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Even after the loveliest of late summer days
there is an evening chill in the air that reminds the most optimistic that
autumn is waiting just behind the next strong wind. But you can’t fight the
seasons; you just work with them or cope with them. It is a measure of the
success of the recent British Waterways administration that the imminent
retirement of the chief executive and his replacement with a new unknown
attitude feels like the turning of a season too. The question is whether
it’s from spring to glorious summer, or summer to a chilly autumn. Certainly
today’s co-operative attitude feels like an escape from the winter of the
old days of B.W.B.
 These
seasonal thoughts follow a very satisfactory day taking the ancient and
about- to-be-restored narrow boat Saturn down the Montgomery Canal to the
present limit of the navigation at Queen’s Head. She had been on her last
public tour to local rallies at Whitchurch and Ellesmere, and as a final
event in her present fragile condition we thought that this trip would be a
very suitable and memorable culmination of her first life. Consider these
several factors: she is a traditional wooden boat and probably the only
craft afloat today that actually worked down this canal before the
disastrous breach in 1936 closed it to navigation; we also think that Saturn
is the only complete Shropshire Union Canal Company boat in existence, never
mind afloat (although I would be really delighted to be told that I’m
wrong.) Not only that but she was built as a fly boat, one of an elite class
of extraordinarily slim and graceful hulled boats designed specifically for
high value perishable cargoes on a ‘next-day-delivery’ system. Already
wonderful enough to make news you would think, and rightly, but to put cream
on the cake we borrowed a horse and crew from the Llangollen trip boat
company and did the trip in classic style behind Geordie, a handsome heavy
cob.
Above right - Rednal warehouse
Right - Saturn under tow
It was a splendid occasion in perfect
weather, arranged as publicity and a public thank you to the Heritage
Lottery Fund and the Landfill Tax administration for their support for the
restoration project. Hidden within the event however was an even more
surprising idea - the fact that British Waterways are part owners of the
boat and willing collaborators in our plans for the full restoration of a
working horse boat. This is a serious commitment to canal heritage on the
part of the local manager and an extremely welcome development from an
organisation that was in the past almost the by-word for non-co-operation
with any thing historical that took effort or money. Heritage and history
were fine so long as they didn’t stand in the way of any of their crass
modernisations, but here we are a couple of managements later and the
company are buying old boats and helping to restore them. Staggering. If we
can now convince them to return the canals to a condition in which historic
working boats can operate properly we shall be a long way towards proper
waterway conservation. That would be ‘joined up thinking’ and very
significant history. |
