The Westway Highway swings over the Grand Union Canal at Westbourne Park, its smooth underbelly creating a ceiling for the towpath and half a dozen canal boats.
Eric Ellman looks at the dialogue which has been going on since 2017 with an architectural competition to create useful spaces along the London canal network, especially plans to create interaction between boaters and members of the general public.
“My name is Pete Doherty,” he spoke into the mic. “I’m an artist and a dreamer…. and it may sound corny as hell, but to be here on someone’s canal boat playing music... it’s just that kind of Arcadian vision that in the midst of everything…. the pandemic and all the evils in the world, we can still have these moments of joy.”
Roving Traders — canal boat owners licensed to sell goods and services on UK canals — have to be mad. Consider the challenge of living sideways in an improbably elongate tube. Now consider shoehorning a business in there with you. And if you somehow defeat the odds, and are hard working and fortunate enough that your product finds an audience ... your continuous cruising license requires that every two weeks you leave your customers behind.
It’s the first manifestation of Brigadoon!, with a handful of boats, that we expect to grow in number as we roll onto the next event a week later, and one a week after that. Each one reflecting the character of the neighbourhood. Each one requiring agreements between local Borough officials, CRT and Met Police.
