Navvies 252

volunteers restoring waterways

navvies waterway recovery group

Issue No 252 April-May 2012

Navvies Production Editor: Martin Ludgate, 35 Silvester Road, East Dulwich London SE22 9PB 020-8693 3266 martin.ludgate@wrg.org.uk Subscriptions: Sue Watts, 15 Eleanor Rd., Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manchester M21 9FZ Printing and assembly: John & Tess Hawkins, 4 Links Way, Croxley Green, Rickmansworth, Herts WD3 3RQ 01923 448559 john.hawkins@wrg.org.uk Navvies is published by Waterway Recovery Group, Island House, Moor Rd., Chesham HP5 1WA and is available to all interested in promoting the restoration and conservation of inland waterways by voluntary effort in Great Britain. Articles may be reproduced in allied magazines provided that the source is acknowledged. WRG may not agree with opinions expressed in this magazine, but encourages publication as a matter of interest. Nothing printed may be construed as policy or an official announcement unless so stated - otherwise WRG and IWA accept no liability for any matter in this magazine.

Waterway Recovery Group is part of The Inland Waterways Association, (registered office: Island House, Moor Road, Chesham HP5 1WA). The Inland Waterways Association is a non-profit distributing company limited by guarantee, registered in England no 612245, and registered as a charity no 212342. VAT registration no 342 0715 89.

ISSN: 0953-6655 Š 2012 WRG

David Miller

Directors of WRG: Rick Barnes, John Baylis, Mick Beattie, James Butler, Spencer Collins, Christopher Davey, George Eycott, Helen Gardner, John Hawkins, Judith Palmer, Michael Palmer, Jonathan Smith, Harry Watts.

Visit our web site www.wrg.org.uk for page 2

Contents

Martin Ludgate

In this issue...

Chairman Toolbox Talks and Kit Updates 4-5 Coming soon training weekend and summer Canal Camps preview Part 2 6-7 Camp reports Mont and Chelmer 8-11 40 interviews Chris Davey and Chris Griffiths face the questions 12-23 Diary canal camps and weekend digs 24-26 Letters new lining materials and winding 27-28 Progress a roundup of news from restoration projects around the country 29-37 Dumpers safety reminder, plus changes to the WRG authorisation categories 38-39 Plant John’s still rebuilding his mixer 40-41 Hollingwood Common uncovering a canal you’re probably never heard of before 42 WRGBC Latest from our own boat club 43 Crick Grundy an appreciation 44 Bits & Pieces restauro italiano 45 Noticeboard TACHO DRIVERS READ THIS 46 Infill A mission statement for WRG 47

David Miller

Contributions...

Left: WRG Forestry install a landing stage at the Guns Mouth, where the Wey & Arun canal meets the River Wey. Article about future volunteer work on the W&A next time. Above: KESCRG install ladders as part of the finishing touches at Eisey Lock, Cotswold Canals. Top: channel construction on the next length of the Hereford & Gloucester beyond Over Basin at Easter. Report next time. Front Cover: London WRG on the Chelmer - see P10-11 for a report on the February camp. Back cover top: opening of Stroud Brewery Bridge, Cotswold Canals. Bottom: Inglesham - with your help at this summer’s Cotswold camps and support for the IWA Appeal, we’ll have another opening here before too long.

...are always welcome, whether handwritten, typed, on CD, DVD or by email.

Photos welcome: digital, slides, prints. Please say if you want prints back.

Digital pics are welcome as email attachments, preferably JPG, but if you have a lot of large files it’s best to send them on CD or DVD or to contact the editor first.

Contributions by post to the editor Martin Ludgate, 35, Silvester Road, London SE22 9PB, or by email to martin.ludgate@wrg.org.uk.

Press date for issue 253: May 1st.

Subscriptions A year's subscription (6 issues) is available for a minimum of £3.00 to Sue Watts, 15 Eleanor Road, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manchester M21 9FZ. Cheques payable to "Waterway Recovery Group" please.

This is a minimum subscription, that everyone can afford. Please add a donation.

all the latest news of WRG's activities page 3

Chairman

In which Mike Palmer tells us about tracks and trowels before introducing Tech Tips, Toolbox Talks, and Kit Updates.

MKP channels his enthusiasm...

Chairman’s Comment

Helen Gardner

I guess it is no surprise that WRG and its work have varied quite a lot over the years. Because, although we like to feel that we pick the jobs we do, in reality we can only ever pick the jobs from a list of what projects are available. Yes we pick the ones that we feel are important but, unless there is something really exceptional, it’s always from whatever projects are currently picking up the funding and permissions.

Somehow it seems there are always ‘trends’ in this arrangement: in the early 2000s in seemed that we would only ever be doing heritage pointing and stone-work, now it seems channel works are the big thing and our work is more ‘tracks’ and less ‘trowels’ . So for the second year running our Training Weekend will feature quite a lot of large excavators and dumpers.

As an aside, please don’t think that means the only work is sitting in the cab of a machine all day. As our works on the Monty last year showed, channel works are now sometimes so technical that for every bod in the excavator you need a dozen people capable of other more cerebral, touchy-feely tasks. Elsewhere in this edition of Navvies you should find an article outlining what we hope to achieve at the Training Weekend, and if you fancy learning some new skills (or refreshing old ones) then please come along. Alongside this we have changed the way we categorise dumpers in our Driver Authorisation scheme – there is an article explaining the reasons in this edition and everybody who is authorised to drive dumpers will be getting a letter explaining these changes. Again it is all to do with an evolution of what kit is typical on our sites currently.

So to continue this theme: Revolution is easy – everybody remembers the big changes.

But the small evolutionary changes that keep us at the top of the food chain are more difficult to keep track of. For an organisation such as ours, communicating these changes is vital. Sometimes we find that we think the WRG Board has dealt with something, only to find that the message hasn’t percolated down to a particular site, group or project.

This is quite understandable: for example many people only encounter us once or twice a year so we need to ensure that any new arrangements we have put in place are disseminated to the people who need to know – namely you lot reading this article. It’s at times like this you realise just how important this magazine is. The recent articles on strimmers and sharpening blades have been well received and so we are going to expand on this. We are still evolving how they are going to be presented and what they are going to be called but “channel works are sometimes so technical that for basically there will be three types of every bod in the excavator you need a dozen people regular contribution. capable of other more cerebral, touchy-feely tasks”

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Toolbox Talks: these are based on the standard construction industry toolbox talk but slightly modified to suit our ways of working. These are really intended to smarten up our work on site; they are brief reminders on the ways of working that keep us safe and improve the work we do.

Tech Tips: These are longer in-depth articles such as the recent one from Harri W on sharpening blades.

Kit updates: these are similar to the toolbox talks. They are nice and short and just explain why we have made the seemingly inexplicable decision to change the number of left-handed flange-wanglers supplied in the kit from three to five.

While these may well be scattered throughout Navvies as and when space permits, it is our intention to republish them in a standard format on the web so site leaders, van caretakers, leaders or anyone who is interested can print them out and make them available on site etc.

All of this will hopefully improve the communication issue identified at the start of this piece.

And to illustrate this the rest of this page will be filled with these tips, which is not quite the same as scattering them but it does solve (a) the fact that we have made quite a lot of changes to kits and ways of working that we need to communicate before this summer and (b) it gets my word-count up!

Hugs and kisses Mike Palmer Introducing... KIT UPDATES KIT UPDATE we have been pondering whether to buy one of those laser surveying levels we have been using a lot recently. It’s the same old ‘hire versus buy’ argument. It needs regular calibration and servicing and it will never be in the right place when you need it etc...

The same argument also applies to other items such as gas alarms. So we concluded we should hire this sort of kit as required. This obviously should be a job for the host society but we accept that sometimes it’s tricky finding the right model in a local hire shop. So we have set up an account with a national hire firm that will be managed by Jenny Black at Head Office. If you have a need for this sort of technical/safety kit on your weekend or Camp then contact Jenny and, once you have convinced her your need is genuine and not just a desire to have more things that go beep on site, she can find the nearest branch and reserve it/get it delivered. Two points – we are only doing this for the technical & safety items so you still have to find the rest of the plant yourself, and the Camp kits will still have the good old fashioned non-laser levels.

KIT UPD ATE Extra PPE boxes. For the last few years we have sent out an ‘Extra PPE’ box UPDA with each kit containing two hard hats with visors and some goggles and ear defenders. It wasn’t quite the right box to fit everything in and wasn’t robust enough. So this year we have upgraded things and each kit will contain TWO boxes marked ‘Extra PPE’. Each box will contain a hard hat with visor & ear defenders, three pairs of ear defenders, three pairs of goggles and a couple of spare visors. (Please keep the visors protected in the bags supplied as they scratch easily). As with all PPE kit please keep it clean and look after it. Not only is it expensive but you never know when you might need it.

KIT UPD ATE Lifejackets. We have upped the number of lifejackets in each kit to five.

UPDA KIT UPDATE Wheelbarrows. After a couple of years of problems with wafer thin tyres & tubes we have now upgraded them to something much more industrial but still pneumatic.

Hopefully this will make things much easier on site.

KIT UPDATE Bricksaw box. This now has an air filter hidden under the discs. This is not just to be swapped out and the old one thrown away. The idea is that you swap them regularly and take the dirty one home at night and clean it. We have also added a handy little cleaning brush for getting the dust out of all those little nooks and crannies of the saw itself.

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Coming soon Canal Camps 2012

Have you booked for a summer canal camp yet? If not, you’d better hurry up if you don’t want to find they’re all booked up. Always assuming you want to go on one. But who wouldn’t?

BCN Cleanup: 22-23 April By the time you receive this the annual trolleyfest on the Birmingham Canal Navigations may already be happening, but if you do reveive it in time and fancy spendng the weekend throwing your grappling hook into Walsall’s murky waters to see what you can find, just give Aileen Butler a ring on 07703 567764 straight away.

Leader Training Day, Rowington Village Hall, Sat 12 May 10ish-4ish The detail was in the last two issues of Navvies but basically this is a chance for regular and experienced leaders to reflect on last year, input into improvements and share experiences, and for those who haven’t led camps before and think they might have a go to will pick up some ideas what it’s all about. And don’t forget - it’s not just for leaders of week-long WRG canal camps; working party organisers from the local canal societies and WRG and other regional groups’ weekend dig organisers are also very welcome.

It’s free and lunch is included. Please book on via Jenny Black (email or telephone head office). Any questions etc to Helen Gardner at helen_gardner@hotmail.com

WRG Training Weekend, Lichfield Canal 23-24 June In March we asked Ali Bottomley who’s in charge of this event how it’s going. She said...

March – Oh dear! June is fast approaching! Too fast for my liking! But on the up side, this means a Training Weekend is on the horizon. As always, we are open to and indeed would welcome suggestions as to the sort of skills you feel you or ideally a group of volunteers may need for projects this year. The main focus is once again on training volunteers to use plant and machinery such as normal dumpers, rear-tipping dumpers and large and small excavators as well as offering instruction on levels, vans and trailers.

There are no doubt many other useful skills that we could add to this list and possibly arrange – such as catering for a camp, scaffolding, banksman, chippers, or bricklaying – so please make your suggestions known soon and we will do our best to set something up.

A plea, as always, goes out to those of you who so readily give up your weekend to make the training possible. If you are an instructor who has volunteered for training weekends in the past or if you have never been persuaded but think you could offer some expertise, please get in touch.

Training will again take place in lovely Lichfield this year (Thank you guys!) All are welcome, regardless of prior experience - you might want to drop in for one of the days or make a weekend of it. Accommodation will be available from Friday night. Hope to see you there! Don’t delay! Book on TODAY! Bookings, suggested courses and enquiries to Ali Bottomley, telephone: 07719 643870 or 0191 422 5469 and e-mail: aliwomble@fsmail.net

Camps Preview part two In the first part of our 2012 Canal Camps Preview we gave you details of the first part of the summer camps programme. This time we’ve got some information on the second half. But first, a few updates since last time on the leaders for the June and July camps.

For the two weeks of camps on the Mon & Brec from 30 June to 14 July we now have Martin Danks leading the first week and Cath Coolican-Smith leading the second. Fred Towey

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and Lorraine Hughes will be leading the Manchester Bolton & Bury camp on 14-21 July, and the KESCRG camp the same week on the Wendover Arm will be led by Steve Davis and Bobby Silverwood. Finally Paul Shaw and Cameron Abercrombie will be leading the Lancaster Canal camp on 21-28 July with Andy Ramsay in charge of the catering.

On to the second half of the summer and on 4 August we have the start of a fortnight of camps working on the Cromford Canal. Let’s hear about it from George Rogers, wearing his ‘local canal society’ hat. What’s happening, George?

This time last year, I wrote that the Cromford Camp would include water, but in the end it didn’t due to late changes in the work. Well this year, it will! Leaders for the first week are still to be confirmed, but ‘Squeezy Tom’ Rawlings and Gemma Bolton will be ensuring that the second week is the camp of the summer, even if they don’t get the horse they keep asking me for… The work this year is to replace a side weir on the watered section in the Derwent Valley Mills World Heritage Site. The existing structure has to be demolished and then rebuilt four times bigger, so think demolition, concreting and brickwork. Eventually this will allow the water level to be raised and a trip boat to operate.

There will also be a chance to continue work on the Sawmills Gauging Narrows started

by WRG in 2011.

We’ve also got a couple of weeks of work planned on the Chelmer & Blackwater Navigation starting on 28 July - see pages 11-12 for a report on the February camp and some information about the waterway, and we hope to tell you who the leaders are next time.

Meanwhile we’re off to the North Wales border country for three weeks of camps starting on 4 August. Leaders for the first week are the regular Mont team of Steve Harmes and Chris Colbourne, who hand over to Martyn Worsley and Ju Davenport for week two. And the work? Over to Alan Jervis...

We’re returning to the scene of our 2011 camps, the length between Pryces Bridge and Crickheath Bridge, and a more challenging length than most of the sections which have been restored to date by volunteers. There are areas where the towpath has sunk very low and where the far bank has almost disappeared. There’s water in the canal bed in winter and it’s dry in summer – a sure sign of leakage - and in fact we believe that this section has leaked ever since it was constructed. Restoring it is presenting unique problems, so we’re using it as a ‘test bed’ to develop methods which will, in effect, ‘write the manual’ for restorations all over the country. The good news is that after last year’s ‘learning experience’ we hope to make faster progress on lining the canal this year, especially thanks to a wonder new lining material which is lighter, cheaper and easier to lay than the stuff we used last year, and remains watertight even if you punch holes in it! [see letters pages ...Ed] So you can be at the forefront of canal restoration and in the stunning Welsh borders.

Where better to spend your summer?

And a couple of weeks later on 18 August we’ve got the start of a fortnight of camps on the Chesterfield. Let’s hear from George Rogers again, but this time wearing a different hat - as camp leader...

Chesterfield this summer will return to the site of our successes last summer, Staveley Town Lock. Last year we built the upper wing walls, and they are now largely hidden behind the clay dam that is holding back the water of Staveley Town Basin. In order that the water can be let through to the next section, we are now going to start building the lock itself. This will most likely be brick facing a concrete wall, so we should see hopefully see some rapid progress during the camps. Week 1 will see me leading and ‘Vulcan Dave’ Bradford assisting, and then in week 2 I reverse roles as Steve Baylis comes in to lead the final hurrah of the summer. Should be a brilliant fortnight, so if you can come for any of it we’ll be happy to have you there, and no doubt we’ll line up some evening entertainment for your delectation – even if I have to drink a lot of Coke to provide it!!’

That’s all for this time - but you might have spotted that one site hasn’t had a mention yet. Yes, the Cotswold Canals project at Inglesham, funded by the IWA Inglesham Lock Appeal. We’ll be bringing you the latest on the three weeks of work planned for this important site in Part Three of our Camps Preview next time.

For all week-long camps unless otherwise stated, you should book via Head Office using the form in the Camps brochure mailed with Navvies 250, or online at www.wrg.org.uk. Canal Camps enquiries: 01494 783453 or enquiries@wrg.org.uk

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Camp report Montgomery Canal New Year on the Mont…..

“In between plumbing jobs, Bungle managed not to set fire to the band hall whilst caramelising the top of the bread-and-butter pudding...” and (3) mending the trailer lights. Oh, and cooking the dinner of course. When we were back from site we installed the high-tech shower-availability gender-specific signalling system whilst Bungle and Adrian gained access, via the ladies toilets, to the area where they could install a shower pump, only to find a pump already existed but just didn’t work.

In between plumbing jobs, Bungle managed not to set fire to the band hall whilst caramelising the top of the bread and butter pudding in his traditional manner, using the blow-torch lance. [See photo in last issue ...Ed] Due to the unusual occurrence of there being three radio amateurs (anoraks) on the same camp, we were able to set up a radio link between site and the accommodation, thereby resolving the problem of having no mobile phone signal at the accommodation hall. Here is Bungle’s explanation...

By utilising a 2m/70cm cross-band repeater, positioned on a handy mobile 12 v power supply with sufficiently large enough ground plane properties (i.e. minibus KX07FEH), we were able to establish a radio

Martin Ludgate

The main camp arrived on Boxing Day afternoon at Porth y Waen Silver Band Hall – our accommodation for the week. The kit was unpacked and everyone settled in the accommodation. After dinner a reconnaissance squad ventured across the road to the Lime Kiln pub. The reports came back favourable: under new management; likely to stay open past 7pm; and New Year’s Eve opening times stated to be “12pm until you lot go home”!

First morning on site was a slow start.

Getting used to the British Waterways site requirements took a while, although thankfully we had several people who had been on the summer camps who already knew the routine of building the required welfare centre, including unloading 22 chairs into a field. Our work for the week was a scrub bash on the section of canal south of Crickheath Wharf towards School Bridge to enable surveys to take place before the forthcoming summer camps. The sites for the bonfires where chosen away from the badger setts and local properties.

Today, being a bank holiday, chainsaw Ian and chainsaw Paul used their ‘silent’ saws. Alan Lines trained Derrick and Andy on the brushcutter.

Mary and I carried out the leaflet drop to the houses surrounding the site to explain the work that would be carried out during the week. Gary had the first of many press interviews with the Shropshire Star who sent a journalist to site.

Back at the accommodation, chef Bungle had been left with a few jobs: (1) fixing the poor excuse for showers (2) Keeping one of several bonfires on site fed unblocking the drains

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dinner. What happens when you leave a radio engineer and University lecturer in charge of a roast dinner? Well, you end up with cooking thermometer, 10 minute interval reading, an Excel spreadsheet and a temperature curve graph.

After dinner, Viv and Jason returned unexpectedly after realising that a night in a tent on a cold windswept mountain was a less attractive option than coming back to the accommodation for the cheese board. Martin entertained us with a quiz on 2011 where I discovered that I was oblivious to the fact that Jimmy Savile had died. Most of the camp then adjourned across the road to the pub to see in the New Year.

All in all we did loads of scrub clearance, lots of tree-felling and created piles of logs for the locals. We did some training on vans, excavators and brushcutting. We made an IWA video and appeared in the Shropshire Star. We entertained some local Trust & IWA visitors and we managed to improve the accommodation. All in all, a fine effort by all the team, many thanks!

Mel Parker

Martin Ludgate

communications link between the two sites, despite the limitations of the terrain. (Mel says “that’s Bungle’s technical conversation for the day!”)

We came back from site to luxury showers as the pump had now been fixed by Bungle. So strong was the water pressure that when you pressed the middle shower button, the water came shooting out of the end shower head all over Paul’s pile of clean dry clothes (and Gary’s!) Wednesday was LDay or Lasagne Day for Bungle as he had to slay the ghost of ‘lasagne soup past’ - which he did successfully. Fresh volunteers arrived in the forms of Bush, Daddy Cool and Lynda.

Thursday was a busy day on site. An excavator had been hired for the backfilling of the stone wall at the wharf. Adrian was tasked with the job and Colin was trained up on excavators in the process. The forestry team of Paul, Alan, Ian and Mary, very professionally felled their biggest tree of the week, generating loads more logs for the locals to collect. By this stage we were up to four controlled bonfires ably managed by Colin & Tina, Helen, Martin and George; with John and Pete tirforing out the masses of stumps left in the wake of Ben, Derek and Andy who were jungle bashing towards the road, despite the 70 year old thicket and piles of fly-tipped rubbish. After bangers and mash for tea, two vans of campers made their way to Wrexham for the bowling alley & cinema complex.

Friday began with an unprecedented occurrence… John the Hawk was the last one up! Gary and Ben were filmed (watch them on YouTube). We were given toffees and chocolates by a friendly local who had spent most of the week trudging up and down the towpath collecting logs. We had a final collective push to complete the section above the road. Friday evening was spent watching Snatch or in the pub.

Saturday morning on site we began clearing the section below the road. AJ led a walk back to the site of the summer camps so that volunteers could see what had been achieved since they had left. We returned to the accommodation, where Bungle and AJ were preparing our lovely New Year’s Eve roast

Tirforing one of many stumps out

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Camp report Chelmer & Blackwater

“Unfortunately the workboats were not available due to being frozen in at Heybridge” - Alan Wiffen reports from a chilly first canal camp of 2012

ment of crew with the last four members who had braved the elements to get from Middlesborough and Teesside via Scarborough to be with us. Monday also brought all the EWL portable machinery to Saturday dawned very brightly for me in break up the monotony of slashing and Shropshire and for James Butler in Northraking. We got as far as we could eastwards amptonshire as we set out to Maldon Essex when we reached the point that the local for the first camp of the year. Essex proved authority tree preservation officer wanted to be a different scenario with cleared roads some changes made to the towpath bank but every where else covered in a layer of 4- which could only be achieved from the boats, 6 inches of compacted snow and ice. which were still not available.

The crew consisted of eight DoErs aged So from Tuesday onward it was west19: two aspiring Queen’s Scouts and four ward from Ricketts Lock, purely on the towmature local government employees, two of path side, which had a great many more self whom had previous experience. The week’s set trees: Willow, Hawthorn, Oak, Alder and task was pure scrub bashing to restore the Ash, plus acres of bankside reeds and towpath to its original width of 2-2.5metres rushes.This brought Michael and Bob into from its current 600 mm muddy, rutted their element with chainsaws and the mighty trackway, with bankside clearance from Essex Timberwolf machine chipping like the Waterways Ltd’s two small workboats on the clappers. offside. Unfortunately the workboats were Other jobs were completed around not available due to being frozen in at Ricketts Lock with the removal of soil and Heybridge Basin...

The idea was to work back eastwards from Ricketts Lock toward Beeleigh where we finished last October.

Sunday saw us on site with the 2 resident EWL workers Michael and Bob, and work began on a purely manual basis with no machinery in use. A fire was eventually lit; very difficult when most of the kindling is locked in ice.

The fire had stayed in overnight so Monday saw us Feeding scrub to the chipper with a full compleJenny Black

Chelmer & Blackwater camp or ‘The Only Way Is Essex in the snow to the Yellow Chip Road’

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Chelmer & Blackwater Navigation

Springfield Basin, Chelmsford to Heybridge Basin near Maldon: 14 miles 12 locks

Jenny Black

turf caused by land surge, being removed from the lock coping stones and re-used to make good a trip hazard in front of the canoe portage platform and the groove created by boaters when opening the lock gates. A large area of wildlife habitat was extended in front of the lock with more logs put in for the Bees, Butterflies and Bugs to live in.

The weather was improving daily with consequent snow melt which sent the river level not only very high but also very fast.

This precluded any thoughts of using the boats as they were not powerful enough to combat the race.

Thursday and Friday saw EWL fell an enormous willow and loads of growth from across the towpath, all of which was chipped ready to be utilised making a completely new footpath about 1m wide - hence the title Yellow Chip Road.

Altogether the team completely cleared nearly half a mile of towpath and laid the new foot path, which was a great achievement especially considering their youth and inexperience, and a pleasure to lead.

Alan Wiffen

Another pitchfork load heads for the fire

The Chelmer & Blackwater is a river navigation based mainly on the River Chelmer. It was opened in 1797 from Chelmsford to the Blackwater Estuary, an inlet from the Essex coast.

Used for carrying freight until the early 1970s, the waterway escaped nationalisation and continued to be run by the original private company until it became insolvent in 2003. To avoid the waterway closing down, it was taken over by Essex Waterways, a subsidiary of WRG’s parent body the Inland Waterways Association, which has been working since then to return it from its run-down state to a good condition and maintain it, using a very small permanent staff supported by a great deal of volunteer help - including Canal Camps.

There will be more canal camps on the Chelmer & Blackwater on 28 Jul - 4 Aug, 4-11 Aug and 27 Oct - 3 Nov. All volunteers welcome!

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WRG at 40

“One of the best things I’ve ever seen: that embankment go, and Woolsthorpe Flight become a flight again and not two separated sections” – Chris Davey

Forty views for forty years

40 Views for 40 Years The 13th in a series of articles to celebrate WRG’s 40th(-ish) birthday by capturing the views of people who have been involved in various capacities.

Off into the Pennines to locate Chris Davey: long standing board member, founder and organiser of the original BCN Marathon Challenge, and mad keen on... err... sewage.

Between them Chris and his wife Helen have been very involved in WRG over a number of years.

Q: How and when did you first get involved with WRG? A: My interest in canals started in the mid ’70s: my big brother went off on a canal holiday and came back saying how wonderful it was. When I got round to doing my O-levels I did my O-level project on British canals and that led me into looking at other things other than just boating. My first boating holiday was just after my kid brother died; we all went off on a holiday and it was wonderful fun; that was ’79. I then went off on other holidays in ’79 boating-wise.

I then went off to Trent Polytechnic in 1980 and thought “canal restoration might be a bit fun” as a change from boating to actually restoring the damn things. I made contact with the Grantham Canal Restoration Society who’d just started digging out the canal arm in the centre of Nottingham (that runs into the former Fellows, Morton & Clayton Warehouse – that’s now a pub). Part of the digging was being done by a YTS [Youth Training Scheme] equivalent scheme. In a week’s work they were just about filling one six cubic yard skip. On a Sunday afternoon we were filling two. I was staying at the halls, at Trent Poly, in Nottingham and everybody knew when I had been down to do that digging; it was the smelliest mud ever. It makes Elsecar mud look ‘not smelly’. Even after two baths you still stank of the stuff – it was revolting. That was really my very first experience of really getting mucky in a canal. It was great fun, I enjoyed it, the people were nice.

I then decided it might be quite nice to go off with some of these other people I’d heard about through the IWA – this group called “double-you ahhr gee” – “werg”. I attempted to join WRG but it was at a time when there was a slight hiatus in the production of Navvies because Graham Palmer (‘Piggy’) had stopped doing it due to his illness and this new chap called Alan Jervis hadn’t really got production of Navvies going.

There was a long period (from memory it was about 12 months but it probably wasn’t) when there was no information coming out and eventually I went out with this group who were doing something on this canal in Stratford – a group called WRG North-West. I had to meet them in a pub which seemed to be a good idea to me but I was a bit nervous. I can remember being really nervous about going to this pub and staying for the weekend with people I’d never met before. I think it was the One Elm near St Gregory’s – St Grot’s Church Hall. I got there earlyish and other people started to troop in and I realised they were the people I was supposed to be meeting. They were talking about canals and restoration and it was really interesting.

And they were NICE people. They weren’t a bunch of weirdoes which is what I’d sort of been led to believe. They were people like John Foley, Malcolm and Gaynor Asquith, Malcolm Bridge – they were really friendly. And Pete Stockdale – all the gang of that era. We had a fantastic weekend and I loved it. So I kept going back and back and back and got more and more involved with the organisation over the following years. Dates of when I first started going out with north-west? – I guess I could look it up in my diary but I’ve no idea, it would be somewhere around ’81 / ’82.

Combined with the fact that I was on a sandwich course and I had my first work experience with Plessey the electronics company. My second one was going to be with two different companies the second

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of which was British Waterways in the training section. But the first company went into receivership so I managed to negotiate a six month arrangement with BW. I was spending my working days with BW and my weekends navvying. It was fun – it was very different. I’m not quite sure how some of the people at BW got on with someone who was interested in canals; but there were some people outside [BW Head Office] Willow Grange who worked for BW who loved it – born and bred on the boats. Especially on my second stint when I was at BW, I got to know some of them extremely well and they took me all over the place to places where you wouldn’t normally get to go because they knew I was interested. It was just wonderful, including daft things like clearing out the feeder that goes along the top of the New Main Line – right at the very top of that embankment (well... cutting), there is a feeder: part culverted, part not. No boater ever knows it’s there. But we went out because we had an APCO scheme working on it and we had to keep liaising with them – it was just fantastic some of things we were able to do. That’s where it developed from, having those twin streams of boating, working with BW and also the restoration.

Q: Working with North-West – what other sites did you go on? Was it just with North-West?

Q: No - I went down and did some work on the ‘Waste and Arid’ one weekend with people like John Ward and John Wood. Didn’t impress me greatly, that first trip, because we spent the entire weekend cutting down stinging nettles which I thought was a fairly tedious and unnecessary.

Obviously I’ve been out with the Grantham people. That was difficult because in those days British Waterways had just about managed to stop all volunteer work on nationalised canals. Which is why the Grantham society were digging in Nottingham and WRG North West were on the southern Stratford. There was a lot of work on the southern Stratford because that’s when it was National Trust owned and every winter there was a programme of clearing the locks.

Then we moved onto things like the Huddersfield Narrow with various work camps up there. Pocklington Top Lock we went and did some work on with North West. That’s where I discovered that in the Vale of York it hails sideways. When the wind blows and it’s hailing, Pocklington Top Lock is not the place to be standing. Nowhere to hide.

But it would have been a lot with North West. I was travelling a lot and there were several other people who went out with North West who were also travelling a lot: people like Soo Duffin who lived down in Surrey, S – O – O for Soo. Mike Palmer nicked her jumper with the word ‘Soo’ on it. There were other people around and we got chatting. London WRG were doing very well, there was WRG NW, East Midlands. There had been WRG Cosmo (WRG Cosmopolitan) and that was people like Jane and Caroline Dorey, neither of them now have that surname. A number of other people had been Cosmo and for about 18 months I was responsible for looking after Cosmo Bear - a little teddy bear mascot.

Cosmo had sort of died and we needed something else. There was a discussion in the back of one of the vans and we decided to form a new group, it was going to be between North West and London WRG so it was sort of going to be the bit in the middle. I do remember that we all fell about laughing when somebody, and I cannot remember who, worked out if we were between London and North West WRG and to the west of East Midlands that would actually make John Baylis the bit-on-the-side. The alcohol may have helped. So we set BITM up - it was difficult in the early days because we were gathering people from all over the country. I ran that for a while.

Q: Grantham was where you started – what was your relationship with the canal society?

A: I was a director of the Canal Society pretty quickly because we needed some. Membership was decreasing because we couldn’t work on it; BW weren’t spending any money on it. The lock at Trent Bridge had been restored in the early 70s but then the road had been put across the canal which made it impossible to use that end of it. We were just trying to keep the society going, I was a director for quite a few years.

One of our biggest problems was the Woolsthorpe railway embankment. We kept trying to get agreement between BW and British Railways Board as to who was for responsible for it so we could get rid of it. This literally went on for a decade. In the end we had to give an undertaking that we would pay for the reinstatement of the railway bridge if the railway line was ever restored and eventually there was a canal camp which got rid of this enormous embankment. That was one of the best things I’ve ever seen – that whole embankment go and actually Woolsthorpe Flight become a flight again and not two separated sections. The stupidity of the whole thing which I think is absolutely typical of a lot of canal restoration.

A lot of the work on the Grantham in the early days was things like putting in Denton slipway at Denton Wharf, because there wasn’t much more we could do – it was a nationalised waterway, you couldn’t touch the structure.

But [all] that gave me my nickname in the end and I’m quite happy – still happy to be known as ‘Grantham Chris’ by some of the, shall we say, older people who are still around.

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Q: The Wilts and Berks Big Dig 1991?

A: Yeah - that was an important thing. That was an amazing event. We’d started working with Peter Smith as WRG BITM and we went down to places like Calne and did some work around the bridge there.

I’ve still got my bright yellow first edition Wilts & Berks sweatshirt which I still wear – especially when I’m boating. As a silly aside it actually got me and Helen free into a French museum that’s twinned with the Wilts and Berks. The fact that I was wearing this t-shirt the owner and manager was soooo delighted to find some Brits who even knew where it was, let alone had the t-shirt, he let us in for free.

The Big Dig was set up to celebrate a number of different activities really; WRG was 21 years old officially in ’91. It took a lot of planning, Mike and I between us did most of the planning. It was the first time I’ve ever seen Palmerette in a suit. We had to go to a meeting and we both had suits on because we had to be official with the council and the school. Very weird seeing Mike in a suit, he must have equally thought the same about me...

We had over a thousand people for a weekend. I spent more money that weekend on a single shop than I’ve ever spent in my life. Figures were daft: 1700 pints of milk, 200 pints of whipping cream, the cake was 8ft by 6ft - we were eating that for the whole week afterwards trying to finish it up. That was one of the most impressive things I think WRG has ever done. Helen, though, doesn’t like the colour purple. John Hawkins, WRG print, printed the booking forms on purple paper. We had literally a thousand of them dropping through the letterbox. We had to deal with a thousand booking forms, assign people to one of the three schools we were using in Wantage.

It was fantastic to see people, we even got the local MP down to do some work: Tony Baldry. Sue Burchett’s the only person I’ve ever known to get some real work out of an MP: he brought his plate back (he ate dinner with us) just as Sue shouted ‘washers-up wanted’. Tony put his plate down and Sue handed him a tea towel. He came and carried on and did some of the drying up.

We set fire to the bottom of the canal. Our jungle bash fires were so good that the bottom of canal where it was dry was a bit peaty and it set fire to it – they were burning about a week afterwards – that was a bit of a problem.

We got, if I remember, four out of the original six IWA London and Home Counties Working Party group – the forerunner to WRG – that went on that very first away dig back in the ’60s came to that event.

To get 4 out of 6 was really quite something.

There is the video, there is the Arthur Dungate slide video as well. They’re really good as memories of what went on. It’s nice occasionally to look back and see (a) how young we all looked but also (b) what we did. To take this canal that didn’t really exist, and proving that it did exist and proving that WRG could turn out so many people. I think it was 1017 the final count - there has never been a bigger Big Dig.

Q: Did you ‘do’ canal camps?

A: I did a lot of canal camps, both as a volunteer and running them. Some of the early ones I went one would have been in the mid ’80s, things like working on the Basingstoke. Nominally KESCRG run, staying in places like the old bakery. We really took off with a lot of those things in the mid ’80s. We ended up volunteering to do some of the site and services work at the 1987 Hawkesbury National. That was a very difficult period in many respects and it was a difficult event because we were all new at that game. We didn’t get very good accommodation – we hadn’t got the experience and it was part of the learning curve. The locals had booked a football club which we nicknamed the Ponderosa, it was inhabited by some fairly disruptive youth - we had to lock the building even when we were in it. I do remember Jane Dorey (Lee as she now is) was very kind to the youths and made them a lovely chocolate cake with Ex-lax chocolate. We ended up moving onto site into a marquee, we didn’t have proper water, showers and we definitely didn’t have proper toilets. We ended up with bucketand-chuckit toilets which the ruddy company emptied behind our marquee.

That was probably the first time we made a real impact at Nationals. The big problem and the thing that made the real difference for WRG at Nationals (and I think taught us a lot about how to run everything) was the fact the scaffolding company had built a rolling scaffolding bridge to roll across the narrows (not the lock, the old stop lock) to get across to the other side. This thing was absolutely impossible to manoeuvre.

We were supposed to wheel it across on its wheels on scaffolding planks laid across the 7ft width of the lock chamber. A group of us could hardly move it let alone wheel it in a straight line. We had BBC television filming that night on the Friday night, a programme I think called Transit, from the festival site. It was great publicity for the festival but we couldn’t do a damn thing about the bridge until they’d finished filming.

At 8 o’clock at night we’d agreed with Brian Saunders and the rest of the management that we would disassemble this ‘thing’ and build a cantilevered version that would stay on one side of the lock and not have to be wheeled across. We worked like slaves – we’d never built one before. But that’s the great thing about WRG – take a bunch of highly intelligent people, give them a set of parts, give them some scaff spanners and

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Martin Ludgate

say ‘redesign it’. I got dragged back to my bed about 2 o’clock, I was camp leader, Mitch (Michelle Gozna) who was my gopher persuaded me that since I had to be up at 6 o’clock in the morning that it was really, really, really time that I got some shut eye. We finished the work about 4 - it had taken about 8 hours in the semi dark. It was a tremendous thing to actually have taken something that this scaffolding company had built that was unusable and built something else that was usable. We were shattered but it saved the whole event – there’s no way people would have been able to get from one side of the festival site to the other without that bridge.

We got given a beautiful icing narrow boat cake as an award and that spent a number of years living at Ellesmere Port boat museum on display as our trophy. I suspect after 5 or 6 years the icing started to break up. There were some great people on that camp; some brilliant first timers as well. I think that was one of things that WRG did with IWA and with the boaters to make people feel very good about WRG. We’d always been the slightly revolutionary arm of IWA but you were either in WRG in those days or IWA and never the twain shall meet. From that we went on to organise other rallies.

Hawkesbury - I do remember when the guy came to pick up the trackway, I’d gone out with a group – nearly all the workforce on the second week were girls. The guy from the track way just did not believe that me and this group of girls would load his vehicle. Well we soon showed him, didn’t we!! ’86 was Brentford - that was when we got the Case Uni-Loader. The funny thing about ’87 Hawkesbury was I had actually been banned from all rally sites in 1986. We had got instruction from IWA head office (Chairman Ken Goodwin) that we were going to take the Case Uni-Loader to Brentford rally to show it off: the first time we’d ever had new kit like that donated. I remember that there were two rallies that year – there was Brentford and a protest rally at Northwich. IWA didn’t really want to play with the Northwich rally. I went up to John Palmer’s house by train on the Friday night, he drove me over to the Mont where the Case was being used (in the Beavertail we’d hired). We got up at something like 4 o’clock in the morning to drive to Brentford with the Case on the back of it. We knew roughly were Brentford was but we didn’t know how to get into the site. We eventually arrived just after 10 o’clock – the director turned round and said go away – you’re late. We said “we’re going to park it here – we’re going to find people”. We went onto site and found people like John Baylis, Ken Goodwin and Alan Jervis and we were marched onto site and at that point I was permanently banned from any rally for the rest of my life. One of my greatest achievements. ’88 Castlefield – that was fun living in the railway arches. We had the 3 railway arches which are now under the Manchester tram network. IWA people were still a bit strange in those days and we had a call “please could Chris come over – we’ve found something [pause] ‘unpleasant’.” Oh – what have they found?

A dead body? A dead animal? No – there was just a pile of excrement in a corner. But nobody in IWA could go anywhere near it. AJ and spent half of that rally going to the local plastics firm because we needed loads and loads of more plumbing, because they had so many boats we didn’t have enough water pipe. We would walk in there and they would go “Not again!” We learnt a lot, people like Steve Champion (IWA Nottingham) were great because he was a plumber and he was teaching us an awful lot of things about how to put pipes in with non return valves and all the regulations.

Because I worked for a waste disposal company and was used to tankers I ended up not only camp leader but also acting tanker manager. We persuaded, somehow, the Manchester City Council drivers to leave their tanker on site because they didn’t really know how to operate it and I did – we were emptying the loos ourselves.

That came about after they’d managed to have an argument between the three crew members: driver never touched the equipment; operator who didn’t do the hard work and couldn’t drive but he was the guy who turned the valves on and off; and loader. They managed to try and pump the contents of the tanker down one of the manholes – you don’t – you let it gravity discharge – they tried (against my advice). Puts it on blow and this stuff comes out the pipe straight down the manhole, straight across and straight up again... ’89 was the first Waltham Abbey site. That was a bit of problem for me because although I was designated leader it ended up being a KESCRG “Fun in the railway arches”: the 1988 Castlefield ‘National’ camp – I still don’t know how – there

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was all sorts of difficult politics with it. I disappeared off and played Lavender Boat full-time so I was quite happy with that. Working in the industry, that was some of the cleaner stuff we were dealing with. ’90 was Gloucester – that was a more interesting year. Around about Waltham Abbey time I’d met a young lady called Helen Davis - we decided to get married pretty promptly. The only problem for getting married - Helen had just started her job as a teacher and the first time she could take holiday was the end of the summer term.

When it comes to organising a honeymoon, when you’re already the camp leader for Gloucester canal camp for two weeks and that’s your two weeks holiday it does make it tricky. We had a few days in the Yorkshire Dales (where we live now) and the rest of our honeymoon was spent on the canal camp.

I’m desperately trying to think where it was in ’91 – was it Netherton? ’91 must have been the year of the Falkirk Festival as well. By that time we’d started doing daft things like going out on camp site visits before we had camps.

Wakefield was the mud festival. My abiding image of that was a visitor: a lady in a white and white high heels trying to cross the festival site without getting muddy.

We managed a few festivals and then other people were leading them and I was quite happy to take on the job of running the Lavender Boat with a great team – had to do some training on some of them: Steve Morley learned not to hug bottom sections of porta pottis as he was stepping across from the bank to the boat. The valves occasionally leak – Steve discovered how badly they leaked one time. We only ever dropped one cap off a porta porti into a tank – but we did get it back and the following year we gave it back to the boat owner in a great ceremony. I’m very glad Elaine Scott is still doing it, when she came on board she was a great help and someone else who was from the industry: she’s a sewage design consultant. We used to fight over real bucket-and-chuckits because they were so easy and fun.

I carried on with that through till Huddersfield 2002 which was the last one I did. That’s when I started my commute Monday-Friday from North Yorkshire down to Banbury – doing weekend work at that point was absolutely impossible. Do I miss doing them? I think the answer is ‘no’ because I’m boating each summer in France!

I took over from ‘Windy’ (John Gale) as company secretary of WRG in ’95 when he wanted to retire from 114 where he lived in his broom cupboard (where he did all his WRG stuff as well as his IWA). That gave me a chance to step down from waterways festivals; I resigned as director to become company secretary. That was basically a full time job for WRG – doing the minutes and all the other stuff. I would have given that up in the early noughties and that was handed back to 114. That was fun – doing the minutes of WRG meetings – especially the ones in wonderful places like the boardroom at Pebble Mill.

Q: The BCN Marathon Challenge?

A: Ah yes – we did ten years of that. That started when Alan Jervis, Helen and I were boating down the Grand Union and we were chatting away to one of the BW lock keepers and we were running fairly late of an evening and he was saying “you won’t be able to do this for much longer”. We said “why not?” He said “I understand we’re going to stop boating after dusk and before dawn”. And we said “but that’s a statutory right” and he said “I know, but nobody’s done it so the gaffers reckon they can get rid of it”. So we thought “blow this for a game of soldiers. We WILL cruise through the night, we WILL set up an event”. We all love the BCN and we can have people cruising throughout the night on the BCN and we can prove that it happened so they can’t take the right away.

I went out to Jamaica to work for 3 months in the latter part of ’92 and I sat on my hotel balcony in Kingston writing the original set of rules. Partly based on the old IWA Silver Sword scheme; the idea that there were easy canals (BCN Mainline), there were less used canals (Stourbridge) and totally under used canals (the Curly Wyrley). It originally fitted on 4 sides of A4. It worked well; we had 24 hours of cruising in 24 hours. We started at 11 o’clock on the Saturday morning and finished at 11 o’clock on the Sunday. I do remember how flipping cold the canals are in the middle of the night. It was June, nearest weekend to longest day. We were doing it in our inflatable dingy – the three of us. We were going out somewhere round the Walsall at 4 o’clock in the morning, dawn was just coming and we were just frozen solid. We finished up at Cannock and we were shattered.

After that we said we are not having 24 hour cruising in 24 anymore, we’ll have 24 hour cruising in 30 just to get a break but we knew people would keep cruising through the night. I had to rewrite the rules because people had found lots of bits of canal I’d never heard of. Helen and I did all of the work on that event for nine of the ten years with the sole exception of AJ who produced the booklet. That was an amazing event, we stopped in the end because we were at the height of the event: all three of us are great believers that you don’t stop an event when it’s on the downhill slope – so that people remember it fondly. We made wonderful friends, people like the Wilderness Boat Owners Club – the ‘wildebeest’ as we got to call them as they went round in flocks.

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That – the BCN – also partly came about because when I was working for BW one of the managers was Les Pine, he knew I loved the BCN. At the end of my time he gave a book: the tolls and the distance maps of the BCN. Every section, every lock, every basin, so they could work out the distances - it’s in miles, furlongs and links. I had accurate, detailed distances on the BCN and we were able to work out all of our scoring down to individual links (a thousandth of a furlong – a link is about 7.5 inches). Having that information made it so easy - Helen and I would sit there for weeks as the logs came in and we would work out all of this on a computer.

Unfortunately Les subsequently died (and Pinewall Ave is named after him and one of the other engineers, at Kings Norton). I’m trying to think of the Christian name of the chap ‘Wall’. Great man – told me some great stories. He grew up at Zouch on the Soar, as kids he and his brother used to go out to the weirs and fish out the dead bodies. They got sixpence from the coroner for every dead body.

I’m very proud to have been associated with such a successful event, but it wouldn’t have happened if it hadn’t been for the willingness of the boaters to do really, really stupid things: go up arms they knew they were going to get stuck on. They would nudge in to any arm, branch, basin they’d ever seen. A great event.

Q: What’s the most useful skill you’ve learnt and who taught it to you?

A: It could range from watching Bob Dewey manage to get his jack hammer stuck in the side of a lock at Diggle and then trying to dig it out with another that also gets stuck – so learning never get your jack hammer stuck – to driving the beavertails with JP (John Palmer); that was always good because I’d never driven anything that big. (Despite the fact I was a transport manager - I never got to drive the trucks). That was great fun going out with John and driving those around the country in the mid ’80s. Loved doing that. Every car driver should be forced to drive a seven and a half tonner.

Q: What would you say WRG is not so good at?

A: I think it’s changed over the years. In the early days we didn’t know a lot about running canal camps and we’re now very good at it and very professional. I think there’s a lot of difficulties dealing with some of the local societies. We didn’t always do that right; we assumed they understood what we were doing (and of course my comments relate to my experience and not what’s being done now). That was something we could have done better in understanding the locals better and communicating with them better. I think we were little introverted in the late ’80s perhaps. Overall WRG is very good at most things it sets out to do.

Q: Do you have a favourite derelict canal?

A: Oh it would absolutely certainly, initially have to be the Grantham. Other than that I would probably go

Martin Ludgate

for things like the Wilts & Berks. I’d like to see the Wey & Arun restored because that will then link down to the other southern waterways at the Portsmouth & Arundel and the River Arun itself. Can I say the Canal de Berry in France? That’s the French narrow canal where their canals are 80ft by 8ft – I would love to see that restored because it’s our proportions. Some very interesting things on it like aqueducts with locks at the end. I would like to see the Mont finished. Thames & Severn – I really look forward to boating through Sapperton Tunnel one day, as I will, because I know it will be Favourite: the Canal de Berry crosses over the River Cher done.

Q: Where do you see WRG’s future?

A: WRG’s future is carrying on, keeping the restoration movement going. Doing the silly things - I would hate it if WRG became normalised and just part of everyday. Being silly, doing the stupid things is what WRG always was and should continue to be; challenging authority, being able to stand up and say “no – we disagree, we’re going to do this”. Like they did in the sixties: “we are going to have Operation Ashton and Ashtac and we don’t care if you don’t’ agree with it. We are going to save these canals”. That’s where we came from. Being that challenge, that difficult organisation that bloody well got on and did things.

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WRG at 40

“I remember turning up at school to say ‘you don’t mind, do you, but I’m not going to be in for the next couple of weeks – there’s a canal to restore’.”

- Chris Griffiths

Forty views for forty years

We’ve seen the name ‘Stroudprint’ and ‘Chris Griffiths’ on the ‘Noticeboard’ page of Navvies for a while – we’ve also heard Chris’s name mentioned in other interviews. I headed past Brimscombe Port (near the newly restored Gough’s Orchard Lock) and up the hill to meet Chris and get his perspective on WRG.

Q: How and when did you first get involved with Canal Restoration?

A: I should start first with how I got involved with canals, which

Elaine Griffiths

was just before my involvement in restoration. That was at school: I developed an interest in transport and industrial history generally (I was a keen railway enthusiast); the school I was at was fortunate enough to have an inland waterways society which I joined. The secretary, at the time, subsequently went on to edit Waterways World for many years so I was following in good footsteps when a couple of years later I became secretary of the society. So I went on a few boat trips on various boats of dubious age and state.

Visited the waterways museum at Stoke Bruerne – not knowing at the time that the working boats that were passing through the locks were virtually the last coal traffic on the Grand Union. It must have been in the last month or so of the Blue Line boats.

I then got involved in restoration – I know it exactly – in January 1971 when I saw it announced that there was going to be a three-month project to patch up the nine locks of the Rochdale Canal in the centre of Manchester; and Manchester was where I was brought up. So I turned up at Castlefield for the first of these weekends and working parties. I think I then went nearly every weekend for the next ten years! I suppose I got hooked. The people I was working with then were the Peak Forest Canal Society in combination with the Manchester Branch of The Inland Waterways Association who had undertaken this patching-up in order to hold a rally of boats Easter ’71 at Dale St Basin at the junction of the Rochdale and Aston Canals. Of course then it was still very much campaigning for the restoration of the Cheshire Ring. I got gradually sucked into waterway restoration through that.

Q: So that was the 100 boat rally?

A: Yes it was. I’d actually boated up the nine locks, must have been one to two years before on one of the boat trips with the school society, in fact that was on the narrow boats Spey and William, which were both under the ownership of a chap called Alan Jones who’s well known in the north-west. That stretch of canal really fascinates me, still does, in the way that it runs through the city centre. Then it was very ignored and very unobtrusive whereas now, particularly along Canal Street, it’s a very vibrant area. Castlefield at that time was the land of scrap yards and large Alsatians and almost ‘beware – here be dragons’ notices. It was a really spooky place particularly at night.

Q: What was that first dig like?

A: It was a lock clearance on the bottom lock of the Rochdale 92, I can’t say I remember it all in very great detail, I remember some of the people I met there who I’m still in touch with. Working parties then merged a little bit into one – clearing one lock is pretty much like clearing another. It involved barrow hoists, which was very much the staple of working parties at that time!

Q: The Rochdale Locks patching-up – WRG wasn’t so much involved in that?

A: It was organised by Peak Forest [Canal Society] and Manchester Branch IWA, towards the latter part of the three months leading up to the rally there were some visiting working parties. There was a visit from London Working Party Group (which I think it was officially called then, before it changed itself into

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London WRG) which was all very new to us people up north. They’d visited the Peak Forest Canal a few times but this was the first time I’d run into volunteers from other parts of the country. There was some discussion and somebody said ‘Navvies Notebook’ and I naively said ‘what’s Navvies Notebook?’ It was explained to me in some very short, simple, but currently unrepeatable words, by a chap who was sitting on a pile of scrap wearing a woolly hat. That was my first encounter with [WRG founder and Navvies editor] Graham Palmer so I then became a subscriber to Navvies Notebook.

Q: What kept you coming back? What was your motivation?

Q: A fascination with canals, and that canal in particular. And it was the people, it was a good laugh.

There was very much a goal we were working to then, which was the 100 boat rally. That sort of continued because after the rally there was six months or so of still some work going on on the Peak Forest and Ashton canals, then December ’71 the news came that the canals were going to be restored and there was going to be major volunteer involvement. That restoration was going to start with Ashtac in spring ’72 which I got involved in the preparatory work for. I was sufficiently dragged into the organisation then to be very involved.

I was just finishing school at that point – in fact I gave up school during the run up to Ashtac. In theory I was going to stay for another couple of months. I remember turning up at school with work boots on to go and see my form tutor and say “you don’t mind, do you, but I’m certainly not going to be in for the next couple of weeks – there’s a canal to restore”.

We were always working to what seemed to be relatively short-term goals at that time and I think it’s more difficult to retain volunteers’ interest if you’re setting out on the project to restore – selected at random – the Wilts and Berks , the Wey and Arun or whatever – when you know it’s not going to happen this year, there’s just a lot of on-going work.

Q: What was your role in preparation for Ashtac?

A: Just at that time I was a body really. We were clearing access points, we were then sorting out accommodation and trying to make it... I won’t say ‘fit for habitation’, but slightly less unfit for habitation. The accommodation for Ashtac, as is recounted, was a Gas Board showrooms which was obtained at the last minute when the real accommodation fell through. I won’t claim at that stage to have got into the organisation but there was a lot of work to do just to get the site ready for people to come. It’s not just the actual work on the canal that needs the preparation, but it’s all the logistical things around it.

Q: What can you remember of the actual weekend?

A: It went very quickly. I have one particular memory, a sight, unfortunately I had a camera malfunction

Q: You mentioned your camera? I believe you’ve taken a lot of photos?

A: I have taken some photos – not as many as some other people. That was just another interest really. I just started to combine the two; as things went on using the photography to publicise what we were doing came to the fore. I started to see then that we, the volunteers, were doing all of this wonderful work but were pretty bad at telling people that we doing it and recruiting more people to help us, and funding

Harry Arnold

and I don’t have the photo, but that was of the Saturday morning of people queuing up to sign on at one of the mill buildings at Portland Street. This queue seemed to go on forever up the street. I walked the complete site several times because I was taking photographs of it and it was just the whole impression of so many people – there was a lot of mud but we were used to that. It was just the sheer number of people. And certain other aspects are just a complete blur – I think Chester’s Mild had some influence on that blur.

Ashtac: “the sheer number of people”

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and so forth. The message wasn’t always getting through. Even within Peak Forest Canal Society I felt there that we weren’t necessarily getting the message out. Myself, along with a few other people started to try and redress that, turning up at rallies with photographs. ’72-’73 I started to get involved publicising the work we were doing as well as helping with doing the work.

There was a little bit of friction between what might be regarded as the ‘old guard’ and the younger element of which I was one. I have to say there were a few people in the old guard who were very much in tune with what we were trying to do to gain publicity. It was something the canal society had been really good at back in the ’60s in keeping pressure up for the restoration of the Cheshire Canal Ring. Naming names, Ted Keaveney – Bob’s father – was quite a good supporter (Ted was general secretary of the society); and the other father of people who will be known now was John Palmer (senior) who had his own advertising and publicity agency so was versed in publicity matters. He gave a lot of support to those of us who were learning about it for the first time.

Q: What digs did you work on after Ashtac?

A: The Ashton and Peak Forest canal – we basically just got into a groove. There was two years of

Chris Griffiths

working parties every weekend with visiting working parties coming to complete the work on the canals.

Once the restoration work was essentially completed on the Peak Forest and Ashton, the Peak Forest working party re-christened itself Peak Forest Mobile and really took the view that they were going to repay (whether they liked it or not) all the groups that had come and visited during the Cheshire Ring restoration.

We went more or less everywhere – usually Midlands to North – we did venture a couple of times up to Scotland. Went to the River Derwent – the ill-fated River Derwent restoration scheme. Some early work on the Droitwich, a couple of times on the River Avon (in the latter part of its restoration) and probably others that I’ve forgotten. Moving on a bit, early work on the Mont. Then Stratford Blitz, but by that time I was either in London or on my way to London, I was arriving from a different direction as it were.

So yes – the mobile working parties started up. Peak Forest Mobile had a reputation for lock chamber clearance – that was a sort of speciality. A lot of the volunteer work back in the ’70s was very much lock chamber clearance, scrub bashing; the idea of doing more skilled work was starting to develop at that point but had not really fully developed. ’74 was the openings year with the Ashton, Peak Forest and the Avon opened just after that. There was also then a return to the start going back to the Rochdale canal. Because the Ashton and Peak Forest reopened in ’74 but the Rochdale Nine was unnavigable. There then started a more thorough restoration (still a certain amount of make do and mend) but more definitely a reopening for the Rochdale Nine. I, by that time, was not in Manchester but was travelling up there most weekends so I wasn’t fully involved in that.

After the Rochdale Nine was reopened the working party bit of the Peak Forest Canal Society became quite unrelated to the actual canal society. As I say there was a little bit of disconnect between the working party and the sort of old guard. I felt quite strongly about that because I thought the society was missing an opportunity to promote the use of the canals, to safeguard the canals, to take up the role that many other canal societies have taken up since then (some very successfully). There didn’t seem to be any sort of plan for the future, there was a certain amount of patting on the back because the canal was reopened. That’s a great, great achievement, there’s no taking away from that but I think the restoration should not really have been the end – but a point along the way. At that time also the IWA in Manchester, that had been a very strong organisation (monthly meetings, sometimes bringing in 100s of people for a good speaker) and that seemed to be drifting a bit as well.

In an attempt to focus attention on this I proposed, at an AGM of the Peak Forest Canal Society, that it be wound up. This got a lot of people out of the woodwork where they’d been hiding, some were quite unpleasant at what I was doing. Quite a few people - I’m sure they really knew what I was doing Rochdale Nine: a WRG Smalley is lowered in - refused to accept that what I was really doing was

page 20

saying ‘please look, please look – make a future for the society’. I withdrew – the plan was to withdraw the motion – because I didn’t really want it to wind up, I wanted it to go on and be strong. It’s of regret to me that I can say ‘I told you so’ because the society fizzled out some years later.

It was also at a time when we generally, nationally, were having to fight to keep the waterways united.

It was at a time when there was discussion of breaking the waterways system up between, I think, river authorities – there was certainly a big campaign. I, and others, thought it would be good if the restoration movement were to show a bit more of a united face - the idea of WRG North-West was born. WRG NW came into being, which really, other than the colour that things were painted, wasn’t a lot different from Peak Forest Mobile. WRG NW then started to develop a bit more as part of WRG. I think that’s worked out all right – it’s still about.

Q: What took you to London?

A: I’d lived for most of the ’70s in Stafford and in ’76 I finished my course at college and starting working – a job in London came up with the same company and sounded interesting. Looked around for a bedsit in London, found one, and realised I was about half a mile away from 4, Wentworth Court which is ‘where you send for your Navvies Notebook’as the song would have it. I started seeing London WRG fairly regularly plus the WRG National organisers, got involved with publicity for WRG nationally and in ’77 with the Deepcut Dig.

Chris Griffiths

Q: What was the Stratford Blitz?

Stratford Canal was probably the first real canal restoration project which opened in the ’60s. It had never been restored on a very long-term basis though: there’d been quite a lot of patching up and getting it working.

I don’t think David Hutchings would have denied that at all. By the mid-’70s it was falling apart a bit, particularly Wilmcote Locks, so WRG decided to run a winter-long ‘blitz’. It was a working navigation; it was in the care of the National Trust at the time who didn’t really have the resources or the expertise to do what needed to be done. So there were working parties every weekend, generally there was a visiting group plus there was a core of regular unattached people who sort of built up. We primarily set out to sort out all the bywashes on Wilmcote Locks. A lot of them were underground bywashes that had collapsed, replaced by open bywashes. Quite a lot of piling done up near Wootton Wawen. That went on for two winters - the winters of ’74-’75 and ’75-’76.

There were the first ever New Year’s camps held as part of Stratford Blitz. You didn’t have to know anything to be a camp leader then so I ended up leading one of the camps somehow; partly because I had been briefly involved with canal camps, I’d been on some summer canal camps. They were in the first couple of years then, they were run initially by Alan Petrie. Alan had experience of National Trust Acorn camps – he came to WRG with the idea of running summer camps. He was ‘allowed’ to do it – he did do it and he did it pretty well for much of the ’70s. It was one of these things that Graham [Palmer]didn’t really see as being at the centre of things, partly because Graham didn’t invent it. He wasn’t against it, but he just didn’t see it being an important part (I think his views changed a bit later on). A lot of the people who went on the early camps tended to be existing volunteers, it was not then seen as a way of bringing new blood in. It was just a way of doing longer periods of work, first in the summer, then the two New Year camps on the Stratford.

I can’t have screwed up too badly because I ended up running the ’77-’78 New Year camp which was on the Mont – just scrub bashing. In some ways I was against the grain in supporting camps because I wasn’t really a member of the WRG inner circle – I kind of hung around the Bywash building at Wilmcote on a Stratford Blitz edges of the inner circle – I was a

page 21

later arrival in London. I thought canal camps were a great idea and I could see the potential and how they could be a recruiting tool. Towards the end of the ’70s that started to be the way but we still suffered from the fact that we were doing all this good work and not really telling people loudly enough. That probably, to a certain extent, still continues today.

I started at that point (end of the ’70s) to get involved in odd projects, almost as a rent-a-person. I got involved with a scheme which was obviously never going anywhere which was to restore the Huddersfield Narrow Canal. We were all quite clear! I edited the newsletter and did some publicity stuff for a couple of years – it was really a ‘help it get going’, there was a core of local Huddersfield based people who set it up (Bob Dewey, John Maynard, Margaret Sinfield and so on) and there were a few more of us who were jobbing canal restoration people who sort of helped in the early years. It was never something I had time to do for a long time.

The other project I got involved with in the middle of the ’70s was the Boat Museum at Ellesmere Port.

Again, I was conned, bludgeoned, whatever; my parents happened to be living very close to Tony Hirst who was running working parties for the then North West Museum of Inland Navigation. He was an electrical engineer at the time and I’d completed my training to be an electrical engineer (something I didn’t do very much of), he dragged me along there and got involved whilst the Toll House was being restored. I’d also done some work on boats and so forth. A full 20 years later I ended up editing the boat museum society newsletter.

It was probably around 1980, I’d done about ten years of fairly full-on WRG and other restoration stuff, that I sort of faded off the scene; due to the usual things of buying a house and started to ‘do work’ that required me to ‘do work’ and started requiring me to travel and go abroad. I bought a house which needed restoring, that had at least one working party from London WRG with their red hats off. I think what finished me off was the 1980 Lee Valley National Rally which I somehow got dragged on to the committee of. I thought just as publicity officer which I was doing, but at the last minute this person that was running site services decided that he couldn’t cope with doing the electrics; I took that on, only to discover that all the generators that had been ordered were the wrong sort. That weekend and the weeks running up to that nearly finished me off with waterways. I kept in touch and I’ve turned up in places and done odd jobs such as editing magazines.

Q: You talked about getting more involved in publicity at the end of the ’70s – what kind of things were you doing?

A: The big project we did was Deepcut Dig, which really went to town on that to try and get not just local publicity but national publicity as well. We did pretty well, got The Times quite interested. Plus re-doing the WRG stand for rallies so it wasn’t just a Smalley excavator and a couple of wheelbarrows. Actually tried to explain what we were doing and why we were doing it. It set me off down that path, because it’s now my business; some of the experience I had doing publicity for WRG stood me in good stead for later on in work.

Q: What’s your relationship with Navvies?

A: When I moved here to Stroud in 1999 I bought a print and design company and at some point I made the rash offer, about 5 years ago when we got a shiny new colour machine, that we would do colour covers for Navvies which we’ve been doing ever since at... not exactly free, but a very advantageous rate for WRG. Also we’ve provided backup to John Hawkins: if, for any reason, WRG Print has not been able to print an issue we’ve done the whole lot for him.

Q: How would you say Navvies has changed over the years?

A: I just had a look back at a couple of the early ones, I was just trying to refresh my memory. Navvies, in the early days, did come over as a Graham Palmer rant, almost from front cover to back. Nowadays there may still be a small amount of Mike Palmer rant or Martin Ludgate rant but it doesn’t dominate. I think it’s like everything else WRG has done: it has become much more professional but has not got to a stage where it’s not unidentifiably WRG or Navvies. I think WRG should be professional in nature and approach (though not necessarily paid) but I think it would lose a lot if it wasn’t what people have come to expect of WRG: a little bit slightly revolutionary; not quite of the establishment. You’ve got to have some people around who are going to ask the awkward questions. I’ve just seen the results of the elections to the Canal & River Trust (C&RT) and Nigel Stevens is going to represent the boating industry. He will be asking one or two slightly difficult questions and I think that betrays his WRG origins! Co-operation is great, and long may it continue, perhaps the new charity has finally started to get the idea of volunteers and how they can be a help – they’re not just a cheap way of doing things? That’s yet to be seen.

page 22

Q: What are you most proud of

Q: Who has inspired you?

A: I suppose top of the list has to be

Chris Griffiths

about your involvement?

A: Being involved with the Cheshire Ring restoration, the reopening of those canals was an important time. I was quite pleased to be involved with starting WRG NW, on balance I think it’s helped WRG more than it’s hindered it! I was just really happy to be part of WRG at that point of its life.

Graham Palmer. He inspired me, he also frustrated me because his way of doing things was to decide what he was going to do and then feign tunnel vision until that Deepcut Dig: ‘WRG making this transition’ was done and not listen to anybody suggesting that his routes may not be the best. I mentioned earlier people who encouraged my early, sometimes misguided, involvement: people like Ted Keaveney and John Palmer senior. Beyond that, in the historical context the late Edward Paget-Tomlinson (from my boat museum involvement); for interest in boats, Tony Lewery.

And Charles Hadfield - I read loads of Hadfield. And a number of other people in WRG, if I name two or three I will have missed four more. Lots of people who had the knack of making a working party work.

Q: Which is your favourite derelict canal?

A: Derelict now? Or derelict then? Derelict then has to be the Rochdale Nine. There’s no doubt about that. Derelict now? I’m a big fan of city waterways, so pick a bit of the BCN that’s not currently navigable.

Q: Do you have any ‘do you remember the time when...’ stories?

A: That is so difficult. I remember turning up to accommodations that turned out to be sheds with doors that don’t close. I remember the couple of occasions on the Rochdale Nine where a small amount of propellant was used to start a timber fire, only a little too much was used. It’s the way firemen’s heads appear on bridge parapets and the helmets arrive in a row because somebody has thought there was a large explosion, when really it was only a minor, minor bang.

Deepcut Dig. I think that was where we saw WRG making this transition. I think Deepcut Dig was actually the start of new WRG – this was construction rather than clearance. That was really good to have been involved in and the scale of the thing made it very memorable.

Q: Where do you see WRG’s future?

A: I don’t see why WRG can’t continue in pretty much the way it has done. It will change, it’s changed enough in the 40 years that I’ve known it. Volunteer involvement in the waterways is here to stay, it’s sort of official now. But I don’t think that all the volunteer input is suddenly going to say “we’ll be friends of the C&RT, we don’t need WRG any more”. I don’t think that would work, I think people would drift away. It would leave high-and-dry the schemes that are not in the C&RT empire – it would ignore the pipedream schemes – it would have ignored the Huddersfield Narrow.

It’s difficult to know how the immediate future will lie, whether WRG will perhaps get more involved in the present British Waterways estate, because C&RT has said it’s going to increase volunteer involvement. I think WRG’s real role is in these pioneering schemes – starting out, or they’re long term and need somebody to keep the momentum. Such discussion wouldn’t be complete without mention of the Mont – it will happen one day. The pressure has to be kept up both in terms of volunteers working there and politically - I think it needs somebody like WRG to be still there. The IWA has got its act together over recent times, but they’ve got a really important role in the national picture and the lobbying of Parliament. We still need the local canal societies to chivvy around the edges and I think WRG plays a very important supporting role.

I hope you’re all continuing to enjoy reading these as much as I’m enjoying conducting them! I continue to be surprised at just how different they all are, I’m having a lovely time going round and meeting the interviewees. Next time: Rick Barnes.

Helen Gardner

page 23

Navvies diary Your guide to all the forthcoming work parties Apr 21/22 Apr 21/22 Apr 28/29 Apr 28 Sat Apr 28/29 May 4-10 May 5/6/7 May 5/6/7 May 5/6 May 12 Sat May 13 Sun May 19/20 May 19/20 May 26/27 Jun 2-5 Jun 2-4 Jun 9/10 Jun 9/10 Jun 9 Sat Jun 16/17 Jun 23/24 Jun 23-30

wrgBITM WRG NWPG wrgNW WRG WAT Essex WRG wrgNW KESCRG WRG WRG wrgBITM London WRG NWPG wrgBITM IWA/CCT London WRG KESCRG wrgNW wrgBITM London WRG WACT Camp

Jun 23/24 Jun 30-Jul 7 Jun 30-Jul 7 Jul 7/8 Jul 7/8 Jul 7-14 Jul 14 Sat Jul 14-21 Jul 14-21 Jul 15 Sun Jul 21/22 Jul 21/22 Jul 21-28 Jul 21-28 Jul 28/29

WRG Camp 201204 Camp 201205 Essex WRG London WRG Camp 201206 wrgNW Camp 201207 Camp 201208 WRG wrgBITM wrgNW Camp 201209 Camp 201210 London WRG

Wendover Arm: Bentomat lining, using the tried and trusted WAT meth BCN Cleanup: Walsall Canal Thames & Severn Canal: Bricklaying at Inglesham Lock ‘Paper Chase’ waste paper collection PAT Testing: Testing the Sammy Kit in Basingstoke Wendover Arm: Seven-day weekend. Bed & bank lining.

Wilts & Berks Canal: joint dig with WRG North West Wilts & Berks Canal: Joint dig with Essex WRG Wendover Arm: Whitehouses. Accom at Ivinghoe Aston VH Leaders Training Day: for Canal camp and work party leaders, at Rowin Committee & Board Meetings: Fillongley Rickmansworth Waterways Festival: Site Services.

Chesterfield Canal Wey & Arun Canal: Gennets Lock Boxmoor Canal Festival: (Wendover Arm Trust) EVENT CANCELLED Stroud-on-Water - IWA Trail-boat Festival: Cotswold Canals Mon & Brec Canal To be arranged: possibly Basingstoke Canal ‘Paper Chase’ waste paper collection Tool maintenance: at Dauntsey Lock Tool Maintenance Wey & Arun Canal: WACT Trust Camp at Dunsfold Construction of a boathouse, slipway and landing stages WRG Training Weekend: Lichfield Canal Monmouthshire Canal Wey & Arun Canal: NWPG camp. Dunsfold Summit.

Chelmer & Blackwater Navigation Basingstoke Canal: provisional Monmouthshire Canal ‘Paper Chase’ waste paper collection Manchester, Bolton & Bury Canal Wendover Arm: KESCRG Camp. Working at Whitehouses. Accom at Ivi Committee & Board Meetings: Rowington Wey & Arun Canal: Gunsmouth Island at Shalford Montgomery Canal: pre-pre-Camps Lancaster Canal Basingstoke Canal North Walsham & Dilham Canal

For details of diary dates beyond the end of this list ple

page 24

Canal Camps cost ÂŁ56 per week unless otherwise stated. Bookings for WRG Camps identified by a camp number e.g. 'Camp 2012-04' should go to WRG Canal Camps, Island House, Moor Road, Chesham HP5 1WA. Tel: 01494 783453, enquiries@wrg.org.uk. Diary compiled

by Dave Wedd. Tel: 01252 874437, dave.wedd@wrgbitm.org.uk

hod.

ngton.

Dave Wedd Bill Nicholson David McCarthy George Eycott Roger Leishman Frank Wallder David McCarthy Bobby Silverwood Helen Gardner Mike Palmer Dave Wedd Tim Lewis Bill Nicholson Dave Wedd

01252-874437 01494-783453 01844-343369 0161-740-2179 01442-874536 01992-636164 0161-740-2179 07971-814986 07989-425346 01564-785293 01252-874437 07802-518094 01844-343369 01252-874437

bookings@wrgBITM.org.uk enquiries@wrg.org.uk bill@nwpg.org.uk bungle@wrg.org.uk rwleishman@gmail.com essex@wrg.org.uk nw@wrg.org.uk bobby@kescrg.org.uk helen_gardner@hotmail.com mike.palmer@wrg.org.uk bookings@wrgBITM.org.uk london@wrg.org.uk bill@nwpg.org.uk bookings@wrgBITM.org.uk

Tim Lewis Bobby Silverwood David McCarthy Dave Wedd Tim Lewis George Whitehead

07802-518094 07971-814986 0161-740-2179 01252-874437 07802-518094 01626-775498

london@wrg.org.uk bobby@kescrg.org.uk

Jenny Black

01494-783453 01494-783453 01494-783453 01992-636164 07802-518094 01494-783453 0161-740-2179 01494-783453 01494-783453 01564-785293 01252-874437 0161-740-2179 01494-783453 01494-783453 07802-518094

training@wrg.org.uk enquiries@wrg.org.uk enquiries@wrg.org.uk essex@wrg.org.uk london@wrg.org.uk enquiries@wrg.org.uk

Frank Wallder Tim Lewis David McCarthy

inghoe Aston.

Mike Palmer Dave Wedd David McCarthy

Tim Lewis

bookings@wrgBITM.org.uk london@wrg.org.uk georgewhitehead1@tiscali.co.uk

enquiries@wrg.org.uk enquiries@wrg.org.uk mike.palmer@wrg.org.uk bookings@wrgBITM.org.uk nw@wrg.org.uk enquiries@wrg.org.uk enquiries@wrg.org.uk london@wrg.org.uk

ease contact diary compiler Dave Wedd: see top of page

page 25

Navvies diary

Canal societies’ regular working parties

Mobile groups' socials: phone to confirm London WRG: 7:30pm on Tues 11 days before dig. 'Star Tavern' Belgrave Mews West, London. Tim Lewis 07802-518094 NWPG: 7:30pm on 3rd Tue of month at the 'Hope Tap', West end of Friar St. Reading. Phil Dray 07956 185305

Every Tuesday BCA Basingstoke Canal Chris Healy 01252-370073 Once per month: pls check BCNS BCN waterways Mike Rolfe 07763-171735 2nd Sunday & alternate Thurs BCS Buckingham area Athina Beckett 01908-661217 Anytime inc. weekdays BCT Aqueduct section Gerald Fry 01288-353273 Every Mon and Wed CCT Cotswold (W depot) Ron Kerby 01453-836018 Every mon am Thu pm CCT Cotswold (E end) John Maxted 01285-861011 Various dates CCT Cotswold Phase 1a Jon Pontefract 07986-351412 Every Sunday ChCT Various sites Mick Hodgetts 01246-620695 Every Tuesday CSCT Chichester Canal Carley Sitwell 01243 773002 Every Tue & Wed C&BN Chelmer & Blackwater John Gale 01376-334896 4th Sunday of month ECPDA Langley Mill Michael Golds 0115-932-8042 Second Sun of month FIPT Foxton Inclined Plane Mike Beech 0116-279-2657 2nd weekend of month GCRS Grantham Canal Ian Wakefield 0115-989-2128 2nd Sat of month GWCT Nynehead Lift Denis Dodd 01823-661653 Tuesdays H&GCT Oxenhall Brian Fox 01432 358628 Weekends H&GCT Over Wharf House Maggie Jones 01452 618010 Wednesdays H&GCT Over Wharf House Wilf Jones 01452 413888 Weekends H&GCT Hereford Aylestone Martin Danks 01432 344488 Every Sunday if required IWPS Bugsworth Basin Ian Edgar 0161-427 7402 Every day KACT Bradford-on-Avon Derrick Hunt 01225-863066 2nd Sunday of month LCT Lancaster N. Reaches Paul Shaw 01524-35685 1st, 2nd, 4th Sun + 3rd Sat LHCRT Lichfield Sue Williams 01543-671427 3rd Sunday of month LHCRT Hatherton Denis Cooper 01543-374370 Last weekend of month MBBCS Creams Paper Mill Steve Dent 07802-973228 Two Sundays per month NWDCT N Walsham Canal David Revill 01603-738648 2nd & last Sundays PCAS Pocklington Canal Paul Waddington 01757-638027 Every Wed and 1st Sat RGT Stowmarket Navigtn.

Martin Bird 01394-380765 2nd Sunday of month SCARS Sankey Canal Colin Greenall 01744-731746 1st Sunday of month SCCS Combe Hay Locks Derrick Hunt 01225-863066 Two weekends per month SHCS Basingstoke Canal Duncan Paine 01252-614125 Last weekend of month SCS Stover Canal George Whitehead 01626-775498 2nd Sunday of month SNT Sleaford Navigation Mel Sowerby 01522-856810 1st weekend of month SUCS Newhouse Lock Mike Friend 01948-880723 Every Tuesday morning TMCA Thames & Medway C Brian Macnish 01732-823725 Every Sunday & Thurs WACT varied construction Eric Walker 023-9246-3025 Mondays (2 per month) WACT tidying road crossings John Empringham 01483-562657 Wednesdays WACT Tickner's Heath Depot John Smith 01903-235790 Wednesdays WACT maintenance work Peter Jackman 01483-772132 Sundays mainly WACT Loxwood Link Kev Baker 02380-861074 Thursdays WACT Winston Harwood Grp Tony Clear 01903-774301 Various dates WACT Hedgelaying (Oct-Mar) Keith Nichols 01403-753882 last w/e (Fri-Thu) WAT Drayton Beauchamp Roger Leishman 01442-874536 Every weekend WBCT Wilts & Berks Canal Rachael Banyard 01249-892289 Please send any additions corrections or deletions to diary compiler Dave Wedd (see previous page)

Abbreviations used in Diary: BCA BCNS BCS BCT ChCT CBN CSCT CCT EAWA ECPDA FIPT GCRS GWCT H&GCT IWPS KACT

page 26

Basingstoke Canal Authority Birmingham Canal Navigations Soc. Buckingham Canal Society Bude Canal Trust Chesterfield Canal Trust Chelmer & Blackwater Navigation Chichester Ship Canal Trust Cotswolds Canals Trust East Anglian Waterways Association Erewash Canal Pres. & Devt. Assoc.

Foxton Inclined Plane Trust Grantham Canal Restoration Society Grand Western Canal Trust Hereford & Gloucester Canal Trust Inland Waterways Protection Society Kennet & Avon Canal Trust

KESCRG LCT LHCRT MBBCS NWPG NWDCT PCAS RGT SCARS SCCS SHCS SCS SNT SUCS TMCA WACT WAT WBCT

Kent & E Sussex Canal Rest. Group Lancaster Canal Trust Lichfield & Hatherton Canals Rest'n Trust Manchester Bolton & Bury Canal Society Newbury Working Party Group North Walsham & Dilham Canal Trust Pocklington Canal Amenity Society River Gipping Trust Sankey Canal Restoration Society Somersetshire Coal Canal Society Surrey & Hants Canal Society Stover Canal Society Sleaford Navigation Trust Shropshire Union Canal Society Thames & Medway Canal Association Wey & Arun Canal Trust Wendover Arm Trust Wilts & Berks Canal Trust

Letters

Could the Sahara come to the aid of the Montgomery Canal? And no, this isn’t a reference to water shortages...

Dear Martin, Montgomery Canal Lining Re-visited

non-woven geo-fabric material pre-coated with Sahara for applications where a nonleak, self-healing (puncture resistant) water blocking barrier is required. See http:// hur.com/en/about-hr/locations/europe/hrchempharm-uk.html for details. As far as is known this material has not been used for canal lining before.

Pertinent properties of the lining material are: 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

The cost is about £5.50 per sq. metre, much the same as Bentonite Nothing is required between the liner and the bare earth Nothing is required between the liner and the concrete block over burden The liner can be laid in puddles and can be rained on. It gets very slippery when wet but will revert to its normal state on drying out.

It does not require covering to be effective but, of course, in a working canal it does require some form of protection.

Helen Gardner

Last year, after a week as a volunteer on the Mont lining project with WRG I had an opportunity to compare the methods being used either side of Price’s Bridge (Navvies Oct/Nov 2011). The main drawback on the method being used by WRG was concluded to be the extensive effort in machinery and manpower required to build up the 300mm of earth to protect the lining, whereas the drawback of the SUCS method was the investment in money and manpower needed to protect the lining with dense concrete blocks laid on edge. These drawbacks also meant in each case that lining progress was rather slow.

Using volunteers, the recovery of canal beds will at the very least require the use of heavy machinery to shape the bed profile and volunteer effort to lay some form of impermeable material and its protection.

The trick would seem to be to develop a lining scheme which would keep costs to the minimum and be as simple as possible to allow significant progress.

In a real leap forward for them, (and perhaps for others involved in canal lining elsewhere) SUCS has over the winter sourced a new ‘wonder’ lining material called ‘Sahara Terraseal’. Sahara is described as a waterbased polymeric fluid that can be coated on to most supporting matrices to deliver a nonpermeable barrier to water, with Terraseal The new lining being described as a

to the editor

material could reduce the need for covering

page 27

Letters to the editor The new liner has allowed SUCS to change to laying their 4in dense concrete blocks from being on edge to flat and with no other supporting lining material to lay on or above the liner, have made considerable savings in lining costs (not shaping) (at a finger in the air guess, I would say about 40%) and about doubled their lining rate, giving them the enviable problem of how to shape the channel fast enough to keep ahead of the lining team. So costs are down and progress is up, a rather unusual situation!

If I were a Project Manager I would certainly be rather excited about the arrival of this new material (as Mike Friend must be!) and those in the organisation involved with raising money and writing the cheques ought to be pretty happy too.

With many volunteer groups now involved with canal lining there must be every hope the wealth of intelligence, imagination and lateral thinking being brought to bear will bring about even further cost effective, innovative, simple solutions.

J J Price A Novice Volunteer Dear Martin Can anyone tell me whether heat has a permanent effect on puddle clay? I ask because quite often when we are scrub bashing a dry bit of canal we have big bonfires in the canal bed, probably burning for at least two days.

I was told once that if a fire is burnt for that length of time, the heat penetrates at least two to three feet down into the soil, and can take several weeks to cool down afterwards.

I’ve noticed that when we’ve had fires on the bank of the Wilts & Berks, which is natural clay, the soil when it cools down seems to totally change in chemical consistency, and becomes dry, loose and brittle (and often orange coloured). It has none of the stickiness of clay.

Having bonfires in the bed of a canal without natural clay, it doesn’t matter because before it is re-watered, presumably clay will be brought in (or it is lined), but in

page 28

Will too much heat turn your puddle clay into a brick lining? And why isn’t ‘winding’ pronounced like ‘winding’? an area of natural clay I’m told that it is hoped that the original puddle will be intact and will be re-used.

Di Smurthwaite Dear Martin Why ‘Winding’ as in ‘Breeze’ rather than ‘Winding’ as in ‘Clock’?

When I first heard someone pronounce ‘winding’ as in breeze (B) I assumed that it was a mispronunciation but I now fully realise I was mistaken. With a naval background I am very used to the term but pronounced as in clock (C). The term is usually applied when a ship is lying alongside a jetty and there is the need to turn it (her) round to have full access to the other side, say for painting, normally using tugs. In that case the connection of the term in English with the act seems straightforward as with turning a key to wind a clock. However, winding (B) seems a term disconnected from the act of turning round a boat. Might it perhaps have developed from winding (C) through some strong regional accents? As a child I certainly remember someone who pronounced bus as buzz, so it might well be possible, or might there be some other explanation?

Best regards J J Price The explanation I’ve heard is that it was called ‘winding’ as in the wind that blows, because in the days before powered craft, when boats would be turned using poles and ropes, it made sense to take advantage of any wind to help. If the wind’s blowing from behind you, you would put the front of the boat into the winding hole and let the wind blow the back end round; if it was in your face you would go past the winding hole, back into it (using your pole) and allow the wind to bring the front end round.

I have to say, however, that I’ve never seen any scholarly research into the derivation; it’s just ‘one of those things that old boaters knew’. Can anyone shed any light?

The Editor

We start our regular round-up of restoration progress on the Manchester Bolton & Bury Canal, where they’re mending milestones and relaying towpaths

Progress

Manchester Bolton & Bury

Salford Towpath Re-surfacing

A Tale of Two Milestones Two of our quarter-milestones have been put back in place in 2011.

About ten years ago a member reported that the front of milestone 3 at Agecroft Road Bridge had broken off; probably due to frost damage. John & Margaret Fletcher went to collect the broken piece, and it was then kept in John’s shed.

The towpath re-surfacing works seemed to provide an obvious time to restore the milestone, and with advice and materials from Agecroft stonemason Kevin Crowley we put the fragment back in place.

Then over several days I went back to fill in the deeper cracks with patching mortar.

A second milestone (6¾) was reinstated in Ringley in 2011.

Paul Hindle (MB&BCS)

Pictures by MBBCS

The length re-surfaced runs from Park House Bridge to Lumbs Aqueduct. This length of towpath was often blocked by vegetation which prevented its use as a path or forced walkers onto the top of the canal bank next to a drop into water or the dry bed of the canal. Work started in October 2011; the new towpath surface is typically 2 metres wide and is constructed with at least 150mm depth of crushed limestone. Action has been taken to eliminate Japanese Knotweed. The towpath is not currently a right of way but a legal agreement accompanying the work will change the status of the towpath to a permissive path. The Society has cleared the canal bed of trees at the same time.

This is intended to the first phase of a project which will create a walking/cycling route along the line of the canal from Princes Bridge in Salford to Clifton Country Park and into Bury. The restoration of the towpath would not conflict with full restoration of the canal which remains the long-term aim.

Funding for the surfacing the remainder of the towpath to the Salford/Bury boundary at Clifton Aqueduct is actively being sought.

David Greenfield (Salford City Council)

Volunteers work alongside the new towpath

The damaged milestone under repair

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through the woods at Whitehouses.

Work re-commenced on Wednesday and Thursday and included carrying out essential fence repairs. At the beginning of the work party we had discovered that some light fingered person/s had removed every other road pin from a length of plastic fencing along the top of the towpath bank and these had to be replaced as well as making repairs to the wind damaged plastic fence.

Wendover Arm Work continued on clearing both banks from January Working Party:To avoid damagLittle Tring where Essex WRG had worked on ing the ground conditions in Stages 2/3 west the Saturday and scaffold tubes were cut and of Bridge 4A that have been left ready for drilled with bolt holes ready for the addiprofiling in better weather, work concentional information boards that are to be trated on bank clearance in the Whitehouses erected at the March working party. Not one area including removing the bulge in the of our most productive working parties but a bank opposite the former outlets from the number of minor works out of the way to old pumping station. leave us clear for re-lining to carry on.

It had been thought that the bulge had Roger Leishman, Restoration Director been constructed to protect the towpath bank rwleishman@gmail.com from the discharge of water from the pumping station outlets. This was discounted as the bulge was found to contain rubble that was obviously from building demolition at Whitehouses, something that happened over 100 years after the pumping station closed in 1836. During the clearance at Whitehouses two discoveries were made.

Firstly a Grand Junction Canal Company boundary marker post in front of the boundary fence that runs behind the back of the Whitehouses site. Secondly, it was known that a well existed near the former pumping station. During the same clearance operations the well was located.

February Working Party: This was a work party of mixed fortunes due to the weather. On Friday and Saturday work commenced on clearing a path through the wood Discoveries: the boundary post and the well between Whitehouses and Bridge 4 to create both an access route to future water control functions at Whitehouses once the canal is re-watered and to act as a nature trail through the woods. The opportunity was also taken to level off the ground behind the mooring wall at Bridge 4. On the Saturday we were joined by Essex WRG who made progress on removing new growth on the banks between Little Tring and Bridge 4.

Sunday was a different story! 4"- 6" snow had fallen and Essex WRG wisely decided to head for home rather than risk deteriorating road conditions for their journey back to Essex. A few hardy volunteers who had actually managed to get to Little Tring completed stump pulling from the path

Progress

Pictures by WAT

Wendover Arm

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Meanwhile down on the Grand Union Buckingham Arm, the Canal Society has acquired a nature reserve and a pair of second hand lock gates...

Buckingham Canal

Progress Buckingham Canal the hiring in of plant etc. This will again hopefully give our volunteers the chance to learn new skills such as driving diggers and dumper trucks.

At the same time plans are also going ahead with preparations to re-water the canal at the Cosgrove end. Discussions are ongoing with BW and our volunteers continue to clear the bed of the canal, where we hope to do some-re-profiling and install earth bunds ready to re-water the first section and test for leakage - when conditions and water resources allow!

Again we invite anyone in our area to come and view all the current work being carried out on our work parties, which are held on alternate Thursdays and on the second Sunday of each month. At present most of the work parties are being held at Cosgrove. Email info@buckinghamcanal.org.uk for more information.

Athina Beckett

BCS

Buckingham Canal Society now has the lease document for the Berks Bucks & Oxon Wildlife Trust Nature Reserve near Hyde Lane Lock, so its officially ours for the next seven years at least. So on Friday 27th January we took delivery of a set of redundant lock gates from the Northampton Arm where the gates were being renewed. British Waterways arranged delivery on a low-loader to Home Farm, opposite the Nature Reserve, where BCS had arranged for a telehandler to take the gates down the track to the Nature Reserve.

They have been placed in the canal bed for the time being and will be installed at Hyde Lane lock at a later date. They will not be working gates, but will give an impression to the public walking along the Ouse Valley Way of what the canal will look like once restored.

With the telehandler on site some of our volunteers took the opportunity to have a go at driving it as we had a WRG training instructor on site as well.

The planning application to re-water our Bourton Meadow site has now been submitted. We are planning some serious fundraising over the next few months to get this stretch of canal in water. In the current climate large grants may be hard to come by so a lot of the preparation work at Bourton Meadow may have to be carried out by volunteers, The second hand gates arrive from Northampton which will involve

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Progress Sussex Ouse

“Without Paul’s drive, practical skills, ingenuity and generous giving of his time, equipment and money, the restoration project would not have achieved the progress it has” Sussex Ouse Paul Morris R.I.P.

Pictures by SORT

It is with much regret and sadness that I have to report that Paul Morris, the project manager and driving force behind the restoration at Isfield Lock, died on 1st February following a short illness.

It is no exaggeration to say that without Paul’s drive, practical skills, ingenuity and generous giving of his time, equipment and money, the restoration project would not have achieved the progress it has during the last six years.

The work at the lock will continue but all the volunteers Paul Morris relaxing during a break from work at Isfield know they are going to miss the wealth of knowledge and the quiet supervision the ever-present Paul brought to the restoration worksite. The contribution he made to the project should never be forgotten. The Sussex Ouse Restoration Trust has lost an irreplaceable project manager and a good friend.

Our condolences and thoughts go to Paul’s wife Linda and his family during this diffiThe new work site at Iron Gate Lock in December before work began... cult time.

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As restoration continues at Isfield Lock, the Sussex Ouse Restoration Trust starts work on a new project to clear Iron Gates Lock

Progress Sussex Ouse

Restoration Update – Isfield Lock the work as a full restoration project, the Having last reported that the site at Isfield was locked and secured for the winter months, the determination of the volunteers, and some reasonable weather, has enabled a certain level of minor restoration work and preparation for the summer months to continue down on the Sussex Ouse.

Planning is underway as to the best way to achieve the 2012 target, namely repairing the large hole that exists in the fore bay of the chamber. Until this is done the rebuilding of the western wall and west lower wing wall cannot continue. This task is the primary restoration target for 2012

A Second Front: Iron Gate Lock

work has enabled the NT, SORT and visitors to view, learn and appreciate the history of the lock and the Ouse Navigation.

The NT plan to allow supervised access to the site for visitors to Sheffield Park Gardens this summer and to provide a selfguided walk leaflet that includes the River Ouse and the lock. They also plan to provide an information board at the site.

SORT will continue the work at Iron Gate lock for few weeks more before turning their attention back to Isfield. Anyone interested in helping with any aspect of restoration or the Trust’s aims, and that includes fund raising and other non-physical tasks, should contact SORT via their web site on sxouse.org.uk or contact Ted Lintott on 01444-414413 or tedl@talktalk.net Terry Owen

Since the New Year a group of hardy and keen volunteers have ventured out to the remote Iron Gate Lock site that is situated at the southern extremity of the land adjoining and belonging to the National Trust’s Sheffield Park Gardens.

Prior to the work the site was completely overgrown and hidden from view.

But under the supervision of NT staff the working parties have cleared the site and after just a few weeks the difference is for all to see. Although there are no plans at this ...and in February after five weeks of site clearance work stage to continue

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Progress Sleaford and Mont Sleaford Navigation December 18th saw the last SNT work party of the year at Haverholme Lock. A slightly low key affair possibly due to Christmas shopping or the fact that it was very cold.

More progress was made reducing the tree upstream of the bywash that was started in November. However, our careful planning in November came unstuck. We had used the Tirfor to pull the roots out onto the side of the river and leave them to dry making them lighter and easier to move. This was spoiled by the river level rising and flooding over all the area where we had been working. We therefore spent quite a bit of time using the Tirfor to move those roots before starting on the tree again.

The lack of available light stopped us finishing the job but there is only a small amount left to do next time. Just one branch and some trimming of ones that we have already cut off on previous occasions.

In the meantime two volunteers were working on the old bywash structure removing the remains of an old bush and its roots.

They also removed the last part of the original structure to prepare for the new foundations which will be necessary for the new walls and floor of the rebuilt bywash and weir.

Shropshire Union Canal Society The end of the ‘restoration season’ gives us a chance not only to rest our collective weary limbs but also to reflect on the Society’s restoration effort during 2011. As most readers will know the work is concentrated on 450m of the Montgomery between Redwith Bridge and Pryce’s Bridge. The work started in March 2008. By the start of 2011 the entire 450m of stone wash wall on the towpath side was finished, together with 130 m of reinforced concrete retaining wall located on the offside at the Redwith end.

Much of the work on Pryce’s Bridge itself, including the invert, was also complete.

The first three work parties in January,

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Attacking the tree by Haverholme Lock February and March included both hedge laying and work on the channel. Some 150m of hedge along the towpath was finished (just!) by the end of March. The work was difficult because some of the hedge was disturbed during the work by contractors to pile and rebuild the bank in this area before 2008, with the result that the hedge growth appeared at different levels on the embankment. The result, however, is a very high quality piece of hedge laying and is a tribute to the 40 volunteers who contributed to the work over the course of the winter.

Work on shaping the channel literally got stuck in the mud. The problem was not only the rain, but also both the volume of ground water and the resulting level of the water table.

A technique had been developed in 2010 of excavating the base of the canal and then installing a land drain which permitted water to be pumped away. Although the idea of putting a drain in the bottom of a canal might sound a bit counter intuitive, it in fact works. The drain enables water to be disposed of quickly and hence permits vehicle movement without excessive damage to the base of the channel.

The problem in those early months was that it was so wet that we decided to dig out the base and leave the drain until later. Big mistake.....

We arrived in March to find our carefully excavated channel looked like, of all things, a canal!

It took us a whole day to pump that lot out and we learnt the lesson.

From April onwards all the workforce

returned to construction or channel shaping work. But something else happened in April – our luck with the weather changed. The work party was held in glorious sunny dry weather and this pattern continued more or less for the whole of the restoration season.

It had a major influence on progress.

We began by finishing the facing of the offside retaining wall with stone and this continued until the topping-out ceremony in July. This finished the stone wall building which began on our first day on the site in March 2008. Just about every volunteer contributed to the wall building in some way over this time. At the start only a couple of volunteers actually laid the stones but by the end some 25 had (aided by training and experience) become competent in this task. The wall builders were backed up by the unsung heroes of the mortar mixing and transport gang who did one of the hardest physical jobs on site.

The retaining wall construction involved varied expertise in excavation, reinforced concrete and block work as well as stonework, and all were done to a high standard.

The output of the channel shaping gang from April onwards accelerated with every passing dry month. The work consisted initially of excavating the bottom of the channel to just above finished grade and making sure that this was level. The French drain was then constructed. This esotericsounding device consists of a half metre deep trench which is then lined with a geotextile. A perforated plastic drain pipe is inserted and the trench refilled with small sized stone known as ‘pea gravel’. A sump, also made of plastic pipe, is constructed at intervals to enable water to be pumped out.

The fact was though that very little pumping was necessary and then only to lower the groundwater levels rather than to dispose of rainwater. The other two parts of the digging gang’s task was shaping the sloping banks of the channel, and building about 80m of bank where none existed. The latter is in the centre of the length near the culvert. Two slopes had to be formed – one about three metres long on the offside and a smaller version on the towpath side. Each had to be shaped accurately to provide the profile of the finished channel. As with all jobs practice made perfect. The spoil from the excavation was moved by dumper to the site of the new bank, and spread in layers and compacted.

Care was taken to make sure that the bank was constructed to more or less its finished

slope so as to minimise the amount of subsequent work necessary. It is fair to say that progress on all parts of the earthmoving exceeded all expectations during the year with well over 100m shaped.

Many of the erstwhile wall-builders were redeployed onto the work on the towpath. A new fence was completed along the whole length. Its design was such that work could be done on the towpath without adjusting the position of the fence. The other effect was to make the towpath into a more walker and cycle friendly corridor, judging from the many complimentary comments of people from both groups. The surface of the path also received attention. In the first instance it was thoroughly weeded. If anyone has doubts about the dedication of the Society’s volunteers this should dispel it, since the task involved kneeling on the rough stone surface and removing the offending plants by hand! The final task was surfacing with stone dust dressing and rolling the surface. This job was in fact finished about one hour before knocking-off time on the last day in November. The rolled stone dust is a very effective surface as demonstrated by the fact that completed sections are still, at the time of writing, in pristine condition undamaged by foot or cycle traffic.

And finally, the bit we had all been waiting for, the lining of the channel. Two small lengths of channel were lined in 2008 (at Redwith Bridge) and last year (at Pryce’s Bridge), but these were, respectively, a trial and a demonstration. In October we did the first ‘production run’ of lining. The work party got off to a hectic start with the arrival of 2 trucks carrying 2000 concrete blocks. Also arriving was a mini-bus carrying 17 personnel from RAF Shawbury. Each course run at Shawbury undertakes a community day and we benefited from the combined muscle of No 386 Joint Air Traffic Control Course. The result of this was to smash the record for attendance on a single day with 44 people on site. Just over 15m of channel at the Pryce’s Bridge end was lined and it is fair to say that by close of play on Sunday there were some very tired volunteers on site. However this task will, like all the others we have tackled, speed up as our accumulated experience guides us to improved working methods.

So, those are the highlights of a restoration year that has been both successful and great fun. Roll on 2012.

David Carter

page 35

Progress Lichfield Canal

On the Lichfield, they’re digging holes in the park as the first stage of a diversion to get the canal under two main roads...

Engineering sketches have been prepared for the proposed tunnels under both Darnford Park (where the canal is being A5 and A51. Even though such work is not diverted to facilitate crossing the A51 and in immediate prospect it is essential that we A38 main roads) is still the main focus of know the correct alignments for the channel activity. Trust volunteers have been working construction in the park which should start in co-operation with Lichfield District to this year. Four trial pits have been dug and a prepare for the diversion of the foul sewer sandstone base reached. Design of the lock which is the essential first stage towards staircase will probably be modelled on the building the new channel. Only preliminary Droitwich experience. forestry management can be undertaken We still hope to complete the purchase until the District Council has sanctioned the of the track from Cappers Bridge to above full scheme. There are planning issues under Lock 30 in the near future. These discusconsideration, and applications for funding sions have taken far longer than expected are in an advanced stage of preparation. As mostly because it has been difficult to estabever, there must be many hours spent in lish the exact boundaries from the vendor. discussion and negotiation before work can Thought has also been given to the piling be started on the ground. around the lift-bridge where trial rewatering took place several years ago. The culvert will also need Lichfield Canal further investigation and remedial work.

Huddlesford Lock 25 and pound 26 also still require to Lichfield further work to enTo Fradley Coventry sure water retention.

Canal Detailed discussions with the Environment Planned diversion via Huddlesford Agency are on-going two new road bridges Junction to resolve floodwater and staircase locks control and water Cappers Lane extraction rights.

To Coventry 30 We continue to 29 monitor any possible Lichfield Liftbridge site implications that the 27-8 building of the HS2 A51 Darnford high speed rail route Park might have on the 24 25 26 canal. Although the To Ogley current plans show no threat to the Original route restored waterway obstructed close attention will be Tamworth Road Locks paid to the detailed 24-26: current main construction plans worksite is below locks when these become available.

A3 8

Lichfield Canal

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...while on the Gipping Baylham Mill Lock and Pipps Ford Lock Bridge continue to receive attention from local volunteers River Gipping

Progress River Gipping very helpful offer from a local landowner to provide the timber and working premises to fabricate the structure. Subject to obtaining the necessary approvals, this should be our next major project , through the Autumn of 2012 Martin Bird Restoration Manager, River Gipping Trust

Pictures by River Gipping Trust

The relatively warm and dry start to the winter period has been a great help, and even the later cold snap has only affected one Wednesday work party, when temperatures got too cold for bricklaying.

We are still concentrating our efforts on the repair of the accommodation bridge at Pipps Ford, near Needham Market, and have now pretty much completed rebuilding one of the four spandrel walls. Work has now started on the re-build of a second wall, and clearing away damaged brickwork from the remaining walls. We have also started to clear the bridge deck itself of an accumulation of soil and roots.

This has shown the deck is not so Above: the bridge at Pipps Ford Lock under repair badly deteriorated as Below: the sluice to be rebuilt at Baylham Mill Lock we had feared, but the original steel handrails are corroded and bent away from shape, and we will need to decide whether it is feasible to repair these, or more likely remove them and replace with a timber substitute.

Meanwhile Saturday workparties continue with finishing off at Baylham Mill. We have been asked by the owner of the mill to reconstruct the old sluice mechanism, and we are awaiting the agreement of the Environment Agency to our plans before we can move ahead with this. It looks to be an exciting project. We plan to replace the decayed wooden frame with local grown native oak, and have had a

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Dumpers

Bungle reminds us that (whatever the old hands might say) dumpers should have working brakes - and introduces some new driver authorisation categories

Say ‘no’ to dodgy brakes!

Important information on dumpers Over the last year we have had a couple of incidents reported with dumpers. One of the common factors was after the event someone saying “yes, we noticed that problem earlier”. It is important that if you find a problem with any item of kit you report it and if it is safety related (brakes on a dumper for example) you STOP USING IT until the problem is fixed.

Brakes A particular issue is people expecting older equipment to be in poor condition. Just because a dumper is old does not mean it should have ineffective brakes: 1960s two wheel drive Winget dumpers can have very effective brakes as long as they are looked after. If you get on one and it won’t stop

properly, park it up and make sure no-one uses it until they are fixed.

And while we are on the subject, it is important that you make sure the brakes work BEFORE you need them rather than after you have set off down the slope...

That is not to say that just because something is shiny it is in good mechanical condition. New equipment needs to be looked after and checked just as much as older kit.

So in summary: all equipment needs to be maintained to a safe standard, no matter what its age. If you find something unsafe, don’t use it.

New categories On a related subject, we will shortly be revising the dumper categories on the WRG Driver Authorisation scheme. Currently category 8a covers two wheel drive dump-

Rear steer dumper: was category 8a, now 24

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Under 7 tonne artic: was 8b, now 25

ers; 8b is four wheel drive dumpers under 7 tonnes; and 8c is four wheel driver dumpers over 7 tonnes AND rear tipping dumpers.

When we set the scheme up, the small two wheel drive dumpers were very common and the majority of people being trained either started on them, or at least had access to one to gain experience before or at the same time as getting the 8b qualification.

Likewise, we rarely saw dumpers over 7 tonnes and anyone driving one had probably driven one of the rear tip machines that were about at the time.

This is no longer the case. So we will be dropping category 8 altogether and introducing three new categories: 24

25

that the operating principles are the same. Obviously (as with any other bit of kit) if you are not comfortable driving larger models, then just because it is on your ticket doesn’t mean you have to drive it. Just say “no”.

26

Rear tipping wheeled dumpers.

These are now their own category; this is not the same as tracked dumpers (which may be rear tipping) which already have their own category (23 if you are interested).

If you have category 8 on your ticket you will shortly be getting a letter from Head Office asking you to re-apply for whichever catRear steer dumpers These are the egory of dumpers that you are competent in. old school, normally (but not necessar- From the beginning of the main summer ily) two wheel drive machines, e.g. camps season (30th June 2012) category 8 Winget 2s, Thwaites Nimline etc. will no longer be valid on any of our sites.

As ever, if you would like training on a particular item of plant or just a refresher if Articulated steer forward tipping dumpers These are the standard four you haven’t used something for some time, wheel drive dumpers that are now most whether it be dumpers or any other plant, commonly used on sites, indeed most get in contact with us and we will arrange operators will now not have seen any something either at the training weekend or other type. You will notice that we are on a local site. no longer distinguishing between over/ George Eycott under 7 tonnes; we have taken the view bungle@wrg.org.uk

Over 7 tonne artic: was 8c, now 25

Rear tip: was 8c, now 26

page 39

Plant Rebuilding a diesel mixer

John has now completed the stripping down and rebuilding work and progressed on to reassembling the mixer

bearings onto the input drive shaft. Because of their type I had to ensure that they were Ah yes, the mixer. Yes its still moving on, pressed-in in the correct order otherwise albeit rather slowly. they can be pushed apart. I had managed to I guess the best place to start is to reclaim one of the bearings as I stripped the follow directly on from the end of the last machine. This casting, complete with gear report, where I was starting to fabricate the and input shaft was then bolted to the main steel channel and angle iron that will form chassis. the new cross-head (this is the piece that I then turned my attention to the castcarries the swivel pin for steering the mixer). ing at the other end of the mixer. This incorHaving tack welded all of the pieces porates an internal gear and a small pinion, together I arranged for a company near me that, when the large hand wheel is operated to fully weld it all together; I had also added the drum can be up-ended in order for the a piece of round steel to help support the mix to be tipped out. spindle that the steering pivots in. The This casting has two semi-circular flat finished item was then bolted into place in pieces of steel to cover the gearing, but the main chassis and also welded to the when I came to bolt these into place only a support struts. I haven’t done much welding few of the screws lined up correctly. I for quite a few years so this part was quite a checked some of the photos (no, not Sepia) challenge, using both electric arc and tig. that I had taken when I first took on the task The rim of the mixing drum had a piece of reconditioning the mixer, only to find that missing, and so whilst the welding kit was the guard wasn’t properly fitted at that time, available I formed a piece of suitable bar and presumably had always been like it. (really a piece of reinforcing bar) and welded The small fixing brackets were cut off that into place using the tig machine. and repositioned. Where the threads had The next task was to grease and fit the been stripped these were either welded up and re drilled or just opened up to the next convenient size.

One of the longitudinal 4” x 3” channels that support the drum bearing block was bolted into place to ensure that the two end castings were correctly aligned.

I have now pressed the bearings onto the drum shaft and fitted the support casting. Once again these were given a good load of grease and fitted in the correct order because they are of a similar Pictures by John Hawkins

Rebuilding a mixer - part 5

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to those on the input shaft.

The next major task will be to find the best and safest method to lift the drum, complete with the bearings and casting.

Unfortunately I cannot reverse the stripdown process - largely because the bearings are now all complete on the drum.

If that doesn’t work then I‘ve a got an even bigger problem… but that’s all in the future.

John Hawkins

Opposite page: the new crosshead to support the swivel pin for steering the mixer is fabricated from angle iron and channel. Above: the crosshead has been fixed in place and the mixer chassis is supported on a jack while it is lowered onto the swivel pin. Above right: the tow bar has been reattached. Below: the drum receiving attention prior to re-fitting assuming John works out how to do it!

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tween the bottom of Private Drive and Troughbrook Road.

Since being uncovered by the work party, the Coal Authority have been doing further works on the entrance to the underground canal. This is their report to the Chesterfield Canal Trust.

“I just thought I would keep you updated re the above mine entry. Our contractors earlier in the week cleared the silt from the ditch outbye of the adit and were able to reduce the water level by about 400mm exposing more of the adit. The adit entrance has also been cleared of vegetation in readiness for our bricklayers to return to make good the masonry and fix a permanent grille, when weather conditions permit. On completion, the immediate area around the adit mouth, where there are vertical falls, will receive a post and rail security fence. Hopefully these completed works will be visible from the canal towpath for all to view.”

Hollingwood?

What’s that, then?

The Hollingwood Common Canal

Pictures by CCT

Not to be confused with the Hollinwood Canal (a branch of the Ashton to the east of Manchester) this is Hollingwood with a ‘g’, in Derbyshire. The following report has been adapted from the Chesterfield Canal Trust’s magazine The Cuckoo.

Over the winter our Chesterfield Canal Trust Work Party have been scrub-bashing at Hollingwood, and in the process they have revealed part of the Hollingwood Common Canal. This was an underground canal that ran for nearly two miles beneath what is now the Hollingwood Estate and Ringwood Hall to Westwood. It was a mine canal (like those at Worsley on the Bridgewater Canal) used to bring out coal. It was not connected to the main Chesterfield Canal; in fact where it emerged from its tunnel and met the Chesterfield it was at a different level, one foot lower. The coal was trans-shipped from the 21ft canal tunnel boats to the full-sized 70ft boats on the main canal at a wharf. This was on the old line of the Chesterfield Canal, before the 1892 cut was built as one of a series of diversions in connection with the construction of the Great Central Railway. It is on this new cut that the present day restored Hollingwood Lock lies.

It was reported in 1811 that ‘The tunnel is six foot high, five feet nine inches wide with two foot of water The boats are twenty one foot long, three feet six inches wide and hold seven cones or boxes containing twenty to twenty two hundredweight of coal each’; although it is also reported that originally it was dug for ironstone, not coal.

There are very few traces of the Hollingwood Common Canal on the surface now, but the tunnel is still there. The photo shows what the Work Party has exposed. It is on the offside bank, on the opposite side of Works Road Bridge (no. 8C) from Hollingwood Lock. There used to be a line of capped air shafts going right up Private Drive Top to bottom: as found by CCT; exposed by which showed where the tunnel was. There the Coal Authority; the surviving capped shaft is now only one left. It is in the scrub be-

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WRG BC news March 2012 By now you will all have voted for the Private Boater representatives for the Canal & River Trust Council. At least I hope you have. Now we look forward to the results. What a club we are with no fewer than THREE members standing as candidates. I think this is a record – more than any other boat club.

Congratulations and best wishes to those willing to take on such a task.

Luckily there are those willing to commit themselves to such voluntary work. The Midlands Region of AWCC has found such a person in Ian Wood the new regional chairman. Any member out there willing to take on a job as club officer? We need all the help we can get!

Does British Waterways have your email address? They are about to launch a boat owners’ survey. They will send out emails to a random sample of boaters (5000).

Each one will contain a link to the online survey that can only be used once and only from that e-mail address.

Boaters will be asked ‘a range of questions, from how helpful customer services have been to what are ‘must-haves’ at a mooring site.’

Will they ask about the state of locks, dredging, towpaths, water levels, leaks etc etc? I wonder…..

In June there will be the Royal Jubilee Cavalcade/Flotilla/Pageant but sadly no representative of ‘possibly the best boat club on the cut’ as all the spaces allocated for narrow boats have been filled by others.

Cruising this year: We are hoping to go to Droitwich this Easter, if the Severn is behaving. This Navvies News won’t be published in time for me to invite others to join us.

There will be a boat gathering in Droitwich as part of the Summer Festival, Friday 22 to Monday 25 June. If anyone from the club goes to this please let me know.

It has been suggested that club members might like to go during July. We have got Lynx on dock, for bottom blacking, at Stourbridge towards the end of July, if you are in the area please do drop by, we have spare brushes!

Whenever you can manage it please try to go to Droitwich as the more the newly reopened bits are used the better they get, Where else this year? Have you booked to go to the Montgomery for the

WRG BC

News from our boat club

Martin Ludgate

Maesbury Festival? Please do. If that isn’t possible come by car, horse, cycle or W.H.Y. Dates 1-2 September, entrance to festival FREE but of course you pay to book in your boat. The club AGM will be held there, and profits from the festival help with restoration of the Mont.

Go to Middlewich Folk and Boat Festival on 15-17 June and support WRG NW on their stall. Always bargains to be found.

I shall be attending the AWCC AGM in a few days’ time. I shall be collecting some copies of their handbook. Please let me know if you want me to send you one by post.

New Members: anyone wishing to join WRG Boat Club, (probably the best boat club on the cut), get in touch with me or any club officer, giving a postal address so I can send an application form.

Membership is open to active volunteers with Waterway Recovery Group and those who have previously been involved in working with the group.

A joining fee of £10 is payable (plus 1 year subscription) by new members. xxx Sadie Heritage sadiedean@msn.com 01733 204505 or mobile 07748186867

Heading for the Droitwich this year?

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staff, so it is not surprising that he had to be a hands on manager, both mending all the things that boaters can break and fighting against the minimalist restoration that I mentioned in my previous review of the canal a couple of years ago (Navvies 238). So one sees that Crick managed the House, the canal and the river all at the same time.

We worked on the canal every winter from the very early ’70s on a variety of jobs, but WRG spent three whole winters working on the Wilmcote flight Crick (Christopher) Grundy doing an enormous number of things, and not only 1926 - 2011 did Crick trust us to use the considerable amount of We oldies amongst the Navvies readership cannot let cash that it cost, but oiled the wheels to help it all the passing of Crick go without comment. He was happen. This against a background of just too few always (I am told) called Crick, thus his real name is resources. in brackets here; and this is indicative of the man’s I have put together these few notes about how approach to others. Graham Palmer, a tetchy indimuch we owe the man, glossing over Council memvidual at times, was heard to say “What’s wrong with ber for IWA and that he was a founder member ‘Mr’; I don’t care what his last job was” when told anyway; but the fact that he managed to go canal that Major Grundy was the man at Packwood campaigning whilst he was still in the army. In 1951 House that the National Trust has put in charge, not he won a Military Cross in Korea for his part in a 7 only of the House, but also the Southern Stratford week engagement where it was said that he “…had Canal. It did not take long for us all to realise that influenced the whole battle.” One has to say that he Crick worked co-operatively, and was a long way influenced the whole of the waterways movement in from the ‘officer class’ of person that Graham, and I, his quiet way, but few people now would have were a bit wary of. known him.

We were impressed by his general canal It is fitting that our photograph shows the three knowledge, not just the ordinary stuff that every hirer old soldiers of the IWA, Aickman, Hutchings and learns after a while, but how the canal is built and Grundy; together with a possibly recognisable lady maintained. Latterly I found out that his boating who showed great interest in their work. Sadly Crick started with Mum, Dad and younger brother in 1938 was the last to survive, and died last November. when he was 12 or so. No weekend boaters these – Mike Day they boated with Tom & Angela Rolt on the then more or less derelict Llangollen Canal in ’47-48. He continued his active canal life into adulthood campaigning for the Stourbridge, Dudley Tunnel, Aylesbury and Basingstoke.

Small wonder that he knew his stuff!

Crick remained an adherent of Robert Aickman, the founder of IWA, at a time when the leadership of the Association was horribly split; and amongst others these two plus David Hutchings drove the Upper Avon restoration to a successful conclusion. On the Avon he was a backroom boy as he was running the Stratford Canal as well as Packwood House, but it is good to remember him on the bows of the narrow boat carrying the Queen Mother at the reopening in 1974. (I was there!) These three successfully managed a river that had been derelict for 100 years, riparian owners not used to being challenged and a Water Authority who were inclined to say ‘no’ to On the Avon 1 June 1974. Robert Aickman seated, everything.

David Hutchings behind him, Crick Grundy behind On the Southern Stratford from 1966, HM Queen Mother. One assumes the fourth man just 2 years after it was reopened, he was to be HM’s detective, and not just a stowaway. distinctly at the sharp end. There were only 3

Obituary

Harry Arnold / Waterway Images

Crick Grundy

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What’s this, then?

Bits & pieces Restoration in Venice!

All pictures by Martin Ludgate

Watch out, Birmingham...

It might look like a scouring pad but it’s actually IWA Restoration Committee’s Vaughan Welch demonstrating the miracle canal lining material which (we hope) will make waterproofing canals easier (see p5 and p27-28). Terraseal by H&M ChemPharm is a non-woven geotextile fabric, pre-coated with Sahara water-based polymeric fluid, to make a self-healing puncture resistant waterproof lining that’s lighter, cheaper and needs less cover over it than the Bentonite matting we’ve been using. Book on a Mont camp this summer and find out if it works!

Another canal opening soon!

OK only another 50 metres, but once they’ve sorted out a few leaks the next bit of the Ashby Canal is ready to open - and there are hopes of substantial funding for the next mile or so to Illott Wharf. Here’s the new length...

...la Serenissima may be catching up on you when it comes to miles of navigable canal.

Above is the canal on Torcello, one of Venice’s neighbouring islands, looking weedy, overgrown and forlorn when we visited in 1994; below is the same canal seen fully restored earlier this year, with (inset) the plaque commemorating completion of restoration of the Ponte del Diavolo (Devil’s Bridge).

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Congratulations

to Elly and Chad Reed on the arrival of Ethan Luke Laurence Reed on 18 March also to Lynette and Rob Daffern on the arrival of Annabel on 13 March and to Nerina and Tunji Faleye on the arrival of a baby boy on 21 March

Stamps wanted

Send used stamps, petrol coupons, phone cards, empty computer printer ink cartridges to IWA/WRG Stamp Bank, 33 Hambleton Grove, Milton Keynes MK4 2JS. All proceeds to canal restoration.

Boxmoor... ...festival (Wendover Arm Trust’s replacement for the Tring event) has had to be cancelled - so BITM won’t be going there after all. Sorry.

Thanks to Chris Griffiths of Stroudprint for continued assistance with Navvies cover printing

Inglesham Update

Directory updates The Thames & Medway Canal Association has a new contact Brian Macknish, Chairman, Meadow View, Hodsell Street, Sevenoaks TN15 7LA, email: b.macknish@btinternet.com, website www.thamesmedway.co.uk The Well Creek Trust is a new entry in the directory: contact Secretary Mrs C Day, 1 The Tramways, Outwell PE14 8PZ, email: carole1910@hotmail.com Wendover Arm Trust contact Roger Leishman’s email address is rwleishman@gmail.com The next full directory will appear in issue 254.

Please send any updates to the editor.

Attention WRG drivers with tachograph cards This affects WRG drivers with digital tacho cards - which generally means those who tow trailers with WRG vehicles.

The UK tachograph card authority has become aware of an issue with digital Driver cards issued between 24 Mar 07 and 31 Aug 08 malfunctioning. The security certificates in the microchip incorrectly expired on 23 March 2012 even though the validity date displayed on the front of the cards was correct. The authority is working as fast as possible to issue new cards to those affected.

The UK enforcement bodies are exercising discretion in enforcement activity with the 15 day period in which a driver can drive without a card, but the driver must keep records using the print out facility on the Vehicle Unit.

Contact George Eycott on bungle@wrg.org.uk with any queries.

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The IWA Inglesham Lock Appeal to raise funds to enable WRG volunteers to restore this crucial lock where the Cotswold Canals meet the Thames had raised almost £83,000 towards the £125,000 target as we went to press, and IWA had launched a final push to raise enough to keep us busy this summer.

To support the appeal see: www.inglesham.org.uk

Contacting the chairman: Mike Palmer, 3 Finwood Rd, Rowington Warwickshire CV35 7DH

Tel: 01564 785293 email: mike.palmer@wrg.org.uk

Dial-a-camp To contact any WRG Canal Camp: 07850 422156 (Kit ‘A’ camps) 07850 422157 (Kit ‘B’ camps)

Dear Deirdre I’m running a dig on the

Infill

Thames Berks & Andover Canal shortly and I’m a little nervous about the local politics. Is there anything that I should be aware of?

- Steven, Ipswich Deirdre writes: The Thames Berks & Andover is a perfectly normal restoration project, ie completely riddled with local politics, factionalism, blood feuds and nimbyism. Thereís really nothing to be worried about though. Just encourage your volunteers to respect the site boundaries and avoid crossing into neighbouring fields, where the local landowner may be waiting with a loaded shotgun and a damn good lawyer. Also avoid antagonising any members of the AntiTBA Canal Trust (motto: ìGeddorfmylaní!î) by doing anything like, uh, restoring the canal. Remember red is the colour of anger, so avoid wearing anything of that colour, and try not to make any noise or smoke whilst you go about your business. If all else fails the UN assure me they can bring in peacekeepers really quickly, so Iím sure everything will be fine.

Do you have a question for Deirdre? Just email deirdre@wrg.org.uk

Wanted: a WRG Mission Statement...

A recent discussion on this subject on a London WRG dig came up with the following three suggestions. If you can think of something better...

...then we wouldn’t be at all surprised.

Scenes you seldom see on a dig: No 15

“OK, that’s the chairman’s page finished, I wonder what people are going to send me for the rest of this issue...”

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If they can do this at the west end... ...you can help us do it at the east end

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