50 years ago WRG’s ‘soft launch

1970: Someone mention WRG?

Part four of our series marking WRG’s 50th year in which we look back at what was happening in 1970, and how Navvies Notebook reported it...

50 years ago...

It’s a curious quirk of WRG’s origins that the words ‘Waterway Recovery Group’ don’t appear a single time in any of the first four of the six issues of Navvies (or rather, Navvies Notebook to use its original title) which were published in 1970, the year WRG was founded. Why? Because the magazine pre-dates the organisation. Navvies Notebook (initially published by the working party group of the London & Home Counties Branch of the Inland Waterways Association) was launched by editor Graham Palmer and others in 1966 to cater for the increasing numbers of mobile waterway restoration volunteers, the ‘new navvies’ as they styled themselves (after the original navvies who built the canals) who travelled the country, working on whichever projects could benefit from their help. It would provide details of forthcoming work, reports from working parties, contact details for restoration projects, information about plant, machinery and equipment - plus amusement, entertainment, and often some pretty stroppy comment about how the canals were run and the state that they seemed to be falling into. It wasn’t until four years later in 1970 that they came up with the idea of an organisation to back up the magazine, providing a resource of labour, expertise, equipment, coordination and more. So although in one or two of the first four issues in 1970 (which this series of articles has been reviewing one at a time in the corresponding four issues in 2020) Graham dropped the occasional hint that some kind of change might be in the offing, it wasn’t until after the official launch of WRG at the Inland Waterways Association’s National Rally of Boats at Guildford that he finally went public about it in Navvies Notebook. Well, when I say ‘went public’... Did the name of the new organisation appear on the cover? No. Did it appear overleaf on Graham’s editorial page? Well, yes, it did, but it still wasn’t exactly launched in a blaze of glory. You might have expected it to be the leading item in his column, but instead he led off with a brief apology for the non-appearance of the directory of work party organisers (to save space) followed by the shock news that the second class postage was going up from 5d to 6d, meaning that it would account for three shillings of the five shillings annual subscription rate and sooner or later the rate would have to go up. (Rather than risk descending into ‘Four Yorkshiremen’ sketch style parody by converting those directly into decimal currency, I will instead say that allowing for inflation that’s roughly the equivalent at today’s prices of about 40p for a stamp and £4 for a year’s subscription.) On the subject of money, Graham mentioned in his column that the magazine had “gone into the supplies business”, negotiating “the best possible rates” for site clothing and safety gear to get “volunteers and group better equipped at the minimum cost” - although if we reuse the same conversion factors as above (which I found on the Bank of England’s online inflation calculator, by the way) 14 shillings for a hard-hat is equivalent to over a tenner today, which I’m not sure would be anyone’s definition of ‘minimum cost’ now. Still on money, and in particular raising it, he signs off with a mention of a calendar for 1971, illustrated with the line drawings which usually adorned the cover of Navvies Notebook in those days (before decent photo printing was practicable given the magazine’s production methods) - and a snip at 5 shillings. Oh, and the mention of the name of the new organisation on the editorial page? On the bottom line it says “Published by Waterway Recovery Group - bi-monthly”.

Where did we work? Moving on from this somewhat low-key start, we get into the nittygritty of what Issue 26 was mostly about: the dates, sites and work for the forthcoming working parties. It kicked off with the ‘Next Time Out’ (diary) pages, listing working parties on the Birmingham Canal Navigations Soho Loop, River Derwent, Upper Avon Navigation, Kennet & Avon Canal (Bath Locks), Dudley Canal (Park Head Locks), Montgomery Canal (Welshpool), Stratford Canal, Peak Forest Canal (Marple), Peak Forest Canal (Bugsworth Basin), Pocklington Canal and Caldon Canal (Cheddleton), plus a promise that Tim Dodwell of Horsell, Woking (brother of John Dodwell, whose Montgomery

Update appears elsewhere in this issue - how about that for long service by the family?) had “some ‘unorganised’ projects in hand” for volunteers “not far from London” - which I understand to be a coded message meaning working on the Basingstoke, which wasn’t actually legally permitted at that time, pending the transfer of ownership from the canal company to the local authorities which dragged on for some years.

This is such a comprehensive list of what was going on restorationwise at the time that we’ve summarised what happened subsequently (see page 5) and made it our front-and-back cover feature in this issue. But there’s more... The Dudley Dig and Cruise was the big forthcoming event: there was to be a day’s preparation work on the Friday, the main work on the weekend would cover all three pounds of the Park Head Locks flight leading up to Dudley Tunnel, plus clearance of the badly overgrown area around Park Head Junction and Blowers Green Lock which was to be the main mooring site for all the boats which were expected to attend the ‘cruise’ part of the event. It was all aimed towards complete restoration of the locks which form the link between Dudley Tunnel and Blowers Green and the rest of the Dudley Canals. Meanwhile in among the pages, another couple of mentions of WRG sneak in - but only as an abbreviation, and with no clue as to what it might be - in the form of a piece about the ‘WRG Bank’ (trading stamp and coupon collection for funds), and the ad for the ‘WRG Calendar’.

Looking ahead... The ‘Open the Avon’ project to get the river reopened from Evesham to Stratford was gaining momentum: as well as appearing in the ‘Next Time Out’ column there’s an article about it by the Upper Avon Navigation Trust’s David Hutchings who masterminded the scheme, describing the difficulties encountered as well as looking forward towards completion. Much of this was concerned with the struggle to get the first test boat through hard marl slabs in the river bed above Harvington: both a practical struggle with an excavator attempting to cut a channel through the marl, and a political struggle involving negotiations with the Severn River Authority to raise the water levels back towards what they had been before the navigation had fallen into disuse. The third paragraph gave an insight into the legendary Hutch’s methods of working...

“In spite of the decision to raise the water level, the boat which had a comparatively deep draught could not float over the slab. However it was essential to test the final three quarters of a mile between Marlcliff and Bidford in order that preparation could be made for any necessary dredging. The boat was therefore dragged over the slab by a digger and dumped into deep water at the upstream

end. It then travelled to within 30 yards of Bidford Bridge. The Trust could not afford to have the slab removed by normal commercial means and it thus appeared that navigation was to be restricted to boats drawing less than 2ft 6in (at time of low water). However once more the Royal Engineers came to our aid. A quantity of obsolescent explosive was obtained and as this report is being written the blasting out of a channel through the marl is progressing.”

He followed this with an optimistic prediction: “It is hoped to have Phase 1 (Evesham to Bidford) open to general navigation in early September...” followed by the rather more cautionary note that “at Bidford Bridge it is now clear that we shall have to lower the foundations of a number of the arches - this is likely to be an interesting job!” and a summary of the remaining work from Bidford to Stratford: “We have nine and a half miles, seven locks, five weirs and a mass of dredging to go.” On a rather smaller scale, but still important in view of its promotion of what might seem an unpromising location at the heart of the grimily industrial BCN network, is a short piece by Nick Grazebrook titled “Why the Soho Loop?” Kicking off by quoting British Waterways Board as saying that “The Main Line provides a far more convenient route though Birmingham”, he replied that “Those who have cruised the BCN will know that it provides a wealth of fascinating cruising, a large part of the interest being the old loops - often part of James Brindley’s Old Main Line (now 200 years old), branches and wharves.

Such is the Soho Loop, three quarters of a mile long, and a pleasant contrast to the dull, wide, straight Main Line”. However he added that “Not only is it intricate, twisting and full of history, it is also full of rubbish, rats and pollution.” But he then pointed out that this “disgrace to the City of Birmingham” ran past the former Lodge Road railway interchange basins which could make “magnificent moorings”, and that the loop was completely navigable barring a 150-yard rubbish-choked section - and appealed for volunteers get it open and “draw attention to the reasons why the loop should be restored and maintained”.

Speaking of the British Waterways Board, and of looking to the future, there’s another of the not-so-gentle shots that Navvies Notebook sometimes aimed across the bows of the organisation responsible for maintaining most of our waterways, not to mention sniping at the cruiser fraternity, gin drinkers, and anyone who ever used the hated term “cruiseway” to describe a waterway identified under the 1968 Transport Act as worth retaining primarily for leisure boating. This one seems to be describing a nightmare vision of the future of the waterways...

Impossible?

Soon the waving corn gave way to picturesque cruisewayside chalets, with their colourful garden gnomes, and the flotsam (or was it jetsam’) of ice cream wrappers told us that we should soon be at Stoke Rotton Locks. We were looking forward to climbing this water staircase because it not only gave us a chance to stretch our legs, while my crew worked the boat up to the higher level, but also an opportunity to chat with old Tom.

Although Tom had not been “born on the bank of the cruiseway” he had run a hire boat yard for one hilarious summer and had an endless fund of yarns about the messages left on the answer-phone service by stranded hirers. He had taken his company’s bankruptcy very well and was now running an ice cream stall at the top of the locks. We swung expertly round the final bend, producing an extraordinary noise from an old lady as our bow wave swept across her lawn and into her lounge, and had our first sight of the purple gates and candy-striped beams of the Stoke Rotten six. The usual lock activities were taking place. Bobble-hatted figures scampered to and fro across the gates holding handfuls of rope and screaming excitedly at the people in the boats far below, while by page 40

the bottom lock were a dozen or so gleaming white craft waiting their turn to start the climb.

“Plug’s out again” yelled a voice on the bank, and once again we realised we had time to spare while the levels between the locks were restored to the statutory twentytwo inches.

Ah well, there’s always something happening at Stoke,” I said as I moored alongside a pair of twenty foot outboards, “How about a cool glass of draught gin and tonic in the Bargee Bar...”

- Brian W Bloke

Signs of the times... Some of the above might seem a bit odd today, perhaps the targets of some of the jibes could come across as a bit off-target to some of us... for example the hire boat fleets, which for many of us who are boaters provided us with our first taste of canal boating (whoops, I nearly said cruising then!) Alternatively, maybe the lack of similarly barbed attacks in today’s magazine is a sign of where we’re going wrong? As always, the ever-empty Navvies letters page is yours! Or perhaps it’s simply a sign that 50 years ago was a different age, and the waterways (and some of the battles being fought over them) were different. A few snippets from elsewhere in issue 26 give a clue as to just how much (22 inch deep) water has flowed under the bridge since then...

Canals for freight? It may hardly seem credible to some today that Navvies 26 was fighting for a future for regular long-distance commercial freight carrying in 70ft by 7ft narrow boats in the 1970s. But just ten years earlier (yes, like looking back from now to 2010) the majority of the narrow canals had still seen regular freight, and a few had been positively busy. And the editor clearly saw that as something that shouldn’t have been lost, and he viewed with dismay the final demise of regular traffic:

“Towpath rumour has it that yet another major narrow canal traffic is in danger of being stopped. This is serious, something MUST be done.”

“Hear that the famous Blue Line carrying fleet has ceased to operate its ‘Jam ’ole’ run between Atherstone and Southall. This news plus the cancellation of the Ashby Canal Association traffic to Croxley Mill and the rumoured ‘stoppage’ of BWB’s lime juice boats operating from Brentford in December makes the commercial traffic situation south of Wolverhampton just about as bad as it can get.”

bring about even a temporary revival in commercial traffic - or indeed anyone who has any realistic ideas on the subject - is invited to contact the editor.”

...but to no avail. Incidentally, a recent plan to recreate the last Jam ’ole run as a commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the demise of what proved to be the last regular long-distance commercial narrow boat traffic (as has been done for the 40th and other anniversaries), due to take place just as this issue went to press, was sadly cancelled due to the worsening Covid-19 situation.

Fill ’em in... Back to 1970 and not only was freight on narrow canals still in its final decline, but canals which we would have regarded today as straightforward to restore were still being obliterated:

“A contract worth about £800,000 has been awarded by Glasgow Corporation to Mitchell Construction (Scotland) for major work on the disused Monkland Canal. The stretch of canal affected is five miles long and the work involves laying of twin reinforced concrete pipes of 30in and 42in diameters as well as some asbestos cement piping, partly in tunnel and partly in open cut”

That contract was for the destruction of the entire urban length (through the city and eastern suburbs) of what had been Scotland’s most prosperous canal, prior to the M8 motorway being built along its route.

...or burn ’em down! Things weren’t going too well in Ellesmere Port either:

“Telford’s warehouses, which were badly damaged by fire recently, have now been razed to the ground. What price European Conservation Year?”

On a brighter note in Welshpool, where the Montgomery had been threatened by a planned new bypass road (leading to the 1969 big dig in the town, an important part in the kick-starting of the canal restoration campaign), new Secretary of State for Wales Peter Thomas was quoted as saying that “It was yet to be decided whether there would be a Public Inquiry into the Welshpool Bypass. There have been so many objections to the proposed foute that they must look for an alternative, and if it was satisfactory there would be no need for an Inquiry”. An alternative route for the road was indeed found (it took them another 23 years to build it), and the Mont restoration has progressed ever since.

Getting technical... A regular feature in the magazine in the past has been reviews of various types of plant and machinery, and issue 26 carries one covering pumps, power-barrows and that curious beast, the digger-dumper - a standard hydraulic tip dumper modified by the removal of the bucket and its replacement with a 180 degree excavator arm, but capable of “being re-converted back into a normal dumper in a matter of minutes”. I know of one WRG volunteer who until recently owned one of these machines, a Thwaites Tusker (perhaps he’d like to comment on the “matter of minutes”!) but does anyone recall them ever being used on canal restoration?

And finally... at the very bottom of the last page, the magic three words finally appear again. The Navvies Gear Shop piece about boots, weatherproof clothing and hard hats for sale ends with the words:

“Cheques etc made out to Waterway Recovery Group please.”

And that concludes Navvies Notebook’s coverage of WRG’s birth.