Historic boat owner film maker

[dave moore]

I’ve just remembered the maker’s name, Cook or perhaps Cooke. As an indication of their worth, some boaters had them chromium plated, a process they called “ silver dipping” according to my late good friend Jim Marshall.

On the BCN, another prized maker was Harry Neal who made in a similar style. One of his formed the pattern for the cast windlasses produced by BW in the 70s. I’ve had my original since the 60s but was unaware of the provenance until boatman Horace Foster identified it in the twenty teens. 

[Tam & Di]

21 minutes ago, dave moore said:

As an indication of their worth, some boaters had them chromium plated, a process they called “ silver dipping” according to my late good friend Jim Marshall.

 

I did that, and the bluddy firm that chromed it ground the marks out first 😡

 

Tam

[Ian Mac]

I remember talking to John Clayton of Thos Claytons. He said that they (the company) had a real hard time with the boatmen as they basically took a week to do the round trip to the port with a pair, so although they got an efficiency increase when they bought the motor boats it was nothing like they had hoped for.  Back in the late twenties and early thirties boatmen were relatively well off, they all had the state of the art radios, and several sets of batteries to power them. Most people on the bank did not have them at that time. The oil boats and Cadbury boats all used the garage at Wheaton Aston to  get their batteries charged, it was the young ones job to take the batteries to the garage and bring back the charged ones. It was also the young ones job to take the bus from Brewood to 'Hampton to collect the horse and walk it down the locks to work the butty up the flight.
As for reading & writing, most boat folk could do place names, as they were taught them. I remember Charlie Atkins senior saying about sitting on the roof of the boat with his mother and a slate as they worked 'Hampton locks. He had to write the place names down, which he could see on the coal wagons alongside the cut. Tell his mum where they were. He had an encyclopedic memory about the details of the canal system, even though he had not been down the Welsh cut since well before the war he knew it in great detail. We were starting to campaign to get the Mont restored, and he was telling us where all the bad sections were, the weirs and draw down trunks. Were they loaded and a plethora of other details. I wish I could remember the details he told us, from back then.
When he got his own boat he was a rough boater, he said, and ended up in front of the gaffer and was given a right old dressing down, and told to not just improve a bit but a lot otherwise it was the black country for him.  This is were you worked from the bank on day boats and the pay was no where near as good.

[Jubbly]

On 20/12/2022 at 21:13, Goliath said:

What was pay like?

What was pay like in the coal trade?

Could you make ‘good money’?

How would working independently compare to working for a company regards pay and working conditions?

I guess there was no such thing as a boaters’ strike, or was there ever?

 

 

Banbury 3 bob (15p) a ton for chucking out and 9/6d a ton carriage. Perks were a crate of sterilised milk from Nick the boilerman and 2 cwt of DS Nuts up the forend for “The Boatman’s Charity” 🙂. The Lengthsman, and his son in the house down Napton, left half a crown (2/6d) under a barrow if not around. If they were around a mug of their home-made wine made reaching the bottom lock hazardous! Banbury took 3 loads a month from Pooley in 1963/4/5. "Nobel" tunnel before the fancy lights!

[koukouvagia]

On 21/12/2022 at 10:49, alan_fincher said:

 

The hull.  I think Braunston Marina may even have made a recent survey available to potential "optimists", (sorry "loving owners").  They were very honest, (surprisingly honest), about it's perceived condition.

 

Caveat: I don't know what, if any, steelwork has been carried out since.

 

 

This was the original advert by Braunston marina in, I think, late 2019.  The asking price was £49,950.

 

[beerbeerbeerbeerbeer]

1 hour ago, Jubbly said:

Banbury 3 bob (15p) a ton for chucking out and 9/6d a ton carriage. Perks were a crate of sterilised milk from Nick the boilerman and 2 cwt of DS Nuts up the forend for “The Boatman’s Charity” 🙂. The Lengthsman, and his son in the house down Napton, left half a crown (2/6d) under a barrow if not around. If they were around a mug of their home-made wine made reaching the bottom lock hazardous! Banbury took 3 loads a month from Pooley in 1963/4/5. "Nobel" tunnel before the fancy lights!

Cheers for that 👍

gives another idea how things worked. 

 

the 15p a ton sounds a alright, a nice earner ?, especially if you’re moving 20 ton or more. Hard work but quickly done if there’s two of you. ?
 

 

[alan_fincher]

52 minutes ago, koukouvagia said:

 

 

This was the original advert by Braunston marina in, I think, late 2019.  The asking price was £49,950.

 

 

Blimey - I had forgotten they started it at near as damn it £50K

 

The reality of course turned out very very different.

 

Here is information supplied to me at the point Braunston thought they were close to selling it...

 

Quote

I am trying to sort out a bit of a mess the seller has found himself in- The surveyor he used is the same one that carried out the recent survey. The two are chalk and cheese and the

seller is going to be best part of £30k out of pocket.

 

[BEngo]

On 20/12/2022 at 19:09, Goliath said:

So how did it work for those who were doing a run, if that was what it was called. A long delivery, say Brum to London delivering and picking up full loads?

How did pay work for them? Was it a wage based on a day rate or was it simply priced per job?
 

 

 

Boating was paid by the trip.  Load in tons  times carriage rate per ton.  Plus extras like money for restacking aluminium ingots which had been loose loaded, shovelling out money, empty running money, sometimes even waiting money when a load was not ready.

 

The more trips you did the more you got paid.

 

Boaters could usually draw an advance, known as Starting Money, if they needed. This was a debit item in the final settlement.

 

All the various payments were  calculated once the signed delivery note was returned to the carrier and the boatman 'settled up.'

 

 Wilkinson in  'Hold on a Minute" and  Foxon in  'Number 1' and 'Following the Trade'  have some information on  carriage rates in the late 40's and early 50's.  These were Number Ones sub contracting carriage rates, so including an element for providing boats, fuel, running gear etc.  Employed boaters got less  but free boats and fuel (until the Willow Wren reconstruction).

 

Boating money at this time compared favourably with agricultural work.  As an example, in the mid 50s my Father -in-Law was earnkning £3 10s a week with 5s extra for milking on Sundays as an agricultural worker in Devon.  No tied 'cheap' housing in that job either.  OTOH the boaters money was for pretty much the whole family at work, not just one man.

 

Factory or car plant work paid better but did not really get going until the late 50s or early 60s.

 

N

[Ray T]

 

There was also the "Tommy Note." or the "Truck" system.

 

Truck wages - Wikipedia

 

The Tommy Note (waterwaysongs.info)

 

The boatsmen now I bring in, That sails from high fields to Runcan; The boatsmen and their wives, They curse him at the junction.And all belonging to the branch, That know the art of boating,Wishing the tiller down his throat, It would be a means to choak him.

 

When they have done their Runcan voyage, And go to receive their money,One half stops for hay and corn, The other half for tommy,Then to the tommy shops we go, To fetch our week's provision,Their oatmeal, sugar, salt and soap, Short weight and little measure

 

 

 

Edited December 22, 2022 by Ray T

[Ray T]

10 hours ago, dave moore said:

Mike, the “ Wellock” windlass referred to were made at Wheelock on the Trent and Mersey. Beautifully proportioned, forged jobs and highly prized among working boaters, as they are today by those of us who care about these things. Mine was made originally with a slightly smaller head than usual these days, they fitted the paddle spindles of that cut in working days. A clay pipe motif was stamped in to the windlass shank as a trade mark. In these days of welded plates and aluminium casts they stand proud. I have to confess to enlarging the eye of mine with a file so it fits the modern spindle. 

 From the museum at Stoke Bruerne.

 

The top two are Cooke windlass.

[Kate_MM]

On 20/12/2022 at 18:13, Goliath said:

What was pay like?

What was pay like in the coal trade?

Could you make ‘good money’?

How would working independently compare to working for a company regards pay and working conditions?

I guess there was no such thing as a boaters’ strike, or was there ever?

 

 

 

I think it was always a struggle once the railways came - although both world wars provided a brief renaissance, with more cargo.  There was one boaters strike - a century ago, in 1923.  Although in some ways it wasn't a 'boaters' strike because it was very led by the TGWU union who were keen to sign up inland waterway boatmen as well as the river and estuary workers. It involved FMC boats, lasted 14 weeks from mid August and was focused on Braunston where around 50 boats stopped. It wasn't a tale of worker triumph I'm afraid, the boaters came out of it with only a slightly less worse deal than the company had offered in the first place. But it's a fascinating tale and I'm currently working on two productions to tell the story - one will be at the historic boat show in June at Braunston Marina and the other at the primary school (so not public).

 

There is also mention of 'a sit down strike' over the insistence during WWII (not sure by who) that the GUCC (and possibly other) boats who had delivered their cargo of wood or aluminium to Tyesley for onward travel to the Birmingham factories travel on to the Coventry coalfields to collect coal for London via The Bham& Fazeley, known as 'the bottom road'. It was supposed to be saving water. They hated it, it was filthy (some of it still is) and involved bowhauling the butty through every one of the single locks. I've seen two accounts of this - one in Susan Woolfitt's book Idle Women (the source of that famous nickname) who talks about a sit down strike, but also in Ramlin Rose where the trainees are credited with refusing to fight their way through it and insisted on returning via the GU to Braunston and then up the North Oxford. Which is the more true, I don't know!

[John Brightley]

7 hours ago, Kate_MM said:

in Susan Woolfitt's book Idle Women (the source of that famous nickname) who talks about a sit down strike, but also in Ramlin Rose where the trainees are credited with refusing to fight their way through it and insisted on returning via the GU to Braunston and then up the North Oxford. Which is the more true, I don't know!

Your wording suggests that the nickname came from the book, but it's the other way around (you may have meant this !). Also Susan Woolfitt was there at the time, so I think the information in Idle Women has to be more reliable than that in Ramlin Rose which is a much later book, and as I understand it, more fictional. Happy to be proved wrong on this though.

[Kate_MM]

5 minutes ago, John Brightley said:

Your wording suggests that the nickname came from the book, but it's the other way around (you may have meant this !). Also Susan Woolfitt was there at the time, so I think the information in Idle Women has to be more reliable than that in Ramlin Rose which is a much later book, and as I understand it, more fictional. Happy to be proved wrong on this though.

 

The nickname did come from the book, or more accurately, the title of the book - Susan Woolfitt's daughter Harriet suggested it based on the IW National Service badge. The term was never used by the trainees or anyone else during the war. They were only ever known as 'trainees' as far as we have been able to ascertain. Oddly, the origin of the term is only ever acknowledged in the first edition of the book (I have a photo somewhere - I have glimpsed a first edition, no chance of ever owning one). Which is a shame because despite the 120+ performances of Idle Women of the Wartime Waterways that Heather Wastie and I have taken to many corners of the system as well as the numerous talks given by the acknowledged expert, Mike Constable, the myth that it was a nickname created by the boatmen or the women themselves persists!!

 

 As to the Bottom Rd story I would agree, Susan Woolfitt was there. Rose Ramlin is a fictional character but her story is based entirely on the interviews Sheila Stewart recorded, a key one being Ada Littlemore, so we drift into the interesting area of memory and shared stories versus the factual. 

[John Brightley]

5 minutes ago, Kate_MM said:

 

The nickname did come from the book, or more accurately, the title of the book - Susan Woolfitt's daughter Harriet suggested it based on the IW National Service badge. The term was never used by the trainees or anyone else during the war.

Thanks very much for explaining -I was obviously perpetuating the myth !

[ditchcrawler]

31 minutes ago, John Brightley said:

Thanks very much for explaining -I was obviously perpetuating the myth !

A bit like Heartbreak hill

[Kate_MM]

On 17/02/2023 at 21:24, John Brightley said:

Thanks very much for explaining -I was obviously perpetuating the myth !

 

Don't feel to bad - it's a very commonly perpetuated myth!

[Pluto]

I have been sorting out some old newspaper cuttings, and this was amongst them, and concerns Cheshire locks.

1958-5-20 Manchester Guardian.pdf

[Pluto]

On 17/02/2023 at 13:16, Kate_MM said:

 

I think it was always a struggle once the railways came - although both world wars provided a brief renaissance, with more cargo.  There was one boaters strike - a century ago, in 1923.  Although in some ways it wasn't a 'boaters' strike because it was very led by the TGWU union who were keen to sign up inland waterway boatmen as well as the river and estuary workers. It involved FMC boats, lasted 14 weeks from mid August and was focused on Braunston where around 50 boats stopped. It wasn't a tale of worker triumph I'm afraid, the boaters came out of it with only a slightly less worse deal than the company had offered in the first place. But it's a fascinating tale and I'm currently working on two productions to tell the story - one will be at the historic boat show in June at Braunston Marina and the other at the primary school (so not public).

 

There is also mention of 'a sit down strike' over the insistence during WWII (not sure by who) that the GUCC (and possibly other) boats who had delivered their cargo of wood or aluminium to Tyesley for onward travel to the Birmingham factories travel on to the Coventry coalfields to collect coal for London via The Bham& Fazeley, known as 'the bottom road'. It was supposed to be saving water. They hated it, it was filthy (some of it still is) and involved bowhauling the butty through every one of the single locks. I've seen two accounts of this - one in Susan Woolfitt's book Idle Women (the source of that famous nickname) who talks about a sit down strike, but also in Ramlin Rose where the trainees are credited with refusing to fight their way through it and insisted on returning via the GU to Braunston and then up the North Oxford. Which is the more true, I don't know!

I do wonder how much the lack of government direction for transport in general, and financial support for canals post 1stWW affected life on the canals. Canal owners did get some money for wartime depreciation, but the new Ministry of Transport would not extend this to carrying companies. The result was the closure of carrying companies associated with canal owners - certainly on the L&LC, SUC, and Rochdale. This policy must have affected other carrying companies who would have needed to economise. Was that one cause of the Braunston strike? There may be information in the TGWU papers at Warwick University, which seem to include some associated with narrowboat carrying. There were the later schemes for canal improvement in the 1930s, which resulted in the GUC developments, but the L&LC management did not think the government's offer made financial sense, and would not touch it with the proverbial barge-pole.

[David Mack]

39 minutes ago, Pluto said:

I have been sorting out some old newspaper cuttings, and this was amongst them, and concerns Cheshire locks.

1958-5-20 Manchester Guardian.pdf 638.35 kB · 2 downloads

Very much a period piece! The Guardian doesn't report like that these days.

A real shame that Thurlwood Steel Lock was demolished after only about 25 years. If it had lasted much longer it would surely have been preserved.

[BEngo]

42 minutes ago, David Mack said:

 

A real shame that Thurlwood Steel Lock was demolished after only about 25 years. If it had lasted much longer it would surely have been preserved.

I recall that before it was removed, BW offered it for preservation.  There was virtually no interest. 

 

It was not in working order, though I don't know why exactly.  To be of any heritage value it would not only have needed to be in working order  but in use.  That meant someone maintaining the ground components, which BW were trying to be rid of.  

 

To me it was only ever going to be a pain to the owners and whilst it was a waterway curio it could not be a viable attraction.

N

[BuckbyLocks]

17 hours ago, Kate_MM said:

 

Don't feel to bad - it's a very commonly perpetuated myth!

And How! Even one of the Trainees repeated it on TV.

[alan_fincher]

It may, of course, be another myth, but my understanding is that the design of Thurlwod Steel Lock was very poor, with moving parts effectgivly "built into" the steel structure making maintenance and/or replacement exceedingly difficult, and hence very expensive.

If that's incorrect, I'd love to hear another explanation as to why it fell out of use.

 

As for possible preservation, I  can't imagine the house occupants there were sorry to see it scrapped.  It really was one of the ugliest waterways structure ever, with no aesthetic appeal whatsoever.

[Kate_MM]

3 hours ago, Pluto said:

There may be information in the TGWU papers at Warwick University,

 

Thank you - a very good pointer! I'll get in touch with them

2 hours ago, David Mack said:

I have been sorting out some old newspaper cuttings, and this was amongst them, and concerns Cheshire locks.

Thank you - I've downloaded it. It's fascinating how much related material is turning up. Just need to turn it all into theatre now!

[Kate_MM]

10 minutes ago, BuckbyLocks said:

And How! Even one of the Trainees repeated it on TV.

 

I didn't know that! Love to know more...

 

Here's the original acknowledgement from the first edition of Idle Women by Susan Woollfitt 

 

 

 

[BEngo]

54 minutes ago, alan_fincher said:

It may, of course, be another myth, but my understanding is that the design of Thurlwod Steel Lock was very poor, with moving parts effectgivly "built into" the steel structure making maintenance and/or replacement exceedingly difficult, and hence very expensive.

If that's incorrect, I'd love to hear another explanation as to why it fell out of use.

 

I understand that it was extremely slow to work and the conventional lock alongside continued to be available, so it was quicker to put a pair of boats through that in sequence than to work the two in parallel, especially in the middle of a group of boats where the steel lock would need to be filled and emptied (or vice versa).

 

The lack of use would seem to be corroborated by the dearth of photos of  boats actually using it.

 

N