridge via Blaby Wharf.

Set off 9.30am, joined on second lock by NB Mary Mary.  They stopped at Kilby Bridge, while we continued until I met a hireboat at Double Rail Lock.  I'd planned to continue down to central Leicester tonight, but reports of flooding on the Soar got me worried.  I phoned their base (Sileby Mill Boatyard) and the lady confirmed this was true.  Oh dear.  We continued  downhill until we found a turning point at Blaby Wharf, turned, and joined another Sileby hireboat going uphill.

I got the feeling that all Sileby hireboats were being encouraged to head upstream today, and I felt relieved to join them.

Our company today was Mill Race (or was it Mill Stream or Mill Pool or  Mill Floss? - Sileby boats are all very 'milly'), steered by a handsome and charming American fellow who's married into an English family. 

We tied up back at Kilby Bridge, before 6pm, before taking the bus into Leicester for a night out.  Leicester was shut, and when we returned to the bus station for the 10:15 bus back to Kilby Bridge, I learned that it was actually the 10:15am bus, and the last night bus had departed at 6:15pm.