Tag: history

The ten best things in the Outer Hebrides

We have just returned from six weeks in the Outer Hebrides. Also called the Western Isles, this archipelago of islands is one of the remotest areas of the UK and at this time of year the tourists have gone home and it is even bleaker. The winds are wild. Daylight hours are short. Why on earth would anyone want to stay there? I can give you ten very good reasons

1 It is incredibly beautiful.

You can drive through Lewis and Harris, get a ferry to Berneray, drive across causeways to North Uist, Grimsay, Benbecula, Soouth Uist, Eriskay and a short ferry to Barra. Around every corner there is something beautiful to take your breath away, from inland lochs, to dramatic cliff edges, to awesome views.

2.. The history is fascinating

We saw Iron Age brochs, prehistoric standing stones, a ditch of blood where the MacDonalds fought the MacLeods in the seventeenth century. We saw a ruined temple which is claimed to be the oldest university in the UK. And more modern history such as the Iolaire monument in Stornaway, overlooking the bay where hundreds of soldiers returning from the First World War, lost their Iives in a shipwreck.

3 The locals are friendly.

Because the tourists have largely gone, we were treated as part of the community, attending the local firework display, chatting in the pub, and even going to a travelling show abut Hercules the Bear, who escaped and roamed the islands for weeks in the 1980s. The Hebridean accent is soft and the people are friendly.

4 The shellfish is wonderful.

Some of the best shellfish in the world is landed in the Hebrides. We had a wonderful lobster lunch off formica tables in a cafe next to the fishing boats. I also had the best langoustine eggs benedict breakfast that anyone could dream of.

5 Rainbows

I am not sure why. Perhaps it is the ever changing weather combining rain and sunshine, Perhaps it is the time of year with the sun so low in the sky. But I have never seen so many rainbows. Stunningly beautiful.

6. Sunsets

It was not every night. We also had cloudy skies. But when the weather was right we had amazing sunsets and sunrises. We also got to see the Northern Lights

7 Sculptures

I think the remoteness must attract artists to the islands. I wrote in a previous blog about the pile of peat in an art gallery. I much preferred seeing the sculptures, scattered around the islands, set into the landscape

8.. You can hunker down in front of the fire

And when the rains turned horizontal, the properties we stayed in had wood burning stoves to keep the cockles warm. I settled down to read the latest Peter May book about murders in Lewis. Nice.

9. The wildlife

I am not a patient man. There are hides you can visit where people sit for hours waiting to see the rarest wildlife. Not for me. But we still saw two golden eagles, a sea eagle, black kite, deer, otters, coos on an uninhabited island, sheep swimming across a loch. It was pretty impressive.

10 The Outer Hebrides have the best beaches in the world.

Famously, West Beach n Berneray was used for a Thai tourist brochure. It is a lot colder, but the Hebridean beaches are empty. There are so many of them, and they are so dramatic, that after a while you think they are normal. White sands formed from crushed sea shells. Miles and miles of empty beaches.. Wonderful

So now we are back home. Six weeks is less of a holiday and more of an adventure. I would encourage anyone who enjoys peace and beauty to visit the Western Isles. Simply gorgeous.

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Why does the Coventry Canal have a gap in the middle?

We are travelling towards Oxford on Narrowboat Thuis. That means navigating the Trent & Mersey, The Coventry, the North Oxford and finally the South Oxford Canals. It will take us about three weeks. There is one complication in this route. The Coventry Canal starts at Fradley Junction and travels down to Coventry city centre. But there is a gap of a few miles in the middle.

The good news is that this gap is filled by a chunk of the Birminghams and Fazeley Canal. Why?

In a week in which the HS2 train scheme overran yet again, it is reminder that in history nothing changes. In 1768, at the height of canal building mania, a group of rich entrepreneurs got together to build the Coventry Canal, with the aim of connecting Coventry to the Bedworth coal fields and then the Trent & Mersey Canal at Fradley junction, joining Coventry to the North of England. They employed the greatest canal engineer of the time, James Brindley, who had previously planned the Bridgewater, the Chester, the Trent & Mersey and the Staffordshire & Worcester. Everyone was very optimistic.

At first, everything went well and in just a year they were bringing cheap coal from Bedworth to Coventry. But then the money began to run out and by 1771 they had sacked Brindley and gone bust. Eventually more money was found but it took till 1790 to extend the canal to Fazeley, where by that time the Birmingham and Fazeley canal had been built, connecting Birmingham to the Trent & Mersey at Whittington Brook.

Around the same time the Oxford Canal was completed, connecting the Coventry to Oxford and hence London on the Thames. This was immensely successful and at last the shareholders began to make money, big money. They wanted to realise their original plans, and were able to buy the stretch from Whittington Brook to Fradley from the Trent & Mersey. But the Birmingham and Fazeley refused to sell.

So there we are today, with the Coventry Canal split in the middle.

I love canal history. Our life today was enabled by a small number of entrepreneurs who lost or gained fortunes. And by thousands of poorly paid navvies, cutting the navigations with picks and shovels.

We are so lucky to be able to enjoy the fruit of their labours. And to remember their sacrifices.

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How long is 29 years?

I went to the cinema this week, to see “Mission Impossible – The Final Reckoning”. It started slowly, but once it got going, wow what an adventure! I have been a fan since the first film in 1996, and this final film brings all the stories together. It seems only yesterday that the franchise began, and now it is all over. The time since 1996 has gone in a flash.

By coincidence I have also this week been listening to podcasts and watching videos about the end of the Second World War. That was a different time; a time for my grandparents, a very long time ago. And yet, when I was born in 1964, that was only 19 years after the war.

So how can 29 years be no time at all and yet 19 years be an age? It must be a bias we all have to our lifetimes. My mid thirties children would probably classify the fall of the Berlin Wall as being part of history. For me it is not long ago. Current teens would probably classify a world without smartphones as being part of history, but for me, I remember my first brick like mobile phone with great affection. It was a Nokia 2140 and I paid for 15 minute of calls every month, with no texts and of course no data. It was the coolest thing in the world.

I love researching family history so I decided to ask my Mum about her own childhood recollections of times that I consider to be history. Interestingly her strongest memories are about family and friends. Yes there was a war on, but that was just background to growing up. It was normal.

She did say that her favourite film was Bambi. That was before even Mission Impossible 1. A very long time ago.

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Going for a walk in Kirkham

Kirkham is the nearest town to our village in Lancashire. The Aldi is our nearest proper supermarket, and Kirkham is where I go for my hearing aids, and for the dentist. For trains it is our nearest station. It is a pretty little market town.

Most of the time I just drive through it, paying little attention. This week I read an article about the town in a magazine, and decided it had to be worth a walk. I am a great believer that the best way to learn about places is to travel slowly, whether on a Narrowboat or on foot.

The first surprise was to see what looked like a bus shelter, just sitting by the road, and housing a weaving loom. It turns out that Kirkham was once a thriving mill town, and this was the last loom ever used, after the last mill closed in 2003. Apparently in the mid nineteenth century Kirkham was the biggest town in the area, several times the size of Blackpool.

Then I discovered the old town square, a huge mural, a fascinating church, even a Tardis.

My walk took me along a footpath called Remembrance Way which was recently put in place, with wild flowers and sculptures, and along an ancient track which once would have headed up to a fort in Roman times.

It just goes to show that there are many interesting things to find almost anywhere, if you just open your eyes. Every day is a school day, and I like school.

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I hate weed

There are certain jobs on a narrowboat that are not very nice. Pumping out the toilet tank is perhaps the worst. But pulling weed and rubbish from around the prop comes a close second. And this week’s canal from Chester to Ellesmere Port is one of the weediest in the country.

If you drive through the vegetation at normal speed, the propellor turns and pulls the weed around it. This causes the steering to fail, the boat to go much slower, and even the engine to stall. To avoid this, there are techniques we have learnt. Drive at speed up to the patch of weed, and then take it out of gear. The boat hopefully floats through the weed unscathed. Or if you do get some weed, try a hard reverse to “spin” it off again. But if neither of these works, you have to moor up the boat, lift the deck boards, climb into the engine bay, unscrew the weed hatch cover, reach down into the murky cold water and pull the weed off the prop and rudder. Fortunately this week I have only had to do that a few times.

It was worth the effort though, because we were able to moor for two nights in the middle of the National Waterways Museum at Ellesmere Port.

I have written in a previous blog about nights in the museum, but suffice to say it is one of our favourite moorings in the mornings and evenings when no-one is around and we have the place to ourselves. It is also a place full of history, where the Shropshire Union Canal joins the huge Manchester Ship Canal and the River Mersey. In times past it would have been a dirty, noisy dock with hundreds of workers and surrounded by heavy industry. A quiet place today, full of memories.

My son Rob says he loves most of my blogs but not the ones where I complain about something that has annoyed me this week. Sorry Rob but I don’t like weed.

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Who is this man?

I have written before that one of my hobbies is researching my family tree. This week I received a pack of old photographs from one of my Mum’s cousins. He has been tidying his house and knew that I am interested in the family, so sent them to me. He kindly annotated the backs of the pictures when he knew who they were, but this photograph was blank.

Most of the pictures are from the family of a man called John Davies, a distant cousin who was a chaplain serving in the Royal Navy, I knew the navy had chaplains but did not realise that they sailed on the ships for many months, just like ordinary sailors. John also served on submarines where he said that the confined space led to depression and need of a chaplain.

There were also photographs and newspaper articles about John’s relations. His father and grandfather were also priests, working in a small area of Wales. His grandmother was a very posh looking woman called Dorothy Jebb. She is my great great aunt and came from a very wealthy family.

But I am still stuck on this photograph. He looks a very smart soldier, I am guessing from the First World War. With three crosses on his wrist, perhaps he was a captain? John and his father both had low eyebrows, so it is not them.

In future times perhaps AI will allow me to search this photograph and find who it was, but for now I think it is sad that such a photograph, maybe made for a mother or sweetheart, cannot be identified. I will raise a glass to him.

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Why is the Calder and Hebble unique?

We have cruised most of the canals and rivers in the UK in recent years. There are over 2000 miles of navigation and every one is different. But this week we have been along the Calder and Hebble and that really is unique.

From Fall Ing lock near Wakefield, to Sowerby Bridge, the canal and river navigation is just 23 miles long, built in around 1770 to connect the mill towns of Yorkshire to the rest of the country.

Let me tell you about three things you will not find anywhere else. The first is the short length of the locks. They can just about fit our narrowboat at 57.5 ft, but any longer and you really are in danger of getting stuck or flooded. There are other canals known for short locks, including the Leeds and Liverpool that we have recently left, but none as consistently short as the Calder and Hebble.

The second uniqueness is the Guillotine lock at Salterhebble. Most locks have pairs of wooden or steel gates that close together to hold the water back. Sometimes these are electrically operated but this one also operates as a guillotine, a single metal gate that goes up and down. It was installed after a road widening meant there was no room to keep normal gates. I have read that there are a few other guillotines around the country but as far as I am concerned this is unique.

The third unique thing is the “Hebble spike”, a piece of 3” x 2” shaped hardwood that is used to open and close lock sluices. I have no idea why these were used when this canal was built, rather than the windlasses we use on almost every other canal, but it has certainly been a unique experience to use this week. It is hard work!

I have enjoyed the week of uniqueness. Next week we travel the Rochdale canal. Maybe not so unique but even more of a challenge. I’ll let you know how we get on.

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When one bridge is not enough

One of our favourite places on the UK canal network are the “curly wurlys” near East Marton on the Leeds Liverpool Canal. The canal winds around many hillsides, following the contours, so it takes forever to get a small distance, but with fine views in all directions across the Yorkshire Dales it is very beautiful. This week we moored up for a couple of days on an isolated stretch here, where we could enjoy the countryside and chill out.

Just before the curly wurlys we passed through this double bridge, famous to narrowboaters, There is many a furrowed brow as people try to work out why two bridges are needed. Perhaps the tall bridge was collapsing in on itself and needed bracing with the lower arch? Perhaps the lower bridge once carried pedestrians at the same time as vehicles travelled across the top?

The truth is sadly more boring. The lower bridge is the original and in the 1790s was used for packhorses crossing the Pennines. When the main road was built (now the A59) the engineers built it on an embankment to cross this part of Lancashire , and so needed the bridge to be higher. The cheapest way was simply to build on top of the existing structure.

It is typical of our narrowboat journey that in a few days we can go from industrial town to beautiful nature, with a bit of history to make it even more interesting. Are you just a little jealous?

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Enjoying Liverpool

Usually when we are on our big narrowboat trips we have a couple of days off each week, when we don’t move the boat, and either do “jobs” or chill out. But this week we decided to take six days off and moor in Liverpool docks.

Mooring here is one of the wonders of the waterways. The docks were designed for great ocean going ships and so our narrowboat is dwarfed by the high docksides and massive bollards.

To get here we came down four locks from the main canal, and then steered through about six historic docks, passing many famous landmarks of Liverpool.

While here I have done a number of tourist things, including visiting both cathedrals, a stately home, and the houses where John Lennon and Paul McCartney grew up.

We also got to spend time with our niece Zoë and her new fiancé Guy. Zoë helped us on the journey here.

I think the thing I have enjoyed the most is just being moored quietly in the very centre of one of England’s great cities.

Thanks for a great week Liverpool. We will be back.

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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?

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