BEAR ESSENTIALS The Newsletter of : -
IWA Warwickshire Branch Issue No. 48 – April 2017.
Two Canoes - and a Piece of Paper: Early in 1957 – encouraged by IWA, and assisted by family and friends (including his young daughter Geraldine, and a teenaged John Pinder) - the late Michael Fox undertook a truly historic canoe journey on the then virtually derelict Stratford canal - crossing the Edstone Aqueduct (see right) in March of that year. His licence / ‘toll-ticket’ for that epic event was subsequently used to thwart Warwickshire County Council’s plans to make an ‘Application for Formal Abandonment’ of the southern Stratford canal. That action paved the way for the David Hutchings led restoration of the canal in the early 1960’s – a project that not only became the ‘template’ for hundreds of miles of further canal restorations over the following decades, but also helped to generate a wider interest in our inland waterways; and this in turn helped to preserve and enhance the national inland waterway network that we all know and love today. Just as the original journey was suggested and encouraged by IWA; on th th Saturday March 18 2017 - the 60 anniversary of the crossing of the aqueduct - ‘we’ encouraged British Canoeing to help celebrate that historic event by jointly organising a re-take of the original, photograph. They did so in-force, with a flotilla of more than 60 canoes - and one pedalo !
Photo from Stratford Canal Society Archive;
The contrast that you see here – between the drab and deserted, monochrome world of the 1950’s, and the vibrant multi-coloured world of our waterways today – is but a micro-cosmic reflection of what has been achieved ‘on the ground’ over the last sixty years. In 1957 it was inconceivable, and today it’s still hard to believe, that the employment of thousands and the enjoyment of millions can be traced back to just two canoes - and a piece of paper!
Passage and portage at Bearley Lock. Departure from Wootton Wawen.
Photos by Richard San Harry Arnold photographs John Pinder’s Clive Henderson and Richard Parry helping return to the aqueduct. Geraldine Dahlke (née Fox) re-live her 1957 trip. Photos by Richard Sanders.
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If you’d like to know more of Michael Fox’s historic journey, please visit the History section of the Stratford Canal Society’s web-site. www.stratfordcanalsociety.org.uk Some may say that here in Warwickshire we’re so fortunate in being ‘at the centre of things’. This may be so, but I firmly believe that it is people not geography that make things happen. Read on, and be proud of what your fellow branch members are achieving today.
Photo by Ian Fletcher.
However, when doing so, we should all bear in mind the background to the story above. That campaign would not have taken place if local IWA members had not been vigilant as to what was being planned in their area. Today such threats seem much reduced. This may be true - but the need for vigilance still remains. .
Editor:
Ian Fletcher.