Peter X

Way off topic, but I remember Standedge tunnel being not a nice place. Very long, with irregular walls, sticking out in lots of places, sometimes great chunks of rock which really want to scrape your boat. The inflow of water from the railway tunnel is a relatively minor problem. Beware!

I've done this sort of thing quite often over the years on inland trips, just for food and a bed because I like going boating, but you need a sea-going equivalent of me to get you down to London. Someone who knows what they're doing at sea might step forward, try the YBW forum maybe as mentioned by Old Goat? The big advantages over road haulage, as I always say to people new to boating who are contemplating an inland boat move, must be that you can learn on the way (boating skills, and about your boat in particular), and enjoy the journey, as well as saving money. Assuming I've recovered enough from an operation I had in January, and at present I do feel good, I might be up for crewing for you on the last little bit on the non-tidal Thames, which I know well. [Or on up river if you change your mind about the destination]. By then you'll know what you're doing with the boat anyway? Depending on the boat's draught and air draught, which might limit where it can go, you might wish to cut out the sea-going bit and possibly reduce your length of road journey by just taking the boat by road down to the Grand Union somewhere then taking it down to Brentford. Road haulage all the way might be more sensible than that because I've heard distance doesn't generally increase the cost by much. And if you crane in near the Birmingham end you'll have a lot of locks to do, plus the Braunston and Blisworth tunnels for which a widebeam must book passage with CRT. Better, if not at Walton on Thames there must be various places on the Thames above Teddington where you can crane the thing in, removing the need to do the tidal bit Brentford to Teddington, and I could help you do the Thames locks.

Bizz, I think your potential supplier in Japan might be better named Yoko, Oh no! And rather than go with the dangerous sounding idea of people poking their legs out through catflaps in car doors, perhaps Mrs Pushit's name should inspire your approach to the problem of efficient car propulsion? I don't recall ever seeing Fred Flintstone driving uphill, but the city of Bedrock looked flat to me. I've been on an electric train that broke down, or rather got halted for a while by a snowdrift in a cutting near Brockley (SE4 not the vegetable) in snowy weather, one evening in early1991 I think it was. It got moving in the end. Maybe they never should have closed the Croydon canal, but that would have been a long slow commute home from London Bridge for me with the need to get to the canal (train just to New Cross Gate?), then do all those locks up to the summit to reach Anerley. Now I've just had an off topic idea worthy of Bizzard; rebuild the Croydon canal alongside the railway to act as drainage for it, just as Standedge tunnel on the HNC helps to drain water that gets through the rocks into the railway tunnel alongside it (so I learnt in July).

I've a feeling that theft of electricity from street lights etc. happens in many ways in many places around the world. Same goes on with oil pipelines; I think they had some terrible accident years ago in Nigeria where someone was diverting oil but it caught fire? This is not a new concept; I'm sure I read that in ancient Rome, they had a giant aqueduct carrying water into the city from the nearby hills to supply baths etc., but people along its route were diverting water from it into their houses and creating problems. Meanwhile re. my parent's supply of coke (no, NOT that sort of coke!), I have a notion that although Beckton gas works was big, there were others in London and elsewhere, so which our coal merchant got their supplies from I wouldn't know. No doubt there was a logistics problem around the supply and demand; I guess certain industries would have used coke as well as households. No doubt London, like every city/town needed the gas etc., and I guess the works got built in Beckton because land was cheap enough and it was a handy place for bringing in the raw coal through the London docks.

Sounds like fun, I don't know much about vehicles but I suppose he had to be careful driving it and when opening the doors at home! Maybe he had a convenient chute down into a coal cellar, rather than getting buried under an avalanche of coke or having to open them a smidge with a scuttle in the right place. Our coal shed, which held well over a ton, featured two doorways with a series of boards across each supported on two blocks so I just had to slide the coal shovel in at ground level to extract the coke. The annual delivery (I think the vehicle was horse drawn) was interesting; I counted the 1 cwt sacks as some big grimy bloke staggered through the house and poured the contents through a temporary gap in the coalshed roof (made by me and my dad rearranging some of the asbestos sheeting!) - happy days. My mum got the job of cleaning all the dust in the hallway up afterwards; maybe she got my older sister to help her!

I just typed "I remember my father, an ex scout master who knew a thing or two about fires, chopping up wood with an ave to make kindling, not sure where he got the wood from." That's why he used an axe not an "ave"!

Growing up in a 3 bed terraced house in SE London in the 1960s, our heating was a gas fire in the posher front room, but mainly a fireplace in the backroom where we burned coke. I remember my father, an ex scout master who knew a thing or two about fires, chopping up wood with an ave to make kindling, not sure where he got the wood from. I do wonder what a modern environmentalist would make of that heating arrangement. No idea where the coal merchant would have got the coke from, but maybe down by train/ship/canal?? from somewhere up north?? I remember a lot of railway stations in the southeast having piles of fuel in a yard next to them, many of which later got converted into car parks. It was generally my job to go out in whatever weather the winter could throw at us to shovel coke from our old coalshed (built in 1947 by my mother's father) into the scuttle. So I just wrapped up well. Fortunately washing it first was not required; I think coke was a lot more porous than coal and washing it would have been a bad move.

Never a Dull Moment? Was Rod Stewart's album of that title of 1972 (which I bought and liked; featuring various members of the Faces who often worked with him over many years) a reference to that? Or were both that and the book referring to something else? Maybe someone using the phrase in 1971? I see that there had been three films of that title, one made as early as 1943, so the phrase must have been around a long time.

Having lived much of my life in SE20 and Beckenham I've been up and down that line a lot over the years e.g. commuting to various jobs I had in London. But I was only vaguely aware of the existence of that remnant of the Croydon Canal, so all I can really offer about it is this article: https://lewisham.gov.uk/inmyarea/openspaces/nature-reserves/dacres-wood-nature-reserve I suppose it's probably still there.

If you buy a second hand widebeam you should definitely consider where it is and where you want to use it, because of the north/south divide; you cannot move a boat wider than 7 feet from the K&A/Thames/GU to or from the Trent etc. by water (except going around by sea which has its perils!, most likely between the Thames and Humber up the east coast) because the connecting canals are all narrow. However I've read it's not too terrible to get up the Severn from the K&A, or to cross the Wash between the Nene/Ouse (only connected to the GU by the narrow Northampton Arm!) and some Lincolnshire waters? Alternatively, you'd have to get it craned out, transported by road and craned back in; not cheap! Widebeams might be cheaper in some areas than others, but for a reason?? You'd have to plan carefully! Sometimes people buy certain types in the Netherlands and bring them by water across the North Sea, which I've read can make some sense with the right boat, skipper and crew, and timing and the right mooring to go to! I would be way out of my depth attempting that, literally!

I did actually walk the section in Betts Park one day when I was about 11 or 12 with my friend Nigel from school; we just did it because it was there and drained of water at the time, out of curiosity. Sadly I heard recently from another friend who keeps contact with the rest of our school year that Nigel had died; in fact I last met him in 1976. We're all 64-65 and slowly dying off! So Magpie Patrick, should you or anyone else decide one day to tick off that section on your wish list, do please invite me along! My local knowledge is old, but might be useful to the project.

Interesting indeed! I've sometimes visited and often been through Peckham over the years, but haven't ever been to take a closer look at what's left of its canal , and I do wonder whether "Only Fools and Horses" may have missed an opportunity to get some laughs out of it. There was I think also a branch off to Camberwell. Maybe it wouldn't be that big a project for some of all that to be restored? I think a lot of it is still unobstructed? It probably goes through several London boroughs who'd have to be involved. Definitely Southwark. [Possibly Greenwich and/or Lewisham, I'd have to look that up.]

First time I'd heard The Laughing Gnome in ages, and it was too early to do so. It's only redeeming feature is it's the only song I can think of that mentions Eastbourne. I imagine either Bowie needed the money when he made it back in the 60s, or someone who owned the rights to it decided to cash in after Bowie became really famous in 1972 with Starman and his great album "The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars"; I've always loved that.

I was 7 at the time, in SE London, and remember plodding up the road to school in my wellies though snow that I think was 6" to a foot deep, then the school milk (we got 1/3 pint each mid-morning, this was well before Mrs Thatcher abolished it a decade or so later) being placed in its crates in front of the classroom radiator to defrost, and ending up mostly warmed up but with a big icy lump in the middle of the bottle. The flavour was not so good as usual I think. It could've been worse, there must have been enough food about because my parents were able to feed us much as per usual I think. We had a coal fire downstairs keeping the house mostly warm, and a shed out the back (built by my mother's father about 1947, maintained by my father by 1962-3, and later in the 1980s and 90s by me) which I think held about a ton and a half when the delivery came each summer, enough to see us through a bad winter. So our coal would have got down south to us before the freeze up began. Life was OK. We had TV but I can't remember seeing much about the weather, not sure why. Maybe I wasn't yet watching news much at that age.

On the ground today something happened sort of: a friend of mine walked that bit. My man on the spot reports that the pound from St Katherine's lock down to Millmead lock is indeed down 2-3 feet from its proper level. So I suppose the river could have been open its whole length for navigation on 4th Feb (and the NT say it is now) if you had a shallow enough vessel? A punt? I find it credible that the NT may well be preparing something offsite. For now, great chunks of the river are in flood again, enough to be dangerous.

The bands themselves often don't die out when the original generation does! Queen with Adam Lambert are still touring long after Freddie Mercury died; tickets are on sale for June/July 2020. The Rolling Stones went on long after Brian Jones left then died (see https://ultimateclassicrock.com/rolling-stones-lineup-changes/), and Wikipedia says Jagger had heart surgery in April 2019 then rejoined the band months later to complete a tour! Wikipedia tells us that although Rick Parfitt died in 2016, "On Christmas Day 2019, the band appeared on BBC's The Great British Bake Off, performing "Rockin All Over The World". I imagine there would be plenty of other examples.

Oops, mental arithmetic error there, £2525 * 1.264 is actually £3510.76 ... little different.

Aha, thank you Alan &MtB for clarifying thing about the VAT... So if it applies to the "buyer's premium" but not to the money paid to the seller of the boat (sounds plausible to me), I think effectively the purchaser would (unless they are a VAT registered trader able to reclaim the VAT back off HMRC at the end of the quarter!) be paying 22 *1.2 =26.4% on top of their actual winning bid! Thus the current top bidder of £2525 would end up paying that * 1.264, i.e. £3500.76. If someone just outbids them they might get the boat for under £4000; depends how much they like it and what it might cost to fix up (it's described as being a project!)... Forgive me for going into this much detail, I'm a bit of a nerd about financial stuff like VAT! I probably wouldn't be available as crew to help move it, at least this month, because I'm not yet ready to go boating again until the progress of my recovery from my operation last month becomes clearer. I'm due to see my doctors this morning actually, about some therapy starting on Thursday and lasting until early March! Couldn't do that if I was away boating up in East Anglia!

Sorry, I'm confused here! (1) MtB seems to have seen something about 20% VAT somewhere? But the ad says "Vat: N" so is there to be VAT? I'm not sure what VAT rate would apply to a boat sold in an online auction? (2) Does post #8 give that location for the boat? PE38 0PP is on the Great Ouse near Ely, which does sound more likely than in an auction house just north of Nottingham city centre! The photos show the boat on the water somewhere; there? This topic is a fun little one for us amateur detectives! It's one of those topics that could keep on giving.

PS: The phone number they give seems to be the head office of John Pye Auctions in Nottingham, but where's the boat I wonder??? Clear as mud!!! Anyone interested would need to call them and make some enquiries?

I guess he following might be helpful to anyone considering this boat?... I see its current top bid is £2525, which with the "22% buyer's premium" on top makes it £3080.50 I think. No photo of the engine or info about its general state?, and I'm not sure what chance a buyer would have to view the boat before the auction ends on (I reckon) Wed 12th at about 1pm. I see the "winner" has to pay online by Fri 14th Feb and remove the boat by Mon 17th, so you'd have to be in a position to do those. The ad says the boat is "To be collected directly from the salerooms by the bidder or their own couriers " ... Really?!!!, are they on the water? Where? That could be fun! Does the buyer have to turn up to some awkward location with their own lorry and trailer? So, any Springer (or Saab engine) fans out there, do you feel lucky? I'm not in the market to buy a boat, at least for the time being, and may never be, but it's an interesting topic to follow.

The Frog Chorus was not so bad, I think maybe Mull of Kintyre was worse. But maybe that just irritated me more because I heard it so often.

The 1970s also had Abba, Elton John, Elvis Costello etc., but some terrible low points musically... notably Disco Duck.

The NT's latest notices at https://riverweyconditionsnt.wordpress.com/ look confusing; they seem to refer to this breach in places but also say much of the river was closed recently due to flooding. The latest dated 4th Feb says: 04.02.20 RIVER CONDIONS – NORMAL Posted on February 4, 2020by riverweyconditionsnt 09.20hrs – The Navigation is now fully open from Godalming Wharf to Thames Lock. Navigation remains closed between St. Catherine’s Lock and Millmead Lock whilst work continues to restore the water levels. I guess they'll fix things up over the coming months in time for people to go boating this year?