Characters of the Cut
Family finds freedom on the waterways
FOR Michelle Rocke-Wharin and her family, living an itinerant lifestyle is nothing new, having spent 13 years wandering the length and breadth of the United Kingdom by van, working seasonally as campsite wardens. However, despite enjoying the freedom of this rolling lifestyle, there was often a craving for more stability, yet still with the option to wander – a craving Michelle felt could be satisfied by narrowboat life.
She tells me: “For years I would walk along the Shroppie near Goldstone Wharf as my in-laws lived nearby and I’d get this intense longing to live on a narrowboat, but I knew we couldn’t afford one.” Everything changed several years ago when Michelle’s mum died and with the unexpected money left to her, she knew there was an opportunity to finally live that dream.
In January 2023 Michelle and her family, which includes husband, Colin, 17-year-old daughter, Flo, and — until he died recently — Patch the travelling cat, moved on to their narrowboat Sundance, a 45ft 1991 cruiser stern. Michelle says: “Now we have much more space and a greater feeling of stability, but we can also pootle off as the fancy takes us! Plus I can still feel the same closeness to nature as in a van, like feeling the changes outside, even by just a few degrees.”
It seems Michelle’s daughter has the same appreciation. “Flo has never been to school and instead we’ve followed an unschooling path where she learns what she is interested in. She knows trees and flowers and is the one among her friends who will rescue an insect while everyone else is squealing!” Michelle believes this closeness to nature is important if humans are to stay connected and feels boat life affords this in spades.
Describing herself as a pagan with a deep love of Mother Earth and all her life forms, Michelle follows the wheel of the year, immersing herself in the passing of the seasons and phases of the moon. “Everything is cyclical and interconnected,” she tells me, and never is that connection felt more keenly than when the family are moored on the Llangollen and Montgomery canals. “We bought Sundance in Ellesmere and stayed there for a few months before heading south to find somewhere closer to Birmingham but we struggled with being unable to just moor up where we fancied on the Shroppie due to the shelf, and on the Staffs and Worcs we felt too hemmed in.” Living in the constant shadow of the hedgerow and not being able to see the moon was hard for Michelle: “After five months we felt compelled to return to the open spaces of the Llangollen where we love the skyscapes and being able to see the moon as she waxes and wanes.”
This sounds fairly in line with Michelle’s initial idealistic views about what life afloat might be like, which were centred around peace and a simple way of life, although the family hadn’t perhaps taken into account a teen’s need for good Wi-Fi along with easy access to Birmingham to join her K-Pop cover dance group every weekend, not to mention Patch the cat’s desire for moorings away from dogs and cyclists!
Michelle admits though that “these all seem like very small challenges when the pay-off is feeling free and finding a balance between winter moorings and cruising has generally solved most issues.”
Cruising is a part of boating life enjoyed by all the family, especially since Michelle faced her fears of steering the boat. “When we decided to head back to the Llangollen Canal, Colin was working full time so I knew it was down to me. I’d only had a couple of goes at steering the boat as it terrified me, but I was determined to show Flo that despite being scared we can do anything.” It turns out Michelle and Flo worked well as a team and despite a few mishaps, they made it back to Ellesmere in one piece. “We got stuck on the Shroppie shelf, I scraped off a lot of the new blacking trying to go through locks sideways because of the by-washes, and we got very, very wet, but we did it. Flo was amazing and I’m not scared any more!”
They are now looking forward to spring, despite being without their faithful travelling companion, Patch.
“He died last month and we are all bereft. There’s a hole in our tight little family, but we know his spirit lives on along the towpath.”
Instagram: @Off_ for_ a_ pootle_nbsundance
Alice Elgie is a writer and also creator of the online community Slow Into The Seasons, along with a podcast of the same name. In these spaces she muses about living a slower, simpler life: slowintotheseasons.substack.com; Slow Into The Seasons on Spotify