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Tooley's book


Fennel

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Not sure if I'm allowed to post this but I guess I'll soon find out....

 

I've just seen that Tooley's are trying to crowdfund a book about the history of the yard, it doesn't seem to be attracting much interest though....anyone care to donate/share? It seems a shame not to have a proper record of such an important place :(

 

https://www.gofundme.com/scxxt-book-fund-raiser

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This fund has been going for a while. I made a contribution to it last year but I don't think it's grown much if at all since. My interest is that according to one of Steve Haywood's books the yard was owned by my family before the people who came before the Tooley's.

 

JP

Edited by Captain Pegg
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Just my simple observation but from talking to people coming on the cut over the past 10 years or so, many have little interest in the history of the canals than those who fought British Waterways and the incumbent governments for their survival. I often chat to boaters at Sutton Stop, both leisure boat owners and hire boaters and most have no idea why our canals are there. There are exceptions of course.

Edited by Ray T
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3 hours ago, Fennel said:

Not sure if I'm allowed to post this but I guess I'll soon find out....

 

I've just seen that Tooley's are trying to crowdfund a book about the history of the yard, it doesn't seem to be attracting much interest though....anyone care to donate/share? It seems a shame not to have a proper record of such an important place :(

 

https://www.gofundme.com/scxxt-book-fund-raiser

Well you posting it here has doubled their recipts

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4 hours ago, Fennel said:

Not sure if I'm allowed to post this but I guess I'll soon find out....

 

I've just seen that Tooley's are trying to crowdfund a book about the history of the yard, it doesn't seem to be attracting much interest though....anyone care to donate/share? It seems a shame not to have a proper record of such an important place :(

 

https://www.gofundme.com/scxxt-book-fund-raiser

I am not quite sure what this crowd funding is for, especially with a £3000 target - apart from customers being able to pre-order a book that nobody has seen.

 

A book is usually produced where the cumulative sale price covers the total costs of publication, unless the author / publisher knows that the content is so specialised or of such poor quality that it will not sell. In my opinion if the author does not have the conviction to financially underwrite his / her own publication then it is probably not worth publishing.

 

edit = I stopped off at Banbury whilst passing through in early May and I spent quite some time in conversation with the couple who are running Tooley's Dock now. Their plans are ambitious and I wish them well :captain:

Edited by pete harrison
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11 minutes ago, Nightwatch said:

When this book is published and presumably successful will all the donations be returned? Just seems odd that a book should be financed by 'crowdfunding'. 

I doubt it, he doesn't even need to write the book

 

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2 hours ago, Ray T said:

Just my simple observation but from talking to people coming on the cut over the past 10 years or so, many have little interest in the history of the canals than those who fought British Waterways and the incumbent governments for their survival. I often chat to boaters at Sutton Stop, both leisure boat owners and hire boaters and most have no idea why our canals are there. There are exceptions of course.

I was asked yesterday why i had ‘ cut the front bit ‘ off my boat yesterday by someone on a brand new shiny aqualine .They asked where  i had come from and i said birmingham and he shook his head and said cant understand why there are so many canals there... i just couldnt be bothered...

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2 hours ago, Ray T said:

Just my simple observation but from talking to people coming on the cut over the past 10 years or so, many have little interest in the history of the canals than those who fought British Waterways and the incumbent governments for their survival. I often chat to boaters at Sutton Stop, both leisure boat owners and hire boaters and most have no idea why our canals are there. There are exceptions of course.

 

15 minutes ago, roland elsdon said:

I was asked yesterday why i had ‘ cut the front bit ‘ off my boat yesterday by someone on a brand new shiny aqualine .They asked where  i had come from and i said birmingham and he shook his head and said cant understand why there are so many canals there... i just couldnt be bothered...

We are of course the dinosaurs, and getting closer to extinction with every dawn :captain:

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15 minutes ago, roland elsdon said:

I was asked yesterday why i had ‘ cut the front bit ‘ off my boat yesterday by someone on a brand new shiny aqualine .They asked where  i had come from and i said birmingham and he shook his head and said cant understand why there are so many canals there... i just couldn't be bothered...

Unless we try to educate people what hope for future generations does the cut have?

 

When at Sutton's I always take "A Canal People" and with parents permission try to engage the youngsters, as often I find their minds are more open than their parents

The boaters we have left are the last of 250 odd years of history, I feel it is important we learn as much of their past as we can as soon it will all be gone.

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Comparing the volume of books available on the railways, their coming, and the advent of steam power, along with the histories of each individual line to the point of adulation, the canals have just been seen as obsolete ditches, dumping grounds for unwanted rubbish. Of course, the railways did what the canals only touched upon - and that in the early years - passenger transport. They forged their way across the lands in an explosion of engineering, thundering across the landscape in a manner never known before, taking goods as well as people to all parts. Is it any wonder that generations today see canals as strange curiosities that defy logic? As their original purposes have long since been usurped by other forms of transport; the canalside industries vanished under housing estates; their meaning and infrastructure lost to demolition - a play area for the wealthy wrinklies releasing their equities into marinas of false rivets.

 

The masses are impressed with excitement; speed, and noise. There are forgotten railways too, but for many, the canals are just forgotten, or simply ignored out of a lack of interest and curiosity. There's no timetable of traffic, no excitement, no speed, and little noise. Dull little ditches.

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29 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

I doubt it, he doesn't even need to write the book

 

The first paragraph on the website claims it is already written and published:

 

"Tooley’s historic boat yard in Banbury, Oxfordshire celebrates its 230th anniversary in 2018. To mark this auspicious occasion the yard’s director, Matthew Armitage has written a history of the yard from his own unique perspective. Published by Windlass Books"

 

 I wonder what "from his own unique perspective"  means :captain:

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5 minutes ago, Derek R. said:

Comparing the volume of books available on the railways, their coming, and the advent of steam power, along with the histories of each individual line to the point of adulation, the canals have just been seen as obsolete ditches, dumping grounds for unwanted rubbish. Of course, the railways did what the canals only touched upon - and that in the early years - passenger transport. They forged their way across the lands in an explosion of engineering, thundering across the landscape in a manner never known before, taking goods as well as people to all parts. Is it any wonder that generations today see canals as strange curiosities that defy logic? As their original purposes have long since been usurped by other forms of transport; the canalside industries vanished under housing estates; their meaning and infrastructure lost to demolition - a play area for the wealthy wrinklies releasing their equities into marinas of false rivets.

 

The masses are impressed with excitement; speed, and noise. There are forgotten railways too, but for many, the canals are just forgotten, or simply ignored out of a lack of interest and curiosity. There's no timetable of traffic, no excitement, no speed, and little noise. Dull little ditches.

See how many canal books the Ian Allen bookshop in Birmingham has, last time I was there, three, two of these by Ray Shill. The canal shop at Braunston Bottom lock has shelves of canal books historical and modern subjects so there is still hope?

Edited by Ray T
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6 minutes ago, Derek R. said:

 - a play area for the wealthy wrinklies releasing their equities into marinas of false rivets.

Point of Order - I am happy to be described as a wrinklie but I am not wealthy, and although my boat has only about half the rivets it left the builders with none are false (rebottomed, refooted, recabinned in welded steel - all during its time as a carrying boat) :captain:

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4 minutes ago, Ray T said:

See how many canal books the Ian Allen bookshop in Birmingham has, last time I was there, three, two of these by Ray Shill. The canal shop at Braunston Bottom lock has shelves of canal books historical and modern subjects so there is still hope?

Personally I am not a great fan of books, preferring instead first hand research and talking to people. About 80% of my boat records are freely available in the public domain, but they have taken quite a bit of tracking down and transcribing - something that few people wish to do themselves nowadays.

 

I suppose books, along with the dreaded internet, will give up and coming enthusiasts a taste for the history but there is so much dross out there that this can be poisonous. I seem to spend an increasing amount of my time correcting opinion that has been read somewhere as people do tend to believe what they read :captain:

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6 hours ago, Fennel said:

well exactly ? I'm amazed that for such a famous site it's attracted so little funding

 

 

Perhaps they would have more luck if they  "spun" it to say it was all CRT's fault ?

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1 hour ago, pete harrison said:

Point of Order - I am happy to be described as a wrinklie but I am not wealthy, and although my boat has only about half the rivets it left the builders with none are false (rebottomed, refooted, recabinned in welded steel - all during its time as a carrying boat) :captain:

I could have been wealthy if i had spent money on shares houses etc. instead 4 old ruins have taken my funds, and now in my dotage i am diminished from a pair of old boats and a flat to a bit of an old boat.... however i dont regret anything...

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2 hours ago, pete harrison said:

Point of Order - I am happy to be described as a wrinklie but I am not wealthy, and although my boat has only about half the rivets it left the builders with none are false (rebottomed, refooted, recabinned in welded steel - all during its time as a carrying boat) :captain:

Point taken, and no offence meant.

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25 minutes ago, roland elsdon said:

The people next to me tonight built their boat in 1978 and have Grand union motor boat orpheus’s national engine in it. Three generations on board. History in the making..

PM sent :captain:

12 minutes ago, Derek R. said:

Point taken, and no offence meant.

No offence taken :captain:

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15 hours ago, Nightwatch said:

When this book is published and presumably successful will all the donations be returned? Just seems odd that a book should be financed by 'crowdfunding'. 

The crowdfunding aspect is that you're pre-ordering a copy - so you get your 'donation' back in the form of a book

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