JamesWoolcock

The Wey is just lovely. Recommended. Only went as far as Woking on the Basingstoke but again, a lovely waterway. It was the occasion of the Basingstoke Canal people's summut anniversary and was attended in considerable numbers by the ex working boats of the Historic Narrow Boat Club. Depth and water supply on the Basingstoke can be a challenge but these deep boats managed. No doubt more thorough advice will be along soon.

They have been issuing licences without the mooring code for some months. Probably because this and other information about us and our boats is stored on their spotters' gadgetry. Shame, it was sometimes good to see where some folk came from.

Yellow water?

Excellent, but that was made by Martin Zero.

And very good eating. When I see them doing this stretch of the T&M I always try to be there at the end of their day and am always happily given a fish.

We navigate by WhatPub and use the phone to check. Post lockdown, many places still have odd or unreliable hours. Bloody annoying and I try not to patronise any establishment that can't keep to its published trading hours.

A great little pub and never to be missed.

Saw a shiny white and chrome narrow beam wonder above Hardingswood and below Hall Green in June which had cameras similarly mounted to see down the gunnels, well as much as they were, and so the steerer didn't have to leave the tiller and look out of their pure white hidey tent.

Never. Wash your mouth out.

Perhaps I have happier tales to recount. When I was based nearer Burton on Trent than I am now, no one would have used anyone else other than Key Diesels, but this was in the days before RCR's ownership. They were excellent and a pleasure to deal with and all was usually accompanied by some jolly banter with Kevan Key. As for RCR, I signed up for all the usual reasons years ago but I've only called them out 3 times. First, 2009, was a blown core plug in the cylinder head of my 1956 Lister FR3M at Gloucester. A very competent guy came from Stourport. He sourced one a put it in but wasn't happy with it because of a small amount of wastage to the casting, so sourced some more and came back and redid it all. 10/10 Second was a dead cranking battery in the dead of winter at Fazeley. RCR found a new one, like for like and came out that day and fitted it, charging only for the battery. 10/10 And the last time was after hitting something very solid under Bridge 22 in Nuneaton (haven't we all!) which hit the propeller and pulled the shaft backwards out of its Fenner coupling, jamming the rudder. I got a tow to Atherstone from following friends and the next morning RCR sent a fella out who was familiar with said coupling and all was done and well within the hour. 10/10. So for me, no gripes.

They're scheduled till 17th I think but I had a txt yesterday from our local maintenance manager to say that they now have a pump there to take the bywash round, which will be good news for folks on the Barlaston pound which has been supplying water into Stone for a week or two thanks to an enterprising moorer up the Meaford Locks! Don't get excited as from what I hear there won't be much of, if any early finish.

PM sent

And it's an old photograph too. Methinks that's John Jackson's coal boat ROACH, which he sold a couple of years or so and has been in FMC livery now for some time.

Heritage Boats at Scholar Green Used to sell them. Give them a call on 01782 785700

Wasn't it all? And Chester to EP?

The Grand Trunk Canal went one further than the Trent & Mersey to many boatmen. The canal proprietors had approached the fledgling North Staffordshire Railway before they had even laid a track, with a proposition that the companies merge. The result was an astonishingly lucrative and long lived deal for the T&M shareholders. At the merger, not a takeover as in popular belief, the canal headquarters moved from Westbridge House in Stone to the new railway headquarters in Stoke on Trent and over the years most, if not all of the notices, posters etc for the canal carried the initials NSR or indeed, North Staffordshire Railway. It was often known on the cut to boatmen as the North Stafford.

As I understand it, it's not so much the contractor doing an indifferent job, but the specification they are given in their contract with CRT, such as not dredging the full width and thus what is left slides down into the now deeper channel. This happened when Land & Water dredge from Fradley Junction to Streethay on the Coventry Canal a year or so back. True that the really bad bits held up longer ,but all in all a waste of time, money and opportunity. That's what happens when you do a job on the cheap.

All lovely amd cosy here in The Wren, Stone's new micropub at the side of, but independent of the Crown Hotel. A must visit when you come through the town. Weather? Oh, that that stuff outside. I'll sort that later.

Not if you've a drip feed diesel; then you'll need to turn it up a notch or too.

Or walk up Saltaire Road, not the towpath, the main road up hill, and you will come across Fanny's Ale & Cider House where you can chose from 9 beer engines and enjoy your choice in gaslight. Wonderful.

Not sure that the word 'probably is appropriate! Just love it. All a pub needs to be.🍻

Amber wind's a bit of a worry too!

Yep, just cleaned out my Kabola Old Dutch ready for it cos despite its double length stove pipe, being a narrow boat with a low cabin top, it's not as long as many marine diesel drip feed installations and it doesn't like extremely high winds.

I take your point and don't know the answer. The great strength of the live meeting is that it provides the opportunity for you to lobby individuals in person. Pretty well all the senior CRT people are there and they make themselves very available and open to a good chat about whatever issue you might have either before the formalities, or afterwards at the buffet lunch which is provided. Although I'm not an office holder in any respect of canal life, over the times I have been, I have got to know several of the 'top brass' and find them very accessible, then and at all other times too.

There is an Annual Public Meeting, which I understand CRT must hold. It is held the autumn, and up to now, in Central Birmingham and you are entitled to attend and ask questions. However, the 2020 and 2021 meetings were held online because of the pandemic. There have been rumours that CRT would like to make this arrangement permanent, but it must be resisted as those living on boats, as I do, do not always have sufficient facilities or data to participate in such an arrangement.