Why are people on social media so angry?

I have written before about how tolerant people are “on the cut” (by the canals). I meet so many different people with so many different backgrounds and almost without exception they will engage in conversation about how their day is going, where they are heading, and anything to watch out for. Chatting by locks is one of my favourite things.

But I posted something into a boaters’ group on Facebook this week and it got so many angry responses. Here is what I wrote:

“I am so disappointed with Birmingham. We came through last about 15 years ago and it was a smart city of well maintained canals. Yesterday we boated up the Grand Union amd Birmingham & Fazeley. It was so different. Canals shallow and full of rubbish. Lock gear stiff or broken. Graffiti everywhere including wet paint on the locks. Drug users not even making an attempt to hide. And almost no boats which is not surprising but I guess makes things worse. All towns have their dodgy areas but I am not sure we found any non-dodgy areas. Maybe Gas Street Basin is still nice?”

I had one really useful response noting that the particular route I had chosen went through the most deprived areas and that the west and central canals were much nicer. I had a few helpful comments that people liked the graffiti and that the picture undermined my argument. They are right. My bad. I hadn’t taken pictures of all the paint on the locks, the rubbish in the canals, the druggie inhaling nitrous from a balloon.

But most of the comments were shouty and angry. What did I expect after ten years of Tory underinvestment? It was all the fault of not supporting the police. Why do we not hear English voices anymore (yes really!). And one particularly vituperative diatribe saying that if I was so negative I should go back to living on land. All of this in a Facebook group called “The Friendly Narrowboaters and Waterways Group”.

You know how much I love my life on the waterways of Britain. I see so much beauty, so much variety, so much nature, so many fascinating buildings. And I know that if I met these people on the cut we would have a right old chin wag about how sad it is that this part of the network has run down. So why on social media do they get so angry?

For balance, here is me in my happy place, coming across the longest aqueduct in England this week:

June 30, 2023 3

Five good and two bad things about Stratford Upon Avon

This week we completed our journey up a beautiful but sometimes scary River Avon. The heavy storms caused some pretty strong currents but we made it through on our flat bottomed narrowboat, and are now on the much gentler Stratford Canal. Where the river meets the canal, there is a basin with mooring for about sixteen boats, so we stayed a couple of nights in the famous town of Stratford Upon Avon, where Shakespeare wrote his plays.

It was lovely to visit Stratford. My grandma lived here, so at one time I knew it fairly well, but that was over forty years ago. If I had to pick the five best things I would say:

1. Stratford is beautiful. The river and canal basin are the centre of the town, overlooked by the Royal Shakespeare Company theatre. There is a large green park and lots of statues.

2. Everything is Shakespeare themed. Shakee’s icecream barge, Thespians Indian Restaurant, Shakespeare in Love Wedding Boutique, and even the Shakespaw Cat Café.

3. It has real history. You can visit the houses of Shakespeare, his wife Anne Hathaway and his mother Mary Arden. And for boating geeks like me you can find out about Stratford as a port, when boats from Bristol came up the Severn and the Avon before transshipping their goods onto narrowboats for the midlands and the north.

4. Anyone can get on a boat. Lucky narrowboat owners like me are joined by large and small tourist boats blaring their commentary to all and sundry, and land lubbers trying a tiny rowing boat or a paddle board on a pretty wide river.

5. It is full of tourists. People from all over the world come to Stratford, either individually or in organised groups. Hordes of school children swarm the streets, clutching their quiz sheets. All life is here.

But not everything is perfect. Here are just two things I liked rather less:

1. Stratford is noisy. After enjoying the peace of mooring along the river it was quite a shock to be based in a city centre, especially the revellers at midnight, singing and banging a drum.

2. It is full of tourists. We are always happy to answer questions about living on a boat from inquisitive onlookers. But when they climb onto the boat to have a look, or in one case, just to wash their hands in the canal, that is going too far.

So we enjoyed our time in Stratford but were also happy to leave it, and I am writing this moored up in the countryside, with nothing around us. No tourists, no locals, not even another boat. It is lovely.

June 23, 2023 0

Do I need physical photographs?

I was looking back at some old photos albums this week of my student days in the 1980s. The world of photography was very different in those days. Digital cameras did not exist, and instead I would take maybe 30 pictures in a year using my film camera. I did not know whether they had been any good till I used up a film, and sent it off to be processed. A week or so later, I would get my pictures back, throw away the rubbish ones and put the others in an album. Every photograph was precious.

These days I take maybe a thousand pictures a year on my phone. I often take five or six of the same thing, so that I can choose the best. Because there are so many, they are no longer special. Maybe an interesting one will pop up on a screen saver on my TV, but more often than not, they are looked at briefly and then forgotten.

For many years I tried to manage this situation by choosing my favourite pictures each year and getting them printed off to go in an album, But I realised this week that the last time I did that was 2018.

So I am faced with a conundrum. Should I get some pictures printed off as I did before? Should I find some other way of curating the large numbers into a manageable selection. Or should I just accept that photographs are no longer special, and treat them as a throwaway commodity.

What do you think?

June 16, 2023 2

What was my great great great grandfather like?

I was wandering around Tewkesbury Abbey late on Saturday afternoon. It is a beautiful church and the sunlight streamed through the stained glass windows, painting pictures of the floor. In one of the side aisles they had an exhibition of pictures of the high street last century. One of the pictures was this:

It gave me a bit of a shock because John Dobell was my great great great grandfather. He had a fascinating life, coming from poverty in Cranbrook, Kent. As a teenager he became apprenticed to a wine merchant in London called Samuel Thompson. John fell in love with Samuel’s daughter Julietta. Samuel was a radical Protestant preacher, and when John and Julietta married in a church, Samuel stood up and denounced the ceremony. I am guessing there was a falling out because John and Julietta moved to Cheltenham, and over the next years, built their own business, based in Cheltenham and Tewkesbury.

They became very wealthy, and that money was passed down the generations. Even my Grannie was brought up with servants in big houses. Unfortunately the money all went, and the Dobell family trust was finally wound up around 1995. The remaining funds were split amongst the youngest generation. I think my two sons got about £200 each.

Still, it is interesting to think about what the Dobells’ life would have been like. The shop in the advert is still there, although no longer a wine merchant:

Isn’t family history fascinating?

June 9, 2023 0

What was my great great great grandfather like?

Still, it is interesting to think about what the Dobells’ life would have been like. The shop in the advert is still there, although no longer a wine merchant:

Isn’t family history fascinating?

June 9, 2023 1

Is every day the same on a narrowboat?

One question we often get asked by non-boaters is whether we get bored because every day is just the same. The answer is that we never get bored because every day is different. We learn something new each day. We see something new each day. Let’s look at this week as an example.

Last Friday, we travelled from Penkridge to Compton, an unusually long day for us – about seven hours cruising. Despite going through the middle of Wolverhampton in the West Midlands, this is a pretty canal. It is one of the earliest, built by a chap named James Brindley and opened in 1772, and uses the contours of the land rather than cutting through hills and using locks to go up and down. Near Compton I found this pretty Victorian arts and crafts house to visit.

On Saturday, we stayed in Compton for a lazy day. I found a nice long walk for the dogs – along the canal, across countryside and back again along this disused railway line. Fascinating to imagine the heavy steam trains, the grime and dirt. It was a hot day and in the afternoon we found a country park where the dogs could swim. Pizza for team and a film.

On Sunday, it was back on our journey south. A boat coming the other way warned us that a boat club was ahead of us. Fifteen boats were waiting to go down Bratch Locks. This is a bit of a bottleneck on the canal, because three locks are next to each other, so they allow three boats to go down and then three come up. This means if you are boat four, you will wait around an hour before you can go. If you are boat fifteen, you could be waiting several hours. Fortunately by the time we got there the queue had reduced and we were only held up for around forty minutes. Bratch Locks are fascinating. They were built by Brindley as a staircase, where the top gates of one lock form the bottom gates of the next one. But this used too much water, so around 1820 they were converted to individual locks with about a meter of canal between each lock, and side ponds to hold the water. I have never seen anything like them, and as you can see in the photo, the rules are somewhat complex. Fortunately there were volunteers to help us and all was well.

On Monday, we passed through a number of small villages with great names such as Boterham, Giggerty and Bumblehole. We even went through Swindon – not the massive 1960s sprawling town in Wiltshire, but a hamlet of a few houses and a pub in the West Midlands.

Tuesday was a short day. Just a couple of hours from Stewponey to Wolverley. We moored in a beautiful tree lined stretch, next to a brilliant pub called the Lock Inn. It cooked traditional Black Country food. I had a couple of pints of the local ale, and an enormous plate of Faggots and Mash. We considered staying another day, so we could see the Morris dancers, but in the end decided to carry on.

On Wednesday, we continued to the end of the Staffordshire and Worcestershire canal at Stourport. Stourport was once a very small village called Mitton, but after the canal was built became one of the busiest inland ports in Britain, as the canal joins the river Severn and from there large boats sailed down to the sea at Bristol. Nowadays it is a sleepy pretty town, with much history to see. It also has a permanent funfair, where we found this rather sad Winnie the Pooh.

Thursday was another day off and we stayed in Stourport. We took the opportunity to enjoy this small breakfast. Yum! We also went on a trip to see Dudmaston, a huge stately home that is still lived in by a (rather wealthy) family.

So no. Every day is not the same on a narrowboat. Every day brings something new and we are very lucky to enjoy it.

June 2, 2023 2

Everyone is unique on the cut

We meet so many different people when we are out in our narrowboat on the canals – “on the cut”. There are the first time boaters on a day boat or a one week hire. There are live-aboard boaters who move up and down a canal but broadly stay in the same place. And the liveaboards who moor in a marina. Then there are the continuous cruisers like us that travel around the UK throughout the year, and the cruisers that travel just every few weeks. We meet hippies and families, engineers and accountants, solo boaters and people squeezing ten onto a boat. I love them all.

I think one of the things I love best is that I meet all of these boaters every day, in a lock , on a mooring, as we pass. And the mutual respect is palpable. We may bitch about the Canal and River Trust, who regulate what we do. We may bitch about hire boaters if we are live-aboard, or about the “owners” if we are hiring. But day to day we rub along just fine. I have never met such a diverse group of people who get along as on the cut.

Good luck to Mark. It is a special kind of person who can live with a narrow-boater. I hope you find someone special.

May 26, 2023 0

When is too much too much?

When it comes to food and drink I have to admit I love excess. Perhaps it comes from my childhood when we did not have a lot of money and I was often hungry. There were four of us brothers and sister and we would share one small tin of beans for our tea. Perhaps it come from my love of cooking for others – there is a generosity I love in providing more food and drink than is needed. I am very happy to eat keftovers so ‘too much” is not wasteful for me – just a kindness to my guests.

So when this milkshake was provided for one of my birthday treats last week, I could really appreciate it. Vanilla milkshake with Nutella, chocolate shavings, chocolate brownie, two ice cream sandwiches, and covered in chocolate sauce. I love milkshakes. I love ice-cream. I love chocolate. It is outstanding.

I knew it would be a challenge when my waiter told me “good luck”. But I like a challenge. And 30 minutes later my glass was empty.

I have to admit that after finishing, I felt a little unwell. The sugar rush was great but the come down afterwards left me slightly nauseous and drained of energy. Was this finally the occasion when too much was actually too much?

Well no. I loved the milkshake and in retrospect do not regret a single calorie. Probably once a year is enough but it was delicious.

Just call me Augustus Gloop.

May 19, 2023 1

It’s my birthday and the engine bay is full of smoke

It was my birthday on Wednesday and it was planned to be a very special day. My younger son Martin had joined us on the narrowboat, we had a lovely cruise expected through Stoke on Trent from the lake at Westport down to the village of Barlaston, where we would have dinner in the pub owned by actor Neil Morrisey. It should have been perfect.

But…

About an hour after we set off, the engine suddenly cut out and smoke started to appear around the boards above the engine bay. The picture does not really show how bad it was – when I took the boards up I could not even see the engine for smoke. Taking photographs was the last thing on my mind.

Fortunately there were no flames and nothing was alight but the oil cap had blown off, everything was massively hot, and we were stuck, next to a recycling centre in not the best part of Stoke. And of course, a three hour thunderstorm had just begun.

Even more fortunately we recently renewed our membership of River Canal Rescue (RCR), which is like a car recovery service for boats. I called them and told them my engine had blown up. They calmed me down and convinced me that was not the case, and within 30 minutes they had an engineer with me at the boat.

It took some diagnosis but we eventually realised what had happened. Through simple wear and tear, the bearings in the engine water pump had begun to fail, and caused a vibration. That had “thrown” the drive belt off, which meant that the engine was no longer operating the water pump, and so the engine was no longer being cooled, and simply got hotter and hotter till eventually it boiled off the coolant and everything gave up.

This could have been a massive issue, The cylinder head might have seized, or a major gasket blown. But when it all cooled down and we turned the engine on, everything still worked.

So we moored up properly, RCR ordered a new water pump, and found a local engineer who could fit it the following morning. It did take a lot of work with a mallet and a crowbar to get the old pump off, but by 1130 the following morning we were all fixed and on our way.

So what have I learnt? Nothing new but some lessons reinforced.

Living on a narrowboat s**t happens. It will be OK. Get over it.
Expert help is invaluable, even just to reassure. Well worth paying for,
Planning is great, but the unexpected is always just around the corner.

So what about my birthday? Well using taxis we still had that delicious meal. And we have planned an alternative birthday on Sunday, when we should be moored in a marina, with access to a car. That should be a very special day. And I do not regret my birthday. It was an adventure. Retirement is all about adventures,.

May 12, 2023 0

Hatching week

We have been travelling the Peak Forest Canal this week, a sidearm off the Macclesfield, that was used originally for transporting limestone from the Peak District quarries. These days the industry has gone and it is very beautiful as it clings to the sides of steep hills, with far views across the national park. As we travelled towards the end at Bugsworth Basin, we noticed a number of ducks and geese sitting on their nests. We also saw one goose with four new baby goslings, which were cute.

Just a few days later we returned along the canal and were astonished to find maybe fifty families of geese and ducks with goslings and ducklings. It made me wonder how they all hatch at once. I understand the principle that hatching in late spring gives the best chance of survival, but for so many to arrive within a few days is pretty incredible.

It reminds me of a holiday we once had at a house in Islay, an island off the West Coast of Scotland. When we arrived we asked if there would be many midges, the infamous biting insects of that part of the world. The property owner said that they would come the following Thursday, which we guessed was a random date, plucked from the air. But no, we had no insects till the Thursday, when clouds of them suddenly arrived.

Nature is a wonderful thing.

Not a bad way to spend our retirement.

May 5, 2023 0