Who are The Bona Boaters?

The Bona Boaters are a group of friends who since 1992 have taken an annual narrowboat holiday together. They are mostly members of Ebor Morris  which is a Men's Morris Dancing side based in York. The members of Ebor Morris are Pete W, Dave (also known as BTS1), John, Gareth, Pete M and Ernie - now sadly deceased. There are also two members of Acorn Morris which is a  women's Morris Dancing side also from York. They are Chris, (also known as Nursie ) and Jennifer (Ernie's wife). There are also several of their friends who have no direct connection with Morris Dancing - they are Margaret (Gareth's wife), Stan (see Bargecade ), Colin, Iain, Geoff and Alan - also now sadly deceased. Although they have been boating together since 1992, it is believed that the name "Bona Boaters" was first coined in 1996. 

In those days, audio cassette tapes [..remember them ?..] were often brought along for some after-pub entertainment. CDs had only relatively recently come to market, and whilst there were some CDs about, most boat radios of the time [..which were usually retrofitted car radios..] could not yet play them. There was virtually no internet and certainly no mp3s or streaming services back in those days either. 

One of the more popular tapes was "Julian & Sandy" from the 1960's BBC Radio show "Round The Horne". In each episode, Julian (played by Hugh Paddick) and Sandy (played by Kenneth Williams) were to be found in a new heavily-double-entendre-laden situation, but always with the name 'Bona' in the title eg Bona Books, Bona Law, or Bona promotions etc.  hence the name Bona Boaters was coined and seemed to stick.