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On the 23rd of June 2013 the village of Lymm, Cheshire, held a Transport Festival with over a 100 historic vehicles passing through the village street,and also as part of that occasion there was a procession of historic working canal boats both narrow and wide beam that cruised along the Bridgewater canal and passing through this pretty village. I made and compiled this video of the event and uploaded it to You Tube.

The tin I bought in 1976 with the plastic top is still OK but has been "stored in a cool dry place". The one me Mam gave me, with a briliantly designed metal cap, is not good, like solid. That said it was the tin she used to polish the buttons on her RAF uniform when that nice Mr Churchill was advocating combat beach volley ball. I also have a child hood memory of her singing songs from that time as she hung out the washing.The last verse of one went something like:- Some say he died of a feever & others he died of a fit. But we all know what he died of, he died of the smell of the.. Sh.......ine your buttons with Brasso, it's only a Shilling a tin. You can buy it or Knick it from Wollworths but I don't think they got any in.

You may find this link more informative http://www.boatmail.co.uk/mail2email.html

From a quick Google search: http://www.voltimum.co.uk/news/9230/infopro.profnews.voltimum/Q---A-of-the-Day---PVC-cable-in-conduit-when-passing-through-polyurethane-insulation-.html There may be other articles which give contrary information, but until someone shows me one backed by a body such as the British Approvals Service for Cables, I'm going with this advice.

This of course is Bread and Butter to those who have nothing better to do than sit at their computers knocking CRT without any real facts. I will go with Alan Fincher (who was with CRT yesterday) and Laurence (who knows the canals and area far better than most) The fact is as far as I understand it there is a pot of money allocated for maintenance each year Vince Moran than allocates his spend based on the most urgent work. Like Alan I am amazed at the amount of knowledgeable boaters who have come out of the woodwork saying "I knew that was going to happen" when asked "when did you report it to CRT" it seems they did not bother. Yes like others I see money being spent on certain things and say to myself "what a waste of money" but then I see that in all organisations. What I do know is that the vast majority of CRT staff do care about our waterways. The one thing I do know is that I cover a lot of miles every year and this is the first time I have had to make a fairly major change to my plans, but hey it involves about 20 extra miles and a few extra Locks and I will see some canals I have never seen before.

Does anyone on here realize exactly how much water was released on this occasion? We are talking of lock 16 to 19 which is about a mile and a half of canal, that amounted to a tidal wave breaching the banks, the damage IS considerable and all down to vandalism. Dean Davies (CRT manager West Mids) reassures me that every effort is in place to reopen the flight as soon as possible, he is not happy that the BCN main line is closed off in peak summer. Anti vandal locks are in place but vandals soon find a way round them as do we when we forget our key, have you tried opening one with a biro case? it works!

Buy a hand scythe and clear it yourself.

All major assets like locks and bridges are monitored, and an attempt made to classify them in order not only of condition, but also rate of deterioration. I have been to presentations by CRT where they make it clear that what gets priority is not determined solely by what is in worst condition, though. If something is being monitored, is in poor state, but judged to not be dangerous or in danger of imminent failure, it can lose out on the priority stakes, either to something in less poor state, but where safety is at issue, or something in less poor state, but where the implications of not attending to it promptly may massively increase the final bill. In other words, sometimes a concious decision is made not to give something priority, because although it is known not to be "100%" it is judged it will remain OK for a while, and the ultimate remedial work will not be significantly higher if repairs are deferred, but the situation monitored. Vince Moran pulls no punches that they are constantly having to juggle to make best use of available resources, and that it is inevitable sometimes that they will get it wrong. Loads of Internet pundits and NBW contributors seem to know after the event that there was a problem brewing at a location where a failure has occurred, but I'm sure people also know of worrying signs at high numbers of locations where no failure has occurred, and none ever will. Does anybody think they can accurately predict (say) the next three major failures? No, of course none of us can if we are honest, and that is the dilemma for CRT - some of the issues at these structures can probably only be found by pulling them apart. As I have said in response to the Aylesbury Arm failure, it has now been discovered that the failed lock is far less substantially built than others on the arm, but nobody knows why. It had not stopped it standing for 200 years, but that bit of information may well be a contributory fact in its failure. I'm not enough of an engineer to know if you can start a program that non destructively tests every lock to see if it actually contains less brick or stonework than people have hitherto assumed it did, but I kind of assume such a program might be far from trivial?

The one we have found tight is the lock at Curdworth which was rebuilt when the M42 was built and is a good bit shorter than the rest. To get Fulbourne (71 ft 6ins) through we have to lift bow and stern fenders, put the rudder at 90 degrees and it just fits.

Greenie for do that... MtB