 So
I said I think I will write something about Joe Skinner this month, and
Mary said hadn’t it all been written already? Hmm, yes, certainly it
has, and written by better informed writers than me at a time closer to
his real life.
But he still stands in my memory as a symbol of
something so special about the canals that I think we could do with
being reminded yet again of this iconic man and the vanished world that
he came to represent. Happily the recent publication of a new book about
his life offers a perfect excuse for reappraisal and a bit of nostalgia.
I only had the pleasure of meeting Joe a very few
times, on two or three occasions at Sutton Stop and a couple more when
Friendship was being towed around to various IWA National rallies in the
1960s. He made a big impression on me then, as he did on most of the
people that got to meet him in those formative times. Partly it was the
man himself, unpretentious, gentlemanly and generous with his knowledge,
but partly it was for what he was and what he had come to epitomise--
the last horse-boatman. This was not actually strictly true for there
were still a scattering of horse boats working in the Black Country, but
he had certainly been the last of the long distance horse boatmen,
working his own boat southwards to Oxford and London. Even more
importantly he stayed with his canal life in retirement, continued to
live on his boat and became known and respected by the new generation of
canal enthusiast as an epitome of the true canal tradition, from trilby
hat to roses and castles.
Because I was brought up on the south coast my
youthful knowledge of the Midland canals was minuscule. However, as my
interest in popular art increased I kept stumbling over references to
the decoration of English canal boats, although what I read was -- from
my southern regional perspective -- frankly unbelievable. A separate
class of people living on tiny barges painted with flowers and
landscapes? In England?! Ridiculous! I loved the idea but as I cycled
north to have a look I expected to be profoundly disappointed. Arriving
at Braunston on a sunny day in May my conversion was utter and virtually
instantaneous. Here were the boats and the traffic, the boatyard and the
boatpeople as well as the paintings and the painter, all as promised in
the books.
In the 1960s there were still relatively few canal
books in existence and of those in print it was L.T.C. Rolt’s Narrow
Boat, originally written in 1939, that seduced the imagination of
romantics like me. But there was a bit of a backlash going on in some
quarters even then, a feeling that his pre-war elegaic writing was
already too nostalgic, too steeped in a romantic version of the past to
be useful to the developing pleasure boat industry. Like the home of a
Great Crested Newt getting in the way of a modern housing development
they did not want too much old-fashioned tradition and philosophy
getting in the way of new hire boats. But for me his book was still the
evidence for what I thought I believed in, a simple but satisfying way
of life, steeped in tradition but doing a useful job. But was it true?
Had it ever been true? Was it too good to be true? I certainly wanted it
to be true but I suppose there were seeds of doubt even in my newly
obsessed mind.
But a first meeting with Joe and Rose Skinner was
quite enough to calm fears and settle doubts. They were self evidently
the real thing, unpretentious but solid proof of Rolt’s writing about
the Oxford canal boatmen that he got to know at Banbury, Joseph Skinner
of the Friendship, old John Harwood of the Searchlight, Townsend of
Abingdon and Beauchamp of Oxford… “fine men of the old school who still
kept their own boats. Three generations of Hones worked three boats
between them, Alfred Hone senior and his wife the Cylgate, his son and
daughter-in-law the White City, and his granddaughters the Rose and
Betty, which was named after them. These boats were kept in spotless
condition… All the paintwork was mopped down and the brasswork polished
at every available opportunity, and on one boat there were canvas sheets
which could be let down to protect the varnish on the cabin sides from
the sun. In addition to the customary binding of pipe-clayed turk’s
heads, there floated from the ‘ram’s head’ of the White City a long
horses tail.” This was the canal world I hankered after, and still
regret not having seen.
Joe and Rose in retirement at Hawksbury Junction were
a clear window back to that world that Rolt recorded, and represented
the traditional way things had been done for a hundred and fifty years
before that. They were the complete tradition although they were indeed
the last of a line. Today it is easy to forget how radical the changes
had been in the preceding twenty years before Narrow Boat and the Second
World War, the traffic trickling away, the development of motors towing
butties and steel boats replacing wooden ones. Until their deaths in the
mid 1970s they were the perfect link from that world to this, courteous
and accommodating, inspiring and ordinary. Luckily that inspiration was
recognised by many at the time and they allowed themselves to be well
documented, to become gentle legends in their own lifetimes
The new book is called ‘The Last Number Ones’, a
compilation of articles and references about Joe and Rose Skinner and
their boat, edited together by Hugh Potter, and illustrated with a mass
of photographs. One of the key components of the book is the transcript
of recordings made by Brian Vaughton in 1961 but due to the miracle of
modern technology this book now comes complete with a full 70 minute CD
of the actual recordings included in the price. Absolutely essential
listening for anyone interested in canal history, and thoroughly
recommended by me. It is available direct from the publishers at
Waterways World – go to the online shop at
www.narrowboatmagazine.com
price £19.99 plus postage.
©Tony
Lewery,
The Brow,
Ellesmere,
29th February 2008
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