[The Flower of Gloster (1967)]

3 hours ago, Ray T said:

Mike and his dad were in a pub when a brawl broke out. One man smashed a bottle into another man's head and the police were called. 

William offered to be a witness; the police ordered William not to move his boats until further notice, when the incident was sorted out.

 

William says to Mike "Next time I sees nothing."

 

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

2 hours ago, Hudds Lad said:

I was always told that's how my Grandad taught my Dad to swim, took him down to the Broad near Deighton and chucked him in until he got the hang of it  Grandad was very much a believer in the tough love approach.

That reminds me  

 

[The Flower of Gloster (1967)]

9 hours ago, jeannette smith harrison said:

As a child i remember being with my Godparents on Alberts brother boat we where catching a lift up to West Drayton. 

On our way up the Hanwell thicket if i remember correct location. I was shouted at to get down in the cabin now this happened when entering a tunnel to keep kids safe from falling in in the dark,or a body in the water . The Boswell's where a lock in front ( bodies where if carrying a load often passed due to the time lost while police where called e.c.t. after all they would be passed help often they where inmates from the sanitorium along the side of the thicket & the Boatman was on a time line & had a family to feed  ) a few locks up passed the body a policeman was on the tow path &  Cousin John Boswell shouted there's a body down there results= they where held up for many hours & John got a whopping for his action some thing we often laugh about when remembering our child days  .

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Most boat people had a fear of the water due to many old superstitions revolving around water witches & ghosts

.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. 

[The Flower of Gloster (1967)]

9 hours ago, Ray T said:

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Mike H told me a tale when he and his dad, William were coming through Stoke Bruerne top lock. Jack James had fished a male body out of the cut and was going through the pockets of the deceased male. William "What are you doing Jack." Jack, "looking for money, uh, only 13/4d, 'E don't need it now do 'E, at least I can get a pint." He then proceeded to push the body back in the cut.

 

From the Museum at "The Port."

 

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.

 

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Although a boatman would stop to rescue a drowning person, he would pass a “dead-un” although there was a small fee for reporting and recovery of a body A corpse is beyond help and if he stopped to recover the body, he might be called to give evidence at the inquest which meant his boat would be tied up and not earning.

 

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. 

9 hours ago, Pluto said:

I always think Charlie's best dead body story was passing some reeds when pressing on, and a dead body standing up in the wash the boat had created, before falling back down on its face. Rewards for finding a body varied from local authority to local authority, so you would make sure you 'found' the body in the right area with the help of a towrope. Some authorities made you wait so you could appear at the inquest, so you could be stuck for several days. In those areas, you just told the next bank man who lived in the area where the body was, and he would report it, the company giving him time off for the inquest.

Fascinating taking all that in. Chilling but utterly fascinating, Thank you!  

[The Flower of Gloster (1967)]

On 10/06/2023 at 13:45, Graham_Robinson said:

Last part, episode 13 out now.
Story line throughout the series a bit pants @ times and as I've said before the general charging about looked a bit dodgy, it's a wonder nobody hurt themselves but the camerawork and the shots of boats and places all those years ago more than makes up for that.
All in all a real gem of a period piece.
I thank you Major Dolby sir and your cat.

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

[The Flower of Gloster (1967)]

On 30/05/2023 at 20:34, John Brightley said:

Thank you for uploading the Flower of Gloster to YouTube. It's certainly a valuable historic record of places, people and boats which in some cases are no longer with us. 

The lack of continuity in the first few scenes of episode 1 is amazing. Clearly the first scene is at Pontcysyllte, and the third scene at Dutton. Is the second location Preston Brook ?

It's also interesting to see a young Tony Lewery -explaining the details of the boat painting as if it were a documentary rather than a fictional story.

Does anyone know who it is doing the caulking in episode 2 ? 

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

On 02/06/2023 at 21:24, Pluto said:

I suspect the 2.5 minutes were just for up or down movement. I used to work the tripboat Lapwing for Peter Froud in 1972, with Charlie Atkins as steerer. Going down, we would reverse into the tank as we were approaching from Runcorn. Once in, the gates would descend, followed by several large handfuls of wet sawdust to ensure a seal. Charlie often used to walk down so he could have a chat with anyone who was around, and I would tell the passengers that he did that because he was sure the lift would collapse. I made sure they looked up at the gearing as it began to move, as if it had been raining, water would have filled the shrouded gears, and this would descend onto anything underneath. At the bottom, Charlie would get back on board so we could continue after winding in the lower basin. I learnt a lot in the time I worked with Charlie, particularly when I got to steer when we were travelling empty. He would spend much of the time telling me stories, which was the traditional way canal knowledge was handed down - the dead body stories were best!

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. 

[The Flower of Gloster (1967)]

14 hours ago, Graham_Robinson said:

I don't remember it being in colour but there again we didn't have a colour tv in 1967!

 

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

[The Flower of Gloster (1967)]

1 hour ago, Pluto said:

The boat used as Flower of Gloucester belonged to Mike Sampson from Liverpool, who also operated a converted Appleby's short boat, renamed Peace, as a trip boat in Liverpool shortly after. The photos show Flower of Gloucester at Dutton in 1972, where it required almost continuous pumping to keep afloat. The next photo shows Peace descending the locks at Liverpool for a quick tour around the North Docks.

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

[The Flower of Gloster (1967)]

6 hours ago, Graham and Jo said:

You can  buy the entire series on DVD from Amazon. Cheers Graham 

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

[The Flower of Gloster (1967)]

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