Reuters covers Hadar at the Canalway Cavalcade

London's canal boat dwellers live in city oasis – Reuters

Reuters today publish an article by Rebekah Curtis about the Canalway Cavalcade, the biggest and best on the show that I've seen so far.

Included is a quote from Jo on NB Hadar: 

For some boaters, the festival is just one stop-off on a never-ending journey.

"We're continual cruisers, we keep moving 24/7," said 47-year-old Jo Lodge, who travels all year round with her husband Keith selling coal from their boat to the canal community in Leicester.

"No two days are ever the same, we don't know where we are going to," she said, clad in a traditional bonnet.

"I love it because you see something new every day."

Her husband Keith is one of many boat-dwellers whose family has worked on boats for generations, and is deeply rooted in the floating community in which some boaters were even born aboard.

The 'traditional bonnet' bit is definitely true!   They won the Vic Trott Trophy for 'Best Dressed Boatman/woman', and there's a pic on Hadar's blog showing them holding the plate. 

I've reproduced it here (hope you don't mind, Jo) because I felt it could do with a tweak.  Anyway, if you want a first-hand report from Little Venice, Hadar's is more 'authentic' than Reuters'.

The journalist is probably more used to writing about commodities – particularly copper and gold – so perhaps she was attracted to the coal cargo Hadar carries, rather than the people aboard. 

On the other hand, perhaps she was bored rigid by minerals, and I can't blame her.  Canal life is far more interesting!

If you'd rather read about canals than coal, then join the Reuters Roundtable, the company's market research panel, and tell 'em. 

I wasn't able to get to Little Venice last weekend; sorry.  What a shame; I've not photographed it since I was there in 2005, a couple of months before my photography went digital and changed forever. 

Comments

[Jo]

Hi Andrew. Unfortunately some of what Rebecca quoted us as saying was not exactly correct, and the piece about Keith's family having worked on the canals for generations is definitely not true, but what can we expect from the press. You know she rang me and asked me about something she had written on her pad, as she could not read her own writing. I guess that says it all Hahahahaha.

[Iain smith]

Evedantly nobody told the writer that there were other boats present besides Barges.A very rose tinted view of the waterways, though a positive one.How many bargees still cook on there coal fires i wounder?