Magic Lantern Narrowboat Show. Back in the day

[Jacko - Stockland Green]

Hi everyone. I came across this site today as I was going back through some old signed photos/ postcards and I have one from my time attending Doug & Anita Lear’s Magic Lantern Show decades ago at Gas St Basin. I love architectural and cultural heritage and narrow boats are high on my list. Just wanted to share my interest and hope I can learn from your posts. 

[J R ALSOP]

I went to a show in Marple I think it was in the 70's,

[pete harrison]

1 hour ago, Jacko - Stockland Green said:

Hi everyone. I came across this site today as I was going back through some old signed photos/ postcards and I have one from my time attending Doug & Anita Lear’s Magic Lantern Show decades ago at Gas St Basin. I love architectural and cultural heritage and narrow boats are high on my list. Just wanted to share my interest and hope I can learn from your posts. 

I certainly remember Doug and Anita Lear and their boats back in the late 1970's and early 1980's, their motor being a 60' Hancock and Lane named MAGIC LANTERN and the full length small Northwich butty CARINA - and my notes show them owning CARINA from 1978 to 1983. I am pretty sure they moved their show onto the bank around 1983/84, but both boats still exist with the motor renamed as LEONARD and the butty part of the Canal and River Trust 'heritage fleet' but on long term lease.

 

edit = Your Forum name interests me as I went to Stockland Green School, Birmingham - do we have something in common ?

Edited May 7, 2020 by pete harrison

[Jacko - Stockland Green]

Hi Pete, we certainly do have something in common. I too went to Stockland Green Bilateral School 1963-67. Are you on our Facebook school group ?  I was born on Stockland Green. Be nice to catch up with more conversations. You may recall Banks’s shops.  I was very much involved with them up to 1974. My cousins still own Banks’s. Small world ay !!  

[Jacko - Stockland Green]

47 minutes ago, J R ALSOP said:

I went to a show in Marple I think it was in the 70's,

I note you come from Hemel Hempstead.  That’s where some very special friends... sadly no longer with us had their narrow boat and waterside cottage. Back in the 1960/70s.  Ken and Margeret St John was their names. 

[John Brightley]

Anita Lear was more recently Anita Sancha and lived in Hereford.

She posted videos of Lear's Magic Lanterns here: https://vimeo.com/user4867402

Unfortunately she suffered with cancer and passed away in 2017: https://hgnetwork.org/anitas-message/

[max's son]

Found the following information 

 

https://autobiograpy-memoir.webs.com/dougandanita

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlEin_I51rY

 

https://vimeo.com/151640236

[pete harrison]

19 minutes ago, Jacko - Stockland Green said:

Hi Pete, we certainly do have something in common. I too went to Stockland Green Bilateral School 1963-67. Are you on our Facebook school group ?  I was born on Stockland Green. Be nice to catch up with more conversations. You may recall Banks’s shops.  I was very much involved with them up to 1974. My cousins still own Banks’s. Small world ay !!  

I was a few years after you, starting there in 1973, but I am sure many of the teachers would have been the same. I ended up getting expelled for truancy as I was working on canal boats by the time I was fourteen (and a bit earlier if I am honest), but they later took me back and I stayed on for a year or so to make up for lost time.

 

I have seen a Facebook group for Stockland Green School but I do not know whether it is 'yours'. I do remember Banks's, and my dad used to take us to the Plaza cinema on a Saturday afternoon - all a long time ago now 

[Jacko - Stockland Green]

The school Facebook is 1956-1980.  We have reunions occasionally usually in Sutton Coldfield. We haven’t got another arranged yet and maybe not until next year. I was born in Barnet Rd which is immediately behind the plaza. Then grew up in Chudleigh Rd from 18 months old. Spent 21 years near the Sharpness Canal at Slimbridge and moved to Welshpool with the canal immediately touching the back garden ... that was 2015/16 then moved across to Stone and Stafford where I am now. Where on Stockland Green did you grow up. ? 

[pete harrison]

5 minutes ago, Jacko - Stockland Green said:

The school Facebook is 1956-1980.  We have reunions occasionally usually in Sutton Coldfield. We haven’t got another arranged yet and maybe not until next year. I was born in Barnet Rd which is immediately behind the plaza. Then grew up in Chudleigh Rd from 18 months old. Spent 21 years near the Sharpness Canal at Slimbridge and moved to Welshpool with the canal immediately touching the back garden ... that was 2015/16 then moved across to Stone and Stafford where I am now. Where on Stockland Green did you grow up. ? 

I was born on Hunton Hill (off Slade Road), moving to about half way along George Road (opposite Brookvale Park) a year or so later - so I never lived in Stockland Green 

[Jacko - Stockland Green]

Ironically I was just messaging with a Stockland Green school friend before your message came through ... She lives off Hunton Hill nr the train station. We used to have some parties up their too. Trevor n Graham Struggles house. George Rd I know inside out too. Been going through the changes of the roads and areas via nostalgia sites on Facebook. I’m aiming to write some short stories... true of course. I’ve got a few friends who may have been in your years at Stockland GN  what junior school did you go to ? I have a friend in Pelsall whose son is a maintenance engineer for the narrowboat fraternity. Andy Spencer !  I hope to book a training day or days when possible for narrow boat coaching. Did a taster session at Netherton about 3 years ago. Health and a few life’s challenges got in the way. 

[J R ALSOP]

2 hours ago, Jacko - Stockland Green said:

I note you come from Hemel Hempstead.  That’s where some very special friends... sadly no longer with us had their narrow boat and waterside cottage. Back in the 1960/70s.  Ken and Margeret St John was their names. 

I have lived in Hemel Hempstead for the last 20 years, before that in Berkhamsted on my boat when I worked at Bridgewater Boats.

But I come from Chapel-en-le-Frith in Derbyshire

[pete harrison]

3 hours ago, Jacko - Stockland Green said:

I’ve got a few friends who may have been in your years at Stockland GN  what junior school did you go to ? 

I went to Marsh Hill Nursery School followed by Marsh Hill Junior School, which was a couple of hundred yards further up Marsh Hill

 

[Bugsworth Tippler]

7 hours ago, J R ALSOP said:

I went to a show in Marple I think it was in the 70's,

I certainly went to a show in Marple probably 1975-80. I took a group of fellow teachers who had little knowledge of what they were going to but, after a briefcase containing 3 litre(?) bottles of wine and wine glasses was opened, they all thoroughly enjoyed themselves. The show put on by Doug and Anita was very interesting and I still have postcards and a Magic Lantern mirror I bought then. The towpath between the Ring o'Bells and the junction was not in a good condition at that time and some of my colleagues needed a little help negotiating the slope (even before the wine!).

 

Sad to read what happened to them after what had appeared to be an idyllic lifestyle on the canals.

 

Edited May 7, 2020 by Bugsworth Tippler
Just read the biography

[Jacko - Stockland Green]

1 hour ago, pete harrison said:

I went to Marsh Hill Nursery School followed by Marsh Hill Junior School, which was a couple of hundred yards further up Marsh Hill

 

I too went to Marsh Hill Jnr as did various generations before me. Catch up again soon. I’ve had some interesting links sent me re The Magic Lantern shows and the sadness around Doug and Anita. Regards Graham Jackson ( Jacko )