Grassman

I wonder if any independants will take over some of MC's sites like Park Gate Leisure did a few years ago with the Penkridge store.

It is a major thing, but why not relate the title to the subject you want to talk about? Such as 'Car Insurance' for example. Then you wouldn't be wasting those peoples time who aren't interested in the topic. A little thought and consideration for others before posting? It does my head in, but thankfully the vast majority on here have the common sense to think about the subject title before posting.

I agree that they should do more 'in house' and not farm out work as much as they do, but for this kind of thing I'd rather they subcontract out than purchase and keep all that very expensive specialist equipment and expert manpower just for the odd occasion when something like this occurs.

An inch or two of snow here in Birmingham. In fact I had quite a shock when I looked out of the window.

All CRT 'non essential' staff are off for a fortnight over Christmas and return to work on January 5th.

I bet that despite this breach CRT will still want to pursue their barmy Grand Union Water Transfer plans. Nobody apprears to have mentioned the boaters who are stuck on the 'wrong' side of the breach. Granted they won't have suffered in the same way as the three distressed boats, but the breach will nevertheless have an impact on some people's lives whether they are liveaboards or somebody who happenned to be away from home cruising. Mind you, there are far worse places to be 'stuck' of course 🙂

The only corpse I've encountered in our 49 years is a deer on the Witham Navigation near Torksey, a common occurrence apparently despite the deer ramps, which are useless. That is apart from the usual dead fish, rats etc.

I was under the impression that much of Whiltons sales business was at the lower end of the market value, and that it was a good way of selling a boat that either other brokers didn't want to take on, or that they or the owners struggled to sell. A kind of 'We buy any car' but for boats.

Being a relatively 'newbie' to the canals compared to many of you others, my first narrowboating (with 4 mates) experience wasn't until 1976. We'd hired from Alvechurch and made our way into Birmingham for a few days, moored outside what was then The Opposite Lock. We absolutely loved it and it was this trip that got me hooked for life. Hard to describe but it had it's own unique atmosphere, so different to 'the outside world', and if my memory is correct I think it looked similar then to how it was in this film. Sadly I am the only one of those 5 'young lads' who continued with the love for the canals and narrowboating after that. The other 4 have missed out on so much 🙂.

I'm not sure if somebody has linked this on here before, but I've come across this nice little BBC feature from 1970

I remember amidway through August the govenment created the role of 'minister for water' (Dennis Howell) in order to deal with the water shortage problems. Two weeks later on the August Bank Holiday it poured with rain all day, and neary every day for the next month or so. It could be argued that Howell was the most successful government minister ever 😃

June 1976 was my first ever narrowboating experience. Together with 4 mates, we hired from Alvechurch Boats in the days when they were just in Alvechurch. Our destination was Stratford on Avon but when we reached Kingswood Junction the pounds ahead were dry, not even a trickle of water. Thankfully the GU was fine so we headed up to Birmingham and spent a few days in the city centre moored outside Bobby Browns nightclub on the p*ss 😀. On one of the days we decided to explore some of the BCN but this proved impossible, particularly the Soho Loop, which unknown to us was dried up and derelict half way round. Having to reverse back the mile to the junction was challenging to say the least, but the whole experience got me hooked on narrowboating.

That's a few hundred more boaters who they can fleece 🙁

I recently had some work done on my boat at Anglo Welsh Great Haywood. I was there for about a week, and being a nosey so and so I often listened to them going through everything with the hirers. Every time they were very through and covered details like slowing down when passing moored boats, not mooring at water points, winding holes etc, and then accompanied them through their first lock. The problem is that it's a lot of information for the hirers to take in, particularly when they're itching to get going so probably aren't taking it all in as much as they should be.

I'm surprised at this because 'officially' there's a limit of 20 miles for which volunteers can calim mileage expenses. When I do the winter offside vegetation cutting this is the case, and I thought this rule was across the board. I can't comment on other areas but on my patch most of us don't make a claim and we often car share. With regards to the volunteer lockies, another reason for their introduction was to be a face of the CRT, engaging with the public and giving them information about the charity because a lot of the public haven't a clue who runs and pays for the canals. Yes there's obviously a cost with workwear, training etc, but CRT get a lot of new members supporting them with their £8 a month (or more) because of them.