Editorial The how and why of Navvies

Editorial Goats?

Is it time for Navvies to go permanently electronic? Or are you all desperate for us to get back to normality and a paper copy you can read on the bog?

How does the editor do it?

If you look at the first entry in the ‘Contents’ list on Page 3 of the last Navvies, you’ll see it said: “Editorial: Martin’s still being upbeat. How?” That was a slightly terser but more polite version of what I’d originally written, which was more along the lines of “How the hell does he do it?” And it reflected my own genuine surprise at having somehow managed to find so much good news to write about - the canal restoration schemes managing to find new ways of raising cash as a byproduct of other people’s plans to build roads or railways or to shift water around the country; the schemes in mainland Europe making good progress; and the big projects (all of them combining professional and volunteer input) which were gearing up to start soon on the Cromford, Wey & Arun and Montgomery.

And I wrote my editorial before we’d even heard the news that the Cotswold Canals had secured final confirmation of the £9m Lottery grant which will enable the Phase 1b section to be restored and reopened, and all the work the volunteers have completed at the west end of the route over the last 10 years to be connected and become part of the national canal network. We’ve got an in-depth feature about it in this issue; we’ve also got several more good news stories of canals finding funding from unexpected places, including one that stands to benefit from its proximity to the Midland Main Line railway; there’s a piece on how IWA grants are helping restoration schemes which are in their earlier stages to provide local benefits right from the start and help their chances for long-term success at the same time; there are progress updates from projects as widely spread as the Manchester Bolton & Bury, the Stafford Branch, and the Hereford & Gloucester; and there’s a piece on WRG taking steps towards finally looking to get back to work in the New Year. Oh, and that front cover pic looking down the tunnel isn’t just a figurative picture of light at the end of the tunnel - it’s an actual photo taken inside the east end of Norwood Tunnel on the Chesterfield Canal, the section that hasn’t been completely trashed by coal mining, and will hopefully get restored, reopened, and connected to a new route over the top of the hill in the next few years - see our Chesterfield Canal restoration feature for more details.

And there’s cake. As you can see from the cover pages we’ve hit our target of 50 birthday cakes to mark WRG’s 50th anniversary this year.

Truly there is some light at the end of the tunnel, and yes, the editor still has stuff to remain upbeat about. But that’s “How the hell does he do it?” What about “Why the hell does he do it?” And on that subject...

Canals for goats?

OK, you thought it was a misprint. Or you thought you’d misread it. And yes, I really did once spend a whole evening with a bunch of WRGies at a canal festival, laughing at all the wacky things you could come up with simply by replacing the word ‘boat’ with ‘goat’ in wellknown waterways expressions (such as the Goat Handling Competition, the National Association of Goat Owners and the Goat Safety Scheme) - you won’t be surprised to hear that some beer had been taken... But no, I really do mean ‘goats’...

An online railways forum that I used to follow had an expression ‘goat herders’: this stemmed from the eternal arguments between those who were happy to embrace all manner of new technology on the railways (for example new ways of paying fares such as etickets and m-tickets) and felt that there was no reason for the train operators to go out of their way to cater for the minority who couldn’t or wouldn’t use such things; and on the other hand those who disagreed and felt it was the duty of the transport operators to conpage 4

tinue to cater for all passengers, even those who weren’t so gadget-savvy. (Bear with me, this is relevant, we’ll get there in the end.)

It often came down to questions like “Well, who exactly are we talking about when you say we need to cater for passengers who need to travel by train but can only pay with cash?” And the suggestion was that (once you’d ignored those whose own personal choice it was to make a stand against new technology, and whose own lookout it was if they chose to make things difficult for themselves), the remaining small minority could be dismissed as “orphans herding goats” presumably in some war-torn third-world country - a minority special case so small and obscure as to not be worth catering for. OK, I’m sure there are plenty of points to be made on both sides of the debate. But that’s not what I’m interested in...

Is continuing to cater for Navvies readers by providing them with a paper copy (as opposed an electronic version sent as a PDF or uploaded to an online site such as ISSU), based on the notion that we need to provide for people who can’t (rather than won’t) read it electronically, tantamount to catering for a tiny minority of ‘goat herders’?

Yes, I’m being provocative. Could one make the counter-argument that there are sufficient readers for whom Navvies would be failing in its purpose of sharing information / stimulating discussion / encouraging participation etc among active volunteer canal restorers if it went all-electronic, because they would no longer have access to it? Or alternatively that although they could still access it even if it wasn’t on paper, it would in some way genuinely not be as good - rather than simply not being what the readership (and, indeed, editorship I frequently refer to my archive of paper copies) are used to?

I genuinely don’t know - and I would like to hear people’s views. As most of you will be aware, since the lockdown in March 2020 we’ve been sending Navvies out electronically (by a link to an online version) to all those subscribers whose email addresses we have; and printing a much reduced number of copies for those for whom we have no email address. This has shown up some positives such as getting stuff out more quickly - in the last issue, the online version carried a newsflash about the Cotswold Canals Lottery bid success, and was published and available to the readers literally within one minute of the news being officially announced. OK we can’t always time things quite so well, and yes, we could do this because we’d received an embargoed press release (that’s how these thing work), but we’d have needed to know the news a week or two earlier to get it into the print version. And then there’s the ability to go full colour without even thinking about any extra costs.

Are there any negatives, other than simply personal preference and the ability to read it somewhere with no internet / in the bath / on the bog? And are those negatives enough to make the case? Would Navvies be failing to get out to everyone it needs to if it were electronic-only? Is this already happening? It’s certainly seemed a bit lonely here at times recently - and not just because of the lack of face-to-face meetings with people. In fact from the lack of feedback that gets back to me, it often seems like each issue disappears off into a big black hole - hence the “Why the hell...” question. Does anyone even read it? Have they stopped because they aren’t getting a paper copy? Or it just that the lack of WRG work for more than half a year means folks are less inclined to either read Navvies or write for it? Are they reading it avidly but keeping quiet? Will things get better when camps re-start?

Don’t worry - we aren’t going to make any sudden drastic changes. We won’t go allelectronic without much more discussion. This is just the editor using his column to soundout the readers on the idea. But if you have views on the subject, feel free to write to our letters pages (which are currently in abeyance until more people write in!)

In the meantime I’ll continue finding positive stuff to report. And to end on a positive note: my thanks as ever to everyone who has helped during this rather strange year in the life of the magazine: everyone who has sent articles, pictures or other contributions; Lesley for proofreading; John Hawkins, Chris Griffiths and head office for the sometimes complicated process of getting the paper copies and electronic version out to the readers; Robert Goundry for continuing to drum up canal society progress reports; Dave Wedd for the diary in the earlier part of the year (it will be back!) Sue Watts for subscriptions in the earlier part of the year (likewise); the assembly team at the London Canal Museum (likewise); and anyone else I’ve forgotton. I can’t sign-off by saying I’ll see you on the New Year camp, but best wishes for Christmas and for a happy and (please!) rather more normal 2021. Martin Ludgate page 5