Well in that particular case, we had already drained the lock and driven the boat in and opened the appropriate paddles ( bearing in mind Stenson is one of the few wide locks where you open opposite side ground paddle first). So it must have been pretty obvious.
Encountered that just yesterday at Planet lock, Caldon. On arrival there was a boat in the lock coming up. He opened the top paddles and then disappeared inside as I walked up to the lock. I sat on the balance beam and then started to open it, at which point his boat started moving forwards as it was in gear. I was momentarily alarmed thinking I shouldn’t have helped open the gate, but then he appeared, lowered the offside paddle and drove out. Presumably he was sat inside waiting to see the boat start to move, then came out. Quite cool I thought, although personally I wouldn’t be inside in a lock with no-one outside whilst it was filling.
Although I love a good anti-volockie rant, it also has to be said that there are some good ones. This morning we went from Westport Lake, to Harecastle tunnel entrance just to turn round and dump rubbish. A young (relatively) volunteer tunnel keeper of female disposition came over for a chat, she was very pleasant and interested and presented a good customer facing image of CRT. Makes a change from the usual taciturn grumpy grey-beardy limpy old men!