navvies 204

Navvies

waterway recovery group

No 204: April - May 2004Mr. Mac’s Birthday Issue!No 204: April - May 2004Mr. Mac’s Birthday Issue!

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Cover photos: David ‘Mr Mac’ McCarthy MBE of WRG North West, supplier of cupsof tea to thirsty WRGies everywhere, celebrated his 80th birthday recently. NorthWest made sure it was an occasion to remember, by organising a grand party withband, singing, dancing and a cake depicting Mr Mac and his tea van. (pictures byChris Griffiths) Above: Some of the volunteers at this year’s BCN Cleanup (see report,p26-29). Below: WRG North West don’t just hold birthday parties, they hold working par-ties too - here they are returning the WRG workboat from a short spell of impersonating asubmarine to its normal floating state; they also cleared the swingbridge surroundings atRednal Basin and added some final finishing touches to the Maesbury spillway.

Contributions......are always welcome, whether hand-written,typed, on 3½" floppy disk, CD-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 205: May 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:Chairman MKP on camps, minibuses, BW,Driver Authorisation and awards 4-5Appeal update we’re gettin there! 6-7Camp Reports from the Basingstoke and theWilts & Berks 8-15Training the 2004 training weekend 16WRG Wear get your strappy tops now! 17Diary camps and working parties 18-20Letters to the editor 21Preview of some of the summer camps22-23Logistics brings you ‘Changing Minds’ and‘Cluedo’ 24Auction winning bids from last time 25Cleanup report from the BCN 26-29Mr Mac celebrates his 80th birthday 30Navvies News volunteers wanted for WOW,Boat Club News and unloved canals 31-32Noticeboard 33Infill MKP exposed! 34-35

And next time.......we hope to bring you reports from the EasterCamp on the H&G, the Training Weekend andCanalway Cavalcade, and another Preview articlegiving details of the rest of the summer’s camps.And just maybe a pic of a new minibus!

Contents

page 3

Restoration and conservation work on this set of old limekilns alongside the Grand Western Canal isone of the jobs for Camp 0408 on July 17th-24th. See pages 22-23 for a preview of some of thissummer’s Canal Camps.

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ChairmanBy the time you read this we willhave bought our new minibus...

Chairman’s comment

Well it’s falling into place - perhaps a littleslower than we had hoped but from here atthe top I can see an awfully busy year.

Firstly with this edition of Navvies youshould have the Canal Camps 2004 bro-chure. We apologise for the delay but that isjust one of the problems of a volunteer or-ganisation -sometimes other things take pri-ority. However this year we do have a greatselection of Canal Camps including the re-appearance of some oldfavourites such as Lichfieldand Hatherton and theCotswolds.

Despite the lack of bro-chure we already havequite a few bookings formany of these camps (you’dbe surprised how little infor-mation some people needbefore signing up !) so I re-ally do recommend you givethe brochure a good read-ing, see what you fancy andbook now .

Secondly by the time thisNavvies is published wewill also have taken de-livery of our new mini-bus. Yes we finally stoppedtalking about it and actu-ally went and found some-one who would sell us(very nearly) what wewanted. So now we havea 17-seater transit minibus.

Yes that is right: 17 seats,which is a very large ve-hicle so listen carefully, Iwill say this only once:

We have a new very long minibus: take ex-treme care when parking and manoeuvring;do not bend it!! Too many people have workedhard to get us this wonderful vehicle for us tomistreat it.

This neatly leads onto the subject of theRight Tool for the Right Job Appeal. It lookslike we are on the final stretch now - the lasttotal I heard was £64,000 but that was sometime ago. My genuine thanks to all those whohave given time, money and effort to makeour work better and more effective.

All those who dig with WRG should be see-ing the benefits of this appeal, not least of allin having a minibus that doesn’t use more oilthan diesel!

Staying on the subject of vehicles: mythanks to everyone who has responded sopromptly to our Big Spring Clean of thedatabases and returned their forms.

Mike Palmer searches for inspiration for his Chairman’s Page

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One of the things that did show up was justwhat a complex arrangement the restorationscene is today. Just about every applicationgenerated at least one question (some appli-cations generated many more - thank youBungle!) and so some cards were delayedwhile these issues were sorted out. Howeverpretty much everyone should now have anycards they requested.

Many of the questions raised were similar sowe have published a Frequently AskedQuestions (FAQ) section which should beincluded as an insert in this issue, and willalso appear on the WRG web site. Please doread this, it may answer any uncertainties youstill have.

It seems the difficulties of working on BWwaterways are cropping up more and morethese days. Its not that we don’t value theirsupport but boy, can they make it difficult! Theyjust don’t seem to be set up for working withvolunteers, and a recently published Volun-teers Policy doesn’t seem to have helped, notleast because it seems no-one in BW hasactually been allowed to see it!

Whilst in many respects I applaud theregionalisation of BW (after all who wants ahomogenised network) it does seem that na-tional communications are often not what theyshould be. An example of this is that for sev-eral years the IWA and BW have believed thata standard indemnity existed for groups work-ing or holding events on BW waters. We havesubsequently discovered that the wording isnot actually appropriate and so a new ver-sion is being drafted, but recently severalgroups have been asked to sign the old in-demnity as no-one in BW knew it was obso-lete. So the moral of the story is don’t signanything without checking with IWA HeadOffice that it is acceptable . You may alsosuggest that your local BW check with JackieLewis, Principal Lawyer at Watford for the lat-est information.

You may be surprised to see we have acolour cover again. Well when WRG NorthWest heard that Martin had selected the pho-tograph of Mr Mac celebrating his 80th birth-day for the front cover they all clubbed to-gether to bring a bit of colour to this editionas a suitable way of honouring his manyachievements.

Chairman�...the weirdest weekend I haveever spent on the waterways...�

Other groups and individuals have helped usin this way before - it does make a differenceto our appearance and recruitment and weare always glad to receive this sort of sup-port. Does it guarantee you can choose thepictures? What do you think?

One of the IWAs lesser known awards isthe Volvo Penta Otter. Affectionately knownas ‘The Rat’, it is awarded to the individual ororganisation making ‘an outstanding contri-bution to environmental conservation on theinland waterways of Great Britain’. This con-tribution may relate to the structure of thewaterway, associated buildings or the floraand fauna, all of which contribute to the spe-cial environment of the inland waterways.

It has a fine pedigree and has been awardedto such important projects as the Aston Na-ture Reserve, but has not been awarded forthe last few years for the simple reason thatno projects have been nominated. This I couldunderstand in the last millennium, when itseemed no project could exist without big ex-cavators and a regular injection of ready mixedconcrete, but surely there are projects outthere that are producing very tangible contri-butions. If you know of one then contact IWAHead Office for further details of the award.

Finally, one of the few treats for people asold and jaded as myself is managing tosurprise other people. So to hear legendarywaterways photographer Derek Pratt saying“that must be the weirdest weekend I haveever spent on the waterways” was particu-larly pleasing. Slightly more worrying was thatI was naked at the time, save for ingenuity ofa helpful police officer. Confused - well all willbe revealed (quite literally) at the ‘National’ inAugust. Be afraid, be very afraid.

See you all somewhere soon, I hope.

Mike Palmer

AppealThe Right Tool for theRight Job

Appeal Update

Just in case you’ve forgotten (how couldyou?!) our parent body The Inland WaterwaysAssociation – supported by lots of fundraisingefforts by WRG volunteers – has been runningan appeal called The Right Tool for the RightJob aimed at raising around £75,000 re-equipWRG’s volunteers with vehicles, tools, machin-ery, catering kit, safety gear and training to keepus restoring canals for the next few years. LizWilliamson brings us the latest news...

We’re getting there!!

Progress has been slow but steady over the lastfew weeks, but now that spring is here I’m sure therewill be an increase in enthusiasm and energy!

Stop press news - ‘Dance For Tools’ BarnDance Raises £900! This brings our total up toaround £64,000. Fantastic effort by all those in-volved, and particular thanks from me to HelenGardner for coming up with the idea and makingit happen.

Also thanks to our sponsors: Chiltern and FFFBreweries, who gave generous discounts on thereal ale for the bar; Waitrose, Wycombe HeightsSki slope, the Mill at Sonning, and other individu-als who donated raffle prizes; and WRG NorthWest for sending money instead of dancers – hopeyou had a fab time at Mr Mac’s Birthday. Thiswas such fun that it may become an annual event– watch this space.

Calendar WRGs – by the time you’re reading thissome brave souls will have stripped off (inGloucestershire, in March so it might be a tad cold!)and the photos will be at the printers. Expect thecalendars (for 2005) to be on sale by the National!So that’s the Christmas shopping sorted...

The Right Hog for the Right Roast – we’re verysorry that due to lack of bookings the Hog Roastthat Nic Bennett was hoping to organise had tobe cancelled. Let’s hope we can organise one laterin the year instead.

The Barn Dance in March raised over £900 for the Appeal.

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Coming soon: Little Venice – the annual IWACanalway Cavalcade rally at Little Venice inLoncon on the early May Bank Holiday will seethe return of the Bhaji Stall – but a change ofchef as Viv is reluctant to come back from NewZealand for us! So Ian Williamson will be incharge, and I will be assisting with the onionchopping. Anyone who wants to lend us a handwill be very welcome – please contact mea.s.a.p. London WRG have also agreed to bringback (by popular request) the Splat the WRGiegame! Apparently it is going to be new and im-proved!

Dragon Boat Racing . Who was at Worcester ‘Na-tional’ and remembers WRG doing rather well ina Dragon Boat competition? The local RotaryClub in Abingdon is holding a charity regatta, andif I get enough people interested we should beable to raise some sponsorship and have fun too.I need names fairly urgently, so please email mea.s.a.p. if you’re interested. The event will be onMay 16th.

National Waterways Festival, Burton-upon-Trent . Plans are afoot for various things, but oneidea that is brewing is a car wash in the car park.I have one volunteer to organise this, but we needto put a team together so that we continue to pro-vide excellent car parking and site services, aswell as raising some money. But it might just be away of making car parking slightly less boring!!So if you’re interested, please contact me.

So that’s what I’m planning – now let me knowwhat you want to do! I’m still waiting for someoneto do a sponsored brick-clean/shovel sharpening/tool cleaning/painting...

Look forward to seeing you all soon

Love ’n’ hugsDr. Liz

[email protected]

Above: our victorious Dragon Boat team at Worcester in 1998. If you want to have a go at this in Abingdonon May 16th, contact Dr Liz. Top: ‘Splat the WRGie’ will return to LittleVenice on May 1st - 3rd.

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Camp ReportAt last: the WRG BITM Summer2003 Canal Camp report...

WRG BITM on the Wilts & Berks Canal26th July to 2 nd August 2003

Friday night: Jasmine and I arrived at Dauntsey,where we met up with Ian Rutledge and RachaelBanyard at Rachael’s house. Di Smurthwaitewas already asleep, the time having gone11.00pm. The evening conversation drifted to-wards a discussion on aircraft history and vari-ous airfields - this prompted by our proximity toRAF Lyneham, home of a large fleet of Herculestransport planes.

Saturday morning we rose bright and early,ready to move into our home for the week –Foxham Reading Rooms. Phill Cardy and DaveRudland arrived with Dave’s minibus; they alsobrought along half a tonne of scrap copper to off-load - the money raised from recycling the cop-per goes back into restoring the canal.

Unloading done, we travelled to Foxham whereJeremy Yearron and Luke Walker arrived shortlyafterwards.

An hour later on site they were joined by RobBrotherston, Ian Smart, Deb Turnbull and LukeWalker. At lunchtime, Jasmine and I delivered thesandwiches to site and found them hard at workin the barn, breaking and laying out concrete fromthe old garage base, which was covering the sitewhere a wharf wall was to be built. David Jamesarrived shortly afterwards.

During the afternoon, the team pumped out thewater from in front of the wharf wall. Ian Rutledge,Ian Smart and Dave went up to the far end of sitenear to Seven Locks to move logs to where theycould be picked up by tractor and trailer. Whilstthere, they coppiced the Ash stumps.

Behind the Peterborough Arms, the rest of theteam cleaned up and burned the rubbish whichhad collected around the lock. Half way up thecanal, beyond the spillweir, Di pollarded thestumps of willow: basically removing the newgrowth so that later the stumps can be removed.

In the evening after the meal, Phill took us to thePeterborough arms where we drank beer andplayed skittles.

The new concrete spillweir culvert pipe in place, with the remains of the old brick culvert visiblearound it

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Skittles scores: Deb Turnbull 53, Jeremy Yearron62, Di Smurthwaite 49, David James 58, RachaelBanyard 55, Graham Hotham 56, Dave Rudland49, Ian Rutledge 54, Ian Smart 55, Phill Cardy54, Jasmine Hotham 54, Rob Brotherston 59.

Sunday: after the customary cooked breakfast ,everyone left for site. The weather was extremelyhot: more squash than tea was drunk. During theday they finished clearing the concrete base ofthe old garage, and demolished three quarters ofthe spillweir culvert arch that was capped with 4inches of concrete. (with the strength of steel!)

The lock area was strimmed by Larry Finnegan.Reinforcing frames for the wharf wall were con-structed by the Foxham locals Mike Night and CliffBrent.

Di, Dave and Ian Smart continued clearing thescrub from the canal bank beyond the weir, whilstDeb and Phill continued to break the concrete en-casement of the spillweir pipe, and Ian Rutledgeand David coppiced ash trees.

A Sunday Roast - lamb, roasted parsnips, pota-toes and spring greens - was washed down with

a pint or two of HopGarden Gold Alefrom the Hogs BackBrewery – the barrelhad been settling,having travelled fromSurrey in the back ofWNE. For afters wehad chocolate pud-ding and cream...

That night we stayedin, held down bybloated stomachsand a little alcohol.The Monopoly setcame out, and IanRutledge, Di, Jas-mine and I played un-til 10.30.

Monday : a very earlystart - cook up at5.45am to cook thebreakfast for 6.30am.The reason was toget some work donebefore a planned midday visit to the brew-ery. (Yes BITM didmanage to organisea real piss-up in abrewery!)

The team arrived onsite at by 7.30 am,and Jeremy, Phill andDavid took a Kangohammer to finish offthe demolition of theculvert while Rachaeltrained Ian Rutledgeon dumpers andlarge excavators,and Dave and IanSmart burned thestuff we cut yester-day.

Installing reinforcing mesh in the foundation trench for the wharf wall (above)ready for the arrival of the Readymix concrete (below) .

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Camp reportSpillweirs and wharf walls atDauntsey

The team left site around 9.30 am, changed atthe hall, and then departed 10.30 destinationWadworths Brewery Devizes. Inside they foundlots of low doors and pipes, but no hard hats (RiskAssessment Attached), they climbed 5 flights ofsteep, narrow twisting stairs to start the tour atthe summit of the building. The guide for the tour,Tim, took them to see the Master Cooper AlisterSimms: there are only five Coopers in the coun-try of which only two are Master Coopers. Theytoured the whole brewing processing, from thething where the barley gets mashed (Luke’swords) to the copper where the hops are added,then the fermenting tanks, which were originallybuilt of copper with a lead lining, later replaced bystainless steel, where the yeast turns the sug-ars in to alcohol, and finally the hospitality roomwhere the tour finishes and you get to samplethe various beers produced: as you have prob-ably guessed, the favourite part of the tour. Af-ter the tasting session every one went off tosee the huge (18.5 hands) shire horses, whichthe brewery takes to various shows around thecountry.

In the evening we sat down to roast belly pork ona bed of pineapple served with a sweet and soursauce, then to finish we had shoo fly pie andcream. Stuffed full, a small contingent - Rachael,Ian Smart, David, Jeremy, Jasmine and myself -went to the Peterborough Arms to enjoy a jar ortwo.

Tuesday morning we got up slightly later, withthe three ‘wrinklies’ tackling their fire duties and abit of Tirforing. David, Phill and Jeremy dug outthe base of the culvert and found a 5in diameterhole - the source of the leak!

Farmer Jeff using his tractor and front-loaderdragged out two concrete pipes from the stock-pile, which Phill took to the spillweir site in thedumper.

Rachael started to excavate the footings for thenew wharf wall using a large JCB excavator. Lukeand Ian Smart collected the plant trailer fromSwindon and the reinforcing steel fromChippenham. Rob, Dave and Ian Smart startedconstructing the reinforcing cages.

Work finished at three, for a trip to the showersthen an enjoyable trip to the Canal Museum inDevizes. In the minibus after the showers, IanSmart discovered he had mislaid his keys. Hav-ing gone back into the sports centre and searchedhigh and low, he returned back to the bus to dis-cover them in his coat pocket, much to his reliefand everybody else’s amusement (Rachael’swords).

Back at base we sat down to chicken basted withtomato accompanied by vegetable chasseur; forpudding we enjoyed peaches and ice cream –then a walk in the rain to the Foxham Inn, wherewe drank Gem, 6X and Archers.

Wednesday , a normal start. The second pipe wasrolled into place by David, Phill and Jeremy, thefirst having been put in place on Tuesday. Claywas then shovelled and puddled using a trenchcompactor.

Luke constructed the brick wall around the collarof the concrete pipe, while. Rob, Dave and IanSmart had completed the job of building the rein-forcing frames by the end of the day. DiSmurthwaite continued the Tirforing job, whilstRachael opened a huge hole forming the footingstrench for the wharf wall, which including havingto dig out an old bus garage inspection pit.

In the evening, an extra job - one of the Foxhamvillagers Carol Chatterton asked a favour: a herdof cows had invaded her garden a few days be-fore, destroying the garden and knocking over thetable made from old lock gate timbers; she askedif the group could assist in lifting it back into place,they duly obliged.

Back at the hall, we enjoyed a barbecue in thecar park. Dave ‘Pyromaniac’ James set fire tothe beasts and a plume of smoke rose severalfeet into the air. Being the disposable type (thebarbecues, that is), they were ready in 30 min-utes with chicken and spare ribs turning to char-coal. Water was transported quickly to the in-ferno to quieten things down. Once cooked, itwas served up with patties, spicy rice, plain ricewith peas, pasta pesto, jacket potatoes, homemade salsa, plus green pepper sauce, and towash it all down a few more jars of the Hogs Backbeer.

Thursday : same start as yesterday. David,Jeremy, Phill and Harry continued to puddle inthe pipe and reinforced the join between the twowith concrete. Luke collected ballast and cement.Rachael completed the machine excavation of thewharf wall just before lunch, then Ian Smart andRob finished the job by hand, digging out the baseof the footings in tough clay.

Rachael cut an 18in square piece of timber –originally part of a lock-gate on the Gloucester &Sharpness Canal to 9 ft long; it was then loweredinto place using the excavator to form the cornerpost of the wharf wall. Two reinforcing cages werelowered into place and then tied together by Roband Ian Smart. Rosa Johnson arrived for the day,and joined forces with Phill, David and Jeremycleaning bricks for re-use in the spill weir. Di con-tinued with the Tirforing while Dave built a bonfireand burned the scrub cut on Sunday.

In the evening the team left site at 5.00 pm, so wecould go swimming at Chippenham; having ar-rived there to discover the pool was shut, we show-ered and took a walk to the town centre. Whilstwe were out, Di and Rachael watched over theboiled gammon, potatoes, carrots and peas, andwe arrived back to find Rachael carving the jointand Di bringing the gravy to the boil. For afterswe tucked into lemon meringue pie. A few of uswandered down the Foxham Inn and played a fewgames of dominoes whilst drinking Faggins (verynice).

Friday : our last full working day, the cook (my-self!) overslept having advanced the alarm 30minutes to 7.30 instead of taking it back to 6.30...However I managed to get the breakfast on thetable by 8.15, and the team on site by 8.45, thepriority job being to prepare the site for a 7tonneReadymix lorry, which involved grading back thesides of the trench to pre-vent slippage, levelling thebase and digging a trenchfor the foot of the wall. TheJCB was used to lift in thelast three re-enforcingcages. David, Rob and IanSmart tied them all togetherand to yesterday’s cages,finishing fifteen minutes be-fore the concrete lorry wasdue at 4.00pm; however itwas 20 minutes late. Whenit eventually arrived it strug-gled to manoeuvre to thetipping point and eventuallysunk into the mud. A routewas created for the dumperto shuttle concrete from thelorry to the tip site, and thejob was completed in 45minutes, after which theyhad the fun and games ofextracting the lorry from themud. The day and workwas finished at 6.00pmhaving washed andcleaned all the tools. JOBWELL DONE!!!

We were treated to a three-course meal: pizzastarter, followed by chicken, chips, leeks and peas,and for pudding orange in jelly and ice cream.After the washing up was done, we retired to theFoxham Inn.

I would like to pass on my sincere gratitude toeveryone. Special thanks to Rachael Banyard whoprovided us with the accommodation, entertain-ments and led the work on site. Also to DiSmurthwaite, who supported Rachael, made allthe puddings and purchased the food to get thecamp started. For a camp to succeed, you re-quire good support and willing volunteers – wehad the very best, thank you all.

Following the success of this camp, we are or-ganising another BITM Camp: this time on theWendover Arm at Tring near Aylesbury. The campwill run from 31st July to the 8th of August. Thefinal weekend will overlap with WRG BITM’s work-ing party weekend. More information to follow inlater issues of ‘Navvies’. If you would like to join inplease contact Graham Hotham on 01252 656087and leave your name and phone number on theanswer machine, or email:[email protected] . When available, de-tails will be published on the WRG BITM website:Type www.wrgbitm.com into your Internetbrowser and follow the links.

Graham Hotham

It wasn’t all hard work: BITM enjoying a barbecue outside the accommo-dation at Foxham Reading Rooms.

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Camp ReportThe St Johns BackpumpingProject on the Basingstoke

Camp 0104: Basingstoke Canal

For those who want to read a camp report, here goes:

“It was a lovely week in Surrey, with a great bunchof volunteers, and, aided by the fantastic weather,we got loads of work done to a very high standard”.

Being the kind of guy that has loads of time onhis sticky hands (or, rather, needs to write moreto get Ludgate off his back), I thought I’d also writeyou a short story about an imaginary camp thatmight have happened recently on the Basingstoke.Apologies for adopting this format, but I under-stand Legal Aid is drying up these days.

Back some time around about the last millenniumI vowed never to lead a camp again – somethingto do with the accommodation a Certain Individualassured me had been arranged turning out to bea marquee in a coal yard. So what changed, andwhy the Basingstoke, of all places, for it to occur?

(To find out the reason for ‘of all places’, and howthe Basingstoke features in Marcus’s AdvancedTheories of Volunteer Deployment across Resto-ration Projects, will require the purchasing of a numberof pints of Lime and Soda, or Ludgate (a) to havewet his pants (again), and (b) be very desperate forcopy, so I’ll stick to the ‘what changed’ bit...)

The ‘seamless transition’ I was going through at workmeant that sometime back in November, I had tobook leave for the February camp, on the off (so faroff it’s still in Yorkshire in kit form) chance that thebrochure might drop through my letterbox withsomething attractive in it (well, it would be in it,rather than on it – just look at that ugly bird theyput on the cover last year!). [If Marcus can see an‘ugly bird’ on the cover of the 2003 brochure, hemust have something up with his eyesight. ...Ed]

Xxxxxxx† told me repeatedly over the next fewmonths that any February camp would be can-celled. The Chairman (who’s he, anyway?)seemed to be of the same mindset. Strange, that.Those whose views are counted tended to agree.Nothing like a positive attitude, and that’s nothinglike a positive attitude. No brochure, no leader, nowork, no volunteers, no nothing.

Except there were was work and there were vol-unteers, including yours truly, who was whinging(time for ‘no change there (Ed.)’ comment aboutnow Martin?) [On the contrary - right now it wouldmake a very pleasant change for Marcus to startwhinging instead of throwing brickbats about,making snide remarks, slagging-off all and sun-dry (but without the balls to actually mention mostof them by name), making out that he’s single-handedly saved the universe, and generally be-having like a spoilt child just because he’s beenconned into spending a week in February some-where near the arse end of Woking. See, I can dothis throwing-insults-around-type-stuff too! ...Ed]about the unacceptable and far too common prac-tice of cancelling camps willy-nilly.

And so the sweet-talking phone calls began. Or,rather, initially, the sweet-texting texts. Full marksto MKP for triggering a case of déjà vu in describ-ing the accommodation as ‘bad’, following it up rap-idly with another text cursing predictive textology –I believe he meant ‘ace’, but on track record...

The subsequent phone calls, conducted along thehighly professional ‘if you don’t lead it, we’ll can-cel it’ lines, [He’s only hacked-off because itworked! ...Ed] eventually saw me persuaded totrog down to the Basingstoke; a better option thanlosing volunteers by cancelling events. Agreementwas reached largely to get Mike off the phonethat night [Told you so! ...Ed] so I could ensurethe good people of Nottinghamshire (Nick, Lynne,um, err...) could get to work on Monday morning!

The important bits were sorted out over the phonewith Pete during breakfast in the York Moat HouseHotel, much to the consternation of my colleagues.Then others got involved. CDs full of useful infor-mation to look at on the computer I haven’t got [...andwhich you didn’t email me this camp report from?...Ed ], ‘guidance’ notes suggesting I phonedXxxxxxx† to find out how to run a large site and thatI make a site visit at least two months in advance,[Well, why not? Just because there wasn’t twomonths left till the camp? I’d have thought meretime-travel would have been a doddle to someoneas omnipotent as you. ...Ed] accounts forms with-out money, and travel directions without the nameof the station [You work for the railways, and youneed us to tell you station names? You’ll be want-ing us to tell you the numbers on the locomotivesnext... speaking of which, I think you’ll find.... Ed] allcame through the door. Additionally, several peoplestarted sending emails hourly telling each other whattheir latest plan was for how the camp was going tobe run, how the vans were going to get there, andwho was picking up the trailer. Nice. Especially whenyou’ve organised it yourself already your way, anddon’t sit around trying to get a suntan off a compu-ter all day. [Err.... I think you’ll find... Ed]

Camp Report�The 5ft Redway: an essential andnot easily replaced bit of kit...�

For the do’ers, there then commenced the GrandRed Van Tour: Leicestershire to Surrey, via Shef-field, Jeffreyshire, Hereford, Derby Signal Box(“You can’t bring that in here, mate, you ain’t anapproved subby”. “I think you’ll find...”), and sun-rise on the M25. I’d arranged to meet Pete earlyfor a site visit. Pete’s definition of ‘early’ was de-veloped during the week: phoning him while hewas having his breakfast to report I had just foundall the plant broken in to and the Portaloo up-turned, having just arrived on site after a 150-mile drive was only a warm-up!

How do the local kids know exactly how manywindows they need to break to come up with atotal that’s £20 under your insurance excess everytime? It wasn’t just the hired-in kit that neededfitter’s attention: the 5ft Redway, an essential, andnot easily replaced, bit of kit for all work on theBasingstoke, had been experiencing electricalproblems in the lead up to the camp, and requireda jump start.

When some of the new volunteers turned up atthe de luxe accommodation on Bisley Rifle Range,they were very impressed by the amount of kitwe brought with us. Comments along the lines of‘everything except the kitchen sink’ were turnedto humble pie when Pete delivered it.

The absence of a kitchen and the presence ofsome hypersensitive fire alarms meant cookingon the veranda, which was quite cool (it beingFebruary). The only real drawback of the accom-modation was the amount of effort it took to geteverybody out of their beds (yep, beds) in their indi-vidual rooms each morning, washed in their ownsinks, or through the showers (OK, only one be-tween two, sorry, standards obviously slipping here)and dressed in their clothes warmed on their indi-vidually controlled radiators. A reveille of ‘The LastPost’ seemed appropriate, but by the end of theweek, this had become ‘The Last Pile (thank God)’.

Doing the leading, assisting, cooking thing all onmy own turned out to be a great plan. Such asimple camp to cook for: the paperwork from HeadOffice showed no allergies. Fantastic. Actually

that’ll be no meat, nofish, no cheese, nocrap or blended cof-fee, no squash otherthan Robinson’s no-added-sugar orangesquash suitable forthose with limpwrists, no pizza, noonion, no curry, nomushroom, no pep-per... However, afterthe Camp Twat (offi-cial role, every campmust have one) man-aged to have 2ft-highflames coming off thebreakfast on the firstday, I shunned all fur-ther offers of ‘assist-ance’ in the ‘kitchen’.All are still alive to tellthis tale (so don’t tryto edit it).[What? Me,edit it? Good Godman, it’s enoughwork to correct all thespelling mistakes andgrammatical errors -you don’t expect meto do any actual edit-ing as well? ...Ed]Piling the approaches either side ot the St Johns backpump inlet chamber.

The work was suited to a small camp of abouteight. As was the accommodation. Which wasgood, because we had about eight. What was notgood was the people who thought they could in-vite themselves along. What was definitely notgood was the people who when they were toldthat there was not space for them, told me thatthey would ‘find a bit of floor somewhere’ [Inter-esting accommodation indeed: beds for everyone,but still no floor space! If I weren’t a charitablesoul I’d be almost tempted to think that Marcuswas deliberately trying to keep some of us awayfor some nefarious purpose. Good job I’m a chari-table soul. ...Ed] What was to be expected wasthat Bungle would turn up, ‘having sent me anemail the other day’, and then %$^& about withvans and trailers, but, hey, he’s on the Board, sothat’s (all right / to be expected)*.

Having a small camp was a nice change, and re-ally benefited a couple of the new volunteers, whomay well not have developed so positively duringthe week on a larger or less well-integrated camp.Obviously the camp won’t have the same status inthe anals (only one ‘n’ in enema, so two simultane-ously in anal would be painful) of alcohol-enrichedWRG history as that week Xxxxxx† ran with 92 vol-unteers restoring the entire Droitwich Junction, but,hey, Pete was happy with the work we did.

Oh, yeah, the work. In between righting thePortaloo every time the local inhabitants tipped itover (if you don’t clean it properly after each in-version, you’ll certainly have a load on your mind),we did some really sexy piling either side of thepumping station intake at the bottom of the StJohns Flight. This involved using a 3 tonne or-ange G-clamp, with Kubota written on it, to bendand temporarily hold the waling into position whileknitting the web of tie-rods. Great fun (especiallywatching James’s three minute workout on thepiling hammer), but woe betide any middle-agedbearded hippy on some dirty old coal barge thatgets the approach to the lock wrong: expect to beprojected in to outer space not only by the se-verely stressed waling, but also by those who tooka lot of pride in getting it looking that good.

We also pumped out the pump chamber. A sim-ple task, were it not for the absence of a sump –the legendary Basingstoke greensand had col-lapsed in to it over the preceding months. Andonce pumped out, we then got to spend the weekundertaking concrete repairs. Whoopee. Volun-teer for a working holiday in the countryside,and spend your week dressed up like a Martian(no, not like Martin, out of some scab shop in Peck-ham), [Actually these days I find the scab shopsin Wokingham sell a much better class of scabbyclothes, but I very much doubt if they’d let Mar-cus in. ...Ed] down a dark hole, operating noisyvibrating machinery and applying horriblechemicals.

The serious lesson from all this is that if only afew more minutes had been spent securing theformwork and vibrating the concrete properly backthen, the poor buggers wouldn’t have had to spenda week doing this: this is what CDM regulationsare all about, not paperwork production.

Camp Report�...righting the Portaloo eachtime the locals tipped it over...�

“Spend a week dressed up like a Martian” - carrying out concrete repairs to the inlet chamber.

Obviously, Pete had a whole lot of other little jobsto do. Like using four lorry loads of roadstone andtwo of crushed rubble to bring the whole area upto level and up to standard. And just moving thatboat.

With a volunteer about to enter each of the Forces(in the interests of national defence, I am not atliberty to inform you which Greg has opted for),for once it was the youth of the camp engaged inanorak rustling. At least Rick Ansell didn’t dropby to correct their knowledge of guns. For revenge,I took them all to the S&HCS social evening, tohear about the society’s plans to link to the Ken-net & Avon, but they enjoyed that.

Other evening activities involved watching SleepyDave reversing the trailer off site (it didn’t takehim that long, but we did leave site pretty late eachnight), swimming, bowling, and not going to thecinema. Telling me you all want to go to the cin-ema, just so you can get off site early, then ‘chang-ing your minds’, backfired on you the next morn-ing, didn’t it? On site, breakfasted, lunch all made,pumping station pumped out, and the first mortarmixed by 0800 – a true crack of sparrow’s-fartstart! [Almost as early as BITM managed on theircamp - see pp8-11 ...Ed]

Evening meals took their time, as we had to allowbreaks for Greg’s Irritable Bowel Syndrome be-tween courses. However, interrogation of some-one over their relationship with ‘some minger offthe Net’ filled the gap admirably.

The final task of the week was to landscape thearea around the pumping station, LangmansBridge, and the access road. This was a reallygood way to finish the week, transforming the site.It demonstrated not only to those on the camp,but also to the (not very) poor bugger who hasbeen trying unsuccessfully to sell his £0.75mhouse adjacent to a building site, my principle thatusing volunteers to undertake a task is not anexcuse for lower standards, but rather enablesthe job to be undertaken to a higher standard thanthe economics and ethos of construction usingpaid employees allows.

I think Pete was a little bit impressed, especiallywhen we added a flower bed, just to really takethe piss.

Talking of standards, despite Gav’s best efforts, itwas a little depressing that the shiniest of the threevans was JFH, ‘that wreck wot we flogged to Pete’!We also cleaned the mixer, which had obviouslyenjoyed its time imprisoned in the van over winterso much that it had spontaneously decided to mixmortar itself – what other explanation would therebe for it to have turned up with a load already in it?

Camp ReportMarcus tries to avoid being askedto write a report again. And fails.

A scientific experiment was then undertaken, inwhich we discovered that sound only travelsslightly faster than tools, as items reappeared fromthe trailer accompanied by statements like “ByJove, I thought you said this was clean and readyfor packing, dear boy”. �

So it was time for the reverse grand tour of thecountryside, returning vehicles and trailers to theirrightful keepers (and not any other combinationthat might have suited Bungle’s desire to help hisfriend’s aunt’s fourth brain-removed cousin movehouse), and we returned them with driver log-books, whose adoption could mean that:

(a) people won’t get points and fines wrongly(about time);

(b) the vans will undoubtedly drive themselvesfrom time to time (apparently);

(c) it’ll really piss off those who wear out WRGvehicles through excessive personal use(good); and

(d) someone will probably have a strop becausethey didn’t get asked about doing it (unlucky).

[(e) Marcus will have two or three fewer thingsto snipe about in future. Not that that willmake a great deal of difference, percent-age-wise. ...Ed]

And they all lived happily ever after, despite mycooking.

I hope you enjoyed the short story. If not, then youshould have got off your arse and led the campyourself. Or just let it be cancelled. [Or just writtenthe camp report yourself. It doesn’t matter if youweren’t actually on the camp - I’m sure you couldhave achieved a similar level of accuracy. ...Ed] I’veprobably just ensured the next time I lead a campwill be sometime next millennium, or until despera-tion is next encountered, if (undoubtedly) sooner.And you don’t know where I live [Do we care? ...Ed],because I’m moving. Fast.

Marcus Jones

† name obscured to prevent me being shot

* delete as suits your point of view� possibly not the exact words used

WRG Training Weekend 7 th/8th/9th May 2004

Time seems to be speeding by. Many of you havealready requested a booking form, which is mar-vellous, and hopefully by the time you read this,you will have received them! All are welcome, re-gardless of experience, so if you are new to thegroup but feel there is something useful you couldbe trained on, please come along.

The training programme will focus mainly on plantand machinery thisyear as we feel manypeople will want to re-fresh their skills in viewof the updates to driverauthorisation. The pro-posed categories areas follows:

. Vans/Minibus andTrailers (dependenton your licence)

. Dumpers

. Excavators

. JCB 3CX

. Skid steer loaders

. Abrasive wheels

. First Aid

. Surveying

Training can also be provided for those who arelooking to attain instructor level in these catego-ries. There is also the possibility of some chippertraining but this has yet to be confirmed.

Once again we have kindly been allowed accessto British Waterways Heritage Skills Centre atHatton. You are not obliged to stay for the wholeweekend and may prefer to travel up for eitherthe Saturday or the Sunday. Accommodation willbe confirmed nearer the time.

If anyone would like to offer their skills as an in-structor, your support would be gratefully received!

If you would like a booking form or have any otherqueries, please contact me at 53 RedgraveClose, St James Village, Gateshead NE8 3JD .Phone: 07719 6443870 or [email protected]

Ali Bottomley

TrainingBook now for the WRG TrainingWeekend 2004

Training will be available onvans, minibuses and trailers(above), excavators anddumpers (right) and survey-ing and levelling (below)

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Latest news from WRG Wear

If you’re using an old edition of Navvies or an oldorder form don’t forget to send WRG Wear ordersto the new address: WRG Wear Orders, NB Sus-sex, Weaver Shipyard, Saxons Lane, Northwich,CW8 1LB . The telephone contact is still 07989 425346and the email address [email protected] .

A new initiative this year is to not only send campst-shirts to each camp but also the strappy vest topsand the standard vest tops. So if you turn up on acamp you’ll be able to try on the items to see if they fitand also pay in cash (it will still be possible to pay bycheque). These will probably be cheaper becauseI’m doing a bulk order and there is no postage cost.

In this issue of Navvies you’re (well the girls – un-less you’re a generous male friend) getting the op-portunity to order new strappy vest tops just in timefor the camps season. Just fill in the order form below.

Strappy vest tops – large WRG logo: £6.50(sizes are all a bit on the large size!)

Size: Medium Large XLarge

Red

Black

White

Name:

Address:

Contact telephone number or email address:

Please send the form to the address mentioned attop of article and make cheques payable to WRGCanal Camps.

Please remember WRG Wear items are orderedon a per-item basis: if an item is sent out twicebecause the wrong size has been ordered thenWRG ends up covering the cost of the post-age for the second item. If it does happen thatyou’ve ordered the wrong size then please ringme to arrange sending a new item – I would muchrather people wore the right size than not at all,but if could you consider popping 50p in the WRGdonation tin next time you’re around, we can makesure WRG aren’t out of pocket. (Obviously if it isour mistake the please ring me asap and we’ll getthe replacement article sent straight away)

And the reason I ask for a contact number or emailaddress is so that if there’s a problem with yourorder or an ambiguity then I can sort it out muchquicker – otherwise I have to write!

Apologies for not having the rest of the rangeready to go – I think I was organising a barn dance!I also hope to get the web-site up-dated soon –the latest version of the complete order form isavailable to download.

Thanks

Helen Gardner

WRG WearThe latest WRG clothing: strappyvest tops for the girls (and boys?)

Jenni: Small Helen: Large Martin: XLarge Bungle: XXLarge

Order the right size... y our handy guide!Order the right size... y our handy guide!

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Canal Camps cost £42 per week unless otherwise stated.Bookings for WRG Canal Camps (those identified by acamp number e.g. 'Camp 0403') should go to WRG CanalCamps, PO Box 114, Rickmansworth WD3 1ZY.Tel: 01923 711114. Email: [email protected]

page 18

DiaryApr 17/18 London WRG Hereford & Gloucester Canal

Apr 17/18 wrgBITM Wey & Arun Canal: Dig Deep project at Haybarn Bridge

May 1/2/3 KESCRG Little Venice Site Services

May 1/2/3 NWPG Wey & Arun Canal: Dig Deep project at Haybarn Bridge

May 1/2/3 wrgNW Mon & Brec Canal: Joint dig with Essex WRG

May 1/2/3 Essex WRG Mon & Brec Canal: Joint dig with wrgNW

May 1/2/3 wrgBITM Little Venice: Sales stall only

May 1/2/3 SUCS Montgomery Canal: Newhouse Lock Abermule Newtown.

May 1 Sat Navvies Press date for issue 205

May 8 Sat wrgNW ‘Paper Chase’ waste paper collection

May 8/9 WRG WRG Training Weekend: at BW Heritage Skills centre, Hatton

May 15/16 London WRG Wey & Arun Canal: Dig Deep project at Haybarn Bridge

May 16 Sun WRG Committee & Board Meetings: Hatton Park Village Hall

May 21/22/23 wrgBITM Rickmansworth Canal Festival: Site Services. (Set up on Fri, open to public

May 29/30/31 wrgBITM Wendover Arm Festival: Site Services (Set up Fri/Sat, open to public Sun/Mon)

May 29/30/31 IWA National Trailboat Festival: Malpas, near Newport, on Monmouthshire Canal

Jun 1 Tue Navvies Issue 205 Assembly: (unconfirmed)

Jun 5/6 KESCRG Wendover Arm

Jun 5/6 London WRG Lichfield Canal

Jun 5/6 SUCS Montgomery Canal: Newhouse Lock Abermule Newtown.

Jun 12/13 NWPG Basingstoke Canal: Dig Deep project, Backpumping at St Johns.

Jun 12 Sat wrgNW ‘Paper Chase’ waste paper collection

Jun 18-20 wrgNW Middlewich Folk & Boat Festival: Sales Stand

Jun 19/20 wrgBITM Basingstoke Canal: Dig Deep - Backpumping project.

Jun 25-27 wrgNW IWA Campaign Rally at Runcorn: Sales Stand

Jun 30-Jul 7 Camp 0403 Saul Junction Canal Festival: Site Services (runs Wednesday to Wednesday)

Jul 1 Thu Navvies Press date for issue 206: including Canal Societies directory

Jul 3/4 KESCRG Tool repair weekend

Jul 2-4 wrgNW Saul Junction Boat Gathering: Sales Stand (provisional)

Jul 3/4 London WRG Wey & Arun Canal: Dig Deep project at Haybarn bridge.

Jul 3/4 SUCS Montgomery Canal: Newhouse Lock Abermule Newtown.

Jul 3-10 Camp 0404 Hereford & Gloucester Canal

Jul 8 & 12 wrgNW Tameside Canals Festival (swingbridge): Swingbridge erection on 8th and

Jul 10-17 Camp 0406 Cotswold Canals: Towpath and bank protection work near South Cerney, on

Jul 10-17 Camp 0405 Hereford & Gloucester Canal

Jul 11 Sun WRG Committee & Board Meetings: Hatton Park Village Hall

Jul 17/18 wrgBITM To be arranged

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

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

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Tim Lewis 020-8367-6227 [email protected]

Dave Wedd 01252-874437 [email protected]

Answerphone 01622-858329 [email protected]

Graham Hawkes 0118-941-0586 [email protected]

David McCarthy 0161-740-2179 [email protected]

Dave Dobbin 01702-544096 [email protected]


Mike Friend 01948-880723 [email protected]

Martin Ludgate 020-8693-3266 [email protected]

David McCarthy 0161-740-2179

[email protected]


Sat/Sun) Dave Wedd 01252-874437 [email protected]



John Hawkins 01923-448559 [email protected]




Graham Hawkes 0118-941-0586 [email protected]

David McCarthy 0161-740-2179




[email protected]

Martin Ludgate 020-8693-3266 [email protected]





[email protected]

removal on 12th. David McCarthy 0161-740-2179 [email protected]

Thames & Severn Canal [email protected]

[email protected]


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 01823-661653Saturdays H&GCT Hereford (Aylestone) Brian Fox 01432-358628Saturdays / Sundays H&GCT OverWharf House Maggie Jones 01452-618010Various H&GCT Hereford (Aylestone) Adrian Fry 07976-640962Every 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 Peter Matthews 01543-3189333rd 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 01483-7217101st 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. Usually at 'Star Tavern', BelgraveMews West, London. Tim Lewis 07802-518094or e-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

LettersThe February Camp and theEssex WRG First Aid Kit

Dear Martin.

Basingstoke Canal Camp: February 2004

This year WRG decided to widen my experiencewith a February Camp. I had mentally planned fora concentrated effort on pipeline construction atSt. Johns; scrub-bashing was also included as acontingency if numbers were high.

In the event a totally different mix of work, tai-lored to the skills on the camp, evolved this resulting in a very successful camp.

The week concentrated on the water inlet for the backpumping scheme at Langmans Bridge: workincluded internal finishing of the structure, piling and bank protection, and reinstatement of the lane tothe site. The lane is shared access with residential properties and maintained by them, making-goodour share of the wear and tear is good PR.

Marcus will be reporting on the camp as leader. In addition I wish to add my own and the society’sthanks to everybody on the camp for their efforts and the excellent progress achieved during theweek.

Peter RedwaySurrey & Hants Canal Society Working Parties

Dear Martin

In line with WRG’s general policy of improving Health and Safety, I recently carried out a First AidProvision Assessment for Essex WRG, and produced a specification for two new kits, a custom kit forsite use and a standard catering kit. As many readers will know First Aid equipment is not cheap, soI am very grateful to the Northampton Branch of The Inland Waterways Association for their donationof these kits, at a total cost of over £100. Of course we always hope that we won’t have any accidents,and that the kits will never be used, but I am now confident that we can treat minor injuries andprovide emergency aid for major accidents until professional assistance can be obtained.

Yours SincerelyGlen Peckett

IWA Northampton Branch Chairman David King (left) presents the Essex WRG First Aid Kit to Glen Peckett

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PreviewLooking forward to the first ofthis summer�s Canal Camps...

Canal Camps 2004 Preview

This year we are starting the main summer canalcamp season in the South West. The first five campswill be on the Hereford and Gloucester, the Cots-wold Canals and the Grand Western Canal.

The festival camp at Saul Junction will be first.(30th June – 6th July) This has traditionally been asmall canal camp to help the Cotswold Canal Trustrun what has become a very successful festival.Jobs are typically the same as for a ‘National’, onlywith more technical involvement in things such asthe site electrics. The festival itself takes place onthe junction of the Gloucester and Sharpness andStroudwater Canals, a very pleasant setting in-deed. Accommodation will be at Selsley scout hut,which is near the excellent Bell Inn. This canalcamp will be run by Nick Smith and Bungle.

The second canal camp circuit starts on the Her-eford and Gloucester Canal at Oxenhall with twoweek camps back-to-back (3rd – 10th and 10th –17th July). The local canal trust have completedrestoring House Lock at Oxenhall and are nowlooking to move onto their next project: this willbe the restoration / rebuilding of an aqueduct. TheEllbrook aqueduct is built of local sandstone andneeds to be strengthened with a concrete (steelreinforced) cap.

There is much preparation work to do includingbuilding a wooden former to support the existingarch during reconstruction, and also a temporaryBailey bridge needs to be removed from abovethe aqueduct. The aim of the camps is to progressthe project to a stage where local volunteers canstart work on rebuilding the stone parapets. Ac-commodation will be at the newly refurbishedDymock Village Hall.

Our second camp on the Cotswold canals thisyear will be returning to work on the Thames andSevern Canal (10th – 17th July) near Wildmoor-way Lock which was restored a number of yearsago. Much work has taken place in the area re-cently including the building of a new road bridgeto carry the canal under the Cotswold Water ParkSpine Road, and construction of a new visitorscentre for the Cotswold Water Park. This campwill work on the canal below Wildmoorway Lockon the opposite side of the Spine Road, behindthe visitor centre. Work will include bank protec-tion, and raising and surfacing the towpath on thisstretch.

This year’s canal camp on the Grand WesternCanal (17th – 24th July) in Devon will once againbe based in Burlescombe Village Hall just up thehill from the pub and the ‘ruddy brown git’. Theleadership team is the same as last year withJudith Gordon and Gavin Moor leading and Mitchcooking. The work will include rebuilding a set ofsteps from a canal bridge to towpath level withsome very large pieces of stone. The second taskis clearing the vegetation from some lime kilnsadjacent to the canal (see p3) and carrying outremedial repairs to help preserve this impressivefeature. The camp should benefit from excellentlocal support from both the Canal Trust and theCanal Rangers.

Adrian Fry

‘Requires attention’: Ellbrook Aqueduct on theHereford & Gloucester is to be restored.

The new Spine Road Bridge, near the site forthis year’s Thames & Severn Canal camp.

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Preview...and to the NationalWaterways Festival at Burton

The National Waterways Festival Canal Camp2004

I thought I would introduce myself and my ableassistant: we will be running Waterway RecoveryGroup’s side of the National Festival – and alsolet you know how the organizing is going...

I am the camp leader: my name is Moose (I thinksome people have other names for me but theymay be unprintable!) and my able assistant is EdWalker (or ‘Slow Ed’).

As you can imagine there is a lot going on, andEd and I have a couple of other people who arevital in the WRG set up, namely the cook (who atthe moment I’m working on - hopefully she willagree to do it!) and Gav Moor who - work permit-ting - very foolishly volunteered to be the PersonBack At The WRG Accommodation. He will bethe person responsible for showing all the volun-teers the lovely Health & Safety video (after lastyear’s National I would expect Gav to know thevideo sound track off by heart and be able to re-cite it backwards!) and looking after all the ad-ministration that is generated.

This year, the National is at Burton on Trent.

As normal it is running over the August BankHoliday, but instead of four days it will only beopen for three days (Saturday, Sunday and Mon-day) to the public. On Friday the site will be openonly to boaters and traders who have booked in.But don’t think that will make it easier, the work toset up the festival will be just as daunting as nor-mal - and then it’s all got to come down after thefestival.

New people in WRG may ask: “Why should wehelp to run this Festival?“ Well the Festival is or-ganized by The Inland Waterways Association(IWA), which is our parent organization, and theyraise much of the money that we in WRG spendrestoring the canals, so by helping them to run thefestival we are saying ‘Thank you’ and hopefully alsohelping them to raise even more for us to spend...

Next question will be “What is the work on site?“If you can imagine a field that is larger than sev-eral football pitches and is open all around... well,you will find that you are missing several thingsthat are necessary for holding a Festival. You willneed marquees, tents, fencing, tables, chairs, thedreaded car parking (for traders and visitors), foodcourts, and very importantly a beer tent or two.

As you will imagine this is just the top of the list:although some things like the Marquees and tentsare erected by contractors and a lot of work isdone by IWA’s own volunteers, there is still plentyfor us to do.

At the moment from January’s figures 230 boatshave booked in (the maximum that can be ac-commodated is between 320 and 340) and in thecampsite there are 100-plus bookings already.

Regarding bookings for the WRG side: not manyvolunteers yet. But before you all say “It’s agesaway...“ it’s not when you are trying to plan theaccommodation, work etc etc. So please helpme – if you’re coming to the National camp sendyour booking form off to Head Office - whetheryou are coming for the whole camp or just a fewdays. If you’re not sure whether you can come –at least give me a call/email and I will make anote. If you won’t know until the last minute, youwill still be able to turn up over the during the camp,but please try and give me at least 24 hours no-tice – especially if you want feeding. Anybodywanting to bring their own tent/caravan must bookit through me beforehand due to lack of space.

I hope to see you all there – you will enjoy your-self!

Dave ‘Moose’ HearndenPhone: 07961 922153

email: [email protected] in action at last year’s National at Beale Park.

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Logistics�Changing Minds� and�Cluedo�...

Disclaimer: Please note the following article canbe read only if certain standards are left in thecupboard under the stairs or in ‘the safe place’.Apologies may be given for whatever (and I quote)‘withering prose’ follows due to sleep deprivation.

Changing Minds

Today we are visiting the leafy suburbs of Shef-field – an industrial city full of grimness (well, it issupposed to be ‘Grim up North’ in’t it?!). But nottoday – let’s meet our two brightly coloured teams,who both hail from one company.

[Due to severe lack of time, the following is a rathercondensed version … or just very poor!]

The Yellow team are in charge of brochure pro-duction. For months they have been banished totheir computers [Even having to miss Mr Mac’s80th bash at which I was hugely disappointed!Sorry Mr Mac!] so Linda Barking is going to jointhem to infuse colour and texture as only she can!

The Red team run the Logistics department. Toolsand paint have gathered dust (if onlyit was just dust!! And concrete, mud,mortar...). Laurence LlewhatsthatBowen comes to the rescue, with hislavish deep reds and floral (no, no,and thrice NO!)... well, ok, and richtextures.

Helping both teams along will be ourone and only handyman, HandyPandy!

Linda tries to get to the bottom ofwhy they’re so behind with produc-tion – apparently, the photo huntproves difficult each year. “But themain problem we have every otheryear is that we get complaints aboutthe lack of ‘older’ people within thebrochure. But it’s down to campersto take photos and send them in!Although we have seen a noticeablerise in photos sent in since the intro-duction of the new digital cameras.”(Keep snapping away!)

Laurence sets the reds to task with preparation,preparation, and preparation! Everything needsto have a really thorough clean down… amazinghow one needs an angle grinder to remove dust!Then it’s time for these colours… “Are you ex-cited? What do you think of these?” RED, LIME,BLUE, ORANGE, and FLUORESCENT YEL-LOW! Wow! But Laurence, all together? They’llturn out to be brown then!

Laurence runs in and throws some new-style ac-cident books around the room for “the juxtaposi-tion of form against function” at the last minute.

Right Guys, that’s it. Time’s up!

To see the results of their endeavours, wait forthe post and go on a camp this summer!

I have a new song especially for Marcus – “I’mgonna wash that salt right offa my van” from themusical “South of Watford Gap”.

And here’s a Cluedo special - I was going to leaverevealing all until next time but it’s just too easy! Ithink it was Richard Cool, with the bowsaw, onthe Mon & Brec! Cunningly deduced, don’t youthink?!! Tee hee! [At least on this occasion I cantell the reason for decapitating this slasher is tomake safe a split shaft. This kind of action shouldnever be attempted unless good reason precedesit! Remember, Big Brother (or should I sayGreat Aunt!) is watching you!

Just [email protected]

‘It was Richard Cool, with the bowsaw, on the Mon and Brec’

Ala

n Li

nes

BookshopThe results of the last auction -and one or two still to bid for...

Auction of canal books: the winning bids

In the last issue of ‘Navvies’ we included an auc-tion of second-hand canal books to raise fundsfor WRG: here are the winning bids for each item.

For a number of items no bid was received. If youwant to bid for any of these now, please do so byMay 31st ; anything left then will go to WRG NorthWest for their sales stand.

Lot Reserve Winning bid Lot Reserve Winning bid Lot Reserve Winning bid

1 £3.50 £5.504 £3.00 £6.005 £3.00 £6.006 £2.50 £5.507 £3.00 £5.008 £3.50 £15.00 / £7.5012 £3.50 £11.5014 £2.00 £9.50 / £5.00 / £5.0015 £15.00 £26.0018 £2.50 £4.5019 £8.00 £5.0021 £2.50 £6.5022 £4.00 £10.0023 £3.50 £5.5024 £4.00 £6.00

25 £4.00 £8.0026 £4.00 £8.0031 £10.00 £30.0033 £3.50 £4.5035 £15.00 £36.5038 £2.50 £5.0039 £3.00 £5.5043 £5.00 £7.0046 £2.50 £4.5047 £5.00 £10.5049 £3.00 £5.0050 £3.50 £10.5051 £10.00 £30.5054 £2.50 £4.5055 £3.00 £6.00

Items below received no bid. The price quoted is the reserve price. Bids of at least this amount (inmultiples of 50p) are welcomed between now and May 31st. Please send bid and your contact detailsto WRG Auction, IWA, PO Box 114, Rickmansworth WD3 1ZY or email [email protected] .Note: postage will be added on to winning bids, at cost price.

2 Staffordshire & Worcestershire Canal £4.003 Water Rallies £3.009 Cheshire Waterways £2.0010 British Canals An Illustrated History £3.0011 Know Your Waterways £4.0013 Canal Barges & Narrow Boats £2.5016 Boatyards & Boatbuilding £2.5017 250 Waterway Landmarks £1.0020 A Short History Of The Narrow Boat £2.0027 Discovering Craft Of The Waterways £1.5028 A Pictorial History Of Canals £2.5029 Inland Cruising £2.5030 The Canals Book £3.0032 Along The Canal, The Kennet and Avon from Bath to Bradford-on-Avon £3.5034 FMC £5.0036 The Shell Book Of Inland Waterways £3.5037 Still Waters £3.5040 Glassfibre Boat Manual £3.0041 Fibreglass Boats £3.0042 The Medley Of Mast And Sail £5.0044 The Facts About The Waterways £3.5045 Fun On The Waterways £2.0048 The Future Of The Waterways £4.0052 Canal £5.0053 London’s Lost Route To Midhurst £5.0056 Idle Women £7.0059 Early Solent Steamers £4.0062 Knobsticks £3.0064 Tankers Knottingley £4.0065 Roses And Castles £3.0066 Epilogue £3.0068 The Number Ones £3.00

57 £4.50 £8.5058 £4.00 £8.0060 £7.50 £11.0061 £8.00 £12.5063 £3.00 £5.5067 £3.00 £3.5069 £8.00 £22.50 / £20.5070 £4.00 £6.0071 £4.00 £6.0072 £4.00 £6.0073 £4.00 £6.0074 £4.00 £6.0075 £20.00 £30.00

Total raised: £471.50

CleanupReporting from the Wyrley &Essington Canal

BCN Cleanup, March 20-21

“So, what exactly WAS the New Invention?”

Did you hear about the Brummie fisherman thatcaught a whale in the canal? He put it back asthere were no spokes on it. It’s funny, that. Bicy-cle wheels seem either to come out of the canalspokeless, or with a near-servicable bicycle at-tached.

Yes, the weekend of March 20-21 once again sawan invasion of the Birmingham area by the redshirttroops as the BCN Cleanup had its annual hap-pening. More likely for political reasons than thestate of the navigation – those who’d been to lastyear’s sub-Spaghetti Junction trash-o-thon wouldbe severely disappointed with the, er, quality ofthe retrievals – this year’s exotic locale of choicewas the Wyrley & Essington, in an area quite nearto central Wolverhampton known as New Inven-tion.

Does history record what theNew Invention was? Answers,please, on a postcard. No, se-riously, answers on a post-card (or perhaps a BBC Ra-dio WM listener would be sokind as to ask Brummie his-torian Carl Chinn) as it seemsnot even Martin Ludgateknows!

Anyway, the accomm was inthe ever-so-signpostedBrownhills. Ever noticed justhow signposted-from-every-where Brownhills actually is?And when you get there? Yup,absolutely nothing to writehome about. So just to add in-terest, we’d all been directedto the showers, which weren’topen Friday night. The ac-commodation was, but thosethat knew where it was werenot those who had compiledthe joining instructions. Sillyme for booking on in advance.

The accomm was a vast Victorian or Edwardiancrumbling community edifice with a pipe whichpumped obnoxious looking liquid onto a pavementand worried Jude. All the loos went bubble-bub-ble whichever one you flushed and the heatingstayed on all night. London WRG arrived with ourintrepid leader Aileen on board and decampedstraight into the pub, unaware that the rest of ushad already twigged that it wasn’t worth it, so wehad a wait a little while to see them and hear theirverdict that the pub wasn’t worth it.

Saturday brought breakfast by the bucketload andwind by the skyload. The accomm being such asolid old pile, we didn’t realise until stepping out-side that the wind was in fact howling a ruddygale and by the time NJF spat me out onto thefirst site of the weekend, I had made a decisionthat the Aussie hat just wasn’t going to stay on(and let me tell you, it has to be howling for thathat not to stay on!) so it was on with the safety lid,along with the obligatory waterproof trousers,hooded hi-vis safety jacket, rubbery gloves andsteelie wellies.

A lot of trawling brought up a lot of nothing, butwe did hit a rich seam of scaffolding and eventu-ally, a small and almost serviceable red child’spushbike. This was followed by a cycleway sign(complete with pole) and thus was the Wolver-hampton & District Sub-Aquatic Cycleway wasborn, at least, in the imaginations of Martin andMk2. Coming soon to an IWA meeting near you...

What has Moose found? Answers on a postcard...

I killed time by riding the bike around and can-noning down a slope towards the canal, provingjust in time that the front brakes still worked, untilit was time to head back to our base for the week-end, Wolverhampton’s Broad Street Basin, a won-derful inner city oasis of engineering brick, boats,smoke, (what was being burned in Phoenix’sstove?!) BW blokes and sandwiches. I could nothelp but notice Wolverhampton Lower Level Sta-tion, still there, sitting since the ‘sixties unusedand unloved but too listed for the BR merchantsof doom to kill it completely like they did duringthe great scourges of the post-Beeching era,when even saved stations were either flattenedor stripped of their fixtures and fittings in favourof bus shelters and plastic. It was too much forme. “I’m just going for a look at that station,Martin…”

I walked round, talked my way in – the securityguard was a very nice man who clearly under-stood that a bloke in a hard hat and hi-vis is prob-ably aware of the H&S issues – and soon I waswalking the platforms of quite possibly the big-gest derelict station still extant, with the huge cano-pies rattling in the gale. The adverts on the wallswere 40 years old, and the booking hall, oh, wordscannot describe the combination of grandeur anddereliction and decay and potential! Whoever isin charge, please, please restore it!

In Wolverhampton they don’t just throw their rubbish in the cut, they throw their rubbish bins in too.

The afternoon brought more wind, and a bridge‘ole through which the wind blew so hard our faceswere sandblasted as we pulled miscellaneous crapout of the cut. All the alarms – car, house, factory –were going off as things rocked in the wind.

I succeeded in elevating myself to GrandmasterAnorak by identifying all the car parts which wereretrieved. A MkI Manta rostyle wheel (rare!), aMkIV Cortina dash panel and an early XJ6 frontseat were among the treasures, and a late after-noon tea break (with no hot water, as Sue’scamper van had run out) meant that I was able toidentify the bonnet Andy R had pulled out. Later,at the accomm, Monsieur Floodgates said “wecould have used you earlier; we found a car bon-net.”

“FIAT Panda,” said I. “You mean you’re able to telljust like that?!“ I assured Martin that I had actu-ally seen the piece in question...

Saturday night’s feast was beef in Guinness (andveggies in sauce for the veggies) followed by asuperb choice of gungey puds. I chose trifle andit was, as ever, understatement of the year. Beerwas beered, wine was wined and a thoroughlygood time was had by all and all my chocolatewas eaten by folks various. Thanks Ed for the port.Any port in a (wind) storm!

Cleanup�I retrieved a shopping trolley forthe third time of the weekend...�

The next morning revealed that the wind hadslightly calmed down so we set off for Broad Streetto sign on and see if a fresh set of work sitesmight bring a slightly better class of crap. OK, sowe were spoiled after Spaghetti Junction, but re-ally! Things were much better once the group Iwas with positioned themselves at the end of astreet where a recently-erected fence suggestedthat in the past, the fact that the street ran straightup to the cut meant it had functioned as the localrubbish tip. Out came all manner of things and aswe moved up the canal the 1970s were here again.

I will be restoring my trophy of the weekend, aperfect 1970s ‘Super Flyer’ skateboard, as a retroconversation piece!

Above: MK2 and Tim track down the remains ofthe Wolverhampton & District Sub-AquaticCycleway. Below: now you know where we findall that fencing for the ‘National’!

And from the leader...

BCN THANK YOU

Thank you from me to you all for turning up last weekend despite: being directed to the showers instead ofthe accommodation (actually only 3 or 4 of you got lost), the weather forecast of gales, rain and some sun(quite right!), Mothering Sunday, which could have kept you with your parent or child, lack of rubbish,atleast initially (tidy burgers of Wolverhampton ably assisted by probationers) and lack of BW boats once wehad some grot.

Sadly all this was outwith our control, but hope you still managed a good time. I was sorry to miss the jollityof Sat eve. One paracetamol did what several gins can't...knock me out! My first ever dig with not a drop ofalcohol on the Sat night! Had whisky been available... medicinal of course.

My especial thanks to: Martin for printing and copying forms and notices, Tim for the risk assessment (keptfor next year), Zone leaders Ed and Moose for organising work on site, Jude, Ellie and Tess for the cateringand especially for the wonderful meal Sat night for about 50 on a domestic-size cooker, Sue B for theimpromptu tea for too many,(until the water ran out)from her camper van, All who drove vans to Wolver-hampton and to and from sites, James B for bringing Kit A and collecting waifs and strays at stationsaround the W. Midlands, Mark II for the promised report, and all who helped with advice and doing oddjobs.

BW were pleased to have 6 skips full and were still unloading on the Tuesday after collecting more from thetowpath. (Note NOT thrown back!)

Well we've done our bit for the canals of Wolverhampton. Next year's cleanup has already been provision-ally planned for a good fishing site, somewhat more 'downtown'. As it happens 2 weeks before the Eastercamp it should be 12/13 March.

I've already delegated the direction instructions and map to Marcus to do for IWA HQ,(and a map for thewebsite please Marcus), so there'll be no mistakes. I hope to find and confirm accommodation in the Au-tumn.

Twas great to see you all - and some new faces - hope to see you again.

If any 'locals' and 'independents' read this, thank you for coming and mucking in, and to BCNS for provid-ing and crewing the boat,the only one working on the Sunday.

If anyone inadvertantly took home a grappling hook please let us know. BW were a few missing!

Hugs

Aileen Butler

A coffee break was held in the car park of a sub-urban food pub where we were allocated exactlytwo spaces as it was Mothering Sunday. Sal didexactly that by keeping us all in order, only forVaughan to spoil it by parking RFB across threespaces. Those sat in GCW avoiding the rain weremysteriously spirited to another work site beforethey could protest and spent the afternoon pull-ing out a big mattress, some fencing, a bed frameand various bits of (ahem) a late-1980s VauxhallNova. I retrieved a shopping trolley for the thirdtime during the weekend, after a group of teen-agers pushed it back in (again) and watched as itcame back on the end of a grappling hook. A tiphere: local youths’ prediliction towards all-whiteoutfits means that as soon as you arrive, filthywith a grappling hook and equally filthy rope, theywill no longer be in your way...

Lunch beside the canal, a group pic on a bridge,and it was time to pack up the kit. The usual bigdiscussion regarding van movements and whowas going via Broad Street and we were off.

Our van, GCW, was ably piloted by yer actualSal, who at one point realised that a completeturn in the road was both necessary and possi-ble. She was thwarted, bizarrely, by a com-pletely random bollard, placed in the oppositepavement exactly where the front bumper of theTranny wanted to be.

So, thanks Aileen for organisational derrings-do,thanks BW for the support-of-sorts, the BrownhillsCommunity Centre for the accomm and absolutelyno thanks to the weather for being a complete git.Six lorry loads of scrap (or something like that)were removed from the canal and once again thePR level of the BCN was raised to helicopterheights. No, seriously, we were watched from ahelicopter at one point.

The BCN, as ever, bizarre. See you next year.Bring beer, chocolate, a Brum A-Z and windproofheadgear. Oh, and a guide to New Inventions ofthe Industrial Age.

Mark ‘MK2’ Richardson

NorthWest...celebrating Mr Mac�s 80thbirthday...

As I hope you have realised by now, David ‘MrMac’ McCarthy, stalwart of WRG North West,reached a significant birthday recently. Hereare personal accounts from just two of the manyfolk who helped to make a really memorable day...

Mr Mac is 80 years young!!

On Thursday 26th February Mr Mac (a.k.a. DavidMcCarthy of WRG North West) passed a mile-stone – his 80th Birthday. WRG NW decided tomark the occasion, on Saturday 28th February,in the only way possible – with a paper chase andfish and chip lunch in Crumpsall! The usual ar-rangements applied, but there were a few extrapeople around to assist. Mr Mac duly suppliedhot beverages from his de luxe Camper to lubri-cate the proceedings.

This was followed by ‘a celebration’ (that’s whatthe invite said) at North Cheshire Cruising Clubthat evening. This was similar to the good do forWRG NW’s 25th Birthday and included a lovelytwo course meal with wine, a real ale bar andmusical entertainment by The Belmonts (a 60s-style Band). It was also an excellent opportunityfor a lot of old faces to get together and reminisceabout how they restored canals in the old days!We all had a good time, drank lots of beer and‘red medicine’ and for those who didn’t considerthemselves ‘too veteran’ slept over, WRG style.Following a good breakfast we tidied up and scat-tered across the country. Thank you Malcolm, Lizand Jim for organising the ‘do’!

After the meal, like all good Birthday Parties, therewas the discordant rendition of ‘Happy Birthday’and the presentation of the cake: the Mr MacMobile Beverage Emporium has been immortal-ized – in cake!! Well-done Maureen! It was a MacCamper Van, including the man himself inside,with flasks, cups, etc. Pity we had to eat it, but itwas every bit as tasty as it looked.

I had understood from original discussions that itwas meant to be a surprise party, but Mr Macseemed to know it was happening. He was ableto explain how this came about: apparently he hadwanted to mark the occasion with a ‘do’ and be-gun to organise his own, so certain members ofWRG NW had to explain, “We can’t tell you what’shappening, but it’s all in hand!“

As Mr Mac said in his speech he was delighted thatso many people didn’t have anything better to andhad come. He also took the opportunity to passaround an exercise book (rescued from a paperchase) for everyone to put their name and addressin – so that in nine-and-a-half years time when heorganises the next ‘do’ he’ll know where we all are!!!

Congratulations Mr Mac – and here’s to the nexttime!!

Mandy Morley

CelebrateFriday27 February

John and Tess arrived, had a good natter, went tobed.

Saturday 28 February

Dawned dry and sunny but cold. Paper Chase atCrumpsall. Good turnout ,lots of paper Lunch atMac‘s At 1.00. 26 of us sat down to fish and chips.Back home for a rest, wash and brush up.

5.15 Left for N,C.C.C. Meet up with Maureen,Lynne, Nick, Pete and Kath to arrange theroom,set up and dress the tables, thanks gang.Band arrived and set themselves up.

15.15 People started arriving. 90 of us altogether.

8.20ish Dinner was served.

9.00 Cake was unveiled. Songs were sung, Macwas speechless for once. We applauded his thanks.Tables cleared away to make room for dancing.Sometime much later after much celebrating, anddrinking and dancing, the band packed up and wenthome. 60ish guests went home, the rest of us madeour beds, said good night and went to bed.

Sunday 29 February

7.30 Breakfast crew cooked breakfast, thanksStootts

8.15 Breakfast was eaten. By 9.30 after a goodclean up we vacated N.C.C.C.

9.45 We all went home by our various routes.

This is my version of events on the day of Mr Mac’s80th birthday party, which it was my pleasure tohave helped organise along with Malcolm Bridge,backed by Jim.

Big thanks to Maureen for the brilliant cake/sculp-ture of the tea mobile. Lynne for the flower, thetable setting crew, the breakfast chefs, Pete andKath for starting us dancing. And but by nomeans least David McCarthy MBE for being 80and giving us a reason to...

CelebrateLiz Lamen

Navvies newsInterested in canals? Likechildren? WOW needs you!

WOW needs YOU!

Yes, it was bound to happen sooner or later... asthe events season draws rapidly nearer I am go-ing to attempt to be appealing. Well actually I’mjust going to blatantly beg! As many of you knowby now I am the WOW Events Co-ordinator forthis summer while Kirsten’s on maternity leave,and I want it to be a really successful set of events.In order to do this I need help and lots of it! WhatI’m asking for really is for lots of volunteers to comealong and help out with the various activities andother bits and bobs at the events, in return for myeternal gratitude and maybe even a Christmascard.

Perhaps I should go back to basics for those ofyou who don’t know about WOW. It stands forWild Over Waterways, and is a partnership be-tween the IWA, BW and the TWT. The officialpurpose is to ‘involve, inspire and enthuse chil-dren and young people about Britain’s inlandwaterways’.

My role in this is to organise and run activities forkids at various waterway events around the coun-try. There are only four of us that work for WOW,so we really do rely on people volunteering to helpout and that’s where you come in.

Please consider volunteering to spend a coupleof hours, or more if you want, at one of the events(see below). We do all sorts of activities – someof them arty, some factual and there’s even onethat involves a paddling pool! If you are braveenough to volunteer I will do my very best to makesure you end up doing something you’ll enjoy. Soif you’d prefer not to get covered in glitter, maybeyou could distribute squash to the hordes of otherWOW volunteers around the site or help give outpassports. I will also endeavour to give you a settime slot so you can plan your time and not getstuck doing the same thing all day. Who knows,you might enjoy it!

The events I’m recruiting for this year are:

. Canalway Cavalcade (London) – 1 st to 3 rd May

. Crick Boat Show (Northamptonshire) – 29 th to31st May

. Water Racket (Wigan) – 10 th July

. National Waterways Festival (Burton on Trent) –28th to 30th August

We do pay reasonable expenses, including travelto the event if necessary, and will make sure youhave sufficient squash and biscuits to keep youfortified! I’ll also make sure everyone gets plentyof breaks and variety of tasks. So please, pleaseget in touch if you can help in any way.

It can be very satisfying and I believe it’s reallyimportant to get kids interested in the waterwaysat a young age – they are our new generation ofcanal campers after all.

To contact me, either email [email protected] , call 01606 723829 /07919 332295 or drop me a line at The Water-ways Office, Navigation Road, Northwich,Cheshire, CW8 1BH. THANKYOU!!!! Love Izzyxxx

Izzy Gascoigne

Want a Bailey Bridge?

Calderdale Council have offered WRG a stand-ard Bailey Bridge that has been used for tempo-rary access across locks on the Rochdale Canalbut is now no longer needed.

WRG have no use for it ourselves, but are happyfor any canal society that can make use of it tohave it.

It is a single type, to span 20ft, and it is missing afew bits - the timber chess sections and a coupleof transoms - but the rest is available to anyonewho wants to collect it from Callis Mill, nearHebden Bridge. Phone 01422 844990 or [email protected] if you’re interested.

On the WRG website...

(1) hopefully another one in the series of AppealQuizzes should have made it onto www.wrg.org.ukby the time you read this.

(2) lost property page - the web page that aims toreunite all those lost clothes, towels and other bitsof kit currently filling up space in various WRGieshouses with their rightful owners.

(3) Waterways Watercolours - waterways painterand former London WRG volunteer Mike Atkinsis offering to donate a proportion of the proceedsof the sale of his paintings to the the Right ToolAppeal.

(4) All being well, some pics of the first couple ofcamps this year and the Cleanup.

Navvies news...including a list of canals thatnobody loves...

Coming soon...

...Canalway Cavalcade at Little Venice. Onceagain, KESCRG will be providing site servicessupport for this popular and colourful event heldannually in London on the May Day bank holidayweekend. See last issue of Navvies for full detailsand contact Eddie Jones on email [email protected] or phone him on mobile 07850889 249 if you want to help.

What do these waterways have incommon?

These canals being: Bentley Canal / NeachellsBranch / Anson Branch, Beverley Beck, BourneEau, Bradford Canal, Bradley Locks Branch,Bungay Navigation, Cann Quarry Canal, CarlisleCanal, Charnwood Forest Canal, Dartford &Crayford Navigation, river Foss, Guilsfield Branch,Halesworth (Blyth) Navigation, Hampshire Avon,Hollinwood Branch Canal, Hulme Lock Branch,river Idle, river Itchen, river Ivel, Leven Canal,Liskeard & Looe Canal, Newdigate (Arbury) sys-tem, Newport Pagnell Canal, Nottingham Canal(above Lenton), Nutbrook Canal, Penshurst Navi-gation, Portsmouth & Arundel Canal (Ford toHunston), river Rother, Royal Military Canal,Shropshire / Coalbrookedale / Donnington Wood/ Ketley canals, Sow Navigation, Stamford Canal,Tavistock Canal, Ulverston Canal, Walton LockBranch, Walton Summit Branch, Weston Branch,Western Rother and Worsley Underground Ca-nals.

Well, you might think that the above is a list of allthe no-hope canals that are never going to berestored.

Alternatively you might reckon that they comprisethe next generation that we’re going to get stuckinto restoring once we’ve finished the current ones.

And you might be right either way. Because whatthey have in common is that are all derelict, theyall might just conceivably be worth restoring, butnone of them have a canal society promoting theirrestoration or preservation, and so there’s a dan-ger that if nobody adopts them soon they mightbe lost forever.

Well actually that’s not true of all of them: sinceThe Inland Waterways Association came up withthis list as a way of trying to highlight waterwayswhose potential ought to be considered but whichdidn’t seem to be being looked after by anyone,at least one new society has sprung into exist-ence (on the Hollinwood Branch) and anotherlooks imminent (on the Bradley Locks Branch).

IWA is looking for some of its currently less-activemembers to take an interest in the waterways onthis list, with a view to representing the interests ofthe waterway in local forums, and looking to set uplocal groups for these waterways where possible.

Could you form a local group to support one ofthese ‘unloved canals’?

Want a BIG generator?

Two large standby diesel generators may be avail-able as a donation to a canal restoration group.

They are static plant room generators but couldbe mounted on a trailer for mobile use. One israted at 90kVA and the other is believed to be110kVA. They are both in good condition and havedone very few working hours. They would need tobe removed from the present location in the southeast. Even if they are not of direct use they maybe a possible source of funds if sold.

If you are interested, contact IWA member GeoffThorne on 01784 458708 and he should be ableto tell you if they are still available and put you intouch with the owners.

WRG Boat Club News

Not much club news for this issue. The AWCCAGM is in March so a full report next time.

Here is a news flash for members, especially thosewith wrgNW: Middlewich Boat & Folk Festival 18-20 June. The festival directors assure me thatthere will be NO CHARGE for boats attending thefestival this year. It is an event worth visiting, wellwrgNW have their stall there, so it must be good.Club members can endear themselves by offer-ing to help them, especially at packing away time.

Some members will be boating to Saul Junctionfor the Cotswold Canals festival, however the in-crease in charges for boats attending, from £10to £25, is a bit off-putting.

Others are hoping to boat to the Clean Up butthis will arrive on your doorstep after the event,making it history rather than news.

xxx Sadie Dean

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

© 2004 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]

Stampswanted

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)

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Free to good home(or donation to Wilts & Berks Canal Trust)

One toad-grader

No, actually it�s a towed grader. 8ft blade,worked fine when we last used it (about 5years ago) so a quick grease round and itshould be good to go. Buyer collects fromSwindon area or can be delivered locally atcost. For further details contact Bungleeither by email ([email protected]) or on(07771) 775745

DIRECTORY UPDATEThe contact details for the Lichfield & HathertonCanals Restoration Trust were out of date in theDirectory in issue 203. The correct contact is PhilSharpe, 34 Old Eaton Road, Rugeley, StaffsWS15 2EZ, Tel: 01889 583330, email:[email protected] Chichester Ship Canal Trust contact is nowLinda Wilkinson, 1 Chidham Lane, ChichesterPO18 8TL. Tel: 01243 576701.New entry for the Sussex Ouse Restoration Trust:contact: Hazel Lintott, 26 Gundreda Road,Lewes, East Sussex BN7 1PX. Tel: 01273475812, email: [email protected] for Graham Hawkes of NWPG [email protected] for Alan Cavender of Dig Deep [email protected] directory in issue 206.

Lost your boots on the last camp?Fed up of tripping over the pile of T-shirts leftbehind after the last camp you led?See the new Lost Property page onwww.wrg.org.uk.

Infill

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Mitch: “I say Mike, that looks like the Right Tool for the RightJob!” Or can you suggest a better caption for this pic of theWRG Chairman being arrested for indecent exposure by PCMitch Parsons? (For more pics from the WRG Calendar Girls/ Boys photo shoot see opposite page.)

Introducing the ‘virtual fundraiser’...I am indebted to Mr Marcus Jones for the follow-ing suggestion...

Much as we all enjoyed the Barn Dance, and muchas it contributed to the Right Tool appeal, one can’thelp thinking that it’s a lot of work to get everyoneto a village hall in Oxfordshire and back again af-terwards, hire the hall, pay the band, organise thebar, order the food and so on and so forth...

So Marcus has come up with the idea of ‘virtualfundraising events’.

All we do is pretend that we’re going to have afundraising barn dance, concert, booze cruise orwhatever. We do all the planning, decide whatband we want, choose where to hold it,try to de-cide if we can fit it into our crowded schedule,(most importantly) send off our cheques to theorganiser , and then... stay at home. We all put

whatever we would have spent ondrink, food and car fuel into the Ap-peal instead. Then afterwards, some-body writes a report about it for ‘Nav-vies’ (it’s easy enough to fake-up thephotos these days), Dr Liz includes itin her next Appeal Update, and no-body who wasn’t there (err, isn’t thatall of us?) is any the wiser.

We raise even more for the Appeal,as we don’t have to buy any food ordrink, hire a hall, band, boat etc. Butwe don’t have the hassle of getting offour bums and dragging ourselves awayfrom the telly for a Saturday night.

And given the way that all theseevents merge into one blur in the av-erage navvy’s memory, we can alllook back on it happily afterwards, andremember how much we all enjoyedit despite London WRG arriving latebecause they got lost due to therather vague directions, MKP fallingasleep half way through the evening,Martin and Bungle having to be pre-vented from singing... and Marcus notturning up because he’s a boring oldstay-at-home who’d rather spend hisSaturday nights writing site safetyplans than partying.

And finally...Thank you to Lou Kellett for puttingthe problems of the BCN into contextby passing on (a long time ago -sorryLou) the snippet of information thatan average of fifty one cars getdriven into the canals of Amsterdamevery year. Perhaps we’ll hold theCleanup there next year instead...

Heard on the ‘calendar’ weekend.....Dr Liz ... found she was slim enough to hide be-hind the Burco!Gav... never before been asked to show more arse!Mitch ... “There aren’t many trains, it’s a Sunday!“Tunji ... found he has a new occupation shouldhis own job fall through!Harry ... “Turn the spade round, fur ther,further....no, not that far!“MKP.... realised he could trust the Police! (see below)Further explanation needed? I’m afraid you’ll justhave to wait till sumer and buy the Calendar...

Well-known waterways photographer Derek Pratt taking the photos of the WRG Calendar boys andgirls. Above: “Could you try and show a little bit less ‘builder’s bum’ please?” Below: “I can just seethe staff but I don’t think it’s quite upright.”

Picture of Mr Mac’s birthday card here

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Documents

birthday parties

macs birthday issue

thissummers canal camps

summers camps

diary camps

wrg wear

wrg workboat

navvies news volunteers