Tonic required. Send in your photos of what is nice on the waterways now.

[Athy]

Tooley's boatyard as one so rarely sees it: normally it's so crowded with boats that there's scant room to get past.

Ah, Woolworth's, now a part of history - as, so I've heard, Debenham's may soon be also.

[Rob-M]

3 hours ago, Athy said:

Tooley's boatyard as one so rarely sees it: normally it's so crowded with boats that there's scant room to get past.

Ah, Woolworth's, now a part of history - as, so I've heard, Debenham's may soon be also.

Had a sign when we moored outside last year.

[PeterScott]

On this day in 1980

 

 

Sunken boat in middle of the cut above Woking, Basingstoke Canal and Brookwood Bottom Lock

 

 

railway at Deepcut 

Edited February 10, 2021 by PeterScott
extra pic

[PeterScott]

On this day

in 2009

 

Braunston Turn Northern Oxford / GU looking from Napton direction

 

and in Braunston:

 

Parrot

 

Shop

 

 

 

[PeterScott]

On this day in 1980

 

Basingstoke Canal - in water above Frimley Aqueduct More from tenths of February

 

[PeterScott]

On this day in 1997

 

Welford Wharf, Welford Arm GU Leicester Line

 

Compare

27Jul1994

3Oct2013

 

and some useful advice for leaving a boat hereabouts

[PeterScott]

On this day in 2012

 

Stanley Ferry Aqueduct

 

A+C Wakefield Branch

 

Compare

17Oct2008 

29Jul2013

 

 

 

 

 

 

[John Liley]

"Ernest - A recent photograph" So wrote Robert Aickman in 'The Bulletin' of the Inland Waterways association, taking delight in this picture of Ernest Marples, Minister of Transport.

 

It was Marples who commissioned the Beeching Report on our railways. He also, incidentally, established the British Waterways Board.  For years the word Marples was on display beside the nation's road-buildong projects, representing the Minister's own construction company Marples Ridgdeway. He claimed,  upon becoming Minister, to have sold his shareholding. Only later did it transpire that he had sold them to his wife. 

[Ray T]

Marbles is on record saying “I hate railways.”

He later fled to Spain for the rest of his life to escape tax evasion charges.

[Athy]

39 minutes ago, Ray T said:

Marbles is on record saying “I hate railways.”

 

Anyone who says that must have lost them.

[Athy]

43 minutes ago, Ray T said:

 

He later fled to Spain for the rest of his life to escape tax evasion charges.

According to Wiki, he went first to Monaco and then lived on his vineyard estate in Fleurie (part of the Beaujolais wine region) - even nicer than Spain!

[Ray T]

31 minutes ago, Athy said:

Anyone who says that must have lost them.

Ruddy spell checker!

[Athy]

41 minutes ago, Ray T said:

Ruddy spell checker!

After reading about his life and some of the barmy things he'd done, I thought it did rather well!

[PeterScott]

4 hours ago, John Liley said:

"Ernest - A recent photograph" So wrote Robert Aickman in 'The Bulletin' of the Inland Waterways association...It was Marples who commissioned the Beeching Report on our railways. He also, incidentally, established the British Waterways Board.  ...

Another Transport Minister, another IWA Chairman: In her autobiography Fighting All the Way in 1993, Barbara Castle, Minister of Transport at the time of the 1968 Transport Act wrote:

"I had always been fascinated by inland water­ways. I had been on a couple of canal holidays with Jimmie and had been struck by how quickly one could escape from drab industrial surroundings as one slipped between the hedges lining the towpath in a flat-bottomed boat. I believed that messing about in boats was a leisure activity which should be increasingly available to everyone.

"I was therefore horrified to discover that one of the Treasury's money-saving exercises in 1967 involved closing down miles of inland waterways which were no longer commercially viable. I was alerted to the danger by a vocal band of canal enthusiasts led by a certain Mr Monk, whose main political weapon was verbal vitriol to be thrown in the faces of all politicians. I did not need any kind of threat to launch me into the attack because my heart was in their cause.

"Getting money out of the Treasury at that moment of economic crisis was like the proverbial getting of blood out of a stone, but when I moved in on Jack Diamond, who as the Chief Secretary to the Treasury was responsible for cutting public expenditure, I found he was human after all, or as human as his job allowed. I got him to agree to give me enough subsidy to keep open 1400 miles of non-commercially viable canals for pleasure cruising; we called them 'leisureways'.

"When my White Paper on inland waterways was published I enjoyed one of the few rewarding moments in a minister's battle-scarred life. I walked into my ministerial room to find my civil servants staring at a large bunch of red roses from the vitriolic Mr Monk, who had been a thorn in all our sides."

[PeterScott]

On this day inn  2018

 

Portsmouth

Submarine Museum.

 

Picture from an interpretation board

 

[David Mack]

On 28/01/2021 at 20:18, PeterScott said:

On this day in 2016

 

And by Red Acre Bridge 12: a peninsular deposited during the flood.

 

 

 

 

On 29/01/2021 at 12:06, David Mack said:

And another peninsula at the same location formed by Storm Ciara in February last year.

 

And today in 2021, plenty of water coming in at the same location, keeping the ice at bay.

Edited February 11, 2021 by David Mack

[Victor Vectis]

1 hour ago, PeterScott said:

She should have been the UK's first female PM. A proper 1945  Labour socialist.

 

[John Liley]

1 hour ago, PeterScott said:

Another Transport Minister, another IWA Chairman: In her autobiography Fighting All the Way in 1993, Barbara Castle, Minister of Transport at the time of the 1968 Transport Act wrote:

"I had always been fascinated by inland water­ways. I had been on a couple of canal holidays with Jimmie and had been struck by how quickly one could escape from drab industrial surroundings as one slipped between the hedges lining the towpath in a flat-bottomed boat. I believed that messing about in boats was a leisure activity which should be increasingly available to everyone.

"I was therefore horrified to discover that one of the Treasury's money-saving exercises in 1967 involved closing down miles of inland waterways which were no longer commercially viable. I was alerted to the danger by a vocal band of canal enthusiasts led by a certain Mr Monk, whose main political weapon was verbal vitriol to be thrown in the faces of all politicians. I did not need any kind of threat to launch me into the attack because my heart was in their cause.

"Getting money out of the Treasury at that moment of economic crisis was like the proverbial getting of blood out of a stone, but when I moved in on Jack Diamond, who as the Chief Secretary to the Treasury was responsible for cutting public expenditure, I found he was human after all, or as human as his job allowed. I got him to agree to give me enough subsidy to keep open 1400 miles of non-commercially viable canals for pleasure cruising; we called them 'leisureways'.

"When my White Paper on inland waterways was published I enjoyed one of the few rewarding moments in a minister's battle-scarred life. I walked into my ministerial room to find my civil servants staring at a large bunch of red roses from the vitriolic Mr Monk, who had been a thorn in all our sides."

If she found Lionel Munk vitriolic, Lord knows what she would have made of Robert Aickman. She could be pretty purposeful herself, as i remember.

[Jen-in-Wellies]

59 minutes ago, PeterScott said:

Another boat left stranded on the tow path after a flood. ?

How will RCR get that back in the water? Hope they are properly insured.

[PeterScott]

On this day in 2012

 

Stanley Ferry Workshops

 

Compare 24Sep2016 Bradley Workshop

 

 

[Chris Lowe]

34 minutes ago, PeterScott said:

On this day in 2012

 

Stanley Ferry Workshops

 

Compare 24Sep2016 Bradley Workshop

 

 

 

Some nice machinery in there.

 

When we first got Rowner lock on the Wey & Arun working years ago the bottom gates we had rebuilt from EX GU gates obtained on the very cheap from BW, we stripped them down and cut off the bad bits as we needed to make them narrower and shallower, trying to drill bolt holes in that black very seasoned timber was incredibly hard going.

[PeterScott]

On this day in 2018

 

Portsmouth Harbour. It rained.

 

[Chris Lowe]

Very atmospheric Peter

[PeterScott]

On this day in 2012

 

Stanley Ferry Aire and Calder Navigation  Wakefield Section More from elevenths of February

 

 

 

 

[PeterScott]

On this day in 1982

 

Desborough loop below Shepperton RiverThames

 

and from Walton Lane Bridge with D'OyleCarte bridge in the background