Pounds, paddles and sluices
The 1972 voyage of ‘Hobbit’ around the canal system of England
The idea for my voyage began when I was twenty-one. I wanted to document life on the canals from the inside before it all changed forever.
At the time I was living in Limehouse dock and I managed to buy ‘Hobbit’, a 14foot by 5½foot rowing boat, for £25. I had to take it down the Thames from Teddington back to Limehouse. It was a terrifying and amazing journey taking nine hours using a small outboard engine. I prepared the boat for my epic journey by cleaning and painting it and putting on a canvas cover over the cockpit to make a cabin. I also built in some storage lockers. I bought an outboard motor, a Primus and a Tilly lamp that all ran on paraffin.
I set out on the 15th May travelling up the Regents Canal through London and then up the Grand Union Canal to Watford Gap where the M1, the railway and the canal all nestle together. I continued up the canal to the rivers Soar and Trent. My diary tells me of a series of disasters: engine troubles, failing cameras and budgets with gaping holes in them.
The things I remember best are the wonderful people I met on the way. Coming down Foxton flight I met Graham, Mick, Janet and Sue on ‘Poppy’. They entertained me that evening and the next morning I found some tins of food and spare socks in the bow, their gift to a traveller.
The rivers from Leicester to Goole were daunting in such a small boat and it was essential I had an anchor ready at all times and my spare ‘motor’, oars! to hand. Leaving the Trent at Keadby I entered the last commercial canals in the UK. The locks and swing bridges were manned as 300 ton barges came charging along the cut.
At Great Heck I was able to leave my boat safely and hitch hike home for some rest and recuperation, as well as stocking up on supplies. On the way back I got a lift on a 300 ton barge, which gave me a very different view of the canal.
I continued my journey along the wide industrial Leeds Liverpool canal over the Pennines to Liverpool. My lasting memory of this canal is the swing bridges; the canal was littered with them. Being single handed they were murderous to use. Some of the locks were also in a bad state and one was so bad I couldn’t open it to get out and had to walk down the tow path to find a fisherman to help me.
At Bingley Five Rise they were repairing the lock gates. The lockkeeper there had been working for the canal since before WW1 as a carpenter. The gates there are massive with beams 12inch by 14inch by 33foot long and were made using hand tools.
I travelled through Wigan to Rufford where they were starting to save historic canal boats. I helped work on a dumb barge called ‘Scorpio’ for the museum. When I crossed the Mersey on the swing aqueduct I knew I was on my way home.
I continued towards the Bridgewater canal, the first English canal, but found it had collapsed and a stretch of it was completely dry. I had to get trailered to Lym. There I met Tony, a painter and restorer who was rebuilding a tar carrier for the museum.
Down by Trentham the water level got so low I started picking up rubbish on my propeller including fifty yards of barb wire and a net of dead puppies! One of the fishermen there said he fished with nothing on his line as he really wanted to sit and watch the wild life but people thought that was strange.
Next I came to the notorious Hardcastle tunnel, narrow, dark, haunted and dangerous. It used to have a wooden towpath supported on iron frames but this was now just spikes of wood and rusty iron sticking out of the walls above and below water level ready to rip ‘Hobbit’ to pieces. I have never been so glad to see the end of the tunnel.
In October I was strike bound for a week, the waterways staff staged their first strike in living memory. I finally reached London on the 13th November and left ‘Hobbit’ in Paddinton Basin. I was back in the ‘smoke’, 700 miles, 507 locks and six months later with 30 rolls of film and my diary.
Wherever I went, whatever happened to me, I took photographs recording the life on the canals and also the hardware that made the system work. Each company had their own paddle gears and gates in distinctive and recognisable designs.
In 1972 almost all commercial traffic had disappeared leaving mostly a population of hippies transporting any cargo they could get and the canal leisure business was still in its infancy.
Prints for sale
All the framed pictures are for sale just ask at the cafe .
I will not be posting the framed pictures due to there fragile nature but limited edition prints mounted ready to frame are avialible by post.
!6x20inch mounted prints £60 +£7.99 p&p
Price for framed picture No: 1and 10 £90
Price for framed pictures £80 each
Trent and Mersey lock
Trent and Mersy changeover bridge
Southall
Carpenters tools
Thames at Limehouse lock entrance
Old Wigan Pier
East Marten
Cabin stove Leeds Liverpool type
Hobbit in Big Lock on the Trent and Mersey
Paddington Approach
South Yorkshire Navigation swing bridge
original Bridgewater coal barge for work in the mine.
Worsley and mine entrance
Ice-breaker Kilby Bridge
Bridge Fazely Junction
Brusco Junction
Bank Newton ground paddle
Lockkeeper on the Trent
George on Petrel
Coal for sale Hemel Hempstead
Friendship’s cabin
Friendship moored up
Bexhill and Brighton strike bound
Gasometer
Scorpio restoration at Bursco dry dock
Wigan lock Gear
27. Tom Pudding Pusher Ferrybridge
Balance Beam Grand Union
Melting pitch to repair Scorpio
They are also available as mounted limited edition prints which will be sent directly to you. To order these either email: livingeyester@googlemail.com, or phone or text Bob Clayden on 07882495704, or post to Bob Clayden The Hazels, Mayors Walk, Pontefract WF8 2RP.
Payment can be made for the framed pictures in the Café by cheque or cash
Prints can be paid for by a cheque made out to R Clayden.
Contact me if you require a different sized print or mount.