Major Dolby

This does seem like the common thought process, when, once upon a time, canal folk encountered such incidents. Thank you Ray That reminds me

.a few of my generation did however learn to swim in the locks .Lucky i was one of them & it saved my life when i was around 7 years old Thank you for sharing that story Jeannette. I would love to research some of these old superstitions of yester-year. I very much love the stories Three Miles Up by Elizabeth Jane Howard and Bosworth Summit Pound by L.T.C. Rolt. It is my intention on shooting several short films containing these themes of canal superstitions, I am just at the stage of correlating these tales. Perhaps I should make a new message thread asking Canalworld members if they can provide me their stories? Though I do think, overall, this message thread was perfect to reach out. Thank you again Jeannette.

Death and accidents Life on the boats was hard and dangerous. The most common death was by drowning, but accidents could be caused by a windlass when it flew off the paddle spindle at speed and broke the operators arm or struck them on the head. The rack and pinion gear of paddles could injure or maim by trapping fingers as the paddles were dropped. Ropes and lines, used to control the boats, could also be hazardous, entangling limbs, fingers and feet as the ropes tightened. Horses and mules could kick of bite without warning; some animals wore muzzles to prevent this. The boats carried heavy cargoes which could crush if they shifted and it was possible to be crushed by the boat if it swung suddenly leaving a lock. The greatest hazard was the water in the canal, incidences of death by drowning seem high and travelling at night and in winter was hazardous. When they died a boat person was always brought home, the coffin placed just back of the mast of their own boat. The boat was worked “fly”, which meant that every boat on the canal gave way as a token of respect and to speed the journey of the dead person. No matter how arduous their life had been, boatpeople always had a good road home. That's some dark matter right there. Thank you Ray! I am sure I am not the first to find stories, lore like this fascinating. There is still a type of "silence" like no other if your moored alone on the canal and in the middle of nowhere. I find the best time for my imagination to begin to wander, is when moored under partial tree covering, when the summer night sky is twilight for longer, you moor up near an old stone bridge of which carries a footpath to the seeming silent darkness of nowhere; its here that the silhouettes can play games with your eyes and mind. Fascinating taking all that in. Chilling but utterly fascinating, Thank you!

And thank you sir, I just wanted to share this wonderful serial and retrospect of what life looked on the canals back in the days

I can tell you now that as we progress, I think the production ran out of B roll as several scenes of boat life are used more than once or twice As someone who has more than just a little interest in, shall we say, the darker stories of canal life, I am intrigued to learn more about these "dead body" stories. That is what fascinates me with the writer Robert Aickman, who I was reading long before I released he co-founded the Inland Waterways Association. I'll leave ghost stories for another topic though Just to say that I am Loving reading these comment chaps. Its not only entertaining, but I'm expanding my own knowledge of the canal days of yesteryear. Delightful stuff.

It was actually the first Granada production to be filmed in colour, but was broadcast in black and white.

Thank you for the fantastic photographs and providing more history to this wonderful boat.

Hi Graham, just to say that the dvd is deleted, and it was stopped being sold by Network dvd several years ago, now, if often fetches silly money on eBay. I was lucky to find it in someones collection at a car boot sale where I bought it for 50p I make it my priority to not put copyrighted material on my channel. Cheers

For anyone interested in watching a fantastic series featuring authentic canal folk from 1967, I plan on uploading, eventually, the entire serial from my own archive of British Television and on to my Major Dolby's Cat YouTube channel The Flower of Gloster is a children's serial produced by Granada Television in 1967 that was loosely based on E. Temple Thurston 1911 book of the same name. The series is a heady mix of nostalgia and tradition that offers a unique insight in to the history of the inland waterways, the surrounding geology and wildlife around the canal and also a swan song to the old boatmen and canal workers who still worked commercially on the canals at the time of filming, and before the canal became what its used for today, primarily by leisure cruisers. The cast, alongside the two main actors Richard O'Callaghan and Annette Robertson are their real-life siblings Elizabeth and Mike Doherty who play the younger children while many of the extras were actual real-life canal folk and its screenplay combines a mix of script and ad-libbing. I made this teaser trailer of what you can expect to see. Happy to be a Patron here, I do own a Narrowboat and will be permanently living aboard it in the next couple of month, I have used this forum in the past and found it to be helpful. Kind regards Major Dolby's Cat