navvies News

Jim Woolgar R.I.P.

Not many people involved in Waterway Recovery Group today would recognise the name ‘Jim Woolgar’.

Jim was involved with WRG many years back, having been involved in its founding in 1970, and was one of the group in those days who took on various aspects of running the organisation.

He ran ‘WRG stores’ which he operated from his home, in order to raise funds for future work. Various PPE type items were advertised in Navvies. Those days PPE tended to be a donkey jacket, woolly bobble hat and wellies/work shoes. He also sold sleeping bags and many other miscellaneous items; all sent out by post.

As well as running this from his home he also took stock around to the boat festivals up and down the country, on these occasions he was often helped by his daughters.

He was also involved in the Basingstoke Canal, the writing of letters to local papers which generated the initial interest in saving it, and the Surrey & Hampshire Canal Society which was founded in 1966 to lead its restoration.

Our condolences to his family and thanks for all his work towards waterway restoration.

John Hawkins

The editor adds: Jim Woolgar retained his interest and remained a subscriber to Navvies right to the end of his life, sending the occasional contribution to the letters pages. Unfortunately his last contribution a couple of years ago at the time of our 50th anniversary, recalling his memories of the founding of WRG and first appearance of its display at the IWA National Rally of Boats at Guildford, arrived just after an issue had gone to print, and we didn’t manage to squeeze it into the following one. But I think it shows how much he was involved right at the start, so here it is...

The Conception and Birth of WRG: It all started at the 1970 IWA Guildford Rally. I was delegated to run the Surrey & Hants Canal Society ‘working party’ stand (not that we were allowed to work on the Basingstoke Canal). This was located in an adjacent field to the main site, near the toilets. At that time I was working nearby on a contract just outside Guildford.

Then the Hot line from Palmer Towers, Finchley [home of Graham (no relation) Palmer, WRG’s founder] started. “Need a scaffold tower”, “Need display boards”, “Need a large mechanical plant item”. Fortunately the foreman of the main contractor on the site I was working at was very obliging, so things arrived and were installed...

On the day, we were fully manned. Lots of helpers, we even put money collecting bins in the toilets. Claire Johnstone was ripping pictures out of a book, putting them in plastic bags, and selling them. Bob Humphrey was making Basingstoke Canal paddle boards. Plus many others.

Somebody arrived in a van with a couple of pianos... “Let’s have a piano smashing contest!” Alas this was frowned upon, so they ended up on the Council rubbish wagon; the man smashed them to get them on...

At the same time we were talking to [IWA Chairman] John Humphries about what direction we could go in. Originally the working party group concept was under the IWA London and Home Counties Working Par ty Group (The Navvies, hence the origin of Navvies Notebook as the magazine was originally called) but when the boards appeared on the stand we had a logo and

WRG name. For a few hours, overnight, it was Waterway Recovery Organisation. Thoughts were that we should be independent of IWA, but John convinced us otherwise, mainly on insurance grounds.

Jim Woolgar

Little Venice wants you!

Canalway Cavalcade is the Inland Waterways Association’s annual festival at Little Venice (near Paddington in London) which will return for the May Day Bank Holiday in 2023 for the fortieth time. One thing that makes it happen is a team of site services volunteers – not an official WRG Camp, but generally a bunch of mostly WRGies who set up and manage the festival infrastructure and site.

The camp runs from mid-morning on Wednesday 26th April (when stuff starts arriving and we build our camp) through Thursday and Friday when we build the festival. The three days of the weekend during the actual festival generally involve site management activities before the take-down of the event on the Monday evening and Tuesday morning with the aim to have cleared the site by mid-afternoon on Tuesday 2nd May.

To make it all happen we’d like the experienced volunteers who have helped in previous years to come again and also some new faces to join the team to ensure the future of the event. We recognise that you may not be able to attend the whole camp because it does run mid-week to mid-week but we do need people to attend on the weekdays, in particular on the Monday evening and Tuesday because this is when we most need them! We welcome people who are only able to help for a day or two. There will be a plan of work activities so that everyone gets chance to enjoy some of the festival and take in the amazing atmosphere of the event.

The accommodation is limited and restricted to two narrow boats for sleeping on, plus a field kitchen (which needs to be built on day 1) for cooking and eating. Work activities include putting up (and taking down) marquees, market stalls and banners around the site, fencing, and general event management.

Outside of the work camp activities the event also needs volunteers to assist with other aspects of the event such as donation collecting, giving information to the public and children’s activities – if this is of interest please let me know.

Contact Pete Fleming on Pete.Fleming @waterways.org.uk for more information.

Roger Leishman R.I.P.

We are sorry to have to bring you the sad news that Roger Leishman, former leading light of the Wendover Canal restoration has died aged 90. As Dave Chapman of WCT put it, “We owe our restoration to Roger and his leadership. If it wasn’t for Roger, the Wendover Canal as we know it might not exist and our work parties might still be restricted to pruning hawthorn”.

A former chartered railway engineer, Roger devoted his retirement to leading the Wendover restoration, persuaded the Highways Agency to modify the A41 crossing to cater for future restoration of the canal, designed the construction and lining system used right through the restoration, and negotiated to get Little Tring Bridge built.

Thank you...

...from the editor to everyone who has contributed words, pictures or anything else to Navvies during 2022; to Chris Griffiths for printing and John Hawkins for organising the printing, stuffing, labelling and so on; to all the Head Office staff for looking after the subscriptions side; to the team of volunteers at the envelope-stuffing sessions at the London Canal Museum, to Robert Goundry for sourcing, editing and collating content for the ‘Progress’ section, and to Lesley for proofreading.

Best wishes for Christmas and the New Year, and I’ll hopefully see some of you on a worksite somewhere in 2023.

And from John Hawkins...

Firstly many thanks to Martin at the London Canal Museum for our continuing use of the facilities at the Museum and also apologies for all the ‘hiccups’ during the past year.

My aim is still to do the Navvies stuffing at the Museum. As everybody will have noticed I have had to do some frantic moving of dates etc, all in an aptempt to maintain momentum, not really helped by tube strikes, train strikes, and also just to add to everything a postal strike!

Thank you to those folks who have managed to help with the stuffing and their patience with all the date changes etc; let’s hope for some smoother times next year... a bit hopeful I fear!!

Have a good Christmas and New Year. John Hawkins