Playground for the Rich

[beerbeerbeerbeerbeer]

Are the Inland Waterways a ‘playground for the rich’?

 

The phrase gets used every know and again and was recently repeated on another thread regarding funding. 
 

[magnetman]

No. You are thinking of Antibes and St Tropèz. 

 

 

[MtB]

6 minutes ago, Goliath said:

Are the Inland Waterways a ‘playground for the rich’?

 

The phrase gets used every know and again and was recently repeated on another thread regarding funding. 
 

 

If it isn't, it should be. 

 

I don't see why the taxpayer should subsidise a very pleasant lifestyle for those who otherwise couldn't afford it. 

 

 

[Jen-in-Wellies]

Mixed. As far as non-boating use, it is very egalitarian. All sorts using the tow path for walking, cycling for travel and pleasure. Similar with worm drowning. All sorts doing it. With boating, there is a split. Either relatively wealthy people who can afford to run a boat as well as a house and not so wealthy, who use a boat to provide their home. Either through choice, because they also want to live on a boat, or because they can't afford to live in the area they work, especially that London. The amount of money needed to buy and run both a boat and a house has risen faster than wages and inflation for a long time, so has priced out that as an option or many people, leading to people either being excluded from one, or the other.

 

7 minutes ago, MtB said:

 

If it isn't, it should be. 

 

I don't see why the taxpayer should subsidise a very pleasant lifestyle for those who otherwise couldn't afford it. 

 

 

A bit like the PM getting Chequers as a freebie second home, along with their main free home. Originally donated by an aristocrat who realised that there might be prime ministers who didn't already have a country mansion. How can such poverty exist?

[MtB]

3 minutes ago, Jen-in-Wellies said:

A bit like the PM getting Chequers as a freebie second home, along with their main free home. Originally donated by an aristocrat who realised that there might be prime ministers who didn't already have a country mansion. How can such poverty exist?

 

My comment was very tongue-in-cheek. Mainly because I'm as poor as a church mouse myself compared to some on here, and like some prime ministers I don't even have even one little country mansion at my disposal.

[Jen-in-Wellies]

1 minute ago, MtB said:

 

My comment was very tongue-in-cheek. Mainly because I'm as poor as a church mouse myself compared to some on here, and like some prime ministers I don't even have even one little country mansion at my disposal.

We'll organise a flag day. Please give generously to buy @MtB a country mansion. 😀

[MtB]

1 minute ago, Jen-in-Wellies said:

We'll organise a flag day. Please give generously to buy @MtB a country mansion. 😀

 

Brilliant, thank you!!!

 

When do I get the keys?

 

P.S. This (Lorry's old house) one would do nicely:

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/136984508#/?channel=RES_BUY

[TheBiscuits]

1 minute ago, MtB said:

 

Brilliant, thank you!!!

 

When do I get the keys?

 

P.S. This (Lorry's old house) one would do nicely:

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/136984508#/?channel=RES_BUY

 

I'll donate one of the zeroes.

 

Get another five people to donate a zero and chip in the 4 yourself.

 

Simples!

[dmr]

Its a term often used now, and there are quite a few rich buggers on the cut including a fair few millionaires, but also a lot of working class boaters and an increasing amount of "lowlife".

 

Anybody who things its a rich mans playground should visit a few boat clubs, these are an important part of the cut and not much talked about here but often the home of many working class boaters. Unlike salty sailing the canal is one of the few places where a working class bloke (or woman) can be the captain of his own ship, and this is yet another reason why the government should fund the canals.

[beerbeerbeerbeerbeer]

18 minutes ago, Jen-in-Wellies said:

Mixed. As far as non-boating use, it is very egalitarian. All sorts using the tow path for walking, cycling for travel and pleasure. Similar with worm drowning. All sorts doing it. With boating, there is a split. Either relatively wealthy people who can afford to run a boat as well as a house and not so wealthy, who use a boat to provide their home. Either through choice, because they also want to live on a boat, or because they can't afford to live in the area they work, especially that London. The amount of money needed to buy and run both a boat and a house has risen faster than wages and inflation for a long time, so has priced out that as an option or many people, leading to people either being excluded from one, or the other.

Yep, that’s pretty much my thoughts too. 
I’ve always found boating a bit of a leveller. 
You can be on a line of moorings with a  wide range of ‘wealth’. 
And I’ve never really found myself feeling I’m in a playground for the rich when passing through Tipton. 
 

Mind, there are a few places on the Thames I’ve been through which opened me eyes. 

[IanD]

1 minute ago, Goliath said:

Yep, that’s pretty much my thoughts too. 
I’ve always found boating a bit of a leveller. 
You can be on a line of moorings with a  wide range of ‘wealth’.

And I’ve never really found myself feeling I’m in a playground for the rich when passing through Tipton. 
Mind, there are a few places on the Thames I’ve been through which opened me eyes. 

Exactly the same applies to housing, for the same reasons...

[Stilllearning]

41 minutes ago, magnetman said:

No. You are thinking of Antibes and St Tropèz. 

 

 

It's actually Saint-Tropez. No accent, and I believe that every place name in france that starts with Saint or Sainte is followed by a hyphen. There are 9 pages of such place names in our road map book of France. 

ETA 

Oh, and I went there once, and that was enough.

Edited July 11, 2023 by Stilllearning

[beerbeerbeerbeerbeer]

Just now, IanD said:

Exactly the same applies to housing, for the same reasons...

I’m not sure it does. 
I’m on a bus at the moment travelling through areas separated by wealth. 
 

What I like on the canal is anyone is free to moor along side me, and me along side them. 
Doesn’t matter what type of boat one has one can moor where one likes. 
 

I think that’s what I mean by being a leveller. 
 

[IanD]

1 minute ago, Goliath said:

I’m not sure it does. 
I’m on a bus at the moment travelling through areas separated by wealth. 
 

What I like on the canal is anyone is free to moor along side me, and me along side them. 
Doesn’t matter what type of boat one has one can moor where one likes. 
 

I think that’s what I mean by being a leveller. 
 

I just meant your comment about Tipton vs. the Thames -- walk along the Thames and on one side you side ultra-expensive (and often empty) flats, often owned by non-UK residents. Look the other way (e.g. St. Katherine's Dock) and you see ultra-expensive (and often empty) yachts and widebeam boats, possibly also often owned by non-UK residents.

 

I doubt that many poorer people can afford to moor their boat anywhere on the Thames or the moorings just off it, just like they can't afford to live in a penthouse on the South Bank.

 

As far as the rest of the canals are concerned -- sure, everyone can moor anywhere, and boats of all kinds -- scruffy or shiny -- can mix together. Doesn't stop some people trying to stir up division between them though... 😞

[Arthur Marshall]

Rich is probably the wrong term, wealthy is more like it, as wealth is stuff rather than money.

I've had my old tub 30 years , and my annual income has rarely, if ever, been more than about twelve grand so I'm fairly sure I'm not rich. But I have a boat and a car and have mostly owned a house on a very small mortgage, a few musical instruments of one sort or another and about fifteen thousand books, so I reckon that makes me more than averagely wealthy.

The majority of people in this country are considerably worse off, and certainly couldn't afford to add a boat to their stuff, so, yes, I do think the boating element of the cut is indeed largely , but not entirely, a playground for the wealthy.

The real problem with funding this playground, unlike every other facility the UK has, is that the Tories can't find a foreign government to flog it to. Perhaps the Saudis would buy it as a bit more of their PR...

[Nightwatch]

The rich were probably rich prior to moving onto the waterways.

[Jen-in-Wellies]

Age comes in to how asset rich people can be. It takes time to get together enough money for a house and a boat and doing it was easier in past decades than it is now, due to the discrepancy between wages increases and boat/house inflation I've previously mentioned. With @dmr's boat clubs, the age range tends to skew higher and the homes they own will likely have been paid for in decades past with lower mortgages, allowing spare cash for other things. A tendency also to have good final salary pensions to allow this to continue. Something mostly not available to people now. I suspect that many, although working class in background, would be more likely to have owned their business, rather than been employed by someone else for much of their working life. Ownership of the means of production and where the profit goes.

[BilgePump]

1 hour ago, dmr said:

Its a term often used now, and there are quite a few rich buggers on the cut including a fair few millionaires, but also a lot of working class boaters and an increasing amount of "lowlife".

 

Anybody who things its a rich mans playground should visit a few boat clubs, these are an important part of the cut and not much talked about here but often the home of many working class boaters. Unlike salty sailing the canal is one of the few places where a working class bloke (or woman) can be the captain of his own ship, and this is yet another reason why the government should fund the canals.

I agree with the bit about some boat clubs being great for affordable access to the water but would claim that they can also afford salty water sailors the same benefits. Our tidal sailing club is about five miles from the sea and is full of us working class older boaters. No pretences whatsoever. Some nice cars in the yard and nice boats on the moorings but a lot of us have old cars and there are plenty of basic sailboats and ongoing projects run on a shoestring. Membership and mooring are a fraction of something in a local marina.

[dmr]

51 minutes ago, BilgePump said:

I agree with the bit about some boat clubs being great for affordable access to the water but would claim that they can also afford salty water sailors the same benefits. Our tidal sailing club is about five miles from the sea and is full of us working class older boaters. No pretences whatsoever. Some nice cars in the yard and nice boats on the moorings but a lot of us have old cars and there are plenty of basic sailboats and ongoing projects run on a shoestring. Membership and mooring are a fraction of something in a local marina.

 

Yes, I realised as I typed it was not really correct. My sailing was done in Southampton where some boating is expensive and mostly for the wealthy, but even there there are a few places where it is afordable by an "ordinary person".

 

[Machpoint005]

1 hour ago, Jen-in-Wellies said:

Age comes in to how asset rich people can be. It takes time to get together enough money for a house and a boat and doing it was easier in past decades than it is now, due to the discrepancy between wages increases and boat/house inflation I've previously mentioned. With @dmr's boat clubs, the age range tends to skew higher and the homes they own will likely have been paid for in decades past with lower mortgages, allowing spare cash for other things. A tendency also to have good final salary pensions to allow this to continue. Something mostly not available to people now. I suspect that many, although working class in background, would be more likely to have owned their business, rather than been employed by someone else for much of their working life. Ownership of the means of production and where the profit goes.

 

We paid more for our boat than we did for our house.

 

[IanD]

Just now, Machpoint005 said:

 

We paid more for our boat than we did for our house.

 

Ditto...

 

(but we've lived here for 30 years...)

[Machpoint005]

We've been in the same house for a long time. No final salary pension scheme, just wise self-employed investments over the years.

 

 

[MIKE P]

All I can say is, I started off with nothing and I have most of it left..

[MtB]

Just now, MIKE P said:

All I can say is, I started off with nothing and I have most of it left..

 

And there is that other expression, if you started with nothing and died deep in debt, then you made one helluva profit out life!

[Mike Todd]

9 hours ago, dmr said:

Its a term often used now, and there are quite a few rich buggers on the cut including a fair few millionaires, but also a lot of working class boaters and an increasing amount of "lowlife".

 

Anybody who things its a rich mans playground should visit a few boat clubs, these are an important part of the cut and not much talked about here but often the home of many working class boaters. Unlike salty sailing the canal is one of the few places where a working class bloke (or woman) can be the captain of his own ship, and this is yet another reason why the government should fund the canals.

My experience is that the canals are a great leveller - we all have to share the same locks (and elsan places!) Of course, for many of us it is a non-essential pastime (although I think it really does save a large chunk of the mental health budget) and it is not cheap. That said, the number of people I meet who have, or retired from, quite modest contexts is noticeable. Only a few seem to be from the entitled class.

 

That said, there is one place where such does not hold - the Thames, where lock keepers are surprised if you want to talk to them rather than gesture from a flybridge half a mile overhead. Bit worried that people in Westminster think that all waterways are like that (and they don't realise that it is not CaRT's waters!) The demographics of boating is a bit like what I understand to be the case with angling - there are some very expensive places to practice your skills (usually helped by someone who actually knows what to do) whilst everywhere else it is a pastime for hoi polloi.

 

It has long been that diversity that is core to why I have enjoyed canal cruising for so long, and still do.