Jump to content

Early Hire Boat experiences


Featured Posts

3 hours ago, magpie patrick said:

... on the GU from somewhere near Hanwell Locks (1975?)

I can't think where that might have been. The nearest was probably High Line at Iver on the Slough cut. They had some concrete hulled hire boats in the 60s, and pretty much every one of them tried to make holes in the tow path as they stormed straight out of the Slough Arm at the Tee junction onto the main line at Cowley Peachey, never having had to do any much steering to that point - the location does feature in the Bargee film in a contretemps between Harry Corbett's pair and Eric Sykes' cruiser.

 

 

Edited by Tam & Di
Link to comment
Share on other sites

My first hire boat experience was with Graham Palmer and his friend Howard, he hired one of the wooden fleet from Ernie Thomas at Calf Heath, an ex working boat hull with a square stern. Soon after I spent a few weeks with Lady Helen, a Gas St based hire boat, skippering it for a film crew. They were making a film about our canals, the trip was from Stoke Bruerne to the Anderton Lift. I never saw the finished film, if ever it saw the light of day. That was 1967.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Summer 1964, on a family Sunday afternoon walk along the newly reopened South Stratford, my parents got chatting to some people on a boat. Turns out they had hired from Blue Line Cruisers at Braunston, so the next year we did the same, my parents, me aged 7 and sister 5, on Blue Peter, a 24ft plywood centre cockpit, outboard powered cruiser. Parents slept on the V berth in the bows which converted to a dinette with a triangular table, small galley on one side behind with loo compartment opposite, then cockpit with wheel steering, then the rear cabin where my sister and I slept. In a week we travelled from Braunston to somewhere south of Banbury and back. 

The boat came with a shovel - we were instructed to dig a hole in a farmers field if we needed to empty the elsan part way through the week.

We got bitten by the bug. The next year we hired from Wyven Shipping at Linslade and travelled to the top of Foxton and back. And after that from Anglo Welsh at Market Harborough and travelled up to Cossington Lock and back. Arriving back at Foxton with half a day in hand we decided to go up the locks, wind and come straight down again, to complete the link with the waters we had travelled the previous year!

My parents them bought a 20 ft fibreglass cruiser of their own, which we hired out to recoup some of the costs.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My first hire boat experience was with Union Canal Carriers of Braunston in mid July 1973. 

 

It was organised by  mixed venture scout group which I had joined because the girl I was going out with belonged to it.

 

They hired two ex-working boats, whose names I can't remember and we did the Warwickshire Ring over a week, including spending a day in Birmingham.

 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I can only go back to 1977. We hired with Gordon’s Pleasure Cruisers at Napton each year. First trip was to Coventry and back. Slightly odd in that we drove out to Napton and then pretty much cruised back to home.

 

What I recall is that you could cruise at 4mph back then. You definitely got places faster.

 

40’ boat for a family of five. Three kids in the front cabin. One single and two bunks plus a wash basin.

 

Mum and Dad on the dinette.


I recall smell of the dump through toilet. The chemicals rather than the dumps, that is.

 

I also remember mooring at Stretton (Brinklow) alongside the railway and every time a train went past the TV went fuzzy. I’m guessing we may have supplied our own B&W that we used for camping.

 

 

 


 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thank you to everyone who has contributed to this topic over the last day or so. It is a subject which I am particularly interested in.

 

I have collected a large number of old hire boat brochures over the years and indeed a couple more (from eBay) arrived in the post today. 

 

You are quite correct to say that @Joseph has researched the topic. Articles by him are in Waterways Journal vol 7 and 17. 

 

It appears that the first canal hire company was the Inland Cruising Association at Rowton Bridge, Chester, which started in the 1930's. This was followed by Canal Cruising at Stone started in 1948. Canal Pleasurecraft was formed in 1950, and both Wyvern Shipping and Alan Tingay's Anker Valley Cruisers (also known as Ashby Canal Cruisers) started hiring in 1956, as well as British Waterways first hire boat Water Arabis in the same year. From the information I have to hand, these were the first, but by 1965 there were quite a few more.

 

31 minutes ago, Captain Pegg said:

I can only go back to 1977. We hired with Gordon’s Pleasure Cruisers at Napton each year. 

Coincidentally my first canal trip with my parents was also with Gordon's, at Easter 1977. We had boated on the Broads, Thames and Fens before that.

Edited by John Brightley
Additional information
Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 minutes ago, John Brightley said:

Thank you to everyone who has contributed to this topic over the last day or so. It is a subject which I am particularly interested in.

 

I have collected a large number of old hire boat brochures over the years and indeed a couple more (from eBay) arrived in the post today. 

 

You are quite correct to say that @Joseph has researched the topic. Articles by him are in Waterways Journal vol 7 and 17. 

 

It appears that the first canal hire company was the Inland Cruising Association at Rowton Bridge, Chester, which started in the 1930's. This was followed by Canal Cruising at Stone started in 1948. Canal Pleasurecraft was shortly after that, and Alan Tingay's Anker Valley Cruisers (also known as Ashby Canal Cruisers) started in 1956. From the information I have to hand, these were the first, but by 1965 there were quite a few more.

 

Coincidentally my first canal trip with my parents was also with Gordon's, at Easter 1977. We had boated on the Broads, Thames and Fens before that.


We were October ‘77. Went camping the rest of the year. Hired Thrupp Navigator. Took it to Oxford and up the Ashby on other trips too. Had the same class of boat for a trip to Aylesbury and back a few years later after Blisworth Tunnel had reopened.

Edited by Captain Pegg
Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, Tam & Di said:

I can't think where that might have been. The nearest was probably High Line at Iver on the Slough cut. 

 

My memory is hazy, I was seven I think. I know the first lock was at Uxbridge, we went to Aylesbury and back and on the last day got to the top lock at Camden and to Norwood Top where we spent the last night. I also remember that dad was so appalled at the parking arrangements for his nearly new Ford Cortina that he sent us off in the boat, took it to friends in St Albans and caught the train to meet us at Uxbridge...

 

Dad would know the details, but sadly he's no longer with us. I may find it in his notes somewhere as we sift through them. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well here is another story and this will be my last.

It was before 1972. We, as southerners, had heard about the northern waterways and in particular the Leeds and Liverpool Canal. 'This magnificent waterway, in the opinion of many, the finest in the country...' IWA no.72

We found a company called Canal Boats Limited and they had five boats for hire - four of which were converted wooden half BCN dayboats. The other was an ex-BW Water Baby. A bit small we thought so we went for 'Wirral Dawn' a four berth with a galley, an Elsan, a washbasin, and electric lighting. Water heating was via the cooker and a kettle. The engine was an aircooled Lister SR2, under the stern deck. It was noisy, and the deck vibrated. The boat had a marked list which required care when going through  bridges.

We thought it was terrific.

The owner of the company, an elderly gent of upright bearing, an ex military man I think, eyed us with some caution. He was right to. The first night, when we stopped, I turned off the fuel. Prior to this boat we had hired boats with petrol engines. The second night I did the same. But failed, the next morning, to open the fuel tap. Part way up the Wigan flight the engine stopped. We had no phone. There was a factory nearby and I walked to it and asked if |I could telephone. Yes, but first the fitters would have a look for us. So they did, they bled the engine, they tried everything but the engine would not start. So I rang the owner. He came out, with his assistant, Pip. The old gent looked at us gravely. We had completely drained the system. It was entirely my fault. They would have to do a cold start, they decided. It worked, in clouds of black smoke and we were off, by early afternoon. Practically the entire workforce of the factory turned out to see us. They were a very friendly bunch. 

There was little traffic on the canal, apart from at weekends when the boat clubs came out. We met one of the other hire boats of the company, a BW foreman from the south, as we were. With his family of wife and two young children. He always made sure, he told us, to run the boat aground for the night because it leaked so much. But they were enjoying themselves.

We found the fishermen quite challenging on this canal. It was a serious business, and in some places every foot of waterway was taken up, right up to the bridges. We devised a system so as not to disturb them. We would edge the bows up to the bridge, one of us get off to open it, then when shut again, back the boat to the bridge. No need to touch the bank at all.  It happened, of course. We backed too briskly, hit the bridge and snapped the rudder stock. We towed the boat back to the nearest road bridge. Rang the boatyard from a public phone box. The old gent told us that he would meet us at Appley Lock. We said we were sorry. ' I'd grumble a bit if you had done it on purpose. Can you honestly say you've done it on purpose?' ' Well, no'. 'Well, there you are then.' Within three hours he was back with the mended rudder and tiller. It was a Sunday.

What remains in the memory are the beautifult stretches and the not so beautiful. There were many urban areas with massive stone built factories some belching fumes and some quite derelict. The cobbled streets and stone houses and individual brands of beer and the friendly people. One, a young lad called Brookie helped us work down the Wigan flight. Then he fell in. 'Dad will kill me! Dad will kill me!'. He had been told again and again not to play near the canal. We dried him as best we could and took him home to Dad in Alderton Street. What Dad made of us southerners, I do not know. I hope he wasn't too hard on Brookie. 

When we got back to base, the old gent seemed pleased that no further damage had been done to his boat. But he charged us 32p. for a broken Pyrex lid, and the two weeks hire cost £57. It must have been before 1972 because there were loaded coal barges by Wigan power station. And they stopped in 1971 didn't they?

Anyway, that will do.

 

 

  • Greenie 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Several Hire Boats on the broads in the the late 50's. In 1959 my dad took us to the Avon hiring from Bathursts at Tewkesbury. At that time the Avon was not navigable much above Pershore. I remember falling in at Strensham  and my parents saw a little boy in a lifejacket floating down the river while doing the washing up. We ventured out on to the Severn and saw the oil tankers going to Worcester and Stourport..

In the following year my parents had bought a boat which they moored at Nantwich..At that time as well as Inland Hire at Christleton there was Dean Bro's who also favoured  the Stuart Turner engine with their distinctive pop pop exhaust note.  Other companies of that era  on the Shroppie were Golden Line at Bunbury . Simolda at Nantwich   that had two very bluff bowed cruisers with red hulls and cream cabins,  Double Pennant at Wolverhampton , Ernie Thomas who operated from Gailey Top Lock before he developed Calf Heath.  on the Macc  there was Coronation Cruisers at Higher Poynton.  I also beleive IRC there was a company on the Bridgewater Key Line?

Mid sivties  saw John Stothert open Shropshire Union Cruisers at Norbury.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, davidwheeler said:

 

We found a company called Canal Boats Limited and they had five boats for hire - four of which were converted wooden half BCN dayboats. The other was an ex-BW Water Baby. A bit small we thought so we went for 'Wirral Dawn' a four berth with a galley, an Elsan, a washbasin, and electric lighting. Water heating was via the cooker and a kettle. The engine was an aircooled Lister SR2, under the stern deck. It was noisy, and the deck vibrated. The boat had a marked list

 

We had Wirral Dawn in  1972 and Wirral Mist in 1973 - in 1973 we picked up in Rodley, someone had had a one-way trip from Haskayne, and went onto the Aire and Calder before returning to base

 

1 hour ago, davidwheeler said:

It must have been before 1972 because there were loaded coal barges by Wigan power station. And they stopped in 1971 didn't they?

 

 Summer 72 I think, we saw them on our way out but they had stopped when we came back

Link to comment
Share on other sites

16 hours ago, Captain Pegg said:

I can only go back to 1977. We hired with Gordon’s Pleasure Cruisers at Napton each year. First trip was to Coventry and back. Slightly odd in that we drove out to Napton and then pretty much cruised back to home.

 

What I recall is that you could cruise at 4mph back then. You definitely got places faster.

 

40’ boat for a family of five. Three kids in the front cabin. One single and two bunks plus a wash basin.

 

Mum and Dad on the dinette.


I recall smell of the dump through toilet. The chemicals rather than the dumps, that is.

 

I also remember mooring at Stretton (Brinklow) alongside the railway and every time a train went past the TV went fuzzy. I’m guessing we may have supplied our own B&W that we used for camping.

 

 

 


 

 

 

Ah yes, I too remember the smell of the chemical toilet.

 

The toilet was in the bow of the UCC ex-working boats, along with a tiny wash basin and towel rail screwed to the back of the door. You had to back into the compartment and sit down with the door facing you.

 

It didn't take long for some wag to add a hand written notice above the towel rail, "straining bar, in case of constipation grip tightly between teeth and push!"

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I started to hang around the Staffs & Worcs Canal in Penkridge about 1963, and over the next several years met a number of people mostly on the local hire boats: Swan Line (Fradley), Ernie Thomas (Gailey), Kingfisher (Hoo Mill), Canal Cruising Co (Stone). For the most part the people I met could be described as slightly unconventional but not weird. Somewhat adventurous and willing to try something that my peers at school thought would be boring at best. The private owners were slightly different because they already understood.

 

The boats were a real grab-bag, of course. Some would now be considered decrepit (old working boats, converted lifeboats, bridge pontoons) but others were gorgeous (Malaya, anything by Holt Abbott, the Ernie Thomas boats) but they were all interesting in a way that was lost in the switch to standard steel boats and I loved them all. Propulsion was also a grab bag ranging from nasty rusty petrol lumps, newer but questionable petrol engines (I'm thinking of the British Anzani Magnatwin outboards that Swan Line used - no neutral or reverse, just start it backwards if you want to stop) to much nicer things like the Stuart Turner 2-strokes that purred like kittens and the Lister SR diesels that just worked. Lots of outboards from Johnson and Evinrude on the smaller cruisers and the occasional Seagull outboard that felt like an agricultural implement. And who could forget the sound of a Bolinder?

 

Slightly upmarket were the passengers on hotel boats. I just missed the end of the Whitleys' hotel boats operating from Penkridge but was lucky enough to meet, and travel with, crew and passengers on two pairs that turned around at Penkridge; Jupiter & Saturn and Mabel & Forget me Not. Once again both the crew and passengers were either willing to try something unknown or already understood how special the canals were then.

 

My family rented a boat twice from Ernie Thomas, and there was a real feeling of exploration - this was not a world that many people knew, or even cared about, although the locksides at Stourport were lined with onlookers as we went down to the Severn on Whit Monday.

 

After helping out in a minor way at the Ernie Thomas base in Gailey I was lucky enough to spend seven seasons working Saturdays at Wheaton Aston for Welsh Canal Holiday Craft - far more than a job it was something I loved doing. Meeting the clients at the end of their trip and sending off the new ones was always a pleasure and I really don't remember anybody who acted badly. Moving boats between Llangollen and Wheaton Aston over a weekend was always about the most wonderful thing you could imagine.

 

It couldn't last, of course. The waterways began to fill up with boats - I even had to wait for a lock sometimes, and the owner of WCHC retired. Seeing other boats go by became commonplace. I didn't realise at the time, but that period was the whole world of waterways waiting to become popular. I left England in 1977 and have never returned to that world. I remain grateful for the people I met and things I was able to do.
 

  • Greenie 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Mr Morris thank you. That is just what I am looking for.

In an article 'The Canal Pioneers' in Waterways World October 1978 Holt Abbott is recorded as having said this: " The type of hirer has changed completely. In the old days they came to discover the canals and to explore.  Now they mostly don't care about the history and are more interested in hiring tellies than in looking at the countryside."

Was that a fair comment? At the time? He said much the same to us in 1969, when we explained where we had been and how we had come to damage his boat. No other CPL boat had been through the Harecastle that year. He hadn't expected any to do so, otherwise he would have warned against it, because of its condition.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 17/05/2023 at 16:46, Tam & Di said:

I can't think where that might have been. The nearest was probably High Line at Iver on the Slough cut. 

 

 

 

I've given this some more thought - starting with what I remember and what I remember Magpie the Elder remembering. In 1999 we took a boat from Adelaide Dock part way down the Slough Branch (only part way as we needed to get it back to base!) and Dad declared it was the first time he had been down - it would be unheard of for him to be wrong about something like that. 

 

Then to my own memory, we arrived in nearly new bright yellow Ford Cortina Estate, pulling up on by a long building that had the canal on the other side. Dad was immediately unhappy about leaving the car there for the week. We went through the buiding (presumably reception was in it) and the boat was waiting in a row of boats parked echelon-style (that is about 45 degrees to the canal) rather than alongside. Ours was Monica Emily and I think another one was Bustopher Jones. 

 

Looking at Google Earth, Bulls Bridge fits the description - other places might also, but it does. Did BW allow someone to operate out of Bulls Bridge for a season? 

 

Mum and Dad's next hire from London was a wide bean from Adelaide Dock in 1999, when we did the "London Ring", and went up to Ponders end and the first little bit of the Slough Branch

Link to comment
Share on other sites

36 minutes ago, davidwheeler said:

Mr Morris thank you. That is just what I am looking for.

In an article 'The Canal Pioneers' in Waterways World October 1978 Holt Abbott is recorded as having said this: " The type of hirer has changed completely. In the old days they came to discover the canals and to explore.  Now they mostly don't care about the history and are more interested in hiring tellies than in looking at the countryside."

Was that a fair comment? At the time? He said much the same to us in 1969, when we explained where we had been and how we had come to damage his boat. No other CPL boat had been through the Harecastle that year. He hadn't expected any to do so, otherwise he would have warned against it, because of its condition.


Some things don’t change. You’ll find similar nonsense sentiments expressed about newcomers today.

 

As I recalled earlier we had a TV on our first trip. Obviously we had no interest in, and knew nothing of, canal history.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 minutes ago, magpie patrick said:

 

I've given this some more thought - starting with what I remember and what I remember Magpie the Elder remembering. In 1999 we took a boat from Adelaide Dock part way down the Slough Branch

I assumed you were talking about a rather earlier period. I did wonder how you'd been to Aylesbury, but also to Camden and Norwood Top as that's quite a spread. Adelaide Dock is just up a couple of miles from Norwood Top, and the guy we sold it to did start a hire business but it only lasted a couple of years. Monica Emily has been owned for perhaps 20 years by a woman with another boat she keeps at our Spikes Bridge moorings. I think she bought it from John Bolsom who had the yard at Iver on the bottom of the Slough Arm and another at Norwood on the Paddington Arm, but his Iver Boats hire fleet was back in the 60s. There was a hire fleet in Paddington Packet Boat yard at Cowley Peachey at some point and that might be where you are thinking of. They have a mooring basin on the main line and their marina entrance on the old BW dredging tip is just into the Slough cut. I am pretty confident that there were never any boats operating out of the BW Bulls Bridge yard.

 

Tam

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Bustopher Jones was one of the Bridgwater Boats.  Operated out of Berko, next to the timber yard with totem pole, for years. Dont know if it went from somewhere else earlier.   All the boats were named  after TS Eliots cats.@J R ALSOP  may remember if Monica Emily was another one.

 

N

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My first hire boat experience was with Deans at Chrisleton (Chester) in about 1958/9, it was a plywood cruiser called "Shirley" we went to Llangollen and Norbury.

It had a Stuart Turner petrol inboard, the loo was a "bucket and chuckit" never drunk water in Crewe or Chester since, it wasn't Elsan Blue in those days but a phenol creosote liquid, the said pour it over the back as you go along best avoided in a lock.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.