Meet Charles Garven, who has been a Waterways Chaplain since 2021. He used to spend a long working week as a lorry driver but took early retirement during lockdown and, as life began to return to normal, re-evaluated his time.

Having served inside the church as Lay Reader for over 25 years, he wanted to take his faith out into the community and becoming a waterways chaplain was one way of doing just that. He and his wife have been live-aboard boaters since 2005.

Currently, they have a mooring near Saul Junction on the Gloucester and Sharpness canal, which is a wide ship canal bypassing the dangerous sandbanks and huge tides of the River Severn.

He is Senior Waterways Chaplain for the Severn and (Stratford) Avon, and his team covers Sharpness through to Worcester and also cross to Stratford. They can be ‘on call’ for the Monmouth and Brecon and for the upper Thames and one of their members covers the Penarth and Cardiff Bay marinas.

The waterways chaplains minister to anybody and everybody they meet on the towpath – boaters, walkers, fishermen, canal staff, local businesses, etc. etc. There are no boundaries. He says that the root causes of many problems stem from loneliness, poor health or financial poverty.

He relates that, a few months ago, he met a boater who owned only the clothes he was wearing that day. He was unwell with a long-term condition which made him unemployable, and his medication gave him depression. His income support was mostly spent in the pub, which did in fact help with the depression, but sadly only contributed to his ill health. Charles asked for help through the local church news sheet.

Within three days, he was able to deliver five large bags containing clothes, some of which were brand new and had been bought especially. This gentleman must now be one of the best dressed people on the towpath!

Another man he met lives on his boat with his wife and family. He was a jobbing boat builder and had done some work for a client who hadn’t paid him. This brought hardship to the whole family. A couple of visits from the local food-bank was enough to put them back on track. When he saw them again, they were overjoyed. “They even gave us Easter eggs for the children!”

I asked Charles if the problems of those he tries to help depresses him and were there any upsides. He said that he was well supported both at home and by his local church and local waterways chaplaincy. So, he doesn’t really get depressed, but he does feel for the people he meets and shares their concerns.

He added, “Yes, there are upsides, of course. There is happiness to be shared when a friend comes through a difficult patch. And having 100 people on the towpath for a carol service at Christmastime is a joy!”
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I asked him why he undertook this ministry. He said, “Quite simply, to offer practical, emotional, and spiritual help as it is needed. If you try and ram Christianity down someone’s throat, they will choke on it. But by being a friend and trying to help, and perhaps reminding someone of things that were important when they were younger, I am planting the seed of evangelism.

And, of course, I enjoy it!”

Despite being brought up in Norfolk during the period of the 1953 floods all along the East  Coast, living on the Dorset coast for the past fifty years and undertaking my boating activities both recreationally and with the Portland Coastguard patrol boat mainly in the English Channel, until very recently I had given scant attention to the implications of climate change on our inland waterways.

My attention to the very serious implications of climate change on our inland waterways was brought home to me very forcibly as a result of my wife Lois and I relocating our boating activities to the Norfolk Broads a few years ago and my subsequent involvement as a member of the Norfolk and Suffolk Boating Association and Lois’s membership of the Broads Society.

Given the exceptionally wet weather over a period of six months and more since October 2023, coupled with several named storms and some exceptionally high spring tides it was hardly surprising that the Broads river levels including those on the rivers Bure, Ant and Thurne all “over topped” the quay headings in several places and that as a result lots of moorings including those at several large boatyards were inundated and in some cases became unusable.

Management of the waters of the Broads, especially as regards navigation, is actually quite complicated, involving the Broads Authority, Anglian Water, and the Environment Agency, with the added complications of there being several lifting and swing bridges operated under the control of the Highways Agency or Railtrack!

These complications are exacerbated by the fact that the Broads Authority is a actually a National Park but is unique amongst the UK’s National Parks in being responsible for navigation in addition to the normal responsibilities of the other National Parks. This is a unique situation whereby the Broads Authority is required to cater for the needs of people engaged in boating (both in privately owned vessels and in hired craft) and to cater for the needs of local residents and for the needs of the thousands of holidaymakers staying in hotels, guest houses, campsites etc! These two fairly distinct groups are known locally as “Navvies” and “Parkies”

Currently the most vexed problem as far as boating on the Broads is concerned is the recent increase in the annual tolls levied on local boat owners and hire boat operators alike; legally, according to the Broads Authority/National Parks remit these tolls are to be used exclusively to maintain the Broads navigation, including such matters as dredging, weed cutting and clearance, quay headings at public moorings, but there are suspicions being voiced lately claiming that a proportion of the tolls revenue is being used to subsidise non-navigational activities within the Broads area, arguably at the expense of the provision of mooring facilities, adequate dredging of those Broads used for yacht racing and other navigational matters, and that this problem has been exacerbated over the past eight months as a result of the extremely wet weather and increased flooding.

The future of the UK’s inland waterways, and the Broads in particular, at a time of very significant climate change is the subject of an interesting strategy document produced by the Broads Authority called the “Broadland Futures Initiative”

It's getting hot in here
Like sitting in a furnace
We're both in our under gear
Why did no one warn us?

We've gone one log too many
It's 3000 f'fing degrees
We've got everything wide open
and we can barely breathe

Our spuds are near cremated
We fear we will combust
Hotter than the earth's mantle
Or Mount Vesu-vius

We're worried about our firebricks
Concerned our glass will crack
Our temperature gauge on overdrive
Our stove fan on full whack

You'll probably find us melted
A pool where once we sat
Mines the chair with pants and bra
Not y-fronts and flat cap

Where to begin? I suppose some bright sparks idea to change the gas bottle sizes meaning if I wanted gas, I am going to have to earn one the hard way. I needed to raise the tank sides by at least 25 cm to accommodate the bottles. I did get a quote to do this in situ without disturbing the tank but sadly where it sat meant the extra size bottles wouldn’t clear the deck beam so nothing else for it. Time to remove the gas tank, its drainpipe, and half the cockpit with it. Oh yeah, the quote! £400 hmm. Now before we go much further there is a quaint term used when I am busy doing something that many have neither the skills nor aptitude to try - it’s called tinkering! How lovely... let’s get started.

First tank hasn’t been out in forty years so plenty of rust treatment – I use the Hammerite rust convertor. That done, order £50 quid’s worth of 3mm steel plate cut to size and a pack of 5mm welding rods – we going to have to get it hot. An hour's tinkering later, and the tank is now 25 cm higher. Next - which I hadn’t bargained for - replace the rotten ply it sat on. Tank painted yellow with a large gas sign, and it can go back in if I could find a 28mm Metal to copper fitting for hull and a small length of 28mm tube.

After a week searching (something has gone wrong post Covid: no one seems to stock anything) I found a second hand one on E bay. Always remember copper olives for anything gas never brass. Tank back in and guess what - it fouled the water pump locker and worst the door... OK, two foot of water pipe later and pump is moved; mercifully the boat was so badly built there was enough of a gap around the door to move it across by half an inch and I made it fit properly.

Now for the hard bit: the gas bubble. This came with two shocks: first the cost for what is a safety device and secondly the fitting. OK in the UK we tend to still use imperial pipes so in my case 3\8th but the bubble is made by our French cousins, and they don’t, so its 10mm. If you are a non-tinker and clueless on the gravity and severity of most situations, that’s a 0.5 mm gap – big enough to blow me and boat to Valhalla. There are no 3/8th to 10mm fittings and my tame gas engineer (or rather fitter, as an engineer makes things work) promptly shook his head and said he couldn’t or wouldn’t do it. Hmm ! OK. With years of old bikes, Morris 1000s and even a Morris Ital, one learnt to flare brake pipes – a process whereby they are stretched slightly, I used a proper hydraulic type to get an even flare to 10 mm – sorted.  Tool of the year - small pipe benders, remembering you can fail on unnecessary fittings.

Time for some gas which mercifully fitted the locker snugly, put fluid in bubble tester and try. I have never felt so deflated, mentally exhausted and down-hearted as it looked like a glass of champagne. Rowlocks now what the heck do I do? Worse still, where is the leak? One thing many can’t do is think laterally, start at cooker (the furthest point) and turn off its tap. Hey presto bubbles stop and why? because I ran out of gas this time last year and the cooker knobs rely on high melting point grease to seal them – that’s quite frightening when you think about it.

OK - magnetic tray at the ready and dismantle the gas rail and get the knobs out , if you have ever done this you will see what the magnetic tray is for, as the springs try and fall out the moment they are unscrewed. Cleaned, greased and re try and no bubbles even for three minutes- ooh we are winning. But not only that, the gas “ engineer “ was happy with everything including the pipe clips .

Next kettle de-scaler through the water heater and wait for leaks – the stuff that came out of there and shower was amazing !! Another bubble test and all is good. The engine bay has its own fire blanket because the outboard is probably the biggest risk, it also has a spill kit (not that that’s in the safety, but ought to be). We have two co detectors because of the fumes from boats in locks, and three extinguishers whose job isn’t to put the fire out but shove it back whilst I escape.

Day of the test and a heart stopping moment when gas pressure dropped because we left cooker slightly on (I think bubble is a brilliant idea) and she passed with one advisory. Wait for it ……………. Ventilation in the door - which if I hadn’t spent hours making it fit properly the gap alone would have sufficed. Still you can't tinker it all .

The morning was pure summer as depicted on postcards and chocolate boxes. Blue sky, candy-floss clouds and warm sun of the kind that umbrella manufacturers secretly pray will not last long. After feeding the remainder of a hearty breakfast to a group of ducks the couple, just hours away from being a week married, were under way again. Their destination was the limit of navigation on the river to spend some time looking around before returning to the canal system for the first time since the odyssey that brought them together. The locks on this part of the river were manually operated, smaller than before, but still big by canal standards and all were manned. The ones lower down the river were worked by a hydraulic mechanism of some kind, apart from a couple that still had an earlier, and possibly experimental, electric system.

The channel too was much narrower with shoals to be avoided as they rounded the many bends. During the afternoon they came across a rather large hire cruiser, named Clearwater Sky, that was firmly lodged on one of these sandbanks. The initial effort of trying to plough through the obstruction, or reverse out under engine power had proved completely futile as was the use of the more ornamental than useful boat-hook supplied with the vessel. The family, having failed to work out quite how to deal with the situation, had decided to wait for further inspiration.
“Can we help?” Amanda shouted as they approached.
“Thanks, but you won’t have the power to lug this thing off. We’re well aground,” the captain, otherwise known as “Dad” replied rather despondently.
“We can try,” Amanda said as Jim brought the bow of the Mayfly round towards the hopelessly grounded cruiser.
“No harm in that surely,” the first mate, otherwise known as “Mum” answered, gratefully accepting the offer.

Mayfly, being of much shallower draught than the centre cockpit wooden hire boat, was able to edge in alongside to a point where Amanda was able to hop aboard with a length of rope, one end of which was tied around the centre thwart of Mayfly. As Jim gently edged the craft back, and turned to face it down river. Amanda, tied the rope firmly at the stern of the hire cruiser and headed off to the cockpit.
“Right,” she said with such authority that nobody questioned her youthful appearance. “I’ll reverse whilst you rock the boat, I mean really rock it. Once Jim's taken up the slack, we go.”
As the line tightened, Jim heard Amanda’s barked orders. “One, two, three, ROCK!” He gently applied more power until the little outboard was at full throttle. Gradually the hire cruiser started to move, Jim reducing the output of his own motor as it did. Once she had judged they were at last floating free, Amanda instantly put the motor of the hire boat into neutral to stop the line from fouling the propeller. Jim then cast the rope off for Amanda to retrieve.
“Pick me up at the lock, it’s only a short way,” she shouted. “It’ll save us getting stuck all over again.”
Jim waved in recognition and continued as Amanda set to aiming the cumbersome cruiser to avoid any further shallows.
“Pretty niftily executed,” Captain Dad said. “Where did you learn to do that?”
“Bit of a long story,” Amanda replied.

“Go on, tell us,” the younger of two girls, pleaded. “Is that your mum and dad’s boat? Or did you hire it like this one?”
“Don’t be so nosey Emily,” first mate Mum said to her eight year daughter.
“Actually she belongs to Jim and me,” Amanda smiled. “That’s a long story too.”
“Will you tell us. Please,” Emily insisted.
“You’ll distract her and we’ll be aground again,” her eleven year old elder sister intervened.
“She won’t do that Debs! She's an expert she is!” Emily persisted.
“Enough from both of you little tykes!” Captain Dad said firmly, feeling rather worried about the chance of hitting another shoal. “And thanks, are you heading for the top of the river this evening?”
“Hopefully,” Amanda replied.
“Then we’re buying you two a drink as a thank you, and before you say no, we insist. Our daughters won’t forgive us if they don’t get some of these long stories out of you!” he smiled.
“Then thanks, we’d love to,” Amanda answered for both Jim and herself, noticing a raised eyebrow from the first mate.
“We both like telling our stories so prepare to be bored to death. By the time we’ve finished you’ll wish you were stuck on the mud again,” Amanda smiled.
“Is he your brother?” Emily chirped.
“That’s another long story,” first mate Mum, having seen the rings on Amanda's finger, replied. “Or at least I think it may be?”

At well over twice the length and a good deal wider than Mayfly, Clearwater Sky wasn’t blessed with best of handling characteristics. Where Mayfly answered almost instantly to a small move of the tiller, Amanda found herself waiting for replies to her commands as cables and pulleys moved an undersized rudder. Once in the lock she switched back to her own boat as soon as the water level in the chamber allowed. The family in the hire boat assured them that they would be fine after their short course in avoiding mud and insisted that Jim and Amanda go on ahead. The politeness was partly due to pride on the captain and first mate’s part, but was contested by the two girls who, as minor crew members, were overruled.
“I may have landed us in for some serious interrogation,” Amanda said as they were back under way.
“As long as they don’t use thumbscrews, I really don’t like thumbscrews very much,” Jim replied calmly.
“They asked us, out for a drink. They were pretty insistent, so I accepted. Hope you don't mind,” Amanda smiled.
“We knew we’d have to explain ourselves at some point,” Jim kept the deadpan tone.
(© 2024 Michael Nye)