Derek R.

And here it is in 2019 https://tinyurl.com/rhp5mxjz

Eco friendly my a***. All for Global Wokeness. Jim McD. commended my fittings at the time (C.1983), though later I was told such would need to be fitted by a CORGI qualified fitter. Nuff said of them the better. I fitted an extra shut off tap to each fitting, so that they could be isolated and removed for any maintenance. All piping surface for inspection (and polishing!).

I can vouch for that. We had two in YARMOUTH before she got rebuilt. Lovely light and a gentle hiss when lit. The battery strip lights by comparison were awful. The other light of my life is beyond the curtain . . .

As a nipper in N. London I can remember coalie with 1cwt sack on his shoulder, walking through the front door and two rooms to access the coal shed in the back yard. Outside toilet, no bathroom. When my sister got married in '52, they lived in a basement flat in Primrose hill. Terraced houses of three floors (plus basement) and each house had a circular manhole in the pavement for coal to be tipped down. Coalie still supplies us with 50kg open sacks tipped in the coal shed, though it's ovoids. Half a tonne £215. Lots of boats use the black stuff as well as canaside properties. In the house we have a multi fuel in one room, an open fireplace (Edwardian) in another, and an oil fired (52p per litre) Rayburn in the kitchen that heats the water and we cook on. One upstairs bedroom has a Georgian Hob grate, titchy little thing, but the chimney for that has been capped. Stacks of free wood in the round, some of which I'll be chainsawing up this week. Carbon plenty.

An interesting video, thanks for the heads-up. Another one of the area in general is one of Joolz. More flippant and in someways a little ignorant (the brick water tower for cooling steam engines down???) he does pepper his walks with some intersting bits of local history:

Worked with much less than that in 1966. 😉 An older exchange?

When BT went to phone cards it was not unusual for people to forget to take their card from the payment/connection slot. Several times I found cards with up to £10 left on them, and on one memorable occasion - £50! Still got a bunch of Mercury cards in a drawer, the picture ones were quite collectable.

Open sacks of 50kg are still delivered, but they are of a nylon like material with sewn in handles, much like GPO bags are now but much stronger. Don't think you will find hessain sacks around any more.

No phone number! Spencer House, West End recently: https://tinyurl.com/y5nwbpb7

I stand corrected. Though some images show two red lights one above the other, others show two red and a white. That fine example shown does seem to have a red tinge through the glass. https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=not+under+command+lights&atb=v222-1&ia=web

Otherwise known as an Anchor light. Hoist to the masthead when at anchor, this type of light had a 360° spread so as to be visible to other shipping. More often they had loops top and bottom both sides for lines to stop them waving around too much. Not a 'masthead' light, nor a Tunnel light, both of which shone forward.

As far as I know - One. Created by British Waterways (Board?) in 1942 by shortening the full length middle Northwich TYCHO down to 40' and adding a 5' ram to the fore end replacing the original stem post (45' overall). Also substantially strengthening the fore end plates inside, effectively doubling the plating and adding strengthening ledges from the stem post back into the hold.

No. I wrote 'inspecyion'. 😉

TYCHO had a steel bulkhead with an inspection window, but whether that was original or put in late I don't know. Then there are the butties, were the wooden ones built with a door to the hold, or did all of them, wood or steel have a doorway access? - Or not?

Copy that.

Unless you go for a hydraulic drive with a drive unit and prop mounted in the rudder. That leaves full headroom in the cabin.

Thanks for the book link Tim. I have a recollection of it being online to read. Might be a sign of 'age' though . . . Those outakes make the craft look quite homely.

That is correct. The ADELINA was one such. This boat featured in a story book, but I cannot now find a reference. There's batoning just above the water line holding the plastic sheeting in place. It was a very tranquil back then.

Not quite sure what is being portraid there. The jumpy flickering is just a modern overlay on recent horse boating reconstruction with the Horseboat Society. Nothing 'old' about it film wise. I doubt there were many mobility scooters and mobile phones on belts in the late 19thC or early 20thC. The Basingstoke floating homes lasted quite a while. Some images I took in the early eighties.

That too. Must have been a terrifying experience. Done the Trent twice now from Keadby to Cromwell. Not a piece of water I would do again, what with Coasters coming up behind and meeting tanker barges at Gainsborough, 'sunken islands' and 'boils'. Glad to get into Nottingham - and that's saying something. An 'era' has passed, but the memories remain.

I think Jim lived on ELIZABETH for maybe 50yrs or more. His home made wines were seriously powerful - and palatable! ELIZABETH's interior was an Edwardian gem. We sat and talked at length after Mig left. Not a happy time. Later with a new partner he took ELIZABETH to France and cruised extensively, even considered building a canalside business there, but I believe authoritarian problems got in the way eventually. There was also mention of skinny dipping from ELIZABETH in the Med. Can't confirm that though. There was a little fracas when tied in a French basin somewhere, when Jim stuffed either a prosthetic hand or a rubber glove from the hawser hole in the fore end for a joke. Someone alerted the authorities and a search for a body began! More recently his health suffered and I believe he is in care somewhere. Talking about other people's stuff (and a complete aside), when we were tied up at Tooley's in Banbury in '83, Louise remarked on the nice little rag rug in the little caravan by the dock. Herbert promptly said "you can have it". Same caravan I believe that the Rolt's stayed in when they got back from Ireland and found CRESSY still not on dock. Only door mat sized and we still have it, so maybe we are stepping in the Rolt's footsteps!

I remember EILEEN at Chertsey. Chap named Paul lived aboard with his dog, a long haired collie called 'Toby'. Early eighties. The boat had a full length cabin in wood, the engine was in the stern, ahead of which was a cabin in the traditional back cabin layout, but reversed with side hatches and access through to the front (from distant memory). Very atmospheric and very comfortable. I dare say it was pretty rotten too, hence the start of several changes. Much later she was with Jim at 'two bridges'.

A bright spot in gloomy times. I'd never heard of Walter Horam, but here he is entertaining a pair of 'also rans'. Walter Horam, from Preston, was an engineer, working for English Electric and Leyland Motors, but spent almost every evening entertaining all-male audiences in working men’s clubs. Maybe it was his boat, maybe not. But he's on the cut, possibly Leeds & Liverpool:

It's a BSA! Possibly a C15, more likely a Bantam. The cutter looks like the paddle wheel(s) are steerable (a bit?) by the 'steering' wheel, paddle and cutting blades out of sight driven by the engine behind the prongs (seen lifted). Much of that is a bit of a guess. I do remember seeing one tied up somewhere, might have been on the Oxford, early eighties.

The same is true in the automotive world. No time wasters to me says: "Don't bother coming if you are not going to buy the item at the advertised price." It's an aggressive stance that puts many off.