Man of the Canals

Here's a challenge: as we descend the Bank Newton locks, one of the boats gets jammed in the lock gates and the other boat becomes wedged to it. As the lock starts to empty, one boat tilts at a sickening angle and is danger of filling with water. Hurriedly we start to refill the lock again, while the guys still aboard rock them like a seesaw to try and free them. Eventually there is an almighty crash and the boats right themselves. Thankfully there's no injury but it's a cautionary tale, not helped by the fact that some of the canal authorities knew this lock was defected and had neglected to broadcast this. The picture shows a distant view of yours truly, obeying orders.

Tradition has it that on the final afternoon the Man of the Canals awards take place. This is a largely ironic procedure in which people get nominations for selected categories. The Best Dressed Man was the guy for wearing clean clothes daily (until the dousing at Bank Newton) and Worst Driver was your narrator who, while waiting downstream for a lock to empty, steered the boat right up to the lock gates, positioning it at right-angles to the canal and so blocking the boat that was trying to leave. We then tot up the marks and award the Man of the Canals to the guy with the highest total (Roger, for organising the trip, among other things). There's a Boy of the Canals and the Third Man, for which the trophy is a musical box playing the theme tune from the film of the same name. As a friend of mine queried: "How old are you?" We're all old enough for our bus passes but with a mental age of about 10!

I've decided that after over 25 years, this will be my final canal trip. It's been a great ride but as one door closes.........Read more