T & D. Murrell's boats

[Tam & Di]

Sorry - was trying to follow how to put photos on but I've obviously got it wrong

Edited December 7, 2008 by Tam & Di

[denboy]

Nope failed miserably

on your photo bucet under the pic copy and paste the last line under the picture that starts with IMG should be like this

 

img]http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x10/denboy3/riverside045.jpg[/img

 

ive removed the first and last bracket so it shows up

Edited December 7, 2008 by denboy

[Tam & Di]

Nope failed miserably

 

When I looked at the posting I'd made it looked like a whole mess of machine language and the images did not show, so I deleted it. Once more into the wotsit...........

 

"Preview" seems to show success this time. Anyway, it's Towcester (with bulk cratch) and Bude in the mid 70s in the colours we first used - not that black & white pics show that very well!

 

 

[alan_fincher]

It's been posted before, and not on the Lime Juice, but this is same era.....

 

It shows those colours a bit, at least.....

 

[Tam & Di]

Thanks for that Alan - I've not seen it before. I've mislaid my Towcester log and can't remember exactly when I changed the colours, but it was shortly after we were done out as "Venus" & "Ariadne" in GUCCC colours for the Verity Lambert TV film of Emma Smith's "Maidens' Trip". I did try a few years back to see if that was still in the BBC archives, but with no luck.

 

Anyway, here are the colours we eventually used for all our boats - I used a darker blue from Tekaloid and cream instead of GUCCC's white. I adapted the scheme to suit variously the style of Leeds and Liverpool boats (we had Farnworth, Ribble, Mersey and Ironclad), barges used commercially on the Thames, and ultimately even the three little coasters we ran around the south east and across to the continent. Here in August 1978 it is Towcester and Bude with grain at Coxes Mill on the river Wey at Weybridge. Once we established the feasibility of the job we bought a small Trent barge "Clinton" that was better suited to loading at the Tilbury grain terminal, and used Argo Carrying's small dutch barge "Anny" as well.

 

I saw in passing someone on another topic asking how butty hatches were drained. The answer of course is "cloths and maybe a dustpan", as they would be below water level when you are loaded so drain holes à la modern cruiser were not an option. When we took Bude down to the Thames for the first trial to Weybridge we found a small pinhole quite high up that would let water in when we loaded. I did an emergency plug with chewing gum which did the job so well it was three or four years before we had anything more serious done to repair it.

 

Tam Murrell

 

 

Edited December 10, 2008 by Tam & Di

[WJM]

That picture of Brentford, for me at least, is amazing. I am one of the (relatively!) shiny new boat brigade and I have a mooring almost directly opposite where you are loading in that picture. Sometimes I think I can hear and see the ghosts of the old boats, but usually it turns out to be the traveling fuel boats! Have you any more pictures of Brentford?

[alan_fincher]

This picture shows about the only surviving warehouses on that stretch now.

 

The rather unlovely tower block in Tam's photo still features.

 

The November 2008 Waterways World, (p 102-104) had a good feature on a pair of Willow Wren boats going down to Brentford in 1967 under the captaincy of Ted Ward. The final picture, shot from a similar, but not identical place to Tam's, shows part of the then Willow Wren fleet tied up short of the overhanging warehouses on the other side of the cut. This must be close to where Mike ("Black Rose") now moors in the picture here.

 

 

I have this feeling Ted Ward went on to work at Union Canal Carriers at Braunston - or am I imagining it ? I bet David Schweitzer would know!.....

 

I know there were a couple of ex working baotmen at Wyvern Shipping when I had a Saturday job there, but I think they were from the Harrison rather than the Ward family - I could be wrong, though!

[jake_crew]

I know there were a couple of ex working baotmen at Wyvern Shipping when I had a Saturday job there, but I think they were from the Harrison rather than the Ward family - I could be wrong, though!

Can anyone tell me more about the Harrison boating family ?.

[David Schweizer]

Can anyone tell me more about the Harrison boating family ?.

I remember a Mark Harrison who used to work for Willow Wren, from recollection he had two daughters and a son, but I cannot remember their names.

 

I have this feeling Ted Ward went on to work at Union Canal Carriers at Braunston - or am I imagining it ? I bet David Schweitzer would know!.....

 

I know there were a couple of ex working baotmen at Wyvern Shipping when I had a Saturday job there, but I think they were from the Harrison rather than the Ward family - I could be wrong, though!

No I dont know, but I will ask next time I see Iris Hewitt, or Joan (Ted Ward's niece) Carl may know.

Edited December 9, 2008 by David Schweizer

[alan_fincher]

Can anyone tell me more about the Harrison boating family ?.

Have you seen this site ?

 

I hadn't before, but Google turns it up.

 

http://canalboatmen.co.uk/HARRISON.htm

 

If you ever had any doubts about how inter-married the boating families were, then these pages should erase them!

 

I've not studied it, but certainly names like Mark Harrison appear.

 

I think there may have been two Harrisons working at Wyvern Shipping in the early 1970s, but the forename Mark doesn't ring any bells with me.

 

Alan

[Tam & Di]

I have this feeling Ted Ward went on to work at Union Canal Carriers at Braunston - or am I imagining it ? I bet David Schweitzer would know!.....

 

I have this feeling Ted Ward went on to work at Union Canal Carriers at Braunston - or am I imagining it ? I bet David Schweitzer would know!.....

 

 

"Young" Ted Ward worked for UCC. His son Gary is just about the only ex-boat family person to make money from the pleasure boat market - he owns Delta Marine, mostly building superior "Dutch" style motorbarges.

 

"Uncle" Ted lived at Norwood Top Lock - he finished his time "a-Waterwaving", as he referred to BW.

 

Tam

[alan_fincher]

No I dont know, but I will ask next time I see Iris Hewitt, or Joan (Ted Ward's niece) Carl may know.

David - apologies for mangling your surname in my post - I thought it looked wrong at the time, so I should have checked.

 

Tam,

 

Thanks for confirming my memory. My brothers and I hired a boat from UCC, (when only 3 of us turned up, they wanted to know what we had done with the other nine!), and I've a feeling it was Ted Ward who ran through the boat with us. It was meant to be Bilster, but for some reaon they sent us out instead with Bexhill, normally paired with Brighton and crewed by the Duddingtons (spelling ??) at that time.

[WJM]

I took this picture earlier this year!

[Tam & Di]

............. Bexhill, normally paired with Brighton and crewed by the Duddingtons (spelling ??) at that time.

 

John Duddington and his then wife Sue worked Bexhill & Brighton as you say. He subsequently worked for us, principally on our Trent barge "Clinton" on the Tilbury-Weybridge grain job that I mentioned in a previous posting. That finished when Allied Mills took advantage of Margaret Thatcher's tax incentives to get companies to move to Corby, and John and his partner Ellie moved to France where they bought/worked a 38m péniche for several years. He is now dead. I mentioned earlier in a posting about the postcard showing butty "Moon" you put up that George & Helen Smith who also worked for UCC still work their 38m "Floan" here. They frequently take on the longer runs from Belgium to the Rhône and Midi, as do Roy and Carole Sycamore with "Pedro" - another English couple.

 

This view is Clinton (and Anny) on the hard at Isleworth in 1981

 

 

Edited December 10, 2008 by Tam & Di

[johnthebridge]

John Duddington and his then wife Sue worked Bexhill & Brighton as you say. He subsequently worked for us, principally on our Trent barge "Clinton" on the Tilbury-Weybridge grain job that I mentioned in a previous posting. That finished when Allied Mills took advantage of Margaret Thatcher's tax incentives to get companies to move to Corby, and John and his partner Ellie moved to France where they bought/worked a 38m péniche for several years. He is now dead. I mentioned earlier in a posting about the postcard showing butty "Moon" you put up that George & Helen Smith who also worked for UCC still work their 38m "Floan" here. They frequently take on the longer runs from Belgium to the Rhône and Midi, as do Roy and Carole Sycamore with "Pedro" - another English couple.

 

This view is Clinton (and Anny) on the hard at Isleworth in 1981

 

 

Hello Tam,

Well remember the first time I saw you and Di, coming hard through the Parks one Autumn day, a very long time ago. Fond memories. Do you remember Andy Iddings, who, with Liz, used to steer the Birmingham for Januscz? He's the only person I ever saw walk up a taut back end line from the bank to the boat, when tied in the Jackdaw pound one night! They went up to Scotland, but he died some time later.

Then there was Alf Wright at Leighton lock, ex GUCCC skipper-he used to hop on the trip boat from Wyvern on occasion. It was mid 70s, and one boat we passed had that sticker in the window, saying "Watch your wash". I said to him, "Did you ever watch your wash Alf?", to which, after sucking his teeth for a while, replied, "Ar, we used to watch 'un come over the towpath John!"

What happened to Anny? Didn't she have that 2 stroke GM in her? A very unusual sound.

[BuckbyLocks]

I remember a Mark Harrison who used to work for Willow Wren, from recollection he had two daughters and a son, but I cannot remember their names.

 

 

No I dont know, but I will ask next time I see Iris Hewitt, or Joan (Ted Ward's niece) Carl may know.

 

There are several pictures of Mark Harrison working for Willow Wren in Mike Webb's 'Braunston's Boats' I believe he is the Mark Harrison born in 1911 in Birmingham shown in the Website previously mentioned as I remember his wife's name as Dolly (Ward) I am sure the sons name was Ted, and the last time I spoke to him by phone I think the number wasa Bedworth one, but I cannot find the number at the moment. I saw him working a Josher for Bargeeboy down the thirteen years ago.

[Tam & Di]

..... What happened to Anny? Didn't she have that 2 stroke GM in her? A very unusual sound.

 

Yes, I have fond memories of Andy and Liz. Another ex-UCC boatman Geoff Mason is also over here - though "here" in this context is Belgium rather than France. He owns "The English Bookshop" on the quayside near the centre of Gent.

 

Anny was (and I believe still is) a houseboat in the Paddington basin. A lot of the working automoteurs (motor barges) here have GMs. They're not too bad when heard from inside the wheelhouse, but make a noise like a lawnmower trying to cut a wheatfield when heard from outside. Although I really liked the Lister JP we had in Towcester, my favourites are Gardners. We had an LW5 in Clinton, and an LX6 in De Hoop. This was our first Continental barge, built by Hellemans of Boom in Belgium in 1937 and 35.6m x 5.06m. Here she is unloading general cargo at Beckett's Wharf in Kingston shortly before we were blacked by the London Dock Labour Board. Our son Jason was master, and is just visible with the black bobble hat. Various canal people were with him as mate from time to time. We run aggregates in her from the Essex Colne up the Thames and around the Kent coast, but she was too "delicate" to put up with the constant knocks from unloading grabs and taking the ground and we reluctantly sold her and bought the first of our three small coasters.

 

 

[johnthebridge]

Yes, I have fond memories of Andy and Liz. Another ex-UCC boatman Geoff Mason is also over here - though "here" in this context is Belgium rather than France. He owns "The English Bookshop" on the quayside near the centre of Gent.

 

Anny was (and I believe still is) a houseboat in the Paddington basin. A lot of the working automoteurs (motor barges) here have GMs. They're not too bad when heard from inside the wheelhouse, but make a noise like a lawnmower trying to cut a wheatfield when heard from outside. Although I really liked the Lister JP we had in Towcester, my favourites are Gardners. We had an LW5 in Clinton, and an LX6 in De Hoop. This was our first Continental barge, built by Hellemans of Boom in Belgium in 1937 and 35.6m x 5.06m. Here she is unloading general cargo at Beckett's Wharf in Kingston shortly before we were blacked by the London Dock Labour Board. Our son Jason was master, and is just visible with the black bobble hat. Various canal people were with him as mate from time to time. We run aggregates in her from the Essex Colne up the Thames and around the Kent coast, but she was too "delicate" to put up with the constant knocks from unloading grabs and taking the ground and we reluctantly sold her and bought the first of our three small coasters.

 

 

Yes, I remember Geoff too-my first wife always fancied him summat chronic! Remind him, if you see him, of a party at our house, topside of Sweeps 2, a long time ago. Or perhaps you'd better not....

I remember all the aggravation you had with the LDLB. I bumped into Jason in Bristol a few years ago.

We're in Ireland now, or at least our little Luxemotor is. I just wish we could have some French weather there-then it'd be perfect boating.

[alan_fincher]

Whilst it's very interesting to hear an update on a lot of these people, I must say it's rather sad to learn that the two of the UCC steerers that I remember best namely John (Bexhill & Brighton) & Andy (Birmingham & Balham), are apparently both no longer with us.

 

I always used to watch the UCC boats pass through, but none sounded better than Birmingham. I'll swear when he was working it hard you could recognise that PD2 from about 2 miles away.

 

And then there weas the tragedy that befell Januscz himself. Involvement with Union Canal Carriers doesn't seem to have guarantee a long life.

[WJM]

"Here she is unloading general cargo at Beckett's Wharf in Kingston shortly before we were blacked by the London Dock Labour Board."

 

I wondered if you could elaborate on what happened here. While we all accept that lorries and railways played the biggest part in ending water-bourn freight carrying, I often wonder if the some of the damage was self inflicted. I think it is David Blagrove who recounts a tale of unloading on a Friday afternoon at Brentford and with one barrel left in the hold the shop steward called a halt to the unloading at 4.30, forcing Blagrove to wait till Monday to remove the last item. Thatcher may have been a bully but I suspect she was only fighting fire with fire; I dont know, I wasn't here so I would be interested to know what your experience was.

[Hairy-Neil]

I think it is David Blagrove who recounts a tale of unloading on a Friday afternoon at Brentford and with one barrel left in the hold the shop steward called a halt to the unloading at 4.30, forcing Blagrove to wait till Monday to remove the last item.

 

Tim Wilkinson tells a similar tale in 'Hold On A Minute', also at Brentford IIRC, but loading timber.

[Tam & Di]

... if you could elaborate on what happened here. While we all accept that lorries and railways played the biggest part in ending water-bourn freight carrying, I often wonder if the some of the damage was self inflicted.

 

I'll try to keep it simple, but you'll have to excuse the length of reply

 

Yes, with the invention of railways canals did face stiff competition, especially once rail companies bought up various canals. But up to and including the second world war there was still a fairly healthy industry. But where on the continent canals and rivers were (and still are) constantly upgraded to take larger craft, this never happened in the UK. It means the present generation has pretty little canals and romantic narrow boats, but effectively no real commercial traffic. As soon as motorways were developed there was no future for canal carriage - when the major north road from London was the A1 and lorries were restricted to 15 tons, a pair carrying max 50 tons still had a bit of a chance, as long as the freight was required somewhere that had waterside premises. Even then, if it had to be trans-shipped onto lorries for any part of the journey it was cheaper and easier to take it by road all the way. As lorry sizes moved up to 17 and 20 tons and motorways linked most major cities canal carriage became less and less competitive.

 

Another nail in the coffin was the "invention" of containers. They made goods handling so much easier, but they did not fit a 7' wide boat and could not go under most canal bridges.

 

Another strand is that to WW2 dockers were treated appallingly. They did not have regular employment - they turned up for a call twice a day, and employers' agents would choose just the number they needed for that morning or afternoon to load or unload the ships in the port, and the rest were sent back home workless and penniless. In WW2 dock work was made a reserved occupation and the Dock Labour Scheme was set up. As so often, the pendulum then swung wildly the other way, and eventually anything classed as "dockwork" and done within the area of each port could only be done by registered workers. The definition of the Port of London was stretched to 15 miles within any waterway, and in practice you could only become registered if your family were already dockers. You were guaranteed a substantial wage whether or not there was work, and could never be sacked. The scheme got its money from firms operating within the dock area, and as the amount of work steadily declined firms were rapidly going bust. The artificially maintained number of dockers was spread over progressively fewer and fewer companies.

 

When we started carrying freight on canals about 1970 it was already all a-finished really. The severe winters of 1962 with canals frozen for several weeks had led most of the remaining places which had been using canals to switch to road transport, and there was no getting it back. Limejuice was almost unique in that it arrived by ship to the London docks, came up to Brentford by lighter for storage at Brentford, and was required for processing beside the canal at Boxmoor at about 100 tons a week, which was two trips a week by boat. So the requirements suited very well, but as it took 12 hours up loaded and 10 hours back empty, 2-3 hours to load and the same to unload that's about 56 hours a week if nothing went wrong and given the carriage rate you could not say it was an upwardly mobile business! L. Rose was now part of the Cadbury-Schweppes group and when the lease at Boxmoor ran out and the Boxmoor Trust wanted a very heavy increase to renew, Cadbury-Schweppes simply moved the whole operation to their St. Albans plant and the barrels went direct from Tilbury by lorry.

 

We had no other income - we had two children and this is what we were doing for our living. That was a major factor leading us to find whatever freights we could - we did not set out to expand and own a fleet of boats, but had to keep running in order to stay still. We were finding freights of perhaps 10 tons or 500 tons - the chance of convenient 50 tons each time was remote. We had come onto the canals off the Thames and initially lived on and cruised the wideboat Progress. We really loved narrowboats and being (albeit very peripherally) part of the working narrowboat community, but our main drive was the carriage of freight. When any regular freight was under discussion we were willing to get whatever craft it needed to make it work.

 

Got to go a long way back now ......

 

During the plague of London West Country barges brought grain down the Thames to London, and were consequently granted rights in perpetuity to trade "East-about, West-about" into and out of the Port free of Let or Hindrance (whew!!). Until the 60s William Stevens who owned the river Wey delivered grain ex Tilbury to Coxes Mill by water. Ownership transferred to the National Trust and Allied Mills had a rail track installed. However grain could take weeks to arrive as it was shunted around the country before getting to them, and they were persuaded to try motor barges. The original machinery was all in situ so there was no capital expenditure required, and we carried out successful trials. The country's financial situation then became pretty grim and steel mills in Corby closed en masse. Mrs Thatcher (although stating she was firmly against social engineering) offered firms financial incentives to relocate there, and Allied Mills did so. So that trade finished - again the freight now went direct by road from Tilbury.

 

There was at that time no M25, but there was an M4. If goods were unloaded from ships in London onto the dockside for eventual trans-shipment by lorry to the west and Wales it incurred substantial charges. If it was trans-shipped to lighter it did not. We met the owner of Beckett's Wharf at Kingston who was going to build flats on the site, but was also a waterway enthusiast. Again the cranes were still on site, and he agreed to reserve some part of the wharf as a trans-shipment depot. We were to bring goods up from Tilbury, through Teddington Lock and therefore out of the Port of London, for unloading at Kingston. It meant lorries avoided the slow journey through London, and it made financial sense at each stage, even for us as carriers. Although legally any dock work carried on within the port had to be done by Dock Workers, freights into or out of the port obviously did not. However the London Dock Labour Board took the view that although that applied to the seaward limits, it did not apply to the landward limit. Kingston is outside the limits of the Port, they had no member that wanted to do the Kingston job, nor had the craft to do so. But they blacked our craft in Tilbury. They would still load us to go downriver and around to Colchester, but not for upriver destinations. We took them to court and after about two years won our case. We sent De Hoop back into the docks and got a two-finger salute from the dockers who said "So what! You're still blacked".

 

We had made a lot of useful contacts during our fight with the LDLB, which led to us into carriage of sea-dredged aggregates up the Thames and around the Kentish coast with three little coasters, but I would much rather have been involved in a revival of up-river work.

 

As I warned, a rather long and sad tale, but you are right - a lot of the problem ultimately was down to intransigence by Unions - difficult for me to say, as by upbringing I am more in sympathy with the worker than the big boss. But it was lack of development that brought it to its knees before that.

 

Here endeth the first lesson.

Edited December 12, 2008 by Tam & Di

[WJM]

Tam, That is excellent. Thank you for sharing that with us. I keep my boat in by the Gauging Locks in Brentford and I live just downstream from Beckets Wharf so I am fascinated by this real living history that is so recent and yet so forgotten.

 

As an observer who did not live through any of it, it seems to me that the final chapter of British industry was a sorry tale of militant working classes destroying their own livelihoods in an orgy of short-term self-interest. Your two fingered dockers will have laughed all the way to the dole office when they had finally destroyed their own industry. Just to balance that, it also seems to me that this rotten situation occurred through appallingly poor management. Again, sticking my neck out, this dreadful management came from the British class system where incompetent fools found themselves as captains of industry through an accident of birth. They blundered their way through expensive 'public' school, amassed no meaningful life skills, possessed no real aptitude for business and had no culture of working hard, yet they found themselves in the board rooms of British industry.

 

 

The British aircraft industry is a fine example. The VC10 and Concorde for example were technically brilliant aircraft, but nobody wanted them. While the engineers were world class, their leaders were absolute buffoons who had no idea how to move a business forward. The disease still exists even today. George Edwards, the head of the British Aircraft Corporation during the VC10/Concorde era, is still hailed as a brilliant man. He led the company to total destruction by making things that nobody wanted. Where is the heroics in that? He should be remember as the fool who led an industry to it's death but yet popular British culture still reveres him as a genius.

 

'Something is rotten in the state of Denmark' - perhaps this economic crisis will finally transform Britain into a meritocracy.

[Hairy-Neil]

..... when the major north road from London was the A1 and lorries were restricted to 15 tons,

 

And 20mph max speed too remember

 

Another nail in the coffin was the "invention" of containers. They made goods handling so much easier, but they did not fit a 7' wide boat and could not go under most canal bridges.

 

Palletised materials came along too. If you've ever tried loading pallets into a boat with a forklift truck you know what I'm saying. I've got the T shirt....

 

IIRC coal to the Jam'ole was unloaded by shovel to the end in 1970. Anywhere that had upgraded their materials handling left the canals behind.

 

The invention/legalisation of the sleeper cab finished it off. Prior to this, long distance drivers would have to find digs every night.

[Chris Pink]

Wonderful although very sad.

 

This forum chunders along with its (entertaining) rubbish then every so often a real gem comes along.

 

Although bits of this story are familiar it is great to have it from a participant.

 

 

My own take on reading the history - I am much to young to have been there - is that the GUCCCo, begetter of a lot of our boats - was attempting to take out most of the economically viable small trade and thus its own failure underwrote the eventual demise.

 

Interesting that road haulage did for the canals whereas the railways didn't.

 

Why someone somewhere didn't use the words 'transport' and 'integrated' in the same sentence is understandable in the social politics of the later 20th century but a real shame none the less.

Edited December 12, 2008 by Chris Pink