We sold up to live on a narrowboat – and never looked back...
Now couple are working to make canals more accessible
TODAY Tim and Tracey Clarke spend their days cruising along our region’s famous waterways, admiring the scenery as they go. But just a decade ago, their lives were very different.
After Tracey started to lose her eyesight in 2011, the 57-year-old was forced to stop working – with Tim, 64, made redundant just two years later.
Struggling to pay their mortgage and in a “really dark place”, they made a decision that would change their lives forever.
The pair sold their three-bed, semidetached home they had owned for 25 years and moved onto a small, 60-foot narrowboat – and they say they’ve “never looked back”.
Tim and Tracey are two of the nearly 40,000 people across the country who call the canals their home, and now they’re campaigning to make the waterways more accessible to other people with disabilities.
“After I was forced to give up work, and Tim was made redundant, we were facing bankruptcy,” Tracey recalls. “We couldn’t pay our mortgage.”
The pair had holidayed on narrowboats a couple of times before, but the idea of living on one was still, at that time, a “crazy pipe dream”.
“We had a young family to care for and all sorts of different commitments,” Tracey adds. “We were broke and in a really dark place.”
After discovering there was just enough equity in the house to clear their mortgage, the pair took the plunge, selling their three-bed Sussex home and embarking on the journey of a lifetime.
“I think we probably cleared out 99 per cent of our belongings,” she says, “and then we cleared out 99 per cent of what was left.
“It makes you realise how much stuff you accumulate that you really don’t need – it was liberating.
“The only thing we brought with us was a box of photos, because that’s where all our memories are.”
It’s been ten years since the pair bought their first narrowboat – and they say it’s much more cost-efficient than living in a home.
The pair are known as ‘continuous cruisers’ – meaning they have no fixed abode.
Instead, they must move to a new mooring every two weeks.
The rules state boaters must move a minimum of 20 miles every year – with Canal and River Trust spotters on hand to ensure these requirements are met.
But to Tracey and Tim, this sense of adventure is what makes the whole experience so special.
“There are 2,500 miles of waterways in the country, and we want to explore it all,” says Tracey. “Sometimes we wake up in the morning and have no idea where we’ll end up!”
The pair have travelled the length and breadth of the country on their boat, the Sola Gratia, with their two guide dogs Ozzie and Loki, but they always find themselves coming back to the West Midlands.
“We love it around here, it feels like home to us,” says Tracey.
“We spend a lot of our time in the Black Country around Oldbury – we’re registered with our church and GP there so that’s kind of where we’re based. We recently spent some time in Bumble Hole nature reserve which was amazing,” adds Tim.
“Kings Norton also has some lovely spots. We’ve lived on our narrowboat for around ten years now and we’ve only explored a quarter of the system, we want to explore the rest of it.”
Alongside running their small dog treat business from their boat, the pair also help to run the Accessible Waterways Association – an organisation working to make the canal network more accessible to people with disabilities.
Recently they hosted the inaugural Towards Accessible Waterways event in the city centre – bringing together a range of people to discuss ways to make the canal network more accessible.
“I’m registered as severely visually impaired and Tim’s got a hearing impairment,” Tracey says.
“There are a lot of disabled people who use the waterways, but the environment is not really very accessible in places because it’s an old, historic network. “We’ve devised the boater’s equivalent of a blue badge, which people can display on their boats to let people know they have additional needs.
“We’re also working to raise awareness and work with the waterways authorities to find ways to make the canals more accessible to everyone – such as installing ramps and accessible locks.”
The only thing we brought with us was a box of photos, because that’s where all our memories are. Tracey Clarke