navvies 241

navviesnavvies

waterwayrecoverygroup

waterwayrecoverygroup

Issue No 241June-July

2010

Issue No 241June-July

2010

volunteers restoring waterwaysvolunteers restoring waterways

Visit our web site www.wrg.org.uk for

NavviesProductionEditor: Martin Ludgate, 35 Silvester Road,East Dulwich London SE22 9PB020-8693 3266 [email protected]

Subscriptions: Sue Watts, 15 Eleanor Rd.,Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manchester M21 9FZ

Printing and assembly: John & TessHawkins, 4 Links Way, Croxley Green,Rickmansworth, Herts WD3 3RQ01923 448559 [email protected]

Navvies is published by Waterway RecoveryGroup, Island House, Moor Rd., CheshamHP5 1WA and is available to all interested inpromoting the restoration and conservationof inland waterways by voluntary effort inGreat Britain. Articles may be reproduced inallied magazines provided that the source isacknowledged. WRG may not agree withopinions expressed in this magazine, butencourages publication as a matter of inter-est. Nothing printed may be construed aspolicy or an official announcement unless sostated - otherwise WRG and IWA accept noliability for any matter in this magazine.

Waterway Recovery Group is part of TheInland Waterways Association, (registeredoffice: Island House, Moor Road, CheshamHP5 1WA). The Inland Waterways Associa-tion is a non-profit distributing companylimited by guarantee, registered in Englandno 612245, and registered as a charity no212342. VAT registration no 342 0715 89.

Directors of WRG: Rick Barnes, JohnBaylis, Mick Beattie, James Butler, SpencerCollins, Christopher Davey, George Eycott,John Hawkins, Judith Palmer, MichaelPalmer, Jonathan Smith, Harry Watts.

ISSN: 0953-6655

© 2010 WRG

Bobby Silverw

ood

Rupert

Sm

edle

y

all the latest news of WRG's activities

Editor Does BW want volunteers? 4-5Coming soon training and canal camps 6-8Camp report Easter at Steppingstones 9-12Cleanup report from the darkest BCN13-15WRG at 40 this time Helen interviewsHelen Dobbie and Jude Palmer 16-21Diary canal camps and weekend digs 22-24Letters sympathy for the Chairman? 25Survey what’s the best and worst job? 26Progress restoration roundup 27-32Plant John and the mixer 33Training report from the leaders’ day 34Cavalcade Little Venice report 35Camp report Cheshire Locks / Burslem 36-39News do you know a ratchet from a buckle? 40Noticeboard wanna buy a brushcutter? 41Infill including Dear Deirdre 42-43

Contributions...

...are always welcome, whether handwritten,typed, on CD-ROM, DVD or by email.

Photos also welcome: digital,slides, prints. Please state whether youwant your prints back. Digital pics arewelcome as email attachments, preferablyJPG format, but if you have a lot of largefiles it is best to send them on CD-ROM orDVD or to contact the editor first.

Contributions by post to the editorMartin Ludgate, 35, Silvester Road,London SE22 9PB, or by email [email protected].

Press date for issue 242: July 1st.

Subscriptions

A year's subscription (6 issues) is availablefor a minimum of £1.50 to Sue Watts, 15Eleanor Road, Chorlton-cum-Hardy,Manchester M21 9FZ. Cheques to "Wa-terway Recovery Group" please.

This is a minimum subscription, keptlow so that everyone can afford to subscribe.Please add a donation if you can.

ContentsIn this issue...

Above

Ala

n L

ines

Above: KESCRG on the Basingstoke. Left: theBurslem Arm uncovered - see p36-39. Below:boats on the Mon & Brec (where we worked lastyear) during the Welsh Waterways Festival - re-port next time. Front cover: NWPG at EiseyLock. Back cover top left: BCN Cleanup Topright: Burslem Arm Bottom left: Little VeniceBottom right: Cheshire Locks (Tim Lewis)

EditorialHow many ‘f’s in ‘chairman’s page’?

In the absence of

MKP, it falls to the

editor to have a rant

about British

Waterways...

That’s right: no effin’ chairman’s page

Sorry, but before he sped off in a van head-ing for a canal camp somewhere, MikePalmer left this brief note...

I am sure that you will be devasted toread that there won’t be much of a Chair-man’s bit in this issue.

It’s not that I don’t care, nor that thereis nothing to say; just that we have all beena bit busy getting things ready for this sum-mer, so no passionate politics, no ramblingremembrances and, most importantly, nofilling.

One reason for us being so busy ischanges being made to the Camp kits - a(very) ad-hoc committee have been rethink-ing what goes in the trailers and vans and wehope we have made some changes that willmake life a little easier on any camp you goon. I’m not going to talk about them here,but included in this Navvies will be an insertgiving the latest details. I say latest as it is a‘work in progress’ and we certainly will refinea few things in the light of summers worth ofexperience.

All of which should mean that youshould have a great time on what is shapingup to be a cracking summer. See you on asite somewhere.

Mike Palmer

Speaking of this summer...

This is the last issue of Navvies before thesummer Canal Camps season, so it’s time formy usual appeal for Camp Reports for thenext couple of issues of the magazine.

In the past we’ve had quite a few nov-elty Camp Reports - in the style of a excerptfrom the Bible, a recipe, a lab report from ascientific experiment, in verse and in popularsong form - but there’s nothing to stop youfrom following the majority and writing it inthe good old-fashioned straightforward canalcamp report format. Whatever you do,please write them and send them in as soonas possible because (a) we’d like to get a few

of the early ones into the next issue, ratherthan try and squeeze them all into issue 243and (b) because the sooner you write some-thing down, the less likely you are to forgetit. And while you’re at it, if you take somedecent photos on a canal camp remember tosend a few to us at Navvies - you can emailthem or put them on a CD, or put them onFacebook or Flickr or any other photo shar-ing site and send us a link. We look forwardto hearing from you.

On BW and volunteers

“Does British Waterways really want to workalongside volunteers?” asks John Hawkins atthe end of his report (see p36-39) from the‘unofficial’ camp on the Cheshire / Stafford-shire border recently. This was a combinedworking party where our volunteers spent analmost entirely succesful day or so diggingup the remains of the buried Burslem Arm inco-operation with the Burslem Port Projectand local IWA, and three days or so being -to be frank (*) - buggered around by BW onthe Cheshire Locks. Kit promised didn’t ap-pear, or was the wrong tool or the job, ordidn’t work, or was late, or whatever. Notexactly what you’d expect from an organisa-tion which claims that it sees a greatly in-creased role for volunteers working with BWas part of its much-vaunted plan to dragitself out of Government control and reinventitself as a charity or other ‘third sector’ (notfor profit / non government) body.

Meanwhile on the Grantham Canalwe’ve had to cancel two weeks of canalcamps, mainly because the local BW wouldn’tor (thanks to directives telling them to cutcosts) couldn’t do the necessary planning andother paperwork before the volunteers couldstart work - and weren’t exactly speedy atbreaking the news to us. Does that soundlike an organisation which sees greater vol-unteer involvement as the way forward forthe waterways?

Last autumn at the BW Annual Meetingwe were treated to the unexpected sight of a

(*) albeit not half as frank as the volunteers on site were...

trade union picket line outside. What werethey protesting about? Jobs on the line andpoorer working conditions thanks to Govern-ment cuts? No, they were unimpressed byBW’s ‘third sector’ plans for the future. Asone of them told me, they’d read that BW’sproposals involved more use of vounteers onthe waterways and (in his exact words) “Wedon’t want volunteers taking our jobs”.

That really took me back. I rememberthe 1980s when volunteer restoration workon BW canals came to a virtual standstillbecause of opposition from trade unionsfearful of us nicking their jobs. Or quitepossibly, because the BW management of thetime wanted a quiet life without any of theseawkward volunteer groups reopening itscanals, and telling them “the unions willnever stand for it” was an easy way out.

Either way, it was bollocks. We had nointention trying to take over any of the canalmaintenance tasks that the union memberswere doing. We were interested in doingwork which otherwise wasn’t going to bedone by anyone - restoring derelict canals. Ifanything, we would actually be helping tocreate more full-time maintenance jobs inthe future, when the canals were open. Andover the intervening couple of decades boththe unions and the management seem tohave taken this on board. So when I spoketo the guys on the picket line I thought “Ohgood grief, here we go again” and preparedto rehearse the same old arguments.

Nine months later I’m not so sure. Upon the Leeds & Liverpool, BW’s just broughtin a whole load of overnight lock closures to

save water as the reservoirs arestarting to run a little low. But in-stead of shutting them at 6 or 7pmto begin with, they’ve gone straightfor 4.30pm - because to savemoney, they want to avoid having topay overtime for somebody to staylate and put the padlocks on. Mean-while on the BCN I read that a ‘jobcreation’ type scheme is takingunpaid volunteers off the dolequeue and giving them work experi-ence maintaining canals.

Just in case the link isn’t obvi-ous, at Plank Lane liftbridge, also onthe L&L, BW’s cut the opening hoursright down, to save having to payevening overtime to the bridge-keeper - but says the hours mightbe extended again if volunteers can

be found to fill the gap.Sure, BW wants to work with volunteers

- but not our kind of volunteers.A couple of issues back, Mike Palmer’s

Chairmans’ Comment made the point that ifBW wants its move to the third sector to bethe success that it might be, then it needs toactually want to do it for the good of thecanals, the waterways heritage, local com-munities and so on - rather than just to savesome money. Well, at the moment I’m notentirely convinced that this is the case.

Yes, I know money’s tight. Governmentdepartment Defra is about to cut BW’s grantyet again, there’s almost certainly more belt-tightening to follow, and the Treasury still hasits greedy eyes on the BW property portolio.We can’t expect free hand-outs from BW leftright and centre to help us restore canals.

But unless there are a few less BWballs-ups like the ones I mentioned at thestart, I have to say that my genuine enthusi-asm for BW’s future as a ‘National Trust forthe waterways’ will start to wane.

So come on BW, pull your finger out.Otherwise if all this guff about volunteerinvolvement simply means taking unpaidlabour off the dole queues so you can sacklock-keepers, while folks with decades ofexperience as canal restorers get buggeredabout, then don’t be too surprised if some ofus in the volunteer restoration movementstart telling you that you can take your thirdsector plans and shove them where the sundoesn’t shine (*). Because we’d rather stickwith the devil we know.

Martin Ludgate

(*) that doesn’t mean ‘Droitwich’, by the way

Grantham Canal: are volunteers wanted by BW?

Coming soonCanal Camps 2010 preview

Looking forward to a

great summer of canal

camps on an excellent

range of projects all over

the country

Coming soon: summer Canal Camps 2010

As promised in the last issue, we’ve got a preview of the second half of this summer’s CanalCamps programme, covering the period from the beginning of August onwards. But first,we need to mention a couple of things that are happening before then.

WRG Training Day 3 July

In place of our usual training weekend we’re having a training day on 3 July. Anotherchange from what we usually do is that instead of setting up a training site we’re actuallyworking on a real live restoration project: this day marks the handover between the first andsecond of four weeks of consecutive camps at Gough’s Orchard Lock on the Cotswold Ca-nals. We’ll be concentrating on vans and trailers, scaffolding (we’ll actually be scaffolding outthe lock chamber ready for the start of chamber wall rebuilding on the following weeks’camps) and various jobs to do with brickwork including demolition, preparation and mortaras well as the actual bricklaying - and as with the scaffolding, we’ll actually be doing thetraining on a genuine working site.

As usual Ali Bottomley will be masterminding the event and taking bookings or trainingsessions - please do contact her in advance (the further in advance, the better) on Tel:07719 643870 or 0191 422 5469, or e-mail: [email protected].

Canal Camps 2010: June / July update

Before we tell you about the August camps, there are a couple of changes to the first part ofthe summer programme which we covered in the last Navvies. Starting with a few moreleaders who we’ve recruited. Camp 03 on 26 June to 3 July, the first of four camps atGoughs Orchard Lock on the Cotswold Canals, will start of under the leadership of ourchairman Mike Palmer - but he will hand over the reins to Jenny Black on the Tuesday. Theassistant will be Richard Worthington (aka Richard Cool) and the cook will be Eli Nelson. Thesame week, up on the Montgomery Camp 04 leaderLou Kellett will be supported by James Butler andEmma Greenall as joint assistants. The third week atGoughs Orchard, Camp 07 on 10 to 17 July, will beled by Helen ‘Bushbaby’ Gardner assisted by BerndSchimansky with Lizzie Gittoes in charge of food.

And now the bad news: unfortunately due tocircumstances beyond our control the GranthamCanal worksite is no longer available. Apologies toanyone who was hoping to go on Camp 10 (17-24July): there are still vacancies the same week on Camp09 at Goughs Orchard where Becky Parr and NikkiPacker will be delighted to lead you (and Chad Reid tofeed you). For the second Grantham Canal week(camp 11 on 24-31 July) the leadership team of EdWalker and Gordon Brown with cook Harri Barnes haveshifted the whole camp lock stock and barrel to theBasingstoke Canal. The work is likely to be rebuild-ing lock wing walls at Deepcut Locks (set in finest rural Eisey Lock - to be rebuilt this summer

Mart

in L

udgate

Canal Camps 2010: dates, sites, leaders, cooks appointed to date

No Start End Site Kit Leader Assistant Cook1003 Jun 26th Jul 3rd Cotswold: Goughs A Mike P / Jenny B Richard Worthington Eli Nelson1004 Jun 26th Jul 3rd Montgomery B Lou Kellett James Butler / Emma Greenall1005 Jul 3rd Jul 10th Cotswold: Goughs A Martyn Worsley Clive Knight Tania Connolly1006 Jul 3rd Jul 10th Montgomery B Steve Harmes Chris Colbourne1007 Jul 10th Jul 17th Cotswold: Goughs A Helen Gardner Bernd Schimansky1008 Jul 10th Jul 17th Chesterfield B Mike Chase Cameron Abercrombie1009 Jul 17th Jul 24th Cotswold: Goughs A Becky Parr Nikki Packer Chad Reid1010 Jul 17th Jul 24th Grantham cancelled1011 Jul 24th Jul 31st Cotswold: Eisey A KESCRG leaders1012 Jul 24th Jul 31st moved to Basingstoke B Ed Walker Gordon Brown Harri Barnes1013 Jul 31st Aug 7th Cotswold: Eisey A Martin Thompson George Rogers Mandy Morley1014 Jul 31st Aug 7th Chelmer & Blackwater B1015 Aug 7th Aug 14th Mon & Brec A Mike Chase Ju Davenport1016 Aug 7th Aug 14th Basingstoke cancelled1017 Aug 7th Aug 14th Cotswold: Eisey NWPG leaders1018 Aug 14th Aug 21st Mon & Brec A Sophie Smith Helena Howarth1019 Aug 14th Aug 21st Basingstoke B Fred Towey Lorraine Hughes1020 Aug 21st Sep 4th National A+BMitch Gozna Kirsty Wallace1021 Oct 23rd Oct 30th Grand Western A Mark Richardson Kirsty Wallace Mitch Gozna1022 Oct 23rd Oct 30th Chelmer & Blackwater B Rob Daffern

Surrey heathland) as part of the Surrey & Hants Canal Society’s major programme of worksto put the canal back in good order after a lack of maintenance in recent years.

Canal Camps 2010: August camps preview

OK on to the second part of this summer’s programme, which kicks off with Camp 13 atEisey Lock on the Cotswold Canals on July 31 to August 7. Somehow the leader ‘RAFMartin’ Thompson managed to sneak into the last issue of Navvies so I’ll restrict him to afew words this time:

Hopefully the preceding KESCRG camp will have the preparation work completed andthe replacement brickwork started, so it’ll be heads down and brickwork up! Absolute brick-laying, mortar mixing, brick shifting and scaffolding under the Cotswold sun with great localsupport. It never rains in the Water Park but just in case it does, an interesting choice oftrips & evening entertainment will be served for everyone’s delectation and delight and we’llleave the topping out for NWPG on the following week!

Have a look at the front cover of this issue to see our friends in NWPG at work on EiseyLock on a Dig Deep weekend recently: they’ll be leading Camp 17 on 7-14 August at Eiseyand hoping to get the second chamber wall pretty much completed by the end of the week.

Meanwhile on 31 July 31 to 7 August we’re also running camp 14 on the Chelmer &Blackwater, another waterway which our volunteers are helping to put back in good condi-tion after its previous owners let it get into a bit of a state. The locals in Essex Waterways Ltd(the IWA subsidiary set up to rescue it from the bankrupt former canal company) will nodoubt have a range of interesting jobs for us (in recent months we’ve demolished a bridge,installed water supplies, patched holes in the bank and built barbecues!) and Frank Wallderwill be our co-ordinator for this camp.

Next we head for South Wales and a fortnight on the Mon & Brec, clearing vegetationand repairing stonework on chambers and bywashes on Allt-yr-yn Locks on the CrumlinArm. Camp 15 on 7-14 August is led by Mike Chase assisted by Ju Davenport, then SophieSmith with Helena Howarth helping for Camp 18 on 14-21 August. Let’s hear from Sophie...

Come along to tranquil South Wales to brush up on your heritage construction skills orhelp clear some vegetation. Helena and Sophie are aiming to create a friendly, laid-backatmosphere and hope to spend a bit of time exploring the local area - which may include avisit to a lime quarry! Excellent cooking by an experienced cook. Everyone is welcome but

we especially welcome van drivers on this camp and our ‘MUP’ (Most Useful Person) is still tobe confirmed, so if you think that might be you, feel free to sign up!

Unfortunately Camp 16, scheduled for 7-14 August on the Basingstoke Canal, won’tnow be happening, but not only have we moved Ed and Gordon’s 24-31 July camp there tomake up for this (see previous page), we’ve also got Fred Towey and Lorraine Hughes lead-ing Camp 19 there the following week, 14-21 August.

Finally, as ever, the summer canal camps programme ends with us helping to providesite services for the Inland Waterways Association’s National Waterways Festival, which thisyear returns to the Thames at Beale Park. Over to leaders Mitch Gosna and Kirsty Wallace...

Unsure about what to do for a summer holiday this year? Worried that the volcanomight scupper your plans for going abroad - or that BA might strike? Why not give theNational Festival and Boat Show a go?

The weather men are telling us we arein for an Indian summer, we’ve yet to see it,but wouldn’t it be fantastic to have anotherhot sunny Festival for our return to theThames in August? Beale Park nearPangbourne is welcoming us back for the 3rd

time, this is a lovely site right on the river-side and Kirsty and I would like to invite youall along for a great couple of weeks helpingto set up and run this show. It is also WRG’s40th Birthday this year and plans are afoot tocelebrate at the start of the camp.

There will be the usual jobs of fencing,water pipes, craning, litter picking, pontoonbuilding, car parking, assisting traders, and did we mention fencing?!! Along with a multi-tude of other jobs to get the Festival up and running.

This year’s attractions over the Festival weekend are also exciting, with water zorbingon the lake. (Imagine being a hamster in a ball on the water!) There will also be a mockbattle on the water with boats being blown up and sinking!! Boats that look like they drivethemselves, very James Bond; the Newfoundland Rescue Dogs, fancy being rescued?! Therewill be kayaking on the lake, boat trips, steam engines and historic cars. There will also bethe usual real ale bars for those who wish to partake.

Bookings are currently being taken by Jen at Head Office, but we still need more peo-ple, so to all the regulars who usually attend and haven’t booked on yet please do so, andwe’d like to say a big welcome to any newcomers thinking of coming along for the first time.

In addition to the usual jobs, we are also asking for volunteers to help out with somefencing over the weekend of the 14th/15th August, this will to be taking out a line of fencingwhich crosses the site, camping will be available for this weekend, and I’m sure there will beBBQ and beer on offer too for anyone who can make it.

We are also looking for a cook for the camp; this is an important job, probably themost important person on site. Previous experience of cooking on a camp is desirable butnot necessary as help will be at hand. This is an urgent role to fill, so anyone with any expe-rience of cooking who would like to give it a go please let us know.

Lastly another role is that of Admin corner, this is the role that I have done for the last2 years, and involves booking people in, taking money for food, liaising with the cook onnumbers, and keeping a list of volunteers on site, amongst other things.

If you think you could fill any of these roles then please let Kirsty or myself know.Accommodation for the Festival will be the usual marquee, however there is some

room for tents, caravans or vans, space is limited so please when you book in tell Jen if youare thinking of camping out so we can add you to the list we have. Please don’t just turn upon the day assuming there will be space as the chances are there won’t be, so please bookyour space early! We look forward to seeing you in August for a fun couple of weeks.

Big hugs!Mitch 07768525469 or [email protected]

Kirsty 07790740925 or [email protected]

“A lovely site on the riverside” - Beale Park

Mart

in L

udgate

The Final “One moreSteppingstone Lane Bridge

Easter Camp will do it” Honest!

How many times do you spend on the weeksup to and after a bank holiday, vacation or acamp in the height of a drought or thewarmest temperatures ever recorded andthen when it’s time to play, you get the wet-test and coldest daytime figures every re-corded in living memory?

The last ‘one more camp will do it’Steppingstone Lane Bridge Easter camp wasa case in point. There is no high enoughpraiseworthy verbiage that can complimentthe valiant group of Navvies who withstoodall that nature could throw at them with anesprit des corps, humour and a work ethicsecond to none; as the leader and ‘tokenlocal’ I thank you all.

Thursday morning before start ofcamp, text message from the WRG ‘Control-ler’: “You’re going on the radio, they’ll be intouch soon”. So with the office door closedand ‘In-conference’ noticeup I mocked up somecue cards from a hastilyemailed HQ press releaseand some Wilts & BerksCanal Trust literature,conducted the interviewover the phone, men-tioned the salient points,and voila: a five minutepiece on the tea-timeshow on Radio Swindon105.5. My boss textedme: he’d heard the piece,and “no wonder Icouldn’t get hold of youearlier”!

Friday beforecamp, text message fromthe WRG ‘Controller’:“You’re going on TV; BBCOxford will be in touchsoon”! Wiped brow asI’d kept the cue cards,

the roving reporter duly called, Mondaymorning appointment on site, assuming theworld hadn’t ended, or Cambridge hadn’ttaken over Oxford or the missing cat hadbeen found! No really, it was a local interestitem of the dedication and skill of volunteersworking tirelessly to enrich amenities for theresidents of Oxfordshire and beyond, a teatime show winner.

Saturday: the best laid plans of miceand Bungle: ‘the van keys are withVodaphone security’, a bemused securityguard later and no keys, a ‘wakey wakey’ callensues, Bungle arrives with keys, and wewere off and running!

Home for the next ten days wasWatchfield village hall, (a little disappointing,this) along with a number of local groups atvarious times of the week. At least the hallhas a lot going for it in the quality of accom-modation and close proximity to site. Withthe 2nd WRG van en route from the northwest, young James (aka James I) being thefirst arrival by train had to endure not only

‘RAF Martin’ reports

from the last ever Wilts

& Berks Steppingstone

Lane Bridge Easter

Canal Camp... again...

Camp reportWilts & Berks Canal

Kerb-laying in progress

All p

hoto

s by J

ohn H

aw

kin

s

Camp reportWilts & Berks

“James the First and

Isobel pollarded willows

and cleared scrub with

ruthless efficiency” -

where was Ruth, then?

me but the enclave of Swindon Station for acouple of hours while we gathered up thefellow train and coach travellers. The latter,Derek and Maggie from Kent, SSLB stalwarts,had a terminal car failure the previous weekand ‘phoned on Friday to say they had notransport so were having to abort attendingthe camp. A much excited ‘phone call laterfrom Derek confirmed they had securedpassage on National Express and would beattending, albeit with a much reduced bag-gage and alcohol allowance! Meanwhileback to the ranch, my ‘WRG hero and gradeA* MUP’ (Most Useful Person) John Hawkinshad everything under control along with 1st

time camp cook, Debbie Curtis. After atraditional site visit, with “this is a nice greenbyway and a dry site”, all returned for asubstantial 1st evening meal and the time-honoured introductions & pleasantries. TheEagle hostelry welcomed a quorum of thegroup while others chilled to jigsaws andbackgammon.

Sunday, the sunshone; well it had toonce, getting out of theway for the rest of thetime! An early startwas in order as theresident church groupwas expected just after0900, so site set upwas established, andwork groups weretasked with newlycrowned MUPs incharge. The Hawkmaster led a group toremove the scaffoldingfrom both sides of thebridge. George, Roband the surveyinggroup set up the sitelevel and tried to estab-lish some order for thekerb laying and roadsurface levels. Mildpanic: just as the last

scaffold pole was removed from the westside, it was determined by our buddingCambridge Uni CE undergrad that we were 4courses short on the parapet brickwork. Apolite reminder that we had already placed300mm of concrete over the arch from whichhe was levelling off, not the actual crown ofthe brick arch where the plan section dimen-sion was measured from! Panic over.

My able assistant Mr. Chase kept an eyeon the PFA (Pulverised Fly Ash) levellingcrew and the keen bunch of willowpollarders. By close of play the scaffold onboth sides was down; the speed & efficiencyof Steve, Michelle, Michael and the crew inachieving all of this was awesome. Jamesthe 1st and Isobel pollarded willows andcleared scrub with ruthless efficiency, work-ing levels were established, and PFA levelled,the back list of work to do was being soughtjust as the rain came.

Bungle & Mel delivered ‘Blue’ (the exca-vator) late afternoon and we had the tools

The PVA levelling crew at work

ready for the 40 tonnes ofroad planings anticipated fordelivery later in the week.Alas the dumper had apuncture, and no correctsocket to be found. Bungle’sopportunity to utilize thetyre-removal-from-rimdevice formally known asthe beavertail (a story foranother day!) passed by andit had to be left for theprofessionals on Monday! Approx 45 kerb stonesdonated by Volker Fitzpatrickat RAF Fairford were trans-ferred to site; all in all ahugely successful day.

Monday: much over-night rain, soggy start, TVcrew due on site 1000. At0930 methinks not good to film today, post-pone until better weather. 0931, BBC called“be there in 5”, too late to change! Hurriedly,IWA/WRG banner erected on Herras fencepanel in strategic location to be included inbridge wide view shot and backdrop forinterviews. Reporter and a camera dulyarrived. Good to see the licence money isbeing well spent, so much so that he had nowellies, but still the hardy walking shoes andthe rolled up trousers cut a rather interestingcontrast to the appropriately attired navviesat work. Network Rail must have a sixthsense of filming going on as there weremore trains passing by on the mainline thanI can ever recall, “let’s run through that againwithout the train noise” became a commontheme! Add to that the noisy navvies at teabreak, and it meant that filming took upmost of the morning. A bemused Steveprovided the dunking of the suction hose inthe canal under the bridge for some realbackground restoration noise and visualeffects! Meanwhile the real works continuedwith great abandon as if this was really the‘one last camp will do it’!

Tuesday saw the camp in the safehands of Mike Chase and John Hawkins whilethe leader was away for a (non-work related)eye-watering appointment at the Royal BerksHospital Reading. The kerb-laying gangstarted laying the kerbs over the bridge.Scaffolding was loaded onto the dumper fortransfer the half mile to the top of the lane. Tirforing of the willow stumps continued at apace with Alex, Rob, John, Derek, and

Kimm, stalwarts in trying to locally dredgethe canal as they removed the stumps from amass of silt and reeds. Mike and the kerbcrew worked wonders on the kerb-layingfront.

Wednesday: the rain came, and whilesome chilled, others visited the railway mu-seum in Swindon. Scaffold was moved byplant trailer to Seven Locks some 35 minutesaway. The leader returned rather gingerlyduring the afternoon, just in time for dinnerand to escort a van load of gamblers to thelocal greyhound track where ‘Lucky’ Kimmlined his pockets with loads of money fromthe Tote; others managed to break even andreturn with all shirts intact!

Thursday: the fun started with 40tonnes of asphalt planings delivered half amile away so the not-so-green byway unfor-tunately became in places a mini Somme(but without the dangers of high explo-sives!) The vintage dumper plied its tradewith the Hawk in control and “Johnny nomates” leader was left to be the lonely loaderwith ‘Blue’ at the end of the track. The bon-fire babes Jenny and Maggie started to dis-pose of the mountain of willow and debrisaccumulated in the bank clearance. Mandy,James II and Stephannie joined us andseamlessly slotted into the work partiestoiling in what would best be described asuncomfortable conditions, but stoicallysmiled and got stuck in. Frank ensured thateveryone was doing what they should bedoing. In the evening, mob handed, wedescended on the local pub quiz and pro-

“No stump left behind” became the war-cry...

Camp reportWilts & Berks

“Mandy, James II and

Stephanie seamlessly slotted

into the work parties, toiling in

what can only be described as

uncomfortable conditions...”

ceeded to sweep away the local oppositionand win the 1st place spoils of a bottle ofwine. Still, it’s the winning that counts!

Friday: more of the same on site,weather cloudy and wet, track getting morelike a paddy field with two ruts, and a visitfrom Rachael Banyard to complete Mike’ssmall excavator training and sign off hisoperator authorization. The 1:12 slope tomeet the “disabled” access requirement wastaking shape on the south side. The bridgelooked a picture of beauty from the easternfootpath approaches as the willow and debriswere cleared. Derek took over the construc-tion of the mini-retaining walls for the archdrainage discharge points. The bonfire babeskept the home fire burning!

Saturday: the clearing up showerdidn’t, well not until late in the day. Thefinal dregs of the planings were transferredto site. The home fire kept on burning,scavenging site for combustibles became anobsessive compulsive behavior for the ‘pyropeople’. Amazing features of human endur-ance were experienced by the Tirfor team asthey prepared andmoved the willowstumps et al along thebank to ‘pyro point’.”No stump left behind”became the war crywith Alex & Jennyleading the way!

Easter Sunday:the sun shone, creameggs were shared out, WRG forestry repMartyn Worsley to-gether with Frank andKimm departed forPocket Park to heavilypollard a willow or twothat the Xmas camphad been unable toattempt. At the bridge,the tidying up of thesite began, and theremainder of the scaf-

fold was spirited away to Seven Locks forsorting out into the respective loaners’ pilesfrom whence it had been borrowed. ‘Blue’was collected by Bungle & Mel and wentsouth west to the Wootton Bassett site. Toolsand site kit were returned to Watchfield VHwhere ‘top soiling’ the car park was almostachieved as everyone scrubbed, sponged andrinsed the kit and vans of SSLB gunge. Themost excellent odours of the mega last nightroast dinner prepared by Debbie weren’tsufficient to delay the departure of somemembers avoiding the potential Bank Holidaytraffic challenges, which meant a gutbustingsurplus of fine food for the remaining teamplayers. Rob B was in his element!

Many thanks to Mike Chase, my ableassistant, Debbie Curtis for being a most excel-lent cook and John Hawkins as my main MUP. “One more camp nearly did it”. Dogged byrain and atrocious site conditions I can onlyreiterate “I thank you”, to all those brilliantCamp 201002 folks who can proudly say “Wehelped re-build Steppingstone Lane bridge”

Martin Thompson

The (almost) completed bridge

A Goon Treasure Hunt on the BCN

I am Spud Canal-Goon and I haveheard through whispers that some treasurecould be found in the area of Walsall on theBirmingham Canal Navigations.

My associate Grip Wheel-Tight advisedme to search the web for the informationand after several encounters with black wid-ows and tarantulas, I real-ised that the web I neededwas the computer type. Soafter parting with mymoney for the adventure, Iwas instructed to meet mytransport at Waterloo Sta-tion at 7.00pm on Friday. Imet three other treasureseekers and we departed inour red van transport forBirmingham.

Our accommodationwas a school youth centreand we joined many othertreasure hunters althoughcomments like “What pub inon your right Tit” fromAileen to Mike did raise afew eyebrows. I retired tobed to prepare to find myfortune tomorrow.

Saturday: After ahearty breakfast cooked byCooks Mike Chase & VulcanDave, we departed to theOcker Hill Centre for ourequipment and briefing.Two groups formed andwere led by experiencedpersonnel to ensure oursafety. One group was ledby Tim ‘Where’s my phone?’Lewis, while the other wasled by Moose ‘I’m going torip your nuts off’ Hearnden.I was in the Moose moband arrived at a bridge holeon the canal.

With the cry ‘Sling your Hooks’, wethrew our grappling hooks into the water.Young Welsh Owen was the first person inour group to pull out a bike and then ashopping trolley. After several hours in whichsome of us got dirty (Ju?) while some of usfelt like slinging our hooks into a local hos-telry, we arrived back at the Ocker Hill centrefor lunch. We met the other group lazing in

“With the cry

‘Sling your hooks!’

we slung our

grappling hooks

into the water”

Cleanup report...from the BCN

First of many: a trolley is recovered from Ryders Green bottom lock

Is this whyit’s called aclean-up?

On yerbike!

Tie mekangaroodown,sport!

A boat, in theBCN? You’rekidding!

Everythingincluding thekitchen sink!

Hang about!If I wantedto pull agrapplinghook out,surely Ishould havethrown atrolley in...

Tyringwork...

Cleanup report...from the BCN

“Kirsty’s response

that ‘they are just

two growths’

seemed to

satisfy them”

the sun as the food had been delayed.In conversation, I found out that one of

the other group’s party had been presented amedal by royalty. Could this treasure huntbe my way to fame? No more comedy shav-ing routine. I vowed to find treasure forqueen & country.

After lunch Moose’s mob departed to anew section to search for more treasures.

More items were retrieved usually pre-ceded by a familiar call from Tracy ‘I’vehooked something’ Howarth. This generallymeant that the rest of the team having tohook the object as well to assist in its re-

moval. Objects included motorbikes, safesand also three lorry tyres which were tiedtogether.

Two local oiks appeared and they dis-played Bluebottle / Eccles levels of intelli-gence when they asked Kirsty if she was afemale. Her response that “they are just twogrowths” seem to satisfy them. Our twolocals continued to monitor our activities forthe rest of the afternoon while we extractedmore tyres, bikes, scooters and cables andother rubbish. When the barge appeared totake all the equipment they went off to fol-low it back up the canal.

Is this whyit’s called aclean-up?

On yerbike!

Tie mekangaroodown,sport!

A boat, in theBCN? You’rekidding!

Everythingincluding thekitchen sink!

Hang about!If I wantedto pull agrapplinghook out,surely Ishould havethrown atrolley in...

Tyringwork...

Tyring

Our group finished atBarnes Bridge and a call wasput out to collect us. Al-though the vans collected us,I heard that a Madrid taxidriver over here during the‘no fly’ period was seen look-ing for some fares fromWRGies along the Thames atBarnes Bridge Putney.

After a hearty eveningmeal and tales of similardiscoveries from the othergroup, including Martin catch-ing a rat, the evening activi-ties commenced. These in-cluded Lego car buildingwhich was won by Tracy(with spare tyre jokes flyingaround the room). Whilesome stayed up late buildingmore vehicles, most retired tobed exhausted.

Sunday morning ar-rived to the smell of breakfastwhich was consumed withgusto. The two groups de-parted to new locations onthe Walsall canal with one ortwo absentees.

Our group started be-sides a temple and the east-ern music emitted fromwithin reminded me of my oldcommanding officer MajorBloodnok. Although no screenscould be found this early, thearea produced two mattresseshooked by Josie. This re-quired Gary ‘who needshelp?’ Summers to organisethe mass pull out from thecanal. After an hour the bargearrived and the two Welshyoungsters departed to assistthe crew. The rest continueduntil lunch after extractingmore bikes, scooter cables &tyres as well as the back of acontainer lorry.

After lunch both teamsreturned to the James BridgeAqueduct for a final push tofind our treasure. Early re-sults were a motor bike andthen 5 lorry tyres which couldgo with the container parts

(only 13 more to find for thecomplete set).

At the next majorbridge hole large amounts ofcable and its covering wereextracted along with othermetallic objects including oildrums both complete andpartial.

The time had come forus to stop slinging our hooksalthough some people contin-ued looking for that last tyre.We returned our equipmentto Ocker hill and although wenever found a Millie Bannister,Tracy can claim to havehooked a steel ladder.

My lack of treasuremeans more comic shavingroutines but I hear that wewill be searching for spaghettinext year. Watch out RichardDimbley.

I left in our red vantransport and had a dream oftwo oiks standing by a canalwith a motorbike.

Eccles: Let’s throw this in thecanalBlueBottle: It’s fallen in thewater

Oh well, the first objectout next year...

Paul Ireson

Editor’s note (1) to thosewho don’t understand the vari-ous Goon Show references, ifyou’re aged over 30 ask yourparents, and if you’re aged un-der 30 ask your grandparents,and don’t be surprised if you stilldon’t understand the referenceseven after they’ve been explainedto you. The Goon Show waslike that.

Editor’s note (2) in case youwere wondering why we’ll besearching or spaghetti, nextyear’s Cleanup is likely to seeus clearing the canals underand around ‘Spaghetti Junc-tion’.

WRG at 40Forty views for forty years

Continuing our series of

interviews with those involved in

WRG over the last four decades,

Helen Gardner talks to a

couple of Essex girls...

40 Views for 40 Years

The third in a series of articles to celebrate WRG’s 40th birthday by capturing the views ofvarious people who have been involved in various capacities.

Helen Dobbie - London WRG regular, donner of fancy dress, boater - how did sheget involved with us?

Q: How did you first get involved with canal restoration in the first place?A: At Little Venice Canalway Cavalcade, I used to have a little cabincruiser called Sparkle and I took that down to Little Venice with my husbandof the time. There was one pub that everyone used, I think it was the BridgeHouse, and we’d gone there for a drink and it was absolutely packed. We’dsat down at this table and there were about 2 spaces opposite us, well about 8people tried to get into these 2 spaces and as they were almost sitting in ourlaps we kind of got talking to them. They were actually KESCRG who usedto do site and services for Little Venice and they said ‘come and give us ahand tomorrow selling chocolate teddy bears and programmes – we also docanal restoration. Come and help us tomorrow and we’ll tell you a bit moreabout canal restoration’. So I went and helped them and a couple of weekslater I was doing some canal restoration – it must have been the Wilts andBerks because Peter Smith was there.

He said ‘we’re going to go and look for a lock’. I thought – a lock – a big black and white thing you can’tmiss it. He said ‘ooh – there’s a dip in the ground there – if we dig there I think we’re going to find it’. And we did digdown and we found the wooden bits and a bit of the lock gate. It was like ‘ah – when they say canal restoration...’

Q: What year was this?A: I think it was ’89. I did my first National Festival at Waltham Abbey. In fact I can remember MikePalmer going round in a miniskirt – the programme sellers were wearing miniskirts and sashes – and Mike andone of the other guys – it may have been Tom – decided to do programme selling as well.

Q: What got you started with canals in the first place?A: I went on a boating holiday as a teenager. We quite often used to go on holidays with one of mymum’s friends (her two boys were a similar age to my brother and I) and we’d done the cottage thing withthem. I would come back from on holiday and go on to Norwich and went ‘can we have a boat mum?’ Soshe’d spoken to her friend and said possibly not the Broads but what about the canal system? I think it wasthe Four Counties Ring. So we did this canal holiday and it was ‘ooh – can we do this again?’. So I kind ofgot a bit smitten as a teenager.

Q: What made you come back after the Wilts and Berks dig – why do you keep doing it –because you’re still active now?A: I like doing outdoor stuff, I like learning new skills, there’s also an amazing bunch of people. You meetold friends, you make new ones, all weird and wonderful but a great bunch of people. It’s also good to knowthat you’re putting something back into the canal system. Some of them I don’t think I’ll see re-opened butsome of them certainly – we have had re-openings.

Q: What’s the most useful skill you’ve learnt and who did you learn it from?A: I can make a lot of mortar. I do a lot with London WRG now and they do a lot of bricklaying. I

haven’t got very big hands so I find it quite difficult to span a brick. If I can’t do the bricklaying then I thoughtI ought to learn to do something else useful.

Q: When did your involvement withLondon WRG start?A: Probably about 10 or 11 years ago. Asdifferent things have happened in my life I’vekind of done a bit with WRG, then maybe I’vehad to drop out because things are happeningand then I’ve gone back. I started withKESCRG, did a bit with BITM, done lots withLondon, I’ve even done a little bit with Essex.

Q: What would you say WRG was good at?A: It says it’s a co-ordinating body and it’s aboutorganising people, projects and equipment. I’ve neverbeen involved with any of the organisation but youdo appreciate that it’s not just about turning up anddoing the work - there is a lot of hiring of equip-ment, getting the accommodation. They are a co-ordinating body for voluntary work on the canal system.

Q: What would you say WRG’s greatest achievement was?A: I suppose Over Basin on the Herefordshire & Gloucestershire. I got a bit fed up with the travelling([whispers] – it’s a long way from Essex) but I did do a bit there and I did go to the re-opening which wasquite amazing to see what had been done. To see that transformed and they’d had a lot of really big plantthere and I know a lot of people did put in a lot of work. That was quite an achievement.

It has lots of little achievements as well doesn’t it? You go back – I’ve been doing quite a lot of stuff on theChelmer and because I go back there quite a bit you’ll think ‘oh that’s the bank that I did the bank protection on’ and it’snow got the grass growing on. You can go back and see lots of little achievements as well as the really big stuff.

Q: What would you say WRG was not so good at?A: Sometimes it’s the getting going first thing [on a weekend]. By Saturday afternoon you’ve got yourhead around what you’re doing but by the time you’ve got there, got all the kit out and had a look at the site... yousometimes think ‘could we be more organised?’ If you’re doing a weekend then you can only do so much.

Q: Tell us about your nickname?A: There’s a couple of other Helens in WRG – there’s also Helen Davey – it’s quite unusual. The ‘purplefairy’ nick name – London WRG and KESCRG, on the 1st weekend in December they have a joint pre-Christmas dig and in the evening there’s a wonderful dinner and there’s also a fancy dress theme. This themewas fairy tales and I normally like to try and do something but always run out of time. I actually bought theoutfit the day before and it was only because I’d been to a meeting and I’d had to go somewhere else andwalk through town. I really like the purplies/bluesies/turquoisesies colours and there was this amazing purplefairy outfit. I thought I could wear that to the fancy dress and for some reason the name’s stuck ever since.

Q: What other outfits have you donned?A: One of them was French so you I the short skirt and stripy top and the stockings – a couple of the mendid the same as well! Last year I was Rosie and Jim with Martin Ludgate, but we put an interesting little twiston it in that I was Jim and Martin was Rosie. But we did actually win with our interesting little twist.

Q: Has your involvement mainly been on weekend digs or have you done canal camps as well?A: The only canal camps I’ve ever done have been the National and they’re a wonderfully sociable event.We do work hard, I now do the Lavender Boat so I do see a little bit of the organisation of it. There’s lots ofother jobs with litter picking, car parking, all the tasks you get at a National - it’s not particularly about resto-ration so it’s very different to the normal week-long camps.

Q: Which sites have you been to?A: Some of the sites I remember – it’s the muddiest ones you remember. I’ve worked on a lot of different

“I can make a lot of mortar” - Helen at Droitwich

canals: Wilts and Berks, Basingstoke, Montgomery, good old fishing in the BCN with a grappling hook. Iknow I’ve been all over. When you don’t drive there - quite often I’ll try and get a lift with somebody – youreally don’t know which canal you’re going to - you just get to the point where you’re being picked up.More recently I’ve done quite a bit at Foxton because my boat has been moored at Foxton and it meant Icould sleep on my boat. Essex have done quite a lot at Foxton. And also quite a lot at Chelmer – it’s themost local canal to where I dig. I want to support it because it is local and it was threatened with closure. It’sthe only canal that the IWA oversee – well, a subsidiary company of the IWA.

Q: What’s your favourite derelict canal?A: I really do like the Chelmer having only dis-covered it in the last five years. Though you can’treally call it derelict!

Q: Do you continue to go to the LittleVenice Festival to do the site and services?A: I think I’ve been back every year for a fewyears and I help with getting all the boats into themooring on the Friday night - it’s good fun. I canremember one year it was absolutely tipping it downand everyone was getting a bit irate ‘I want my boatmoored now so I can get in the warm’ and you think‘once I’ve moored your boat I’ve got another 50 to do and it’s going to be about 2 hours before I get into thewarm’. I think only one person offered me a hot drink. So yes I go back and I’m taking my boat this year.

Q: So what is it about Little Venice?A: I think it’s just a wonderful spectacle of colour – it is a big social event. It obviously promotes thecanals in London and you get a lot of boaters there but you also get local people wandering through.

Q: Who has inspired you?A: People who come in and do the job and you see people of all shapes and sizes. I did one of the SaulCamps – they had a festival there – and there were two Spanish girls. Quite how they’d come over to do a camp Idon’t know and one of them was tiny, but she was still getting in and doing as much as she could.

Alison [Smedley] and her very well deserved MBE. Her organisational skills are amazing, she does somany different things. You just meet a lot of different people at lots of different levels. Some of the peopleyou watch have amazing problem solving skills. I remember there was a big coping stone, I looked at it andthought that’s going to be a real moving and handling nightmare – they’re never going to move that. Theyliterally got a car jack, jacked one end up and propped it, jack out and jacked the other end up.

Lots of people for doing lots of different things.

Q: Do you have any classic ‘do you remember the time’ stories?A: I remember Jude trying to do ballerina stuff on one of the bars at that same National [Waltham Abbey89]. The bar was empty other than us. One of the other good things about WRG is the weddings and theget-togethers and the second generation WRGies.

Q: Where do you see WRG’s future?A: Hopefully carrying on doing what it’s doing, opening more canals, raising the awareness, protecting thelines. BW are saying they want to work with volunteers more. There’s more health and safety paperwork –hopefully it’s making things safer for people. What we’re doing now and a bit more.

And now from one Essex Girl to another: Jude Palmer (née Moore). Married to thechairman – what did she do to deserve that? Jude fills us in on some of the details:

Q: How did you get involved with WRG?A: I actually started on a camp with KESCRG in the August of 1989 at Waltham Abbey, the NationalFestival, but I’d been doing IWA stuff at festivals and sponsored walks and meetings and all that kind of thingsince I was tall enough to see over the top of the sales table. My Dad was heavily involved with the IWA sothe year I was born I became an IWA member and obviously once I was old enough I was working on the

Favourite: Chelmer & Blackwater at Heybridge

IWA stand. The seminal moment was when my swing got nicked and turnedinto the Chelmsford Branch IWA stand, so ’cos I had no swing to play on Ihad to go and help on the stand at the weekends. So once I actually got to 17and it just turned out that the National was relatively local to home, my Dadsuggested that I might like to go and try doing the volunteer stuff. He knewKen Parish really well and he had done a lot of work on the Wey & Arunhimself as a volunteer. He said “why don’t you go along and do it? That wayit’s only half an hour away and if you hate it it’s no problem to come back.”So I turned up on the Sunday, I had a Saturday job at that point, and I actuallyquite enjoyed it. On the middle Saturday of the National I had to go homebecause I had my Saturday job. So I went back, did my Saturday job,handed in my notice ’cos I actually really enjoyed the canal stuff, went back, did another week on the camp,went back and did my last Saturday. The next Saturday I was working on the Weston Arm of theMontgomery Canal.

I dug really with KESCRG for the first quite a few years. The first year I was still back home in Essexand I used to get the train over to Tilbury Ferry, get a ferry over to Kent and then ‘Gremlin’ used to pick meup and give me a lift to wherever to go canal digging. It really just went from there. When I joined, the Montwas really busy because we were doing Aston flight and then the nature reserve, so I spent a lot of time up onthe Mont which meant I did a lot more WRG stuff as well.

Q: Why did you keep coming back?A: When you grow up in Essex with a set of parents who take you canal boating you’re immediately notthe same as everybody else. Growing up in Essex in the ’80s it was very much about appearance, what youwore, it was very much about clubbing. They’re just all things which didn’t do very much for me. So when Iactually went along on the canal dig, I found a bunch of people I had much more in common with; people youcould have a really good laugh with, that was one of the main things, and also get a dry sense of humourwhich was very good. I loved the fact I could sit in the pub and have a natter with Roger [Burchett] who iseffectively the same age as my father, but as a friend, and it was perfectly normal. And I liked the fact it wasa bunch of people who like going to the pub, no music, sitting, nattering and drinking beer rather than goingsomewhere late at night, dark, where you had to shout for hours and drink horrible stuff. It was the socialthing I’d been looking for but hadn’t been able to find.

Q: You led canal camps as well?A: I did yes. I’d probably been digging for about a year when I did my first camp. The first camp I wassupposed to do was some festival up in Sheffield? I couldn’t because I ended up having to go on a archaeol-ogy dig because I did actually have to do some work for my degree. After that I did quite a lot of camps onthe Mont. I was really lucky, because it was in ‘those days’, one of the last to get a grant, I wasn’t having towork all the time to pay for university. Most of my summers I spent doing camps. The other thing I do haveto be honest about: part of the reason I came back was – and it all sounds horrible and schmaltzy – but I didmeet Mike in that field in Waltham Abbey. I decided then that we were going to get married – he didn’tobviously know that at the time – and it turned out all right in the end.

Q: What have you been most proud of about your involvement?A: Dig ’95 was obviously quite good fun. From a view point of what you’re proud of: we had some reallytricky landowners along the line of the canal and they really did turn around and let us work on it on theSunday (having said ‘no’ for months and months) having seen what we achieved on the Saturday.

There was the Big Dig in ’91, which was WRG’s 21st birthday. So 4 years later when it was the 25th

we decided to do something similar. We worked on the Cotswolds Canal (at that point they were just start-ing really to get organised and it was a huge push). There was a lot of work around securing a continuouswalking route along the whole line of the canal. Instead of staying in schools spread along the line of the canal(like we did in ’91) the Cotswold Canals Trust, who were just absolutely brilliant, turned this completelydecrepit ex-RAF base into somewhere for everybody to stay. We had such a scream getting it all set up andplanned. There was this guy called Chris (I can’t remember Chris’ surname) who their main leader on site,brilliant project manager, thought of everything; I can remember him walking in about 2 hours after we’dformally been on site and he had this fantastic folder that everything in it and he just chucked it up in the airand said “OK, I give in, WRG chaos theory will now rule”. I think it was about 750 of us there. It wasfreezing cold, absolutely freezing cold.

Memories from there were things like the two enormous articulated wagons, we had two curtain sidedtrailers to be the stages in the hangar we were using for the ents. I remember standing by them at the gateand thinking “they’re enormous” – I walked round to join them in the hangar and when I walked through thedoors of the hangar I actually had to look to see where they were. Also Steve, who’d taken some of thesandwiches out getting so lost and when he finally arrived at the lunch point he was practically killed. Oh andTom Jeffries managing to sleep through 749 other people getting up and going to breakfast so he had to sitthere on his own in the middle of this hangar.

Other things that we’re proud of: I think things like the move forwards that we’ve done on things likethe training days - I think that’s great - and the leader training stuff that we do. If I think back now to what itwas like to run a camp in the early ’90s, it’s not that we were any more dangerous, but I think there was a lotless pressure on actually running a camp. Once you’re there it’s great regardless but I think now there’sprobably more of a nervousness and the amount of stuff you’ve got to do.

What we can do when we apply ourselves – things like some of the fundraising we’ve done whenwe’ve set ourselves a target. We’re not afraid to go and have a stab at stuff when other people maybe won’tdo it or have given up on it. Things like putting in the plastic bridge on the Cotswolds which hadn’t beendone elsewhere and going and doing the work on the Wilts and Berks: going and building that entrance bit offthe Thames – it’s a very big public statement: “This is going to happen – we’ve built the start”.

I think working at some of the big shows that we’ve done – we do hold our own against some of thoseprofessional guys who are there with lots of money behind them. We’re pretty engaging and that’s downpartly to the people who come along and get involved with us.

Q: Is there anything particularly crazy you’ve done fundraising?A: I have sat in a lot of dumpers full of water. The original one was at Gloucester National and the reasonwas to raise money for the KESCRG cooker. I sat in a dumper of water inviting people to throw water overme and chuck money in the bucket. It worked very well but I was parked outside the IWA tent and the mainperson who put money in was my father who kept running out, chucking water at me, chucking money in,laughing and then running back in again. The worst place I did it was with Helen [Davey] at the National inChester in that hideous entry marquee with doors at either end. It became the biggest wind tunnel – I havenever been so cold. Mr Mac was bringing weird things off the North-West stand to put in with us.

Q: You’ve been involved with WRG publicity for a little while – how did that start?A: I honestly can’t remember. I think publicity is one of the hardest jobs that we have to do as volunteersbecause you either like doing that kind of thing or you don’t. I’ve done a lot of time just standing on a stalland just chatting to members of the public. Once you get talking to people they are genuinely amazed aboutwhat we actually do, both from the complexity and how much we actually achieve. Once you actually getpeople talking the chances of getting them to give a donation or to sign up to Navvies and be an armchairsupporter – you get a pretty good conversion rate. The trick is getting them talking.

Q: What’s the most useful skill you’ve learnt and who did you learn it from?A: Probably reversing trailers - I have used it in other places. I was at Leicester Uni doing an archaeologydegree and in those days their main dig site was on Lindisfarne Island so we had a Land Rover and a trailer.My professor had spent years pushing the trailer around because he had no idea how to reverse one and Iwas able to show him. The people who have helped me most on trailers are Eddie Jones and Mick Beattie.

I learnt to drive the case, the case is the one I can jump in every time and I feel completely comfortablein it and I love driving it.

Q: Who has inspired you?A: One of the people I have total admiration for is the guy who runs the Sobriety project up in Goole, BobWatson, he’s always had a vision and just went with it. There are lots of individual locals that you work withlike Pete Redway down on the Basingstoke and Bill on the Droitwich.

It sounds really naff but it’s probably Mike and AJ and the work they did on the Mont. Getting your headaround the fact that you’ve got to build a derelict canal in order to restore a derelict canal and getting on with it andmaking it all happen. I think it was an enormous piece of work – if it hadn’t have been for them constantly drivingstuff forward – I’m sure we would have done it eventually but it wouldn’t have done at the speed it happened.

Q: What would you say WRG is not so good at?A: I think we aren’t as open and responsive to change as we could be. And there’s a point where the “I

won’t take no for an answer” attitude of a volunteer is great in pushing forward a project and we’ll get itdone by hook or by crook, but we are now moving in an age where we sometimes have to say “no – wecan’t do that yet” - because we need some particular equipment or some particular training. You can’t golike a bull in a china shop all the time. It’s not that we’re trying to become overly professional or knockpeople’s spirit but there’s a bigger picture here as well. There are lots of other people in the sector whoconstantly look to us as leaders and therefore if we’re saying one thing and doing another that underminesour standing. It puts our volunteers at risk – it’s a very easy thing to lose, being up on a pedestal and ad-mired. So we always need to make sure we’re looking at the bigger picture.

Q: Where do you see WRG’s future?A: This is a really interesting one – if I look at my work then a lot of the jobs you’re doing are to putyourself out of business because the idea is to make a change happen. I think WRG need to be comfortablethat if they are successful there should be no reason for them in the future.

WRG is going to have to morph and change as well because people have got less time. We have tobe realistic about what we can do, what we can take on and how we manage it.

When I used to run camps on the Mont in the early ’90s I’d often be the eldest there at 19/20,whereas now you’re getting much more of a mix all the time and our leaders need to embrace that.

Q: What has changed for canal restoration in the time you’ve been involved?A: Love him or hate him, personally I think that Dave Fletcher of British Waterways did massive amountsfor moving forward some of those truly huge engineering jobs that we could have plugged away at for yearsas volunteers. But sometimes it is OK to let somebody come in with multi million pounds and big machinesand a contract. You cannot go to the Falkirk Wheel and not be impressed. And things like the Ribble Link -we played our part but it’s OK to let them come in and do more. That isn’t going to happen going forward -huge public money deficit, we really don’t know how this move for BW into the third sector’s going to go.I’ve read some of their consultation documents and one of the things I found interesting was that they’dpicked a number of examples of how it worked elsewhere and the reason they all worked was becausethey’d had iconic leaders. If BW want to be in that mould – who’s driving that? I’m interested to see whatwill happen with BW. I’m interested to see how that will impact on the IWA because it ultimately affects us,after all, they are the ones who give us our money to the most extent.

Q: What’s your favourite derelict canal?A: I’ve always enjoyed working on the Cotswoldsbecause the locals have always been great. To actually getthat connected will make such a massive addition to thesystem and it’s a beautiful part of the country. Droitwich aswell, has that same thing, it really is a proper link – it startssomewhere and finishes somewhere and that part ofWorcestershire is beautiful. They’re both places where I’vespent a lot of time. I spent 2 weeks lugging those enormousblocks at Boxwell Spring Lock – I was like popeye by theend of that. We had a camp of 25 but we were feeding 50people because we were just so hungry lugging thosesodding blocks around. So if no one ever uses that lock totake a boat through I’m going to be really mad.

Q: Do you have any memorable silly stories?A: I do remember on that Cotswold Camp they’d prom-ised to do a BBQ. It was me and Ian Williamson running it and we sent everybody else back so they could get ashower. It had been really hot and everyone had worked hard. Sue [Burchett] was back at the accommodationsorting out the BBQ for us. I don’t honestly know how it happened but there was me, Ian and two other campers– Ian was driving and we ended up having this enormous food fight in the van on the way home from site. At onepoint we realised with the mayonnaise – we’d got it inside a sock and then you could lob it around. The vans inthose days just had a wooden bench – it was fairly easy to hose down. We arrived back and Sue was getting a bitfrantic because she’d make all this coleslaw and said “thank goodness – apparently you’ve got the mayonnaise...”

Do you have any suggestions for who we should interview next? See page 26.

A favourite canal: Droitwich

Mart

in L

udgate

Navvies diaryYour guide to all the forthcoming work partiesJun 18-20 wrgNW Middlewich Folk & Boat Festival: Sales Stand

Jun 19/20 KESCRG Basingstoke Canal: Probably demolishing wing walls at Lock 17

Jun 19/20 London WRG Thames & Severn Canal: Goughs Orchard Lock. Joint dig with wrg SW

Jun 19/20 wrgBITM Thames & Severn Canal: Eisey Lock. Dig Deep project

Jun 20 Sun EAWA/NWDCT North Walsham & Dilham Canal: Ebridge

Jun 26/27 NWPG Thames & Severn Canal: Eisey Lock. Dig Deep project

Jun 26/27 wrgNW Manchester Bolton & Bury: (if no Stockport Canal dig on July 3/4)

Jun 26-Jul 3 Camp 201003 Cotswolds (Goughs Orchard Lock): Rebuilding lock walls, coping stone

Jun 26-Jul 3 Camp 201004 Montgomery Canal: Reconstructing stone wall, concrete foundations, t

Jul 3/4 wrgNW Stockport Canal: (Provisional, but probably MB&B canal on Jun 26/27

Jul 3/4 Essex WRG Chelmer & Blackwater Navigation

Jul 3-10 Camp 201005 Cotswolds (Goughs Orchard Lock): Rebuilding walls, coping stones, bywa

Jul 3-10 Camp 201006 Montgomery Canal: Reconstructing stone wall, concrete foundations, tr

Jul 3 Sat WRG WRG Training Day: Gough’s Orchard Lock on Cotswold Canals. NOTE

Jul 10/11 London WRG Thames & Severn Canal: Eisey Lock. Dig Deep project

Jul 10/11 wrgSW TBA, maybe Eisey, or H&G

Jul 10-17 Camp 201007 Cotswolds (Goughs Orchard Lock): Rebuilding lock walls, coping stone

Jul 10-17 Camp 201008 Chesterfield Canal: Constructing a wash wall, block laying, concrete an

Jul 17/18 wrgBITM Basingstoke Canal

Jul 17-24 Camp 201009 Cotswolds (Goughs Orchard Lock): Rebuilding lock walls, coping stone

Jul 17-24 Camp 201010 Grantham Canal CAMP CANCELLED

Jul 17/18 wrgNW Chesterfield Canal (Worksop): Sales Stand

Jul 24 Sat wrgNW ‘Paper Chase’ waste paper collection

Jul 24-31 Camp 201011 Thames & Severn Canal: Eisey Lock. Dig Deep project led by KESCRG.

Jul 24-31 Camp 201012 Basingstoke Canal: MOVED FROM GRANTHAM. Leaders: Ed Walker, G

Jul 31-Aug 7 Camp 201013 Thames & Severn Canal: Eisey Lock.

Jul 31-Aug 7 Camp 201014 Chelmer & Blackwater Navigation: Bank protection, painting, towpath cand repairs to brick walls on Treasure Island.

Aug 7/8 London WRG Wey & Arun Canal

Aug 7-14 Camp 201015 Mon & Brec Canal: Continued restoration of locks using heritage constr

Aug 7-14 Camp 201016 CANCELLED

Aug 7-15 WAT Wendover Arm work week: Stage 2 pipe capping and excavation of mo

Aug 7-14 Camp 201017 Thames & Severn Canal: Eisey Lock. Dig Deep project, led by NWPG.

Aug 13-15 Essex WRG Foxton Inclined Plane: Assisting with Foxton Festival

Canal Camps cost £56 per week unless otherwise stated. Bookings

for WRG Canal Camps (those identified by a camp number e.g.

'Camp 201003') should go to WRG Canal Camps, Island House,

Moor Road, Chesham HP5 1WA. Tel: 01494 783453.

Email: [email protected]

David McCarthy 0161-740-2179 [email protected]

Eddie Jones 0845-226-8589 [email protected]

W Tim Lewis 07802-518094 [email protected]

Dave Wedd 01252-874437 [email protected]

David Revill 01603-738648 [email protected]

Bill Nicholson 01844-343369 [email protected]


es, replace bywash. 01494-783453 [email protected]

ransplanting vegetation. Leader: Alan Jervis 01494-783453 [email protected]

instead) David McCarthy 0161-740-2179 [email protected]

John Gale 01376-334896 [email protected]

sh. Leaders: Martyn Worsley and Clive Knight 01494-783453 [email protected]

ransplanting vegetation. 01494-783453 [email protected]

NEW DATE. Jenny Black 01494-783453 [email protected]

Tim Lewis 07802-518094 [email protected]

Harri Barnes 07745-752045 [email protected]


d bentonite matting. Leader: Mike Chase 01494-783453 [email protected]

Dave Wedd 01252-874437 [email protected]


01494-783453 [email protected]


David McCarthy 0161-740-2179


ordon Brown. Cook: Harri Barnes 01494-783453 [email protected]


clearance and general repairs to navigation 01494-783453 [email protected]

Tim Lewis 07802-518094 [email protected]

ruction skills, vegetation clearance. 01494-783453 [email protected]


ooring bay Roger Leishman 01442-874536 [email protected]


John Gale 01376-334896 [email protected]

Once per month: pls check BCNS BCN waterways Mike Rolfe 07763-1717352nd Sunday & alternate Thurs BCS Buckingham area Athina Beckett 01908-661217Anytime inc. weekdays BCT Aqueduct section Gerald Fry 01288-353273Every Sunday ChCT Various sites Mick Hodgetts 01246-620695Every Tue & Wed C&BN Chelmer & Blackwater John Gale 01376-334896Every Saturday DCT Droitwich Canal Jon Axe 0121-608 02962nd & last Sunday of month EAWA N Walsham & Dilham David Revill 01603-7386484th Sunday of month ECPDA Langley Mill Michael Golds 0115-932-8042Second Sun of month FIPT Foxton Inclined Plane Mike Beech 0116-279-26572nd weekend of month GCRS Grantham Canal Colin Bryan 0115-989-22482nd Sat of month GWCT Nynehead Lift Denis Dodd 01823-661653Tuesdays H&GCT Oxenhall Brian Fox 01432 358628Weekends H&GCT Over Wharf House Maggie Jones 01452 618010Wednesdays H&GCT Over Wharf House Wilf Jones 01452 413888Weekends H&GCT Hereford Aylestone Martin Danks 01432 344488Every Sunday if required IWPS Bugsworth Basin Ian Edgar 01663-7324932nd Sunday of month LCT Lancaster N. Reaches Paul Shaw 01524-356851st, 2nd, 4th Sun + 3rd Sat LHCRT Lichfield Sue Williams 01543-6714273rd Sunday of month LHCRT Hatherton Denis Cooper 01543-374370Last weekend of month MBBCS Creams Paper Mill Steve Dent 07802-9732282nd & 4th Sundays NWDCT N Walsham Canal David Revill 01603-7386482nd & last Sundays PCAS Pocklington Canal Paul Waddington 01757-638027Every Wed and 1st Sat RGT Stowmarket Navigtn. Colin Turner 01473-7305862nd Sunday of month SCARS Sankey Canal Colin Greenall 01744-7317461st Sunday of month SCCS Combe Hay Locks Bob Parnell 01225-428055Most weekends SHCS Basingstoke Peter Redway 01483-721710Last weekend of month SCS Stover Canal George Whitehead 01626-7754982nd Sunday of month SNT Sleaford Navigation Mel Sowerby 01522-8568101st weekend of month SUCS Newhouse Lock Mike Friend 01948-880723Every Tuesday morning TMCA Thames & Medway C Brian Macnish 01732-823725Every Sunday & Thurs WACT varied construction Eric Walker 023-9246-3025Mondays (2 per month) WACT tidying road crossings John Empringham 01483-562657Wednesdays WACT Tickner's Heath Depot John Smith 01903-235790Wednesdays WACT maintenance work Peter Jackman 01483-772132Wednesdays WACT Loxwood Link Peter Wilding 01483-422519Thursdays WACT Winston Harwood Grp Tony Clear 01903-774301Various dates WACT Hedgelaying (Oct-Mar) Keith Nichols 01403-7538821st w/e (Fri-Tue or Fri-Wed) WAT Drayton Beauchamp Roger Leishman 01442-8745362nd Thursday of month WAT Drayton Beauchamp Pete Bowers 01255-504540Every weekend WBCT Wilts & Berks Canal Rachael Banyard 01249-892289

Abbreviations used in diaryBCNS Birmingham Canal Navigations Soc.BCS Buckingham Canal SocietyBCT Bude Canal TrustChCT Chesterfield Canal TrustCBN Chelmer & Blackwater NavigationCCT Cotswolds Canals TrustDCT Droitwich Canals TrustEAWA East Anglian Waterways AssociationECPDA Erewash Canal Pres. & Devt. Assoc.FIPT Foxton Inclined Plane TrustGCRS Grantham Canal Restoration SocietyGWCT Grand Western Canal TrustH&GCT Hereford & Gloucester Canal TrustIWPS Inland Waterways Protection SocietyK&ACT Kennet & Avon Canal TrustKESCRG Kent & E Sussex Canal Rest. Group

LCT Lancaster Canal TrustLHCRT Lichfield & Hatherton Canals Rest'n TrustMBBCS Manchester Bolton & Bury Canal SocietyNWPG Newbury Working Party GroupNWDCT North Walsham & Dilham Canal TrustPCAS Pocklington Canal Amenity SocietyRGT River Gipping TrustSCARS Sankey Canal Restoration SocietySCCS Somersetshire Coal Canal SocietySHCS Surrey & Hants Canal SocietySCS Stover Canal SocietySNT Sleaford Navigation TrustSUCS Shropshire Union Canal SocietyTMCA Thames & Medway Canal AssociationWACT Wey & Arun Canal TrustWAT Wendover Arm TrustWBCT Wilts & Berks Canal Trust

Mobile groups' socials(please phone to confirm)

London WRG: 7:30pm on Tues 11 days before dig. 'StarTavern', Belgrave Mews West, London. Tim Lewis 07802-518094NWPG: 9:00pm on 3rd Tue of month at the 'Hope Tap', Westend of Friar St. Reading. Graham Hawkes 0118 941 0586

Navvies diaryCanal societies’ regular working partiesAmendments to Dave Wedd (see previous page)

Lettersto the editor

R.I.P. Bill Harrison,

Get Well Soon to

the Chairman, and

should WRG get

more physical?

Dear MartinMy family and I would like to thank everyone who gave their support and wishes to all of myfamily and to myself, during a difficult time.

My father, Bill Harrison, joined Essex WRG through Malcolm Bates and spent many ahappy dirty weekend away from home (with the knowledge of Pat, his wife) helping restorenumerous canals around the country. He joined in about 2000 and was a regular on thedigs, until he retired from work and for a few months of the last few years disappeared offto France and Italy for up to 10 weeks at a time. His death in January came after an acci-dent in July, which left him in hospital until the end.

Our thanks go to all who attended his funeral and help give him a good send off.Many Thanks

Kay and Mike PorterDear MartinI was sorry to read in Navvies 240 that the Chairman has been so poorly. It doesn’t soundvery nice at all, and I hope he’s soon completely recovered. I can only offer some advicebased on my own experience; since taking early retirement, I haven’t had to call in sickonce.

All the bestBruce Napier

Dear Martin,Being a new member and reading the CD-ROM about raising money, ‘The Right Tool ForThe Right Job’ and all the crazy activities to achieve the target I’m surprised that WRG orKESCRG didn’t do the London Marathon or even - as used to be done at Easter - Devizes toWestminster Bridge in a canoe on the Kennet and Avon - or is that all too strenuous? Hencethe reason why diggers and dumpers are used instead of shovels and wheelbarrows?

The mag IS Navvies - when navvies built canals they dug 1 cubic yard per day whiletheir mates wheelbarrowed the spoil away. Should the mag be renamed?

Yes I’ve tried to find Scottish volunteers to share travel costs with no joy but since thecost of a canal camp equates to at least the cost getting to one let alone a training week,Iregret,with a frustrated heart I’ll have to remain an arm-chair WRGie

Jon Cortis

Although I suspect that Jon Cortis’s comments are to a certain extent tongue-in-cheek, theydo give me an excuse to mention a few things...

Although we have taken part in all manner of whacky and unconventional fundraisingactivities, it’s not unknown for our volunteers to get involved in physical challenges for spon-sorship: four of us did a bike ride a couple of years ago for the Droitwich Barge Lock appeal,I’m sure I’ve heard of folks doing both the Devizes-Westminster canoe race and the LondonMarathon for canal related sponsorship, I know a group of WRGies walked the Great GlenWay in Scotland a few years ago as a fund-raiser, and I’m sure there will be opportunities formore of this kind of thing as and when the next big appeal gets under way.

And speaking of Scotland... unfortunately it’s true that it’s rather a long way from mostof our sites, because somehow the Scots have gone and completed all their canal restorationprojects and reopened the canals, so there’s not a lot left for us to do north of the border.

Unless anyone knows differently... Are there any waterways left in Scotland that arestill derelict but not unrestorable (for example I’m sorry to say that I can’t see Network Railhanding over either the Glasgow Paisley and Johnstone or the Aberdeenshire Canal forconversion back from railways into canals!) If so, please tell Navvies about them. ...Ed

The SurveyMost and least favourite jobs

How did the

country vote in the

election for the

best and worst

jobs in WRG?

What are the best and worst jobs on a WRG work site?

There was no clear majority in this edition’s survey. Bricklaying, driving plant, watchingthe bonfire and making the tea were all nominated as best jobs on site but failed to winby a strong margin. Cooking and the destructive arts (demolition, tirforing and cuttingdown trees) also enjoyed the support of voters.

Brickcleaning was expected to return a landslide as worst job on site, but once thepolls came in there was also strong support for ‘going home’ as the worst thing peoplecould be asked to do on site. A small minority also disliked having to make the tea, carparking, and ‘anythinginvolving waders’.

Amid accusationsof ballot rigging comingfrom factions who can-not believe brick clean-ing did not win a highershare of the vote forworst job, there havebeen calls for a secondvote on this issue.

It has been sug-gested that brick clean-ing could from a coali-tion with other interestgroups, to form a newjob called‘Brickcleaning, thenhaving to go homeearly’ which is likely towin a comfortable ma-jority in future poll formost disliked job onsite.

Either way, itseems likely the countrymay have to return tothe polls on this issuebefore too long.

Thanks to all whovoted.

For our next surveys we have a bit of a change. Firstly we have a rather more seriousquestion to ask readers: who would you like to see interviewed in our ‘Forty interviews fromforty years’ feature? (see pages 16-21) Is there someone who you feel has played an impor-tant role, or might be in a position to make some insightful comments on WRG, or who forany other reason would be a good person to feature. If so, pease place your vote now athttp://tiny.cc/WRGinterview. And secondly and slightly more frivolously, Deirdre wantsyour views on bogs - see page 42 and go to http://tinyurl.com/WRGloo

ELECTION RESULTS - AT A GLANCEBrick cleaning

Going home

Making the tea

Car parking

Anything involving waders

SWING

5% from BRICK CLEANING to GOING HOME

If repeated throughout the country, the result would be a lotof clean bricks and quite a few disgruntled WRGies...

Our regular roundup of

progress around the

system begins on a

long-established project

in the north west...

ProgressBugsworth Basin

Bugsworth Basin

Not much has been heard of BugsworthBasin in Navvies for a few years. Followingdecades of volunteer restoration, and manyset backs, the Basin complex on the PeakForest Canal opened to navigation in 2005and has remained open for all to enjoy everysince. However that is not the end of thestory since The Inland Waterways ProtectionSociety still has the responsibility for mainte-nance and repair of the ancient structure to astandard suited to a Scheduled AncientMonument. Having spent so many yearsrestoring what was a completely overgrownand leak ridden basin the IWPS care for it toa level it deserves and to a level which own-ers British Waterways could never do due tofinancial constrains of which we all know.

During the years of restorationBugsworth had a succession of WRG WorkCamps and week-end long working led by aSheffield-based contingent. This was a big‘muck shift’ on a very difficult site with accessconstraints and a need to carefully preservethe fabric in accordance with the AncientMonument status. It was quite usual forthere to be over 30 volunteers on a workcamp but now things have changed to whatmight be considered a more low-key butnevertheless essential role for the IWPS.Gone are the big diggers, the many dumpersmoving thousands of tons of silt and rub-bish. Now smaller (but more modern!)equipment prevails for grass cutting, towpathand wall repairs, never ending painting andthe fight against nature which tries its hard-est to take Bugsworth back to dereliction ifthe IWPS does not keep on top of the main-tenance. Occasionally, especially after thewinter frosts and ice, we have to do drystone wall repairs as well as a wide diversityof other tasks.

The IWPS still wants volunteers on thiswonderful site. During the season (fromEaster to the end of September) instead of30 volunteers we can have over 30 boatsmoored overnight. Bugsworth is a ‘destina-

tion’ site for the Peak Forest Canal, sur-rounded by beautiful countryside in theDerbyshire Peak District. It is ideal for thosewho want to work on what might be termeda ‘lower key’ site than much WRG activity.Bugsworth Basin is a ‘gem’ on the nationalcanal system and needs help. If you wouldlike to come then please contact Ian Edgaron 0161 427 7402. Work generally is everyother Sunday throughout the year but in thespring and summer week-day working isundertaken as and when required. To findthe site: Bugsworth Basin Post Code is SK237NF and Grid Ref. SK 0221.8202.

Ian Edgar

IWPS carry out site maintenance at Bugsworth

IWPS

IWPS

ProgressUttoxeter, Chichester, L&H

“Cost estimates for full

restoration and new construction

works are in the region of £90m.

However, much could be

undertaken by volunteers...”

Caldon & Uttoxeter Canals

The Caldon & Uttoxeter Canals Trust has taken delivery of the “Uttoxeter Canal RestorationOutline Feasibility Study.” The study wascommissioned by Staffordshire County Coun-cil and the Trust to: “determine whether therestoration of the Uttoxeter Canal betweenthe Caldon Canal at Froghall to the north andUttoxeter Gravel Pits to the south is a feasi-ble project.”

The report, which has taken some sixmonths to compile and runs to over 70pages, was undertaken by consulting engi-neers Halcrow Group Ltd. Challenges such asrestoring the canal through the villages ofOakamoor and Denstone – where the origi-nal line is built over – are explored, withvarious possible solutions considered. Thestudy also looks at environmental issuesalong the route and the potential economicimpact of restoration. Finally, it estimates thecost of the project.

Halcrow concluded that the restorationis a viable project from an engineering point ofview. There are various obstructions, but noneare insurmountable. Cost estimates for fullrestoration and new construction works are inthe region of £90m, however much of the restoration work could be undertaken by volunteers.

Plans are being drawn up for restoration projects by volunteers to conserve existingcanal features and also to explore how inaccessible parts of the canal can be opened up. Asthe Trust works toward restoration of the canal itself, its initial aim is to create a walkingroute along the length of the Uttoxeter Canal utilising as much of the original towpath as

possible; this will link into existingfootpaths paths from Oakamoor toDenstone, and into the Caldon Canaltowpath routes through to Leek,Rudyard and Stoke-on-Trent.

For most of their route theseexisting and proposed canal pathsrun in parallel to the River Churnet,and the Caldon & Uttoxeter CanalsTrust has long advocated that theirtowpaths form the basis of a ChurnetValley Way – the waterway life-bloodthat connects into a wealth of trails inthis beautiful valley reaching throughthe heart of the Staffordshire Moor-lands into rural East Staffordshire.Bridge 70 awaits restoration

Looking down into the remains of California Lock

CU

CT

CU

CT

Chichester Canal

Things on the Chichester are stepping up agear. We are at the moment working withCain Bio to rebuild 500 metres of bank thathad become badly eroded, so much so thatthe towpath was also disappearing in places.Thanks to WRG BITM earlier in the yearseveral metres of hawthorns were coppiced,and the Chichester Canal Trust volunteersremoved several more metres, but unfortu-nately did not finish the job before the birdnesting season began. Hint, hint we needmore help next winter.

The Chichester Canal is owned by WestSussex County Council, but leased to us theChichester Canal Trust, so a partnership hasbeen formed between WSCC, ChichesterDistrict Council, the Canal Trust and PremierMarinas, who own the marina alongside thecanal at Birdham, where the canal entersChichester Harbour. In March the partnershipengaged a project manager to enable us toovercome the problems of the two roadcrossings, so that we can reach the harbour.We are looking to have a moving bridge atone crossing; for the other crossing, we aimto move a lock from one side of the road tothe other, which will give sufficient headroomunder the very busy West Wittering road.Some of this work will of course be carriedout by contractors, but there will be plentyfor volunteers, WRG included.

If you are not already a member of theCanal Trust and you would like to be part ofthis push to get the canal open from Chich-ester City to Chichester Harbour (within thenext three years, all being well) now is thetime to get involved. Why not join now?Maybe you have one of the many skills weare looking for or you would like to be anarmchair mem-ber, whichever,we would wel-come you justthe same. Formore informa-tion, or for askills audit formplease call LindaWilkinson on01243 576701or e-mail [email protected] look forwardto hearing fromyou all.

Lichfield and Hatherton Canals

On 24th April we held our third public walkalong the Lichfield Canal. Over 500 peopleturned out on a pleasant morning. Publicitywas excellent with the walk being led byMichael Fabricant MP. We hope to organise apublic event on the watered section of theHatherton next year, possibly a “Boat Float”.

On the restoration front work has con-tinued on the bywash at Lock 25 which wastemporarily “in water” for the Walk. The“How a Lock Works” display panel was un-veiled by Michael Fabricant with Trust Presi-dent, Eric Wood. The panel includes a Braillestrip which was in use within an hour. It isnow likely that will receive a substantial grantfrom Lichfield District Council which will beused to bring in contractors for a majorproject at Tamworth Road. Our own team,and visiting groups, can then be deployed toDarnford Lane or to the section from Lock 26to the A51.

At Huddlesford, the Cruising Club hasbegun detailed discussions with the Environ-ment Agency on the relocation of its moor-ings to an off-line basin to resolve flood-plainissues. This remains the key to opening upthe section to Cappers Bridge and beyond.We are now optimistic that we can soonpurchase the track from Cappers Lane to thelift bridge and start work on Lock 30. All thisis within our ambition to complete AtkinsPhase 1 (and possibly Phase 2) by 2015.

The proposed High Speed Rail Link to thenorth, which will be a spur from the London toBirmingham section, will cross the line of thecanal close to Darnford Lane on a high viaduct.We are confident now that suitable provisionfor the canal will have to be made.

On the Hatherton we are lookingclosely at ways ofstarting on thefirst phase of thenew line which willuse part of theLords HayesBranch at Pelsall.This section is inBW ownership andhas not long beenin-filled. Such aproject will en-courage the coop-eration of farmersfrom whom wemust acquire land.Bank repairs on the Chichester Canal

Chic

hest

er

Canal

Tru

at

ProgressWey & Arun Canal

Wey & Arun Canal

Big opening ceremonies are becoming anannual event on the Wey & Arun Canal. Infact project manager Eric Walker seems toregard it as a challenge to add one majorstructure every year (the real challenge ofcourse is finding the money, but that’s an-other story).

April 17th saw Devils Hole Lock reo-pened. Because half of the original lockchamber was destroyed in the 1940s by theCanadian Army practising laying explosivesbefore the Dieppe raid, it seemed fitting toget the Canadians to declare the rebuildingcomplete. The trio of high ranking officersand their entourage from the Canadian HighCommission looked most impressive as ColPaul Rutherford cut the ribbon on the lockbridge. It was good to welcome a number ofCanadian WW2 veterans who had settled inthe area after being stationed nearby duringWW2; none of them would admit to havingblown up the lock though.

Another part of the celebration wasLady Egremont naming thenew 12-seater trip boatJosias Jessop, after thecanal engineer commis-sioned by her ancestor theThird Earl to survey thecanal at the beginning ofthe 19th century. The VIPparty travelled fromLoxwood up the canal toDevils Hole and back in JJand the narrow boatZachariah Keppel. Fortu-nately the newly-refilledpound retained water forlong enough to make thereturn journey – thoughthe crew of JJ were ob-served doing a little poling.

The subject of 2009’sopening, the Loxwoodroad crossing, has provedsomewhat controversial in

the locality. The highway authority had in-sisted on 1.8m high metal barriers ratherthan traditional parapets, and the residentswere not impressed. A compromise has nowbeen worked out with the locals, and a plan-ning application submitted to clad the lowerpart of the barriers in local bricks to matchthe Loxwood Lock and horse bridge. WACThas launched a ‘buy a brick’ campaign (£5 ago, buy four and you get a special gold one).

Another planning application concernsSouthland Lock, next one up from DevilsHole, and the 2011 aim. This needs com-plete rebuilding (see Navvies 240) andpreparations are well underway.

One of the main recommendations of astrategic study carried out for our local au-thorities by Halcrow was that the canalshould re-join with the rest of the navigablesystem via the River Wey. WACT has had itseyes on a piece of neglected land near thejunction, regarding it as the basis of the ‘greencorridor’ through which the canal link will run –partly along its original course, partly usingthe Bramley Stream, and partly new course.But well before through navigation becomesa reality, the ‘green corridor’ should be estab-lished to provide a public amenity and givethe locals a taste of what could be expectedrecreation- and nature-wise.

Subject to final agreement from thelandowner, Surrey County Council, the greencorridor will happen soon. A generous six-figure bequest from the Ed and Doris Hunt

Memorial Fund will allowWACT and landscape con-tractors Community RealmCIC to transform the area.The Hunts lived near thecanal at Loxwood andwanted their legacy to beused for countryside andwildlife conservation. Thefund trustees felt that thisproject fitted the specifica-tion perfectly.

Finally a sad note.Just as I was finishing thisreport we learned that TimJolly, a member of WACT’sCouncil and editor of Wey-South had been found deadat his home. Navvies whoworked on the canal in the1980s and 1980s will nodoubt remember Tim.

Bill ThomsonDevils Hole gates going in

WA

CT

Sussex Ouse

In 2009 restoration was completed of the east chamber wall and both the upper and lowerwing walls of Isfield Lock. The next stage of restoration involves the badly damaged westwall and will require an equal determination and effort from the volunteers. The west wall islikely to present more problems andchallenges than previously encoun-tered.

However pre-restoration sea-son meetings and site visits havebeen positive and work will begin assoon as weather conditions improveand the site can be accessed thoughthe neighbouring private estate.

Essential to the progress of thework that lies ahead was the pur-chase of a reliable dumper. Previousearth moving tasks during restora-tion so far undertaken have in-volved the hire of a dumper overselected working weekends, forcingthe volunteers at those weekends tocomplete the work whatever theweather and manpower status.

So in March this year SussexOuse Restoration Trust became theproud owners of a two tonnedumper of their own followinggenerous financial donations fromfour Committee members.

With an increased amount ofmachinery and equipment nowrequiring safe on-site storage,efforts pre-season will concentrateon improving the site compoundsecurity and storage, including asecure undercover parking bay forthe new dumper.

Depending upon the weatherthis spring, initial work involving clearance of the west wall bank and building a safe workingplatform, began during April. Paul Morris, the project manager, is hoping for a dry summerallowing for the maximum amount of work to be achieved during the working seasonthrough to September.

New volunteers are always required and will always be made welcome on site by Pauland his team.

If you are able to help please contact [email protected] or call Ted Lintott on 01444-414413. Ted co-ordinates the volunteer working parties and will also suggest ways you canhelp even if you feel unable to get involved in the actual site work.

Meanwhile down in the

deep south, the Sussex

Ouse Restoration Trust

have got their lock wing

walls SORTed

ProgressSussex Ouse Navigation

Isfield Lock’s restored upper and lower wing walls

SO

RT

SO

RT

ProgressWendover Arm

Finally, steady progress

means that WAT are

approaching the end of

Stage 1 of Phase II of the

Wendover restoration

Grand Union Wendover Arm

The Wendover Arm Trust’s March work-ing party was a great success including hav-ing seven days of dry weather – just toemphasise this it rained the day after theworking party ended.

80 metres of Bentomat waterprooflining and hollow block work along bothbanks were completed by the Tuesday. Onthe Wednesday and Thursday nearly all thesolid blocks along both banks were laid. Thehydraulic lifting grab was a great successeliminating the need for manual loading ofthe blocks into dumpers at Little Tring. Onlyabout 500 blocks remained to be laid plusthe coir rolls along the top.

We were again blessed with dryweather for the April working party. The fewremaining blocks and concrete seal for thebund were completed on the Friday andwork commenced on placing spoil on 160metres of bank, 80 metres each side.

See the pictures to compare the sceneon the last day with the October 2009 view,only four working parties ago!

Only 80 metres of bed lining from thesmall bund in the middle distance and thetemporary bund at the end of the stageremain to be completed – hopefully at theMay working party, The 50 metre mooringbay can be seen on the towpath side in thedistance.

Laying some 5,000 blocks along thetwo banks over 80 metres of canal is hardwork, especially for the older volunteers.Next time I am hoping we can enlist youngervolunteers for mass block laying, e.g. train-ees from RAF Halton for a weekend. Thebiggest problem will be keeping them sup-plied with blocks fast enough from LittleTring.

All being well, the last 80 metres of bedlining of the Stage 1 length will have beencompleted during the May working party aswell as the temporary bund.

With Stage 1 virtually complete it isnow possible to say that, in round figures it

will have cost £130,000, or about £400 permetre. Bearing in mind that the initial workon this stage was experimental in design anda long learning curve, I would hope that thiscost plus inflation can be maintained for theremaining stages which make up the PhaseII restoration from Little Tring to ???????????. My best estimate now is that thewhole of Phase II will cost around £1 millionand be completed in 2017.

Roger Leishman01442 874536

[email protected]

Four working parties’ progress on Stage 2

WAT

WAT

”...I had the

misfortune to

break a couple of

teeth on it...”

- OUCH!

PlantConcrete mixer rebuild

Progress of the concrete mixer rebuild - or really lack of progress…

No Martin I’m not entering a race with Bungle-see last issue of Navvies; but may be I’ll givehim a bit of time to catch up!

Unfortunately there hasn’t been much progress with the mixer over the last couple ofmonths. The main stumbling block is trying to remove the bevel gear so that it can bereplaced, in so doing, and after all the usual methods had failed I have had the misfortuneto break a couple of teeth on it.

And so for now the main factor will bewhether or not the total cost of replacementball bearings etc (I have managed to rebuildone trust bearing, but all of the others weretotally shot) will make the project viable.

Some of the framework has beencleaned and partly ground in readiness forwelding.

The drum turnover wheel has nowbeen reset by George ‘Bungle’ Eycott andsome of the road wheel bearings cleaned andrepacked with grease.

Meanwhile I’ll carry on cleaning someof the other parts that are shown in thepictures.

John Hawkins John H

aw

kin

s

John H

aw

kin

s

Leader training day

Forty or so WRG leaders recently repaired toa secret location in the Midlands for a daycourse in leader survival training.

Helen Gardner brilliantly project man-aged the whole thing, fuelling us on arrivalwith bacon rolls, coordinating all the sessionsand keeping Mike Palmer under some sem-blance of control. Harry provided someuseful information on handling camp fi-nances, Mike gave a short talk illustratinghow WRG is the graveyard of political cor-rectness [Wasn’t this Mike’s talk on avoidingageism and sexism? ...Ed] and there wereuseful sessions on how to lay out a site, kithandling, paperwork and the many ways inwhich Jenny Black could support us.

The day was characterised by a refresh-ing lack of cynicism and there was someserious and productive discussion abouthandling tricky situations and troublesomepersonalities. I for one certainly ended theday feeling more confident about leading acamp for the first time. The only real note ofconcern was raised when ‘Chainsaw’ Martynfrom WRG forestry reminded us always toleave space on site for the Ambucopter toland when he’s around.

Many many thanks to Helen for organis-ing a very smooth and productive day and forMike, Harry, Jen and others who supported thetraining as well as those who hosted it.

Sophie Smith

TrainingThe Leader Training Day

“Helen brilliantly project

managed the whole

thing, keeping Mike

Palmer under some

semblance of control...”

Crack team of leaders undergo rigorous drilling

Sobriety test

Strategy talk

How to restrain atroublesome volunteer

Van manoevringexercises

Undergoing finalexamination

Pic

ture

s by S

ophie

Sm

ith

Canalway Cavalcade report

IWA’s annual Canalway Cavalcade festival atLittle Venice went as smoothly as before,despite the fact that this time we had tocontend with more fencing then previousfestivals, and you could see the site teamflagging sometimes. More leg-work becauseof where the fencing was going, which wasmade even harder as Commercial team hadmeasured the site, re-measured the site andthen re-re-measured the site and still it waswrong - at first they blamed the tape meas-ure, then the measuring wheel, I blame thestaff really...

This year we had some newbies whohad never done a Cavalcade before, and Ithink it was a baptism of fire. All of themdeserved their Moose Camp T-shirts, includ-ing Gary who might have done a NationalFestval before, but that is easy compared toCavalcade. Richard and Robert fitted in verywell, be it clearing up in the compound orout doing a litter pick.

Gary had turned up to do a day, butthen it was pointed out that if he stayed justfor the day he would not be entitled to theT-shirt, so withprompting fromothers hestayed andworked like atrooper.

Anothernewbie wasEmma. Emmarememberedgoing to Caval-cade with herparents whohad a stallthere, whenKescrg was siteteam, when weworked this outit was about 7– 8 years agoand that is how

long I had been doing the site team, doesn’ttime fly when you are enjoying yourself?

All the site crew need to pat themselveson the back for a festival that was a successand has made money again, even though theweather was very cold, and a bit wet andalso slightly windy. They all kept going,volunteering when requested holding gaze-bo’s and marquees, all in the course of theweekend. They kept smiling.

Helena volunteered to manage theWOW marquee, which I am very grateful,plus also catch a flying marquee, what a girl!

Most people will realise that this wasmy last Cavalcade, I am stepping down fromthe post of Chairman, and the VolunteerLeader of the ‘Moose Camp’. I have beenchairman for four years, I now think it’s timefor me to take a bow and someone with newideas to go forward.

The problem is that without a workcamp leader Cavalcade cannot happen. Iknow a couple of people are thinking aboutit, so beware: Canalway Cavalcade is stillplanned for next year and somebody will beafter volunteers to help.Watch this space...

Dave ‘Moose’ Hearnden

Moose reports from

his last Little

Venice festival

before he hands

over the reins...

Canalway CavalcadeLittle Venice report

A busy scene in the pool at Little Venice

Mart

in L

udgate

Camp reportBurslem and Church Lawton

An unofficial canal camp

spent grappling with the

Burslem Arm, the

duplicate chamber at

Lock 47, and BW...

Burslem Port and Church Lawton:A sort of Canal Camp

or ‘how to get very frustrated...’

This was a five-day dig in April on twosites, one either side of the Cheshire /Staffs border. John Hawkins has writ-ten the WRG camp report, but we havesome contributions from Roger Savage,chairman of Stoke IWA. I’ve put themin different typefaces so that you cantell who wrote what. Over to Roger toset the scene:

The last few months have been very busy,with much time taken up organising and thentaking part in the WRG camp which took placeover a long weekend stretching from WednesdayApril 21st to Monday April 26th. For some of us,this was the first time we have worked with WRG,and certainly for all of us this was the first timewe have worked on an active BW waterway. Theobjectives were two fold: to carry out excavationon the line of the former Burslem Arm, to dis-cover whether the wash walls were left intact andalso to find out what constituted the in-fill andwhether a sunken narrow boat could be located;secondly, to replace and add Acrow props inChurches Lock 47 (one of several of the CheshireLocks where the duplicate lock chamber has beenout of use for some years, and whose state ofrepair is not clear) and clear the vegetation andsilt from the chamber.

To give a real flavour of how the campevolved, here is a blow by blow account:

Tuesday 20th April: received email fromRoger Evans, saying he could not provide over-night security for the Wednesday night as he wasstuck in a 5 star hotel in Turkey, the victim ofvolcanic ash. Arranged for Alan and AnnChetwyn to provide cover. But they were delayeden route from Market Drayton with water systemproblems, eventually arriving mid-morning Thurs-day, although it didn’t matter because:

Weds 21st April: we discovered that, for anumber of reasons, the order which Steve Woodhad sorted out with Speedyhire, which was ar-ranged through BW in order to get a significantdiscount, had not been processed. Our thanks to

Nilam Jassi at Red Bull office for her patienceand commitment in sorting it out. She reallydeserves the gold star which hangs above herdesk.

Rather worse, we learnt that the empty mudhopper which was to transfer this hired equip-ment up the locks from Rode Heath wharf onWednesday had already been taken up empty acouple of days before. Hasty arrangements werethen made to deliver the stuff to Church Lawtonthe following day, so an overnight security pres-ence was not needed.

1900 hrs: called in at the TA Drill Hall toawait arrival of WRG advance party. No-oneabout who was expecting us, but eventually, justas Jude arrived, so did the caretaker Roddy. Hewas only too pleased to show Jude around.

A huge place, the main hall was thesize of two Badminton Courts, with numer-ous corridors and rooms. Our sleeping spacewas in the Officers bar, very luxurious withcarpet on the floor and large Chesterfieldarmchairs.

It also came with secure parking and (at anextra cost) armed guard. We didn’t feel this waswarranted, so declined…

I received a text from Jude informingme of the combination number for the maingate, as I was driving up the M6. Mike andJude had already sorted out a lot of the kit;we were soon to be joined by Bungle whohad driven up with the Beavertail for uselater in the week.

Thursday: A quick brekky of sausageand bacon butties so that we could get to thelock site before 8am.

Malcolm Turner had made arrangementsfor WRG to park their vehicles on the track whichleads from the All Saints Church Lawton carpark, and for the church toilet to be made avail-able. At 10am, the intrepid Speedyhire driversmanaged to get their Transit trucks as far as theend of the rough path which leads to the towpath.We later learnt that this was how BW had deliv-ered their fence panels earlier. More of this later…

Unfortunately, Speedyhire had supplied apetrol pump instead of diesel, and this could notbe use beside the lock for H&S reasons. Also, this

first delivery did not include the barrow hoist.At the end of a short track to the canal

a BW mud boat had been moored the previ-ous evening with some fencing panels,blocks and clips loaded at the front. Duringthe day we hauled this back and forth to thelock with various items of plant; 4” pump,two submersible pumps, all our tools, genny,electric hoist and framework… but wherewere the stop boards that were to be fitted inthe lock chamber and the replacement retain-ing timbers, not to mention the gas detector?

Heras fencing was erected around thelock where we were to be working and thesite made safe. Hoist framework boltedtogether and put in place.

After many phone calls it was estab-lished that we could collect the ‘missing’timbers from a company in Newcastle (thatmade Bungle wince... ‘no not that Newcas-tle!’), however somehow that didn’t quite allgo to plan. We ended up with some timbersand a stack of scaffold planks.

Lots of thought was given as to the bestway to get the stop boards into place, so thepump was rigged in a suitable place, started,and primed and primed and primed, but thewater level wasn’t dropping. We took thepump apart to check the impellor-all ok andthen found a small hole in the suction hose-covered with Denso tape; but still nothinghappened, even when the pump was put onthe level with the canal water. Forget thatidea, and put it to one side for return to thehire company a little later.

Plan B was to use the two submersiblepumps; this worked to a certain degree inbetween the movement of boats through thelocks.

Because BW had said that the stopgrooves below the lock were not to be usedMikes plan was for the stop boards to putacross the gate recess and retained withshort Acrow props. Silt was dug out and theboards put into place using the Acrows tohold them against the stone recess. All sixboards that we purchased were put in place,but we still needed another three to get thebest results. It was now after 7pm and sowe closed the site down and headed fordinner.

Meanwhile, David Dumbelton had delivered36 pints of Burslem Porter from Titanic Breweryas a gift to the WRGies. It lightened their spiritsfor all of two evenings. Back home viaMiddleport trying to track down 20 fence panelsthat had allegedly been dropped there (they hadn’t

– they were still in Shrewsbury). We collected agas detector from Speedyhire and some extraAcrows (masonry props) so that we would not beheld up on Saturday at Lock 47. We also returnedthe faulty pump, but unfortunately there was nospare centrifugal pump, so we had to make dowith a diaphragm pump, which works at half thecapacity of the other type.

Friday: Not so much of a rush thismorning, we were going to the Burslem siteto start to investigate the whereabouts of thewharf wall and a buried boat.

This was a day devoted to Burslem Port.Double-M hire had safely delivered the excavatorto the Drill Hall, where it was sitting loaded onthe beavertail when I arrived just as breakfastwas over. We set out in convoy and unloaded theexcavator at East View. It drove easily down theramp to the canal bed. The truck returned tocollect 20 fence panels which had also beendelivered to the Drill Hall – we eventually can-celled the missing 20 from Shrewsbury as rear-ranging the work schedule meant we did not needthem. We carried them to the work site anderected the safety compound. A WRGie withLandy (WRG speak for Land Rover) towed thetrailer down and drove it to the site so that allnecessary tools were to hand. This included thebrew kit which was swiftly set up and ignited.Regular Hot Liquid is a WRG requirement.

Unearthing the Burslem Arm wash wall

Mart

in L

udgate

Camp reportBurslem and Church Lawton

“Since we had left the site

on Friday a ‘stop plank

fairy’ had visited. Why

couldn’t these have been

delivered earlier?”

Bungle started to dig the exploratorytrench. Very soon he uncovered a great slab ofconcrete halfway across the width of the canalwhere none was expected. We feared it was thetop of the Severn Trent Storm Sewer, but not inthe right place. Later we learnt from a localresident that this sewer was in fact constructed bytunnelling and is deep underground. Eventuallywe realised it was a concrete slab 20 feet square,but never found out why it was there.

Eventually the wharf wall was reachedand the digging changed course to run alongthe wall, various strengthening features werefound and carefully dug out using spadesand shovels. The local group had some oldphotos of the site but it proved difficult toestablish the exact point at which the wallopened out and finished. After quite a bit ofdigging these places were established.

We discovered the wash wall, exactly aspictured in an old photo, and constructed ofcement blocks. We uncovered about 80 yards ofthe top, which was only 6 inches below the turf.We were less successful in finding the buriednarrow boat, drawing a blank at the end of theday- but we did discover some man holes that donot appear on the Severn Trent record.

During the day, we welcomed severalvisitors, including Joan Walley, our Patron, on abreak from the hustings; an archaeologist fromthe City Council, who followed our work withinterest, despite the factthat no interesting arte-facts were discovered,except the wall itself. Wewere very pleased to seeJune Boulton, a formerresident of East View andkeen supporter of ourcause. She related severalanecdotes of how thecanal came to burst andhow the Corn Mill burntdown. She recalled play-ing by the canal arm as achild and also rememberstaking bowls and bucketsto rescue stranded fish

after the breach, and putting them back in theTrent & Mersey Canal.

At the end of the day the machine wasloaded and returned to the accommodation.The site fencing was made safe and secured,because over the weekend the site was goingto be visited by members of the public andother dignitaries in an attempt to generateinterest in the Burslem Arm Project.

At some point during the day the faultypump was returned and another supplied inits place.

A rather more peaceful day.Saturday: Meanwhile back at the lock,

since we had left the site on Friday a “stopboard fairy” had visited - why couldn’t thesehave been delivered earlier?

While some people started to clear thevegetation others were busy re-positioningthe stop boards, also fixing some more inplace and making the boards water tight.

The pump was set to work, but unfortu-nately it could not keep up with the ingress ofwater round the edge of the stop planks. Thewater also kept rising every time a boat lockedthrough the adjacent lock – a disadvantage ofworking on an active waterway. The mud hopperhad to be brought down below the lock in order tomount the diesel pump which was strugglingworking on maximum lift. A lot of time wasconsumed trying to solve this problem, which

remained obduratethroughout the day.

The new positionsfor the extra lock wallretaining Acrows wasestablished and thebest method for the‘change over’ arranged.The old timbers werealso to be removedbecause they wererotten.

Sunday wasmore of the same asSaturday - apart fromthe weather, whichdecided that rain, sleetDigging investigation trenches along the lock

Tim

Lew

is

and hail would help.Work continued much as before, but the

pumps still could not cope as boats went past. Weeventually lowered the pound and shepherdedboats through. As the pound had been recentlydredged, nearly all craft passed through withoutgoing aground.

We also started to dig out some of therubbish, mud, etc that was in the bottom ofthe lock chamber-this included the old Chest-nut paling fence that had been removed priorto the new fence being installed. The mudboat was positioned in the lock and suitableramps put in place, unfortunately this meantthat every time a boat passed through wehad to move it all out of the way and re-fillthe lock. The next move was to put the boatin the top fore bay and alter the fencing tosuit. We still had to move the boat, but ithad the advantage that we didn’t have to re-fill the lock each time.

Towards the end of the afternoon westarted to pack the site away into theworkboat, together with the muck/rubbishthat we had removed; and moored it safelyfor the night.

Considerable interest was shown through-out the weekend by passing boaters, walkers andcyclists, almost all signing our petition in favourof reinstating the duplicate locks, and many localresidents making supportive comments. It wasinteresting to learn how few walkers or cyclistsknew anything about the waterway they werewalking beside, or about BW’s funding shortfall.

Monday: We set off in reasonable timefor the lock to do the finishing touches; theseincluded a final checking and tightening ofthe Acrows and wrappingthem in Denso tape to protectthe threads. Fencing replacedand a final tidy of the sur-rounds.

By 9.30, the BW tug ar-rived with Scott and Gordon. Weloaded on the last of the stuffand they set off. I accompaniedthem and helped them to unload.Fortunately, they had access to atruck with lifting gear whichcame into its own with theheavier pump and generator.

We then returned to theBurslem Port site with the360 excavator to fill in someof the large holes that we haddug and spread the heaps ofspoil. It had been decided

the wharf walls that we exposed would beleft open for people to see; these were allcarefully graded with soil.

All the fencing panels, clips and blockscarried to the road in readiness for the hirecompany to collect later in the day.

We returned to the hall to empty thevans and trailer, clean all the tools andrepack them into the respective vehicles.

Clean and vacuum etc the accommoda-tion before heading home.

Meanwhile, Steve Wood guarded the hiredequipment at Rode Heath until it could be col-lected, with David Dumbelton similarly engagedguarding the Heras fencing in Middleport. All wasover by 4.30 and I was able to return the excavatorkeys to Double-M Hire at Eccleshall before theyclosed at five. Then for a much needed pint of aleat The Bell, feeling pretty satisfied that, in theend, we had had a very successful long weekend.

Jude started the camp with the idea ofcooking all the meals using food that wasalready in the boxes. This was a great idea,and with some food that was ‘donated’ andnan bread from the shop down the road(which sold nothing but nan bread!) every-body was well fed.

Thanks to all who helped for howeverlong (not helped by a certain volcano) andarranged various parts of the work in hand.

The accommodation was great and wewere well looked after by the guys there.

But one big question still remains……..does BW really want to work alongside Vol-unteers?

John Hawkinsplus contributions by Roger Savage

Tim

Lew

is

Replacing Acrow props holding the chamber walls apart

Navvies newsSpot the difference?

Two of the straps that we sometimes usethings for fixing things down in vans, trailersand the like, so they don’t keep goingstraight on when the van goes round a cor-ner. The bottom one is a buckle strap. Theseare relatively light-duty but are handy forthings like holding catering boxes or handtools in place by attaching them to the metalrings which are fixed to the wooden panel-ling in the back of our vans.

The top one is a ratchet strap. Theseare much more heavy duty and are capableof being ratcheted up tight enough to holdan excavator down so it doesn’t fall off theback of the flatbed wagon when Bungle takesa corner at 90mph. They are also capable ofbeing ratcheted up tight enough to rip themetal rings clean out of the wooden panel-ling in the back of the vans. Each van shouldhave some of both types of strap. Please usethe right tool for the right job!

Support Stoke IWA...

...because if you do, they’ll support us! In-cluded with this issue of Navvies you shouldfind a book of tickets for IWA’ Stoke on Trentbranch’s grand raffle. All the proceeds go tosupport projects in their area - restoration ofthe Uttoxeter Canal, the Burslem Arm andthe derelict duplicate chambers on theCheshire Locks of the Trent & Mersey Canal.That’s right - three projects that WRG hasworked on (you can read about two of themon pages 36-39 of this issue) and will workon again in the future. And one of the mosteffective ways that money raised can helpcanal restoration is if it goes to supportvolunteer work. So please sell some tickets.

R.I.P. Keith Ayling

Keith Ayling died on the morning of Wednes-day 30th March, a year to the day since hestepped down from being the Chairman ofthe Chesterfield Canal Trust.

Keith had been the Chairman for eight-een years, during which time eleven miles ofcanal were restored including thirty fivelocks. Much of the work has been done toenable the remaining nine miles betweenStaveley and Kiveton Park to be restored. Hisperiod of office saw a small organisation withan apparently impossible dream become amajor player in canal restoration. The Trustremains entirely run by volunteers, but Keithalways insisted that it should produce workof a professional standard. One example ofthis was its magazine, Cuckoo, being canalsociety magazine of the year twice runningand another was its Work Party being instru-mental in the restoration of four locks andthe building of a fifth from scratch on theChesterfield length.

Keith will be missed both by the Ches-terfield Canal Trust and the wider canalcommunity. However the current Chair of theTrust, Robin Stonebridge, probably summedthings up best when he said “Keith would notwant us sitting about with long faces. Hewould have said ‘We have a job to do, let’sget on with it and get this canal restored!’ ”

Chesterfield Canal Trust

Sorry...

...for the non-appearance of the WRG BoatClub News page in this issue. More next time.

Keith is presented with his retirement certificate

Chest

erf

ield

Canal

Tru

st

Contacting the chairman:

Mike Palmer3 Finwood Rd,

Rowington, WarwickshireCV35 7DH

Tel: 01564 785293

email: [email protected]

Online Navvies

subscriptionsYou can now take out or renew a Nav-vies subscription online via the IWAonline shop website. The address is:

https://www.iwashop.com/ecommerce/proddetail.asp?prod=nav1

Stamps

wantedSend used stamps,petrol coupons, phonecards, empty computerprinter ink cartridges toIWA/WRG Stamp Bank,33 Hambleton Grove,Milton Keynes MK42JS. All proceeds tocanal restoration.

Dial-a-camp

To contactany WRG

Canal Camp:07850 422156(Kit ‘A’ camps)07850 422157(Kit ‘B’ camps)

NOTICEBOARD

Thanks to Chris Griffiths of Stroudprintfor his continued help with printing

Congratulations...to...

Abigail and Anthony Davison-Hoult...on the arrival of...Esmé Katherine

on 9 May weighing 9lb

Directory update

Apologies for an out-of-date entry forIan Edgar of IWPS (Bugsworth). Hiscorrect address is Top Lock House,7 Lime Kiln Lane, Marple, StockportSK6 6BX, Tel: 0161 427 7402

The next issue of Navvies will containthe full directory of WRG and canalsociety work party organisers’ contactdetails. Please send any updates tothe editor.Happy 40th Birthday...

...to us! WRG is 40 years oldin early August, so to cel-ebrate we are planning a partyat the National Festival siteon Saturday 21 August. Formore details, and especially ifyou want to help with theevent, contact Jude Palmer [email protected]

R.I.P. Tim Jolly

We are sorry to report the death ofTim Jolly, longstanding volunteer onthe Wey & Arun, who has served inmany posts on WACT including as

editor of Wey-South. Oursympathies to everyone

who knew him.

Brush cutterfree to a good home

London WRG’s trusty Stihl FS220brush cutter has given a large number of

years’ service up and down the system but hasrecently been replaced. Brush cutter comes

complete with harness and metal cutting blade- but requires a new carburettor or seal kit, or

could be used for spare parts. [email protected]

Infill...including Dear Deirdre

“I’ve heard there’s

some kind of camping

loo available...”

- Deirdre gives her

views on on-site toilets

Dear Deirdre A boy I knowthrough WRG keeps pestering me tosign up for the camp he’s leadingthis summer. It’s pretty obvious thathe fancies me or he wouldn’t be sopersistent. How can I let him downgently?- Anna, Cheltenham

Deirdre writes: Don’t flatteryourself. He’s clearly just engaging inthe Machiavellian craft of ‘campstuffing’ i.e. populating his campwith normal useful people ratherthan wait for it to fill up with a loadof weirdos, useless layabouts andstrangers.

He’s targeting single women likeyou for two reasons. Firstly so hecan lure other nubile young womeninto his web by promising them theywon’t be the only girl there. Secondlyhe’ll offer you as bait for any lustymale WRGies he’s trying to attractwho have useful site skills. Singlewomen with a driving ticket are likegold dust to camp leaders and thereare almost no limits to how lowthey’ll stoop to get them to book on.

I can see how from your point ofview this looks like the kind of evilscheming rarely seen outside a SimonCowell judging panel. From where I’mstanding though, he’s showingadmirable leadership skills and you’dbe a fool to miss out on this camp.He’s probably already poached thebest cook, booked the bestaccommodation and blackmailed WRGHQ for the best fleet vehicles. I’dbook on now if I were you – I knowI’m going to.

Dear Deirdre As leader of a localcanal trust we’ve not had manywomen volunteers on our canalbefore. However now we’re usingWRG, we’re finding more and morewomen are coming along. What Ineed to know is should we be pro-viding lavatorial facilities for theseladies? I’ve heard there’s some kindof camping loo available which youplace in a little tent. It all sounds abit complicated to me. What’s yourview on this?- Bob, via email

Deirdre writes: It’s kind of you toconsider female volunteers like this,however I’m very much in favour ofthe al fresco pee myself. It’s my firmbelief that weeing in the open air isgood for the soul. I do however ap-preciate there are other schools ofthought on this. Apparently crouchingbehind a hawthorn bush to squat overan abandoned badger set is quitedifficult whilst in the third trimester ofpregnancy.

You might well counter argue thatwomen who are precious about wherethey pee tend to spend weekendspushing a trolley round the Bluewatershopping centre rather than digging upcanals. And women in search of aneasy pregnancy usually stay at homewith a kit kat and a box set of Desper-ate Housewives. It’s very difficult forme to give you a definitive answer.

What do readers think?To add your view to the stinky-portaloo-in-a-rickety-tent vs be-hind-a-bush debate, please visithttp://tinyurl.com/WRGloo

Have you got a question for Deirdre? Just email [email protected]

“She’s had another bad time withhim this weekend” whispersMaeve from Finance. “Black andblue her arms – and you should seethe scratches! Do you think weought to say something?”

Jeremy from HR shakes his head.“Goodness knows why she stayswith him: it’s the same every fewweeks. Has anyone spoken to herabout it?”

“We did try,” Maeve shakes herhead. “She made some feebleexcuse, said she was doing somekind of conservation work at theweekend. I mean honestly, who’dbelieve that story?”

WRGieotypes No 16: The WRGie’s colleagues

Off the rails

The following account by Brian Ing comesfrom the Wendover Arm Trust’s workingparty news...

Our new WAT Restorationer AndyBrown was striding purposefully along thetowpath from Drayton Beauchamp backtowards Little Tring, after a successful day’s‘Bentomat’ canal bank lining. A walker pass-ing by stopped him.

“When did the last train travel alongthis track?” he enquired. Our intrepid canalrestorer, struggling to recover from his shockand disbelief, spluttered that the ‘track’ was infact the bed of the Wendover Arm Canal, whichwe are trying to restore. With this, he ges-tured towards the others, making their wayback along the towpath towards Little Tringstill in their ‘high viz’ jackets & hard hats.

“What on earth for?” persisted the ‘trainspotter’ At this stage my understanding ofthe meeting became less clear, but I wouldsay if you see a pair of walking boots, stick-ing upside down out of the hedge betweenLittle Tring and Drayton Beauchamp do notdelve too deeply into the hedgerow, as theremay be the sorry remains of a traumatisedtrain spotter in there...

One in the Eye...

Our thanks to Fred Hodgson for pointing outthat the cartoon strip It’s Grim Up NorthLondon in a recent issue of Private Eye fea-tured something looking remarkably like oneof our cleanup weekends, with the followingconversation between ‘Islington types’:

“I just love joining in with the annualcanal clearout”

“We get to help clean up a valuableoutdoor recreational resource, restoring oneof London’s vital urban waterways...”

“...and nearly every piece will soon begracing our collection of ‘found art’.” [holdingup an empty bean can]

As Fred says, ‘It has taken nearly half acentury but you got there. Portrayed in myother favourite organ has to be a highlightfor any organisation. And so true to life,even down to the red hard hats. Well doneindeed. Where next? Cosmopolitan?

I don’t know about that, but on thesubject of Private Eye another snippet fromthe same magazine mentions our brand newWaterways Minister Richard Benyon whoapparently sent out an election email invitingrecipients to “Keep up to date with the cam-paign by following Richard on his bog”.

????

From this...

And fromthis...

navvies 241

Documents

training report

silvester road

cleanup report

moor road

eleanor road

camp report easter

sue watts

directors of wrg