Thirtieth anniversary of Scotland’s Trailboat Rally
TAMFOURHILL is the area just south of the Forth & Clyde Canal, east of the Falkirk Wheel and north of one of the best preserved sections of the 2nd-century Roman Antonine Wall.
Thirty years ago this May, Tamfourhill was the location of the IWA’s National Trailboat Rally held over the Spring Bank Holiday and was enjoyed by around 6000 boaters and visitors – 27 years after the closure of the canal in 1963, and more than 20 years ahead of the reopening of the canal in 2001 and the Falkirk Wheel connecting the Forth & Clyde and Union canals in 2002.
The area around this part of Falkirk was heavily contaminated, a legacy of the heavy industry that took root alongside the canal. A fire clay mine, coal mine and tar works meant that the canal was heavily polluted by tar and mercury. The tar works had been gutted by a tremendous fire in 1973, which took three days to bring under control, the firefighters hampered by the fact that they could not use water from the canal as molten tar was pouring into it.
The rally marked the decontamination of the site, which cost some £5 million, and was part of the campaign to restore and reopen the canal. The clean-up of the canal enabled the construction of the Falkirk Wheel, the vital piece de resistance of the Millennium Link, rejoining the Forth & Clyde and Union canals.
Speaking to Robert Hunter, a former council officer and voluntary worker involved in the campaign to reopen the canal, with the Millennium Link and in organising the trail boat rally, it’s apparent that there are many important and interesting archive documents lying in people’s spare rooms, relating not only to the boating festival and other campaigning events, but to the entire restoration journey.
If we see the past as informing our future, archival projects can be so much more than recording historical documents and photographs: potentially bringing work experience, story-telling, cohesion across generations and, importantly, encouraging communities to understand and engage with, for example, their local stretch of canal.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful to tap into sufficient funding to allow the organisation, digitisation and publishing of what must surely be a unique body of knowledge and records relating to a significant stretch of waterway that is today bringing economic and social benefits to the communities along its path.