In military circles it is said that plans rarely survive contact with the enemy. The same could be said of my plans for a teaching career. I dropped out after my first teaching practice and got a dead end job in a fascist paper factory. I use the F word advisedly. The boss kept asking me if I was Jewish and once told me that he’d fought on the wrong side in the war.

No longer needing to be near the college I moved my two little boats to join Lilith on the farm moorings. The fees were 50p per boat per week, which was a bargain for Lilith. Even at £1.50 for the 3 boats it wasn’t too bad but, when he realised that I was living on them the farmer demanded £3 a week for the 3 craft. Extortion!

I moved on to the towpath side near the village of Stoak. With a wage in my pocket I was able to re-activate the little car that I had left behind at my parent’s house.

The planking was complete at the stern end of Lilith and I wanted to build a back cabin to live in. Someone told me that at Ellesmere Port the canal was chock full of wood from the recent motorway construction. I drove over there and, though I found no free wood, I came across volunteers preparing the derelict area for opening as a boat museum in a few weeks time.

I got talking to Tony Hirst who told me that they had a problem. They were planning to bring lots of historic boats to the opening, but had no way of keeping them safe in a place renowned for vandalism and arson. I immediately volunteered to become resident volunteer caretaker, boat pumper outer and vandal chaser offer.

The photo is of Lilith on her 120th birthday, December 2nd 2021. We towed her and Hazel to the first winding hole up the Peak Forest then returned to a patch of waste ground in Dukinfield and had a bonfire. An oak tree was planted in the ashes, growing the wooden boats of the 22nd century!

Arrangements were made to move my boats. Lilith was to hang on behind the Thomas Clayton pair Spey and Gifford. My floating hutches were to follow on after the celebrations were over.

Lilith still had no means of steering, so it was an interesting journey, dangling on the end of a line from Gifford’s anser hook. Tony Lewery was steering the butty and a combination of his efforts and my use of an improvised shaft we mostly kept her out of trouble.

Trouble came on arrival at The Port. The volunteer harbourmaster was the owner of a Josher steamer and tended to look down on lesser craft. With one glimpse of my disreputable Joey boat he ordered her to be taken down to the bottom basin, which was then still derelict. Bad decision!

There are parallel locks down to the bottom basin, one set wide and the other narrow. Being a narrow boat Lilith started down the narrow locks. It had been several years since she had been through a narrow lock and she had not been dieting. It took a team of volunteers, diverted from other work, most of the afternoon to drag her protesting hull through those two locks. It was then decided that she could come into the top basin after all. She returned up the wide locks.

When the weekend festivities were over I fired up my little Ailsa Craig outboard and whirred along the canal with Mosquito and Melford, the floating chicken hutches, to take up residence in the basin and start my new duties.

Gifford is still an important part of the Boat Museum’s collection.

Spey is still travelling the canals in the care of the ‘Spey crowd’. They are probably the best example of a shared ownership group looking after a historic boat. They have continually maintained and improved her for over 50 years and are now passing her on to a younger generation.

Lilith is in the care of the Wooden Canal Boat Society and, in her 125^th year, is awaiting another restoration at Portland Basin, Ashton under Lyne.

Please feel free to get in touch if you would like to help https://www.wcbs.org.uk/ 07931 952 037