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Bloody Gas Street


dave moore

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 I knew Dave in the 60s when he worked for Denis Cooper, steering the trip boat David and when he was with Birmingham and Midland in Gas St. I met your brother a few years back at the Parkhead festival and gave him pointers of those he might talk to to find out more. It’s long ago now but some of us remember....

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On 03/10/2020 at 13:02, Goliath said:

I guess John Cooper Clarke got his Beasley Street from the same source ?

It goes back at least to WW2 and the North Atlantic convoys, this version is attributed to Captain Hamish Blair, who seems to have spent more time at Scapa Flow than was good for him - Bloody Orkney

 

https://www.dpmms.cam.ac.uk/~tf/poem24.html

 

As with most folk songs and poems it could be a lot older 

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On 05/10/2020 at 22:24, John Brightley said:

Hi Dave. This film https://www.macearchive.org/films/atv-today-05051967-gas-street-basin from 1967 features Peter and Calstock - it's not the same as the boat on the right of the photo above, though it is approximately the same mooring. 

I wonder what happened to Calstock ?

 

Edit: the green and red painted boat at the bottom of the photo above is KUBINA - identified by the distinctive overhang to the front cabin roof.

Some good views of Victoria (Linda as it was then) in that film:

image.png.60bd20ae4b4f16a12860d31726c81424.png

image.png.ee30d44fd1ad05b0a4d2a536d7b70524.png

 

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On 26/02/2021 at 09:53, magpie patrick said:

goes back at least to WW2 and the North Atlantic convoys, this version is attributed to Captain Hamish Blair, who seems to have spent more time at Scapa Flow than was good for him - Bloody Orkney

The verses go back even before WW2.  Scapa Flow was the base of the Home Fleet all through WW1, from whence it went to Jutland, and was where the German High Seas Fleet scuttled itself at the end of the war, remaining the Home Fleet base till after WW2.

 

Whereas Atlantic Convoy work was pretty frantic, being the WW1 Home Fleet was not. Swinging round a buoy for months on end, with not a great deal of life and excitement at the end of a liberty boat ride, would be ideal for something like this to get going, started by a bored sailor and embellished and extended by his oppos.  No doubt WW2 produced an extra verse or two.

 

The Fleet Air Arm A25 song is another example of verses that have grown longer with time.

 

N

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On 03/10/2020 at 12:34, dave moore said:

 

 

On 05/10/2020 at 17:41, dave moore said:

Like David, I don’t recall Gas St as quite so empty, I first knew it from the mid 60s. I think the gates were still in place, no balance beams though, access to the bar from the towpath was originally a plank on a pivot on the bar side, later replaced with a pivoting and counterbalanced swingbridge with handrails. Broad Street Tunnel was about twice as long as today, the church above still standing. What is now Regency Wharf was then the Rum Runner nightclub’s rear exit, while the Opposite Lock, another, was in the old stables. My friend Jim Marshall causes consternation there when he turned up, with horse, demanding stabling! Later in the 60s private craft mingled with the BMCCC fleet, the Mintons, Peter and Paula White on Calstock ( he went on to become BW’s chief architect ) and Mr Royle on the then converted Cassiopeia. On the other side, among the fleet was a very tired Joey, home to brothers Phil and Tony Cochran. Strangely, I met up with Tony in Sydney in 1977, though it took a while for the connection to re-surface. Happy days....

Did you bump into Tony Miles who eventually owned Cassiopeiaand until his demise at Hillmorton, raved about his time at Gas Street

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Possibly, but the name doesn’t ring a bell. It’s long ago and far away, now. Graham Wigley is still around, looking remarkably like the younger man I knew in those days, as is Tony Phillips, the owner of Trent 5 for many years, Clayton’s Tay before that. 

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1 hour ago, canalboat said:

 

Did you bump into Tony Miles who eventually owned Cassiopeiaand until his demise at Hillmorton, raved about his time at Gas Street

 I think Tony actually owned Capricorn and Andrew owned Cassiopeia, but Tony lived on Butty Grace in Gas Street for some time. It would have been after Dave Moore moved away though. My memory for dates is non existent, but it would have been before the Coventry jobs took Tony to Hillmorton. 

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8 minutes ago, BuckbyLocks said:

 I think Tony actually owned Capricorn and Andrew owned Cassiopeia, but Tony lived on Butty Grace in Gas Street for some time. It would have been after Dave Moore moved away though. My memory for dates is non existent, but it would have been before the Coventry jobs took Tony to Hillmorton. 

I knew Andy Boucher and Tony Miles when they were working on the Coventry Canal Boat Project in the late 70's. Andy owned Cassiopeia and Tony owned Grace. He moored Grace in Coventry Basin, and she was left high and dry when the canal breached in Dec 1978. Whilst the canal was dry (about a year as I recall), Grace's condition deteriorated and I believe Tony then gave her away.. He was by then occupied with the restoration of the cottages at Hillmorton.

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