Piecing together the past
Sally Clifford chats to Paul and Diana Monahan, whose interest in canals and historic narrowboats led to a love of life on the water.
IT IS no ordinary jigsaw; when Diana Monahan opened the thoughtful gift given to her by her husband, Paul, she realised the Ravensburger puzzle was created especially for her. For there, on the box cover, was a photo of her aboard their narrowboat, Madeley. Sitting patiently, she wasn’t just completing a jigsaw, but piecing together the past.
The Monahans’ narrowboating travels have taken them the length and breadth of most of Britain’s canal network, although, chatting to me in their comfortable stone cottage in the creative community of Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire, there are still parts they intend to travel in retirement. “We have been just about everywhere at least once. I still like the Thames,” says Berkshire-born Paul, whose enjoyment of canoeing on London’s iconic river as a young boy led to a life lived largely near water.
Diana and Paul travelled all over the Midlands while running their business Argo Canal Services, delivering coal and diesel on their 72ft long narrowboat Tadworth. Built by Yarwoods of Northwich in 1937, Tadworth had previously worked for The Grand Union Canal Carrying Company, British Waterways and Ashby Canal Carriers.
“It worked mostly London to the Midlands,” says Paul.
According to the National Historic Ships UK register, Tadworth has a very rare original riveted back cabin. “There are very few left with the original steel cabin,” says Paul. Paired with Tadworth was the couple’s butty boat, Argo. Built by Harland & Wolff of Woolwich in 1935, Argo, also registered with National Historic Ships UK, was a Star Class butty.
Diverse cargo
Trading from Gas Street Basin, Birmingham, where they lived on their boat, Madeley, Paul recalls they often carried diverse cargoes, even including beer and boating-guide writers! “We became very much part of the Gas Street community which was a friendly village inside a big city,” says Diana. They eventually sold the working boats and business and returned to Yorkshire, settling in Hebden Bridge in 1992.
Recalling their introduction to boating life, they credit their first narrowboat holiday after they married. An arrangement to borrow hire boats for weekends from a local boatyard during quiet periods led to them purchasing Monty, a 36ft Teddesley, the first of what became a small family fleet. “We kept it on the Leeds and Liverpool canal as we were living in Yeadon at the time,” says Diana.
An advertisement for a couple to crew the famous President steam narrowboat introduced Diana and Paul to their greatest adventures. “They were looking for couples with boating experience to take some narrowboat trips firstly to the IWA Rally at Northwich in 1979,” says Diana.
“We applied, of course, very quickly and did several trips with President,” adds Paul.
Built in 1909 in Fellows, Morton & Clayton’s company dock at Saltley, Birmingham, the cargo vessel, featuring a distinctive ‘josher’ hull, became a floating museum during its time with The President Steamer Company. It was bought by the Black Country Living Museum in 1983 and is on the National Historic Ships UK register.
Home sweet home
Madeley, an ex-horseboat, is their mainstay and remains moored in the Midlands ready for their future travels. According to Paul, it was one of only two boats known to have been built by Harris of Netherton for Fellows, Morton & Clayton Ltd. Its past included working as a maintenance boat, but Paul recalls they came by it when it was in pieces awaiting restoration at Malcolm Braine’s boatyard in Norton Canes.
While Madeley required much work to restore it, the boat was ideal for the couple, who had been seeking a shorter boat for the Leeds and Liverpool canal where they were moored at that time. They lived in Leeds after meeting at the city’s university. “All the steelwork and engine installation was done for us, but we fitted out the cabin,” says Paul.
Owning and working with historic boats developed their wider interest in the canal network and its rich history as an early route for transportation. Diana, who grew up near Goole, volunteers with the Upper Calder Valley Towpath Taskforce and Paul previously served on the National Council of the Inland Waterways Association (IWA).
They are both members of the Historic Narrowboat Club where has Paul served as chairman. “Many people we know have been boating for longer and have carried more loads, but we were fortunate to learn how to run a pair of boats properly from these friends and from some of the last of the boating families,” says Paul.
Retirement has opened up a new chapter in their boating life, and they intend to make the most of it. “For me, it’s the ability to see different places through the back door,” says Paul. “You are not going in as a tripper or a tourist, you get a totally different viewpoint.”