navvies 197

Navvies

waterway recovery group

Volunteers restoring waterwaysNo 197 February - March 2003

Contributions......are always welcome, whether hand-written,typed, on 3½" floppy disk, CR-ROM or by e-mail. Photos also welcome: slides or colour orb/w prints. Please state whether you want yourprints back; I assume that you want slidesreturned. Digital / computer scanned photosalso welcome, either on floppy / CD-ROM or ase-mail attachments, preferably JPG format.Send them to the editor Martin Ludgate, 35,Silvester Road, London SE22 9PB, or e-mailto [email protected]. Press date forNo 199: March 1st.

SubscriptionsA year's subscription (6 issues) is available for aminimum of £1.50 (please add a donation if pos-sible) to Sue Watts, 15 Eleanor Road, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manchester M21 9FZ . Cheques to"Waterway Recovery Group" please.

Visit our web site www.wrg.org.uk for all the latest news of WRG's activities

In this issue:Editorial 3Chairman Come to the Aston Opening! 4KESCRG planning for Little Venice 5Appeal news help us raise £75000 to getthe Right Tool for the Right Job 6-7Camp reports from the Basingstoke,the Wilts & Berks and the Cotswolds 8-15Diary camps and working parties 16-18Letters we need two new canal societies19-20Plant Bungle’s found the oldest living KL15 21Directory WRG and canal society contacts22-23NorthWest Mr Mac on paper chases 24-25Coming soon book now for the BCN......and the Mont Aston Locks Reopening 26-27Logistics and the 2003 kit schedules 28-29Bits & Pieces wot no KESCRG camp? 30Noticeboard 31Backfill stuck in the middle with you 32

And next time......all the articles we promised you this time butcouldn’t find room for - such as an episode of ‘Bank-side’ and a piece about the Aberdare Canal - plusphotos and reports from the BCN and Aston Locks,a Camps Preview, the latest on the Appeal andtwo articles about North American canals.

Contents

Cover photo: Work in progress on the central support and abutments of the aqueduct that will carry theLichfield Canal over the M6 Toll (formerly BNRR) motorway. (Phil Sharpe) Below: the newly-completedLoxwood aqueduct on the Wey & Arun Canal, with the new bridge carrying Drungewick Lane over thecanal in the background. (Martin Ludgate) See the Editorial comments on the opposite page.

page 2

EditorialA tale of two aqueducts

If you look at the cover photograph of this maga-zine, and also at the picture on the opposite page,you will see that they both feature aqueducts, oneon the Lichfield Canal and one on the Wey & Arun.

And they are both brand-new aqueducts.

More to the point, in both cases until not too longago you would have had to be something of anoptimist to believe that they would get built at all.

If you are a regular reader of ‘Navvies’ or othercanal magazines you will be aware of the long-running saga of the Lichfield & Hatherton Canalsand the Birmingham Northern Relief Road (nowa-days known as M6 Toll) so I won’t bore youbyrepeating it. Suffice it to say that the govern-ment refused to pay the extra costs of providingfor reinstatement of the canals where the new roadcrosses them, and for a long time it looked liketwo new major blockages would set restorationback by several years.

However thanks to a major effort by the Lichfield& Hatherton Canal Restoration Trust and theirsupporters - both in campaigning and in fund rais-ing (mainly through the David Suchet Appeal) -the Hatherton Canal is now being provided with anavigable culvert where it crosses the motorway,and as you can see the aqueduct abutments andcentral support are under construction where theLichfield Canal will cross. Whether installation ofthe aqueduct itself (a steel trough that will rest onthese piers) can take place during the construc-tion of the road - or whether it will have to wait tillafterwards - depends on whether the Trust canraise the remaining funding in time.

The Wey & Arun aqueduct is a rather differentproject - it doesn’t cross a new road, it crossesthe existing River Lox, and it replaces the originalaqueduct which was demolished many years agoas a flood prevention measure.

But it marks the culmination of an equally impor-tant effort by the Wey & Arun Canal Trust - in thiscase to a large extent a fund-raising effort - and itmarks a major step forward in the restoration. Theaqueduct, plus the bridge visible in the back-ground, plus a heavy plant crossing required bythe Environment Agency nearby between themcost about two-thirds of a million pounds. Andthe result of this investment is that over the nextcouple of years it will be possible to extend therestored ‘Loxwood Link’ section of canal to createa continuous six-mile navigable length. That’snearly a third of the entire canal.

Another thing that both of these aqueductshave in common is that our volunteers haven’tworked on either of them - they are profession-ally built by contractors. So why am I featuringthem in ‘Navvies’?

The answer is because in both cases many WRGvolunteers have worked on various other projectson these canals over the years - for example theTamworth Road locks and Darnford liftbridge siteson the Lichfield, and Malham and Rowner locksand Bignor Bridge on the Wey & Arun. And whenwe first got involved, few would have foreseen theday when either canal society would be raisingsix-figure sums largely from their own resourcesto fund major construction projects...

For many years the Wey & Arun was widely re-ferred to as the ‘Waste and Arid’ - it was the canalthat had no water and no hope: many thought it awaste of time and money and advised against ex-pending effort on futile attempts to restore it. Nowlook at it! It has to be one of the best examples toconvince doubters with: sure, there were canalsthat were more hopeless than the W&A when westarted trying to restore them, and there are ca-nals whose success is now more assured thanthe W&A. But I don’t believe there are any thatcombine the two quite so well!

And I remember an evening in the pub some yearsago when we got discussing “what’s the most com-prehensively knackered-in canal that any bunchof jokers has actually started restoring?” We agreedthat it had to be the Lichfield and Hatherton. Whichis now getting two new motorway crossings!

And what was it that brought about these trans-formations? Well, I’m not about to try to claimsole credit here! But alongside the publicity, fund-raising, political campaigning, feasibility studies andother vital work by the canal societies concerned,one crucial factor in raising support for theseschemes has been physical restoration of initiallengths of canal by volunteers - including WRG.

I’m afraid there’s also a more mundane reasonwhy I used two pictures of non-WRG projects - Idon’t have many good recent WRG photos to use!Partly that’s because I’ve done nothing but scrub-bashing for three months now, and there’s a limit tohow many photos of bow-saws and bonfires youcan use before they start to get repetitive. And partlybecause not many other people have sent me anynon-scrub-bashing pictures recently either. Soplease - if you get some decent photos considersending them to ‘Navvies’. And remember, we’rehappy to receive digital ones by email these days.

OK that’s all for now. I hope to see you on the(highly photogenic) BCN Cleanup - see p26 andsend your booking form in today!

Martin Ludgate

page 3

ChairmanAre you coming to theAston Locks Reopening?

Chairman’s Comment

This piece will be fairly short as I’ve already writ-ten lots of stuff for various other bits and piecesthroughout the magazine...

However I must mention the IWA’s appeal for TheRight Tool for the Right Job . The idea of thisappeal is very much like the Golden Jubilee Ap-peal - we have provided the central theme andwill keep a few big events running per month butwe very much hope that everyone will be able tocontribute in someway or another. Perhaps yourlocal IWA branch or canal society could hold afund-raising event or maybe you just have thecontacts to help us get the items of our shoppinglist at a really good price. Any ideas please bring‘em to us.

Also I ought to mention that our groovy newcamps brochure is already getting results asbookings so far are at their highest ever for Janu-ary. It may just be a pulse but can you afford totake the risk offinding your de-sired camps fully-booked? Booknow!

My editor informsme that it wouldn’tbe a Chairman’spiece without men-tioning training insome form or an-other. I’d hate todisappoint him andso I’m going tomention the Train-ing Weekend (May10th-11th at Hatton).Unlike the newweekend-long train-ing courses wehave been runningrecently, whichhave all booked upvery nicely thankyou, this is our ‘oldfavourite’.

No posh qualifications at the end of it, just what isreferred to in the world of training as ‘down anddirty’ quick lessons in plant operation, surveying,brickwork, etc. This will give you an ideal intro-duction to many areas of our work and ensurethat when you get on site a huge vista of excitingand enjoyable jobs awaits you. (Unless of courseyou come on one of my camps in which case it’sbrick-cleaning as usual.) Anyway the full detailsand booking form will be in the next ‘Navvies’ butput the date in your diary now!!!

I must also mention the Aston locks re-openingon the 4th April . Please note that is a FRIDAY -yes, in order to get a dignitary and to include allthe great and the good who we wish to influence,the opening ceremony has to be a weekday. So ifyou want to see the opening ceremony, then bethere by 10.30am. For those that find this a littledifficult we are helping out in two ways; firstly weare making the accommodation available on theThursday night, and secondly we are going tocontinue the festivities throughout the weekend.We have a DayStar Theatre performance (to beconfirmed) on the Friday night, free Friday after-noon refreshments for all those who ever lifted ashovel at Aston, the Race Night on Saturdayevening, an (optional) working party with SUCSfurther on the Welsh section on the Saturday andthe Dinghy Dawdle on the Sunday.

So I’ll see you there, won’t I?

Mike Palmer

‘There is something special about seeing the pool at Little Venice full to bursting-point withboats’ - see Eddie’s piece opposite about Canalway Cavalcade (Martin Ludgate)

KESCRGEddie looks forward to thisyear’s Canalway Cavalcade

KESCRG at Little Venice

Tapping this out in a suprisingly clear but bit-terly cold Manchester it feels strange to be look-ing forward to the bank holiday at the start of May,but it is not that far away and preparations arewell under way for this year’s Canal Calvacadefestival at Little Venice in London taking place overthe weekend of the 2nd-5th May 2003.

KESCRG will be there providing site and serv-ices support over the weekend and I will be lead-ing a small band of merry men (and women!) ei-ther side of the weekend itself helping to put theshow together. Although we will not be erectingthe tents ourselves because of insurance impli-cations, we will be collecting the marquees, stalls,barriers, tables, chairs etc from Hackney on nar-row boat ‘Aldgate’ courtesy of Paul and LynnAyres. I will require assistance loading and un-loading the truck to take the gear the short dis-tance from the yard to the wharf - which will berewarded by a trip down the River Lee and backup the Regents Canal to Little Venice.

Once the marquees are up, we lay-in the power,mark out the trade areas, plumb-in the water etcwith the aim this year to have the site ready forFriday afternoon. The weekend work includes theusual festival chores of car parking (only a fewhours cover required per day though), rubbish col-lecting (by boat!) marshalling etc etc.

I have been asked if we can do something specialthis year and that is run an activity for WOW, (WildOver Waterways) a youth initiative run jointly by IWA,BW and The Waterways Trust. We have been askedto put on a bricklaying and brick-painting display,which I have to say sounds rather intriguing. It willonly be for a few hours a day and will be one of anumber of such activities spread around the site.

Accomodation for our volunteers is aboard the PirateClub community narrow boats, with nb ‘Tarporley’ asthe cooking boat. Because of the legal limit of berthson the boats I really need to know in advance if youintend to turn up, to ensure we have enough space.

I have said it before I know but there is somethingspecial about seeing the pool at Little Venice fullto bursting-point with boats, or standing on thehorse-bridge to look at boats moored-3 deep asfar as you can see on the visitor moorings. It is agreat event so please come along and help us tobuild on the success of previous years.

It is also a very important the event does well forKESCRG as the some of the monies raised aredonated to us to pay our insurance bill with outwhich we can’t go out and do what we do best atweekends during the rest of the year.

So if you want to give us a hand either duringthe setup/derig or over the weekend itselfplease let give me a shout either by [email protected] or on the mobile 07850889 249 (although leave a text message if book-ing in, so I can write it down as my memory iscrap!)

Looking further ahead this year’s KESCRG campis on the Mon and Brec 26th July - 2nd August.We are taking over from a job the WRG camp willhave started the week before, building a footbridge over the canal further up the line fromwhere the Bonfire Bash was last November.

For the first time for a fair while, Ken Parish istaking a back-seat and the camp is going to beled by Ian Williamson, Gary Alderman and LizWilson with Jenny Wilson cooking. The usualweekend regulars will be there lurking in the back-ground. At this point I have no more details re theactual work but there is meeting in a few weeksto discuss the job and so will no doubt have abetter idea after that.

I hope to see you around the system at somepoint soon.

Cheers,Eddie Jones

Eddie Jones at the KESCRG / London WRG Christ-mas Party - with a ‘Star Trek’ theme. (Martin Ludgate)

Appeal newsThe Right Toolfor the Right Job !

Appeal Update

In the last issue of ‘Navvies’ we introduced theforthcoming appeal by The Inland WaterwaysAssociation to raise £75,000 to re-equip WRGfor the future. Liz Williamson brings you thefirst in a regular series of progress updates...

By the time you read this the appeal, now chris-tened The Right Tool for the Right Job, will havebeen officially launched at the NEC Boat, Cara-van and Outdoor show!! Many thanks to all ofyou who came and wore red shirts.

Enclosed with this copy of ‘Navvies’ you shouldfind the official Appeal leaflet. We’ll be handingthese out at shows, sending out in the Waterwayspress, and generally using to encourage dona-tions. If you have a suitable site for display/distri-bution of leaflets or want more to hand out thengive me a call and I shall arrange a delivery.

Hopefully you are now eager to hear about whatelse we are up to in the next few months – the“silly things” I promised to tell you more about lasttime. So here is a rough timetable – it goes with-out saying that things may change so we will us-ing the WRG website www.wrg.org.uk to keepthings up to date.

21st-23rd March – BCN cleanup weekend . Aswell as the usual fun pulling black, sticky thingsfrom obscure bits of Brum’s history we will be hold-ing a Curryathon on the Saturday night. Yes backby popular demand a chance to sample the WRGcooks’ tastiest offerings together with a quizbased around the BCN with a prize for themost knowledgeable team. If you can’t cometo the whole weekend then please try to cometo the evening ‘do’: all the curry you can eat for £5and a free quiz – sounds like a bargain to me!See page 26 for more details and a bookingform.

April 4-5 th – Aston Locks Reopening . After theofficial opening (11am on the Friday), WRG arehaving their own special party on the Saturdayevening. This will feature a repeat of the highlysuccessful Race Night , once again organised byBrian Bayston.

Harry Watts is already saving up for his horses,and Bushbaby is busy doping them, so come andlose your money in the most entertaining waypossible, as well as celebrating the opening ofsomething that has kept us busy for so long. (Notforgetting that we are raising money to replace allthe tools worn out by use on the Mont!).

One feature that does deserve a special mentionis that the prize for the final race is genuinely unique:a ‘Buckby can’ (boatman’s traditional decoratedwater can) painted by WRG’s founder GrahamPalmer. This has been donated by Carol Rowe andhas been professionally restored by famous canalpainter Tony Lewry. See below for more details...

3-5th May – Canalway Cavalcade, Little Venice,London – Details are to be confirmed, but we willbe having a stand, hopefully with an entertainingmoney-raising scheme, and lots of publicity forthe appeal. A volunteer to co-ordinate this wouldbe appreciated: please contact me soon.

Your chance to win one of these. (The can,that is, not the editor!) It is not widely-knownthat WRG’s founder the late Graham Palmerwas a skilled painter of ‘canal ware’. In 1982he painted a water-can similar to the one pic-tured above for Carol and Alan Rowe (a former‘Navvies’ editor) and it was used by Harry Ar-nold to illustrate a ‘stage by stage’ article onhow to paint your own can in ‘Canal & Riverboat’magazine. Afterwards it did some years serv-ice in its intended role as a boaters’ water can,but now it has been restored and donated astop prize at the ‘Race Night’ - see above. (Photoby Lesley McFadyen)

Appeal newsWhat are you going to do to helpraise £75,000 for WRG?

Date to be confirmed (early summer) – Mur-der Mystery Cruise. Slap-up meal on a luxurytrip boat, with entertainment in the form of a mur-der to solve – expect good food, bad jokes, and aprize for the best sleuth. We will be needing acast of murder suspects, and possibly waitingstaff. Watch the Web for details.

August 22nd-25th – National Waterways Fes-tival at Beale Park – in amongst the usual funand japes we will be having numerous “Right Toolfor the Right Job” events, including a “Slave Auction” of navvies, and the return of the WRG show onthe Saturday night as a grand finale.

We will also be featuring at events such asCrick Boat show, Tring festival, Boats onShow, Saul Junction and any others we canthink of, or that you suggest to me. There area few other ideas we are still working on, suchas a sponsored walk of the route of the Cots-wold Canals, and an attempt on the WorldRecord for number of people in a minibus,watch this space for details.

Once a month we will be publishing a fun ca-nal-based trivia quiz on the website: this isreally a bit of publicity and fun, but if peoplewant to send donations in with their answersheets, so much the better. If you can’t getaccess to the web then you can also request

hardcopy from Head Office (01923 711114 x24) . The quiz begins in March and there is a prize of £25for the first correct answer drawn out of the hat each month, so you might end up being able to standa round of drinks at the next event!

We also expect the WRG regionalgroups will get involved in the appeal soexpect hassle (sorry encouragement)from them. We are also inviting all of theIWA branches and regions to think ofsomething to do to support the appeal –keep an eye out for what your region isdoing, and try to get along. After all, weare trying to raise this money so that wecan all be better equipped and trained,and continue being an incredibly impor-tant part of waterways restoration.

One thing all of you who work for l arge companies could do is to ask if they are prepared to providesome matching funding for voluntary work or sponsorship. If you think this might apply to you (unfortu-nately for me, the NHS doesn’t believe in this kind of thing…) please contact me, we have loads of verynon-onerous work which needs doing and could get us literally thousands extra for the appeal.

We hope to see as many of you as possible at all or any of the events, your contributions, whether intime, enthusiasm or cash will make a huge difference to the success of the appeal. And, of course, ifyou feel able to send us a donation straight away, so much the better, use the form on the leaflet, andget the appeal off to a great start.

I look forward to hearing from you all very soon with ideas, suggestions, time and money.

Lots of luv ‘n’ hugs‘Dr Liz’ Williamson: email [email protected] tel 01844 351549 (eves)

Contact Liz (see below) if you can suggest any goodevents for us to publicise the appeal. (Martin Ludgate)

Finale of the appeal: the return of the WRG Show at theNational Waterways Festival at Beale Park. (Huw Davies)

Camp reportNew Year Canal Camp on theBasingstoke Canal

New Year Camp 2002/3: Basingstoke Canal

Preface (or cop out clause): since it was one ofthe triumvirate of cooks who was foolish enoughto respond to Martin’s request for a notepad andpen to be taken to the pub to facilitate the writing ofthe camp report, and hence ended up writing it bydefault, details of the work on site are somewhatsketchy, as it is remarkable how vague people canbe when asked ‘so what did you do today?’

Day 1 Thursday 26 [Saturday]

We arrive. Or at least some of us do. The cool (newly-invented collective noun) of Worthingtons - campleader Dave, his wife Jenny and their two sons - isalmost the majority. The assistant leader is sick.Diego the Frenchman arrives from Marseille, with12 bottles of red wine, travelling by public transporton Boxing Day. The safety talk claims its first victim:Richard Cool injures himself bringing in the TV forthe safety video. The kitchen starts running its owncalendar: today is the first day of a camp andhence a Saturday. After this evening’s ‘discussion’about how best to cook the stew, we decide to run a‘who’s in charge’ system for the rest of the week.Then there won’t be any doubt about whose fault it is.

Day 2 Friday 27 [Sunday]

Arrive on site to discover a tree conveniently choselast night to fall across the canal. The work boatproceeds to attempt to leapfrog over it. Stuff iscut down and burnt on 2 bonfires. Daddy Cool’swheelbarrow of embers spontaneously combustswhile in transit (not in a Transit you understand,but while being delivered from one fire to another).Rick Ansell demonstrates why he holds the LondonWRG lame excuse award by arriving on site just aswe’re leaving. We’re not taken in by his excuses of‘obstacles to navigation’ (i.e. the aforementionedtree) causing his delay. The cooks explore the localarea and find all the local supermarkets. Eventu-ally. Then we cook roast, since it’s Sunday. In theevening we visit the ‘Bleak House’ pub, which was.It seems unlikely they would have opened if wehadn’t been there. On our return, a seedy gam-bling den is established in the committee room.

Day 3 Saturday 28 [Monday]

Today we have a practical demonstration of the oldadage ‘breakfast will be served when the smokealarm goes off’. Out on site, more stuff is cut downand burned on five fires, and the next bridge issighted through the vegetation. A rather overambi-tious attempt is made to remove the tree lying acrossthe canal which is about six times larger than therecommended 4 inch limit for bowsaws. Alanspends the afternoon tied to said tree. Rick A feedsthe troops tea from nb ‘Invincible’. In the evening,after delicious chicken pie, we go to the ‘Plough’ atByfleet (many thanks for driving, Steve!). Their no-tices about their no mobile phones policy saying‘phone free zone’ make us think that the ‘BleakHouse’ could use some similar ones advertising a

‘Fun-free zone’. The camp report is startedand we get carried away into writing Day 4 inadvance, but decide that the formula for cal-culating how many fires there will be on sitetomorrow is far too taxing.

Day 4 Sunday 29 [Tuesday/Wednesday]

Cutting and burning continues, with 6 bonfires,but our ruthless approach to all vegetationstanding in the way scares off some fishermen.Pete Redway almost loses both his chainsawsin the monster tree. Sally decides that the treesare trying to write their ‘Last Will and Testament’on Richard’s arms, as he now has an ‘A’-shapedscratch to add to yesterday’s ‘L’. Despite thecooks’ shopping list being written in the publast night, the shopping is completed in recordtime, but delivery of lunch is delayed by navi-gational difficulties. In the evening a majorexpedition is made into Woking to see TheTwo Towers with a small breakaway factiongoing to see DAD (or Die Another Day).

page 8

The scene that greeted the volunteers on the first morn-ing: a tree had just fallen across the canal. (Martin Ludgate)

Day 5 Monday 30 [Thursday]

I cook breakfast on autopilot - apparently a gas-powered one, since the kitchen demonstrates thatit has electrics typical of a village hall: as it is nowraining, switching on the kettle cuts off the rest ofthe power. The water element continues to fea-ture heavily out on site, along with fire, as workconcentrates on burning what has already beencut down. Andy’s gloves catch fire, but Richard’sjacket is so sodden that it doesn’t, though it is wellsmoked. We discover that European standard hardhats don’t fit Antipodean shaped heads. Two-thirds of the cooks and a brother Bennett make ashopping expedition to Reading, and have to ne-gotiate a flood to get home. Martin entertains usin the evening with a slide show illustrating whatWRG has been up to in the last year, in which sev-eral of the current campers feature fairly heavily.

Day 6 Tuesday 31 [Friday]

Cutting and burning continues, but we also get toplay with boats (it must have been exciting, sinceit is the first thing at least 4 people say to mewhen I ask what they’ve done today). Severalpeople go paddling, but manage to emerge withdry feet. In the kitchen we have an amazinglystress-free day. New Year’s Eve is celebrated witha ‘Bollywood’ party, with Steve cooking us a fabu-lous curry with all the trimmings. End-of-campawards are presented to Sean and Darren (notDawn and Sharon!) for washing up above and be-yond the call of duty, Andy and Tom for most prom-ising new volunteers, Sally as camp MUP (mostuseful person), Diego for most meritorious jour-ney to the camp and Cameron the dog for gettinginto the largest number of beds during the week.We see in 2003 in the usual WRG style with thesinging of Auld Lang Syne outside at midnight,and the partying continues, for some of us at least,for some time.

Day 7 Wednesday 1 [Saturday]

Signs of life eventually appear from the campers,and after sausage and bacon butties, everyonepitches in to help pack the kit and tidy the hall (aspecial thanks from me to Sue for cleaning thecooker). People, vans and kit gradually disappear,hopefully in the right directions!

Many thanks to Dave and Martin for running sucha relaxed and enjoyable camp and to everyoneelse for being there – you were all fantastic (andnot a vegetarian among you!)

Harriet (‘Harri T’) Thompsett

Steve and Harri of the catering crew serve up adelicious curry on the last night. (Alan Lines)

Most of the work involved cutting down overhangingvegetation on the offside bank of the canal (above)plus just the odd bit of standing around the fire keep-ing warm (below). By the end of the week we’dcleared enough of the fallen tree to get the Bantamtug through. (bottom) Photos by Martin Ludgate

Camp reportNew Year Canal Camp on theWilts & Berks Canal

Christmas - New Year Camp Wilts & Berks Canal

We didn’t have a very auspicious start to the campthis year. The caretaker of Foxham ReadingRooms lives next door, and Mrs. caretaker wasexpecting a baby on 23.12.02, so she was glad tolet us have the key on that day so she wouldn’thave to worry about it. We duly moved all the foodthat Di had brought up from Devon for the camp,including six cakes, into the freezer, and wenthome again until everyone started arriving onBoxing Day. It was then that we discovered thatthe freezer wasn’t working properly, and every-thing was starting to defrost! Fortunately (fromour point of view), the expected new arrival hadnot foaled (to quote the Chairman) so Mrs. care-taker shifted things around in her freezer to makeroom for ours. But that was not all....

With the oven cooking the evening meal nicely, Diswitched on the hot plate on the top for the vegeta-bles, and the whole place was plunged into dark-ness! We reversed the trip switch, and tried all fourhot plates in turn, and found that only one of thesmall ones didn’t send us all back into the middle ofthe night. The next day the caretaker tried his best,but you try getting hold of an electrician to comeround on 27th December! We eventually had toborrow a camping gaz two ring burner from oneof the locals to see us through the camp.

However, with that all sorted out, an initial eightnavvies set to with a will. Now that the new bas-cule bridge at Foxham is in use by the farmer,one of the main tasks was to dig out the cause-way which he had been using to cross the canal.We did actually have two dry days (Friday andSaturday), although it did rain during the night,and by the end of the second day it became obvi-ous that tracking the digger up and down wasmaking a real mess of the towpath, so that projecthad to be abandoned half finished, although wedid get a lot of the hedge trimmed back and burntso the area shows considerable improvement.

Sunday saw us setting off in the work-boat to cutback the undergrowth and scrub on the offsidebank at Dauntsey, and the boat was rapidly filled,motored back and emptied and then refilled threetimes a day. Despite the rain, which by then wassiling it down (Di’s expression from Lincolnshire)a huge bonfire saw everything burnt up each night.

The boat moved steadily up the canal, and over theweek half a mile of offside bank was trimmed backand quite a bit of the towpath hedge. In places theboat almost goes from bank to bank at right anglesto the towpath, but poor canine Katy managed tofall in twice misjudging the gap from boat to bank,so after that she preferred to trot up the towpathand swim across and back to preserve her dignity.

We had a fluctuating population on the camp, withsome coming at the beginning and some at thelatter half of the week, and five of us for the wholeweek. The weather was awful, but everyone stillworked extremely hard, coming back to the cot-tage for tea breaks and lunch to dry things off onthe Aga. After days like that, a big glass of mulledwine went down very well. My thanks to Phill for abottle of the spicy mix stuff and to Alan for addingto our stock of red wine.

It was reported that the Caen Hill flight on theKennet and Avon was all lit up at night until 6thJanuary, so we all trooped off one evening to Devizes(the top of the flight), and walked down an extremelymuddy towpath past the first few locks, which wereworth seeing, but when we then went to the bot-tom, hoping to be able to look up the flight all lit upwhich would have been really spectacular, it turnedout that the lit-up locks were only at the top. Lowcloud and fog also obscured our view.

We had a cinema outing to Swindon, where fourscreens showing ‘Lord of the Rings’ were all fullybooked, and the decision was taken that half ofus would see the Harry Potter film and the othersthe James Bond. The only problem was that HarryPotter ran from 7.20 to 10.20, and the James Bondfrom 8.20 to 11.05 p.m., and as we’d all come inone vehicle there was a bit of waiting around!

Phill Cardy had borrowed a nice new 15-seater BTminibus, which was very useful for getting to site,not to mention going out in the evenings. In an ef-fort to keep it comparatively clean, Katy - who getsherself very wet and muddy every day - had to comewith me in a separate vehicle. (Rob Brotherston’ssmall dogs set an example to Katy which I can’t seeher ever following, and kept themselves fairly clean.)Our thanks to BT for their generosity.

Our thanks to Di for keeping us well fed, particularlywith her usual sticky gooey cakes, and she excelledherself on New Year’s Eve with a 3-course meal. Wehad our usual games of Uno to see the New Year in.Our thanks to David, Phill, Rob, Bernd (fromGennany), Alan (from Wales - to give it a trulyinternational flavour!), Jeremy, Nigel, and Luke,supplemented with help from locals Lany andMichael, for all their hard work and assistance.

By the end of the camp, the primroses were inflower on the towpath - will Spring come beforeChristmas next year?

Rachael Banyard

WRG Boat Club News

Hurrah! Spring is well on its way and so am I.Ah, the joy of the end of the closures and of fro-zen waterways. This is not the situation as I write,but it will be by the time you read it. I am ever theoptimist. With ‘Straw Bear’ on the Middle Levelover the winter I don’t suffer much from closuresor being frozen in (she says with fingers crossed).

First Club Gathering 2003 is 4th - 6th April on theMontgomery Canal. I do hope that members willbe planning to get to the Mont in early April to cel-ebrate the opening of Aston Locks. This event is forall club members: please let me know if you will becoming, with arrival dates if you can - we want thepassage down Frankton locks to be as smooth aspossible. Please remember that the Shroppie isclosed until after then. Of course you can just turnup, but don’t forget you have to book down the locks.[My understanding is that you have to book with theevent organisers if you want to take your boat downAston Locks during the opening weekend ...Ed]

Now I’m sure your first concern when boating is‘what shall we wear?’ Seek no more, for now wehave the ultimate in spring fashion - WRG BC cloth-ing and accessories! The logo on these will be slightlydifferent from the burgees. They will be embroidered.The bad news is that they won’t have the triangularoutline, the good news is that you can include yourboat name. I have tried to keep the triangular shape,include the bridge and tools and ensure that from adistance they wont be mistaken for BW workwear!

They are available in all sizes and there is a choiceof colours, though I will avoid blue as I often wearblack trousers! All are best quality.

The prices shown include post and packing.

Sweat Shirt , raglan sleeves £17.80

Sweat Shirt , open hem £19.50

Sweat Shirt , with hood £19.50

Polo Shirt , Men’s sizes S-XXL £16.00

Polo Shirt , Men’s size XXXL £16.50

Polo Shirt , Men’s size XXXL £18.20

Polo Shirt , Ladies £15.60

Fleece , Full Zip £26.50

Embroidered badges for stitching on caps, blaz-ers or W.H.Y. are available, with or without boatname, at £6.00 p&p 35p if ordered as an indi-vidual item.

Caps with logo and boat name embroidered oncost £10.00.

Printed heavyweight T-shirts cost £10.00

We are looking at the possibility of dishwasher-resistant mugs (of course we all have dishwash-ers on our boats). These can have the club logo

and your boat name on them. Theywill cost £6.50 for one and £31 fora set of six. That includes post andpacking.

Send your order to club commodedoor - Lynne Cater, 30 DoverbeckDrive, Woodborough, NOTTING-HAM NG14 6ER. Or phone me formore details on 07748 186867

I have had an enjoyable winter’sboating with much dancing andleaping about with brooms, as youwould expect, but what can I aimfor now having been the front endof a dancing cow in panto? Yes I’madding it to my CV - ‘A bit of a cow’.“Nothing new there”, I hear you cry!

See you in April?

XXX Sadie DeanThe volunteers on the Wilts & Berks Christmas Camp (see reporton opposite page). Photo by Phill Cardy

WRG BCLatest News from WRG’s ownboat club

Camp reportJust occasionally, everythingdoesn’t go entirely smoothly...

Camp 0220 on the Cotswolds:Trials And Tribulations Of A First Time Camp Leader

Hi - I’m called ’Moose’ and this is an account of mytrials and tribulations of being a camp leader for thefirst time. This is aimed at those volunteers whowould like to have a go at being a camp leader butwho are unsure at what it will be like.

It all started at the ‘National’ at Waltham Abbey 2000,during the evening we (that is Maria and I) and otherWRGies were in the bar drinking as you do... I hap-pened to mention that I would like to lead a camp;at this, Leonie sort-of said in a drunken state “if youled I would be your assistant” - bad mistake...

After the ‘National’ I spoke to the relevant people andsaid that I would like to lead a camp and Leonie hadvolunteered to be my assistant and I would ask Mariato cook so we were a ready made team. The relevantpeople said they would see what they could do.

At long last about Easter 2002 I was told that theyhad agreed; the camp we were offered was Octoberon the Lichfield. After a while it was confirmed that itwould be half term for the kids - ‘all systems go’.

In about June I sent an email to the coordinator forthe Lichfield and our troubles started. There was aslight problem and he was not sure if we could haveour camp there. After a various emails it was con-firmed that Lichfield could not take us, it was agreedthat we would wait until the ‘National’ (Huddersfield2002) and the decision would be made. At the ‘Na-tional’ I was offered either the Mon & Brec or theThames and Severn. This was a problem as Mariawanted the T&S and I wanted the M&B, but Leoniewas not worried about which ever we did. The de-ciding factor: at the M&B they had stayed in a Meth-odist Church Hall, and this meant no alcohol!

That was it sorted we would hold my camp as leaderwith Leonie as Assistant and Maria cooking on the T&S.

Straight after the ‘National’ I sent an email to NeilRichie, saying that I was the leader and we werehaving our camp down on the T&S and what ac-commodation were we in etc, The surprise emailcome back from Neil saying he had no idea thecamp was being moved to the T&S.

This was the start off several emails that started tofly around; Selsley Scout hut was thought to beunavailable. Other Halls were booked etc. Then Neilwent back to the Scout leaders who then checkedtheir calendars and it was found it was a schoolholiday there as well as the Lichfield.

So we now had accommodation, emails had goneoff to Logistics, Just Jen had replied saying we wouldhave RFB, Kit A and the London WRG minibus NJF.

This was promising, this was happening all aroundSeptember and the camp was the end of October,things slowly become sorted until I sent a confir-mation email to Just Jen to make sure of our vehi-cles etc and the reply was that we were probablygoing to get the vehicles as above but as there werenow going to be two camps running at the sametime our vehicles might change.

In the end our vehicles did not change - we werestill having the London WRG minibus and 6-seatercrew-cab RFB, which could tow the trailer as it hasa tachograph and any WRG vehicle towing a trailermust have a tacho fitted and the London WRG bushasn’t, as the vehicle will be replaced and it’s notworth fitting a tacho because they cost so much.

About a month away from the camp Ian in the WRGoffice sent us a list of people who had booked onthrough the office. It showed that most had beentold about the change of location and were still con-firmed as coming. But it did also show that we hadsome DofE’ers and that we were short on van andespecially trailer drivers. But we knew that a cou-ple of people who had not booked would have avan ticket and one would have trailers as well.

As the leader, also included were the dietary re-quirements, we had a nut allergy, a gluten free, avegetarian and a vegan. As soon as Maria saw the‘gluten free’, that was it - off to the library to seeexactly what was allowed!

Two weeks before the camp, trying to find out whereRFB was I came to a blank - it was suggested thatthe van would be at Mike Palmer’s place. The trailerwas at Tom’s Farm and looking at the map I reck-oned that I could drive to work and then collect thetrailer on the way back. The problem was I neededRFB. After emails and telephone calls to MikePalmer, I got a reply, Mike had been working funnyshifts at work and that he did not have the van. Thevan was out with the forestry group.

At first I could not get hold of Sparky (Forestrygroup),who was not due back home (to Cumbria)till Sunday (the Sunday before the camp). We de-cided that if the van was taken up to Cumbria, thenwe had no chance of getting the van back beforethe camp, so we decided to make do with the mini-bus and Maria’s 12 seater Land Rover.

So that was it, Maria’s Land Rover and the London Wrgmini bus. Trailer was collected on Wednesday as planned.

But that was not the end of it, Thursday night whilstshopping in Makro’s, the phone rings and it’s Tenko,another forestry person. He had the van at his placeand volunteered to take the van down to the com-pound down on the Thames & Severn.

In the van was supposed to be the flight case con-taining the camp phone, the safety video etc. Wellthe flight case was in the van that Tenko was goingto take down but there was no video and even worseno camp phone.

Whilst at work on the Friday, day before the campstarted, I receive an email from Mike saying that allthe missing kit will be passed to Tenko, Fridayevening at a motorway junction... At last count Ihad in excess of 48 emails, phone calls I lost count.All this and still the camp had not started!

The day arrived when the camp started.

Maria and I with our dogs Major and Bess drovedown towing the Kit Trailer, arriving at the Hall by14:00hrs, putting the camp signs up as we went upthe hill, then collected the key etc.

During the afternoon people started to arrive, peo-ple to be collected from the train station.

It might sound naff, but I had wanted to lead a campfor a long while even before the ‘National’ at WalthamAbbey and here it was. I had 16 booked on throughhead office. One was unable to make it for personalreasons which was a shame as it was a personwho I know through digging with London WRG, hehad done a lot of weekends but had never done aweeks camp: I was honoured that he was going touse my camp as his initiation into week camps!

So I was down to 15 people of which 4 wereDofE’ers and plus a couple of regulars had saidthey would come and give support.

After the Health & Safety video and talk we had ourfirst evening meal, but we also had our first casu-alty, one of the first-timers was allergic to dogs - itcould be seen that she was suffering. After variousconversations etc it was seen that she could notremain in the hall. And putting the dogs out in thecar was too late because they had been in the hallfor a couple of hours by now.

In the end her boyfriend come to collect her but hehad to come such a long way that my assistantLeonie and Andi offered to meet the boyfriend half-way. Which they did: remember this was the Satur-day evening leading up to the Sunday of storms.

Leonie and Andi got back at about 01:00 in themorning... they had found that not all junctions onthe M5 allow you back on after getting off... as theydecided to change drivers, they took the junctionoff the motorway but after changing drivers foundthey could not get back on and had to go back ajunction before they could get on. Also the indica-tor on the van completely fell out. (This was repairedthe following morning before going to site).

After the Health and Safety talk etc I went throughthe work that had been ear-marked for camp 20.

This consisted of:

. Finish brickwork on Ham Lock Spill weir.. Have a ready mix pour to fill in the void underthe crest of the weir. Put up a wooden fence around the spill weir.. Put the coping stones butting up to the Spill weir. Site and fix a memorial seat that was going to beinaugurated on Saturday after our camp finished.. Replace the concrete slab that acts as the floodcontrol paddle for the Chalfont pound, withproper paddle gear.

. Clear a channel between Ham Lock and JubileeBridge.. Clear out more channels in the turning area nextto the round house on the Chalfont Pound.

Now we are down to 14 booked people, and 1 lessDof E’er.

Moose (Leader) Leonie (assistant)Maria (cook/counsellor) Ian (Been before)Andi (Old Hand) Ed (Old Hand)Martin(Old Hand/Editor) Daphne (Been before)Bernd (Old Hand) Sally (1 st timer)John (1 st timer) Chris (1 st timer)Roxy (1 st timer) Ruby (1 st timer)Robert (Been before, expert brickie!)

Sunday morning: alarm went off at 07:00 for Mariaand I to start breakfast, outside the wind was howl-ing.

Some of the regulars started moving in the normalmanner i.e. slowly, but the first timers straight upraring to go. Out on site I showed them the com-plete site pointing out what was going where etc.

Our Martin started to get the brick kit together andwork out what he had to do, while I got the remain-der started on the channel clearing for flood pre-vention, and then there was the Great Wall of China,oh sorry it was the wing wall of the Jubilee Bridge.One side was being built by Robert who it seemshas fallen in love with this wall, he might be slowbut he does a brilliant job. The other side had to bedismantled a bit more, so Daphne and Sally setabout it.

That was it - the work had started, people werehappy and busy. The chef, Maria, delivered lunch.

People tucked into the sandwiches the Burco wasgoing great guns. After lunch it was back to work.

We finished on site, and because people kept hear-ing about the Roundhouse we took the whole groupdown there: this was for interest and so they couldsee a bit more of the canal they were working on. Itwas also handy for me to point out a couple of jobsthat we had been asked to do if there was time.

Back at the ranch (ok the Accommodation) Ed vol-unteered to do a shower-run in the minibus: whenthey all cleared off, I thought “that’s good, they’ll begone for at least an hour - a chance for some peaceand quiet.” Wrong.

The sports Centre had a power cut because of thestorms and the electricity had not been reconnected.

Another old face turned up, Gary ‘I haven’t beendigging for ages’ Sheerin.

Monday was much the same: Martin working in thespill weir giving instruction to Ruby in the art of bricklaying, whilst the people messing about in the cutcarried on clearing the cut. Sally and Daphne fin-ished beating-up the wing wall and Sally went off totidy up the hedge and Daphne, with her other halfBernd and Ed started to finish off the fence that Edand others had started building on the London WRGweekend dig before.

After what seemed another long day, it was back tothe ranch where Ed volunteered to do the showerrun again, this time they were successful and allcome back smelling sweetly.

Tuesday was the great concrete pour. The con-crete was to be pushed under the slope off the spillweir where the water had washed the soil away andit was now hollow.

When I placed the order on Monday I was told thelargest of the small trucks was 1.5 cubic meters, itwas suggested that we would need at least 2 cubicmeters so decided to go for the 1.5 cubic meter andthen be ready to order another one to finish off.

That was the plan... the mixer arrived, it got asclose as possible but we had to improvise and makea chute for pouring the concrete where we wantedit to go. The pour went very well with a slight prob-lem: 1.5 cubic meters was too much by about 0.5cubic meters, this had to be moved by hand awayfrom the weir and thrown behind the spill weir wallas back-fill, so we had four or five off us all withshovels playing follow the leader scooping up con-crete, walking to the wall (in about 6 to 8 inches ofwater) then tipping it over the side then join the cir-cle. It worked but it proved my old (I left the Army1986) army boots are not waterproof anymore.

Now the concrete had been poured, the crest stonescould be placed. But that was for the next day.

What had to be done was installing the memorial benchat Valley Lock. The local contact, Ken had said the seatneeded a plinth so it could be set in concrete, so off wentthe crew-cab Transit with 4 unlucky volunteers, with toolsand several bags of cement, a lot of ballast, some woodfor shuttering etc. At about 15:00 they had to come backand pick up more ballast and more cement.

Ed & Andi took everyone to the pictures, and meanwhilewe had more people turn up: Tunji and Dave Miller.

Wednesday we had to be out of the hall by 13:30hrsand not allowed back in until 17:00hrs. Knowingthis we hoped that the weather would be good tous and at least stay dry. But no, it started with show-ers then slowly during the morning got heavier andheavier until it almost become constant.

In all the rain, Martin (with help) sorted the heightline for the crest stones and they were gently low-ered on several planks into position.

During lunch it was decided that we would have to comeoff site, because of the rain. So Leonie, Maria and I startedto think where and what we could do for 5 hours!

Swimming was originally the plan for when we fin-ished on site at 16:00hrs. So we could go swim-ming and that would take a good hour - but not five!

Whilst we were contemplating all this, the weatherseemed to clear up and everyone started going backto his or her work!

Work had started on the other wing wall. The plan wasto build a retaining wall in concrete blocks with a nicefacing stone. Trouble was as it was raining the mortarwas running out and they could not get levels to start on.This needed to be completed before the end of camp!

At lunchtime Martin left us to go to the Mon & Brec camp.

Our Leonie and Ed volunteered to take the crewbus with Bernd and Daphne to fit a paddle to a cul-vert to control the level of the pound at Chalfont, asan improvement on the existing flood control whichconsisted of the locals reaching in with a metal scaf-fold pole and levering away the concrete slab thatcovered the culvert entrance and then placing apiece of wood in the gap to stop it closing. (Remem-ber this would be because torrential downpours andmost of the time during the night.)

Before going back to the ranch most of us wentswimming, this is where we found out that one ofthe DofE’ers had a fear of water. He had been inwaders for the last couple of days and now we hadgot him swimming, his phobia has now been cured!

Ed came back and reported that the paddle gearwas fitted and it could be raised and lowered, butwater was getting around the frame because of rot-ten wood around the hole etc.

Thursday was our last full day, on site. It was rain-ing. The spill weir crest stones had all been put inposition and now they had to be mortared in andseveral rows of bricks were to be laid in front ofthem, to within a couple off inches of the top of thecrest stones - about 4 courses.

The new part of the wing wall had to be built andthe great wall of China (Robert’s wing wall) wouldactually be finished today - weather permitting.

The weather was not helping. Tunji was going toleave us today and the rain I think made up his mind.

Gary had gone off with Ed to make use of some ofhis experience with the Water Board to see if theycould stem the flow around the back of the paddlegear. They came back with big smiles almost asbig as Ed’s the day before. It is surprising what canbe done with foam insulation (the type that iswrapped around pipes) and expanding spray foam.

Later that afternoon it was confirmed the water levelwas coming up in the Chalfont pound.

Thursday Night was slightly different Ed took thecrowd to the showers. Maria had to go to a funeralback in Chingford, so Leonie, Andi and Gary startedto get the buffet ready. When everyone finished wehad a very good slide show from local Ken, show-ing some very old slides with the comparison of thesame view now. Excellent show.

Then everyone started eating and I did the farewell stuff.

I summed up the work:

By the end of the camp we had nearly completedthe spill weir. Concrete blocks needed to be put onthe top of the brickwork to raise the height higherthan the weir crest, so that if and when the spill weirfills up with water, the water will not go down the spillweir into culvert as the culvert is thought to leak andneed repairing before it can carry water. It was fearedthat if water flowed through the culvert, it could washthe bank away into the river. The blocks could notbe placed in position until the mortar on the rows ofbricks had a chance to start setting.

page 14

Robert’s wing wall was finished, the other side wasstarted but needed several more courses before itwould be finished.

The paddle gear was classed as finished. The seatwas in and we had been out to tidy up the area andtake the shuttering out etc.

And the crew who had spent most of the time inwaders clearing a channel through the reeds etchad done an excellent job, I believe Ed has somephotos of our Sally needing to be rescued from themud, photos including Chris & John laying downand looking like a couple of beached seals.

After people had some drink some of them volun-teered to go back on site Friday morning. Some ofus were going straight from Cotswold camp 20 tothe Bonfire Bash on the Mon & Brec and we couldnot get there before 20:00 Friday evening, so it wouldkill a few hours and hopefully finish the spill weir.

Friday: while some people were leaving to go tosite others were getting packed up ready to maketheir way home.

Again the weather was not nice: it was raining, Ithink since Tuesday my feet were constantly wet.After dealing with the DofEer’s books and other pa-perwork I joined them on site: when I arrived therewas Andi wading around the spill weir putting clingfilm over the freshly laid bricks and mortar and thenplacing the concrete blocks on top, mortaring themin and putting more cling film over it all.

Ken the local who had been visiting every day andhad taken his coat off and helped the last few days,was on his hands and knees trying not to slip downthe weir slope, and was mortaring the back of theconcrete blocks.

There were people mixing mortar as fast as thebrickies was using it - it was a hive of activity. Walk-ing down to the Jubilee Bridge, there was a coupleof them laying blocks and facing bricks.

By 13:00 everyone said that it was finished. We leftsite now with the spill weir finished, Jubilee Bridgewith one completed wall and one well started. Thelast nails were hammered in on the fence, and thatwas completed.

All that was left was go back to the hall, remember-ing to pick the signs up as we go back, to clean andrepack the vans and trailer and clean the hall, handthe keys back and then drive over to the Mon &Brec. On the way stopping at the Thames and Sev-ern compound to drop off the stonecutter and somebits and pieces.

Ed worked on packing the trailer with Gary markingoff and me acting as gopher, Andi got stuck intochecking the vans, and David got the job of brick kit- everything was marked back in.

Nothing lost or broken, excellent - our Logistics Jenwould not be beating me up.

We were on our way by about 17:30hrs: two vans,Andi driving one, me driving the other towing thetrailer, Maria in her Land Rover, Robert and Davidin their cars and Gary on his motorbike.

Arrived at Mon & Brec all together (after a slightdetour).

Talking to Maria when we arrived at School, Mariaasked if I had collected the signs in on the way backfrom site to the hall? You’ve guessed it: no, theywere still by the roundabout guiding people up thehill, oh bugger! Trying to work out why it was notpicked up when the kit check was done... it was be-cause we took them out of the trailer when we werelooking for the flight case which was not there, thiswas back at home.

At the bonfire bash on the Saturday it was rainingyet again and by that time I had had enough of be-ing wet, so we went back to the school in the after-noon and we had never planned to go on site onthe Sunday. So Sunday was return back to our boat(home) via - you’ve guessed it - Stroud roundaboutto pick up three signs.

As we were in no rush we went to Ham Lock to lookat our handiwork, then up to Jubilee Bridge and backadmiring the work that we (the Royal We) had done.The canal now has a flow on it; even though it hadrained from Tuesday onwards the pound down fromHam Lock was actually lower than when we hadstarted. We then went and had a look at Chalfontpound. The new paddle was holding the water backvery well, and the normal channel had a good flowon it. I was very chuffed with all the work done, eve-ryone had worked hard, but I would also like to thinkwe had fun in doing the work.

Would I lead another camp? Yes, without doubt, if Iwere offered again. It would be nice to do anothercamp with Leonie as assistant if she can put upwith me again.

A huge ‘thank you’ must be given to all those whohelped one way or another, but a bigger thank youto all those who worked on the camp to make it asuccess, Leonie for helping me, Maria for guidingme, Ed and Andi for all the hard work in organisingshower and cinema runs and always being therewhen something needed to be done.

Then there’s the motley crew who worked so hard.I would never hesitate to have any of you on an-other camp. Thanks also to the members of Lon-don WRG who turned up and gave me and the camptheir time and support.

Dave ‘Moose’ Hearnden

Moose began his epic report with “This is aimed atthose volunteers who would like to have a go atbeing a camp leader but who are unsure at what itwill be like.” I’m tempted to say that that if they’veread this far I’d be surprised if they haven’t beenput off the idea for life!

But seriously folks, I’d like to point out that:

(a) I’ve been involved in leading six camps so farand never had anything like as much hassle asMoose seems to have had the misfortune to suffer.

(b) Despite all his trials and tribulations, he wantsto lead another one!

So it can’t be that bad! ...Ed

page 15

Canal Camps cost £35 per week unless otherwiseBookings for WRG Canal Camps (those identifiedcamp number e.g. 'Camp 0301') should go to WRGCamps, PO Box 114, Rickmansworth WD3 1ZY.Tel: 01923 711114. Email: [email protected].

page 16

DiaryFeb 22 Sat wrgNW ‘Paper Chase’ waste paper collection

Feb 23 Sun IWPS Bugsworth Basin

Mar 1/2 London WRG Wey & Arun Canal: Dig Deep: Sidney Wood

Mar 1/2 KESCRG Basingstoke Canal: Dig Deep: Backpumping scheme at St Johns.

Mar 1/2 Essex WRG To be arranged

Mar 1 Sat Navvies Press date for issue 198

Mar 8/9 NWPG Ipswich & Stowmarket Navigation: Creeting Lock

Mar 8/9 wrgNW Ironbridge: joint dig with RAF Cosford

Mar 8/9 ECPDA Erewash Canal Cleanup

Mar 9 Sun IWPS Bugsworth Basin

Mar 15/16 wrgBITM Wendover Arm: Scrub bashing, stumping and strimming at Drayton Beauchamp

Mar 22/23 WRG/IWA/BCNSNational Clean-up weekend: Salford Junction, under Spaghetti Junction, BirminSee p26 for more details and booking form.

Mar 22/23 London WRG BCN CLeanup: see above

Mar 23 Sun IWPS Bugsworth Basin

Mar 29 Sat wrgNW ‘Paper Chase’ waste paper collection

Apr 4-6 WRG/IWA Montgomery Canal Aston Locks reopening: Official reopening on Fri 4th, boat ra

Apr 5/6 KESCRG Wendover Arm: Concrete pouring, excavation and Bentonite lining.

Apr 5/6 Essex WRG To be arranged

Apr 6 Sun wrgNW St Helens Canal: to be confirmed - on way home from Mont opening?

Apr 12/13 wrgBITM Wey & Arun Canal: Dig Deep project at Sidney Wood

Apr 12/13 London WRG To be arranged

Apr 12/13 NWPG Basingstoke Canal: Dig Deep: Backpumping scheme at St Johns.

Apr 12 Sat Chelmsford IWA Chelmer clean-up: Arranged by Chelmsford Borough Council

Apr 12-21 Camp 0302 Halifax Canal Camp: Halifax Branch of the Calder & Hebble. Working on relayin

Apr 13 Sun IWPS Bugsworth Basin

Apr 27 Sun IWPS Bugsworth Basin

May 1 Thu Navvies Press date for issue 199: including Canal Societies directory

May 2-5 KESCRG Little Venice: Canalway Cavalcade site services support.

May 3/4/5 NWPG Wey & Arun Canal: Dig Deep: Sidney Wood

May 3/4/5 wrgNW Mon & Brec Canal

May 3/4/5 Essex WRG To be arranged

May 3/4/5 wrgBITM Little Venice: Sales Stand only

May 4 Sun IWPS Bugsworth Basin

May 10 Sat wrgNW ‘Paper Chase’ waste paper collection

May 10-11 WRG Train WRG Training Weekend: at BW Heritage Skills centre, Hatton

May 17/18 London WRG Basingstoke Canal: Dig Deep backpumping project at St Johns

e stated.d by aG Canal

uk

Please send updates to Diary compiler:Dave Wedd, 7 Ringwood Rd, Blackwater, Camberley, Surrey GU17 0EY.

Tel 01252 874437. e-mail: [email protected].

page 17

David McCarthy 0161-740-2179

Ian Edgar 01663-732493

Tim Lewis 020-8367-6227 [email protected]

Answerphone 01622-858329 [email protected]

John Gale 01277-654683 [email protected]

Martin Ludgate 020-8693-3266 [email protected]

Graham Hawkes 0118-941-0586 [email protected]

David McCarthy 0161-740-2179 [email protected]

Michael Golds 0115-932-8042

Ian Edgar 01663-732493

p Dave Wedd 01252-874437 [email protected]

ngham. Organised by London WRG with BCNS & IWA but all volunteers welcome.


Ian Edgar 01663-732493


ally over weekend including ‘Race Night’ fund-raising entertainment on Saturday evening.




Dave Wedd 01252-874437 [email protected]



Doug Beard 01702-554492

ng towpath as walkway and cycleway. [email protected]

Ian Edgar 01663-732493

Ian Edgar 01663-732493

Martin Ludgate 020-8693-3266 [email protected]





Dave Wedd 01252-874437 [email protected]

Ian Edgar 01663-732493


Ali Bottomley


DiaryCanal society regularworking parties

Regular monthly or weekly working parties:3rd Sunday of month BCNS Jeff Barley 01543-3732842nd Sunday & following Wed. BCS Cosgrove Athina Beckett 01908-661217Anytime inc. weekdays BCT Aqueduct section Gerald Fry 01288-353273Every Sunday ChCT Various sites Mick Hodgetts 01246-620695Mon & Wed mornings CCT Cotswolds Dudley Greenslade 01453 825515Every weekend (Sat OR Sun) CCT Cotswolds Neil Ritchie 01452-8540571st Sunday of month CCT Cotswolds: summit Mark Welton 01453-872405Wednesday evenings CCT Cotswolds: East end Keith Harding 01451-860181Every Saturday DCT Droitwich Canal Jon Axe 0121-608 0296Last Sunday of month EAWA N Walsham & Dilham Kevin Baker 01362-6998554th Sunday of month ECPDA Langley Mill Michael Golds 0115-932-8042Second Sun of month FIPT Foxton Inclined PlaneMike Beech 0116-279-26571st & 3rd Sundays GCRS Grantham Canal Colin Bryan 0115-989-22482nd Sat of month GWCT Nynehead Lift Denis Dodd 01823-661653Tuesdays H&GCT Oxenhall Brian Fox 01432-358628Wednesdays H&GCT Over Ted Beagles 01452-522648Saturdays H&GCT Over Maggie Jones 01452-618010Occasional Sundays H&GCT Over wharf house fitout Nigel Bailey 01452-533835Every Sunday if required IWPS Bugsworth Basin Ian Edgar 01663-7324931st Saturday & 3rd Wed. IWA Ipswich Stowmarket Navigtn. Colin Turner 01473-7305862nd weekend of month IWA SBC Maesbury, Mont. Barry Tuffin 01691-670826/492nd weekend of month K&ACT John Rolls 01189-6663161st Sunday of month LHCRT Lichfield John Horton 01543 2624663rd Sunday of month LHCRT Hatherton Denis Cooper 01543-3743702nd & last Sundays PCAS Paul Waddington 01757-6380272nd Sunday of month SCARS Sankey Canal Colin Greenall 01744-7317461st Sunday of month SCCS Combe Hay Locks Bob Parnell 01225-428055Most weekends SHCS Basingstoke Peter Redway 01483-721710Last Sunday of month SNT Haverholme Lock Dave Pullen 01673-8622783rd Sunday of month TMCA David Rouse 01474-362861Approx 15th of month WACT Mid-Week group Colin Gibbs 020-82417736Every Sunday & Thursday WACT Devils Hole Lock Eric Walker 023-9246-3025Thursdays fortnightly WACT Maintenance Unit Peter Wilding 01483-422519or for general information on Wey & Arun contact their office on 01403-7524031st weekend of month WAT Little Tring Roger Leishman 01442-874536Every weekend WBCT Wilts & Berks Canal Peter Smith 01793-852883Every Sunday W&BCC Dauntsey / Foxham Rachael Banyard 01249-892289Please send any amendments, additions and deletions to Dave Wedd (address on previous page)

Abbreviations used in DiaryBCNS Birmingham Canal Navigations Soc.BCS Buckingham Canal SocietyBCT Bude Canal TrustChCT Chesterfield Canal TrustCCT Cotswolds Canals TrustDCT Droitwich Canals TrustEAWA East Anglian Waterways AssociationECPDA Erewash Canal Pres. & Devt. Assoc.FIPT Foxton Inclined Plane TrustD&SCS Derby & Sandiacre Canal SocietyGCRS Grantham Canal Restoration SocietyGWCT Grand Western Canal TrustH&GCT Hereford & Gloucester Canal TrustIWA SBC IWA Shrewsbury & Border Counties

IWPS Inland Waterways Protection SocietyK&ACT Kennet & Avon Canal TrustKESCRG Kent & E Sussex Canal Rest. GroupLHCRT Lichfield & Hatherton Canals Rest'n TrustNWPG Newbury Working Party GroupPCAS Pocklington Canal Amenity SocietySCARS Sankey Canal Restoration SocietySCCS Somersetshire Coal Canal SocietySHCS Surrey & Hants Canal SocietySNT Sleaford Navigation TrustTMCA Thames & Medway Canal AssociationWBCT Wilts & Berks Canal TrustW&BCC Wilts & Berks Canal CompanyWACT Wey & Arun Canal TrustWAT Wendover Arm Trust

Mobile groups' social evenings(please phone to confirm before turning up)

London WRG: 7:30pm on Tues 11 days beforeeach dig. 'Jugged Hare', Vauxhall Bridge Rd,London, Tim Lewis 020-8367 6227 ore-mail [email protected].

NWPG: 9:00pm on 3rd Tue of month at the'Hope Tap', West end of Friar St. Reading.Graham Hawkes 0118 941 0586

LettersMore about the BCN BradleyLocks Branch

Dear Martin,

I have read the correspondence regarding the Bra-dley Locks Branch in the last couple of issues ofNavvies which great interest. It is a shame thatneither Ken Whapples nor Brian Andrews con-tacted the local Branch of the IWA before burst-ing into print, as they may well have learnt moreabout what was going on and why. Furthermoreit’s a shame that Ken didn’t do a full site visit be-fore writing the letter that was printed in issue 196otherwise he would have known that nothing wasbuilt on the Bradley Locks Branch.

The IWA Birmingham, Black Country & WorcsBranch has always earmarked this canal as toppriority for restoration but has been unable to raiseenough interest to set up a separate Trust to carryout the work. It currently has two major projects,in the form of the Droitwich and Lapal schemeson its patch (and the Lichfield and Hatherton be-ing close as well) as well as one minor one, in theform of the Fens Branch. These are all on-goingand need continual support to bring them to finalsuccessful conclusions.

To start another scheme, until one of these hasbeen completed, could well create more problemsthan it would be solved, so the Branch currentlyhas a policy to ensure the route is protected untilsuch labour force and/or organisers become avail-able to carry the project forward. If Ken and Brianare willing to set up such an organisation then I’msure that the Branch will give it its support.

In the meantime the work referred to in Ken’s let-ter is being done following lengthy consultationwith the Branch that wished to see that any workdone would not impede long term restoration. Itis for this reason that the locks are being treatedin the way he has described, they will then beinfilled for safety reasons (the area has a highquantity of what, in these days, is classed as So-cial Housing), and will be available for re-excava-tion if and when the project goes ahead.

For the record the route from Bradley workshopsis complete, but does have one dropped bridgeand a factory access road built upon a small sec-tion of Brindley’s original canal that lead to theBradley Locks Branch. Other than these two mi-nor obstructions (both adjacent to Bradley Work-shops and resolvable) nothing is built on the throughroute. The lock flight is believed to be buried justbelow the surface, the coping stones of the top lockare visible in the grass by the junction with Brind-ley’s much older canal, so all are very likely to be ina similar condition and so be an easy restoration.

The grassed area at the top, which is formedby the area between the original BrindleyCanal loop and the cut-off canal, is under-used and could be converted into a reser-voir (& thus improving a local asset) to holdexcess water pumped from Bradley.

The canal, would if restored, provide animportant link from Wolverhampton to theTame Valley Canal, thus avoiding Birming-ham, and also link to the Northern BCNwhere it would provide a shorter routefrom Netherton Tunnel/Tipton to the Li-chfield Canal (once that is restored). Itwould also provide a waterleat to theWalsall Level (& thus the Tame Valley Ca-nal) from Bradley pumps.

Is there anyone out there willing to form arestoration group, if so could they pleasecontact me via Martin Ludgate

Regards

Vaughan WelchChairman, IWA Birmingham,

Black Country & Worcs Branch

Birmingham Canal NavigationsBradley Locks Branch

Cleanup2003 site:see p26

LettersRestore the Uttoxeter Canal!The importance of training.

Dear Martin/Chairman Mike

I am very pleased that a program of courses hasbeen arranged,through the help of partners in ca-nal restoration, offering tuition from skilled crafts-men on some of the specific skills often requiredfor the projects we undertake. And at a price mostcan afford.

Through the six or seven years I’ve been workingwith WRG, these projects have become more am-bitious and numerous, requiring more skilled vol-unteers. While enthusiasm is rarely lacking, thosewith particular skills have often been in short sup-ply, making some tasks harder or longer to com-plete and all too often to a lower standard thanone might wish for.

I hope these courses prove popular and create ademand for more: more options, more often, moreadvanced? Then, I believe respect & pride forthe quantity & QUALITY of our work can only grow.

yours

Phill Cardy

Dear Martin,

I was disappointed by Brian Andrews’s commentsin Navvies 195. The Caldon Canal Society wasprompted to incorporate the Uttoxeter canal intotheir constitution by the proposal to build a newaccess road for Alton Towers that might affect theline of the derelict canal, not by his comments inNavvies two years ago!

The Caldon Canal Society was formed to reopenthe canal, and did well to achieve this aim in 1974.However the current society is rather lacking inactive members, and struggles to keep abreastof planning matters, the works at Froghall and ourproject to improve the Leek arm terminus.

BW have initiated the work at Froghall involvingthe top lock and basin of the Uttoxeter as part oftheir ‘Destination Froghall’ project, with voluntaryeffort provided by WRG. The CCS are concen-trating on the Leek arm and have no resources totackle the restoration of another derelict canal,but hopefully the line can be preserved for a fu-ture Uttoxeter Canal Society.

These days the world seems to be filled with peo-ple full of good ideas, but not many who are actuallywilling to make the effort to get things to happen.

Regards

Rupert Smedley, CCS Vice Chairman

We hope to include photos in the next ‘Navvies’ ofthe first working party on the Uttoxeter, by WRGNorth West on February 8th-9th.

The letters above and on the previous page propose setting up new canal societies to restore theBradley Locks Branch and Uttoxeter Canal. This photo (taken by the editor) shows a surviving skewbridge near Newport, on another restoration scheme where a new canal societies has been set up inrecent years and volunteer work looks like beginning soon - the Shrewsbury and Newport Canals.

PlantBungle and the KL15: “...thenwe looked in the manual...”

Restoring a Jones KL15 CranePart 2. The plot thickens

WARNING: The following article contains informa-tion of an ‘anorak’ nature. If you find such materialoffensive, stop reading and turn over the page...

From the first time I saw the Jones crane I thoughtthere was something odd about it. For examplethe exhaust does not leave the engine compart-ment through a nice neat hole, but through a roughflame cut one complete with blobs of molten metalaround the edge. Similarly the fuel filler is locatedthrough another flame cut hole. It seems unlikelythat it left the factory is such a state so at sometime so modifications were made in a time effi-cient manner (or in other words it was bodged).When we first started looking around the machinein detail we noticed other oddities, for instancethe engine speed control was on a hand leverbolted to the top of the covers and was obviouslynot original, also the fuel tank was bolted on withsome bolt heads trapped between a panel and acrossmember. Some things just did not add up -something was wrong and we just could not putour fingers on it.

Then we looked in the manual. Yes, yes I knowthat probably should have been one of the firstthings to do but there was a delay in getting holdof one and even when it arrived you couldn’t havedescribed it as a good copy. When we looked atthe engine section there was a bit of a eurekamoment, the engine was fitted the wrong wayaround. Lister and Petter engines are designedso that the drive can be taken from either end,this gives the advantage that you can turn what-ever it is that you want to drive in either directiondepending on which end of the en-gine you use, so this was obviouslynot the original engine and the replace-ment went the wrong way for the craneso they just fitted it the other wayaround. However this still did not ex-plain everything - the manual showeda bulge in the side casing but ours didnot have this bulge, the exhaust holehad been cut higher than the original,whereas the manual showed that itshould have been cut lower than theoriginal. Lastly this still did not ex-plain the odd fuel tank mounting.

Then I rang Jones Cranes with theserial number. The lady on the otherend of the phone looked through theorder books and announced that wehad the oldest Jones crane theyknew of that was still in existence. Itwas built in 1947 with a petrol en-gine not a diesel engine. Pete Dunn examines the inner workings of the crane. (George Eycott)

At a stroke everything became clear, the petrolengine did not need the bulge to accommodateit, the exhaust was lower down and the mountingsfor the petrol tank would have been on the petrolengine so the diesel tank had to be bolted on else-where. Incidentally when I bumped into John Palmerlast weekend and told him the story he told me heknew it had a petrol engine originally......

‘To Diggle or not to Diggle, that is the question’After the last issue of ‘Navvies’ a chap called TrevorEllis emailed me to pass on some information ashe remembered using and fixing it whilst it was atDiggle. Both Malcolm Bridge and the lesser spot-ted John Palmer insist that it was never there butTrevor has described it so exactly and I have apicture of it working there (or at least it is one with arepair to the jib in exactly the same place) so I’minclined to think it was there. If anyone has anyevidence to support either theory I would be inter-ested to hear it. Indeed if anyone has any picturesof any Jones cranes working I would be interested:I can scan and return them. You can reach me onbungle@ wrg.org.uk or with bits of paper at 36Grange Court, Boundary Road, Newbury,Berks. RG14 7PH .

George ‘Bungle’ Eycott

BARNSLEY, DEARNE & DOVECANAL TRUSTJune Backhouse39 HIll St, ElsecarBarnsley S74 8EN01226 743383Web site: www.barnsleydearnedovecanals.org.uk

BIRMINGHAM CANALNAVIGATIONS SOCIETYJeff Barley17 SunnisideWalsall Wood, W Midlands01543 373284Web site:www.bcn-society.org.uk/

BUCKINGHAM CANAL SOCSteve Morley33 Hambleton GroveEmerson valleyMilton Keynes MK4 2JS01908 520090email: [email protected] site:www.mkheritage.co.uk/bcs/

BUGSWORTH BASIN (IWPS)Ian EdgarBrowside Farm,Mudhurst LaneLyme Handley, Whaley BridgeHigh Peak SK23 7BT01663 732493email: [email protected] site: www.brocross.com/iwps/index.htm

CALDON CANAL SOCIETYAlison SmedleyHazelhurst CottageDenford, LeekStaffs ST13 7JTemail:[email protected]

CHESTERFIELD CANAL TRUSTMick Hodgetts31 Pottery LaneChesterfield S41 9BH01246 620695Web site: www.chesterfield-canal-trust.org.uk

CHICHESTER CANAL SOCIETYJohn Herniman8 Graffham CloseChichester PO19 4AWTel: 01243 527374e-mail:[email protected] site: www.chichestercanals.co.uk

COTSWOLD CANALS TRUSTNeil RitchieThe Chapel HouseSandford Rd, ChurchdownGloucestershire GL3 2HD01452 854057email: [email protected] site:www.cotswoldcanals.com/

DERBY & SANDIACRE CANALSOCIETYDoug Flack23 Thoresby Crescent, DraycottDerby DE72 3PH01332 874239Web site: www.derbycanal.org.uk

DIG DEEP INITIATIVEAlan Cavender10 Vicarage RoadMaidenhead, Berkshireemail: [email protected] 7DS01628 629033

DORSET & SOMERSET CANALSTUDY GROUPDerrick Hunt43 Greenland MillsBradford on AvonWilts BA15 1BL01225 863066email: [email protected]

DROITWICH CANALS TRUSTVaughan Welch29 Dice PleckNorthfield, Birmingham B31 3XW0121 477 9782email: [email protected] site:www.worcs.com/dct/home.htm

EREWASH CANAL P&DAMick Golds73 Sudbury AvenueLarklands, IlkestonDerbys DE7 5EANotts (0115) 9328042

FOXTON INCLINED PLANE TRUSTc/o Mike BeechFoxton Canal MuseumMiddle Lock, Gumley RoadFoxton, Market HarboroughLeicestershire LE16 7RA0116 279 [email protected] site:www.foxcanal.fsnet.co.uk

GRAND WESTERN CANALTRUSTDenis Dodd,Wharf CottageNynehead, WellingtonSomerset TA21 0BU01823 661653

GRANTHAM CANALRESTORATION SOCIETYColin Bryan113 Hoe View RoadCropwell BishopNottingham NG12 3DJ01159 892248Web site: www.granthamcanal.com

HEREFS & GLOUCS CTc/o The Lock Cottage, OverGloucester GL2 8DB01452 332900Web site: www.h-g-canal.org.uk

KENT & EAST SUSSEX CANALRESTORATION GROUPKen ParishEastwood FarmhouseUlcombe RoadUlcombe, MaidstoneKent. ME17 1ET01622 858329email: [email protected] site: www.kescrg.co.uk

LAPAL CANAL TRUST26 Loynells Road,RednalBirmingham B45 9NP01785 713862 / 020 8293 9744Web site: www.lapal.org

LICHFIELD & HATHERTONCANALS REST'N TRUSTJohn Horton,32 London Road,LichfieldStaffs WS14 9EJ.01543 262466email:[email protected] Denis CooperGorsey Lane FarmGorsey LaneLittle Wyrley, PelsallWalsall WS3 5AJ01543 374370Web site: www.lhcrt.org.uk/

NEATH & TENNANT CANALSOCIETYIan Milne16 Gower Road,Sketty,Swansea SA2 9BY01792 547902

NWPGGraham Hawkes27 Lawrence Rd,Tilehurst, ReadingBerks RG30 6BH0118 941 0586email:[email protected] site:www.geocities.com/nwpg2001/nwpg.html

POCKLINGTON C.A.S.Paul WaddingtonChurch House, Main St.Hemingborough, SelbyN. Yorks YO8 7QE01757 638027 (eves)01405 763985 (days)Web site:www.pocklington.gov.uk/PCAS

SCARS (SANKEY CANAL)Colin Greenall16 Bleak Hill RoadEcclestonSt. HelensMerseyside WA10 4RW01744 731746Web site:www.scars.org.uk

SHREWSBURY & NEWPORTCANALS TRUSTSteve Bean4 Arscott, PontesburyShrewsbury SY5 0XP01743 860488email: [email protected]: www.sncanal.org.uk

SHROPSHIRE UNION CSGeoff Munro198, Oldbury RoadRowley Regis, WarleyWest Midlands B65 0NW0121-561 5747Web site:www.shropshireunion.co.uk

SLEAFORD NAVIGATION TRUSTSteve Hayes10 Chelmer Clo,N Hykeham Lincs LN8 8TH01522-689460email: [email protected] site:www.sleafordnavigation.co.uk/

SOMERSET COAL CANAL SOCBob Parnell34 Wedgewood RoadTwerton, Bath BA2 1NX01225-428055Web site: rtjhomepages.users.btopenworld.com/SCC2.html

SURREY & HANTS CANAL SOCPeter Redway1 Redway CottagesSt. John's Lye, Woking GU21 1SL01483 721710Web site: www.basingstokecanal1.freeserve.co.uk/

SWANSEA CANAL SOCClive Reed17 Smithfield Road, Pontardawe,Swansea, West Glam. SA8 4LA01792 830782

THAMES & MEDWAY CANALASSOCIATIONJennifer Watts108 Old Road EastGravesend DA12 1PFWeb site: homepage.ntlworld.com/john.epton/tmca

page 22

DirectoryLet’s hope it’s a bit more accu-rate than the one in issue 196...

WENDOVER ARM TRUSTRoger Leishman7 Hall Park, BerkhamstedHerts HP4 2NU01442 874536Web site:www.wendoverarmtrust.org.uk

WEY & ARUN CTJohn Ward32 Badgers HollowPeperharrow Rd,GodalmingSurrey GU7 2PX01483-52712407971 336535 (mobile)Web site:www.weyandarun.co.uk

WILTS & BERKS CANAL TRUSTGeorge Eycott36 Grange CourtBoundary RoadNewbury RG14 7PH01635 569449email: [email protected] site: www.wilts-berks-canal.org.uk/

WOODEN CANAL BOATSSOCIETY5 Oaken Clough TerraceLimehurstAshton under Lyne OL7 9NY0161-330-2315

IWA IPSWICHColin TurnerCornerways, Elm LaneCopdock,Ipswich IP8 3ET01473-730586email:[email protected] site: www.purbrook.demon.co.uk/iwa/

WRG: GENERAL ENQUIRIESPO Box 114,RickmansworthHerts WD3 1ZY01923 711114email: [email protected] site:www.wrg.org.uk

WRG NORTH WESTMalcolm Bridge3 Heather BankLittleborough,LancashireOL15 0JQ01706 378582email: [email protected] site: www.wrgnw.org.uk

WRG NW - ENQUIRIES/PAPERCHASESDavid McCarthyWoodstock14 Crumpsall La.Manchester. M8 5FB0161-740 2179Web site: www.wrgnw.org.uk

WRG NA (1)Spencer Collins (see below)

WRG NA (2)Ian Nelson6 Lahn Drive Droitwich Spa WorcsWR9 8TQ.01905 798 6760973 640611 (mobile)email: [email protected] site: www.wrgna.co.uk

WRG BITM & 'NAVVIES' DIARYDavid Wedd7 Ringwood Road, BlackwaterCamberley, Surrey GU17 0EY01252 874437email: [email protected] site: www.wrgbitm.org.uk

LONDON WRGTim Lewis6 Downs Road, EnfieldMiddlesex EN1 IPA020 8367 6227email: [email protected] site: www.london.wrg.org.uk/

LONDON WRG: ENQUIRIESLesley McFadyen(as per Martin Ludgate below)

WRG EAST MIDLANDSJohn Baylis (see below)

ESSEX WRGJohn Gale, 12 Wakefield Ave,Billericay, Essex CM12 9DN01277 654683email [email protected] site: www.essex.wrg.org.uk

IWA/WRG STAMP BANKSteve & Mandy Morley33 Hambleton GroveEmerson valleyMilton Keynes MK4 2JS01908 520090email: [email protected]

CANAL CAMPS MOBILES(A) 07850 422156(B) 07850 422157

'NAVVIES' EDITORMartin Ludgate35 Silvester Rd, East DulwichLondon SE22 9PB020 8693 32660777 947 8629 (mobile)email: [email protected]

WRG LOGISTICS (1)Jen Leigh (see below)

WRG LOGISTICS (2)Lou KellettPen-y-Bryn BungalowLloran Uchaf, MoelfreOswestry SY10 7QT01691 791463email: [email protected]

CANAL CAMP BOOKINGSPO Box 114RickmansworthHerts WD3 1ZY01923 711114email: [email protected] site: www.wrg.org.uk

'WRGWEAR' CLOTHINGHelen GardnerNB 'Sussex'The Boatyard, Rowdell RdNortholt UB5 6AG020 8845 7820email: [email protected]

WRG FORESTRY TEAMGraham RobinsonSpringwell, Spark BridgeUlverston Cumbria LA12 7ST01229 861317

or Dave Johnson0161 2787663

WRG BOAT CLUBSadie Dean236 Station Rd Whittlesey,Peterborough PE7 2HA01733 20450507748 186867 (mobile)email [email protected]

WRG DIRECTORS

CHAIRMANMike Palmer3 Finwood Road, RowingtonWarwickshire CV35 7DH01564 785293email: [email protected]

TREASURERRoger Day,5 Merton Road, SloughBerks SL1 1QW

SECRETARYNeil Edwards,c/o IWA, PO Box 114Rickmansworth WD3 1ZYemail: [email protected]

WRG PLANT& DRIVER AUTHORISATIONMalcolm Bridge3 Heather Bank, LittleboroughLancashire OL15 0JQemail: [email protected] 378582

SITES GROUP & PUBLICITYJudith Moore3 Finwood Road, RowingtonWarwickshire CV35 7DH01564 785293email: [email protected]

WRGPRINTJohn & Tess Hawkins4 Links Way, Croxley Grn,Rickmansworth WD3 3RQ01923 448559email [email protected]

TRANSPORT MANAGERRoger Burchett(See Sue Burchett above)

IWA CHAIRMANJohn Fletcherc/o IWA, PO Box 114Rickmansworth WD3 1ZYemail:[email protected]

page 23

OTHER DIRECTORS

Jen Leigh45 Glebe RoadSheffield S10 1FBe-mail: [email protected]

Mick Beattie22 Bridgewater Ave Anchorsholme,Blackpool Lancs FY5 3NA01253 864034

Adrian Fry31 Griffon CloseElmore Lock, QuedgeleyGloucester GL2 4NQ07976 640962

Spencer CollinsN.B. 'Sunset', c/o Satford PO,493 Bath Rd SaltfordBristol BR31 3HQ07976 084055e-mail: [email protected]

Chris Davey / Helen Davey6 Partridge Ct, Round Close RdAdderbury, Banbury OX17 3EP01295 812002email [email protected]

Jonathan Smith, 23 HardingsChalgrove, Oxford OX44 7TJ01865 891 370email [email protected]

John Baylis, 215 Clipstone Rd West,Forest Town, Mansfield, NottsNG19 0HJ01623 633895

Updating thisDirectory:

please help!We normally only in-clude a Directory inevery third issue of‘Navvies’. However, asyou may have noticedthe last issue containedone too.

This is because it turned outthat there were rather a lotof errors last time. Hope-fully we have correctedmost of them this time, butif you can spot any moreerrors or omissions, pleasesend updates to the editor:they will appear in the'Noticeboard' in issue 198,and be included in the nextfull Directory in issue 200.

The WRG North West ‘Paper Chase’

Money doesn’t grow on trees -but it comes from them!!

If the ancient memory serves me right, and with-out taking time to research, I have recollectionsof a young lady (I think from the North Country)asking the meaning of the words ’Paper Chase’which appeared against the WRG North Westentries in the Diary in ‘Navvies’. The intentionwas to write a screed, but we all know where goodintentions lead!

It just so happens that January 2003 sees yetanother 25th anniversary for WRG NORTHWEST: the formal start of the Waste PaperCollections here in Crumpsall, North Manches-ter.

“How on earth did they come about?” you may ask...

In the July of the year of our founding (1977), oneof our founders, Tom Cook , arrived here at ourhouse ‘Woodstock’ to be taken out by my son-and-heir for a celebratory drink on the occasionof his thirtieth birthday.

During conversation on his arrival, Tom vouch-safed the information that after many requests byhis dear old mum, he had finally cleared the smallback bedroom of vast piles of ‘Amateur Wireless’magazines and whilst driving to the local tip hecaught sight of a banner which proclaimed “WEBUY YOUR WASTE PAPER”

He drove in and was rewarded by nearly threepounds for his trouble.

“HOW ABOUT” said Tom “WRG COLLECT-ING WASTE PAPER?”

A start was made between neighbours & friendsand by December it was decided that we shouldlaunch a regular collection in a nearby housingestate which, very conveniently, had four roadseach with over a hundred houses, all starting andending in virtually one spot -rather like the coils ofa giant snake thus providing a convenient “Round”of over 750 houses.

A MOTLEY collection of private cars & vehiclesset out on the morning of Saturday 28th January1978 assisted(?) by a near blizzard: all of the pa-per (plus scrap metal) being brought back to‘Woodstock’ for disposal later by three stalwarts -Tom Cook, John Palmer & Barry McGuinnessusing their own vehicles plus later on (from a newmerchant) the use of ramshackle trailers.

One epic run by Tom & John involved a trailerwhich on negotiating the first right-angled turn onlytwo hundred yards into the journey, saw one offour wheels fly off across the road, narrowly miss-ing a lady and child! It took them the wholemorning to borrow from a local garage a suffi-ciently robust jack to raise the trailer & replacethe wheel.

Such stories of mishaps were commonplaceduring that first year or so. We never kept anyrecords of the tonnage but believe that duringthat first year we collected about 48 tons andthe minutes of our ‘AD HOC’ committee (whichstill exists as such!) record that £884 had beenreceived.

March 1979 saw us keeping a formal record oftonnages & cash and in 1981 we had brokenthrough the HUNDRED TON barrier despitewhich, we only reckoned to have received a mere£900, showing just how the price of waste papercan vary.

The most paper we have ever collected was in1988 (128.3 tons) which brought in £1,500. Lesspaper in 1995 (108.3 tons) saw us receive thehighest sum in cash: £3,087 . These figures willgive some idea of the great diversities in the price -1999 we only had £2 per ton for the first month -THEN NOTHING!

However, all has not been lost as since 1992 wehave received an ever increasing sum from theGtr. Manchester Waste Disposal Authority whichhas compensated for any shortfall - and we sus-pect caused the Paper Merchants to keep theiramounts per ton at the meanest of levels.

A totally unexpected and yet most profitablebyproduct has been the large numbers of bookswhich have regularly come in with the collections,and which we have sold on our Sales & Exhibi-tion stand. Indeed that term is a misnomer aswe have pushed out the ‘Exhibition’ part to makeroom for the large shelves necessary to accom-modate the books. During these last few years,our member John Foley has become our BOOKWIZARD and he devotes unknown hours and daysto sorting the books, many of which he is nowselling on to the second-hand book sellers - Anddoing very well!

North WestMr. Mac explains what thosewords in the Diary mean...

ALL THIS has meant that WRG - NORTH WESThas been quite affluent and it all stems fromthat simple remark of Tom’s ”HOW ABOUTWRG COLLECTING WASTE PAPER”?THANKS TOM.

THANKS are also due to the MANY people whohave turned out to do the collecting. My oneregret is that I have not kept a record of themall - I can name at least 75 people but I amsure that the total could easily be 100 and theyare the pretty regular folk - we have had many‘one-offs’.

On the first collection, everyone we could musterin the area was called upon and this included themembers of our Working Party who as ever, gaveit all they had got. The great idea was, though,that after the first few collections there would havebeen built up a pool of people who for whateverreason, couldn’t turn out on the working partiesbut could do the Paper collections. ALAS thatdream has remained a dream - the members ofthe W/P are still the backbone of the collections -AND EVERTHING ELSE!

To really make the paperchase work we needabout 15 bodies: on one never to be forgottenSaturday we struggled with never more thanNINE and finished at 5 O’clock! Generallythough we do very well and quite often some20 volunteers will turn up for all or some part ofthe collection.

At the end of the first collection nearly every-one crammed into my kitchen/living room andpartook of fish & chips which we agreed shouldbe free, a tradition that went on for many years- even now all we ask is a contribution of £1towards the cost.

Somehow a further tradition has arisen with theserving of lots of tea and BKOKEN BISCUITS asafters. WHOLE biscuits bring forth loud com-plaints!

And when we’re not collecting waste paper...

Talking of getting volunteers reminds me that inJune 2002 it became apparent that NORTH WESTwas going to be considerably stretched for man-power for the first two weeks in July so I sent outan appeal to almost ninety people who are read-ers of ‘Navvies’ and from whom we have neverheard nor met.

I asked if anyone could assist on the various digdates but I have to confess that I was a little dis-appointed as I only received three replies beforethe events, subsequently reaching TEN replies bythe time of the ‘National’ in August.

Only ONE person was able to assist and I amafraid that thanks to events beyond our control,he is not likely to come again as we were ALLmessed up! I appreciate that I could well havewritten to readers who are already well involved(eight out of the ten replies) - but I did ask thatpeople might just phone to put me out of my mis-ery. Nevertheless, I understand that such a re-sponse is considered to be very good in the VOL-UNTARY world so that is some consolation.

A great snag in the Manchester area lies in thefact that with the recent openings, nearly all ofour canals are now open and running so we haveto travel to find work, though we hope that a newinitiative at Froghall and maybe on the upperreaches of the Lancaster Canal will bring the trav-elling down.

For anyone of the 250 readers of‘Navvies’ whom we consider arein the ’NORTH WEST’ (a veryloose description not really on anymaps) and who feel that we havenever formally invited them to anyof our events please feel free tocontact any of the following: JohnFoley: 01457 853582, MalcolmBridge: 01706-378582, Jim &Liz Lamen: 0161 494 5957, orDavid McCarthy: 0161 7402179.

David ‘Mr. Mac’ McCarthy

North West...and appeals for more peopleto go digging with WRGNW...

WRG North West Paper Chase dates 2003New volunteers are always welcome at WRG North Westwaste paper collections.

They take place about every fifth Saturday, and the rest ofthis years dates are as follows:

Feb 22 Mar 29 May 10 Jun 21 July 26Aug 30 Oct 11 Nov 15 Dec 20

Contact David McCarthy on 0161 740 2179 for details.

Coming soonThe BCN Cleanup and... wait forit... ASTON LOCKS REOPENING!

waterway recovery group in association with BCNS, BW and IWA

I would like to attend the 2003 National Canal Cleanup on Mar 22-23 on the BCNForename: Surname:

Address:

e-mail:

Phone: Any special dietary requirements?

I require accommodation Friday night / Saturday night / both nights

EITHER I enclose payment of £8 for the whole weekend

OR I am attending the Saturday evening curry and quiz night only and enclose £5

Do you suffer from any illness, such as epilepsy or diabetes, about which we should know, or areyou receiving treatment or under medical supervision for any condition? YES / NO (If yes,please attach details)

In the unlikely event that you should be injured, who should we contact?

Name: Phone:

Signed (parent's signature also required if aged under 18):

Please send this form to National Cleanup bookings, WRG, PO Box 114, Rickmansworth WD3 1ZY

The BCN Cleanup, Curryathon and Quiz

The BCN Cleanup taking place on the weekendof March 22-23 is your annual opportunity to dragas much rubbish out of the nether reaches of theBirmigham Canal Navigations as you can.

And this year we have something specialplanned for the Saturday evening of the event:a ‘Curryathon’ with food by Jude and her team,together with a ‘Pub-style’ quiz with a BCN theme,and prizes for the winners.

You are welcome to attend just for the Saturdaynight party - the cost will be £5, and we hope toraise some money towards the Appeal.

For those who want to attend for the whole week-end the cost is just £8, the usual rate for a WRGcentrally booked weekend.

But whatever you want to do, please fill in the book-ing form below and send it off as soon as possible,so that we can plan the catering, accommodation,tools and other arrangements for the weekend.

The event is organised jointly by WRG, the BCNSociety and IWA, with British Waterways support-ing us with tools, work-boats and skips. But any-one from any group is welcome to attend,whether for the whole weekend or just for a day.

We are happy to provide sandwich lunches forpeople coming for the day - just make sure thatyou tell us when you sign-on before you start work.

The work-site is the area around Salford Junction(right underneath ‘Spaghetti Junction’ on the M6),working outwards in all four directions along theBirmingham & Fazeley, Tame Valley and Birming-ham & Warwick Junction Canals.

The signing-on point is likely to be at CuckooWharf, on Cuckoo Road just off the A5127 Li-chfield Road, a few hundred yards the Birming-ham side of the motorway junction. But pleasecheck with the organisers first. (see below)

Accommodation details had not been confirmedwhen this issue went to print, but we can confirmthat it ISN’T the Ackers Trust building in SmallHeath that we mentioned last time. Sorry!

Full joining instructions will be sent to anyone whobooks using the booking form below and will beavailable from Head Office on 01923 711114 [email protected] when they are confirmed.In the meantime more details will be available assoon as we have them on the WRG web sitewww.wrg.org.uk , and from the WRG co-ordinatorfor the weekend Aileen Butler on 020 7723 2424or email [email protected].

The words you never thought you’d see in ‘Navvies’... The Aston Locks Reopening!!!

Aston Locks on the Montgomery Canal - restored mainly by WRG volunteers in the late 1980s and1990s - are finally to be reopened to boats, along with the next mile-and-a-bit of canal below them, onApril 4th-6th, with the Official Opening (by John Craven) taking place at 11am on Friday 4th, butevents happening all weekend involving ourselves, British Waterways, the IWA and others.

We hope that as many as possible of the people who worked on restoring these locks will be there tocelebrate their re-opening. Well, actually we’d like as many as possible of you to be there, whether ornot you worked on the locks, because (a) we have a few jobs for you to do and (b) we’re planningto enjoy ourselves a bit while we’re there!

As far as ‘jobs for you to do’ are concerned, there will be a milepost to install, car-parking duty, ferryingpeople around in minibuses, marshalls needed for the IWA (Shrewsbury & Border Counties Branch)annual ‘Dinghy Dawdle’ that has been organised to coincide with the Opening and help with variouscatering duties. And if we’re short of work, there’s a Shropshire Union Canal Society working partyfurther down the canal that we’re welcome to join.

And as far as ‘enjoying ourselves a bit’ is concerned, as well as the sheer enjoyment of seeing boatsgoing up and down ‘our’ locks at at last - and a chance for anyone who’s worked on the locks tohave a boat-ride through them - there’s a barbecue and a performance by DayStar Theatre onFriday evening, and a repeat of the very successful ‘Race Night’ (video horse-racing - but with realbetting - hosted by Brian Bayston) in aid of the Appeal on the Saturday night.

And if you happen to have any photos from the Aston restoration, or especially any odd artifacts youdiscovered while we were working there (a monorail?) please bring them along, because there’s going tobe a display in the old mill building by the Queens Head pub which has been turned into an art exhibition.

We will have overnight accommodation available from THURSDAY night onwards, and food availablefor the whole weekend. If you want to come for the whole weekend including Friday evening barbe-cue, the cost will be £10. If you want to come for the whole weekend except the Friday eveningbarbecue, it will be £8.

You are welcome to attend just for the Saturday ‘Race Night’ party: it will cost you £5.

Further details from Head Office or at www.wrg.org.uk as soon as we have them; joining instructionswill be sent to everyone who books using the form below.

waterway recovery group ASTON LOCKS REOPENING

I would like to attend the Montgomery Canal Aston Locks reopening on April 4th-6thForename: Surname:

Address:

e-mail:

Phone: Any special dietary requirements?

I require accommodation Thursday night / Friday night / Saturday night

I enclose payment of £10 for the whole weekend including the Friday evening barbecue /I enclose payment of £8 for the whole weekend excluding the Friday evening barbecue /I am attending the Saturday evening ‘Race Night’ party only and enclose £5

Do you suffer from any illness, such as epilepsy or diabetes, about which we should know, or areyou receiving treatment or under medical supervision for any condition? YES / NO (If yes,please attach details)

In the unlikely event that you should be injured, who should we contact?

Name: Phone:

Signed (parent's signature also required if aged under 18):

Please send this form to Aston Reopening bookings, WRG, PO Box 114, Rickmansworth WD3 1ZY

Well, it’s time to write something for Navviesalready... and back to a ‘just me’ style as the sheerlack of time and inspiration (and nothing whatso-ever to do with a technology crisis!!) dictates. Butfor a change I am not going to spend my pagemoaning about this and cursing about that. No, itreally is going to be a whinge-free zone ! Look-ing over the last year’s worth of articles, I won-dered what I could come up with for a ‘new year’:we had Eeyore’s gloom-and-doom, devilish tech-nology and the revelation that Navvies is reallymonthly (!), a usual gripe, a severe trailer over-dose, a Little Wolf appearance, and Toast lessons!To be honest it will be nothing short of a miracle ifthis ever makes it to Martin at this rate as thecomputer is living up to the whole “work of theDevil” persona - it has nearly found it’s way out ofthe window on more than a few occasions re-cently! A whinge, you say? Nay, ‘twas a mere ob-servation.

I’ve received no requests for full toaster instruc-tion so I am looking forward to a year of fully func-tional toasters (talking of miracles…).

A new year brings with it renewed hope that I canfinally get things sorted, but then I am much moresorted myself now that I have a decent house(possibly even a small shed … watch this space!).Hopefully, some of the ideas I’ve had for improv-ing the kits – some have been lurking in the depthsof my mind (and believe me it’s pretty deep inthere!) for a long while! – will make an appear-ance this year. I won’t say they definitely will butwe shall see! The more observant of you may havenoticed that the Blue Peter conversion of a showercurtain didn’t make it onto the scene last year! AsI said, maybe this year?!

Big thanks must go to Lynne Cater for offeringme use of a trailer-sized patch of drive/lawn ather own house. We’ve come to the conclusion thatit is probably better to use these facilities whenthe weather hasn’t been too wet! Me, Just Jen,reversing a full kit trailer, on a soggy lawn, uphill,in VOJ? With my reputation?! In readiness for theOperation Ironville weekend, a trailer is now satoutside Lynne’s. I am hugely appreciative of thisas trailer storage space is getting harder to comeby, particularly up this neck of the woods!

A slight aside from logistical matters, as there islittle worth mentioning at present and this com-puter is getting more tedious than an incrediblytedious thing, I thought I would use this opportu-nity to put in another request/plea for everyone totake lots of photos throughout the year and equallyimportantly, send them (or copies) to either myselfor Martin PLEASE! I say this because whilst tryingto produce this year’s camps brochure, we had ahard time trying to find a suitable photo for the frontcover. We ended up using one of the previous year’sphotos which we really prefer not to do if it can behelped. That said, there were lots of jolly and col-ourful photos from last year’s camps that were greatfor the brochure so please keep snapping away.

Oh, and on the subject of the brochure I have toapologise for the mix up of numbers on the map!It was totally my fault that Caldon is now located inthe south-east and Basingstoke is in Staffs! D’oh!But besides that we don’t think there are any otherbig mistakes… And we hope you like it!

Opposite this page should be the van and kitschedule. Peruse it at your leisure if you will. Butremember it is subject, as always, to the usualvarious happenings that are outside logisticalcontrol. Then there’s always the introduction of apotential new minibus. It did make me smile whenI read Martin’s note underneath last year’s sched-ule, “When we say ‘NJF’ we hope that we reallymean ‘NJF’s successor’!” And the ol’ gal is stillgoing strong. Mind you, she should be with allthat oil she drinks!!! So no doubt there will bechanges. Ho hum! That’s life! Best laid plans…

Just [email protected]

Logistics“I am looking forward to a yearof fully functional toasters...”

Jen wants everyone (not just MKP) to ‘Take lotsof photos throughout the year’. (Martin Ludgate)

Camp Location Start date Finish date Kit Van Mini

1 Montgomery Canal 15th February 22nd February A RFB GCW

2 Halifax Branch Canal 12th April 21st April B VOJ NJF

X Training Weekend, Hatton 11th May 12th May A.B RFB.VOJ GCW.NJF

3 Sleaford Navigation 28th June 5th July A RFB GCW

4 Saul Canal Festival 2nd July 9th July C

5 Grand Western Canal 5th July 12th July B VOJ NJF

6 Grand Western Canal 12th July 19th July B VOJ NJF

7 Wey & Arun Canal (NWPG) 13th July 19th July

8 Mon & Brec Canals 19th July 26th July B VOJ NJF

9 Lancaster Canal 19th July 26th July A RFB GCW

10 Mon & Brec Canals 26th July 2nd August B VOJ NJF

11 Wilts and Berks Canal 2nd August 9th August A RFB GCW

12 Wey & Arun Canal (WACT) 2nd August 9th August

13 St. John’s Backpumping Project 9th August 16th August A RFB GCW

14 Caldon Canal 9th August 9th August B VOJ NJF

15 NWF - River Thames, Berks 18th August 28th August A.B RFB.VOJ GCW.NJF

16 Wilts and Berks Canal 6th September 13th September A RFB GCW

17 Chichester Canal 25th October 1st November B VOJ NJF

X Bonfire Bash - Cotswolds 8th November 9th November A.B RFB.VOJ GCW.NJF

18 New Year Camp 26th December 1st January A RFB GCW

LogisticsVan, Minibus and Kit move-ments schedule for 2003

Van and kit schedule 2003

The table on this page shows which vehicles andcamps kit are scheduled to go to which CanalCamps this year.

Note that (a) as Jen says on the previous page“remember it is subject, as always, to the usualvarious happenings that are outside logisticalcontrol” and (b) I’m not making any rash prom-ises about new minibuses this time!

Bits & piecesRadios

A couple of years ago I was given two flight cases(by Mike Palmer) full of radios. More precisely Iwas given two flight cases full of very unwell ra-dios. Over the past couple of years I have gradu-ally bought more and more back to life but this hasbeen at the expense of cannibalising some to getothers working such that Kit A has the full comple-ment of 5 but kit b is now down to 2. The mainreason for failure of the radios is the batteries beingknackered, this is often due to them being put awaywhilst still turned on so please can everyone whopacks them up make sure they are turned off!

On many sites the radios are not used, so thedecision has been made to merge the two kits intoone and make the radios a special request item.So, if you think you may need radios for your camp,let me know in plenty of time (i.e. ringing me on theFriday night asking for them in Manchester on Sat-urday morning is likely to get a very quick responsebut not the one you wanted) and we’ll get them outto you. The standard kit consists of 7 or 8 radios(depending on whether I get the last one working)and two single way chargers in a flight case.

There is also a 6 way charger available but itdoesn’t fit in the flight case so if you would likethat as well be sure to tell me.....

Lastly we have made a change to the way theradios are programmed, they now have CTCSSenabled, what this means in practice is that itshould end the situation of a scout group 5 milesaway being picked up on our radios.

However if you have been using otherradio sets with the wrg handheld kit (e.g.if you have a vehicle mount unit) theymay no longer be heard on a wrg radio.If this is the case please let me knowand I’ll pass on the necessary informa-tion so it will all work happily togetheragain.

George ‘Bungle’ Eycott

Mummy and Daddy Cool...

...aka Jenny and Dave Worthington,would like to thank everyone in WRGwho sent them their best wishes on theoccasion of their Silver Wedding recently.

Attention all fender-benders!

Cath Turpin of the Boat Museum Society atEllesmere Port has asked me to mention that theyare running a course over the weekend of 12-13April in boat fender making (button fenders andside fenders) plus rope splicing, whipping andTurk’s Heads, and more advanced rope-work forthose who already know the basics.

Cost of the course is £65 including all materials,and you get to take away the fenders you make.Contact Cath on 0151 632 5446 or email:[email protected] for more details.

Best wishes...

...to Ian Wingfield, formerly of IWA Head Office (and incharge of Canal Camps bookings among other things)who left IWA in December after three years to start anew job working with Millennium Volunteers.

Ian’s WRG responsibilities have been taken overby Andy (no relation) Palmer who can be con-tacted on [email protected]. Ianpromises that we haven’t seen the last of him:you may well see him again on a dig sometime; ifyou want to contact him by email his address [email protected].

Apologies

...for having to hold several non-time-dependentitems over till the next issue of ‘Navvies’, as thefact that there is an Appeal leaflet enclosed withthis issue means we needed to keep it down to32 pages to avoid paying extra postage - whichwould be unfortunate, given that the Appeal issupposed to raise us money, not cost us more!

The long-promised article about the Aberdare Ca-nal and episode of Bankside will follow in issue 197,as will two articles about canals in North America.

Another one to watch out for: Pewsham locks on the Wilts & Berksare a possible new lock-rebuilding project. As you can see, oneside of the middle lock’s not too bad, but the other... (Martin Ludgate)

Directors of WRG:

John Baylis, MickBeattie, Malcolm Bridge,Roger Burchett,Spencer Collins,Christopher Davey,Helen Davey,Roger Day, NeilEdwards, John Fletcher,Adrian Fry, JohnHawkins, Jennifer Leigh,Judith Moore, MichaelPalmer, Jonathan Smith.

Secretary: Neil Edwards

VAT reg. no : 788 9425 54

© 2003 WRGISSN 0953-6655

Nothing printed may be con-strued as policy or an officialannouncement unless sostated - otherwise WRG andIWA accept no liability for anymatter in this magazine.

Waterway Recovery Groupis a division of Inland Water-ways Enterprises Ltd., a sub-sidiary of the Inland Water-ways Association (a regis-tered charity).

Inland Waterways Enter-prises Registered office:3 Norfolk Court, Norfolk Rd.Rickmansworth WD3 1LT

Tel : 01923 711114Registered no 4305322

Navvies ProductionNavvies is published by Wa-terway Recovery Group, POBox 114, RickmansworthWD3 1ZY and is availableto all interested in promot-ing the restoration and con-servation of inland water-ways by voluntary effort inGreat Britain. Articles maybe reproduced in alliedmagazines provided thatthe source is acknowl-edged. WRG may notagree with opinions ex-pressed in this magazine,but encourages publicationas a matter of interest.

Editor : Martin Ludgate35 Silvester RoadEast DulwichLondon SE22 9PB020-8693 3266

Subscriptions / circulationSue Watts15 Eleanor RoadChorlton-cum-HardyManchester M21 9FZ

Printing and assembly:John & Tess Hawkins4 Links Way, Croxley GrnRickmansworth, HertsWD3 3RQ 01923 [email protected]

NoticeboardContacting the chairman:Mike Palmer, 3 Finwood Rd,Rowington, Warwickshire CV35 7DH

Tel: 01564 785293

e-mail: [email protected]

Moving house...

Marcus Jones has moved to:12 Hampton Court, 116 St Mary’s Road, MarketHarborough. LE16 7DX

Gavin Moor has moved to:54 Kiln Close, Calvert, Buckingham, Bucks,MK18 2FD. Phone : 01296 730018.

Andi Kewley has moved to:12 Mackay House, White City Estate,London W12

Angela Lamen has a new email address:[email protected]

Jude Moore has a new email address:[email protected]

Eddie Jones has a new email address:[email protected]

Alison Moore has moved to:6 Bedarra Grove, Lenton, Nottingham NG7 2EJ

Nick and Cath Coolican-Smith are about tomove, but at the time we went to press theyhadn’t quite bought the new house yet. Hope toinclude their new details next time.

S t a m p sw a n t e d

Send used postagestamps, petrol coupons,old phone cards, emptycomputer printer ink car-tridges to IWA/WRGStamp Bank, 33 Ham-bleton Grove, MiltonKeynes MK4 2JS. All pro-ceeds to canal restoration.

The WRG CanalCamps mobile

phones:07850 422156 (A)

and07850 422157 (B)

Free to a good home....

Malcolm Bridge of WRG NorthWest has re-ceived an unwanted gift from HE Hire Serv-ices of a holder for 96 business cards. In theevent that anyone should want this, pleasecontact him on malcolm.bridge:wrg.org.uk.

Congratulations......to Sheila Davenport of IWA on her MBEin the New Year Honours List.

Bon Voyage......to Huw Dav ies, who’s j ust off t o work i nthe USA fo r a year.

Backfill

page 32

Recipes for disaster?We haven’t had any more contributions to the‘Great catering cockups’ series. Come on, folks!You don’t expect me to believe that nothing evergoes wrong in the kitchen, do you? Let’s havesome more of those stories!

Stuck in the Middle with you?

I’d just like to point out that in ‘Navvies’ 196 therewas a slight typographical error in the title of theroundup of what WRG’s Bit in the Middle (BITM)group got up to during 2002.

I hope I’m not being uncharitable in suggestingthat not everyone would fancy being trapped inan elevator with WRG BITM for 12 months.

It should - of course - have read ‘A year in thelife’, not ‘A year in the lift’.

A ‘Navvies’ Top Twenty?

I am indebted to the Keens Family of narrow boat‘Jannock’ for allowing me to quote their sugges-tions for a ‘Boaters’ Top Ten’ records...

1 Stairway to Hatton by Led Zeppelin

2 Porta Loo by Abba

3 Hey big fender by Shirley Bassey

4 Mooring has broken by Cat Stevens

5 Hard days flight by The Beatles

6 Lock around the clock by Bill Hailey & the Comets

7 Two little bouys by Rolf Harris

8 Running up that hull by Kate Bush

9 Tiller queen by Queen

10 Run-aground Sue by Paul Anchor

You get the idea? OK how about some sugges-tions for a Canal Restoration Chart? Send yoursuggestions to the Editor and we’ll print the best(or worst) of them in a future issue.

PS actually the Jannock list was a Top Twenty butthe other 10 were so terrible that I couldn’t bringmyself to repeat them here. See http://www.jannock.org.uk if you really want to know!

Rubbish!

Thank you to the reader who kindly sent in a presscutting about a political row in Bexley, South EastLondon about the excessive costs of transport-ing the borough’s rubbish to an incinerator.

So what’s it got to do with us? Well, it appears thatLondon WRG have found a ‘nice little earner’ thatmight help them raise a few grand for the Appeal -or at least keep them in beer for a week or two...

“Under the preferred bid by WRG, Bexley rubbishwould be transported by lorry to an incinerator atAllington, Near Maidstone”

Hang on, a lorry ? Couldn’t they use ‘Ben’? Or‘Fulbourne’? Or NJF? And why have WRG beengiven the job anyway?

“There were only three bids on the table. The onlyone which might be ready in time for the new con-tract in 2006 was from WRG.”

London WRG? Ready in time? Surely somemistake - the only thing they ever do on time isget to the pub before last orders.

Sadly, it turns out that there’s been a bit of a mis-understanding and in this case ‘WRG’ actuallystands for ‘Waste Recycling Group’.

“You put it there, you take it off!”

Thank you to Colin Turner for the above photodemostrating how the old-style two-wheel drivedumpers can carry a surprisingly large load, pro-vided you don’t want them to actually move.

Seriously, a huge horse-chestnut tree blew downin a gale and landed slap-bang on top of the Ips-wich IWA dumper at Creeting Lock.

As Colin says: “Although the tree brought thepower-lines down, the only other damage was abent starting-handle on the cement mixer. Veryfortunate - it could have crushed piles of cleanedbricks and that would have been a disaster.”

navvies 197

Documents

new canal societies19

thelichfield canal

wey arun canal

canal society contacts22

aberdare canal plusphotos

new bridge

new roadcrosses

opposite page