GilesMorris

It's been a while, but I've had two boats around this size and both were wonderful. The Microplus 16ft powerboat on the canal allowed exploration of places that would never have happened with a larger boat and the Montgomery 15 sailboat was great over a large part of the Chesapeake Bay. The key is to temper your expectations - it's not going to be luxurious. And be careful who you share the cabin with - with the wrong companion it's like sleeping in a telephone box with a whale. I have my doubts about the limitations imposed by an electric motor, but you will soon be an expert on that.

That boat just emerging from the bridge looks like Malaya, which just a few years later lived at Deptmore Lock near Stafford. There was a recent-ish article in Waterways World covering a restoration and updating of Malaya. I saw it a few times in the Olden Days and it was gorgeous.

The pilot survived. This was July 1944 and the pilot undershot the runway at RAF Wheaton Aston after an engine failure.

My goodness, it's lucky there's an ocean between me and Vesta. That looks perilously close to "shut up and take my money"

>twin s***holes of Stone and Stoke About a half-century ago (hard to believe it's that long) I worked in Stone - a decrepit but pleasant old mill near the Star Inn. I remember a nice little market town with a bustling high street and a brewery. I left for far shores, and my next visit was about thirty years later, when I was horrified to find a dung heap of a dead high street with closed charity shops and a Co-op supermarket where my beloved brewery had been. So... It would be the Shroppie for me. Not so bad for towns (Brewood, Wheaton Aston, Market Drayton, Audlem, Nantwich) although the public transport could be iffy. I spent quite a few youthful weekends moving boats between Wheaton Aston and Llangollen, and never tired of that stretch.

I started to hang around the Staffs & Worcs Canal in Penkridge about 1963, and over the next several years met a number of people mostly on the local hire boats: Swan Line (Fradley), Ernie Thomas (Gailey), Kingfisher (Hoo Mill), Canal Cruising Co (Stone). For the most part the people I met could be described as slightly unconventional but not weird. Somewhat adventurous and willing to try something that my peers at school thought would be boring at best. The private owners were slightly different because they already understood. The boats were a real grab-bag, of course. Some would now be considered decrepit (old working boats, converted lifeboats, bridge pontoons) but others were gorgeous (Malaya, anything by Holt Abbott, the Ernie Thomas boats) but they were all interesting in a way that was lost in the switch to standard steel boats and I loved them all. Propulsion was also a grab bag ranging from nasty rusty petrol lumps, newer but questionable petrol engines (I'm thinking of the British Anzani Magnatwin outboards that Swan Line used - no neutral or reverse, just start it backwards if you want to stop) to much nicer things like the Stuart Turner 2-strokes that purred like kittens and the Lister SR diesels that just worked. Lots of outboards from Johnson and Evinrude on the smaller cruisers and the occasional Seagull outboard that felt like an agricultural implement. And who could forget the sound of a Bolinder? Slightly upmarket were the passengers on hotel boats. I just missed the end of the Whitleys' hotel boats operating from Penkridge but was lucky enough to meet, and travel with, crew and passengers on two pairs that turned around at Penkridge; Jupiter & Saturn and Mabel & Forget me Not. Once again both the crew and passengers were either willing to try something unknown or already understood how special the canals were then. My family rented a boat twice from Ernie Thomas, and there was a real feeling of exploration - this was not a world that many people knew, or even cared about, although the locksides at Stourport were lined with onlookers as we went down to the Severn on Whit Monday. After helping out in a minor way at the Ernie Thomas base in Gailey I was lucky enough to spend seven seasons working Saturdays at Wheaton Aston for Welsh Canal Holiday Craft - far more than a job it was something I loved doing. Meeting the clients at the end of their trip and sending off the new ones was always a pleasure and I really don't remember anybody who acted badly. Moving boats between Llangollen and Wheaton Aston over a weekend was always about the most wonderful thing you could imagine. It couldn't last, of course. The waterways began to fill up with boats - I even had to wait for a lock sometimes, and the owner of WCHC retired. Seeing other boats go by became commonplace. I didn't realise at the time, but that period was the whole world of waterways waiting to become popular. I left England in 1977 and have never returned to that world. I remain grateful for the people I met and things I was able to do.

Data point: For 11 years I owned a seagoing sailboat that most people would think of as a GRP boat. However... The interior was nicely built of teak and plywood. That thing was a nightmare to keep functional, let alone good looking. So as far as I'm concerned wooden boats are wonderful and everybody else should own one. Nowadays I sail somebody else's all-GRP boat and the only wooden piece is the tiller (it needs a new tiller). Lesson learned.

Well... Things have changed! Last time I went through Harecastle was around 1974 and in an act of great futility the tunnel bloke complained bitterly that my lighting was an oil lamp and a flashlight. Horn? Not as such. Futility because I was exiting. The lighting had been fine. Fun fact: Shortly afterwards I used Thurlwood steel lock, just because.

>It’s the wrong way round which confused me Not so sure about that. The number on the locomotive cab looks correct.

I used it twice (just because). It was slow and had a strange clangy-bendy feel to it.

Oh my goodness, that's a lovely boat. I remember it joining Mr Smout's hire fleet when it was new. There's another one, called Barbara Joan at the time, and they were both just the nicest boat you could ask for. They stood up to being hire boats surprisingly well, except that the solid folding cockpit covers looked as if they would fit under a bridge but eventually wouldn't. I was lucky enough to move them between hire bases a few times and they were just the best boat I could imagine.

Were the two sections in different BWB administrative units, perhaps? I bought the Staffs & Worcs cruising guide (the old blue paperback, still have it) and was disappointed to find that my home area (Penkridge) wasn't there. I had to buy the Trent & Mersey guide to get that, and it was a non-trivial expense for me at that time.

Penkridge had two. I think Park Gate did until the steel gates went in. Others I am unsure, but I remember it not being unusual - although these are half-century+ memories.

I'm pretty sure that several of the locks on the northern S&W still had two top gate paddles in the mid 60's. As the gates were replaced with BWB steel gates that ceased.

Not sure. We didn't have a car and travelled between North and South by train fairly often, passing through Birmingham (this is the late 50's). I don't remember a railway on the other side. The church was on the other side of a canal cutting and everything was pretty grimy. It all looked exciting and exotic then. Of course, it's entirely possible that the delays to contemplate eternity were just due to overcrowding on the lines into Birmingham.

By golly, you're right! It's 40ft lower. Or wherever we were going. This was a long time ago. But it was certainly a place for the trains to contemplate life for a while. Given the breadth of knowledge in this group it's only a matter of time before somebody identifies the church.

Odd, really. But while graffiti should be annoying they can be strangely pleasing. Not sure if counts as a graffito but there used to be a church with a huge (crudely) painted sign on its wall overlooking the BCN main line: "Where will you spend eternity?". It was across from where the steam trains waited for long periods before the final climb to New Street and seemed strangely appropriate.

Since you're passing, the Caldon Canal might be worth a look if the timing works as you head South on the T&M.

Once, just once, in eleven years I backed my (sail)boat into dock absolutely perfectly. There was nobody around. On the other side of my dock a much larger, more expensive and better-crewed boat made a real dog's breakfast of docking just once (that I know of). There was a large crowd of people enjoying the afternoon on the dock as it swayed with the impact. I do not judge skill based on a small sample.

I thought, then and now, that it's an exceptionally beautiful boat, and a worthy successor to Fox. Derek fitted an engine (Petter?) he said had spent it's early life in a dump truck before he bought it for peanuts. The gear lever was right beneath your foot as you steered and I wore a hole in the sole of a shoe from shifting it (no knob). The best part of one trip was borrowing a lovely scottie dog to go with the boat. I got shouted at for taking Vulpes through Harecastle by the light of an oil lamp with flashlight for backup, but it seemed fine to me. I'm SO glad that this boat still exists and looks so beautiful.

I just looked at the boat name and did a little Googling around. I knew a boat in the very (very) early 1970's called Vulpes that looked very like yours - although it was unfinished (brick ballast floor in the otherwise-empty cabin). I was lucky enough to be lent that boat several times by the first owner and have very happy memories of it, and still bear the scar on my thumb where I used an empty pineapple can to empty the aft bilge at Autherley. It would make me unreasonably happy to know it still exists. I did what is now called the Four Counties Ring (including Thurlwood Steel Lock) and whatever the ring is called that goes down the Staffs & Worcs, up Stourbridge 16, Netherton Tunnel and back down the Wolverhampton 21 before returning to Wheaton Aston (my newbie crew were appalled to find that climbing the 16 required going back down the 21).

Yes, thank you!! And that beautiful Holt Abbott cruiser in the background.

I think it would have been A. Rice (he was just "Mr Rice") that I remember as being kind. He let me help to clean the hire boats (Tranquil, Halcyon and a smaller one) one day. I didn't want any payment because I enjoyed working on boats but he sent me off for a couple of hours with the outboard-powered runabout and I took it to Tixall Wide. A long time ago and far away.

I'd nominate the Secret Nuclear Bunker beside Hack Green locks. Boated past it many times but had no idea that there was anything but a farm. Wonder if the Soviets knew.

It's a while ago, but Mum bought a house in Ramsgate with no electricity. Gas mantle lights are fine, except for needing to be lit Very effective. Batwing burners aren't - smelly, dirty, dim, inefficient. My bedroom was intended to be for the servant girl, so the lighting was a candle in a saucepan of water.