The Circle Volume 5 by John Stretch

THE CIRCLE

VOLUME 5 AUGUST 2021

The Circle August 2021 At 52 pages, this fifth edition of The Circle is the longest yet produced, and once again contains three different articles. 1.

Narrow boating on the English canals: I’m the first to admit that chugging down a canal at 5 miles an hour isn't everyone’s idea of a holiday. But I love it, as you will see when you read this tribute. I hope you enjoy the photographs in this article - they say it all.

2. Miracle Mile: The Tokyo Olympics this month introduced four new events. But one of the best-known track events has never featured on an Olympic programme because it is not metric. It is the mile. This story pays tribute to some of the world’s greatest milers. 3. Chantilly Lace: Probably the silliest story so far about Sandra’s Bridal Boutique but I hope it makes you smile. The lace really did go missing and mysteriously re-appear. But Sandra never found out for certain who did it or why.

Front cover picture: Swans on the Leeds & Liverpool Canal

1 Narrow boating on the English canals

Introduction As you drive through the English countryside, you may glimpse a stretch of water with a few houseboats in moorings. The first time visitor might wonder why these waterways exist, how they originated, and what was their purpose. The canals enabled England to be the world's first industrialised country, and without canals and canalboats the British empire of the Victorian era would never have come about. If you stop your car and wander down to the canal towpath, it will feel like going back a hundred years in time. You will notice the silence. After a while birds and insects start moving about. As you walk down the towpath you may come across a family of swans. Under a bridge you may find a plaque with the name of the builder and a date 200 years old. Passing boats will call out cheerful greetings. You will feel at peace. These are the English canals.

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English canals “Take the tiller!” I shouted to my wife from the top of the lock. “What’s a tiller?” she shouted back. We went on our narrowboat holiday without really knowing what to expect. We chose the right canal and a good boat company, and we had a great time. There are 3000 miles of canals in the UK and many boat hire companies. To survive, these companies have to provide an excellent service on a well-equipped working canal. A few hours on the internet with Trip Advisor will soon identify winning combinations. There are many canals, urban and rural, crowded and solitary. And many types of narrowboat, from basic one-roomers to ultra-luxury fitted suites. With all this variety on offer, a few evening’s research will enable you to find the kind of narrowboat experience that’s just right for you.

Canal transport England was the first country to develop a nationwide canal network. During the Golden Age of British canals between 1770 and 1830 the canal system covered nearly 4,000 miles. The bulk of the canal system was built in the industrial midlands. During the industrial revolution the cities of Leeds, Sheffield and Bradford needed an efficient transport system for their textile and coal mining production. The Leeds and Liverpool Canal was built to access the port at Liverpool for the export of finished goods. The canal network only lasted seventy years. After 1840 canals were replaced by railways. The 20th century brought more competition from road haulage, and by the 1920s and 1930s many canals had been abandoned.

Barges and bargees In the old days canalboats were pulled along the towpath by horses but today thankfully they are fitted with diesel engines. Entire families lived on the narrowboats, with even the children operating the locks and leading the horses. Many of the early boaters couldn't read or write. To speed up journey times bargees often fought each other over access to the locks. The families’ place of work was also their home. Families endured overcrowding and hard conditions every day. Husband, wife and up to 6 children lived in a very limited space. The cabins were freezing cold in winter and boiling hot in the summer. The bargees decorated the exteriors of their boats with rose and castle paintings, flowerpots and imaginative names in bright colours, practices copied by boat owners today.

The inland waterways In the 1940’s Britain rediscovered the recreational beauty of the inland waterways and began to restore the system and bring it under professional management. Today the towpaths fill with walkers, anglers and cyclists, and there are thousands of volunteers working on canal restoration projects from Devon to West Sussex to Cumbria.

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The Leeds & Liverpool Canal The Leeds & Liverpool Canal is the longest canal in Britain and passes through several villages on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales before ending in Leeds. Walkers and cyclists love the canal towpaths, and visitors come every year to see the two main attractions - the Bingley staircase locks, and the Foulridge tunnel.

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The Leeds & Liverpool Canal

There are places all along the canal to buy groceries and you can moor up and enjoy meals at canal side pubs. There are also free canal-side shower and toilet facilities, and you will find launderettes marked in the guide book

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The Yorkshire Dales National Park The section of the canal we chose cuts through the hills and valleys of the Yorkshire Dales National Park. The countryside is known for its stone walls and is mainly used for farming. Cows and sheep gather at the canal edge to drink.

The dales host many species of animals, birds, and wild flowers. For those who fish there is pike, roach, bream, perch and giant crayfish to be caught, well worth hiring a rod. The very fortunate may even glimpse a badger family outside their set on a summer evening.

Skipton The Leeds & Liverpool Canal runs through the centre of the market town of Skipton, our starting point. Skipton’s annual boat festival celebrates the town’s historic links with the canal.

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With its 900-year-old castle and cobbled streets Skipton has been connected with the wool trade for centuries. Tourists can visit the farmers market four days a week and enjoy live music over weekends in the cafes and pubs along the canal waterside.

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Snaygill Boats We were collected from the train station by a young lady in overalls who told us she looked after the engines on the boats. We later found she is a qualified mechanical engineer who previously serviced jet engines at Richard Branson’s Virgin Airlines, but decided to join the family business.

After a warm welcome the Snaygill team gave us a thorough briefing on all the safety and practical information we needed to know to keep ourselves and the boat safe. We soon got used to handling the boat and made our way up to the first lock, where we received our tuition on how to use the lock system.

If you'd like to take a trip on a canal boat, contact Snaygill Boats of Skipton.

Calendar Girls Yorkshire people are resourceful. Just 5 miles outside Skipton is the village of Rylstone, where the members of Rylstone Women’s Institute inspired the 2003 film “Calendar Girls”. They created a calendar to raise money to fight leukemia after member Angela Baker's husband died from lymphoma in 1998.

The calendar portrayed the Institute’s middle-aged members naked, their modesty concealed by domestic items - pots, pans and vases of flowers. The calendar caused a sensation. Launched in 1999, it sold 88,000 copies in the United Kingdom, double the sales of the Pirelli calendar that year. A second edition sold 200,000 copies worldwide, and a further 40,000 in the UK alone. The proceeds from the calendar went to the Leukemia Research Fund raising £500,000.

Nutmeg Our holiday narrowboat Nutmeg was spotlessly clean and came with everything we were promised including a super-efficient oven. The saloon area has comfortable seating with a cooker, fridge-freezer, freestanding table, colour T.V. and DVD Player. Snaygill Boats suggested we take along a few DVDs as TV reception is poor on the canal.

There is a comfortable double bed in the main cabin and the rear cabin has two singles which can convert to a fixed double. The saloon and bedrooms are fully carpeted. The bathroom has a toilet and shower.

Locks Canal locks are not difficult to operate, once you understand how they work. Think of a lock as a shoe box with gates at each end. By opening and closing the gates you change the water level to raise or lower your boat. Locks on most canals don’t operate automatically and there are no lock keepers, so at least one person needs a reasonable level of physical strength and fitness on the lock itself, and you want a cool headed person at the tiller.

Our boat company gave us a full briefing on lock operations and safety procedures, and were on hand to guide us step by step through our first canal lock.

Working the locks Take your time when going through the first lock and learn the steps involved. Take notes if so inclined, and you will soon feel at ease. Part of the experience of the canals is mastering and enjoying the beautiful locks, and it is a good idea to involve all your crew. Not all locks are identical. Some are older than others and each lock is designed to fit into its particular landscape features. Our canal also had swing bridges which we had to work out how to operate. If you are not sure what to do, there are usually other boaters or canal users around who are friendly and will lend a hand. If necessary, moor up and watch other people working the lock until you feel confident to do it yourself. Or call up your boat company who will send someone to help you within ten or fifteen minutes.

Our route From Skipton we cruised west through the villages of Gargrave, Bank Newton, East Marton and Barnoldswick. We reached the Foulridge tunnel on the third day. Turning round just after the tunnel we headed back to Skipton and continued east through Kildwick and on to Keighley, turning below the Bingley 5 Rise locks to return to our departure point. .

Each village has its own charm with its church, war memorials, grocery stores, and the usual curry house serving chicken tikka marsala, a dish unknown in India

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The Foulridge Tunnel At just under a mile long, the tunnel is less eerie or smelly than it sounds and we were through in fifteen minutes. Entry to the tunnel is controlled by light signals, although we were bemused to see a sign reading “If there is a fault with the signal, please let our Customer Support Team know”. There are lights in the tunnel and you can see all the way to the exit from the time you enter. The sides of the tunnel are damp but not wet. My wife enjoyed switching on our boat’s headlamp and tooting our hooter to hear the echo. We didn’t feel uncomfortable at any stage. It is the longest tunnel on the Leeds & Liverpool canal but that’s not its claim to fame. In 1912 a cow called Buttercup fell into the canal at one end and swam through to the other end before being rescued. Buttercup was revived at the Hole in the Wall pub in Foulridge with a whole bottle of brandy.

Rolls Royce There are occasional surprises. Passing under a bridge one afternoon we came on a factory with a Rolls Royce sign on its wall. The Barnoldswick factory is known for its production of the Merlin engine used in Spitfire and Hurricane fighters during the Battle of Britain.

Today it makes turbines for jet engines.

In conclusion Canal boating isn’t everybody’s cup of tea. It’s very, very slow. But for many people the waterways have their own magic. There are 38,000 narrowboats on the 3,000 miles of navigable waterways, and the number of people enjoying barging holidays has doubled in ten years. About 6000 narrowboats are registered as permanent homes on Britain's waterway system and are a growing community either living in moorings or continuously cruising. We did well to chose the Leeds & Liverpool canal and a boat company in the Yorkshire town of Skipton for our canal experience. The canals in England and Wales are managed by the Canal & River Trust and are a major leisure and tourism attraction and natural resource. I recommend you try narrow boating for a different holiday.

John Stretch

2 MIRACLE

MILE

"The man who can drive himself further once the effort gets painful is the man who will win”.

MIRACLE MILE The Tokyo Olympics this month saw the introduction of skateboarding, sport climbing, surfing and karate, and the return of baseball and softball. But one of the best-known sporting events has never featured on an Olympic programme. It is the mile. Medical student Roger Bannister ran the first ever sub-4-minute mile on 6 May 1954 at Oxford University’s Iffley Road track . Most of us of a certain age are familiar with the story. The previous record at 4 minutes three seconds had stood for 10 years. Before Bannister’s run, many people including doctors thought a subfour-minute mile was physically impossible. But Bannister felt this was a myth cooked up by sportswriters.

MIRACLE MILE

After he broke the record in 3 minutes 59.4 seconds, other runners started to believe they could do it too. Just 46 days later Bannister's record was in turn broken by his great rival John Landy of Australia, with a time of 3 min 57.9 s. A year later, three runners ran four-minute miles in a single race. By the end of 1978, over 200 runners had broken the once impossible barrier of the fourminute mile. This famous story has been told ever since by sports coaches and motivational speakers to show the importance of breaking down selflimiting belief systems.

Three months later, at the 1954 British Commonwealth Games in Vancouver, Bannister competed against Landy for the first and last time in a race billed "The Miracle Mile". They were the only two men in the world to have broken the 4-minute barrier, with Landy still holding the world record. Landy led for most of the race, building a lead of 10 yards in the third lap, but was overtaken on the last bend, and Bannister won in 3 min 58.8 s, with Landy 0.8 s behind in 3 min 59.6 seconds

MIRACLE MILE Bannister went on that season to win the 1500 m at the European Championships in Berne, with a champion ship record time of 3 min 43.8 seconds He then retired from athletics to concentrate on his work as a junior doctor and to pursue a career in neurology.

The "four-minute barrier" has since been broken by over 1,400 athletes, and is now the standard measure for professional middle distance runners in several cultures. In the past 65 years the mile record has been lowered by 17 seconds, and currently stands at 3:43.13, held by Hicham El Guerrouj of Morocco, at age 24, in 1999.

Sifan Hassan of the Netherlands holds the women's record for the mile at 4:12.33. At the Tokyo Olympics this year Hassan won the gold medal in the 10,000 and 5,000 events and the bronze medal in the 1500 metres. 37

She is the only athlete in history to win medals at all three events in the same Olympic Games.

MIRACLE MILE On the 50th anniversary of the 4-minute mile, Bannister was interviewed by the BBC’s sports correspondent Rob Bonnet. Bannister was asked whether he looked back on the 4-minute mile as the most important achievement of his life. Bannister replied that “no, he rather saw his subsequent forty years of practicing as a neurologist and some of the new procedures he introduced as being more significant”. His major contribution in academic medicine was in the field of autonomic failure, an area of neurology focusing on the nervous system.

Sir Roger Bannister (foreground) and John Landy signing limited edition prints of the Miracle Mile at their reunion in August 1993

"Ladies and gentlemen, here is the result of event 9, the one-mile: 1st, No. 41, R.G. Bannister, Amateur Athletic Association and Merton College, Oxford, with a time which is a new meeting and track record, and a new English, British National, All-Comers, European, British Empire, and World Record. The time was 3..." The roar of the crowd drowned out the announcer. Bannister's time was 3 min 59.4 s. The announcer, Norris McWhirter, went on to establish the Guinness Book of Records.

Sir Roger Bannister died on 3 March 2018 at the age of 88 in Oxford, 20 days before his 89th birthday.

"The man who can drive himself further once the effort gets painful is the man who will win. I knew I was very close. I did collapse at the end. If you don't keep on running, keep your blood circulating…the muscles stop pumping the blood back, and you get dizzy. I did lose my sight for a bit because I was crowded in. Everybody rushed on to the track." Roger Bannister after breaking the 4-minute barrier.

3 Chantilly Lace

Introduction Mrs Sandra Coetzee, proud owner of Sandra’s Bridal Boutique, was not in the best of moods as she irritably considered her problem with lace. How was it, she thought, that after almost no requests for lace wedding dresses for months, she now had three requests at the same time? Was it something in the air, or did prospective brides all read the same magazines? Some silly brides wanted to change their dress design every time photos of local celebrity weddings, or British royalty, appeared in magazines or on television. Well, if you want a Carolina Herrera or Stella MacCartney, and you have fifty thousand to spare, you know where to go, she thought grumpily. We don’t do copies.

Chantilly lace What is it about lace that made brides want it as part of their wedding outfit? It’s because white lace dresses are markers of rites of passage, Sandra thought.

The wedding gown worn by Grace Kelly at her wedding to Prince Rainier, considered by many the loveliest dress of all time, was made of Belgian lace, silk, and tulle.

Babies wear lace gowns on their baptism day, girls become women with their first lace bra, lace walks down the bridal aisle and stays for the wedding night. White lace stands for purity, innocence and change in a woman’s life.

But the dresses worn over the years by other celebrities with or without lace, could give Grace a run for her money – Elizabeth Taylor, Gwen Stefani, Kate Moss, Carolyn Kennedy, Alicia Keys and Kate Middleton for example. Lace says something about a bride and a stunning lace dress requires more than a good eye and skilled sewing, Sandra thought. Lace can be innocent by day and sensual after hours. The designer must understand the bride’s personality and the impression she wants to create.

Chantilly lace But today it was Sandra who needed to create a strong impression, and this time with her own staff, the dressmakers and machinists in the sewing room. She was not looking forward to the confrontation. “Optimism is essential to achievement and is also the foundation of courage and true progress" Nicholas Murray Butler said. Sandra thought that a good dose of optimism was just what she needed right now. She had always tolerated a small runoff from her dressmaking stock. She was aware that her sewing ladies all ran their own wedding dress businesses over weekends, and it didn’t bother her if a metre or two of satin or a few rose buttons couldn’t be accounted for. She just turned a blind eye for the sake of peace and harmony.

Chantilly lace But imported lace was a different story and some had disappeared. It had to be nipped in the bud. Lace is hard to find and expensive. In the past you could only buy it hand-made from France but now she bought her lace from China, where it is made with special machines. You need to order several metres to get a decent price and it could take three or four weeks to arrive.

Local stockists want high prices for a metre or two and the quality isn’t always that great even when they have it in stock. For all these reasons, it was important to keep the inventory under control. And on this Monday morning one of the ladies had come to her to say she was sorry but she couldn’t finish her dress because the Chinese lace was finished! From a shipment that arrived only two weeks before!

Chantilly lace Sandra’s Bridal Boutique had five staff members. The chief seamstress Mrs Andrews had been with her from the start, and the rest had several years’ service between them. Sandra always left it to Mrs Andrews to run things her own way, and it had generally worked out in the past. Now it was up to Sandra to deal with this new problem.

At ten minutes before closing, she called the five ladies into the wedding parlour and asked them to sit down. ‘I’ve asked you to come in here because we have a problem we need to solve” she said. “Some lace has gone missing and I want to know where it went. What’s going on? “

Chantilly lace Five pairs of eyes declined to meet hers. There was silence. ” I know that some of you do some dressmaking on your own account in your own time” Sandra said. “And I’m fine with it. In fact, I encourage it. But I don’t understand how six metres of Chantilly lace could get lost or what you would do with it if you borrowed it for some reason.” More silence.

“All right” Sandra said “We are a team here and you know me and I know each one of you. And I absolutely refuse to let any of you go because you are special and like my family, and I know you wouldn’t do this without a good reason. And I think you all know who it is and why”. Sandra thought she might have heard a quickly suppressed giggle but no eyes met hers. “I don’t want anybody telling tales on anybody. I’m asking you all to go home and think about it and we’ll talk some more tomorrow”.

Chantilly lace When Sandra put her head into the sewing room early the next morning the lace was back in its place and nobody said a word. Then at the morning tea break she looked up to find Mrs Andrews standing in front of her. ‘It was me that borrowed the lace Sandra” she said. “It was just to show my fellow Solly”. Sandra never thought that Mrs Andrews was in a marital position to have a “fellow”, let alone to actually have a Solly in her life. Mrs Andrews blushed. “That Solly” she said, “He’s wild about that Italian actress. The one in that old movie the TV showed last Wednesday night”.

Sandra remembered Sophia Loren’s black lace nightgown from the rerun of the 1964 movie Marriage Italian Style.

Mrs Andrews blushed again. “And he asked me to bring some lace to show him what I look like behind lace like that Sophia. I’m sorry to say I did it Sandra, and then after all that I forgot to bring the lace back on Monday. But it’s back now perfect just like it never left. Solly’s a good guy, he’s a musician you know, and at my time of life I need company. I hope you can forgive me”.

Chantilly lace Sandra preferred not to imagine what happened in the Sophialookalike-show-and- don’t-tell session. She wondered if Solly could be the jazz saxophonist with the long grey pigtail who played with David Kramer’s band sometimes, but decided not to ask. Sandra thought for a while then she said “You know Mrs Andrews I’m very disappointed that you could do this to me after all the years we’ve been together. I can’t run this business with lace that keeps disappearing. You must promise me that nothing like this will ever happen again”. “I’m guessing that the girls all know about this”? Mrs Andrews nodded tearfully. “Well go on in there and tell them I’m fed up with all of you but this time I’m going to pretend it never happened”.

Chantilly lace Mrs Andrews sheepishly departed. Sandra heard her talking earnestly to the girls. The sewing room was dead silent for a minute. And then she heard the youngest cheekiest seamstress starting to chant under her breath, then a second voice joined in with the chorus and then the third and the fourth and finally Mrs Andrews herself until they were all singing at the tops of their voices. They sang:

“Chantilly lace and his pretty face And his pony tail, hanging down With a wiggle in his walk and a giggle in his talk Solly makes the world go round”

Chantilly lace Sandra heard the girls break out in peals of laughter. “It’s going to be all right” she thought. Problem solved. She thought of Mr Nicholas Murray Butler’s saying “the one serious conviction that a woman should have is that nothing is to be taken too seriously”. And in spite of herself she began to smile at the thought of buxom Mrs Andrews modelling Chantilly lace for her Solly.

"Chantilly Lace" is a rock and roll classic written by Giles Perry Richardson "The Big Bopper". It was released in August 1958 and spent 22 weeks in the Top 40. Richardson and fellow musicians Buddy Holly and Ritchie Valens died tragically in a plane crash the following year. The accident was immortalised as “The day the music died” in Don McClean’s 1971 song “American Pie”

In closure The Circle is a limited circulation magazine which I produce as a retirement hobby for my family and friends, past clients, and fellow Midstreamers. My cousin Anne asked me where I find the inspiration for my articles. The answer is from memories. Looking through past holiday photographs, running my eye over the books in my study, playing the old CD’s I don’t have the heart to throw away. The real Sandra was a past client, other stories are based on case studies I used to teach at the business school . Photographs in this issue have been sourced from Unsplash.com (Chantilly Lace) Google images (Miracle. Mile), and my personal collection. Factual content for the Miracle Mile article was sourced from Wikipedia.

Sunset beach Phuket