1st January 2023 was a day that marked the transition of the Waterways Chaplaincy from being a part of Workplace Matters to becoming an independent, ecumenical charity within the Church Army family.

We have left Work place Matters (WM) with fond memories and much appreciation of the way that, in 2019, WM ‘birthed’ WWC and continued to nurture the ministry. The effectiveness of their encouragement over the years has seen WWC grow into a unique nationwide charity being Jesus’ hands and feet amongst the waterways communities.

You might say that it is a sign of success that WWC is now ready to strike out independently and grow further, but now with the support of the Church Army.

The Waterways Chaplaincy’s ministry has a more natural affinity with Church Army. Wilson Carlile, who established the Church Army in 1882, believed that God’s love is for everyone. He was passionate about his faith and wanted to share the good news of Jesus with people who would never dream of stepping foot in a church.

That continues to be the Church Army’s mission today and is why the Waterways Chaplaincy fits so well into its family of ministries.

a window on the world!

Having passed on that news, I must tell you about our new church doors. St.Lawrence’s church, Hungerford, which is right next door to the towpath of the Kennet and Avon canal, was built in 1816 on the site of previous churches. It has a stout wooden outer door and, until a couple of weeks ago, ugly red baize inner doors. They have now been replaced by handsome new glass doors, manufactured in Germany, each one attractively etched with a ceremonial Cross. This means that the entrance into the church is lighter and brighter and those inside are able to look out into the churchyard with, at the moment, its carpet of snowdrops. More importantly, those outside can see what is happening inside before they venture in – or not, if the viewer is too shy to do so – perhaps next time he or she will have a change of mind?

The doors are the first step in refurbishing the back end of the church to provide a commercial kitchen, disabled toilets, and small meeting rooms that can be heated individually without heating the whole church (which actually means heating the high
roof!)

The doors and installation have been paid for by the Friends of the church following a lot of successful fund raising, and their donated £12,000 was match funded by Greenham Common Trust.

Our vicar’s wife, Alison Saunders, heads up the Kennet and Avon hub of the Waterways Chaplaincy and our vicar, Mike, is also a chaplain. The church is open all day and we would love to welcome you at any time!

To many of the uninitiated, the canals offer a bucolic, romantic way of life that could easily be part of “the darling buds of may”, but in truth there is a brutal edge to it and there are some topics in the canal world that are almost guaranteed to cause verbal (and occasionally physical) fisticuffs, and today reader we’re going to don our tin hat and enter the trenches of roses and castles.

The most often asked question is “Where did they come from?” A question in itself that is rather wrong, as the implication is that the style we see today has been the same since the Duke of Bridgewater said “Hey I think I’ve got a great idea”.

There is a lot of popularity behind the idea, largely thanks to Rolt’s writing, that the Romany folk came to the water very early on and brought their art with them, but there is scant evidence of them joining the canals at all and in practice the painting theory doesn’t work simply by dint of the fact that there is artistic evidence of rose and castle type paintwork on boats that predates the development of the painted ‘vardo’ that everyone thinks of.

The earliest imagery we have dates to 1820, and a painting by an unknown artist. It is only just visible, but it appears the picture panel on the cabin side bears flowers. The next one is 1838 and also has a floral picture panel.

The first written description of artwork that can be confidently identified as roses and castles appears in 1858 and gives us the biggest lead:

“The boatman lavishes all his taste; his rude, uncultivated love for the fine arts, upon the external and internal ornaments of his floating home. His chosen colours are red, yellow and blue... the two sides of the cabin...present a couple of landscapes, in which there is a lake, a castle, a sailing boat, and a range of mountains, painted after the style of the great teaboard style of art... the brilliancy of a new two gallon watercan, shipped from a bank-side painters yard.. displayed no fewer than 6 dazzling and fanciful composition landscapes, several gaudy wreaths of flowers, and the name of its proud proprietor...running round the centre upon a background of blinding yellow.”

The crucial information here is the description of it being painted in the manner of a teaboard.

An object that households rich and poor alike had: a teaboard is just a tray intended for carrying the teapot and its accessories, and for the best part of 100 years tea trays were predominantly jappaned.

Developing just prior to the canals, jappaning is western imitation of Asian lacquer-work that started out on eye-wateringly expensive furniture and moved onto smaller household items as it became a craft suitable for young ladies of quality to indulge in. These young ladies also indulged in gilding (putting gold and silver leaf on things) and filigree (twisting wire into intricate shapes), and decoupage (sticking paper decorations to things and lacquering them into submission.)

As with all forms of fashion what the rich had, the poor wanted a piece of; by the time the canals were firmly established in the 1820s there were around 40 companies in the West Midlands mass producing japanned objects on tinplate and papier-mâché, a figure that kept rising right up until the mid 1870’s (when enamelling became trendy instead). The imagery that was most popular with jappaning was poetic landscapes and botanicals, with roses being particularly popular.

Mary Delany is arguably a woman to blame for the craze of flower decoupage, creating a series of remarkably detailed “paper mosaiks” of flowers from tissue paper from 1772 to 1783.

Imitators down the years, especially when mass production became key, were not as skilled. The same imagery was rammed down the consumer's throat on every surface; the advent of ‘transferware’ china allowed patterns to be printed ad infinitum and brought the boom in the ‘Willow patterns’ on pottery that the boats themselves were key in spreading round the country.

The boats themselves would have had it in their cupboards, it was everywhere. Tea could well be brought out in a blue and white tea-set covered in castle scenes and served on a tray like a florists catalogue.

People often overlook the fact that it wasn’t until quite late in the Victorian era that the boaters slipped down the financial ladder, and also that women were on the boats with their menfolk quite early on - in 1819 John Hassell noted there were “generally one or two females generally attending each boat” and in 1824 the Chester Courant noted that the boatman’s “wife is on board” as general knowledge.

Boatmen could be on a continuous cycle of trips for weeks, if not months, on end, so it wouldn’t be unreasonable for the couple to want to stay together where practicable, and the economic aspect wouldn’t be unwelcome - better to pay your own crew than a stranger after all – so it’s quite probable that art came to the water via the rather boring medium of fashion trickling down the social ladder and first coming into the cabins attached to the household goods of the boatman’s family.

How did we make the leap from fancy lacquer tea tray to painted table cupboards? The real answer is we may never know. Everything was painted and there were painters everywhere, and indeed the same man might be employed painting trinket boxes in the morning and slapping the owners name on the cabin side at dinner.

There is the odd legend of Arthur Atkins, a toll clerk for the Oxford Canal Co who claimed in the Coventry Standard in 1914, the occasion being his retirement, that he had painted the first boater's watercan and that in around 1858 he’d been at Braunston and sold Charles Dickens a boatman’s kettle (a fancy wooden trivet, plain on one side, painted on the other), the great author promptly gifting said piece to the Captain of a boat and wrote an article about it all to the great advantage of Atkins.

The story has more holes then a June bride. For a start we can see that painted cans easily predate 1858 and there is simply no record of anything like that happening with Dickens at all. There’s no trace of this article he supposedly wrote and in general his canal contact was fairly limited. It’s also highly convenient that date of the incident matches with the journey I quoted originally, the journey that was published in Charles Dickens’ magazine ‘Household Words’.

It is almost certain that young Arthur Atkins was present when the author of that journey, John Hollingshead, passed through, so it is plausible that it could have been a case of mistaken identity, but our source says the can was “newly shipped from a bankside painter” long before the boat they were travelling on arrived at Braunston.

Intriguingly however, a search through the census shows that Atkins father, also called Arthur, was a painter. At Akins' birth at Bedworth in July 1840 his father is recorded as a baker, but 6 months later in the census he’s a painter. In 1851 he shows up at Braunston as a canal clerk, but this doesn’t suit all that well because in 1861 he’s gone to Birmingham and he’s a painter again. 1871 records him as a “Writer and painter”, which suggests signwriter, 1881 “decorative painter” and 1891 hes still wielding a brush in Birmingham as a “Painter and decorator”.

Given the fluid job descriptions, there’s a distinct possibility that the Arthur Atkins, boatbuilder’s foreman, declared bankrupt in 1869 is this same mysterious painter. Could it be his paintwork his son claimed as his own?

The Coventry Standard notes how Atkins jr was a “regular correspondent” with their writer Spectator, and although many of these have weathered the years quite badly, those that are legible give off a distinct air of someone over egging the pudding. It’s quite plausible that Atkins embellished or completely made up his stories, knowing that there was no way for anyone to verify the details.

The crucial thing to bear in mind when delving into the paintwork is that the vast majority of surviving examples post-date the first world war. The war decimated the male population and left the country with a dire shortage ofyoung men from all the trades, from farriers to painters. A pet research project of mine so far suggests that 65% or more of boatyard painters were lost, and that’s not including the individuals, boatmen or otherwise, who could be classed as ‘hobby painters’.

A cursory glance through museum pieces shows the abrupt change from diverse bouquets and landscapes to the ubiquitous roses and castles, which is most likely a direct result of there being far fewer painters and therefore far fewer styles, attending the same number of clients who now had a far smaller budget as the canals being the slow descent into financial loss.

By the 1930s, the aesthetic preference of the public had changed from the sleek art nouveau to the geometric art deco and more professional painters slipped away. The Grand Union Canal Carrying Co leapt onto the scene in 1930s and demonstrated that by their modern paint scheme – simple two tone blue, plain lettering and even replacing the elegant “mouse ears” on the back cabin with dull rectangles. Grand Unions attitude to paint may even have been a contributing factor in that they could never get enough crew to work their massive fleet, as the boatmen themselveswere not fans of the change and more than ever started to take up their brushes to embellish their boats themselves.

This brings us almost to the modern age. When the trade failed and the pleasure boats started to appear, objects covered in canal painting became trendy souvenirs and both boatmen and painters alike readily filled the market. New painters began to emerge, grabbing on to every opportunity to learn from those masters from “the old days” and patiently working their way along the long slow path to becoming masters in their own right.

Today, the canals are once again flush with painters at every corner and, much like it was in the beginning, there are masters and glorified finger painters, and every level of skill in-between.

Beauty is of course in the eye of the beholder, and at the end of the day I can only repeat the wisdom of the infamous Ron Hough himself: “The only person that has to like your painting is the person who’s buying it!”

Winter has well and truly arrived with short days and cold crisp frosty mornings, as we enter into this extremely cold spell the clear skies have given us some beautiful sunrises and sunsets, not to mention that amazing full moon.

This year has flown by, I have now shared four Seasons with Canalsonline magazine and am looking forward to lots of exciting things happening in 2023.

With so many heart- warming recipes at this time of year we have all enjoyed slow cooking those casseroles and throwing together hearty soups and one pot meals.

Now though we are thinking towards our Christmas feast and treats. Let’s not wait until the big day for those lovely homemade stuffings, bread sauces and the somewhat underrated red cabbage and Brussels sprouts. We have already cracked into our nuts and chocolate stash, not to mention the Port and Brandy, oh and the Baileys, which of course are purely for culinary use!

I’ve done quite a bit of “pruning” when walking Rosie through the woods and have a very natural look in the boat this year, homemade wreaths and swags using trailing ivy, fir, juniper and rhododendron, I have also collected lots of pinecones throughout the year which double up as great firelighters!

So, the list of favourite seasonal ingredients is endless. The Christmas spices of cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, star anise and ginger are essential for me, as are the use of chestnuts, walnuts and almonds with the fruits of cranberry, pomegranate, oranges and pears.

Parsnips, leeks, celeriac, red cabbage and of course sprouts are my favourite vegetables. For cheese it has got to be stilton and brie. Then those Christmas herbs of Sage and Bay are the perfect partner to Christmas meats, sausage and stuffing. It’s worth keeping some fresh herbs in as they make such a difference to any dish as opposed to using dried.

Store cupboard goodies are luxury mincemeat (if you don’t make your own) or make a basic mincemeat into luxury by adding extra chopped nuts, orange zest and brandy. A jar of goose fat is also a must for those luxury roasties.

Roast Gammon

A cooked gammon joint goes a long way. For me it has to be slowly boiled in cider and finished with a glaze using two tbsp Demerara sugar with ½ tsp mustard powder, studded with about half a dozen cloves.

• First soak the gammon in water overnight in the fridge. When cooking in a large saucepan it’s useful to sit it on a trivet using a small plate or tin, this stops the bottom from overcooking.
• The next morning after soaking drain and place in the pan, pour the cider over to cover and slowly bring to the boil and simmer for about half an hour.
• I then transfer to a low oven or cook over the stove top for a further two hours on low heat.
• Remove from the pan and allow to cool slightly before slicing off the thick part of the rind. Save the cooking juices to use as stock for soup.
• Score the fat in diamonds and place a clove in each diamond. Mix the mustard and sugar together and smear over the scored fat.
• Stand on a baking tray and spoon a little of the cooking liquid over the lean meat area.
• Finish by roasting in a hot oven for 15 to 20 minutes.

BUTTERBEAN MASH

This a great dish to serve with a cooked gammon. Heat a tablespoon of olive oil and gently fry a small onion or a couple of shallots finely chopped with 2 cloves of garlic finely chopped. Drain a tin of butterbeans and mash with a potato masher or whiz in a blender. Stir into the onion pan and heat through, stirring in 4 tblsp crème fraiche and season with salt and fresh ground pepper. Add a little cooking liquid from the meat if the consistency is too thick.

ROAST VEG TIPS

I Always boil potatoes, carrots and parsnips before roasting. Ensure the steam has totally dried off when draining before roasting to avoid soggy veg. Squash, leeks and onions can go straight into the pan. For roast potatoes, after par boiling, make sure the edges are roughed up by giving them a good a shake in the colander. If honey roasting, melt equal quantities of oil, butter and honey in a pan and always make sure the roasting tray is hot before the veggies go in. Don’t forget to check after about 10 mins and turn to evenly brown the edges. Sprinkle malden salt flakes and fresh ground pepper to finish.

Stuffing and bread sauce mixes are so cheap to buy, but not a patch on home made. It’s worth taking the time to make your own, they will keep in the fridge for a few days or freeze well.

MAKE YOUR SOUP SPECIAL by adding cheese croutons.

• Mushroom or Leek soups are perfect with stilton croutons. Just make stilton cheese on toast and cut into small pieces to add to the top of your soup bowl.
• If you have some tomatoes looking a little past it, roast them by drizzling with olive oil and placing a few garlic cloves, herbs and pepper over them, add a little balsamic if you have it, then blitz to a puree to use in soup or sauces. Cheddar croutons are great with a tomato soup.
• Finely shred some spring onion or chilli and fry to top your soups or add a dash of cream or flavoured oil.
• Grate any cheese over such as parmesan or cheddar.
• Toast a few flaked almonds or crumble a few tortilla crisps over.
• Butternut squash soup goes well with toasted sage leaves or crispy shallots and bacon bits or a dash of coconut milk if it’s a spicy soup.

HOMEMADE STUFFING

• Cut about three to four slices of bread into small cubes. Gently toast on the stove top, in the oven or dry fry in a pan and set to one side. I use sourdough or any crusty bread for better texture.
• Meanwhile, finely chop 1 carrot, 1 stick of celery, 2 cloves of garlic and a small onion (I use my mini chopper it saves so much time) and gently fry in oil and butter. Add freshly ground black pepper, chopped sage and thyme if you have it or a mixture of dried herbs.
• Keep moving round the pan to avoid catching. Then add half a pint of stock and stir well.
• Turn off the heat and top with the dried bread cubes and finely chopped walnuts and a few sage leaves fried in a little butter. Cover the pan and leave for ten minutes.
• Then remove the lid and fork through to mix well. Dot with a few pieces of butter to finish.
• If not using straight away this will reheat or crisp up in the oven.

I make a larger than necessary pan full of this stuffing and use it as a crunchy topping over baked cauliflower cheese, casseroles or toss through cooked sprouts with bacon lardons.

CHRISTMAS RED CABBAGE Is the perfect partner to red and white meats or just with brown lentils as a casserole. Here’s my version. I don’t use all the cabbage, saving some for a winter salad with the addition of white cabbage, raisins, orange juice and sweet honey dressing.

• Finely chop 1 to 2 red onions depending on size and fry in about 75g butter in a pan or casserole dish .
• Add 1 red cabbage finely sliced, 1 finely chopped apple, 1 tbsp chopped dried fruit such as prunes or raisins, 3 tsp soft brown sugar, juice of 1 small orange, 3 tbsp red wine, 1/4 pint stock, 4 cloves, 1 star anise, 1 cinnamon stick, salt and pepper.
• Thoroughly mix all the ingredients to coat the cabbage well, cover and simmer for about an hour until the cabbage is tender and cooked. Can be cooked on the stove top or in the oven and will keep well for five days or freeze.

PEP UP YOUR PEAS
With fried sliced potato, leek and shallot. Stir in a little mint sauce to serve.

SPICY SPROUTS
This is an alternative way to cook your sprouts and particularly good with cold leftover meats. Slice them in half lengthways from the top, make sure they are dry if you have washed them otherwise they won’t go crispy. Roast in the oven tossed in oil. Meanwhile, gently fry two garlic cloves with finely chopped onion or shallot, add a squeeze of lemon juice and a generous drizzle of honey or maple syrup. Once the sprouts are cooked and crispy on the edges combine with the other ingredients and sprinkle over some chilli flakes, chopped spring onion and toasted nuts such as almonds or cashews.

MY MINCE PIE RECIPE

For sweet pastry use 150g plain flour with 75g unsalted butter rubbed in until like breadcrumbs, add 50g sieved icing sugar, 1 egg yolk and zest from ½ orange. Bring together with 1 tbsp cold water and shape into a ball, flatten into a disc and chill for half an hour. Roll out and line the tart tins with discs of pasty, prick with a fork and add the mincemeat filling. I add brandy, orange zest from the other half of the orange and a few extra chopped nuts such as walnuts. Place the pastry lids on and brush the edges using egg to seal, pierce a little hole in the tops to let out the steam. Cook at 180 fan or gas 6 for about 10 to 15 mins. Dust with sieved icing sugar when cool and enjoy with a glass of sherry!

Merry Christmas to everyone and a Happy and safe boating New Year!

As some people know, I am the owner of 2 ponies. One is a micro heavy horse, the other is an animated sock puppet, and they are currently causing me untold sleepless nights because one of them is very poorly.

I’m very fortunate that we have a good vet and modern medicines, and in the long, dark hours of the night sitting up with the patient, I’ve been thinking how it might of gone if we were back in the “golden age” of the canals.

Remembering of course that a newspaper wont publish a story unless it has a little bite to it, a very quick search of the newspapers using the keyword ‘boathorse’ brings up a plethora of court cases that show the darker side of horse boating, with headlines full of “brutal boatman” causing untold cruelty to animals, but pushing past the genuine cruelty you start to see some of the real veterinary story.

Horses are naturally rear-wheel drive, that is to say that their propulsion comes mostly from their back legs pushing them forward. Boating is collar work: a broad leather collar his goes around his neck and rests on his shoulders, from the collar two traces run down his side to the straight bar - the swingletree - that is coupled to the towline. To start off, he will lean his weight into the collar until the load comes on the traces, and then he’ll use the strength in his back legs to push himself forward into the collar to keep going.

With this in mind, it will be of no surprise to learn that one of the two most common problems a boathorse could suffer from was issues with his shoulders. An ill-fitting collar could rub the skin raw and quickly become an open sore through continued work, and the wrong size of collar could also put pressure against the shoulder joints and injure them.

When the horse was company owned, the boatman would simply swap the animal at the first chance he could. The treatment for those horses would generally be rest and having their collar changed. Where the horse was the only one a boatman had access to, it became more difficult.

That’s not to say a boatman would ignore the problem until the horse fell down, but he couldn’t lay the boats up as long as there was motive power. First of all he’d look at the collar. Sometimes he could ease the problem by pulling the stuffing out of the collar where the injury was, removing the pressure while the horse was working. If it wasn’t an open wound and he was feeling flush, he might just buy a bottle of rubbing lotion to take the pain way; the active ingredient in these was usually opium so it may well have worked.

Foot issues were the other common problem. Aside from the obvious problems of treading on stones or cinders, a horse’s hoof grows continuously and if it’s allowed to grow too long or is trimmed badly, it can force the horse to walk in an unnatural fashion, making him lame. By the same token, a horse who was shod (not all of them were, some boatmen swore that keeping their horses ‘barefoot’ was much better for the horse) could find the shoe come loose, come off completely or even just have it badly fitted, all of which would leave a horse limping on one or more feet.

These problems were the realm of the farrier. These men should not be confused with blacksmiths; a blacksmith is a smith who works with iron – for example gates or tools - but he may never work with horses, while the farrier is the equivalent of an equine podiatrist, and will know enough blacksmithing to make and fit horseshoes.

Farriers were often considered as good, or better, then vets and farriery books were often full of veterinary advice. By the same token, a vet would be given full tuition in basic farriery (and still is.)

In the 1930’s farriers became a little thin on the ground. A huge amount of the apprentices had been killed in the war, and the rise of the motor car made farriery seem an unstable career option. Getting a farrier full stop started to become difficult, let alone getting a good one, and reports increased of badly shod boathorses being worked while lame. A judge in London reduced the fine of a boatman found working a lame horse because the boatman had been seen to make a marked effort to find a decent farrier and was still working the horse out of necessity rather than active cruelty.

Canal stables, with their vast turnover of occupants from all over the country, could be rife with contagious illnesses, some of which were zoonotic and could spread to the humans as well. Ringworm is an unpleasant example, often known as rain scald, and its treatment was variously sulphur, iodine, turpentine or sometimes a mix of all three.

All working horses were at risk of stomach problems, from eating too fast or not getting enough to balance against their work, and boathorses also had a higher risk of eating things they shouldn’t. A mouthful snatched from the hedgerows of the towpaths and or grazing at the lockside as the boats came through; it was all too easy for a hungry, or greedy, horse to grab a mouthful of a toxic plant.

Colic was the general result. Colic is something of a catch-all description that basically means the horse has stomach ache, and caused by everything from drinking cold water to constipation, as well as being a bonus problem for serious complaints like liver disease. Every horse-keeper would have had his own recipe for a cure. One man’s immediate go-to was a salt-water enema for one end and a dose of liquid paraffin down the other, while another’s was a draught made of 3 parts whiskey, one part laudanum. Both men remarked that these were the same treatments they gave to their children, although the former noted that his wife wouldn’t suffer the same ministrations!

“what can I give him, poor as I am. If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb. If I were a wiseman, I would play my part, Yet what I can I give him, I give my heart”.

One reason for buying our narrowboat was to slow down time. Leave the mad rush of living in the South East and enjoy the tranquillity of the canals. We had a plan of where to go and what we would do, all at a slow pace you understand, but I did not expect it to be quite so protracted. Covid, family concerns and then finally the weather all hampered our progress and in the process I learnt that on a narrowboat you cannot do the dictating!

Our plan to get nb Naomhog to the River Wey for the winter, instead of taking a week took a month. I am not complaining – we moored for ten days outside the Anchor pub at Pyrford and another ten days at Dapdune Wharf, both great places to stay. The relentless rainfall during the month of November saw the river flood and the lock gates padlocked. There were a few windows of opportunity to move but they didn’t coincide with other plans we already had in place. November took on a strange hue as daily we would look at the weather conditions on the Wey. We learnt adaptability and to live in the moment. To do otherwise would have led to frustration and irritability. It reminded me that whatever our circumstances we have a choice as to our attitude towards them. We learned to value our time, partly because we unexpectedly had so much of it and we didn't want to waste it! In truth, we took a chance leaving it so late to get on to the River Wey, but it had made economic sense to wait until the beginning of November. A week earlier, the sun was shining, the rainfall was minimal and the River Wey would have been a breeze to travel along.

My mum, a Scot, was always economic and brought me up to be frugal and to shop cannily. Our childhood diet was rich in fruit and veg, leading me towards vegetarian cooking. Wearing extra layers of clothing, using hot water bottles and woolly hats for warmth, rather than central heating, reminds me of growing up in a cold draughty vicarage where we got dressed under the bedclothes! We may not want to return to that but it has become all too easy over the years to be profligate with our utilities. (Boating has really taught me the value of water!)

The choice between heating and eating is sadly on the increase, with the prospect of unpaid bills leading to anxiety and fear, especially for those with families to support. The fast approaching Christmas festivities, with continuous TV advertising telling us what we need to buy to have the perfect Christmas, compounds this problem. How to afford all the gizmos and gadgets that are on offer, wrapped in festive paper, that will eventually end up in landfill sites. There is a subtle pressure that encourages us to spend money to be happy. I may sound bah humbug, which I don’t really want to do. Rather, I would like us to be able to celebrate the Christmas season without it costing the earth and eroding our mental health.

Instead of worrying about how to afford to buy material presents, why not give the present of time? Time is our most precious gift because none of us know how much of it we have. To give our time to others is therefore a great gift. Taking time to listen to a friend in need; chopping up wood for someone’s stove; offering to do boat or clothes repairs; sharing a meal; walking a dog; lending a book. So many ways to show love in a non materialistic way. We all have different gifts to give.

The original message of Christmas is all about love - by sending his only son into our broken world, God showed his immense love for us all. In the relatively short span of years that Jesus walked this earth, he gave freely of his time modelling to us a selfless way to live, putting the needs of others before ourselves.

Whatever belief system we may have, this message is as vital today as it was over 2000 years ago - to love one another, to be kind, to bring hope into lives that may be hopeless and to share what we have with one another.

A present of time need not be too costly and you never know how much lasting joy it may give.

I’m back!
Let’s have a show of hands - who’s missed me?
Oh, no one eh?

Well never mind, I’ll carry on regardless, while you all uncomfortably shuffle your feet thinking of the mental anguish you’ve inflicted on me with your noncommittal attitude.
See, that’s better. I heard that, ‘where’ve you been?’ I’ll tactfully ignore the rest of the comment, ‘and why the bloody hell have you come back?'

I’ve been writing see, no not for this wonderful magazine, but plays. Yes, that’s right, plays as, ‘in the theatre.’ I’m a bit of a thespian don’t ya know.
What?
No, madam, those are ladies who fancy other ladies, a thespian is - oh, never mind.
Anyway, like I said, I’m back. And that brings me to the topic of this article, which is...
You again. What now?
No it’s not another ‘festive scribbling,’ as you so eloquently put it. I live not far from Wolverhampton and I haven’t heard Noddy Holder holler, ‘It’s Chrrrrristmassss’ yet.
No, this one’s a bit more serious I’m afraid.

You see - and I should say that this started in the spring - that I was a little perplexed.
A good friend of mine used to greet the Spring Equinox with the rather charming saying of, ‘Spring is sprung, the grass is riz, I wonder where the birdies is?’
And I did.
Wonder that is.
And I’ve spent most of the rest of the year wondering as well.

Now you may well say that there are more serious things to wonder and worry about. Climate change, the Ukrainian conflict, the cost of living crisis and the fact that number 10 Downing Street seems to have had a revolving door fitted.
But wonder I have.

Where for instance are all the ducks? Have you noticed as you’ve been cruising along the cut? It seems to me that there are considerably less than usual.

I notice these things you see, because as I wander the towpaths with Blue he likes to chase them. And he’s been getting considerably less exercise than in previous years, meaning that I have to do more walking. That’s Border Collies for you. He’s had to resort to chasing mountain bikers, and they’re not too happy about it I can tell you.

And it’s not just ducks. What about our little feathered friends that flit hither and thither midst the hedgerows, twixt the breaking of day and the lowering of eve’s dark mantle?
I know, that was nearly poetic wasn’t it?
There’s no tits - stop sniggering at the front. Or sparrows. Or swallows. Or kingfishers.
Crows - I think they’ve been murdered. I could go on.
O.k., there are a few about.
But not many.

And then I was watching the telly the other night and...
Pardon?
Not Strictly, no.
Not I’m A Non-Entity Get Me Out Of Here either.
How about that Hatt Mancock though eh? At least he’s been eating bollocks instead of talking it I suppose.

Anyway I was watching the news and they were talking about the feathered version of Covid. And I thought, ‘Oh dear.’ It made me really sad to be honest. No wonder there’s been a dearth of activity in our skies.
Christmas is coming, the goose is getting - well culled actually. Along with our turkey dinner (by the way, aren’t sprouts the devil’s testicles. Blaghh!)
And that ain’t fair either.
Why not?
I’ll tell you.
If one gets it, then the whole flock gets the chop. That’s just not cricket if you ask me.
​
Before you all start berating me, let me say that it is a terrible disease and a horrible way to go. But surely they won’t all get it? Surely there are some that are resistant? Shouldn’t they allow them to live in order to build up some immunity? I don’t know,
I’m not a vet, or a scientist, but it does seem crazy to me.

Let’s face it, I had Covid this time last year and DEFRA didn’t come marching along to this charming park home site adjacent the cut to have me and the rest of the inhabitants shot. (I have to call it a park home site officially - I call my place a caravan, but that gets the neighbours up in arms. We’ve gone posh).
Oh, and I did notice the murmuration of disappointment (see what I did there?) when I revealed that I hadn’t been shot. Thanks a bunch!

So I just wanted to say that when those of you who haven’t foregone the consuming of our fellow earthly companions in favour of piles of the devil’s you know what’s, please offer up a little prayer of thanks this Christmas for the meaty treat on your plate. She was one of the lucky ones. At least she made it to Christmas.

Got to go, I think I hear Noddy clearing his throat. Either that or they’re dredging the Staffs and Worcs again.

Have a good one folks.

I often wonder what Jim and Amanda would be doing at this time of year at the various times in their joint adventures. My guess is they could well be looking along the canal from one of the many narrow waisted red brick bridges that carry a path that comes from nowhere in particular and leads somewhere even less significant.

As darkness eventually falls they will probably return to the shelter of their little boat and brew yet another mug of tea before turning in for the night.

Maybe it's unexciting, but to them it would be a pleasure beyond words. The clearness of an autumnal night, with fresh air blowing gently across the back of their little boat was always something too good to miss for the pair in the early days. Many conversations were had, and stories shared by the soft light of one of the old hurricane lamps they had. Sometimes they would talk, and others they would just sit and look at the night sky.

Mayfly was, and is, an easy little boat to like, and though as fragile as the lifestyle that had been landed on the pair, she wasn't one to let her occupants down. No matter what the day had thrown at the two unlikely friends, it was hard for either of them not to enjoy the life they were now living.

One morning, some months later, there was still plenty of snow about when they woke up and it was clear that a bit more would come but, despite the cold, Jim and Amanda were in optimistic mood.
“You know it's a bit daft for us to have slept on Fly when we could have been warmer in...” Amanda said.
“But we both wanted to be here,” Jim replied, cutting her sentence a little bit short. “It doesn't have to make sense, nothing does. When you think of it, when does anything make sense even when you’re normal.”
“Well, Mr Diogenes, thanks for calling me a freak. I'm still bagging the toilet though!” Amanda laughed. “I really wish we could have taken that part of the bungalow with us.”

Jim looked across the short distance from Mayfly to the little wooden building that was not much more than a summer house. It was hard to believe that Amanda had lived there by herself only months previously, and harder to believe what had happened in the intervening period.
“Are you sure you didn't stash one in that bag of yours,” he laughed. “You seemed to have plenty of things in it!”
“If I’d known all of the stuff that was going to happen I might just have taken a screwdriver to it and pushed it in my bag and all,” Amanda laughed. “But then there’s all the plumbing.”
Jim was still deep in thought when he heard her footsteps crunching across the fresh snow towards the place. He eventually set about lighting the Primus stove for the first cup of tea ready for her return. He thought for a moment and then lit the other one as he started work on an idea that had flashed across his mind.

On her return, Amanda could hear the roaring, but waited until both stoves were off before she boarded the little boat.
“Was I really that long?” she asked.
“Why not enjoy the simple pleasure of a relaxed morning in the bog,” Jim smiled.
“I was thinking of doing a big fry up but then that probably wouldn't be all that sensible.”
“Not with Mum and Dad coming over,” Amanda laughed. “She said I looked really well when we got back, but I never could stop her trying to feed me up! That smells pretty good though Jimbo. What is it?” she asked as he handed her a plate.
“I was thinking of making something special, like an even bigger fry up than usual, then I remembered this one. It's sort of cinnamon toast only done in a frying pan,” he smiled.
“That and a mug of tea will hit the spot really well,” Amanda replied, looking across the stern of Mayfly and down the river. “Did we really just sail away like the owl and the pussycat and fix all that stuff? Or is this just a hallucination.”
“They didn’t have an outboard motor, but I heard some people say that all of life is an illusion, but I banged my head getting the cinnamon out from the deed box and that seemed pretty real,” Jim said.
“This toast seems pretty real too, and good. Eat yours whilst it's still hot won't you,” Amanda smiled.

The sky had been getting greyer as they spoke, and the crisp smell of frost began to give way to a slightly damper smell that was half river and half weather with a hint of boat and petrol thrown in for good measure. The first of the thick flakes of snow began to fall as Amanda finished her mug of tea and reached into her bag.
“I know we're skint,” she said, pulling out a couple of lengths of tinsel.
“It's O.K.” Jim replied, reaching into one of the other deed boxes and lifting out a very small artificial tree.
“Oh well,” Amanda laughed as they decorated the cockpit of their little boat.
“You'd better have this too,” she added, handing a little parcel to Jim.
“Thanks Mand,” Jim smiled, handing her a neatly wrapped package.
“Mayfly did us proud, she really did,” Amanda said thoughtfully. “Thanks for... Well just thanks.”
“Same goes to you, as well. I'm happy with the way it all turned out too,” Jim replied, “And you're right, I know what you're thinking.”
“We couldn't just ignore her, not today,” Amanda frowned. “Wouldn't be right.”
“Happy Christmas,” Jim said, kissing his friend.
“Yes Jimbo, it is one, and well, we should both, well... You know,” Amanda smiled, looking at Jim and then along the length of their little boat.
“Happy Christmas Mayfly,” they both said.

©2022 Michael Nye

I’ve had one of those 'you read it here first' brainwaves, so cheap and effective that it's criminal that my little brain didn’t come up with this years ago. Drip strips!

Most boats I have come across all suffer the same problem - water building up in the window mechanisms, over whelming the drain holes and flooding inside. I have even watched people remove them and re-bed them only to find it made little or no difference. Indeed, if you look at old boat brochures from the 1970s the stark difference between a Dawncraft and say a Broom, is the finishing details. Basically, we don’t have any: just pretty well as two burly blokes yanked it unwilling out of its mould and glued the top to the bottom. Quick trip to local hardware store and the cheapest plastic quadrant moulding I could buy and a tube of 'stick anything you like to whatever you like' and we are away.

Ok I did go so far as removing any old paint before doing this and then set about gluing the quadrant in above the windows, which oddly produced a rather pleasing curve, the type found on more expensive boats – which had built in drip strips. The results, staggering! No water enters the window channels at all. Spurred on by this and not wishing to waste half a tube of glue I did down the deck sides where the water always builds up against the cabin side, the front window and the canopy roof. Now, rather than water pooling and collecting under windows, in windows, running down windows turning them milky, it actually flows off the back of the boat.

I know it’s been the driest summer on record but I have been noticing more and more water in the bilge. So I extended the canopy to cover the out board opening in the transom. I thought of all types of clever glass fibre panels that could do this and then came up with the cheapest option – add 3 feet of PVC to the bottom. This wasn’t as easy as it seems – or even seams. Luckily in my sail training days I became a dab hand with a sail maker's palm and sail needles, as it was eventually hand sewn. Top tip is to pierce the needle holes first with a small nail. A handy awl stitcher should be a must on any boat. Bored and with nothing on the tv, I set about the biggest task: making a winter bonnet out of one single piece of PVC that covers the canopy roof. I wanted it in one piece because after a while stitching leaks. It's not the prettiest of jobs but it’s incredibly effective – it seems to stop the condensation as well. Again, all done by hand. Top tip 2 If ever you try this single handed, buy some cheap awning clamps; I can guarantee that even on the calmest of days a wind will spook from nowhere and dump it in the canal.

Chuffed to bits with my latest improvements I returned on a wet Monday evening to check how much water was in the bilge. It was full, fuller than I have ever known it. I threw buckets of water over the canopy convinced it must be entering via the outboard well. Nothing. And worse still, I could hear water dripping and trickling. Slight panic mode, I hit the bilge pump switch and cleared it. But even after it was cleared, water was still trickling in. Ok start engine. Last resort, ram it on the slip way - anything but sink. I’ve written this many times before – Do not clad the inside of your hull below the water line, Torch in, got time to sound ship, every locker turned out every nook and cranny from bow to stern looking for a screw hole anything that is leaking.

The trickling noise stopped, but would start again if I moved my weight to port. Ok pump the dinghy up Anchor DT in basin and check outside hull in case we had been rammed and I was missing something on port side. Nothing, the boat is now all over the cabin sole, pans, ropes, fenders everything out. Perplexed, it's time for a coffee and a think. NO WATER, yet the log (and I always keep one) stated that I filled up 50 litres Sunday afternoon. The tank had split on one of the pipe joins- the fact that it was actually installed upside down so it filled from the bottom didn’t help. It was just quirk of fate that I happened to be on board as it was happening, me moving to port emptied the last of it.

Oh well I had a new water tank which I always wanted to put in the bilge floor so it didn’t upset the balance when being filled up and the following weekend was spent installing it. I have to say it was a pleasure to work in the cockpit without a dripping canopy. Had I paid attention I would have realised that this had started to leak a week or so ago hence the water.

Autumn is one of my favourite seasons. I love walking on the Huddersfield Narrow Canal and seeing the stunning autumn colours and foliage for which this stretch of the canal is renowned. The Huddersfield Narrow Canal is known as the “Everest” of the canal system, twenty miles in length and traverses through The Pennines with 74 locks. Its main attraction is the Standedge Tunnel, described by the superlatives being the longest, deepest, and highest in the country. I rode through the tunnel some years ago and the 2+ hour boat was certainly an interesting experience.

I chose to explore my favourite stretch of the canal which is west of the tunnel starting at Greenfield – a good starting point which the village has a railway station and good bus connections. This stretch from Greenfield to Uppermill never disappoints me because of the treelined paths and it is easy to be embraced with its bright and beautiful autumn colours. I drew inspiration just walking this stretch and it gave me a creative scope for painting and photography.

I painted the above scene where this stretch of canal runs along the River Tame. I was artistically inspired to paint the trees and their autumn colours. I used gouache as the paint medium.

Uppermill, once known for its wool and cotton industry, is a Saddleworth Village which the canal travels through. The highlight was to see the fallen leaves on the ground and walking through them; it was like being in an autumn wonderland with all the captivating colours.

This painting is based at Lock 21W in Uppermill. An Autumn hotspot where the leaves carpet the towpath. It was a sight to capture and savour and gouache is the paint medium used.

A notable attraction is the Saddleworth Viaduct which carries trains from Leeds/Huddersfield to
Manchester and Vice Versa. Just after is The Limekiln Café where you can enjoy coffee and cake on their canalside terrace.

I used the Snapseed App, a free downloadable App, where multiple exposures can be created as shown in the photos of the Saddleworth Viaduct and Standedge Tunnel. I particularly combined the viaduct and the tunnel and their autumn foliage and water reflections.

I began ascending the canal after Dobcross, a nearby village, towards Standedge Tunnel. Being out on the Moors and admiring the November scenery was an experience! I eventually reached Standedge Tunnel and spent some time at the canalside, people and ducks watching. Before I turned back and descended, I stopped at The Diggle Lock, housed in the Warth Mill (once used for the Woollen Cloth Making industry) for a cocktail. The Diggle Lock is a shop as well as a restaurant which produces and sells amazing sourdough bread!

A wonderful afternoon out where one is enchanted with the autumn colours, and cannot help but be drawn into it artistically.

By Dawn Smallwood
Facebook: @Dawn S Art
Instagram: @artwithdawns

“ ’Tis impossible to be sure of any thing but Death and Taxes.”
The Cobbler of Preston, by Christopher Bullock

The death of Queen Elizabeth II has just allowed the world to witness the pageantry of a monarch’s funeral in all its traditional splendour, and naturally it got me thinking.

Despite its inevitability, the civilised world of today finds death traumatising and disturbing and uses the technology of modern life to keep its mortality out of thought and mind. This is, really, a completely new phenomenon that our ancestors would not have understood in the slightest.

At the time when the canals began, the majority of people didn’t move much beyond the district they were born in and if they did, they could be hoiked back to their village of origin by the settlement act if they had the audacity to be so poor as to need parish relief. The vast majority of people were also unquestioningly religious in one form or another, with a fairly iron-clad belief of life after death.

Death itself generally took place at home in the company of family, who had usually also been acting as the medical team prior to the event and the cause was usually an illness that gave them and their family time to acclimatise to the approaching decease. Sudden, accidental deaths were not commonplace and, then as now, caused more distress to the people around them; the parish registers would often be annotated by a shocked curate with the event.

To this background, the roving bands of navigators arrived on the scene.

They were tough men. Skilled and well paid, they arrived at quiet villages and caused chaos simply by doing their job. When death came to that community, it was usually brutal and it hit the men hard. At Standedge, a delayed blast instantly killed a man and wounded 3 others; near Sheffield a man was buried alive when a cutting collapsed; at Crick a man was killed falling down a tunnel shaft when a rope snapped.

The cortege that accompanied a man to his grave would surprise the locals, who viewed these strangers with accents from far off counties and with odd names like “Clainhim” with suspicion and the expectation that they were little more than unpredictable animals.

800 men fixed a blue ribbon to their hats and followed 35 year old Joseph Woodhouse in 1815. The latter group each put a half crown into a pot for the wake and then gave his widow the rest, the financial equivalent of about a year’s wages.

Joseph Woodhouse - newspaper clipping

Joseph Woodhouse - registered burial

300 men with a white ribbon around their arm walked in silence behind the coffin of 22 year old Samuel Marshall on the 8th of March 1826.

Samuel Marshall burial

For a time, fear of death itself really came secondary to a fear of being body-snatched. Until the Anatomy Act was passed in 1832, there was good money to be made in half-hitching a fresh burial and selling it to the medical schools, and there was a distinct increase in the risk the lower down the social scale you went.

On the 15th December, 1830, 32 year old James Wheeler was fetching a barrow-load of stone from Cowley quarry when he slipped and fell to the bottom. His horrified workmates rushed him to the local infirmary, where he finally died two days later. The newspaper describes how the men now raised the princely sum of £5 for a decent funeral by dint of 100 of them putting a shilling in the pot.

A large gang of them went to collect James on the day of the funeral and were aghast at finding the coffin already nailed shut; not trusting the doctors not to have ‘interfered’ with the body – this being before the 1832 Anatomy Act - they demanded the lid came off so they could check and, faced with a large gang of powerful, irate men, the hospital eventually complied (the navigators fears were unfounded and James’ remains were perfectly fine.)

Death of James Wheeler

The funeral procession is what now gained the attention of the local newspapers. 6 men bore the coffin, while 6 women attended to the pall. Six foremen were the chief mourners behind the coffin and then 100 men walked behind, 2 abreast. More navigators and their wives were already at the church.

No one wore mourning clothes but everyone was scrubbed clean and smartly dressed.

When it came to the actual interment, they weren’t taking any chances that someone might body-snatch James and they insisted on filling in the grave themselves, allegedly having brought stones from the quarry itself to make sure he stayed buried.

The funeral practice of the first boaters was, at times, just a vaguely reverential rubbish disposal; in 1791 a boatman drowned legging through Preston Brook tunnel. His body was dropped off at the wharf and it appears the boat carried on her journey having quickly hired a replacement man. No one had any idea who the dead man was and it was the height of summer, forcing the Daresbury vicar to bury him quickly in an unmarked grave and to simply note in the registers “Boatman drowned in the tunnel of Preston [Brook], interred 26th day [of July]”

When death came to a boater, he was usually in his cabin. If the boat wasn’t already laid up, she would carry on her journey to the nearest place that could supply a coffin. The family would usually be the ones to attend the body, but in some places had a “woman that does” who would take this role.

Boaters, just like the navigators, wanted a “decent funeral.” The coffin would be as ornate as could be afforded, and often there would be a quick whip-around of the boats in the vicinity to make sure there was money. Some boaters were part of burial clubs, and in a few cases the company they worked for would foot a funeral bill.

Funeral fly-boating 1904

While they would strive to get the body back to the place the deceased most associated as home - Braunston being a famous example - generally, a boater would be taken to the closest canal-side church and interred with little circumstance. The funeral party really depended on where the boat had managed to get to; a quiet village might only have one or two other boats tied up there, while a busy wharf could have dozens. If the person had died by accident, the funeral could be delayed by the attention of the coroner’s inquest which would also affect what other mourners might be able to be present.

When a boat was able to take her dead home, this would entail loading the coffin onto the boat, usually behind the mast, and running ‘on the fly’ with it. This was a practical consideration of multiple fronts- not only was a boat not earning if she was on a ‘dead run’; embalming was not as long-acting as it is today, if it was even done at all. A boat with such a cargo would often be loosed through by other boats at locks, and the infamous ‘towpath telegraph’ would have been at work keeping other boats abreast of who’d died and where they were. This kind of funeral invariably had more mourners at the burial, having given them time to get their own boats to the place.

Boaters' funerals tended to attract little attention from the newspapers due to the sheer speed in which they happened, but in 1923 the boatmen went on strike and around 55 boats came to a halt at Braunston for 3 months, and it gives us a glimpse into their lives.

Three deaths attended the boaters: 62 year old Joseph Green off the boat “Flint,” 12 year old Edward Walker of an unidentified boat and Albert Kendall, a 67 year old retired boatman.

Joseph Green Burial (photo from Steamers Historical)

The funeral procession of Joseph Green was photographed showing the impressive cortege, and young Edward’s coffin was photographed being wheeled into the church by his young bearers. A newspaper describes for him “An extremely impressive site was presented as the cortege, numbering probably 100, proceeded from the Castle Inn, where the body had been resting, to the church… Many of the followers carried touching bouquets of wild flowers to place on the coffin.”

12 year old Edward Walker's burial (photo from Steamers Historical)

Albert, who appears to have been living in a cottage in the village, was noted as getting an equally impressive send-off “..there was a cortege of 135 of the boatmen and women who are at present held up at Braunston...”

When you look at the waterways funerals of the past and compare them to the Queen's funeral just days ago, there’s very little fundamental difference in what’s actually happening. A monarch being flanked by her loyal forces or a navigator being escorted by his comrades, it’s still simply a goodbye.