Granny Buttons

In which I thank the gods that winter is over and the English summer time is here at last

 
British Summer Time began today. Thank heavens. We can now start using the canals for the very purpose they were originally built.

Which was, of course, spoilt relaxation.

Whether you worship a single all-encompassing deity, a whole tribe of them, or Richard Dawkins, there's no better place to reflect on all that life has blessed you with than by tying up in some quiet, halcyon spot on the Sabbath.

This last winter has been the longest, coldest and darkest in my memory. Winters weren't always so bad. Well, perhaps they were, but they never felt so miserable to me as this last one.

I thought of this when I rediscovered these pictures of NB Firoza, taken in the summer of 2008. As I approached this neat blue narrowboat I could sense they were taking it easy:

And when Granny drew up alongside, and I saw the Boaters Christian Fellowship sticker in the window, along with a rude exhortation ("What part of 'slow down' don't you understand?") I knew they'd found their mission in life.

There's a time to sow and a time to reap, a time to work and a time (the Sabbath) to put aside one's labours.

In tribute to the arrival of summer time today, following are some more photos of that single day in high summer on the Coventry Canal, almost three years ago, on July 27th 2008.

I started the day setting off from halfway up the Atherstone flight and mooring in the sunset at Hartshill. It was barely a couple of hours in working-boat terms, but for modern leisure boaters it could take an age - deliberately so.

Halfway up, I met a portaging canoe (above) and shortly thereafter (below) a couple of manic motorbikes sent a young family scattering on the towpath.

(Do you recognise these faces? Call Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111. Your prompt action ((3 years on) could prevent a repeat of the offence, and you could be in line for a reward, which you could then spend in Cash Converters or on cheap cider.)

(A short diversion:  Motorcycling on the towpath is so irritating to the boater.  It's usually done in dry summer, when the towpath is solid and the naughty biker knows the water won't be too cold if they fall in.  

I wrote about it in May 2008 in the post Motorcycle on the towpath, and again a few months later in Easy Towpath Riders, but I encounter towpath biking quite often.  They don't always contemptibly flick British V-signs or American middle fingers.  Sometime they are quite cheery, like this fellow giving a thumbs-up on the Wyrley & Essington Canal in May 2009:) 

But I digress.  Such petty annoyances are quickly lost in the energetic joy of a lock flight in summer, part of which is the charm of exercising in the company of other, passing, boaters.

I'll fast-forward here to Hartshill:

Here it was that I tied up Granny for the week, returning on the following Saturday to take her through to Rugby. As I left my beloved boat that day, the late afternoon sky seemed to bless her with sunbeams:

[that's enough holiday snaps - ed]

It's a disappointment to me that I can't cruise around the system so far and wide any more. That's the paradox - now that my boat is my home, it seems more rooted to one neighbourhood than ever.

Still, as I said at the start, I'm so relieved that another summer has begun. We are so lucky to live in England. 

 

Nowhere Bing

I wrote yesterday that I'd found Nowhere, and it was in Chester, according to Google Maps. 

Actually it's in a busy neighbourhood, and Nowhere, Chester, turned out to be somewhere quite interesting.

Another day, another fact.  I should have asked Bing, which is more realistic.  According to Bing Maps, it's on the edge of a field in the middle of the Norfolk Broads, about 3 miles from Great Yarmouth.  And there's clearly little to see there, apart from a hedge and a ditch.

Nowhere, Bing, turns just a mile from Breydon Water, one of the most popular parts of the Broads, so this still counts as a waterways-related post.

Cats on boats

Coming back from Mercia Marina a couple of weeks ago I spotted curious homemade signs posted  either side of a couple of moored boats.

The signs, in rough-&-ready white paint on blackboard, said

CATs ^on BOAT

There was a little fluorescent flourish underneath, which turned out to be the binding for the post.

On cars you often see the 'Baby on Board' sign, and a hundred whimsical variations, and they are usually insufferably self-important, telling the world that the occupants have a higher regard for themselves than they do for you.

But in this case I was curious: Why did they feel the need for the sign?  Are they afraid their cats might jump aboard passing boats?  I had to stop and ask.

It was not what I expected.  The guy on the boat looked up from tinkering with his engine, and said "It's for the towpath walkers with dogs, not the boats.  I just wanted to let them know that there are cats here so they can get ready to put the dogs on the lead in case the dogs are likely to chase them." 

I hadn't thought of that.  Warning the dog walkers. It seems smart to me.

(It reminds me that I wish anglers would post signs in advance of their fishing.  It's always so annoying when I round a bend and find a fishing match in progress.  Why can't the anglers post a big sign in advance?)

I was reminded of this the other day when I picked up an advance 'uncorrected sampler' of a new book:  Too Narrow To Swing A Cat, by Steve Haywood. 

(An uncorrected sampler is the first few chapters as a paperback proof, designed to elicit reviews. It's already elicited a good review from Towpath Talk.)

Steve is a canal lover who's got 'previous', in terms of his earlier books.  I remember reacting rattily to his first canal narrative, 'Fruit Flies Like A Banana', because I didn't like some of his irritable political tangents about non-canal subjects.  His later books avoided this, and I loved them.

I've only read the first 52 pages (out of 320) but I think if you liked Fruit Flies Like A Banana, One Man and a Narrowboat, and Narrowboat Dreams, you'll enjoy Too Narrow To Swing A Cat. 

The thrust of this book is the big sign on the towpath above:  CAT on BOAT.  The sampler doesn't get to the point where a dog goes past on the towpath, unleashing all hell, but I'd definitely read this book on the assumption that it does.  Surely it's inevitable.

The photo above shows perhaps the most remarkable example of CAT on BOAT.  It's the last moggy owned by the late Mike Stevens, arguably the waterways' greatest ailurophile, pausing a moment before going aboat Felis Catus II.  (You can see the catflap in the door of the boat.)  This photo was taken in Congleton in September 2007, just a week or so before he sadly died, near Harecastle Tunnel. 

I wrote about this encounter a couple of years ago, in my post Cats on Tour, when I concluded: 

Mike's Cats On The Cut pages remain as his memorial, a marvellous compendium of advice for those taking cats on tour.  For canal boaters he is the ailurophile's ailurophile.

Sadly, the Cats On The Cut page has been taken down, forgetting Mike's contribution to this area of knowledge.  And lost with it is the name and memory of the cat pictured above.

Never mind, here's my favourite cats on boats picture, taken at Hinckley on the Ashby Canal, July 2007.

Going Nowhere

I was delighted to discover this week on Google Maps that there really is a place called Nowhere.

It's in Chester - Google Maps link here.

Nowhere isn't a town, or a village.  It's not even a hamlet.  It's a humble cottage beside the River Dee - or so says this page on the website www.chesterwalls.info, which offers "a virtual stroll around the walls of Chester".

I've spent 12 years slowly going around England on Granny Buttons, and never knowing quite where I'd end up. 

I often felt like I was going nowhere, but it looks like the nearest I ever got to Nowhere was a ten-minute stroll away, on Saturday 11th October 2003, shortly after I started this blog.

Here's my blog post from that weekend.  It was the weekend before my birthday, I was still (just) 50 years old, and I still had a little residual hope that my life might amount to something.

Had I known that Nowhere was just around the corner, I might have lost hope quickly.  Nowhere looks out over Chester's Overleigh Cemetery, and is thus an appropriate place to end life's long journey.

Tunnel love

On Sunday Halfie wrote about his ambition to 'leg' his boat Shadow through the Dudley Tunnel.  That's assuming Shadow is low enough in the water to pass through the tunnel, which is rather constricted in places.

(This height about the water is called the 'air draught', but that term always seemed a bit odd to me.  Isn't an air draught just a breeze?)

Legging, as anyone who's tried it will testify, is not a breeze.  It's usually done on the side of the boat, lying on planks jutting out of the boat and walking your way against the walls of the tunnel. 

The picture in Halfie's post shows him attempting to leg his boat through Woodley Tunnel on the Lower Peak Forest Canal (tunnel portal shown in my photo, right).

In his case, he was doing the donkey work on the tunnel roof, which by all accounts is a lot easier than on the side.  Woodley tunnel is hardly taxing - just a scant furlong or so - and has a towpath anyway, so the boatmen of old would hardly have bothered legging through. 

No, Halfie's effort was clearly practice, a dry run for the real thing - the 3,000 yard Dudley Tunnel.  I'd love to try doing it myself. 

The Innes Book of Records

About 30 years ago Neil Innes, the musician with a cult following, created a video series called The Innes Book of Records. Each episode would be about five or six songs with whimsical videos, interspersed with odd non-musical eccentricities of English life.

One of those eccentricities was a three-minute film of a man legging a boat through Dudley tunnel, while telling a ghost story.  Well, I think was Dudley. 

Whatever, it was my first exposure to canals.  And although it was to be ten more years before I even set foot on a canal boat, it made a lasting impression on me.  Tunnels were my introduction, and tunnels remain something magical to me. 

Whether in the splendour of high summer (above, at Braunston) or in the gaunt cold mid-winter (below, at Blisworth), every time I round a bend and see that dark portal, I'm spellbound.

The men who stare at goats

John Anderson (I assume that's his name) takes me to task on my post from last August, 'Lock cottages with mirror windows look like empty facades'.

He has added a comment:

I've just stumbled upon this site and seen your, and others, comments about reflective window film.

I live in a farmhouse close to a footpath and also have morons trying to peer in through my windows. Everyone should have the right to privacy and not be blighted by peeping toms. 

Whoever lives in these houses pays for the right to peace and not to have people, who obviously do not have a life of their own, spying on them.

What on earth gives you the right to stand and stare through someone's window (as can clearly be seen on the pic you posted)?

Oh dear.  Well, I would have thought that it was obvious that my picture doesn't show me "staring through someone's window", so much as photographing the mirror effect.  

Since it's clearly a mirror, and one can't see inside, how can I be 'staring through the window'? 

John continues:

The window film, besides giving privacy from morons, reflects rays from the sun keeping rooms cooler in summer and warmer in winter and keeping damaging solar rays off carpets and furnishings or do people not have that right, in your view, either?

I would say to you and others of the same mind get a life of your own and then you wouldn't have need to live someone else's by spying on them. I have not seen your address posted anywhere so people can stare through your windows or is that different as you like your privacy?

I don't expect these comments to be posted as you probably believe that your weird view of the world is the only one that counts!  GET A LIFE.

Well, John, I live on a canal boat and have been posting about where my boat is for over 7 years.  Not only that, but I make my email address and phone number visible on every page of the blog.  I assume you just didn't bother to read it.

When one lives on a canal boat, one become very familiar with people walking past the window and looking in.  Indeed, I'm quite charmed that they do, and I understand their curiosity. 

If ever I feel the need of a little privacy I've learned  a little trick, which I'll pass on to John for free: I draw my curtains.

But to answer John Anderson more succinctly: BALLS.

These charming old canal cottages have been here for a century or two, and have a patina of age and the charm of vernacular architecture. 

Putting up that film is ugly and out of character, and -  instead of granting 'privacy', it makes the passer by feel as if the occupier is behind the mirror, spying on him. 

I have a feeling John didn't see my earlier post from January 2010, One way mirror at Tardebigge Locks, or he might have been even angrier!

I thought I'd said it all in those two posts, but perhaps not.

One person who knows how its done and does it with character is Tony Wright, for 30 years the lock keeper of Atherstone, and past chairman of the town council. He occupies a modest (and quite modern) but charming cottage at the top of the flight, in a lovely setting.

He simply puts lace curtains in his windows - as lock keepers always  did.  It decorates and embellishes, and it has the nice side effect of reflecting heat.

Incidentally, have you noticed that, nowadays, whenever someone's got tired of arguing, they start calling people 'morons' and telling the people they hate to 'get a life'.

What does that mean, 'get a life'?  And what is a 'moron'?  Is it the same as a 'retard' or 'cretin' or 'imbecile'?  Is it anything more than an expressing of hatred?

I've occasionally had people telling me to 'get a life', like John Anderson. But no one's who's said it has ever offered to give me a life.

The boat that Guy built follows me

I've just watched the second episode of The Boat That Guy Built Finished Fitting Out, and I can't help but feel that he's following me.

I mean,the episode predominantly takes place in and around Birmingham - but why else would it have started with an aerial view of Horninglow Basin in Burton, where Granny is right now?

Of course, I'm not mad enough to think they were spying on me when they were making the series.  After all, assuming that the aerial filming was done last summer, Granny was somewhere south of Birmingham.

Still, maybe Guy was trying to send me some sort of subliminal messsage.

Seriously, while it's a daffy little TV series, its premise is sound, albeit a little un-PC. 

The message isn't aimed at me personally, but it's aimed at every Englishman.  And the message is:  So many of the key inventions of the industrial revolution came from England, our England.

Guy's constant "By 'eck!" expostulations were a little hard to swall0w, and his speaking was too fast to be easily understood by a non-English audience.  The director should have told him to slow down a bit.

As I said before, the programme isn't about canals.  It's about how England invented the industrial revolution (or at least thinks it did.)

It's also about an England of a freer time, when people could do pretty much what they liked.  And no more so than in the programme's final shot as the credits rolled, where  Guy- standing on the roof of the narrowboat as it approaches a bridge - climbs onto the bridge, races across it, and clambers back  down onto  the boat.

And nary a hi-viz vest, a lifejacket or a helmet in sight.

The sooty pot calls the granny black

Narrowboat World is having fun again.

Editor Tom Crossley is sweet; I've learned to enjoy the way he pokes fun at other people in little billet-doux of pseudonymous commentary, often in 'letters to the editor' or forum posts.  

Well, even if you don't find it funny I do, and I'm flattered to be at the end of his cheeky barbs.

This evening he used his 'Charles "Sooty" Black' alter ego to sting me like a midge, in this post on the NBW Forum:

Whilst I'm on the forum I thought I would mention Andrew Denny, otherwise known as Granny Buttons, who last year I believe joined a waterway magazine as some kind of editor, but looking at his web site I see he doesn't have past experience in this field, so wondered how he landed the job, that doesn't seem very professional to me.

Unless of course he is doing the daily one item on the magazine's web site, that seem to be just links to other web sites, that anybody can do. 

I am confused!

Charles Black

Sooty, you old dog, if  you are confused then just put it down to age!  

But while an old dog can't learn new tricks, why bother when the old tricks still work so well?

Here's a picture of an old dog teaching a younger one how to be absolutely barking:

The narrowboat that Guy Martin finished fitting out

I'm not sure if Guy Martin came first and they found a programme to fit around him, or if the pitch came first and then they looked for the right character to front it.

Either way, the premise couldn't have been promising: "It's all about squeezing two hundred years of British brilliance into one single boat - The Boat That Guy Built."

Yawn, went a collective sigh across the sofas of Britain, I suspect.

But really, I thought it was quite good.  The BBC must be confident that the programme will work, and that they've got a star on their hands, because they've given him a primetime 7.30pm  Wednesday slot.

Over six episodes, cheeky-chappie Yorkshireman Lincolnshire yellowbelly Guy Martin is being shown turning a 'ramshackle' canal boat into - well, presumably something less ramshackle.  The theme is that he'll do it using the basic skills of the industrial revolution, showing how all these technologies started in Britain.

Along the way he'll smelt, weave, weld, pot, and generally engineer things from first principles, and he'll do it the British way, dammit.

Above all, he'll smile. I suspect its the irrepressible cheery optimism that got this series made, along with his chiseled clinteastwoody good looks. 

Judging by the first episode the boat itself seems to be a maguffin. It's an empty vessel, an excuse to go from one industrial technique to another.  The canal-chugging is little more than a link between scenes, an excuse for a lot of pretty country scenery and laughing banter between Guy and his mate Mave (Mark Davies).

This might change as the series unfolds, but will it really end as a fully built boat?

I would have watched the programme anyway, because it's about the waterways and there's precious little about the waterways on prime-time TV.  But what stopped me in my tracks was the boat they used:  Reckless.

I know this boat a bit. Ten years ago it was known as Recklis (sic) and it took over the mooring I vacated  at Fradley when I bought Granny Buttons and moved her out.   About 3 years later it was repainted at Streethay and given its new name.  It later moved to Hassall Green on the Cheshire locks of the Trent & Mersey.

In the show, narrator Lisa Tarbuck calls the boat 'neglected', which is far from true. 

What's not mentioned in the show is that the boat was burned out four years ago - as I mentioned yesterday.  Here is the original newspaper report describing the fire, and here is my first encounter with Reckless.

It was towed to Streethay, where chief engineer Nick took it on as a private 'project'.  Far from being neglected, it was well on the way to rising  out of its own ashes like a phoenix. 

Here were those original ashes - firstly looking in from what was the boatman's cabin to the old JP Lister in its engine room:

And next, looking in from the front doors, towards the stern:

Compare the initial views of it in the programme (below) and you'll see that even from the moment Guy took it over, it was well on its way to rising out of the flames:

Unfortunately the boys at Streethay really ran out of time to deal with it, so they sold it to the production company as little more than a sailaway.  But definitely not neglected.

What appears in the TV series to be a scruffy patchwork of rough touch-ups is really a conscientious sanding and priming of the burned areas.

Consider this view of the stern after the fire:

with the boat as it was at the start of the series last night:

It'll be interesting to see what they do with Reckless in the coming weeks.  Or rather - since it was filmed last year - what they've already done to it.  But Guy isn't so much building the boat, as finishing the fitout.  It's already in good shape!

The series got off to a rather slow start, and they'd better get their skates on in the coming episodes if they are to finish it in six weeks.  They spent most of the first half-hour throwing and firing clay to make cups, then smelting iron to make a cauldron, then tea-tasting to select a brew, and finally starting a fire to brew up a cup of tea.

And guess where they chose to start the fire?  Considering the original fate of Reckless, I thought it rather tempting fate for them to do it on the boat's roof, just for the sake of a cup of tea.

Reckless, even.

The boys will get away with it, though.  The camera likes them and will forgive them.  

The series looks like being slight but entertaining.  Guy Martin has the requisite boyish good looks, charm and enthusiasm to be the Professor Brian Cox of the waterways, although Fred Dibnah is probably a better analogy.

Ooh look!  Here comes another picture of Reckless, wrecked, just after the fire:

And one of it cleared at Streethay, but cleaned and ready for the rebuild to begin:

And here's the pigeon box:

(That's enough wrecked Reckless - ed).

My point: Reckless  was not neglected.  It was a pretty good 'sailaway', well restored by Streethay Wharf from its terrible fire' and in excellent working order.  I hope they do it justice in the coming episodes. 

Wrecked Reckless salvaged

I've written here on Waterways World about the new TV series starting tonight, where Guy Martin restores the narrowboat Reckless.

I thought that project rang a bell, and sure enough I looked back, and there it was - I did a post four years ago about that very same boat.  See Recked Reckless.

From Visordown.com:

Make the most of the fact that for the rest of today you're among the select bunch of people who know who Guy Martin is, because after 7.30pm he's going to have a lot more followers.

In case you forgot, tonight's the night his prime-time BBC 1 series starts, right after the One Show. It's a measure of the man's charisma that despite being a virtually unknown quantity, he's managed to get the same channel and time slot that on other days is occupied by the likes of EastEnders.

The six-part series, The Boat That Guy Built, follows the TT racer and tea aficionado as he restores a narrow boat and looks at some of Britain's industrial heritage. Basically, he's the new Fred Dibnah. Fittingly, the first episode centres on making tea...

Here was Reckless four years ago:

I wonder how it will look tonight.

80% licence fee increase? Not for me.

Under an angry tabloid headline, Narrowboatworld's ever-scornful Allan Richards this week criticised BW for 'hitting hardest' those who cannot afford a 12-month boat licence.

(Story here)

I think that headline is balls, and Allan's missing a key point.

He argues:

On the pretext that it will reduce licence evasion, British Waterways is increasing the price of a six months licence by a massive 50% and a three months licence by a staggering 80%.

These increases will hit hardest those boaters who cannot afford a 12 months licence and those who choose to moor on navigations not controlled by BW but wish to cruise for part of the year.  [my emphasis]

However, he omits to mention one important concession: For a long time, it's been possible to pay your 12 month licence by instalments.  You can pay 20% immediately, and the balance over eight months.

This what I do - it's what I've done for several years. 

Where's the problem? 

There's only one proviso - you have to pay by direct debit. 

I suppose people will say that it's still not fair - that many people don't have bank accounts, or can't otherwise organise direct debits.   I don't know how many of these there are.

Allan does mention others who will have problems with the new high-priced short term licences.  These include boats on other navigations who want to venture on BW waters briefly.

For example, boats stationed on the Bridgewater Canal or the Fens or the Wey Navigation, which are licenced separately.  If they want to take an exploratory summer voyage outside their home waters they will be faced with such a rise.   

I don't have a retort for that argument, to be honest.  Except to say that  they should consider a Gold Licence.  However, Gold Licences are not available payable in instalments.  Which rules out the hoi polloi, the 'less well-off', as Narrowboatworld calls them.

Pet cemeteries

In the summer of 2007 I was on the Ashby Canal, and when exploring the countryside near Market Bosworth I stumbled on a long-forgotten memorial in a wood.

You'd hardly have known it was there if you hadn't been looking.  Covered in algae, it almost melted into the background like a stone chameleon.

The little monolith had nothing on it - no lapidary inscription - to say what it was or why it was there.  

But as I approached more closely, and circled round, I saw a flat polished sandstone memorial stone set in the ground:

and looking closer, found a poignant inscription:

IN MEMORY OF TEDDY, A MUCH LOVED LAKELAND TERRIER

I've not idea who Teddy was, apart from his being a Lakeland Terrier. (That's a cutely scruffy breed that can easily inspire love.)  But I have still less idea of who his loving owner might have been.

Dogs have this effect on us Anglo-Saxons; we bereave for them in death as much as we love them in life. 

Brothers and sisters, I bid you beware

Of giving your heart to a dog to tear. 

This made me think of Streethay Wharf, which I had sailed away from a few weeks before the photos above.  At the time boatyard owner Ray Bowern was still mourning his own two border  terriers, Basil and Dolly, who had died a few months earlier. 

Ray's a bluff, undemonstrative sort, slow to anger or show sentiment.  But he was affected by the loss of the dogs, and had buried the dogs in a corner of the yard and gave them a special canalside 'memorial garden', complete with seat:

... and most touching of all, cute little 'bonio' tombstones:

Their departure left a space in Ray's heart that had to be filled, and he filled it quickly.  Within weeks he'd got a pair of new border puppies, and when I returned from the Ashby Canal, the male one was wearing one of those 'anti-licking collars.

"What happened to him, poor thing?" I asked. 

"Ha ha" said Ray.  "He's not got any balls now, has he!"

Well, I guess that's love of a sort.

Signs and textures

I love texture.   I could sit and photograph it all day.  So imagine my delight when I stumbled on this footpath sign near Market Bosworth:

An unprepossessing bit of public furniture you might think, at first glance . 

But look closer, and see how the 'filler' of the yellow lettering is peeling off, curling outward as if slowly drying of thirst, and in places dropping off. 

I could imagine a whole font like this, texturing the public signs of Britain into life.

If you look at the top picture, the sign seems to be leaning back  slightly, almost lazily.  It seems to be pointing slightly upwards - if not actually at the sky, at least slightly above the horizon.

Yet this is perhaps an optical illusion.  The top of the sign is actually level.  I checked, when I cropped and edited the photograph.  Perhaps it's the way the lettering appears to be lazily 'leaning back'.

I do love texture.  Here's the south portal of Tardebigge Tunnel, where the rendering and mortar grouting of the brickwork is a textural delight.  The signs aren't up to much, and would be far more impressive if done in the 'cheese quavers' style of the one above.

But, oh!, that brickwork makes up for it. 

Odd kind of dog - where have I seen it before?

I was at the top of the Fradley Junction locks (Shadehouse?) and moored up for lunch a few years back when I came across this dog. 

What a strange dog.  Perhaps not strange as a breed - but I'm not quite sure which one - but its flattened appearance, its odd 'mien', gives it an otherworldly appearance.

Here it is a second later:

I was trying to work out where I'd seen it before, when it suddenly hit me - and then it ran off.