Canals??

[Pretty Funked Up]

It was around NORTON JUNCTION on the G.U. back in 1985

 

seems it has slipped back into nothingness and webbed feet since then shame

[Micky]

Thanks everyone for your comments Micky

 

Back in 1985 we travelled in a 70ft converted narrow boat from the top lock of the FOXTON flight across the pound to the top lock of the WATFORD flight one hot and dry Saturday afternoon and the pound was quite low on water but we just about made it as the sun was sinking in the west and dusk was nearly upon us as we arrived at the top lock at WATFORD which was pad-locked for the night but it was touch and go for a fair bit of the way especially towards the last few miles, it was almost like skating along on the mud, and we nearly went a ground on a few of the bends but we finally reached the top lock at WATFORD

 

After tying the boat up and a wash up it was time for a couple of jars of bitter

[carlt]

Back in 1985 we travelled in a 70ft converted narrow boat from the top lock of the FOXTON flight across the pound to the top lock of the WATFORD flight one hot and dry Saturday afternoon and the pound was quite low on water but we just about made it as the sun was sinking in the west and dusk was nearly upon us as we arrived at the top lock at WATFORD which was pad-locked for the night but it was touch and go for a fair bit of the way especially towards the last few miles, it was almost like skating along on the mud, and we nearly went a ground on a few of the bends but we finally reached the top lock at WATFORD

 

Sounds exactly like this summer....My how things have changed.

[muddywaters]

as you say the days of the restoration on a weekend at the basingstoke are long gone, if things don't improve and quckly we will be restoring it again!! have to say though that MJG etc have a very valid point that the northern canals are quieter as are the eastern ones.

the really busy ones are in the midlands, the GU, The K&A and the llangollen, but again these tend to be busy in the main season, a trip in the winter is often very peaceful.

When we moored in Birmingham on Tuesday 4 October there where only 3 boats including us moored outside the NIA at one point.

Last time we where in Brum around the same time of year in 2007 we struggled to find a mooring for the night

[Sir Nibble]

as you say the days of the restoration on a weekend at the basingstoke are long gone, if things don't improve and quckly we will be restoring it again!!

What on earth for? It's a dreadful semi navigable ditch dry more often than not. If the wildlife lovers are so keen let them keep the thing in water.

[alan_fincher]

SORRY FOLKS FOR THE ABOVE EDITING

 

I'VE BEEN ON A NUMBER OF OTHER FORUMS AND THIS ONE IS "PROBABLY THE WORSE FORUM" TO TRY AND DELETE OR EDIT A POSTING ONCE YOU HAVE POSTED SOMETHING THAT I HAVE COME ACROSS

I suspect the problem may be your understanding.

 

If you had actually managed to edit a post it would say so at the bottom.

 

At the point I'm quoting you now, it doesn't report this post as being edited, so the reality is you have probably not managed to save any edit you have.

 

Personally I find it remarkably easy to edit a post, (and I do use other forums, for comparison).

[Guest]

I suspect the problem may be your understanding.

 

If you had actually managed to edit a post it would say so at the bottom.

 

At the point I'm quoting you now, it doesn't report this post as being edited, so the reality is you have probably not managed to save any edit you have.

 

Personally I find it remarkably easy to edit a post, (and I do use other forums, for comparison).

 

Agreed - though one feature I have seen on others that I like is you get a short 'window' of time - approx 15 mins or so after you first post something to edit it without the post immediately being marked as edited.

 

So if you do 'typo's' frequently as I do you can correct them without it looking like you have edited the whole post.

[Allan(nb Albert)]

Huge amounts, trust me.......

 

I have regularly seen the exact text verbatim taken from another news source, (errors included), with the only addition being something like "says our reporter Xxxxx Xxxxxxxx". (Unless of course you believe, say, the Beeb is plagiarising NBW).

 

This is not such a bad thing though, as it does still tend to be a fair bit more accurate than the stuff they write themselves!......

 

Pleased you regularly read it!

[Micky]

Yeah your probably correct i don't understand your way on here of altering/editing a post once it has been posted.

 

On other forums once you have re-edited your original post you just click-on and send and thats it re-posted but on here you just end up repeating your original posting for some reason so then you have 2 or 3 ORIGINAL POSTINGS THE SAME??

 

Also if you try and "quote" someones post on here and then try and "quote" another post from someone else for some strange reason both quotes go on 'one page' the same page rather then 2-separate pages like it does on any other forum??

 

Still i guess you folks are use to it this way

Edited October 17, 2011 by Micky

[Sir Nibble]

Yeah your probably correct i don't understand your way on here of altering/editing a post once it has been posted.

 

On other forums once you have re-edited your original post you just click-on and send and thats it re-posted but on here you just end up repeating your original posting for some reason so then you have 2 or 3 ORIGINAL POSTINGS THE SAME??

 

Also if you try and "quote" someones post on here and then try and "quote" another post from someone else for some strange reason both quotes go on 'one page' the same page rather then 2-separate pages like it does on any other forum??

 

Still i guess you folks are use to it this way

I find it awkward and unwieldy too and since the new look came in I have had to click on "edit", wait a moment for the screen to re load then click "edit" again because the system didn't believe me first time. I don't use the quote facility because I cannot work out what it does even after all this time. That's the way it is with me at least, I regularly find myself marooned in the middle of some online process because the button I am instructed to click on doesn't exist. It's part of life, the morlocks who run the internet HATE people who aren't surgically interfaced with a computer.

[Micky]

Isis I shan't quote you incase i mess it up

 

I must say it is a "complete revelation" to me to findout through this site just how many people are in to waterways & narrow boats these days because back in the late 1960s & 70s is was still one of this country's "best kept secrets" and the interest of only a few.

[Tiny]

Must have been big breasts then.

In the TV drama series 'Travelling man" an early scene showed the traveller passing two ladies with towels draped across the towpath toppless sunbathing. Mind you this realistic story had the gent attacked with dustbins hurled at Marple, a helicopter trying to knock him off an aqueduct and a man in a cabin cruiser which the traveller attacked in Chirk tunnel so it sailed in one end with crew and exited without. Funnily enough the chap whose boat was used for filming and who lost money on the deal found that to stick to the filming schdule which wanted it in one place at dawn and a place which was a few minutes by road but hours by canal away ment the film company moved the boat and their crew were mugged in Manchester.

 

Once on a boat we did approach a hireboat moored and saw the distant unclothed peaks of a large solid breasted girl. She covered up rapidly and glared as though implying if she was stripped no boat was allowed to pass. The joke was her boat was moored opposite what was then a hill with a paid slot scope for viewing the distant mountains and, glancing up we noted a crowd around the scope obviously availing themselves of the local views.

 

[Del 'boy' Trotter]

When i first became interested in the canals of England and narrow boats around 1967 (it coincided with The Flower of Gloster television program in 1967) canals were of interest to only a very few but since discovering this site i realize that every so and so under the sun seems to have discovered the waterways & canals of England and all of them seem to be 'expert' on the subject nowadays just read these message boards on this site??

 

I had a 2 weeks boating holiday in a 70ft converted narrow boat back in 1985 and even then i noticed that the canals had attracted a "different kind of person" with some boater's on passing them in there boats were "playing loud music and even dancing on top of there boats" so what they must be like 26 years on i can only wonder??

 

Hi to everyone, I originally posted this back in October 2011 six years ago anyway I am pleased to say that I finally re-watched this 13 part television series on dvd yesterday (28/01/17) in it's entirety for the first time since I originally watched it on television back in late 1967 exactly 50 years ago!!.

 

What else can be said about this 'perfect' television programme about England's canals that was filmed just before the end of long distance narrow boating by working narrow boats in 1970. Featured during the series are several Willow Wren & British Waterways working narrow boats along the Grand Union.

 

The converted ex-working narrow boat the Flower of Gloster and the television series it appears in represents a time past of a lost era of innocents in England when for some of us the world was young and a better world to live in...

Edited January 30, 2017 by Flower of Gloster

[churchward]

When i first became interested in the canals of England and narrow boats around 1967 (it coincided with The Flower of Gloster television program in 1967) canals were of interest to only a very few but since discovering this site i realize that every so and so under the sun seems to have discovered the waterways & canals of England and all of them seem to be 'expert' on the subject nowadays just read these message boards on this site??

 

I had a 2 weeks boating holiday in a 70ft converted narrow boat back in 1985 and even then i noticed that the canals had attracted a "different kind of person" with some boater's on passing them in there boats were "playing loud music and even dancing on top of there boats" so what they must be like 26 years on i can only wonder??

It's terrible! Don't try it again, the peace and quiet is an acquired taste and can only be enjoyed by the true aficionado.