'Chocolate' Charlie Atkins

[Alex53]

 

I might be wrong but this lettering doesnt look right to me. The name seems to far forward and although some boats had the names on the fore ends in the NW fleet I cannot remember Mendip as one of them, also the solid black shading looks wrong as I remeber seeing BW shading in two colours apple green and black. Some boats had the panel in sold yellow too - anyone remember or have a picture, none of mine show a name on the bow of this boat.

If you click on the link below all will be revealed

Mendip Image

I would have thought that you might of least had some idea that the image was distorted by perspective, obviously not, the linked image shows clearly that it is where it is meant to be.

The black shading is correct as i have photographic evidence, those that know me will no that I would never paint anything on a boat unless i had the evidence to back it up.

Just because you don't have a photo of Mendip with its name on the bow is not a valid reason for doubting it, this is how most of the bullshit starts, by so called experts thinking that they know it all.

By the way, Phil did not do all of the painting, I did the bow and the running gear and then had to stop for an operation on my arm, so it was a joint effort, will be interesting to see what else is wrong with it, i'm sure the experts will put us back on track.

Edited September 16, 2011 by Alex53

[Laurence Hogg]

If you click on the link below all will be revealed

Mendip Image

I would have thought that you might of least had some idea that the image was distorted by perspective, obviously not, the linked image shows clearly that it is where it is meant to be.

The black shading is correct as i have photographic evidence, those that know me will no that I would never paint anything on a boat unless i had the evidence to back it up.

Just because you don't have a photo of Mendip with its name on the bow is not a valid reason for doubting it, this is how most of the bullshit starts, by so called experts thinking that they know it all.

By the way, Phil did not do all of the painting, I did the bow and the running gear and then had to stop for an operation on my arm, so it was a joint effort, will be interesting to see what else is wrong with it, i'm sure the experts will put us back on track.

If you had read the post through you will see in my original post I asked if anyone had a picture "- anyone remember or have a picture, none of mine show a name on the bow of this boat. "

Also once I knew Phil was involved I guessed it would be right as stated in a later post.

The bullshit starts when people write up things on major websites with errors - like NWM news articles!

[Alex53]

If you had read the post through you will see in my original post I asked if anyone had a picture "- anyone remember or have a picture, none of mine show a name on the bow of this boat. "

Also once I knew Phil was involved I guessed it would be right as stated in a later post.

The bullshit starts when people write up things on major websites with errors - like NWM news articles!

In my opinion you were quite clearly questioning the validity of the paint job, and in doing so you are questioning my work, and I dont appreciate that! Whats all this "once I knew Phil was involved I guessed it would be right" about, he's not the only boat painter in the world there are others just as capable.

Why is it than whenever the NWM does something, a proportion of the users on this forum can not wait to slag it off. If you think that something is wrong, then why not inform the so called uninformed, i'm sure they would appreciate any useful input. But no, the first port of call is allways the forum to give them a good slaging off.

[Laurence Hogg]

In my opinion you were quite clearly questioning the validity of the paint job, and in doing so you are questioning my work, and I dont appreciate that! Whats all this "once I knew Phil was involved I guessed it would be right" about, he's not the only boat painter in the world there are others just as capable.

Why is it than whenever the NWM does something, a proportion of the users on this forum can not wait to slag it off. If you think that something is wrong, then why not inform the so called uninformed, i'm sure they would appreciate any useful input. But no, the first port of call is allways the forum to give them a good slaging off.

Maybe if the NWM text was more informative then we would have known who painted the boat. My first port of call was Roger Hanbury who I know well and would ensure any mistakes were corrected. The heritage boatyard is doing sterling work and that has been reported on here quite a few times, its the best turnround seen at EP.

[Josher]

"Best looking boat on the canal network" - quite a claim!

 

Narrowboat sets off on historic voyage from National Waterways Museum Sep 21 2011 Ellesmere Port Pioneer

 

AN HISTORIC narrowboat is well on her way to Birmingham after a gala send-off from the National Waterways Museum. Mendip was seen off from the Ellesmere Port museum on Saturday by Ellesmere Port mayor Cllr Angela Claydon and by descendents of Charlie Atkins, her master during her working life.

 

Cllr Claydon said: “This is a wonderful day and this restoration shows the skills and history which we have in Ellesmere Port.” Steve Stamp of the Boat Museum Society said Mendip was ‘the best looking boat on the canal network’. National Waterways Museum general manager, John Inch, added: “This is a really proud day for the museum and I’d like to thank everyone involved and wish Mendip a safe journey.”

 

The vessel, which spent much of her working life carrying chocolate crumb between the Cadbury factories in Knighton and Bournville in Birmingham, is being restored at the Museum’s Heritage Boatyard with a £10,000 donation from Cadbury. The trip through the canal network back to the Bournville headquarters of the chocolate maker will mirror the trips the boat made by Charlie Atkins ‘Chocolate Charlie’, the canal personality who was known to all the children who lived near the canal. Much of the work in the Heritage Boatyard has been undertaken by young people learning basic boat building skills as part of a Future Jobs Fund scheme assisted by Heritage Boatyard staff and volunteers from the Boat Museum Society. The boat is due to arrive at Bournville for a gala day tomorrow and will spend a few days at the Black Country Living Museum before returning to the National Waterways Museum on September 28.

 

Peter Collins, collections manager at the National Waterways Museum, said: “This trip is a fantastic way to showcase the restoration work on Mendip and the wider regeneration of the museum. “The restoration work is top quality and the trainees are getting some priceless training. Thanks to the support from Cadbury, along with our regular supporters, we’re pleased to have been able to get Mendip back on the water and make Chocolate Charlie proud.”

[ditchcrawler]

There is a blog about Mendip's present travels here

[greywolf]

There was a report of it's visit on Midlands Today at lunchtime so it may be repeated this evening.

[greywolf]

just starting

[Max Sinclair]

keep a lookout ...

 

Chocolate Charlie narrowboat prepares for sweet voyage from National Waterways Museum 14 September 2011 Culture24

 

A narrowboat famous for hauling vital chocolate supplies between the Midlands headquarters of confectionary giants Cadbury and Bournville will re-enact its old journey in a public send-off to celebrate the end of a major restoration project. The Mendip, which carried chocolate crumbs between factories at Knighton and Birmingham under the stewardship of understandably popular canal personality Chocolate Charlie more than 50 years ago, has been lovingly resurrected by boatbuilding prodigies at the National Waterways Museum’s Heritage Boatyard. She will be seen off from the museum by Ellesmere Port mayor Angela Claydon on Saturday (September 17), mirroring a trip which was egged on by local children during the heydays of the region’s chocolate industries.

 

“This trip is a fantastic way to showcase the restoration work on Mendip and the wider regeneration of the Museum,” said Peter Collins, the Collections Manager at the National Waterways Museum, which has overseen repairs and embellishments made by trainees alongside volunteers from the Boat Museum Society. “We’re very proud of the work done in the Heritage Boatyard – the restoration work is top quality and the trainees are getting some priceless training. We’re pleased to have been able to get Mendip back on the water and make Chocolate Charlie proud.”

 

Mendip was one of six steel motorboats made by Yarwoods of Northwich in 1947, built to a unique design drawn up by Joshua Fellows during the 1880s. She carried a 25-ton load across 50 locks in a 14-hour journey between the North-West and Birmingham on the Shropshire Canal, manned by her experienced master whose real name was Charlie Atkins. His fame earned him appearances on various television programmes after the Mendip had ended her days at Preston Brook, and Atkins was considering becoming resident caretaker of the vessel at the Boat Museum before ill health forced him to retire to live with his son. His death in 1981 meant he never returned to the boat.

 

The museum will open early to allow the public to enjoy the start of the trip, which will see it visit a gala day at Bournville and dock at the Black Country Living Museum in Dudley for several days. It will return to Port Ellesmere on September 28. A spokesman for Kraft Foods, which completed a takeover of Cadbury in 2010, said staff at the factory were excited about the voyage. The company backed the rebuild to the tune of £10,000. “Bournville was built in the 19th century primarily because of the nearby canal, so the waterways played a pivotal role in the birth and subsequent success of Cadbury,” they said. “We were delighted to help support the trip and are very much looking forward to greeting her when she arrives.”

 

Tony Hales, the Chairman of British Waterways, said the carrier had been restored to an “excellent standard”. “It’s fantastic to see Mendip back in the water and recreating her historic journey to Bournville,” he added. Birmingham’s canals were once the industrial heart of our country and were made so by boats such as Mendip. “Today these boats add great colour to our waterways and are unique reminders of our industrial heritage.”

This was shown on an excellent BBC Midlands News film on the 22nd Sept. showing Mendip arriving in Birmingham and a fine older film of Charlie appearing in a cloud of fumes. Did boatmen get lung cancer from breathing a daily dose of diesel?

[Josher]

This was shown on an excellent BBC Midlands News film on the 22nd Sept. showing Mendip arriving in Birmingham and a fine older film of Charlie appearing in a cloud of fumes. Did boatmen get lung cancer from breathing a daily dose of diesel?

 

 

They probably did not notice!

[fanshaft]

[steve Stamp of the Boat Museum Society said Mendip was ‘the best looking boat on the canal network’.]

 

This statement needs to be taken in the spirit it was given and the circumstances - not to be taken literally. It's typical Steve Stamp whose amazing oratory and sense of humour (Wirral, he says, not Scouse!) is, to me at least, always inspiring and uplifting.

'Mendip' was moored next to my boat at the BCLM Gathering and is looking superb and a credit to all.

However - Laurence is right that we should always try to research and promote waterway history accurately - especially when it's in the context of a museum, navigation authority or other 'learned' body. It is all too easy for history to be re-written - very often because what is being said 'sounds right'. A good excample of that was a book which contained superb historical canal photographs but where the author had clearly just guessed or made up the captions (now corrected I am pleased to say).

Getting back to chocolate crumb - when did that traffic start? Was there only ever one boat on it? When Charlie Atkins was on that run did he do it exclusively or did he undertake other deliveries in between? Why did it finish? Is chocolate crumb edible, or would Charlie have been given chocolate bars which he might have shared with children en route?

regards

 

David L

Edited September 30, 2011 by fanshaft

[Phil Speight]

If you click on the link below all will be revealed

Mendip Image

I would have thought that you might of least had some idea that the image was distorted by perspective, obviously not, the linked image shows clearly that it is where it is meant to be.

The black shading is correct as i have photographic evidence, those that know me will no that I would never paint anything on a boat unless i had the evidence to back it up.

Just because you don't have a photo of Mendip with its name on the bow is not a valid reason for doubting it, this is how most of the bullshit starts, by so called experts thinking that they know it all.

By the way, Phil did not do all of the painting, I did the bow and the running gear and then had to stop for an operation on my arm, so it was a joint effort, will be interesting to see what else is wrong with it, i'm sure the experts will put us back on track.

Bang on my mate. I heard about this correspondence before I read it and this reply was planned then also. I was only involved in painting Mendip because my friend and colleague at the Port , who chooses to use a pen name here, was incapacitated - having already painted the forend both accurately and beautifully. The greater part of the research by far was carried out by said colleague and Dave Linney at he museum and the credit for it is theirs not mine. The mseum has, in the normal course of events no need of my services but I very much enjoy working with "Alex" when it is appropriate. Our next shared project is already in te offing and it too my raise the odd eyebrow we we finish it. It will be accurate though or neither one of us would let out there to be looked at !

[Timleech]

 

 

By the way, Phil did not do all of the painting, I did the bow and the running gear and then had to stop for an operation on my arm, so it was a joint effort, will be interesting to see what else is wrong with it, i'm sure the experts will put us back on track.

 

 

 

 

 

Well, the name is about 5 thou too low, and the mouse's ears are way too high.

The cabin strings are much fancier than Charlie had, at least latterly, in my pic he had only one can & no pigeon box.

 

Oh, & where's the milk can in the top of the chimney?

 

ONLY JOKING!!

 

 

Tim

[Speedwheel]

Well, the name is about 5 thou too low, and the mouse's ears are way too high.

The cabin strings are much fancier than Charlie had, at least latterly, in my pic he had only one can & no pigeon box.

 

Oh, & where's the milk can in the top of the chimney?

 

ONLY JOKING!!

 

 

Tim

 

Charlie knew where to stand when steering a boat too.

[Timleech]

Charlie knew where to stand when steering a boat too.

 

Yes, I pointed that out in another thread

 

Tim

[Phil Speight]

In my opinion you were quite clearly questioning the validity of the paint job, and in doing so you are questioning my work, and I dont appreciate that! Whats all this "once I knew Phil was involved I guessed it would be right" about, he's not the only boat painter in the world there are others just as capable.

Why is it than whenever the NWM does something, a proportion of the users on this forum can not wait to slag it off. If you think that something is wrong, then why not inform the so called uninformed, i'm sure they would appreciate any useful input. But no, the first port of call is allways the forum to give them a good slaging off.

Right with you on this one as well. Im certainly not the only decent painter in the world ( ONE of the best I now dare to say - but I would never claim anything beyond that ) and , as I said elsewhere on the forum only yesterday, I know a handful of other painters who produce most excellent and historically valid "traditional" work, you are one of them , so is Dave Moore and of course Ian Kemp very much another. Not to mention Uncle Ron, although he restricts what he does now to that which will fit in his mythic shed.The rest, few as they are , can do their own bloody advertising! It was both my fortune and , in a number of ways my misfortune, to become well known as a proper boat painter at a time when it was rather easier to do so than it is now. It often puts me in difficult situations that are not of my making and I get very uncomfortable when people describe me as more than I am or give me credit beyond that which I deserve. Believe it or not!

 

Anyone challenging the work being done by the boatyard staff at Ellesmere Port nowadays ( not always in ideal conditions) is misguided at best. Things have changed a lot and we should all be grateful for it. Dave Linney and ,errr.."Alex", have a lot on their plates - not all of it obvious - and the work should be given, and treated with, RESPECT - from all sides.

 

By the way Alex ( ALEX ?!! ) we braised the diff as you suggested. Worked a treat - sadly it led me to discover that at east 18'' of the cill are only pretending to be there..........oh, and I somersaulted the quad over many large boulders into a swamp. Now need some handlebars!

Edited October 11, 2011 by Phil Speight

[AnthonySmith]

im so proud to say that Charlie Atkins was my Great Grandafather i just wish i had known him throughout my childhood, i am just so happy he isnt forgotton and remembered fondly by so many, Anthony

[AnthonySmith]

Some one has asked me about 'Chocolate' Charlie Atkins when he lived in his old working boat at Preston Brook. What was name of his boat ?

His boat is called Mendip it is moored at Ellesmere Port Museum, Charlie was my Great Grandfather

[Ian Mac]

His boat is called Mendip it is moored at Ellesmere Port Museum, Charlie was my Great Grandfather

If you want a super picture of him, Shell took one of him sat in the stern of Gifford in about 1975. They used it as a double spread in their house magazine, I did have a copy but I think its gone the way of old rope.

One of the great shames is that when he died all his possessions were removed of Mendip. The radio he had was a great museum piece in its own right, and worked. He told me all about getting accumulators charged in the pre war days and how they had several sets up and down the cut, which as a small lad he would be sent of to swap for a flat set, off the boat.

Charlie use to light the fire on Spey and move in, when we moored at tunnel end PB, "just in case you were going to come down for the weekend", he liked our cabin, and it saved his coal

I remember him telling me all about the Welsh cut and the run down from Norbury, he had a fantastic memory for detail. He also told me how he learnt to spell all the place names, sitting on the roof of the boat with his father and a slate to write on, copying the names off railway wagons, and other boats.

He also use to never looked where the front of the boat was, he just knew where it was, and ran on the special tram lines which his mind had mapped out in the cut.

A wonderful gentleman, who I still sadly miss.

I also believe there is some voice recording of him, taken by the Mikron Theatre company. These and others may well be making a future appearance if funding becomes available.

[David Schweizer]

If you want a super picture of him, Shell took one of him sat in the stern of Gifford in about 1975. They used it as a double spread in their house magazine, I did have a copy but I think its gone the way of old rope.

One of the great shames is that when he died all his possessions were removed of Mendip. The radio he had was a great museum piece in its own right, and worked. He told me all about getting accumulators charged in the pre war days and how they had several sets up and down the cut, which as a small lad he would be sent of to swap for a flat set, off the boat.

Charlie use to light the fire on Spey and move in, when we moored at tunnel end PB, "just in case you were going to come down for the weekend", he liked our cabin, and it saved his coal

I remember him telling me all about the Welsh cut and the run down from Norbury, he had a fantastic memory for detail. He also told me how he learnt to spell all the place names, sitting on the roof of the boat with his father and a slate to write on, copying the names off railway wagons, and other boats.

He also use to never looked where the front of the boat was, he just knew where it was, and ran on the special tram lines which his mind had mapped out in the cut.

A wonderful gentleman, who I still sadly miss.

I also believe there is some voice recording of him, taken by the Mikron Theatre company. These and others may well be making a future appearance if funding becomes available.

I have heard that story before, and I have a recording of a boatman telling the same story on the BBC album "Narrowboats" Although none of the recordings are individually identified, Charlie Atkins is named on the back cover as one of the contributors.

[Pluto]

 

Charlie use to light the fire on Spey and move in, when we moored at tunnel end PB, "just in case you were going to come down for the weekend", he liked our cabin, and it saved his coal

 

Charlie moved onto Gifford when Mendip's cabin was being improved outside Tony Lewery's at Preston Brook. He really like the range, saying the oven was so good, it would get your chops bouncing.

 

He used to be very insistent on my going with him when he turned Mendip around - well, an empty boat doesn't hold back unless you have a bit of weight on the stern end.

[Ray T]

Edit to remove comments as I did not read the whole thread DOH!!!

 

 

Edited March 15, 2012 by Ray T

[alan_fincher]

You may like this ??

 

From article in "The Telegraph magazine" Number 393 May 12 1972

 

[Ian Mac]

Edit to remove comments as I did not read the whole thread DOH!!!

"All he's learnt is churning up the mud and knocking down the banks

and that is all he will ever know, I can tell you that"

 

Did I miss something, where is that a quote from?

 

Of course he wound on, they all did, time was money, the "company" was suppose to maintain the cut, they put a channel in, in the proper place. They near shut gates either, a grand tradition, locks were suppose to hold water in either state! or the lock keeper sorted them out, either filling them or draining them. They, Charlie and the other commercial boaters, would be amazed at today's bank protection, and thankful for it, they would also be amazed at some of the other funny "standard practices".

One thing I have notice is how the channel has moved now nearly everybody cuts the corner, 40yrs ago it went round the outside of all the bends now there are only special bits of cut which are like that the run from Chester to the Port for example. The rest of the system has been destroyed by people not understand how a boat truly works, especially when loaded.

[allybsc]

"All he's learnt is churning up the mud and knocking down the banks

and that is all he will ever know, I can tell you that"

 

Did I miss something, where is that a quote from?

 

 

 

I think it's a quote from that lovely old film called "The Painted Boats"?? Not sure if I've got the name right...senior moment, not had enough coffee yet.