‘Adrift’ – a life afloat on a London houseboat

Living on a boat is no longer a trivial pursuit. Over a quarter of canal boats are now permanent homes according to a recent CRT survey. Since liveaboards spend all year on their boats and other boatowners spend just a few holiday weeks a conservative estimate could be that over 80% of days afloat are spent by liveaboards. London is a hotspot, 10,000 people now estimated to be living on its waterways. Are inflated house prices the sole cause of this mass migration, or is there more to it?

Helen Babbs lives on a boat in London and has written a book about it, so maybe she can enlighten us. In fact Helen is a travel writer and journalist, and Adrift is part eloquent travelogue of her journeyings around London’s waterways and part exploration of more personal spaces – the book’s subtitle is A secret life of London’s Waterways.

She certainly doesn’t see living afloat through rose coloured glasses. She and her partner buy 57 foot Pike from Derbyshire with little boating experience and have it delivered to London where they work. They move aboard then cruise around London’s waterways every fortnight, with no particular destination in mind. She describes the winter cold – ‘a crystalline presence in the room that seized at every limb’ and the summer heat – ‘air inside the boat has become a solid cloying thing that has to be waded through’. Condensation means ‘cupboards and contents are coated with cold sweat’. Limited water makes keeping clean a challenge – ‘I ration my showers but am also worried that I smell’. She has to ‘lose one’s squeamishness about black waste ….. to cycle along a busy footpath with a couple of containers of poo behind you.’ And to live with the ever present fear of sinking – ‘The cabin bilge is not just a little damp or a bit puddly; the water is about a foot deep.’

But this is a personal journey as well, and Helen is equally perceptive about the inner tensions and turmoil of continuous cruising. ‘Since moving onto Pike we have found ourselves justifying our existence a lot. …. (we are) technically classed as homeless.’ There’s isolation, on a walk home ‘I wear my collection of keys like a knuckle duster and entertain violent thoughts.’ And the exposure, ‘Standing at the kitchen sink we regularly witness ten, twenty, 30 pairs of feet walk, run or cycle past’. Ultimately there’s transience, ‘Our life is a continual departure’, ‘what does it mean if your home, your centre of gravity, constantly moves?’

So why one earth cast yourself Adrift? Most boat owners understand the romantic appeal of being able to move at will, a different view every day. But in London and some other urban areas the increasing shortage of affordable housing has to be a major reason to move afloat. Helen explains ‘After ten long years renting rooms in cramped shared flats, I craved space, change and a genuine home with only my loved ones in it.’ But it’s not just practicality, living aboard is a lifestyle choice – ‘If we lived on a boat we believed we would have more control over our lives and our impact.’ ‘There is a paring back that takes place on the water, a simplification and an easing out.’ She sees boat life as more ecologically sound, it brings ‘close contact with the natural world, and encourages us to respect the fact that resources are finite.’ Throughout her emotional journeying she is not unaware of the paradoxes, ‘We have settled down in a most unsettling way.’ ‘While each journey … is an uprooting, it is also a kind of homecoming.’ And, for Helen and partner at least, it seems to work – ‘Journeying together has redefined our relationship, it has made it better, stronger, kinder, more entwined.’

Helen believes liveaboards are a positive influence on London’s waterways, making towpaths safer and friendlier. She thinks that ‘at a time when London’s alternative spaces are becoming increasingly corporate’ we should provide more facilities and moorings for liveaboard boaters. ‘Instead of alienating those who take to the water, maybe we should pause to ask boat dwellers what they can teach us.’

If you are thinking of moving afloat then Adrift is a ‘must read’ – lots of useful information and ‘do your research first and don’t make the decision lightly’ is Helen’s sensible recommendation. And if you are interested in London’s waterways, there are excellent sections on the ecological importance of the flora and fauna of her ‘mutable waterlands’, exemplified by the costly damage caused by the Olympic clearances, plus interesting accounts of lost waterways like the Croydon and Grand Surrey canals.

If, like me, you struggle to understand why 10,000 people want to moor 3 abreast along cycle tracks amidst tower blocks and urban wastelands, this book eloquently illuminates at least one person’s motivations. But herein lies my problem with Adrift, it is ‘a personal account and in no way represents the views of anyone other than myself, least of all other boaters.’ admits the author. She actually relates few contacts with any of her neighbours, is there not a liveaboard community? And like many Londoners her horizons are bounded by the M25, or even Uxbridge on the GU. For instance she believes that the ‘the craft of canal boat décor … (is a) now all-but-lost world’ and advises that to see a traditional narrowboat cabin ‘visit the London Canal Museum’. You must get out more Helen! There is a big vibrant canal world out here and London, unusually, is not at its hub. Just untie and point Pike’s bow west towards Uxbridge – then this time keep going. More understanding of the rest of the waterways system, its heritage and its users, might actually help all London’s boaters to make their case for special treatment.

Adrift, A Secret Life of London’s Waterways is published by Icon Books, and is available in hardback and paperback.