Tam & Di

and with some owners having bits and pieces and their dog(s) etc on the bank it very much is effectively their back yard.

There is (was) Ian Burgoyne in Oxford: irburgoyne [AT] aol {dot} com. but he might have moved to France now.

Have you tried the DBA forum? You are maybe more likely to get recommendations there https://barges.org/discussion-forum

The boating families lived on their boat because the boat was a working tool; they moved because that was the whole point of the work, not just in order to do the minimum they could get away with. Their 'travelling' was the real thing, but I'm sure the NBTA people don't seriously pay much mind to that - it's just part of the fable they use to get public sympathy with their self indulgent way of life.

I did similarly, but then felt slightly guilty as the one I caught was the youngest and slowest and probably not one of those that threw stones. 🤭

I find the best deterent is to have a camera visibly directed at the yobos about to engage in such - good as you approach, but not so useful if they are on the side of the bridge where you exit.

Not a tanker, but we fitted our 74' x 14' Trent barge Clinton, running grain from Tilbury to Weybridge, with water ballast for running light. Suitable pipework and stop cocks enabled it to be filled or emptied using a powerful pump driven off the main Gardner 5LW.

It looks long enough to hit the wall if it swing right over in a lock 😟

Wow!!! Who'd have known that people have been living on canal boats since the Bronze Ages? 🤔

It did occur to me and Di 😃. We were petitioners against elements of the 1995 Act while it was at the discussion "Bill" stage. Arguments were made against a draft clause that made everyone have a home mooring, and the Lords committee accepted these. They told BW to come up with some alternative to the 'home mooring' clause. Duffy, the BW Solicitor, was so frightened that they might lose the whole Bill that he came up with the 'continuous cruising' idea more or less overnight. We pointed out to him that it didn't have anything to qualify or define 'continuous cruising', and Duffy said they would sort that out later - well, we know where that got him, don't we! 😧

I think that ditchcrawler is referring to Adrian Stoat who argues for pay-as-you-go by miles and locks used. Obviously this would be the perfect system for those who simply want to live on the towpath and move as little as possible. ☹️

Sadly Lotta's British courtesy flag is upside down. 😡

Doesn't have a lot of canals there though 😃

There are infinitely more cars than boats, but DVLC know if your car has tax, MOT and insurance. It is obviously possible for C&RT to create a similar system to give them the information they require rather than relying on the iffey word of the owner.

When you pay someone in business you can ask for a receipt, certainly, and if appropriate these could be used to substantiate payments you've made in the personal accounts you present to HMRC. A 'statement of affairs' should show all the relevant transactions, but the figures shown there cannot be technically regarded as 'receipts' and used in the same way - they won't show any of the same detail. I don't think you'll get very far trying to convince HMRC that this company is acting dishonestly.

I'd agree, though I do often talk of it 'making a level' which is effectively the same thing. That works in either direction, rather than having to use "empty" - on here it seems there are those who would query "empty" unless the lock had been physically pumped dry. 😁

That's what struck me too. I appreciate that it is aimed at the naive viewer, but they could at least have show some pictures of an actual working boat to give a better view of the life.

It's listed as about 1912.

An interesting view of Purton:

We did a couple of retail coal trips to Cadbury's Wharf in Frampton early '70s, loading at Gopsall on the Moira. Coal boats to Cadburys were still in people's memories and we had no problem selling some 15-18 tonnes to locals as I recall. The hulks at Purton were still relatively intact at that point. We did continue on to Bath once, long before the K&A was reopened, and someone subsequently sent us postcard showing Towcester moored below Pulteney Bridge.

The lettering is very amateur as well. Lots of boatmen painted their own and they would generally have that sort of appearance, but 50 years old only takes it back to mid-seventies and there were not a lot of working boatment left at that time.

I see from previous posts I noted the dimensions as 74' x 12' 6". That may be the case now, I don't know, but published dimensions certainly used to be determined by the infrastructure. Despite Progress being built for the GUCCC I've never seen published dimension of the GU listed as 74' length. Use of the canal was certainly a factor at the point several were being classed as 'remainder waterways', and the K&A could not be closed as a canoist was able to prove he had used it in the previous 12 months.

75' is right as I recall. We did cruise several times to Braunston and once to Sampson Road Birmingtham with no great trouble.