My Love of Canals

My interest in canals goes back over 40 years, from when I was a long distance lorry driver; driving all over the country.

I have always lived within a few miles of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, but driving all over the country brought me into contact with probably the majority of the canals in the country.

When I started hgv driving there were very few motorways, and using A roads brought you a lot closer to various stretches of canal. I used to see a certain stretch of canal and try to work out which one it was, I bought as many books and guides as I could to try and put a name to the canals that I saw.

I used to park over night sometimes at the lorry park in Banbury, and walk along the canal bank; it certainly looked a lot different then, the bank overgrown with nettles and weeds, what a difference there is now.

I used to collect bulk wheat from farms in Oxfordshire, Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire and the surrounding counties, wherever I went there was a canal or waterway to investigate.

I also used to pick up at the docks in Goole and the wharfs along the Trent at Keadby, Gainsborough and Newark from the coasters that used to go down there.

I can remember going down the A38 south of Gloucester looking down and seeing the coasters on the Gloucester and Sharpness Canal.

On one particular day I was driving along and came to one of the most beautiful places I have seen, the River Thames at Lechlade, in fact the Thames valley through Oxfordshire and Berkshire has some magnificent scenery.

Another regular run I did in the late seventies was to Kingston upon Hull, passing the site of Humber Bridge that was under construction. One tower was complete when I started the run, but I saw the building of the bridge from then to completion and was one of the first hgv’s to cross the bridge.

The M62 in West Yorkshire on the way to Hull runs near to the Aire and Calder in places, and a daily site were the 'Tom Puddings' on there way to the power stations.

It was inevitable that before long I would buy a boat, but finding one then was easier said than done, I eventually came across one in 1976, at White Bear Marina near Chorley. An 18-foot cruiser complete with trailer at just the right price, the boat was called 'Flitter mouse', the previous owner must have had a thing about bats; the make I do not know.

We certainly had some fun on that boat, cruising up and down at weekends and further a field for holidays; I think the furthest we got in her was Lymm on the Bridgewater Canal. At that time you did not need a license or insurance, you just had to pay the mooring fees and petrol was far far cheaper then of course, so boating then was a cheap pastime.

To cut a long story short, a couple of years later I divorced and re-married and lived at the other side of the country for a while, and the boat stayed put and was eventually sold.

Of course my interest in canals did not wane, and luckily enough my wife was also interested in canals and boats as her Grandma had been brought up on a working boat, so holidays were spent on hire boats for a while, this gave me the opportunity to cruise on some of the canals that I had seen while driving; but with a whole new prospective; looking up from the canal and seeing the traffic rushing by, a completely different world.

Sadly lifestyle changed and other interests and pastimes came to the fore and canals and boating took a back seat for a while.

In 1996 we moved to caravan park in Scarisbrick, which bordered the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, this move re-kindled the love of canals, seeing all the boats moored alongside the caravan park. The caravan park not being residential, closed down for two months each year, and everyone has to find alternative accommodation; what better way could there be than spending those two months on a boat on the canal at the side of the caravan park. So again a search for a boat commenced; we eventually found a reasonably priced cruiser at Lymm Marina, in fact at that time they had probably ten or twelve for sale, so plenty of choice.

We arranged to pick the boat up the following week-end, and my youngest son and his wife agreed to help us bring her back. The journey back turned out to be a bit of a nightmare that I will relate at a later time.

To be continued.