Granny Buttons

Waterways Museum documentary is a delight

I've just watched the BBC Four documentary Behind The Scenes At The Museum: The National Waterways Museum.

(It's available on BBC iPlayer until Thursday 10pm, and downloadable).

I'd never heard before of "acclaimed filmmaker" Richard Macer - who filmed, produced and directed it, which I guess means he was the only one on site, behind the camera as well as narrating - but it's hugely enjoyable. 

The premise synopsis:

The National Waterways Museum at Ellesmere Port marks the birthplace of the industrial revolution when canals were built to transport goods to emerging cities like Liverpool and Manchester.

A financial crisis has left the museum with a reputation for sunken boats, and unless the situation improves dramatically some of the country's oldest barges and narrowboats might have to be sold off or even destroyed.

The museum's many volunteers are angry and believe its dire predicament is the result of mismanagement, so a new director is being brought on board with the task of saving it.

In just a short while Stuart Gillis makes a big impression and the staff and volunteers begin to see him as a saviour. But will Stuart be able to live up to such high expectations?

The Waterways Trust runs three National Waterways Museums - at Ellesmere (the biggest site), Gloucester Docks and the smaller Stoke Bruerne, and there's been talk that one or more of them could be closed down.  Ultimately, Ellesmere is considered the kernel (and not just because it's got the most nuts!)

It's interesting to compare the announcement of the appointment of Gillis in February 2008...

The Waterways Trust is delighted to announce the appointment of Stuart Gillis as museum director.

As well as developing the strategic direction of the National Waterways Museum and Archives, Stuart will oversee the day-to-day management of the museums and be responsible for conserving the nationally important inland waterways collection
[their emphasis]

...  and the lack of a press release announcing his departure late last year, shortly after he appointed his own day-to-day manager for the Ellesmere Port museum (a former cinema manager who begins his inspection by checking the loos.)

The Ellesmere Port museum  is chiefly manned by volunteers, and they seemed to be in a ferment of discontent until Gillis came along.

He starts with a whirlwind of bold measures, including the on-camera statement that "Sometimes you do acknowledge that you have a graveyard and you allow some things to rot back into nature." (above, 29mins in.)   That's probably an attitude that would have stopped Robert Aickman's heart.

He  announced halfway through that the museum couldn't justify his high executive salary, that he'd resign, and that it made more sense to employ two less high-powered staff.

The motive appears to have been more cynical - that he'd quietly been offered the job of museums director for Derby City Council, and his gesture was dressed up in politics.

But Gillis does seem to have left the museums a success - at least for now.  Not only with visitor numbers on the increase, but the 'heritage boatyard' he started is now operational and restoring some of those rotting boats.

It's a shame that The Waterways Trust itself doesn't acknowledge his contribution.  The only mention of him on the website is accidentally in the list of the Trust's directors - which is almost a year out of date.  

In fact, you'd never have known what he did, was it not for the documentary.  He's been airbrushed out.  Why do PR people always do that?

The film is stuffed full of amusing and sensitive vignettes.  For example, one of the volunteers, Paul, is clearly held in very low regard by another. 

There's a hilarious point (13mins in) where Paul says an engine is two-stroke and that 'Lee' in the background has removed a component. 

But behind him 'Lee' silently shakes his head to indicate that that's bullshit, then holds up four fingers to point out it's a four-stroke, and mumbles through a sandwich that his name is actually Phil.

The whole tenor of the documentary is that the National Waterways Museum is "the last hope of these listing vessels."   And yet... 

And yet...

I've argued and will still argue, that the real 'national waterways museum' is the whole canal system itself, which has changed little in 60 years, at least in the way it works.

Boat, cycle or walk the canals (even fish them) with a canal guide, and you can learn more history than in any museum.  It might take longer, but there's a greater sense of history and place.

And as for boats, well, there's a huge amount of preservation and development that goes on privately.

You only have to follow Sarah's Chertsey blog to see that.   She bought an old 1930s GUCCC Woolwich motor narrowboat privately, and is doing more to restore it and at a faster rate than any volunteer at the museum.  You can learn an awful lot of canal-boat history from her.

And when it's finished, it'll be a real boat, not a museum exhibit.  She's a one-man wonder-woman waterways museum herself. 

Although, granted, if you visit Chertsey at its boatyard in Stretton her ice cream, postcard and souvenir selection is somewhat limited.

My daddy's Dunkirk story

It's the 70th anniversary of the Dunkirk evacuation.  Were any canal boats part of the 'Little Ships' fleet?  I mean, proper canal boats, not just ones that would fit on the inland waterways. 

(OK, that's the canal-relevance of this post established.) 

My father would have had something to say about this Dunkirk obsession, were he still alive, since for him the evacuation meant Marseilles, not Dunkirk. 

This Wednesday Radio Four finally tells the story of the stragglers who didn't go via the beaches of Dunkirk:

How the rest got home - BBC Radi0 4, 11am, Wed June 2nd

Cpl. Denny was part of an anti-aircraft artillery battery billeted in Champagne cellars at Epernay.  As one last treat before going to the front his group went on the town with French girls, ending up at the cinema, where he developed what he called 'Saturday night palsy' after spending the whole night in the cinema with his arm around a local girl.

He was declared hors de combat for a while, and became an aide to a senior officer, doing vital war work such as polishing the staff car, arranging the officer's wine cellar, and so on.

Then the Maginot Line broke, and his particular group was cut off from the rest of the army, where they were reduced to joining the rout of soldiers straggling south to Marseilles.

Eventually they found a neutral ship sailing to Gibraltar, and made their way home by sea.

Daddy was responsible for looking after the  battery's standard, and ensuring it was flying when required.  Such was his sense of duty that he kept it with him at all times, in case he and his friends needed to reform and parade or be identified in some way.

I don't know if he was supposed to hand it back but he kept it, and I have it to this day.

Papa remembers a couple of weeks of cadging lifts on lorries, begging for food from sympathetic farmers and usually sleeping in barns or on the move.   My sister wrote to the BBC for the programme, saying: 

He talked little about this experience, despite gentle coaxing from us, except to say the greatest threat was not from occupying Germans but the French police.

The French country folk though were generous with food and lifts and it seems Absinthe. The most vivid memory he had was waking up under a chicken house covered in droppings and with a mighty big headache.

He  once told me the biggest memory he had of those weeks was of surly, resigned Frenchmen waving their hands and saying "Ah!  La guerre, c'est finis!"

Prompted by all the media stories I got the standard out this weekend, and put it on a pole to flutter in the breeze, perhaps the first time it had done this in seventy years. 

Are you wondering why there's an anchor on an army gunner's standard?  Shut up, I'm going to tell you anyway. 

It was a TA regiment from Lloyd's of London, where my father was a clerk before the war.  (The St George cross above it represents the City of London.)  He was also a Special Constable, and came into the Company via their detachment.

The latest John Driver/Narrowboat Homes complaint

I had another upset person contact me last night about the ongoing John Driver/Eddy Rayner saga.

(See my post from Oct 2008, Narrowboat Homes, and search for other Granny posts featuring John Driver, etc.  According to one comment his real name is Edward Rayner, but I'll call him Driver.) 

What's really interesting is that Driver supplied a leasing agreement which the boat's owner signed along with him, and I've now seen a copy.  This is the first look I've had of one of these John Driver leases.  I presume BW has seen them?  Were they drafted with any professional expertise?

They seem to absolve the boat's owner of lots of responsibility, and on my own (admittedly ignorant) reading of it seem quite fair.  And I'd imagine the boat's owner would have though them as fair too.  Excerpt pictured:

For instance, the owner is absolved of responsibility for overstaying notices, and Driver says that he will arrange an official BW licence, as well as a Business Hire Licence ("if one is needed.")

(One sneaky and clever thing is that the boat becomes shared ownership. This is nominal; the boat is divided into 64 shares, with the owner keeping 62 shares, and Driver and the renter having one share each, officially valued at £1 each.  (I presume this is designed to keep it as a sort of private shared scheme, although it sounds dubious to me - see the BW 'License It' pages).

Things seemed to have gone more or less to plan for the first few months.

I knew the craft needed a few small repairs such as a new ignition, and a bilge pump, he told me he would do these jobs -  and in fact one week later he said he had done them.

But last month Driver told the owner that the boat needed £3,000-worth of work.  He offered an alternative - that the boat might 'go missing' and the owner could claim for insurance.

The owner was shocked at the insurance suggestion, and said they would have to discuss it with their partner.

But on trying to contact Driver again, he went missing, and his phone number was dead.  So the owner contacted BW London's office, who were able to report where it had last been seen, and after some searching the boat was located. 

The couple now living on it turned out to have been honourable and innocent, but they expect they will have lost the deposit they paid Driver.

The owner says:

Suffice it to say that nothing has been done to the craft that John told me he had done (new ignition, new bilge etc etc) so it would appear he is still scamming innocent people like myself.   I am happy to give you any and all information I have and to speak to anybody to try to bring this man to justice.

Justice? 

Hmm.  After being arrested last summer, Driver was bailed, but criminal charges were dropped when the Crown Prosecution Service said there was insufficient evidence of criminal intent and the case was 'civil'. 

You won't find Driver being officially charged.  You'll have to sue him, sorry. 

"In England, justice is open to all, like the Ritz Hotel" - Lord Justice Sir James Mathew.  Quoted by R.E. Megarry in Miscellany-at-Law (1955)

There seems to be no mention in official reports of Driver's accomplice 'Luke Terry', who also is named in the lease, nor of a lady called 'Sam' who once phoned me last year in his defence.

There's a LOT more to this story, but let's leave it there for a while and see what happens in officialdom.  Except for one last thing:  Driver's signature, and his 'agent' Luke Terry (below).  

That's a 'p.p.', I'm told - i.e. Driver himself signed it.  If that's supposed to be Luke Terry, I'm a banana.  It looks more like S. Rudd or something like that. 

John Driver aka Eddy Rayner still up to his tricks

Forgive the jotty nature of this post.  It's to make notes that'll be indexed by Google, as much as anything else.

I've received more comments and emails that serial confidence trickster John Driver, aka Eddie Rayner, is still at work.

He first surfaced on Granny Buttons 20 months ago in a post called Narrowboat Homes, titled after his purported business.  Briefly, he offers to rent out your boat for you maintaining and managing the rental himself and giving you a healthy commission.

Except, of course, you rarely get the commission promised, and you won't see you boat back - at least, not in one piece.

Search on Granny for 'driver' and 'rayner' and you'll see other posts where he makes a starring or guest appearance - not least in the startling number of comments from victims. 

Newbery genealogy

I don't want to be a clearing-house for genealogical information, but the following piqued my interest.  Joanne Newbery writes:

I have been researching my family tree and have come across William Aubrey Newbery.  I see he was part of Russell Newbery, based in Altrincham.

I am trying to find William on historical records to see if he falls into my tree, as I have Newberys that were in Manchester around the time.

I cannot find a date or place of birth for him, and this is a huge amount of information to see if I can find if he does fall into my family tree.

I have come across a relative that did work for Rolls Royce, called Albert Newbery (my late father-in-law's uncle), known by everyone as Tim, and was wondering if there could have been some family connection ?

Joanne, your first stop on this line ought to be the Russell Newbery Register, the club for enthusiasts of the engine.  And specifically, the first part of The Russell Newbery Story, called The Manchester Years.  But - and this surprises me - Russell Newbery enthusiasts seem to have little curiosity now about the man who donated his half of the company's name.

William Newbery appears to be the mystery part of the company, the one whose name lasted longer than his attachment to the company.   In that he's a bit like The Hon. Charles Rolls, who died only five years after Rolls Royce's founding. 

Newbery is a shadowier figure.  The Manchester Years story says he left around 1920, but RNR stalwart says he left the company before that - perhaps even before WW1 - and became a Royal Flying Corps pilot.  Both Frederick Russell and William Newbery were apprentices to the legendary Henry Royce, at the very time that Rolls gave his aristocrat patronage to the new Rolls Royce name.  William Newbery was, in other words, one of RR's founding employees.

Another surprise was to discover that neither Russell nor Newbery are mentioned in the Dictionary of National Biography, the clearing-house for information on people who shaped Britain. 

Joanne couldn't have picked a more propitious time to ask her questions, because the annual Russell Newbery Boat Rally is in a couple of weeks.  This year it's at the National Waterways Museum in Ellesmere Port, June 10th-13th, and if anyone on the waterways or in Granny's orbit knows the answer to her question they are likely to be there. 

By the way, I've heard that one of the big social attractions of that weekend will be a mass-ukulele tutorial.  Or is it a mass-engine tune-up?  My hearing's not what it was. 

Google Street View is an interesting historical record

Oops, the Kinver lock cottage that Adam alerted me to last weekend, and which I wrote about yesterday, ('Lockside cottage for sale with good stumblehome') actually appears to have been sold on the 17th May.

I would mention this on the post itself, but having spent so much time researching and writing it, I don't want it to look like I was wasting my time.  So I'm doing this as a separate post.

What I find so impressive at times like these is Google Street View.  You can see what a place is like at a point in time. It doesn't give a date of when a particular scene was taken, although the embedded date in the lock cottage photos is 2009, and the estate agency did say the house had been on the market some time.

But the real point of this post is:  Is anyone archiving Google Street View images?  In due course they'll all be done again, and old scenes will be replaced with new ones - perhaps every three or four years.  This particular view is unlikely to change quickly, but others will, especially where there are major canalside developments, and it'll be a fascinating historical record. 

For example, big things are happening canalside at Walsall, particularly with that Urban Splash development nonsense called Stilts.  Here's how it looked when the Google car went past last year - a barren, weedy wasteland:

Of course, calling it 'nonsense' is just an excuse for a cheap joke.  I suppose the Urban Splash development will be better than just leaving the area as a dandelion and cow-parsley garden for drunks.

What other scenes are worth preserving now for posterity? What are we losing and what are we going to gain?

Oh, I forgot to mention Bing Maps' aerial views too.  Hang on to those.

Banksy strip-offs

Skipton canal vandals spray boat with paint stripper - Craven Herald

We've assumed for years that the spray can is the tool of choice for not just artistic graffitists, but for bored, mindlessly tagging vandals.  It's the teenaged equivalent of the dog's cocked leg or the tom-cat's spray. 

But paint stripper?  This particular story of a Pennine Boat Trips boat at Skipton could be a grudge attack, but it could also be a new and more worrying development - a tale of vandals on the prowl tooling themselves up with Nitromors rather than Plasti-Kote (or the graffiti artist's paint of choice, Montana Colors).

However, I'll really start to worry when I see not simple, mindless paint-stripper vandalism, but paintstripper graffiti, paint stripper art, and particularly paint-stripper graffiti workshops.  (Luckily Youth Graffiti Workshops don't cover the subject.  Not yet.)

Let's hope the appropriately named Banksy doesn't get hold of the concept on the canals, or there'll be no end of imitators to 'strip off' his ideas. 

Lockside cottage for sale with good stumblehome

Granny can never have too many lock cottages, as Adam of NB Debdale astutely observes.  He comments:

I know how much you like a nice lock cottage for sale, so when we passed one on the Staffs and Worcester at Kinver earlier this month, I thought of you. 

The one he mentions is at Whittington Lock (not actually Kinver Lock, although it's close to Kinver Village).   It's on the market for £325,000 via Midcalf-Nicholls, and the link you want for the brochure is here.

CanalPlan has details of Whittington lock and six photos, together with a succinct comment from Steve Atty:

"What a nice place to live."

The estate-agentese is inevitably more longwinded and glowing  about the house, but doesn't mention the lock or boats at all:

Enjoying an idyllic location, alongside the picturesque Staffordshire & Worcestershire canal, this detached cottage exudes character and appeal, appreciation of which is only possible on internal inspection.

The lovingly maintained home offers very spacious and adaptable accommodation, with delightful views and ready access to the amenities of Kinver, as well as to major centres and the motorway network.

The immediate area is steeped in local history and walkers will find the property's location to be of particular appeal.

It's a long time since Granny went down that way and I don't have any pictures myself of Kinver - leastways, none readily to hand in my digital files. 

You can see the cottage here on Google Street View  (screenshot below).

(By the way, the 'for sale' signs are clearly visible on the Google Street View pictures, which might have been taken some time ago, so the house might have been for sale for a while.)

My first instinct, if I was to buy this house, would be to ask: where's the nearest pub? 

And thanks to Google Maps walking directions (route below), you can see that the nearest pub is the Vine Inn, just the other side of Kinver Lock, the next lock up.  Google says it's a mile down the lane. 

What appeals to me for any canalside house is the moonlit walk home on the towpath.  What's it like here to stumble home from the pub?

However, Google Maps does not recognise towpaths as walking routes, so once you leave the pub and turn off onto the towpath, let's hope you don't get lost on the way back or - worse still - lose your footing. 

The towpath here is quite good, but if you live at Whittington Lock then perhaps you should wear a lifejacket and helmet when you nip over to the pub.

Why a lifejacket and helmet?  Well, the dangers of a towpath walk after coming back from the pub are highlighted by this inquest report from last year after a drowning near Devizes, where the retired army officer involved fell in and banged his head. 

Incidentally, the Kennet & Avon appears to be the most dangerous canal in the country for this sort of thing.  The attrition rate there for boaters with alcohol in their blood appears to be rather higher than in other canals. 

Try this link for anecdotal evidence.

I'm not sure why this should be; perhaps it's something in the water.

Maffi and turn-around day

Maffi has recently started writing about his occasional work at Oxfordshire Narrowboats, where he helps 'turn around' the boats in between hirings.

Before, he's only hinted at it - e.g. see There be Dragons, where he says:

Part of what I do at the yard involves instruction in safe boating and taking customers to Allen’s Lock and demonstrating the safe operation of the lock.

Of course this in no way prepares them for Somerton Deep Lock which probably comes as a bit of a shock. Allen’s Lock is over a mile away from the yard. So rather than walk back I try to cadge a lift.

He's just done Turn around day Pt 1, the first in a series describing the interior work involved.  Despite it reading a bit like a training manual, I find this strangely fascinating.  For example: 

On a boat like OXFORD 47 ft 2/4 berth, the time taken is less  than a couple of hours, starting at the front and cleaning all the windows then the toilets followed by the kitchen, this includes an inventory check.

Ceilings are wiped down, paying particular attention to the kitchen ceiling followed by making up the beds. If 4 berths are required pillows, duvet etc are made up and placed on the fixed double.  A 69 ft 12 berth takes a sight longer than a 2/4 berth.

Putting one duvet cover on in a narrow boat is not easy, putting 10 on is a right pain. Of course 10 covers means 24 pillow cases.

It's great background to what would make an interesting TV documentary series, following the behind-the-scenes work that goes on to make your hireboat holiday a success.

A local canal for local people (and local swans)

Middlewich swan fence controversy as funding issues rumble on - Middlewich Guardian

The local press throughout the country are going to be fighting hard in the coming weeks to help protect small local spending projects and I'm sure that'll include the spending connected with the waterways in some way.

I suspect that the bigger the cuts the government tries to make, the smaller the story that will make the headlines.

And so it is here in the Middlewich Guardian this week. 

Residents say they are fed up of the ‘awful’ temporary fencing along the Trent and Mersey Canal which stops swans wandering onto the road in Booth Lane. [Google Maps location here]

Some people think the unsightly orange net fence should be taken down as it has been there since late 2008 and a permanent solution was supposed to have been found before 2010.

But campaigners from the Swan Support Group who paid for the £500 fence say it is necessary and are fighting hard for proper funding.

But beware:  What will the canal stories in the local press be about?

As the spending cuts bite, I bet the funding issues that'll receive least support from the local press are those connected with the actual navigation of boats.  I doubt you'll see local press stories of lock maintenance, of dredging, of the quality of moorings, of boat facilities, and so on.

A swan fence has much bigger press appeal than a broken lock.

This is because boaters who just pass through are inevitably less 'local' than 'on-the-bank' residents.  And local media - local newspapers, local radio, local TV - is all about local people and local issues.

Swans - particularly mute swans, the grumpy-faced black-browed ones, the most common type - count as locals, since they don't migrate so much.  This is in marked contrast to homo sapiens narrowboatensis, the common species of canal boater, which migrates constantly.

When was the last time you saw a local press story about canal maintenance for boats?

Travelling Man: bashes to splashes

When I wrote a couple of years ago that I thought the canals could be the setting and glorious backdrop for a really good 'road movie', I never thought that it might already have been done, and as a TV series.

Here's the concept:  You're a policeman, and after a traumatic incident you wake up in the 1980s and you want to know how you got there.   Has anyone done anything like this before?

Well, sort of.

I've just finished watching the DVD set of Travelling Man, a 1980s drama series set on the canals and starring Leigh Lawson.  (Find it on Amazon here.)

He plays Alan Lomax ('Max' to the girls, and unlike most boatmen he has no trouble attracting those), a drugs-squad policeman unjustly convicted of corruption and banged up for a couple of years

On his release he lives on his narrowboat and cruises the canals of the Northwest on a double hunt:

• For his estranged son, who'd disowned him when he was convicted.
   
• To find the bent coppers and tawdry villains who framed him. 

Travelling Man is eminently watchable and was a hit at the time, with viewing figures in excess of 12 million on first screening. 

There's lots of chasing and fights and a couple of fallings-in-the-canal, so that give me an excuse to say it's bashes-to-splashes, ha ha.  (Can you think of a better pun?)

Never mind boats, in 1984 I was messing about in the restaurant business, so I didn't watch TV and had never heard of the canals, thus this entire series came completely new to me.

At the heart of every episode is Max's narrowboat Harmony, which I'm told is still about and located on the Bridgwater canal, albeit painted differently now.   

 

You want a review?  I don't want to reinvent the wheel; try the episode guide on Action TV Online.  But they give a faint-praise summing-up which I think is unfair:

As an interesting take on the classic gumshoe genre, Travelling Man was diverting fare. If nothing else, the series demonstrated Roger Marshall's capacity to deliver interesting television to the middle class masses.

Alternatively  you'll find a really good review on DVD Compare, where reviewer Paul Lewis does the donkey work for me.  He writes about the series as a whole and how it fits into a long tradition of 'ongoing narrative with predominantly episodic format'.  The review is a bit dry and academic, but despite that I found it fascinating: 

The series is a pleasant – and largely forgotten – surprise.  Its transposition of the all-American open-roads-and-moral-freedom structure of The Fugitive onto the very British setting of the UK’s canal network is inspired, and Marshall’s dry wit and ability to provoke thought make this series a rewarding experience to watch.

Travelling Man takes the basic structure of The Fugitive and its romantic depiction of an anti-hero who represents a flight from the trials and tribulations of modern life.  However, where the various American series modeled on The Fugitive, in Schickel’s words, celebrated ‘the most treasured [of] American traditions’  (the ‘open road’) (ibid.), Travelling Man moves the formula away from the Americanised association of roads and freedom, allowing Lomax to instead use canals to travel around Britain.

... In more direct parallels with The Fugitive, like Richard Kimble Travelling Man’s Lomax often finds himself at the centre of a witchhunt (in ‘The Watcher’, he is caught in the eye of the proverbial storm after a seven year old girl is killed) or suspected of a crime (In ‘On the Hood’, Lomax is accused of rustling farm animals).

Read the rest of the review here.  Or if you are already convinced, buy the DVD on Amazon. 

I managed to get an interview with the star, Leigh Lawson.  Yes, really, my first-ever exclusive interview!  Well, more like an exclusive email exchange in which he recalls making the series.  I'll post it later this week.

Filmed in 1984 and /85, the series is full of memories of the period, such as snake-hipped lotharios with mullets, and private eyes enlarging  surveillance photos in darkrooms (remember darkrooms?) and dring!!dring!! bell telephones with dials, and tap-tap-tapping secretaries typing up news stories for editors. 

And for girls, get a load of the BIG HAIR.  

But if you want one single reason to watch the series, how about the fourth episode. 'Moving On'.  There's a sequence in homage to the famous crop-dusting scene in North By Northwest.  It's Chirk-tastic!

Setting the scene: Canal boating drifter and former policeman Lomax (Leigh Lawson) has already been warned to stay away from trying to find out who framed him. 

To drive home the point, as he's crossing Chirk Aqueduct in his narrowboat Harmony, he's assaulted by a crop-dusting helicopter. 

The plot-point seems preposterous.  I'm not sure how being buzzed by a helicopter on the aqueduct would scare him off from investigating his being framed.  Why not just jump aboard his boat at a lonely bridge-hole and threaten him?

But there's no doubting the virtuoso stunt work.  At first, after shouting fruitlessly at the roaring helicopter (I lip-read ".... off you stupid bastard!"), Lomax climbs on the roof of the narrowboat, where he picks up his shaft to duel quixotically with it.

But he slips and falls down the side of the boat into the water.  This bit looks staggeringly dangerous, notwithstanding that there are a couple of fat plastic fenders out. 

The boat potters along the aqueduct and (having been left behind by it) Lomax climbs out of the aqueduct, trying to run after it, while the chopper pilot tries to stop him. 

But our hero manages to dodge and run past (on the open side of the aqueduct, please note vertigo-sufferers), and then dives in and swims to catch up with his boat.

He clings on to the counter (the boat's propellor is still turning, threatening to food-process him) and he gets a final dousing in brown-coloured insecticide (or whatever) before struggling to climb aboard, and he collapses onto the tiller just as the boat enters the tunnel.  

Seen from the future, an age when BW workers need a lifejacket just to pick up litter by the canal, it's a tour-de-force of canal stunt-work.  And he looks like he does it all himself.  I can't see the joins.

Brilliant!  I will never go over Chirk Aqueduct - or any aqueduct - again without thinking of it.

And I'll never think of crop-dusting helicopters again without thinking "Would BW approve of this?" and "Is it biodegradable"? 

I'll also never go through Chirk Tunnel without thinking of that strange hand-painted graffiti on the side of the tunnel, "TAXI 773480".

I checked against the Chirk/Oswestry phone directory, and if that was ever a kosher taxi number, it's not listed now.  And it's shown on both ends of the tunnel - why would they bother to do that as a set decoration?  Was it there already?

With his dark good looks and brooding - the strong silent type -  Leigh Lawson could have been a good candidate to replace Roger Moore as James Bond back in the mid-80s.  If only I'd have stuck to questions about Travelling Man instead of asking about that...

But what really struck me was the coincidences.  So often in my blog I find coincidences, and there were several here (including the first woman to appear in the show being called 'Chrissie' and saying to Lomax:  "If only you'd married me.")

Another one:  In the episode 'On The Hook' there's a character called Granny Jackson.  Like me, Granny is a man, an ex-con who shared a cell with Lomax at one stage, and Lomax thinks Granny can help lead him to his nemesis, the big-time crook who framed him.

Granny is now a successful businessman, and I guess that's where the series departs from my reality!

Blimey, this is over 1,200 words; it must be a record for one of my posts.  And this is only Episode One of a two-parter! 

Coming shortly, some memories from Leigh Lawson about making the show, including why there was never a second series.

[This post accidentally went live last night, before it was finished.  Lots of edits this morning, it's now finished, promise!)

Post-apocalyptic and inner-city swans - a contrast

One of the more civic-minded ideas of Mercia Marina is the set-aside of a canalside field as a public walking area and nature reserve. 

The reserve has got a lake, and there's an island on that lake that would give birds refuge (or at least, refuge from swimming predators.)

Half of the field is open to walkers, while the other half has been fenced off to encourage the wildlife.

(It's early days for the reserve - they've planted a lot of trees, but it'll take a few years for the trees to become the bower they hope.)

Triumphantly this year a pair of swans has made its nest on the island, and locals are awaiting the hatching of the first clutch of eggs.

What I love about the setting of this 'nature field' is the almost post-apocalyptic backdrop of the derelict Willington power station.  If there's one thing that impresses on you the power of nature, it's when it's shown resurgent against industry.  For, long after we've killed ourselves off, nature will return with a vengeance.

I think this scene would be better and less industrial if the trees in front of the towers were (perhaps perversely) chopped down, and ivy was allowed to grow up the side of the towers.

(They ought to be allowed to crumble naturally.  Although inevitably they'll be demolished, and one day a new power station - hopefully less obtrusive and not visible from this angle - will probably rise in its place.

But for swans, what a lovely location to bring up your kids!

Compare this scene with the one in the Islington Tribune today (below), where a swan is shown sitting on its nest on the Regent's Canal, surrounded by the filth, litter and detritus of a throwaway society.  It's not the ruins that worry me, it's the rubbish.

The headline:  The ugly truth of our polluted waterways - photographer captures shameful images of birds nesting on mounds of litter along canal

The picture in the Tribune's article is part of a project by documentary photographer Boaz Teitelbaum. 

The Islington Tribune says about him:

Over the past few months, the professional snapper – who cycles along the canal towpath from his home in Hackney to work at an art stall in Camden Town – has been capturing images of rubbish along the course of the waterway, which runs under Upper Street and behind City Road and King’s Cross.

He is now planning to display the pictures in a gallery in the hope that they will raise alarm about the harm that dumping rubbish does to the environment.

Personally I think he ought to blog his pictures.

(Oh, alright, I know you're going to say something about the bird-unfriendly pylon wires in the Mercia picture above.  But still;  I say gaunt ruins trump tawdry rubbish any time.)

£800,000 lock cottage drops in price

An interesting lock cottage is [still] up for sale on the River Lee, near Ware.  And it's just dropped in price - by the amount of a complete lock cottage on a more rural canal such as the Oxford.

Hardmead Lock Cottage appeared here in the Daily Telegraph property pages this week, listed thus:

GREAT AMWELL, HERTFORDSHIRE
4-bedroom cottage, £699,995

LOOKS This gorgeous Victorian detached cottage used to be the official home of the lock keeper. It has an unusual and picturesque riverside setting on an island adjoining Amwell Nature Reserve, which forms part of the Lea Valley Special Protection Area.

CHARM The cottage has a wonderful triple-aspect lounge with folding oak doors, its own mooring rights and large, attractive private gardens.

VITAL STATISTICS The property has been extensively refurbished in recent years with underfloor heating, double?glazing and new bathrooms with contemporary fittings.

(Hetheringtons, 01992 440000; www.hetheringtons.co.uk)

In fact Hardmead Lock Cottage was for sale two years ago for £800, 000 (from John D. Wood).  See my original post here.  I don't know if it ever sold at that price.

I passed through Hardmead Lock on Granny about 18 months ago.  At the time I was very impressed with the house - and the fact that it came with moorings. 

I noticed that it was unoccupied, looked closer, looked around - still no-one around to disapproved of me being nosey. 

It looked pretty smart inside, I thought.  Pressing my nose to the window I felt like an orphaned Laurence Llewllyn-Bowen guest-starring in a Dickens novel.  I ached to give the hallway a makeover.

The kitchen was similarly a picture of potential, and it's clear that

But this is a lock with a history, which you can read about on Richard Thomas's excellent Lee & Stort website, on the Hardmead Lock page. 

That page even has two original architectural drawings of the house.  The first is as it was planned in 1876, the second as it was finally built around 7 years later - when it was insured for £250. 

O tempora! O monies!

Below is Granny in Hardmead Lock, October 2008:

You recycling (and cycling) Punkeroo

Did I ever give a proper plug to You Punkeroo?

 

You Punkeroo is a craft-shop business in Coventry Canal Basin that brings:

... a variety of arts and crafts to the people of Coventry and Warwickshire. We will set up and facilitate an art and craft activity at your venue, home etc at a time to suit you.

Founder Joab Lawlor says:

We work with people of all ages in schools, residential units, village halls, living rooms, and even in the centre of town!

We believe passionately in re-using, recycling and being gentle with the resources we have, therefore where possible we make beautiful things out of natural materials, old and unwanted stuff and turn rubbish into art!

I must say, I'm charmed by his ability to teach children (and the not-so-young) to make crafts out of left-overs.

For example, he even shows kids how to make little toys and doll out of discarded supermarket carrier bags.  Isn't that cute?  Makes me moist-eyed just thinking of it, I can hardly see straight!

But never mind recycling what about cycling?  I'm a boy and a techie at heart, so I'm most charmed by his bike-mending and bike-restoring business. 

He encourages people to bring in bikes that might otherwise be thrown on the council dump (I've done that, I admit)  and repairs them or cannibalises them for other bikes.

And he runs bike-repair classes for kids that effectively can give them a bike to take home for the price of their course. Provided he gets enough old bikes donated, I suppose. 

If you've got a leftover bike - or a leftover boot, or even a leftover carrier bag - drop by his shop at Coventry Canal Basin and donate it to You Punkeroo.  If  you are a canal boater, drop by anyway and buy one of his recycled bikes.  (You'll need a bike soon enough, as soon as you hit a lock flight.

This guy is a latter-day Womble.  He deserves wider publicity.