A lasting appeal

What attracts people to become interested in canals? Les Heath shares his own experiences – from discovering a love of locks at an early age to the purchase of his narrowboat Country Rose.

FOR my own part it must have started when I was a child. Calling at Stone on the way back from a family holiday in Wales, my parents decided to stop for a drink at The Star inn by the lock.

As this was in the days when children were not allowed in pubs I remained outside in the car park with my sister.

I had never heard of the Trent & Mersey Canal, or any other canal for that matter, but I remember looking at this narrow lock outside the pub – the first I had ever seen as there was none near my home.

“With a bit of a run I could jump across it,” I thought. “It’s not very far.”

Fortunately I did not try but the experience did lead me to jump on my bike when I returned home and seek out the nearest canal to where I lived.

This happened to be a derelict section of the Cromford Canal between Jacksdale and the Butterley Tunnel – with much wider locks than the one I had seen at Stone.

Seeing the sad dereliction of the locks, dry dock and surrounding buildings prompted me to write about it in what was then the 11-plus examination.

I still remember the English essay. It began: “Drip, drip, drip. Drop by drop the water leaked through the rotting lock gates.”

Tunnel too far

In my teens I met a girl from that area and we often walked the line of the canal between Langley Mill and Ironville.

One day, in the early 1960s, I saw contractors filling in the canal and said to my companion: “Why are they filling it in? Why aren’t they digging it out?” To me it didn’t make sense.

Today the canal is being restored inch by inch beyond the boatyard near the junction of the Erewash Canal at Langley Mill and efforts elsewhere along the canal by the Friends of the Cromford Canal are quite admirable.

Even if restoration went as far as Golden Valley the lengthy Butterley Tunnel, closed in 1900 following several roof falls, may prove to be a ‘tunnel too far.’

This is such a pity when the canal beyond here as far as Cromford is one of the most beautiful in England and a Site of Special Scientific Interest.

Derbyshire author and children’s writer Alison Uttley, who was born in a house on the hillside overlooking Cromford basin in 1884, refers to the working boats on the canal in several of her books.

She mentions that the boat people made it clear that they did not want to befriend someone like her ‘off the land.’

Even then she found so much beauty in the canal and spent many hours on its banks. Nothing has changed to this day apart from the fact that the working narrowboats have long since gone.

Canoe trip

I never forgot the filling in of the canal and became interested in the restoration of the abandoned basin at Langley Mill. At this time I was given a handful of interesting boat records from the 18th century which were being cleared out of the toll house (still in existence) by the legendary Ike Argent.

Around that time I took a canoe from the basin all the way down the Erewash Canal to the River Trent – my very first experience of canal travel.

By then I was hooked and absolutely thrilled when an enthusiast a few years my senior took me to see the efforts being made by volunteers on the Chesterfield Canal.

One day I was able to help when a TV crew arrived to film the newly acquired club boat Nelson coming out of Drakeholes Tunnel.

We had to push the boat in and out of the tunnel several times until the producer was satisfied with a good shot.

Ideal honeymoon

After marriage in 1965 we thought the ideal honeymoon would be on a canal boat. Friends simply laughed at us for going on a canal, never mind on honeymoon. It just wasn’t done.

Narrowboats were not used by fledgling hire firms in those days – it was all cruisers – and I cannot remember seeing another pleasure craft all week. It was all working boats carrying coal, especially on the Coventry Canal.

Hiring a two-berth cruiser from Boot Wharf, Nuneaton, was our first experience of real canal travel.

To make it more special the joiner at the boatyard had been up all night converting two singles to a double when he heard it was our honeymoon. There was even a bottle of champagne on the bed.

All was fine until we rounded the bend at Hawkesbury Junction and were confronted by the daunting sight of pairs of narrowboats on both sides of the canal waiting for coal orders.

There was just a narrow channel in between them, enough for one boat, but even though I tried my best not to, I think I hit every one of them.

Although we had less than a week we chose, in our naivety, a circular route which should have taken much longer.

Cruising down the Coventry and Oxford canals to Braunston we then went up the Grand Union and on to the northern Stratford (which wasn’t officially open) at Kingswood Junction.

Grim scene

Fighting our way through islands of floating rubbish, and the odd mattress, we eventually arrived in the centre of Birmingham – not a pleasant place in the 1960s. Having left our one and only windlass on a lift bridge 15 miles back didn’t help.

The sight of dead rats floating in the canal is something I will always remember.

It was a grim scene. Decaying warehouses, wharves and industrial buildings faced on to black filthy water covered in oil – a far cry from the magnificent Brindley Place we have today.

But I still think of those dead rats every time I pass through.

Dropping down Farmer’s Bridge flight (really unpleasant in those days) we moored for the night on the Birmingham & Fazeley Canal on the outskirts of Birmingham.

We had only one day to reach Nuneaton to get the boat back on time. Ahead lay Minworth and Curdworth Locks, Glascote Locks and Atherstone flight.

To this day I don’t know how we did it but somehow we did. Ignorance is bliss but fortunately queueing at locks was unknown in those days so we had a clear run.

Annual holidays

When we started a family it was canal holidays every year. Asked if they wanted a different type of holiday the children always answered “No”. The seaside was out of the question.

They were some of the best holidays ever – always on cruisers as leisure narrowboats had not become popular with hire fleets.

After trips on the southern Oxford Canal, the Leicester section of the Grand Union and two on the Mon and Brec (then called the Brecon and Abergavenny Canal) we ventured further north to the Lancaster Canal.

This trip was long before the Ribble Link was built but I have since crossed the estuary to the link on two occasions in my own boat.

I actually have a photograph of my eldest daughter, then about 12, beside a hire boat in Lancaster and another of my youngest daughter standing by my own boat, in a similar pose, on the very same mooring in 2005.

Best decision

As retirement loomed I thought the best way to spend it was by living and travelling on my own boat – one of the best decisions I have ever made.

By then canals were playing an important part in the leisure industry and friends and colleagues viewed my decision with envy.

Walking along the Pocklington Canal one day I saw just what I wanted – a lovely narrowboat called Country Rose moored in the basin at Melbourne.

As I walked round the basin to ask the owner how long it was I noticed a For Sale sign in the window. That was it. I set my heart on it and simply had to have it, even though I knew very little about narrowboats.

It was named by the wife of the owner who collected Country Rose pottery. My family persuaded me not to change the name and I am pleased that I agreed.

At the time I discovered there was only one other Country Rose on the whole system. So I was delighted.

After buying the boat I rented it out for a year but then decided it was my boat and I wanted to live on it.

Taking early retirement I excitedly set off on my travels – 18 amazing years, so far, of exploring the whole canal system.

But that’s another story.