mjonesbos

Just to put the record straight about Firefly: My Father, Keith Jones, built her in 1985. I was a teenager then and spent my holidays and weekends black jacking out the hull and helping with the fit out. The hull was built by a steel fabrication firm in Market Harborough and she was launched at Harborough basin and then towed to Foxton where my dad ran his boats from. If I remember right, she was 56 feet long, with a draft of 2 foot 6 inches and she was fitted out specifically for holiday hire, I think as a six berth. My Dad was a carpenter and joiner so he carried out all of the works himself. The engine and boiler were designed and built especially for Firefly with the help of a friend of my Dads from I think Kingston, SW London - a 'v' twin with a double chamber boiler. The boiler had an upper and lower chamber with copper pipes connecting, where the burners were located. She had two 47kg gas cannisters either side of the rear engine room cabin and a bulk tank located in the bow. At the time this was all pretty new stuff and my Dad had plenty of problems getting enough steam from the boiler to enable to engine to run her at a decent speed. I remember very distinctly the rush to get her finished for the Boat Show at Milton Keynes, in fact as he and I took her down there from Foxton, he was still working on some of the fit out. It was true to say that Firefly was slow in that first year or two, she could manage 2 or 3 MPH in standard depth canals but we did have one coup on the way to Milton Keynes. I was at the tiller, we were probably a day from Milton Keynes on the Grand Union. As I came through a bridge hole there in front of me was President with her butty, stuck on the bottom. The crew were trying to free her but struggling (tricky with a butty as reversing off is always best). As we squeezed past her we threw a rope over and my Dad ensured he secured it around both of Fireflies rear cleats - we pulled her off the bottom.....that always made my Dad chuckle, particularly in the face of some of the purists who had little respect for what he was trying to do with Firefly. He managed to solve the power problems in the years ahead and she could comfortably manage 4 plus mph in decent water. He did build another boat, Dragonfly, but she was powered by a Ruston and Hornsby diesel, imported from India (he had the import license for the UK) and along with his original boat, Whimbrel had three in total operating from the bottom of Foxton Locks for a number of years until he moved to the basin at Welford, where he was for probably another 10 years. The boats went in the early noughties, my Dad had cancer and passed away in 2007. I don't know where Firefly, Dragonfly and Whimbrel went, I haven't seen them since and seeing as I now live in Western Australia I don't suppose I ever will. My father was a bit of a pain in the backside on occasions and not everybody got on with him, but he tried to do something that no one before and I think no one since has done - build a Steam Narrowboat for hire. One that with just an hour or so of learning any body could manage...this was the whole ethos behind using LPG, it could be made safe and it could be controlled. No it wasn't efficient and no it certainly wasn't perfect, but how much fun did we all have creeping up on fishermen, who were so used to hearing boats coming before they got anywhere near and how many lost their bat and tackle because they weren't concentrating :-) And to top it all, pulling the cabin chain on the steam whistle and watching the reaction on peoples faces, she was a very quiet and relaxed way of cruising but she caused a stir of excitement whenever she silently slid up to unsuspecting tourists and boaters - fun days! Mark my username [at] aol.com