Granny Buttons

FT takes same boat driving lessons with Willow Wren that Granny took in 1998

Narrowboat Lessons - Financial Times

The flurry of newpaper articles about the canals in the last few days has been remarkable.  Even the Financial Times got in on the act over the weekend.

Even more remarkably, the FT's article didn't have a financial angle but was about a narrowboat training day - the very same Willow Wren RYA Course that I took ten years ago.

Travel writer Paul Miles starts the article sensationally:

Narrowboating is not without its own concerns.  Collisions and injuries – broken fingers, legs and worse – are commonplace, as most people receive only a perfunctory briefing on how to drive the steel battering ram that is your hire boat (no licence or training is required).

This time the boat was a 46 footer.  When I did it, we took the 65ft Grebe which was trickier.  The price for a day's course is now £120, whereas mine was about £80.  Fifty per cent isn't an unreasonable increase, in a decade where red diesel prices have increased fivefold.

But one thing hadn't changed in ten years.  He had Andy Newman as trainer, just as I did.  I found Andy Newman very reassuring, very relaxing, very authoritative.  Even now, with ten years of experience steering Granny, I'd still feel inexperienced compared to Andy.  And I still can't remember the knots he tried to teach me.

Caraboat project to take away

Here's an interesting 'project': 

Tony Jones comments that he has a Caraboat available free to a good home;

I have a Caraboat I must move by mid-Sept.  But the towbar has gone and  wheels need attention. I have had it on a beach at Poole for 20 years. 

Anyone interested in having it?  It would need a tow truck/ low loader

Tony 

[email protected] 

I'm not sure if he's offering it for free.  I suspect it's free if he only gets one response, and the price will go up according to how many people want to fight for it.

The Troll of Bridge 77

Regular correspondent Peter 'Pajman' doesn't have a boat.  But he says he's just started a waterways blog, which he calls

The Troll of Bridge 77

The bridge in question is Calf Heath Bridge on the Staffs & Worcs canal.  He crosses it twice a day for work, and it seems to have started his obsession with canal boats.  Or at least, canal bridges.  He kick-started one of my earlier posts ('Oxford Canal at 69mph') by asking me which canal another bridge near Oxford crossed.

He recently asked me how to get started on a blog, and I said the best way was just to jump in and make your mistakes as you go along.  So he's done that.

Pete will probably have to live vicariously because it doesn't look like he'll be afloat too soon:

I just love canals and narrow boats!  [But] my old lady (and she really is old!) does not like canals and open waters.  Plus I aint got the money to buy my own cos I can guarantee you that I would be on the cut forever!!

So I read lots of blogs of people living on board. They all sound so good. I thought I would get a blog. ... So every day ... twice a day I pass over ... you guessed it!  BRIDGE 77! 

I went and sat there having a suasage n egg sarnie last week I was only there for 25 mins and I saw 6 NBs !

If Pete's willing to just sit there for 25 mins for the simple pleasure of seeing six boats go by, it sounds like he's an ideal candidate for helping out with lockwheeling, if, say, you need help up or down the Wolverhampton flight.

The first thing Pete needs to do is add his email address to the blog so you know where to email him.

The next thing is for him to continue to write with passion about the canals, so that I've got an excuse to put The Troll of Bridge 77 on my boatroll.

Kirkless Hall Inn, Wigan

Granny is still No. 1 on Google for 'Kirkless Hall Inn' - the pub near the top of the Wigan flight of locks - thanks to my post of a couple of years ago. 

My blog post is probably also prominent thanks to the ding-dong arguments between locals who've used it to make rival claims and abusive comments about former and new landlords.  If there's anything Google loves, it's updated web pages.

You know how I mentioned last week about another old post of mine which had turned into a 'narrowboat wanted to rent' classified ad column?

Well, my original 'Kirkless Hall Inn' blog post seems to have turned into a local newspaper 'dine out' feature, what with all the locals urging you to visit it!

What I want to know is, do they still do the certificate for boaters going up the locks?   (Pictured right). 

Putting my PR hat on, I'd say that's a big selling point to encourage boaters to stop.  I mean, it's why I stopped there too, back in 2003.   I did it just to get the certificate.

Wigan local man 'Cadfael', on the Wigan World Forum, has started a fascinating post about the Kirkless Hall Inn.  That post tells you a lot more than most canal guides.  Read, learn, view and inwardly digest. 

He's also got a great photo of the Inn, taken in the sunshine, which I can't match in technical quality, and I'm too bashful to ask his permission to use and not daring enough to steal. Cadfael wrote, 3 weeks ago:

I was a bit miffed a few weeks ago, I walked past the the Top Lock pub to see it boarded up and looking a bit of a mess. I like going there in summer to have a good scran and a beer (or 4).

Yesterday I passed it again and was glad to see it had reopened after a bit of a clean up...

What's 'a good scran'?

Jumping into the river: Crazy AND fun, and more

In a story headlined 'Madness of the bridge daredevils', the Worcester News today publishes a picture of Parentis, a very nice Kingsground boat, passing under Worcester Bridge.

(There, that's the canal angle mentioned.)

The photo (by Richard North) captures a 'man' - more likely a youth - diving head first into the Severn, without even his arms in front of him.

'Crazy or fun?' asks the caption. 

It's both, of course.  But they don't mention that it's extraordinarily brave too, and that's the whole point of youth.  This man is developing a bravery that will give him extra strength if he ever lives long enough to be in a position to save others.

Of course the authorities must disapprove - they have to.  Youthful risk, like youthful drinking, shouldn't be allowed too freely in public, certainly not in built-up areas.  Not least, it's upsetting to the witnesses if the risk doesn't pay off.

But boys will be crazy boys, and need the risk.  It develops their character and weeds out the absolute lunatics before they can take on too much responsibility for other people.  Modern life is just too, too safe.

The same edition of the paper has an editorial comment - 'Is this just harmless high spirits?' - that misses this point entirely.

Mind you, I'm the first to complain when they do it in a lock and inconvenience the boaters.  Knowing where to risk your life is as important as knowing when.

What I dislike most is the breast-beating, bouquet-laying, publicly wailing sentiment that follows each daredevil suicide.  After all, they do us no harm.  These are noble warriors without a war to go to.  A war grave is the best memorial.

Police helicopter buzzes the canal at midnight

Police helicopter searches for villains, Atherstone, July 2008

One lesson learned from my nighttime scouting that's useful in photography is Be Prepared.   When I moored up in the middle of the Atherstone flight on Saturday night I didn't think there'd be anything to photograph. 

But near midnight a helicopter started buzzing the area, and when it used its searchlight I realised it was a police copter.

And the atmosphere was extraordinary; the boat resonated to the beat of the rotors, the searchlight beam swayed this way and that, one half expected a Batman villain to appear along the  towpath at any moment.

And it all had to be photographed, and my camera was tucked away and I had to overcome three delays:

1. Deciding if it was going to hang around for me to photograph it - that was the main bit of dithering.
2. Put on my clothes - I was naked and nearing bedtime.
3. Set up my camera - check the settings, screw in the tripod mount, set up the tripod, clamber out, look around for opportunities.

By which time most of the opportunities had evaporated.  The camera wasn't focused, I didn't get the exposure right, the vantage was wrong.  These photos would have been much more dramatic if I'd had five minutes to prepare.

I later learned the chopper was looking for cable thieves on the railway line.  Apparently the villains had been nicking train-track cabling that's only recently been laid down and is already worth far more now than just a few weeks ago.

Opportunities like this arise every day.  You can moan about your interupted sleep or you can get ready to record it.  And I'm never prepared enough.

Crumbling Canals

I only just picked up on Crumbling Canals, the latest blog of Ralph Freeman, from nb Grey Nomad.   

With the strapline 'The decay of the canal system', it's an attempt to monitor the state of the waterways, as a sort of policeman for Save Our Waterways.

Ralph started it very promisingly last month, and there are some startling images - for example, see the close-to-collapse Bridge 80 on the North Oxford Canal.

Unfortunately it's gone quiet in the last three of weeks.  I don't know if that means he's gone on holiday (how does a boater go on holiday?) or if he's run out of crumbling canal to photograph. Whatever, I hope he keeps it up.

It certainly puts in perspective the problem of grafitti, such as the elegant and well-preserved Bonehill Bridge, as described last week. 

Faced with the choice, I'd rather have foulmouth grafitti on a well-preserved bridge, than a clean and overgrown ruin ready to collapse as soon as a boat bumps it, but perhaps that's just me, and probably doesn't reflect the population at large.

Anyway, welcome to the boatroll (again) Ralph. Keep it up!

'Rogue boatbuilder'

Rogue boatbuilder admits: I'm a complete b****** - Sunday Mail

Interesting story of another boatbuilder - Advanced Marine Composites - who's gone under, leaving a lady with a half-finished boat.

In this particular case, the lady seems to actually own the unfinished boat, but the builder has taken the unusual step of offering the boat for sale as shared ownership on another of his websites.  In this case (he claims) simply to test its value.

Bizarre.

The story doesn't quite bear out the dramatic headline (he doesn't 'admit' he's a bastard, for one thing), but it's interesting reading for everyone who worries about the different ways in which they can lose their dream boat through a builder collapsing.

Mr David gets letter in The Times

Canals are not havens of peace - The Times

Well done to David Scowcroft for getting a letter into the Times putting the BW report into perspective:

Sir, The inland waterways are not as tranquil or as successful as your leading article and report would suggest (July 24, 2008).

... the industrial hinterland of canals has been replaced by bars turning out drunks until four in the morning. Ropes untied, boats rocked, occupants awoken by thumping on the windows are the present fate of boaters moored beside “entertainment areas”.

... British Waterways’ constant and continual price increases have driven away the poor, the young and the needy. We are left with the heavy of wallet, the grey-haired, and the wealthy needing another status symbol.

I like the way the online version of his letter to the editor actually links to the original articles that prompted him to write. David's letter could thus almost be a blog post. 

A pity they didn't link to the Mr David blog too.  Perhaps he didn't tell them this is a boat with a blog, or perhaps they edited it out.

Detained at Florence Nightingale's pleasure

Chugged today from Polesworth to Atherstone Locks

Atherstone to Hartshill

Sunday July 27th 2008, Atherstone Lock 8 to Hartshill Wharf

As usual on a Sunday, just a short stretch to find somewhere good to stay for a few days. 

Hartshill Wharf is a charming place for transient boaters.  No facilities, except water.  And charm. Like Bulbourne on the Grand Union, it's a remote BW yard, with no other honeypot reasons for staying, and all the better for it, thus no ovecrowding.  The clock on the yard chimes the hours gently.

(Bulbourne's been closed since I last went that way, I believe, but presumably the buildings still stand).

Granny is just the other side of Hartshill Wharf bridge for the week, on the 7 day moorings.

Oh, and finally I've got the boat licence in place, in case you were wondering.   A big Thank You to Jenny Barua at BW craft licensing for helping to sort it out.

Making a mountain out of Bonehill grafitti

I had a long and pleasant chat with Matthew Ellis on Saturday about Bonehill Bridge, near Fazeley.  He's the Staffordshire county councillor who's been complaining royally about the graffiti on the bridge (see Grafitti removal gone mad).

Quick precis:  BW sent along a couple of lengthsmen to cover over the rudest words, which they reckoned would cost BW £100, while a full bridge clean would cost them around £7,000. 

Matthew thinks that's rubbish.  He said he's had a quote from a local grafitti removal specialist to clean the entire bridge for around £300. 

He also said he was most troubled by the grafitti underneath the bridge, while the BW men seemed to focus on the rude words above.

Granny passed through the bridge last Saturday.  To be honest, I don't know what the fuss is about.  Certainly it is defaced, but the defacement is mostly only visible when you walk across it (it's a rural footpath, not a road), and not when you pass on the towpath. 

There's certainly graffiti under the arch, but hardly so's you'd notice; not by modern urban standards. 

But to be fair, Matthew said that ultimately the problem wasn't that BW didn't clean the graffiti, but that they trotted along to remove a few words just as a sop to him, and for just a tiny bit extra they could have done the whole bridge.  That's the real issue, as I understand it.  If they'd just ignored him, or taken longer, he wouldn't have taken umbrage.

But there's still a lot of grafitti on the upper side, so BW's visit was clearly a token one.

This story got an extra kick this week from the Metro freesheet newspaper: 

'It's completely bonkers,' said councillor Matthew Ellis. British Waterways dispatched the cleaners to the 150-year-old listed bridge in Bonehill, Staffordshire, after locals complained about offensive graffiti.

They washed off terms such as 'fuck' but left gang tags and less strong words including 'bitch' and 'whore'.

'I remain entirely unconvinced it would have cost more removing all the graffiti than it would have to go round identifying the offensive parts,' said Mr Ellis.

(Actually, BW missed a few fucks, or maybe those were added afterwards).

I'm a bit worried about the missing brickwork (pictured here), which Matthew doesn't mention.  I think BW's work parties should really consider that a priority.

He updated me today with:

I have asked the local council at Lichfield to help out with this but BW will not give permission for them to do it. They are now in talks on a way forward and I have requested that the County come up with some funds despite it being a local council issue really.

But my view is: why bother to seek BW's permission at all?   I mean, the local residents didn't ask BW's permission to spray the bridge in the first place, did they? 

In the traditional Conservative way of doing things, a group of concerned locals would simply trot down to the bridge of a weekend with their cleaning materials and scrub the bridge clean themselves.   

Bish-bosh, job done in an afternoon, and it gives a chance for local residents to feel good about themselves. If perchance a BW lengthsman stumbled upon them doing it, he'd probably quietly say to himself 'thank heavens the locals are taking a bit of pride in the canal for once'.

Ideally this workparty would be informally organised by a local politician, who would himself put on the marigolds to show how in-tune he was with local sentiment. 

Personally, I blame New Labour.  Too many socialist politicians these days feel that it's the state's job to clean up after yobs.

I don't like to take sides, but I can't help but feel there's a tremendous mountain being made out of Bonehill.

I was interested to see on the Ducati UK Monsters Owners Club Forum this week that they spotted an SR2 at Bonehill Bridge and clearly considered it an accomplishment to get this monster motorcyle on the towpath. 

When I was at Bonehill Bridge last week, two motorbikes went past, fortunately rather smaller than Ducatis.  The lightweight sort that put-put-put like lawnmowers.  It can only be a matter of time before someone trying to scrub off grafitti causes serious injury to these bikers.  Hopefully.

Update:  I contacted Grafitti Removal Limited about this as a hypothetical case, and without seeing it they gave a ballpark figure of £120 for the first square metre, and 20/sq.m for every subsequent sq.m.   This seems to support Matthew's case. 

For local communities who like to get involved, a number of local councils give advice on DIY removal, including Chiltern District Council. 

There's a good overview of different grafitti removal methods on the website of the City of Las Cruces, in New Mexico.

Update 29/7:  "Ex-BW Worker" comments:

Unfortunately, the reason why BW hasn’t cleaned the entire bridge is that their graffiti removal workforce (as with so much of what they do) has been contracted out ... meaning that they are now charged five times the amount to clean the whole bridge as it would have cost their own staff to do it.

Now remind me which party it was that started the mania for contracting out?

BW publishes 60th annual report

The British Waterways 60th annual report is published today, and it's generated a lot of coverage in the press. (Here's a summary on Google News)

The Times put it in the travel section:

Renaissance for canals as new boaters come aboard.

The Daily Mail treats it in its usual 'never before in human history' way: 

More passengers now than during the 18th century heyday.

The Financial Times manages to make it a business story (obviously) but still can't resist a weak, stupid, tabloidy pun: 

Sails increase - Britain's waterways enjoy new popularity.

The Guardian gives it their inevitable social and government slant:

Call to tackle long-term funding for canals.

The Telegraph thinks it's so good they do it twice, once in an optimistic boaty way (complete with a lovely picture of Braidbar boat Rowan) ...

Canal holidays are booming as Britain's waterways enjoy a renaissance 

... and as a wistful article by Telegraph travel writer Paul Gogarty, who begins:

What surprises me most about the sudden feting of the inland waterways, is not so much that it is now more popular than at the height of 18th century Canal Mania, but that it's taken so long for so many to cotton on.

Paul Gogarty was behind the 2001 travel book The Water Road, which I hated, but only because he wrote it in that irritating 'present tense' of lifestyle journalism

So, a good day for the British Waterways PR department, with loads of stories on broadcast news too.   

But for all the press coverage, I'm most interested by the press release which started the story.  It has a great timeline of the last 60 years.   For 1958 it says:

The waterways’ staff magazine states that the development of pleasure boating “will not mean greatly increased earning in the kitty and our main efforts must always be directed towards getting commercial traffic.”

There followed 30 years of decline as it failed to capitalise properly on the growth of leisure and public amenity.

This should be read in the light of the Transport Committee report this week.  Whatever BW do will be seen as wrong. 

Anyway, here's the document that started this news flurry:

British Waterways 60th Annual Report

Grannybuttons post is handy for narrowboat-to-rent seekers

In 2004 I wrote a post about a narrowboat advertised on Apollo Duck as being available for rent at Lisson Grove, near Little Venice. 

Because the boat was within earshot of the Regent's Park mosque and I'm not good at rising early, I drolly titled the post Narrowboat for rent near Little Venice, handy for muslims.

I forgot about the post for a long time.  A couple of people added comments in 2005, saying they wanted to rent a boat, and a couple more a year later.  I would reply to them kindly, saying that perhaps Apollo Duck was a better place to advertise.

But earlier this year, there was an upsurge of people using it to place their own advertisements.  There are 30 or more, right now. 

And now I'm No.1 in Google for the search term 'narrowboat to rent'. 

Some of them, mystifyingly, don't leave their email addresses or phone numbers, so I don't know how they expect anyone to get in touch.  Perhaps they think it's a forum and that they expect the guy with the boat to check in, see if there are any new requests, and leave his own address or number?

If you are looking for somewhere cheap to live in London, or you have a boat to rent out, you are welcome to post your ad on Narrowboat for rent near Little Venice, handy for muslims, but please do leave contact details.  It's free to advertise, but it's hardly the best place. 

Where would you place your boat-wanted ad?  And if you actually had a boat to rent out near Little Venice, where would you advertise it?  And have you cleared it with your insurance company and British Waterways first?