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Good decision! But of course there is plenty of other volunteering to be done, it’s not just volockies. A near neighbour at our marina volunteers with CRT but they spend their time cutting back vegetation etc, and they do a jolly good job too. And they get a work boat to play with! As you know, my head is enormous and if some small part was damaged I probably wouldn’t miss it. And anyway, who’s to say that the windlass wouldn’t have come off worse?

If you let the vlockies behaviour go unchallenged then they get just worse and worse....which in the end could cause an accident or worse....I had thought they had all got better last year but it seems not judging from this post. Maybe you have a different outlook on life to myself and maybe Matty...Vols should ask what assistance they can offer....as indeed they did in the main last year rather than impose their ideas. As discussed previously only you know how your boat behaves in a given lock or indeed how you like to operate any lock.

There are two issues that deserve comment (1) Not wearing a name badge (2) Refusing to give a name The Volunteers have a responsibility to the boaters who use the waterways and part of that responsibility is identification. Yet stating this it should be possible to trace the said person through the work allocation schedule, I would have thought.

This is just in from CRT....I think the various emails and articles have had some effect. Well done to all concerned! PRESS RELEASE 2 July 2021 Towpath to be upgraded on Shropshire Union Canal at Market Drayton Waterways and wellbeing charity, Canal & River Trust, is set to improve the towpath along the Shropshire Union Canal at Market Drayton for the thousands of boaters and local people who use this section of canal every year. The work is being part-funded by a grant from the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development Rural Tourism Infrastructure programme and involves improving the towpath between Victoria Wharf at Bridge 65 through to the Market Drayton Aqueduct. Starting on 12 July, the seven-week project will involve resurfacing and widening the towpath in places to create a rural green route that connects communities and allows local people and visitors to explore their local canal whatever the weather. To carry out the work safely the towpath will initially be closed. As soon as is practically possible sections of the towpath will be reopened to provide access from the canal to the town nearby. During the work, the canal will remain open to boaters who will have supervised access to the visitor moorings and the customer services facilities. Overnight mooring will be permitted. Adnan Saif, regional director for West Midlands at the Canal & River Trust, said: “The canal and towpath at Market Drayton is extremely popular but, when it’s wet, it can become slippery and a bit of a mud bath, making it inaccessible for local people, boaters and tourists wanting to explore this rural stretch of canal and the nearby town. “Whilst we appreciate that doing this work over the summer isn’t ideal for boaters and local people, we do need to drier, warmer weather in order to carry out the work as quickly as possible whilst causing the least amount of disruption. We are aiming to keep sections of the towpath open during the works so that local people and visitors can still access nearby shops, pubs and restaurants. “Our research shows that being next to water makes you feel happier and healthier and once this towpath is finished I hope local people can enjoy being next to water all year round.” This towpath improvement is part of a wider package of works aimed at improving the towpath of rural canals in Shropshire and Staffordshire for boaters, local people and tourists visiting the area. Towpath improvements have already started along the Trent & Mersey Canal at Great Haywood with the next phase of improvements taking place on the Llangollen Canal at Lions Quay. For more information on the work of the Canal & River Trust including how you can donate money or volunteer your time visit www.canalrivertrust.org.uk -ENDS- For further media requests please contact Sarah Rudy on 07788 691219 or email sarah.rudy@canalrivertrust.org.uk

My wife sadly passed away after a short illness a month ago and her last comprehensible words to me were "you are not staying in this house - you will rattle around in it and you won't look after it". so I bought a ground floor apartment in the housing development surrounding Abingdon-on-Thames marina. Sale completed on 30 June (just in time to benefit from the stamp duty holiday) and started to move my kit in yesterday. The boat will follow when our big house is finally sold (asking price offer was accepted even before the estate agent could put it on the market!). The view from my back door:

Does retirement qualify you for the History and Heritage section?

I have fully retired... scraping, sanding, painting, painting and painting, oh and getting the hydraulic drive fixed and the mysterious bubbles from underneath... joy. I cant wait to get stuck in.

I sent a complaint in to CRT a few weeks ago as at Fradley the long time volunteers were training new recruits, as the trainee closed the top gate the long time volunteer whacked the paddle up without checking with me first that it was ok. I called for him to drop the paddle and then went and explained to him that if he is responsible for training new volunteers then he should be training them with the correct procedure which is to check with the person on the boat that they wish to be assisted. I have sort of given up at Fradley that you get help whether you want it or not but they do seem to have lunch 12:00 - 13:00 and then go home at 14:00 on a weekend so I try to time it when I know they won't be there.

This was in Scotland, so …

My apologies to the owner of the beautiful Harland and Wolf historic boat on eBay after my little nephew accidentally purchased it for £52k while playing with my phone. The mobile eBay app (I don't have a computer) then did not have the option to complete the cancellation. Finally sorted after I had to confess to my other half and get his help to sort it on his computer. My heartfelt apologies to Matthew, the boat's owner, for my being such a right royal pain in the arse. ? Think my heart palpitations have just about settled down!

No, I think the police are too busy with serious crime to worry about the misuse of principle vs principal.

You obviously were a model pupil......the principal was never my pal.....

This time coming up they were fine but I did have a barny last time when one told my wife not to touch that lock. We were going down, no water running so our normal practice, Diana draws the second lock before I empty the top, He wanted it the other way round. He lost.

Running into one little Hitler does not in itself mean that the principal of volunteer lockkepers is bad. If that were the case then we'd have no police, no teachers, no managers, etc. You may not like them but then what do you do on rivers like the Thames which have traditionally had lockkepers? Perhaps you just avoid such waterways. What you've described sounds a bit like a battle of egos to me. Of course as skipper ultimately you should be in charge, but why either of you wish to get into such a conflict in the first place I don't really understand. Personally I'm happy to relinquish control on locks on the Thames because with a big lock full of boats somebody has to take charge and that has to be the lockkeeper. Even if I'm in a smaller lock on my own which a volocky is working I'm perfectly comfortable for them to direct me as long as what they're doing is safe and they ask for my signal before opening paddles, etc. I'm glad for the help. If it were me in your position I'd have "appeased" Hitler and let him have his way. It's just one lock after all and then you could have continued with all the other diy locks on your journey. Don't sweat the small stuff. Think of your blood pressure. Life's too short for this sort of petty nonsense.

Blimey....second agreement in one thread......i feel faint.....

If they weren't wearing a name badge but did have a shirt on saying they were a vol how else are you to identify them to a manager?

Most of the gate paddles have baffles which become filled with rubbish and weeds so are pretty ineffective anyway. However occasionally, they work properly, and a couple have no baffles, which can catch you out. My way of going up with a single narrowboat in a GU lock is to loosely tether boat to one side not too close to cill. Open ground paddle on that side, the flow should hold the boat against the wall. Cross gates and open opposite gate paddle..which also helps hold boat against wall, followed by ground paddle. The remaining gate paddle only gets used if theres a lot of water leaking from the bottom end.

Apologies for the belated follow-up - been away a few days. Surely the Aire & Calder escapes the lack-of-space argument? Or the problems of water supply? Here the primary trade in coal has gone, but an attempt is being made to sew the seeds of new industry. This will take traffic from our roads and add purpose and esteem to our waterway system that it currently lacks. If this works, other traffics could follow This needs to be encouraged and supported, to overcome the widespread British perception that water-transport is out-of-date. Here is a role for the Inland Waterways Association to fulfill - to tell people of such as the Zulu flat-bed barge system currently being developed in Belgium for pallet transportation, with a fork-lift facility on board. Just one example of a lesson from across the Channel. But who, outside of canal nuts like myself. knows of such a move? Currently a 70,000 tonne contract on the A & C hangs in the balance, given the state in which the waterway has been allowed to subside. Let us not think of reasons why it does not matter, after all.

I think you've mistaken them for the Tory party, or at least the current cabinet. If not, that must qualify as one of the contenders for cretinous post of the year, and shows the stupidity and generalisation of someone with slightly less than the intelligence of a paving slab. Remarkable. Well done. ETA don't bother to reply as you're obviously not worth bothering with, so I won't again. Cheers.