So when were the 'good old days'?

[Boat&Bikes]

25 minutes ago, Horace42 said:

After years of hiring, we have owned our boat for the last 32 years - regretfully moored up for most of the time - but it's our own fault - we are fair weather cruisers - and when linked to the early death of a lifelong friend (a cruising companion and crew) we have lost interest - and further linked to our old age and gradual loss of physical abilities - not being strong enough to manhandle a heavy boat and heavy lock gates (jumping across narrow locks is a thing of the past) - where to carry on exposes us to the risk of accidental serious harm suddenly befalling us if we fail to recognise the fact.

What has all this to do with 'boating as we know it?

 

No it is not the infrastructure, my wife says, it's the people. "...they were all friendly in the old days - but not now. These days we seem to meet too many bad mannered and bad tempered impatient people...."

 

 I would add it might be statistically insignificant because it only takes one bad tempered person out of a 100 to spoil the day - albeit it does not matter whether it is a boater, lockie, walker, fisherman, publican, cyclist - or whatever.

 

 

 

I meet very few I’ll tempered people whilst boating. So many lovely people. 

[dor]

18 hours ago, Thorfast said:

'The norrh west is closed'..........etc etc. Rubbish.

We keep our boat near Chester and continue to greatly enjoy our boating.

 

It's not the North West that is closed,  it is the rest of the country that is cut off.  All fine here on the Shroppie, currently heading towards Chester.

[carlt]

5 minutes ago, ianali said:

I meet very few I’ll tempered people whilst boating. So many lovely people. 

 

[Boat&Bikes]

13 minutes ago, carlt said:

 

Erm...

[Horace42]

1 hour ago, ianali said:

I meet very few I’ll tempered people whilst boating. So many lovely people. 

That's right. Fortunately, likewise for us the bad ones we have met are so are few and far between as irrelevant.

It's just my wife being sensitive to the intolerance of others, the occasions when they arise, trespass on her otherwise happy memories - and regretfully more noticeable nowadays than it was when we first started boating.

It is a viewpoint of canal life from a different angle.

[Canal Cuttings]

I think that t-shirt should read "Dad's don't do things... by halves"?

 

Although my wife just agrees with the shortened version...

[WotEver]

8 minutes ago, Canal Cuttings said:

I think that t-shirt should read "Dad's don't do things... by halves"?

 

Although my wife just agrees with the shortened version...

I told my wife only yesterday that I’d get the job done. There’s no need for her to keep reminding me every six months...

[carlt]

51 minutes ago, Canal Cuttings said:

I think that t-shirt should read "Dad's don't do things... by halves"?

 

Although my wife just agrees with the shortened version...

No it should read "Dads don't do things by halves" 

[magictime]

2 hours ago, carlt said:

No it should read "Dads don't do things by halves" 

Real men don't worry about apostrophe's, their to busy sinking pint's.

[johnmck]

5 hours ago, dor said:

It's not the North West that is closed,  it is the rest of the country that is cut off.  All fine here on the Shroppie, currently heading towards Chester.

Yup. Keeping the riff raff away. Just dropped down Audlem flight today. Met not one boat!

[carlt]

8 hours ago, magictime said:

Real men don't worry about apostrophe's, their to busy sinking pint's.

Real men don't worry about much but observe plenty. 

[Bee]

S'all relative innit. I reckon I am enjoying the 'Good old days' right now, in France, not crowded (underused in fact) interesting boats, nice people, still some commercial boats on the small canals, hell of a lot cheaper than the UK canals, kind of got it all really but unfortunately always worries about canals closing. Others who have been over here longer than me will probably think the best days were back in the 60's, 70's etc. but that's just life. Anyway, the good old days were when the only 'product' for men's 'grooming' was Brylcream. So There.

[MtB]

13 hours ago, carlt said:

No it should read "Dads don't do things by halves" 

 

I too found the grocer's apostrophe distracting.

 

 

10 hours ago, magictime said:

Real men don't worry about apostrophe's, their to busy sinking pint's.

 

I can only see four deliberate errors in that, but it could have been five. You missed the opportunity to leave out the apostrophe in 'don't'!

[magictime]

2 hours ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

I can only see four deliberate errors in that, but it could have been five. You missed the opportunity to leave out the apostrophe in 'don't'!

I should of thought've that.

Edited June 16, 2018 by magictime

[WotEver]

On 16/06/2018 at 11:57, magictime said:

I should of thought've that.

Yeah, you should ov. 

[Athy]

On 16/06/2018 at 09:05, Bee said:

. I reckon I am enjoying the 'Good old days' right now, in France, not crowded (underused in fact) interesting boats, nice people, still some commercial boats on the small canals, hell of a lot cheaper than the UK canals, kind of got it all really but unfortunately always worries about canals closing. 

We've just got back from our annual hire-pénichette cruise on French waterways, and I am surprised at your comment about canals potentially closing. This is because it looks, to me and to Mrs. Athy, as if a lot more money and care are expended on French waterways than on their English equivalents - for example the swinging saucissons which control the lock operations, and their associated electrical equipment, must cost a fortune. What have you seen that suggests that canals over there are in such a poor state that they risk closure?

[Alan de Enfield]

18 minutes ago, Athy said:

We've just got back from our annual hire-pénichette cruise on French waterways, and I am surprised at your comment about canals potentially closing. ……………... What have you seen that suggests that canals over there are in such a poor state that they risk closure?

Maybe when we no longer provide £275m per week and the EU have to find the money elsewhere ? 

[Lily Rose]

5 hours ago, WotEver said:

Yeah, you should ov. 

We'll I've heard of HAVE and I've heard of (and gritted my teeth at) OF but OV is a new one on me.

 

Is it some bastard hybrid that you have invented to expand the English language ☺

[magictime]

1 hour ago, Athy said:

the swinging saucissons which control the lock operations

The mind boggles.

[Athy]

19 minutes ago, magictime said:

The mind boggles.

The saucisson-shaped tube, actually called a "perche", hangs from a cable which stretches from poles on the canal banks. When your boat approaches, you grab it (it always seems to swing away from you at the critical moment), give it a quarter turn until it clicks and then let go. This sets the lock in operation, and a traffic-light system lets you know when you can enter (the gates opening is a clue too). Here we see a saucisson-grabber in action; if their bum wasn't in the way you could see th elock in the distance too.

Edited June 18, 2018 by Athy

[Tanglewood]

Its not about 'when' but 'what'.  The Good Old Days were full of lengthsmen and other folk directly employed by BW. Folk who would, in passing, pull out the sapling that would cause the piling to fail if left to its own devices. Everyday on your travels you see two or three at least. The days when there were more practical folk doing practical jobs than there were back office staff with 'transferable skills'.   You could phone your local Office (which hadn't been sold to build bleached wood, aluminium and glass boxes) and speak to a person at once. You could worry about the future when the funding which seemed to be the bounty from North Sea oil was going to run out.  You could cruise at 4mph for an hour at a time. You could expect British Waterways not to have to spend half its income and 5 years preparing to become Trust.  You could enjoy the countryside that was not littered with huge excavated basins of water full of hard shiny reflective surfaces that urbanise the rural scene. You could be spontaneous - apart from planning to leave or join the Thames at Brentford or Limehouse when the tide was right, it was pretty much doing what you wanted, when you wanted.  You could cruise all day and still be sure that if you wanted to be in reach of a pub, there would be space to stop - instead of cruising for 2 hours in the morning, then worrying that all the best bits would be full and you'd have to go on and on and on.... .  You could turn in winding holes as they weren't regarded as lovely wide mooring opportunities. You didn't have to worry that you had cruised to 'another place'.  You could step off you boat without colliding with a cyclist, or  breaking your ankle tripping over an iron spike and red plastic netting that everyone has forgotten was pointing out a hazard identified three years ago.  

 

 

 

 

[WotEver]

2 hours ago, Lily Rose said:

We'll I've heard of HAVE and I've heard of (and gritted my teeth at) OF but OV is a new one on me.

 

Is it some bastard hybrid that you have invented to expand the English language ☺

Yes it is a bastard hybrid but not for the purpose of expansion, quite the opposite. It is intended to point out the glaringly grating ‘of’. 

[Athy]

13 minutes ago, WotEver said:

Yes it is a bastard hybrid but not for the purpose of expansion, quite the opposite. It is intended to point out the glaringly grating ‘of’. 

That's clear to many of uz.

[BWM]

Aside from the rights and wrongs of maintenance and the behaviour of some, I miss the feeling that you had dropped into an underworld when leaving the streets behind and joining the canal. 

  There definitely appeared to be something of an exodus in the early 2000s of many of the canals characters, with several going to France and the like, followed by a large in rush of new people in the mid/late 2000s. I think with so many new folks arriving at the same time, this inevitably changed the way things were.

[Alan de Enfield]

22 minutes ago, Athy said:

That's clear to many of uz.

Even Yous ?