Steamboat Rally returns to Guildford, and with up to 18 steamboats of all ages & sizes already registered, the 'Puffing a-Wey’ event will be truly atmospheric.
The Waterways Chaplaincy has not shut its doors! Indeed, many of our chaplains have been exercising on the
towpaths near their homes or boats and that has enabled them to keep aware of needs arising among the boating
community in many areas. They keep in touch by phone and WhatsApp is a wonderful thing...
Senior Waterways Chaplain, Mark Chester, told me this week that he is about to celebrate the 30th anniversary since he was made a Church of England priest, having previously been an Army Officer. Careers can change direction dramatically and unexpectedly! Mark still maintains his links with the military, but now as a part time chaplain, while the other half of his time is spent on chaplaincy to the waterways.
80 chaplains spread around among the canals and waterways of Britain doesn’t sound an enormous number: but when you consider that quite a few of them are continuous cruisers for all or some of each year it’s easy to see that we get about all over the system!
I took Easter Week out with my two brothers and our wives on the Shroppie, aboard one of Chas Harden’s hire fleet based at Beeston Castle. It was great and all we did was head the very few miles into Chester and pausing there before the short hop to the National Waterways Museum at Ellesmere Port. I did not go as a Chaplain, although I did make a point of wearing my Waterways Chaplain baseball hat.
brrr… shiver me timbers… now the cold follows the hot! It’s a wet and grim autumn as I write this, but it follows an unusually brilliant summer which raised quite a few issues for water levels around the country.
When the first moves were made to begin a chaplaincy for the benefit of people who live on and around our canals no one could have imagined how effective it would prove. Now in operation for around ten years Chaplains are a growing ‘presence’, being noticed and recognised as a part of the British waterway scene.
