kiki
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Posts posted by kiki
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Or just leave, like the others!
Really not a very helpful comment, our lives are in New Mills, we love the place, we work in Manchester and there is no other suitable residential mooring.....but why do I have to justify that.
We have of course considered buying a lock but its the key issue.....also really eveyrone who was pulling together and doing things are the ones that have now given up and left. Trying to get the remaining boaters to get their a**ses into gear is going to be an excerise in futility at this stage. Most of them are sitting waiting for the new owners to just come in and fix everything.
I know I sound like I am just having a kvetch here but honestly I am just so tired of all the hassling over every thing that has to be done. I was just updating you all.
Thanks for the sympathy, to be honest after Saturday's attack one of the couples who are retired did just that and moved.
I know it would be a hassle, but could you form a group of some kind and become volunteers to CRT, with the responsibility of providing minimum maintenance to the marina? They might provide some funds for the works - like the gate, security, and driveway?
I don't know how it works, but this seems like an ideal opportunity for them to make something happen
I agree that this would have been a very logical thing to do....which we did not have to offer, we just end up doing it anyway.....cuttig the grass, doing repairs, electrics etc......we are just not acknowledged as doing anything.
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Hi All, since the Brammers desisted and deserted New Mills things have not really moved on at all. CRT took over the Moorings....and this is in the loosest sense of the word. They paid the rates and had the rubbish removed. Other than that, there has been no maintainance at the marina and things have really gone from bad to worse. We have all faithfully paid our mooring licenses and they have even more faithfully taken our money but since they took over:
Letter box rotted and fell off the gate: Boaters clubbed together and bought a new one, put it up and share a few keys between us.
Breakin in the buildings through a bit of hardboard over the windows: One of the boaters repaired this after CRT asked someone to do it for them.
The driveway has disintigrated into a quagmore which is now almost impossible to drive or walk on.
But the most worrying thing is that the lock which was used to keep the gates closed at night was stolen. Since there is no lock the gates are now left open to the public day and night. Our security was badly compromised 3 weeks ago when an intruder who I approached and asked to leave punched me in the side of my head and pushed me to the ground (I am a girl and 57 so really didn't expect that reaction) blackend my husbands eye and knocked a neighbours 3 front teeth out and really damaged his eye. A police case was opened and the intruder was caught. However when we called CRT and asked them for a new lock we were told "no you have already had one, you are not getting another one". They have not even had the decency to reply to the indicent reports we filed with them.
Things have really deteriorated there, Since the beginning of the year we have had 3 boats leave and another 4 due to leave at the end of March. Whoever the poor person is who finally does take over the property are going to take over a ghost town...dogs are running free around the moorings, pooing wherever they choose, strangers stoll in and out on weekends and we are thinking of charging entry fee to stare at us. Its such a shame but really I do think that CRT should be taking a bit more interest in their property. Aparantly there is a "taker" for it but it has been delayed for 3 months, so I don't think we will even see a new lock.
One good thing that came out of this is that people have been able to pull together in adversity, but for how much longer I just don't know.
Nothing to really be done except sit and wait...just thought a catch up might be in order.
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I found a nice surprise in our local Buxton Advertiser - a photograph of our boat with a bicycle leaning up against it surrounded by my pots of flowers. Found out in the end a local bike shop thought it was the best backdrop for thier artical. Was I annoyed.......hell no.
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The way I feel about cyclists on towpaths, the best place for your bike is on the road where it belongs, and not on the towpath, digging it up, harrasing walkers and their dogs and generally being a pain in the rear end.
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To be fair to the disgruntled boater, it is
probablepossible that having being rudely awakened, he was not aware of the seriousness of the situation.Edited to add: but I doubt it.
Your doubts are correct, even when the situation was explained very politely to him he still continued to rant. Nope sorry he is a dickhead and tonight when I am home I am going to explain it to him nicely and also that his attitude stank and did not represent the feelings of the other boaters who treat the esssential services with respect.
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All safe and sound fortunatly but one of the units at the top of the marina, luckily just behind a nice thick wall, which is used to fix up old cars went up in smoke last night. We had a very ineresting evening sitting in our robes, PJ's etc, and watching the action (for this read: 12+ firemen). The reason I am sharing this with you is because of the amazing reaction of one of the boaters. While gas botles were exploding, paint tins exploding, firemen desperatly trying to put out this fire, and the water pump going crazy in the canal, one of the boaters who lives in a plastic rat at the end of the moorings came out and yelled at the fireman to switch the ****%%^% pump of, or they and it would land in the cut - they had woken him up.
Words fail me - eventually the fire chief came down to try and calm him down but he was giving it all that !!! How much more self absorbed can one person get ???
The firemen did apologise for keeping us all awake but we thanked them for providing such an entertainment as no one was hurt....I called after them that they were my hero's and that I loved them all.....the Much Beloved at this point did remind me that he was standing "right here" - well of course I knew that !!
So today we are without electricity but its being reconnected. Luckily as I say no one hurt and the unit is insured.
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Yesterday the Much Beloved got an email from C&RT after contacting them re: lack of electric cards, the loss of the gate lock and the general concern of the boaters. They have come back and said that they are busy sorting out the details of taking over the moorings, and as they stand nothing will change as far as our moorings are concerned and the costs will also remain the same. They have no plans to sell up or sell the lease on so we can breath a sigh of relief for now, at least we are keeping our homes, electric cards are on the way and the utilties are being connected in C&RT name.
So here's holding thumbs for a bright future for this lovely little marina. It should never have got into the state it is in, but we have all tried our best to keep it looking neat while we have had no landlord so at least we know know what is going on.
Just thought you might like to know.
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OK, I'm sure this guy is a bit shady and hasn't been the best landlord, but since the demise of the NMM he's had the tyres on his car slashed and his flat broken into. It doesn't give a very good impression of the boaters if these are tactics that are being used. Of course it may be entirely co-incidental, but sometimes it's not about the truth it's what it looks like.
I can assure you that it has nothing to do with the boaters - of that I will be quite confident. The gates are never locked, peole are in and out and many of the units are rented out. I know the boaters and although I was sorry about his tires, none of us would be one teeny bit interesed in his wifes clothes or paintings.
Graham,
I've had a long day and am tired so I'm probably struggling to explain. The way it appears is that a group of boaters have had a tricky time at the NMM with the ongoing problems with security, power supplies, pontoons, rubbish collections etc, all the fault of the owners who seem to have ignored their responsibilities and just taken the money (so to speak). The outcome is the boaters now have insecurity, issues with losing money, people not being paid for work done and so on. Hopefully we're agreeing up to this point.
Then posts appear documenting bad things that have recently happened to the Brammers (tyres, burglary, then accusations of insurance fraud.) I've just read back through those posts, and they read TO ME with a slightly gleeful slant. I'd probably feel the same if I was in the same situation (rather like bullies getting their come-uppance)
I'm sure the boaters are a very nice peaceful bunch, and I haven't been to the police with my suspicions as I have no bl00dy suspicions, I'm sure they're not doing these things, my only point is that the timing of these incidents looks bad for them.
stated in my previous email when I told you all about the tires, that I thought it was a disgraceful thing to have done. I think I am ducking out of this conversation - I dont like being accused of being gleeful or my neighbours being cast in a bad light...we are the bloody victims here.
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For those of you who were following the saga of New Mills Marina and their liquidation, I just wanted to say that the lease has temporarily been passed to C&RT who I am sure will sort something out in due course. We all feel a bit more comforted now that its in proper hands for a while. There seems to have been some interest in buying the lease from various sources so we wait and see.
On the gossip side of things the Brammer flat was broken into 2 weeks ago, only thing stoles was an "empty" safe, Mrs Brammer's designer clothes, shoes, bags and two of the most hideous paintings on Christendom. The claim according to High Peak radio is for thousands of pounds worth of jewelery and 2 ancient battle axes (to which Pauline and I looked at each other to make sure we were both still in situ) ....worth thousands ?? Mr Brammer has now left for Ghana again I think, safe in the knowledge that the wheels of insurance will grind in his favour.
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Yes, I am aware of that.
However they arrived at the liquidation, it remains the case that the directors may well be sitting there with the intention of buying the assets out of the liquidation.
Given that the only asset is the lease, and that the value of a repairing lease after dilapidations is effectively Nil (because the amount needed to be spent to bring the property back to the standard that it was in when let exceeds the value of the lease), it is entirely possible that they will buy the lease for almost nothing and fail to make good the site again.
Seriously can they do that ?? Well we certainly do live in interesting times I must say. I am missing all the action as the office and flat at the marina have been broken into last night - Police are everywhere at the moment. Of course the gate was most likely not locked. its ironic really isn't it. We begged for the lock to be fixed for months and our pleas were ignored. Now there has been a break in, and the only damage done was to the home and office of the landlord. Things just seem to be going from bad to worse. I wish we at least knew something, this is the problem when all you have is runour and conjecture, everyone is feeling a bit disgruntled by now as you can imagine.
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editied becuase i repeated myself, repeated myself
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Awwww she says, thanks for that guys, my temper tends to sit on the back burner for months and then I just explode like that unpronouncable Volcano thing....I really dont have the time or tact to deal with lazy people.
I saw Tony looking dejected today sitting outside in the dark with his tea and really felt for him. It makes me outraged that this has happened to him. ONE good thing that might come out of the Brammers return is that at least he and Chris and Enid will not lose their money.
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Is there any thought Kiki that you may be able to take over the lease as a moorers co-operative?
As I mentioned earlier, the problems this would create are just not worth the effort. The work would be undertaken by the same few that are doing it now, while most sat on their hands and did nothing - its always been like that as frankly the ONLY maintainance that has been done in the past 3 years has been by the same said few, with Tony doing the pumpouts etc. This would not change but I suspect that all memebers of this consortium would expect free moorings etc....it could turn into a real mess. The only way it could be salvaged is if CART collected the mooring fees and the small group of boaters continued to do the maintainance, and collected any money they needed towards it as and when. But the administration of it would be a nightmare. I am very flattered that people think me and the much beloved could undertake this with a few others, but with the Much beloved's blood pressure and my vile temper I imagine it would turn into something resembling Mordor in no time at all.
Agreed. It's what appealed to us two city dwellers when we first experienced life on the canals. Sadly though, that camaraderie can sometimes be abused by the minority who do sit on their hands and let others do all of the work.
We have friends who are continuous cruisers and last year when they wintered in our village, we helped them out with various things like fetching coal, gas and diesel in our car from the local marina. During their stay, Tree Surgeons were contracted to trim some of the canal side trees that were posing a problem and allowed us to take their off-cuts to use as fuel. As two of us had chain saws, we decided to saw the wood into appropriate lengths for our stoves. A job that took a couple of days to complete.
During this time, bearing in mind that it was January last year, one of the boaters would languish in the comfort of his cabin, or the bar of the pub. After I bagged up the wood that I'd sawn and shared it out equally, I asked this guy if I could borrow his brush to sweep up the mountain of sawdust from the wood, thinking that he'd be shamed into sharing some of the work. Not much chance of that! He simply reached out for his brush and started to pass it my way, that is until I advised him to smear some grease upon the handle end in readiness for me inserting it where the sun doesn't shine.
This and some other similar experiences, taught me again the lesson from the gangster that I mentioned in an earlier post, in as much as; some people see kindness as a weakness and exploit it to their advantage.
That is certainly true of many people in many walks of life. I would certainly have liked to have you as my neighbour
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Reading these last two posts really gives me goosebumps. I am happy to say that the spirit between most of the boaters is great, just a few that tend to think they can sit on their hands and others will do all the work. I amhoping that C&RT dont dismantle the marina, its a historic boatbuilding yard and it would be tragic to see those lovely derbyshire stone buildings leveled for some flats or housing development. We all still sit and wait, nothing is known by anyone at the marina as to what is going on, Brammer came and left, took his car somewhere safe. Mind you casting my eyes around the moorings yesterday morning, the bins are now neatly stowed away out of site, the recycling bins are neatly put away and no longer overflowing, and the gates are being locked again....seems the marina is improving without a landlord there....makes you think doesn't it.
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hello to everybody at new mills marina,i am not really suprised to hear new mills marina has gone bang. i was unfortunate to be moored their juring the anglo welsh/brammer esc take over, and was alarmed at the rapid deteriation of the site.but working at a local motorcycle repair shop, and the marina did take liveaboards it suited me at the time.i do agree with what kiki and dave mayall state about the brammers. brammer senior used to swan around survaying his domain,and talking rubish to anybody that would listen. but i have to disagree with dave,s statement that nothing got done, and they did not care.well maybe they didnt,but consider this.towards the end of my stay at new mills a young couple came to moor at the marina with a new sailaway shell and started to fit it out, then one night they came home to the boat and found 2 inches of water above the bedroom floorboards, they knocked on the flat door,rung the office number all to no avail.then somebody told them to see the engineer called tony [always wore a raccoon skin hat complete with tail] who lived on a shell at the bottom of the yard. so just after 11pm they got the engineer out of bed,nearly 2 hours later boat pumped out,water tank,pump and pipework checked,he explained what had happened then assured them that their pride and joy was not sinking, he even put his reputation at stake [brave man], when asked why he turned out at a silly time of night in the pouring rain, he just grinned and seid its my job.where were the brammers?.tucked up in bed. and did he get paid? proberbly not. on another occasion he had a 30 footer aground on the slipway,lay on pallets placed in the water welding plates on the bow with his apprentice inside on fire watch.also i know for a fact he never turned a boat away no matter what time of night for a pumpout, diesel ,or gas.[always asked for a cheque].what im saying is if an employee of the company was willing to put that mutch effort into his job. why did the brammers not equal his efforts?.so sorry dave it wasnt always like it is now.the last i heard about him, his dad had died and it destroyed him.but where is he now? what is he doing now? and is he still riding a norton commando?.
Toto, that is a very kind thing you have said about Tony who still lives at New Mils - I will pass it on to him. He has always been called out to help, and still does. Tony sadly for all his efforts is one of the moorers who has been left without his mooring which was given to him in lieu of payment of monies owed. He will possibly be the worst off of everyone. - thats thanks for years of service !!
ps. the racoon skin hat has been replaced by a disreputable beanie of suspect origion.
pps. Senior brammer still talks a load of shite.
Pity those who paid up front for long term mooring. Cleared up with the debt will be any liability on behalf of the owners to honour that agreement.
George ex nb Alton retired
That is certainly very worrying indeed, my heart goes out to a couple of very nice retired people who have devoted their retirement to mission work in the Middle East - less deserving people of this kind of result I cant think of.
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We had a mooring there for several years and saw the changeover from Anglo-Welsh.When AW owned the lease it was less than perfect but they probably realised that they needed to find a mug with negligable business sense and in Kit and his father they surely found that.
Not only were they without any business acumen they were also without interest.Kit is only really interested in Rugby at a low level.The old story was that Chris bought the lease to keep Kit out of trouble.To be fair he's a nice enough lad just a hopeless waste of fresh air.
Perhaps the biggest crime is that BW allowed the maintenance to slide down the pan.The huge quay stones fell into the cut one after another,the jetties were falling apart the electrics were a nightmare.They stopped selling diesel as the pump and the bunding around it failed.There was a time when boaters were going off to buy washing up liquid to try and break down the diesel spills.The chandlery,if it could ever be called that gradually packed in,the slip way was blocked for years by a boat which was towed into the marina and allowed to sink.The boat was such an eyesore and that was eventually removed by the joint efforts of a few of the moorers.
The toilets and showers were probably only slightly better than a stalag.If you wanted a pee ok but dont think about sitting down.The jetties were only ever repaired/rebuilt by the moorers...how soft were we?
It is a major concern that some boaters were lured into buying an extended mooring and it can only be hoped that they have something written into the lease that will carry on to the next owner.We hope also that the creditors dont forget about nb Dunstan,if its still owned by NMM. http://narrowboats.apolloduck.co.uk/feature.phtml?id=253434 £60,000 might go some way to helping folk out.Good luck to all may it work out well for the good people mooring there.
I guess it wont surprise you to know that its now worse than ever. To be honest one rarely ever saw Kit away from his office, and little jobs that would have taken a fit young rugby player a matter of hours, were handed over to others as he really lacked any interest at all.
Said toilets are now unusable, A nice family pulled over a few weeks ago and wanted to use the showers, one look at the place and they walked back and said no thanks we will skip it. The mens has been used by a company hiring one of the sheds to dispose of dyes that they use to make t-shirts and the facilities are now pitch black. Even the men are n ow using the ladies which is fractionally better only because ladies can aim better when they pee.
The place still survives on the effort of a few concerned moorers keeping the place in order, if it had beenleft to Kit we would have been overrun by rats and thieves long ago.Whilst you can't ever condone this type of behaviour, you can certainly understand why it's happened.
The Brammers swan about in their beautiful gold 4x4 whilst all about them slides into a pitiful state of disrepair, albeit at the expense of the moorers. Had this marina been located closer to Manchester, their 4x4 would have been the least of their problems.
Incidentally, are the Brammers in any way related to the ill-fated 'Lees Narrowboats' of Hyde?
I googled New Mills Marina this morning and was quite surprised at how tight a turn is necessary for some boats to enter their moorings. It resembles White Bear Marina in Adlington, Lancashire.
To the best of my knowledge they are not related in any way except business practice.
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Sorry Dave have just read your posting, I see you are correct. Oddly enough Harry was down at the moorings yesterday demanding to know who were all"these people" who were trying to "take OUR lease off US" - I suspect there is a lot more going on here than meets the eye. Senior Brammer and spouse are due back next week, so I wonder if the spouse will be putting in a bid to take over with Harry. Its all very much Chinese wispers and conjecture at the moment which is no good for morale, and the moorers are feeling a bit put out as we have been told that no more electic cards can be sold as EOn is wanting to cut off our power - considering we paid our bills the Brammers might find a somewhat hostile greeting when they arrive.
Talking of hostile, today during the day, all 4 tires of the senior brammers beautiful gold 4x4 were slashed.No matter what you feel, that is an ugly and vicious thing to do, I really dont want to begin to think who it is who did it.
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they seem to have found a way of saving money on the local section, there using the high voltage power lines already on the route for the overhead wires for the trains.
that or putting half of derbyshire into darkness
That's OK, up here in Derbyshire..when the end of the world comes, we still have 20 years to go anyhow. Got a letter from HS2 to say that one of my apartments is above a proposed tunnel , yay so what does that mean ?? People in london live over the tube lines and it doesnt seem to affect them. Considering our flat is about a 1.5 miles from the proposed station I hardly see the train running much faster than a tram at that stage. Still think its a waste of money though - but if not - bring on compulsory purchase - it beats the housing market anyday
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The senior member of the family was a director of NMM Ltd, and was very much on the books.
Sorry Dave have just read your posting, I see you are correct. Oddly enough Harry was down at the moorings yesterday demanding to know who were all"these people" who were trying to "take OUR lease off US" - I suspect there is a lot more going on here than meets the eye. Senior Brammer and spouse are due back next week, so I wonder if the spouse will be putting in a bid to take over with Harry. Its all very much Chinese wispers and conjecture at the moment which is no good for morale, and the moorers are feeling a bit put out as we have been told that no more electic cards can be sold as EOn is wanting to cut off our power - considering we paid our bills the Brammers might find a somewhat hostile greeting when they arrive.
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Sorry to ressurect a tired thread but rumour has it (on good authority as all rumours are) that the previous senior member of the family - who's name was not on the company books, is on his way back to put in a bid to take it all over. Really a bit unfair if it happens that way, after all he will just put the same useless sod back in the position he was in as a manager and nothing will change. Will keep you posted.....if you are interested
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To pass the time, go out and do a bit more shopping......enjoy your boat, if you pass us in new mills give us a "cheeky" wave.
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Thats what I said but got snapped at.
I dint see it as a marina but as something that is run by its members for its members much like a boat clubwith its own moorings.
A lot depends on what price you could get the lease at from CART.
ACS have done it for years.
I didn't snap at you I'm sure......the reason why the co-operative idea would not work is that most of the people who live there simply dont have the means or the wherewithal to undertake this, the load of work would fall on the same few who have kept it going for the past 3 years. Also if we had half a million to spare we might think of it, but you are talking major engineering works here, not just cutting a bit of lawn.
Works in other places - a tea shop etc.... Be good for the resident moorers and passing boats or even local community if there's quite a few walkers around there and that.... Works around here although from what I briefly remember the marina entrance/buildings aren't on the towpath side are they?
The proble with passing boats is that we are pretty much about 1 hour from the end of the canal and Buxworth, there is now wher to go from there, so the only passing trade is boaters heading for buggy and with only 1 hour to go why would you stop for tea when you can make it yourself just up the canal. Also its off the beaten track in the town so no residents of the town passing either. I am not sure it would work very well.
Thanks to everyone so far for your encouraging messages and ideas. The "jungle drums" have reported that indeed Mr Furness Vale has contacted the firm in charge of the liqidation, although this is second hand information so not holding our breath. If you have ever seen furness vale you would know why we are all feeling a bit more cheerful this morning - its beautiful. So hold thumbs we wont be in limbo for long.
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I've finally succumbed and have ordered a Nexus tablet after printing off another 40 page user manual whilst the OH was following a recipe on her Samsung Tab thingy propped up where a book used to sit.
I don't see the point of kindles and e-readers and I can't see myself reading a novel in anything other than paper form though I am currently listening to Peter Hamilton's novel in audio form, whilst doing textiley things, after downloading it for free using Amazon's audiobook freebie offer.
I love audio books, the beauty being they leave your hands free, and you can "read" without walking into walls and lamposts. Often listen to them while doing sort of tedious type work at work, makes it go much quicker as you get so involved in the story the time just flies.
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The reason your unable to get NMM on the net is the liquidator took the computor/server yesterday,
The place still survives on the effort of a few concerned moorers keeping the place in order, if it had beenleft to Kit we would have been overrun by rats and thieves long ago.
An update on New Mills for anyone interested
in General Boating
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Sorry Mike that was unnecessary of me to react like that. Please accept my apologies.
We being the Much Beloved and myself have witheld our mooring fee, the other couple have left so that is about as much as we can do really.
Yes yes yes....absolutely. That sounds like the one we had. I did ask around this weekend to see if anyone was up for just buying a lock and getting keys, but honestly they were about as enthusiastic as a pot plant. All just want to "wait till the new owners get here" - in other words as long as they did not get punched in the eye they are not prepared to spend a fiver on a new key.
Where about are you. I guess it will be expensive to post that is the problem.