Hi Calluna

My profile should tell you that I crossed the border (the Watford By-pass) long ago. I have even visited Barlick for the Bancroft Engine on occasion, I have a long-suffering friend in Silsden and I've used visits to him as an excuse!

No direct experience on the canals although my maternal Grandad worked on the canals from about 1895 until about 1910 (when he met Grandma and went down the pit). He would never talk  a lot about it. It wasn't until I did the Family History thing that we discovered that his mother died young, his Dad married a widow with 5 teenage kids, and he ended up virtually running away from home. His uncle seems to have been involved with a local canal carrier in Wolverhampton and presumably got him a sort of apprenticeship. In the 1901 census he is a 10 year old "canal boat mate".

I still find this a bit hard to reconcile with the image of the small stern Methodist lay-preacher with his chapel hat and watch-chain that I remember. One thing that he did tell me was how it was normal to fight for precendence at the locks - bet they don't do that now!

When I was a kid one of the favourite Sunday morning walks was along the Grand Union. This was just at the end of the British Waterways and then Willow-Wren carrying days. The boats were still carrying commercial loads to the paper mills and Roses Lime Juice factory at Hemel Hempstead, and they were still crewed by the original canal familes. Watching a married couple work a lock as a team with the motor and butty together was sight we won't see again. Of course they made it look so easy. 

So you can see why I am following this "will she" "won't she" saga!  Incidentally if you haven't already found it, the seminal canal book "Narrow Boat" by LTC (Tom) Rolt is well worth a read. It is available in paperback and is the, slightly romanticsed, account of one of the first outsiders to live on the cut - good historical background.

Cheers

Malcolm

Stanley

You thought that exotic honeymoon destinations were a new thing?

Until I did the family history thing, we couldn't make the connection between a lad leading canal horses in the Black Country and a pit village North of Nottingham. Turns out he got a pit job through his brother (to keep him near to Grandma). When marriage was looming, he heard of a new pit opening in Yorkshire and walked from Hucknall to Asken near Doncaster (about 60 miles) to get a job with a house. Someone on another strand was recently talking about how our ancestors moved around.

Grandma did go down the pit once, when  Grandad was at Brodsworth (his last pit) they had an annual family day. She picked up a piece of coal as a souvenir, cleaned it up, and put it on the mantlepiece. One day when the fire was getting low, Grandad chucked her souvenir on the grate. In answer to her protests, Grandad, who didn't have an obvious sense of humour, merely remarked "don't worry mother I can get you plenty more of them". Grandma always maintained that he had missed the point of a souvenir, but I'm not so sure!

Malcolm 

I've been spending a lot of time on a website uncannily similar to OGFB but it's all about canals. It's called Canal World and its members are just as insane as many of the folk on here.

Here's a joke I found (it's a variation on an old theme but it still made me smile):

A boater is stuck in a line of narrow boats. Nothing is moving.

A man walks along the towpath. The boater asks him, "What's going on?"

"Terrorists down the cut have kidnapped Gordon Brown. They're asking for a £10 million ransom, otherwise they're going to douse him with red diesel and set him on fire. So we're going from boat to boat, taking up a collection."

The boater asks, "How much have you collected?"

"About 100 litres so far but most people are still syphoning." =================

And another, which is very reassuring:

A herd of buffalo can only move as fast as the slowest buffalo, and when the herd is hunted, it is the slowest and weakest ones at the back that are killed first.

This natural selection is good for the herd as a whole, because the general speed and health of the whole herd keeps improving by the regular culling of the weakest members.

In much the same way, the human brain can operate only as fast as the slowest brain cells. Excessive intake of alcohol, we all know, kills off brain cells, but naturally it attacks the slowest and weakest brain cells first.

In this way, regular consumption of beer eliminates the weaker cells, constantly making the brain a faster and more efficient machine. ==================

We've got our eye on a magnificent barge which is just within our price range. The only trouble is, it's 14' 2" wide. Depending on what source you use, this means it's either 2" too wide to fit L&L locks, or one inch under the maximum of 14' 3". At 58' the length is fine.

Does anyone (Thomo?) have the definitive dimensions of the L&L? It would be quite upsetting [nay, tragic!] to buy it (it's lying at Thorne near the Aire & Calder Nav) then find it won't squeeze through the system.

While I'm on here, thought I'd share this with you - even if you're not into narrowboats I think you'll find it un peu amusant (don't know why I suddenly broke into schoolgirl French just then ... sorry).

Uncyclopedia's definition of a narrowboat