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Audlem Gathering of Historic Boats 2018


Hastings

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6 hours ago, alan_fincher said:

I'm sure you are aware Pete, but others may not be, so it is probably worth pointing out that the HNBC now encourage anybody interested in historic working boats boat to be a full member, and place absolutely no requirement to own one or even be involved in operating them.

The clue is it is now the HNBC - the Historic Narrow Boat Club, the "O" for "Owner" having been dropped from the name some years back.

If modern day historic boat events were limited to only boats with commercial licences and commercial insurance they would, of course, be fairly sparsely attended though!

That Leopard has changed it's spots several times. I joined the founding organization in 1966 as a group member when the title was "Narrowboat Owners Club" No mention of Historic and as far as I am aware, it retained that name for at least twenty years.

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43 minutes ago, Captain Pegg said:

I am well aware of that. Puzzled that you and Ray T have responded as though I had made a serious comment when you are both regulars in the History & Heritage section where I often post the findings of my own research and details that go way back in time.

I didn't think I needed to put a big "Irony" flag on it. The point being that the historic scene is dominated by the GUCCCo/BWB carrying fleets. For the obvious reason that the vast majority of boats and literature available to that market relates to those operations. That's why you get a 1960 cut off. In that sense I was sympathising with your point of view but also pointing out the difficulties of defining what is required for something billed as 'historic'.

I think the idea that any of the terms by which you can define types of boat such as 'historic', 'heritage', 'original', 'restored', 'replica', 'commercial', 'tug', 'working' etc... could ever be wholly aligned to one ideal of what is 'right' is a fallacy. Best to work on the basis of whether it fits with the spirit of the aims if the individual or organisation at hand. It doesn't matter that much at the end of day.

And to bring it back to topic I may attend Audlem; maybe even in an official capacity.

JP

I took you at face value because I've never noticed you before.

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I have long believed that one of the issues with the Historic Narrowboat Club is that it uses the wrong derivitive of the word "History" in it's Title. The word "Historic" means that something is famous, important or significant, which could well include boats such as Newbury, Newdigate, Hadar, and Stokie, all of which were built specifically as fully operational working boats but later than 1960. To exclude boats of significance but of more recent build, the correct word should be "Historical" which relates to objects or events in the past.

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Captain Pegg

I didn't mean to ouch you, I don't expect anyone to know me or remember anything I've ever rambled about on here.

The problem with the written word is it's the worst method of communication available to us, no body language or tone of voice. And then we have people who can't spell and those who don't read back to themselves what they've written before they hit Submit Reply. It's astonishing at times that we have anything on here that makes sense.

My only real concern is that once something appears in writing or on the internet it will become quoted in the future as black and white truth.  In the 80s I shared time with a canal celebrity and his family. A really nice person in his own right.  When I first met him he described himself as someone who had during a period of employment inactivity spent some time working for a canal carrier. I heard his tales first hand.  Then over the years he became "The Oracle" to go to if you wanted to know anything about anything. His stories became lengthier and more dramatic, sadly the things he recounted as having been told to him were now appearing as something he had personally done.  

All pretty harmless, quite inaccurate, but now history.

That worries me.

 

 

  • Greenie 3
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On 2/11/2018 at 13:54, David Schweizer said:

That Leopard has changed it's spots several times. I joined the founding organization in 1966 as a group member when the title was "Narrowboat Owners Club" No mention of Historic and as far as I am aware, it retained that name for at least twenty years.

When the club was founded the only narrow boats were ex working boats.  Other boaters had river cruisers, lifeboat conversions, ex-army pontoon conversions and a whole variety of self built craft. So it made sense for the owners of working and ex-working boats (many converted) to describe their club as "narrow boat owners".  The change came about when purpose built steel hulled leisure craft of broadly the same shape as a working boat became common. NBOC then had to add the 'h' to distinguish themselves from what had become the majority.

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  • 5 months later...

The Audlem gathering has now passed and it was a good event attracting some 22 'historic' narrow boats (so I am told but I did not count them when I was there on Saturday). Had there not been a breach on the Wardle (Middlewich Branch) I am sure the number of attending boats would have been greater, and those present were a mix of unconverted and converted boats - a few of which I had not seen in years.

 

I would like to thank the organisers for continuing with this event and everybody who showed me great hospitality, some of whom I had not met before :captain:

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On 11/02/2018 at 18:45, zenataomm said:

Captain Pegg

I didn't mean to ouch you, I don't expect anyone to know me or remember anything I've ever rambled about on here.

The problem with the written word is it's the worst method of communication available to us, no body language or tone of voice. And then we have people who can't spell and those who don't read back to themselves what they've written before they hit Submit Reply. It's astonishing at times that we have anything on here that makes sense.

My only real concern is that once something appears in writing or on the internet it will become quoted in the future as black and white truth.  In the 80s I shared time with a canal celebrity and his family. A really nice person in his own right.  When I first met him he described himself as someone who had during a period of employment inactivity spent some time working for a canal carrier. I heard his tales first hand.  Then over the years he became "The Oracle" to go to if you wanted to know anything about anything. His stories became lengthier and more dramatic, sadly the things he recounted as having been told to him were now appearing as something he had personally done.  

All pretty harmless, quite inaccurate, but now history.

That worries me.

 Was his name Steerer "Mitty" then? ? Most of the boaters i met /knew during my working stint  the tales got bigger & better  the longer they stayed in the pub & a well known steerer the details of  his tales changed  usually with each telling mind when he knew you & knew you had heard the tale many times & corrected him he would splutter a bit & back down

 

 

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5 hours ago, X Alan W said:

 

No, I'm saddened to say it was someone most of us knew, the final straw was when he tried to tell me a story I had once regaled him with.

 

Tales like, the headlight beam was so strong you could walk along it to the bank, or the Bolinder's piston burst out of the engine and shot up the tunnel's air 'ole, only to drop down the next one and carry on firing, or When I was on the South American run, loading at Atherstone ……. were all a bit of a laugh and good fun.

This guy though would laugh heartily and enjoy tales of daring do and then convince himself in a few months that it was his story and he'd done it.  He never remembered though who it was who'd told him and swear black was white that it was him. 

In the course of which family members were switched to other families, so and so's wedding became somebody else's funeral.  Some of these facts are now being repeated as gospel.

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