What's it about

Many years ago, in a previous life, I had the opportunity of a week-end on a narrowboat at the invitation of a colleague. It was on the Oxford Canal. I don’t know where, but the boat was in present day terms “basic”. It would have been in the late ‘60s and my memory is of a narrow canal with troublesome midges in the evening.  My colleague told me of his experiences going to Llangollen and the possibility of doing a thing called "the ring” from Oxford, down the Thames through London and back up the Grand Union Canal.   I was familiar with the Grand Union.

Years before that, as a child in the late ‘40s, I had spent many hours watching the coal carrying working boats pass through Lady Capel’s Lock on the Grand Union Canal close by the Grove Estate where my father had an allotment. He was a railway audit clerk and during the war the office had been relocated there, where it remained after until his retirement. Incidentally, the Grove Estate has now been converted into an exclusive golf course and hotel. Of course, I was much too shy to talk to the boatmen, who after all were regarded as “rough people”, and I have no doubt that they would not have noticed the small boy observing. The narrow bridges and tight turns on this section meant that the butties were towed on long lines. I took for granted the skill and practices with which the locks were worked. The lock wheeler who sometimes preceded and the way the butties coasted in to join the motor in the locks and stopped by strapping. Paddles were dropped, not wound down, and paddles were just all opened right up, no messing! Lady Capel’s lock has both ground and gate paddles, so the rush of water was I suppose the most thrilling part of this for me. Gates were opened by the boats when going up and were of course left open with paddles still up. So you can imagine that for me now to pass that lock in our own boat has a certain nostalgia.

So with that history and the need to plan a holiday in 2000 for the family including two Labradors, the idea of a canal holiday came to mind. The name Hoseasons sprang into my head so an Internet search found the web site and we booked the longest (in the naive belief that longer must be better) boat we could (72 feet) from Reading Marine at Aldermaston with the intention of reaching Bristol and back in two weeks (well, they said it was possible). After the customary practical boat introduction and handling course, which included the lifting bridge and passage through Aldermaston Lock, we were on our own. I had brought my bike and trailer which were laid on the roof, because I had remembered lock wheeling, however, I misjudged the sharp turn on the river just after Frouds Bridge, ending up in the shrubbery and an overhanging tree branch took the bike and dumped it in the river. I never managed to locate it. The fast flow and deep murky water combined with the difficulty of manoeuvring the boat just made it impossible. After the first few days the crew were ready to mutiny and swore they would never come on a boating holiday again. None of us knew what we were doing really, and looking back it was amazing that we got as far as Bath where we sensibly decided to stop to enjoy the city. By the time we returned at the end of the holiday we were a much smoother team and it was agreed by all that we had had such a good time that we had to do it again. The idea of getting our own boat started to form in the back of my mind.

Hearing of my interest, a neighbour gave me some old canal magazines and I read these avidly starting to get a picture of what is involved in owning a boat. It all seemed wonderful, but what was the down side. What for instance would it be like out of season when the weather was cold and wet. To find out, we hired a boat from Worcester in April for a week and did the Stourport ring. Here we became aware that our first boat was not very luxurious, and that 60 feet was long enough. We kept warm with gas central heating in spite of snow and frost and still had a good time. Hiring again in the summer we learned about diesel central heating and inverters and so with experience of many boat layouts and equipment, plans for our own boat gained momentum.

So that was it! We went to a few boat shows, culminating I suppose with Crick where the deal was done. With retirement beckoning we were all set