Leicester Ring Day 7 - Sunday

I forgot to mention the odd conversation we tried to have with the Germans last night after we'd left the boat in search of food and beer.

In the time it took us to moor up and generally leave lights and radio on in an attempt to fool any passer-by into thinking there were people on board, a crew of what turned out to be Germans followed into the lock we had just used.

In this urban stretch of canal, each lock is "protected" by padlocks on the gate paddles, and a device on the ground paddles which stops the paddle-gear from working. My guess is the ground paddle protection is a more recent invention. British Waterways must have got bored with the number of sheared/snapped padlocks on the canal as in some places they've completely removed the paddle gear off the gates (and therefore the need to padlock it), forcing the boater to use only ground paddles, which are painfully slow by comparison. The ground paddle gear is completely enclosed, and therefore not so easy to "make a point" with if you're vandalistically minded.

The problem is the desire on the part of vandals to let water through both ends of the lock at the same time, thereby draining (potentially miles) of canal, contrasted with the objective of users and owners of the canal to conserve water at all costs. It's not a new battle, I've seen many different attempts made over the years to deter the vandals, but they'll all ultimately fail because the vandals aren't doing it to annoy canal users, they're doing it because they can, so make it harder and they'll just steal bigger bolt-cutters from B&Q to prove they won't be beaten. It's a futile battle in which no-one wins.

I can't help but wonder if the experience of Burton on Trent, Brindley Place and Gas Street Basin in Birmingham, and Canal Street in Manchester (site of the most heavily abused street sign in the world, I don't know why Greater Manchester Council don't give into popular demand and just rename the street without it's opening "C") should be noted more widely.

The first city to value it's canal was Milton Keynes, but then MK had the distinct advantage of starting from scratch - many would argue the "linear park" is one of MK's better ideas. In those urban canal scenes not yet caught up with the enlightened Manchester and MK, the original purpose of the canal has been it's ultimate undoing.

As noted before in this blog, the canals came because of industry. Industry, keen to get their loading wharfs onto the side of the cut, effectively built their factories with backs turned to the water. For this reason the canal has always been a "hidden" and often nefarious place. Leicester is no different. Most of the canal sits between the walls of long abandoned dye and cloth manufacturing factories, hidden except at bridges. No wonder then that they are perceived as "out of sight, out of mind" - an obvious place to throw an old motorbike, or perhaps a body.

It's this seclusion that draws teenagers in search of recklessness - maybe just a place to hide when truanting, perhaps somewhere hot with hormones to get beyond third base, and sometimes more sinister intents. The more we wrap our children in cotton-wool the more they will seek these places - it's rebellion against the influence of parents. Thus has it always been. Make a playground so safe that a modern teenager doesn't know what it's like to have stitches, or a long graze which weeps for a few days, and they'll go in search of an antidote to the mollicoddling, becoming ever less respectful of "others", and ever more likely to harm themselves - ultimately this can become deliberate in order just to feel alive. No wonder then that self-harming among teenagers is on the rise.

When I was little, my mum let me play in the mud and get dirty. I have a clear memory of her saying to a neighbour, appalled at my eating a lollipop first dropped in the dirt, "disconfected" and ultimately placed, grit and all, into my mouth, that "it won't do him any harm, what doesn't kill him makes him stronger"

How many children today have allergies? - The nanny-state advice is to avoid young children eating peanuts, and so we do as we're told for fear of the implied threat of a "social visit" only to discover that more and more children have a sensitivity to it. I can't help but think it's the same as making sure your child catches chicken-pox at an early age because it's so much more dangerous in adulthood - a stitch in time saves nine as the saying has it.

We also passed through a lock that had been "decorated" by the friends of a teenager who had lost his life showing off to his friends. My guess is he fell into a lock filling with water. It takes but a moment watching the fierce currents created by an open paddle to realise there is little chance of surfacing alive if pulled under, unless those around you are paying attention, and quickly bring the flow of water to a halt by dropping the paddles.

The combination of bravado, alcohol and lack of respect for the lock are nearly always fatal. In some respects I had no sympathy for the pointless loss of life, but I was much more disturbed by the sentiments - "I hope I'll be with you soon", "You've gone to a better place", "There's nothing here without you" - The sad truth is it wasn't so much a pointless loss of life, as loss of a pointless life.

These are teenagers already sick with life's most crushing disease. They are hapless, helpless, and hopeless.

It's not about changing their environment for them, rather we should be giving them the tools and skills to change it for themselves, and not express too much concern when their choices are different from ours.

That's the joy of the hours spent in solitude on the back of a boat, time to think more clearly, time to get all the way to the end of the thought process, rather than the usual snap decisions. I've learned a lot about myself this week - I always do.

I was telling you about the Germans. Trying to explain that they would need a BW key to unlock the paddles in this lock was farcical. They spoke no English, we no German, mad gesturing with raised arm, frantically holding nothing between thumb and fingers, twisting of wrists. They said some single word over and over, which may have been the German word for key, but could just have easily been an insult.

In the end they seemed to understand and we went on our way, ending as mentioned in yesterday's blog, in beer and pizza.

It was the pizza which came back to haunt me this morning at 6am when the alarm went off. I felt very ropey, a deep lethergy had overcome me, so much so that I nearly went back to sleep. Realising this was not an option if we were to avoid the £100 per hour late-return charge I pulled on some clothes, threw water in my face and put the kettle on.

I half expected, given where we had moored last night, to find the boat set loose from its moorings, but thankfully not. I dealt with all the ropes and mooring spikes, then started the engine. I really should have checked the weedhatch, but the pizza-lethergy thought otherwise.
Chap surfaced and porridge soon followed, and Chap now took the tiller.

I jumped off and began the walk up this flight of locks. It's so easy to walk two or three miles this way, when each lock is five to ten minutes walk apart, it seems almost lazy to get back on the boat if the next lock is only half a mile away.

About an hour in, Chap entered either the second or third lock of the day as I sat on the balance beam. He reported a recent loud bang, resultant loss of power and control over the boat. With the boat safely in the lock, and only one ground paddle half open, I checked the weedhatch. Our first proper gathering of polythene this holiday.

Those plastic bags are a menace, once caught round the prop they act like a net, catching anything and everything as they spin. before long a propeller can be little more than a tangle of twigs, reeds and plastic, no longer able to slice through the water pushing water backwards toward the rudder (and therefore providing steering), nor able to demonstrate Newtons (erm...)th law - something about actions and reactions. Out came the knife, off came the plastic bag and paraphernalia, and soon we were underway once more.

At the third lock of the day we passed the moored Germans.

As each lock passed, the amount of flotsam (now mostly natural) caught above the lock gates increased. Finally it became necessary to use the boat-hook to haul all of this clear in order to open the gates. Fifteen minutes later and a compost heap of leaves, reeds and roots on the lockside, the gates finally opened.

After a brief respite from the locks, I took the tiller while chap washed up the porridge pan and dishes. He also took this opportunity to eat the second half of his pizza from the night before.
We met up with a couple of retired head-teachers, he in shorts (even though at about 9.30am it was still cold) and she determined to work the locks. This time Chap took the windlass, and I the tiller. The retired headmaster looked a lot like a cross between my old deputy-head and Brian Blessed.

We spent a couple of hours in this pleasant company, Chap talking schools and Ipswich to the headmistress, and I boats, canals and schools admission policy with the headmaster.
On the third lock, Chap came back and reported there were two single-handers in the lock ahead. They had tethered together so that one could work the lock, while the other tried to move both boats at the same time. This is not a manoever for the feint-hearted, it places a lot of faith in knotting ability, two 20 ton boats trying to pull away from each other, held together by a failing-knot can cause mayhem. I should also add that both gents seemed very "weathered", as much by alcohol as wind and sun.

We took our time working up behind them. Chap, already filled with pizza didn't want to eat. Having earlier worked some locks on a bowl of porridge, I decided to attempt to cook breakfast below decks whilst waiting for locks to clear.

For the most part this was fine, two boats side by side in a lock are much more stable than a single boat. Having offered and made coffee for the headmaster, I went to check the grill pan full of the last of the bacon. I happened to glance up at the back of my boat from the galley, and noticed the tiller had firmly caught itself under the lockgate balance beam. From this situation, things can very quickly get out of hand, with the back of the boat held at a certain height, the rising water will continue to push the front of the boat upwards, with the rear of the boat held ever closer to the rising water.

I jumped up on deck and put the boat in full forward gear, luckily the back of the tiller popped clear and the boat lurched forward, had it not I would have for the first time in my boating career have shouted for the paddles to be dropped. In coming loose, the tiller handle whacked me hard in the stomach, and in that I was lucky - any lower would have put me out of action for a couple of hours at least.

The headmaster muttered apologies for not paying attention, and I was quick to point out the fault was mine not his.

A couple of locks later and I was able to eat my breakfast whilst we moored once again waiting for the Likely Lads and their two boats to clear the next lock. I asked Chap whether he might engage them in conversation to see if they would give way to us. Their antics thus far had put us an hour behind schedule on our last day.

At the top of the flight of locks, we said goodbye to the headmaster and his headmistress, and tried to make up some time. Chap, back on board, made himself some breakfast, and reported a successful outcome to his negotiations with the two gents.

Half an hour or so later we caught up with them. They had moored aside, and even set the bottom lock of the next flight for us. It was my turn to take the windlass, and I thanked them as they drank their first (I hope!) beers of the day, promising to back-set the locks as we passed through them for as long as doing so would not impede anyone coming the other way.

We said goodbye to them, and continued on our way. Into the last flight of locks of the holiday, I was glad not to be on the boat. Thus far our lock-companions had all been agreeable, our final companions not so much. Luckily there were enough of them to allow me to walk onto the next lock, leaving Chap and the boat in their hands. The speed with which we cleared the final flight demonstrating what having an extra crew-mate would have allowed us. We made up all of the lost time and some, our 8pm finish now looking closer to 6pm.

We left the final lock first, leaving the other boat crew to close up. I took the tiller again whilst Chap had his final shower, by now the day was once more bathed in glorious sunshine. Chap decided to begin clearing through the boat, and after emptying the bin, tried to throw the tied up bag from the forward sidehatch to the bow-well. He missed and the bag went overboard. My skills with boathook proved lacking, resulting in us needing to reverse the boat back up the canal in persuance of the bag. For the first and only time on this holiday, the rear of the boat went aground, whilst the plastic bag floated ahead of us. Chap got the barge-pole and with brute force levered us off the silted canal edge. Armed now with the boathook at the front of the boat, he retrieved the bag and we went on our way.

Through Saddington Tunnel, with the requisite blast of classical music, and thence the three hour dawdle back to the boat yard. In the process we passed through the junction at the bottom of Foxton locks, the canalside busy on this warm Sunday afternoon. The beer-garden of the pub looked inviting. Alas, with car-driving on the agenda for later, we satisfied ourselves with playing Ray Charles "Hit the road, Jack" at some considerable volume to the gathered beer/sun worshippers.

The next tune turned out to be "My World" by Secret Affair, the same band who had a hit with "Time for Action", either of which would make great additions to the ten corporate presentation tunes list posted the other day.

During the final six miles back to the yard I took my turn in the shower, and tided all my belongings away. In the final mile we happened upon a feral child who repaid our friendly greeting by throwing stones at the boat. This annoyed me more than, with hindsight, it should have. I would have let it go except for the footbridge ahead to which the feral child was threatening to run with the express intent of stone-hailing us. I stepped off the boat at the footbridge to cut off the child's path, and to make him realise I was not about to let him run after us for the next mile throwing stones. His response (my guess has him at about seven or eight) was to pull his mobile phone out of his pocket to "get his dad on me". He took the hint and went off in the opposite direction to catch up with his more sensible young friend.

I briefly wondered if I would have an equally feral father to deal with back at the yard, but decided that a dad so disinterested in his son's wherabouts would probably not bother.

In the end we reached the yard about 6.30pm and I washed the outside of the boat down while Chap prepared our final meal onboard. I carried out the final manoevre of the holiday, being to turn the boat around and reverse it into it's mooring place. Normally this is not a major job, but given this boats permanent list, and it's refusal to reverse straight it required care and attention to avoid clouting the other fifteen or so moored boats. We packed and left the boat behind for another year around 8.30pm.