Ashton Boatman

I just found this article lurking in the deep crevices of my computer. I think I wrote it for Waterways World but i don't think it ever got published. At the time Forget me Not had no engine so Southam  was towing her as well as Lilith. 

I miss the recycling trips, I think a lot of people do. Unfortunately they had to stop because of covid and it's not been possible to re-start them. Nowadays we are having to turn donations away at the door of the charity shop sometimes. i think this is because so many similar shops have closed for lack of volunteers. 

“Southam”s fore end was now crammed with people. Someone had taken the
initiative to make tea for the masses. It was time to get people organised.
Sitting on “Southam”s roof I gave the obligatory safety talk, then selected
people to steer “Forget me Not” and “Lilith” (which were to be towed) and
work various lines as we set off. People moved to their action stations and I
went to “Southam”s engine room to fire up her huge old BMC Commodore.
I suddenly remembered the cat. Celebrity canal cat Captain Kit Crewbucket

had been following me around and trying to trip me up since I arrived. He
wanted his breakfast, but, had I fed him earlier he would have then gone to
sleep in one of the boats, only to wake up in a strange place, panic and
potentially disappear into the bushes. I picked out a sachet of catfood and
squeezed it out on to his dish, before giving last minute instructions to the
crews, untying “Southam” and putting her into forward gear.
The propeller stirred black mud and white carrier bags from the depths of the
arm as it pushed the boat forward then, as soon as she was into the main
canal, I engaged sterngear to avoid hitting the other bank. Moving the gear
lever to neutral position, I walked up the roof and used the shaft to swing the
bow to face in the right direction. “Southam” is very good at towing, having a
powerful engine, but, being a motorised butty, her manouverability is limited.
With the stern against “Forget me Not”s bow I take her line and shout “OK,
untie everything” to the boat crews before taking a turn on the T stud and,
with one hand holding the line and the other holding the tiller, I use my foot to
push the gear rod forward, a little grunt from the engine acknowledging that it
is properly engaged. As “Southam” moves forward I slip the towing line to
accellerate “Forget me Not” without a snatch. As she starts to move someone
walks back along her length with “Lilith”s line. As they hand it to the steerer I
move the gear rod to neutral and drift while they tie it on to the dollies. As the
steerer stands up and “Lilith”s line tautens I engage gear again and the boats
straighten into a line along the canal and past the new flats. The boats follow
dutifully as “Southam” swings round the first turn to enter the narrow confines
of Walk bridge.

It was busy at the boatyard. It's been quiet there for a while as Dave has to spend more time looking after his wife and Kim is sometimes away at his Spanish casa. I've been struggling to get the place sorted for ages, slowly but carefully getting stuff organised, weighed in or sold. Now Tony has got involved with this and I know he's frustrated by my careful sorting of everything. He's done a great job sorting out the non ferrous metals though. We just need the van back on the road so that we can weigh it all in. 

After a bit of a mix up about dates and times Geraldine and Helen showed up. I had planned to ask them to sort out nuts and bolts and screws but, as time had passed, they got on with cutting up all the brash from the foliage clearance and putting it into bulk bags. Dave has been repairing a stove and Kim was processing reclaimed wood for various jobs and painting Forget me Not's deck boards

There seems to be some progress on getting our mooring arranged with CRT at last. We seem to have a bit of a team working on it, including a civil engineer. The big problem has been that they just keep coming up with hoops that are very hard to jump through if you don't speak civil engineerese. 

MOT time for the charity's van is always a bit of a worry. Big vans are expensive even when they are quite old, but so are repairs. Repairs are getting particularly tricky as vehicles get increasingly complicated and full of electronics. Our Transit is 17 years old and it's little electronic brain had a nervous breakdown long before we got it. It has about 180,000 miles on the clock

We've had the van for 2 years, and it's due for its second MOT in our ownership. Last year I took it to a chap in deepest Lancashire who often does repairs for us. He doesn't rip us off and he does a good job. I asked him to get it MOT'd. It had a few minor issues which he dealt with, no problem!  

I thought I'd do the same this year. I drove it to the relevant place and left it in our mechanic friend's capable hands. Next day he phoned me with a long list of faults, lots of welding needed, there was an oil leak that would involve dismantling the engine to fit new oil seals and it had failed on emissions. Emissions is a big one. Worn old diesels get dirty and it's very difficult and costly to get them to run clean again.

I contacted our trustees to explain that we were going to have to spend a few thousand pounds on a replacement van, then got a bus to the little Lancashire town to pick up the vehicle. 

When I saw the fail sheet from the MOT station I began to wonder. The oil leak was an advisory, not a fail. It had actually had that leak as an advisory on the last two MOTs and it hadn't got any worse. I wondered if the engine had been properly warmed up. Cold engines are smoky and it pays to have a good drive round before an MOT.

Next day I called at a local MOT station that I've used before and explained my dilemma. They told me to come back in an hour and they'd do an emissions test. I drove about to get the engine warmed up and lo, the engine did pass.

My conclusion is that our mechanic friend in deepest Lancashire had simply driven the short distance to the MOT centre and had it tested with it's engine still fairly cold. He then bigged up the faults, I suspect because he didn't fancy doing the welding. I don't blame him. It's not a job I've ever done, or ever wanted to do. Grinding out rusty metal with bits falling on you, then welding in new metal in awkward corners, with hot bits falling on you, doesn't really appeal. I'd rather be pecking wood.

Of course, passing an unofficial emissions test doesn't get us an MOT. All the other faults need to be rectified, but, if we know it can pass on emissions then they're worth doing. 

I took the van to see Canis. Our new trustee rejoices in the handle of Canis Fortunatis, latin for Lucky Dog. He has long experience of vehicle repairs and seems to revel in rejuvenating rustbuckets. He had a look under the van at the faults noted on the MOT sheet and declared them perfectly repairable. Today I delivered the van to him loaded with likely bits of metal from the boatyard and a bottle of CO2/Argon mix for his mig welder. I backed the van on to his ramps then cycled home from Chadderton. Fingers crossed for a successful MOT test sometime soon.

The van is a vital tool for the WCBS. We use it most days for ferrying stuff between the boatyard and Portland Basin and it's essential for our charity shop, collecting and delivering furniture etc. We could do with more van driving volunteers, especially for shop deliveries and collections. Don't worry if you're unable to carry furniture. We have a couple of hefty lads to do the hard work, we just need drivers.

                                                        Any offers?

                                                                             Let me know.

Yesterday there was a terrorist attack on a synagogue in a suburb of Manchester. Two men, plus the perpetrator, died. Others are seriously injured in hospital. The media, quite rightly, are full of condemnation of the atrocity. They talk of an upsurge in antisemitism. I saw a video where a young Jewish man claimed that it was all Keir Starmer's fault for recognising Palestine, which he saw as an act of antisemitism in itself.

I must admit that I've been going off Keir Starmer, but he seems to be the current scapegoat for everything, including the failings of his predecessors.

I don't know how many civilians in Gaza died yesterday. The total since October 7th 2023 is over 66,000. Some put it higher. The average is about 91 per day. Lets say it was 91. 

Stalin once said "One death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic". Stalin was a psychopath. 

The three deaths in Manchester yesterday were tragedies. They left grieving friends and relatives. I very much doubt that the perpetrator will be met in Paradise by 72 fawning virgins. 

Are the 91 who died from hunger, bombs and bullets in Gaza yesterday merely statistics. I suppose if you polish off the whole family at least there's no-one left to grieve!

I imagine the man who carried out this attack was motivated by the genocide (call a spade a spade) in Gaza. How he came to imagine that killing some Mancunian Jews would change anything is beyond me. 

How did all this hatred between Jews and Palestinians start? Well, after the right wing genocide of Jews in Europe, survivors sought a Jewish homeland and, based on a vague declaration by Lord Balfour, they headed for their ancient homeland of Palestine. Their ancestors had been ejected from here by the Romans after a rebellion. Since then, Jews had lived in many lands and faced much persecution. The wish to set up their own state in their ancestral land, which was reluctantly administered by the British,was understandable. 

Just one problem! The land was already settled by people whose title deeds were granted by the Ottoman Empire, who ruled here pre- 1918. 

To be honest, no-one came out of the establishment of Israel in 1948 with a lot of moral credit. Jewish terrorists and militias had already been fighting the British, who basically gave up on refereeing the conflict.  To quote Leon Rosselson  (who is Jewish) "By theft and murder they took the land, now everywhere the walls spring up at their command".  750,000 Palestinians were ejected from their homes and land. They call it the Nakba, which translates as catastrophe. You can understand them being pissed off!

Over the years more wars have happened between Israel and the Palestinians, sometimes supported by surrounding Arab states. Israel has the apparently unlimited support of the world's greatest military power, the USA. The electoral make up of that country makes it almost impossible for a president to get elected without the Jewish vote.

After the war of 1967, Israel essentially had control of the whole area. Some parts were occupied but not officially annexed by Israel. Instead, they allowed settlers to illegally, according to international law, take land for themselves. The old Ottoman title deeds were seen as invalid. A friend of mine went and worked in one of these settlements in the 1980s. He told me that the life of a Palestinian was regarded as "not worth a light". 

Foolishly, in my view, Palestinians have tried to fight back with violence. Sometimes this is kids throwing stones at soldiers, and getting bullets in return. Suicide bombers, knife attackers, plane hijackers, home made rocket launches or, as on October 7th 2023, a large scale attack on civilians and taking of hostages. 

In order to have a war you need to dehumanise your enemy. You have to portray them as demons with no redeeming human characteristics. The man who wielded the knife at the Manchester Synagogue was not thinking he was killing people with friends and lovers and families. He was thinking he was ridding the world of vermin. The same dehumanisation takes place when Israeli fighters shell schools and hospitals.

The old testament lays down the rule of "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth". In other words, revenge should never be disproportionate. The attack of October 7th was awful and dastardly and wrong, even if it wasn't as extreme as the Israeli media machine has made out. The response has been far more than an eye for an eye. Jesus said turn the other cheek. Gandhi said "an eye for an eye will make the whole world blind".

It has to stop!  The Palestinians have to have their own land where they can live peacefully, but to do that they have to accept that the state of Israel is a reality that will not go away. Violence against it is futile as it is now a great military power (they have an 'iron dome' missile defence system that our islands lack). Israel has to accept that most of the world finds its behaviour towards Palestinians repugnant. Their genocide in Gaza has been the greatest spur to antisemitism in my lifetime. It has to withdraw to its 1967 borders, close down the illegal settlements and help to rebuild the massive infrastructure destruction that it has carried out in Gaza.

How this can come about I don't know. Recognising Palestine and condemning the genocide for what it is is a first step. Some in the Israeli government actually believe that God has promised them the whole of Judea and Samaria of old testament days. Israeli citizens and Jews around the world need to understand that the recent actions of Israel have made it a pariah state, rather like apartheid South Africa. 

I recall that the IRA started negotiating after their own supporters were horrified by the killing of two children in Warrington and the noble reaching out to them by the father of one of them. Perhaps, just perhaps, all this psychopathic killing will spur on both sides to come together and find a solution. Both sides are made up of human beings, even if their leaders seem to lack any kind of human decency.

I like diversity. I don't see why some people have a problem with it. 

There used to be a takeaway in Ashton run by an elderly man from Pakistan. I used to like going in there for a kebab or a bhuna. In the evenings, between customers, he would sit with his friend, who wore more traditional clothing, watching Pakistani TV. As I waited for my food I would lean over the counter to watch the TV too, trying to work out what was going on as I don't understand urdu. Occasionally one of the men would make a derogatory comment about one of the politicians in the news. 

One evening as I waited the friend became animated. He stood up to leave, turned to me  and said "why people tell me go home back where I come from? I serve 20 years in British army. My father served in British army. My grandfather and my great grandfather serve in British army. We risk our lives for this country and yet these people who do nothing say this is not my home". 

I don't know what prompted that outburst. Presumably he had encountered some racist abuse. 

One evening I was waiting for my meal when a white man of perhaps 40 came into the shop. He wore shorts and a T shirt, had a slight belly, short hair and a ruddy face. You could sum up his appearance with the word gammon, though he bore no flags. To my surprise he ducked under the counter and went into the kitchen where he was greeted fondly by the old man. After a while the young man left. The proprietor of the shop smiled as he handed me my meal and said proudly "my son in law".

Just to add to the diversity. for a long time the shop displayed a poster for a local Hindu guru.

Recently a disabled septuagenarian went out for lunch in Ashton with a much younger friend. The old lady's skin is white, her friend's skin is black. They went to an excellent cafe on Penny Meadow which is run by the daughter of Pakistani immigrants. You can get Asian food there or you can get English food, and the cakes are delicious. The full English breakfast is served with turkey rashers rather than bacon to ease dietary sensibilities. 

After they had eaten the two women made their way down to the marketplace, mostly fenced off for construction works. The older lady was limping and pushing the wheelchair that she sometimes needs to sit in. 

As they passed MacDonalds a man with two fighting dogs on leads started shouting at a Muslim family. The woman was wearing a hijab, which seems to rile some people. The shouting man clearly was under the illusion that the family had recently arrived by boat and had been given a house for free, whereas he was homeless. He kept shouting EDL, EDL, EDL. 

Most people were very British about it (don't get involved) and pretended nothing was happening. The old white lady (herself the great grandchild of economic migrants) had a good anti fascist upbringing from her mother and a Jewish headmaster. She knew not to turn a blind eye, so she took out her 'phone and started to video the incident. The Asian family left and the noisy man turned his attention to the two ladies. He wasn't so bothered by the white woman, but turned his venom on her young black friend. His prejudices told him that she too had arrived on a rubber dinghy and was a burden on the taxpayer. He kept shouting that there was going to be a civil war.

Terrified by the dogs the young woman ran into a shop, followed by her hobbling older friend. Two big Asian lads barred entry to the troublemaker and, being unable to carry on bullying, he went away. 

The young black woman works as a carer, looking after disabled people. She used to often take her clients out for a coffee in Ashton town centre. Now she says she is afraid to go there. 

I like Ashton. I wasn't born here. I'm a foreigner from Warwickshire. I choose to live here. In my daily activities I meet people of virtually all races and all religions. I like this. In all races and all religions there are lots of good people, and a few complete tossers. Sadly, it's often the tossers who get noticed.  Of all the white people on the market that day the most noticeable one was the nasty, loud, bullying dog man. Sometimes I ask people about their backgrounds. It's interesting. The other day I was serving an Iranian woman in the shop. If she was in Iran she would have to comply with a strict dress code. Here she can wear what she likes. She says she is lucky that people think she is Spanish (that doesn't have the stigma of refugee).

They say that if you don't learn from history you are doomed to repeat it. 

After the great war the population of defeated Germany felt humiliated. They thought they'd been cheated. In 1917 the Russians made peace and handed over huge areas of land. Early in 1918 German troops made a huge advance into France, only to be overrun later in the year. There were good military reasons for this, but to most people it was a puzzle. How could that happen? 

The victors of that war imposed crippling reparations payments. The currency collapsed. There was mass unemployment. It must be somebody's fault!

A charismatic orator came along. He wasn't too worried about what was true, only about what would stir people up to violence. He said he could make Germany great again. He said the people's troubles were all the fault of the Jews. They were parasites leaching on and betraying the good German people. He encouraged people to attack Jewish property. 

Hatred suddenly became socially acceptable.

Those who stood up for decency were pilloried. Most kept quiet. People quietly dropped their Jewish friends. The great leader's  party won an election. Killing Jews became government policy.

It didn't end well for the gentiles or the Jews!  Millions died and the great leader ended up killing himself in a bunker surrounded by Soviet troops.

You may think I'm exaggerating the dangers.

                                                                           I'm not. 

People keep asking me when Hazel will be back in service. I had hoped by the end of the month, but, with only a week to go that's looking a bit unlikely. People wonder why it's taking so long. Here's my excuses.

1)   I keep being diverted on to other tasks. It would be nice if there were more volunteers to do the other tasks. It would be even nicer if they were self organising volunteers. A lot of the time I end up spending more time explaining how to do a job, finding tools and materials and checking its being done properly than it would take me to do it myself. I'm also still spending a day every week running the shop so that Christine can have a much needed day off.

2) I'm doing the job properly and carefully. The electrical cupboard was rather thrown together when it was first made as we were under pressure to get the boat into service. Whilst getting the boat back into service is important now, I intend the work that I'm doing to outlast me. I reckon that Hazel will need a comprehensive renovation sometime around 2045. It should last until then. It's conceivable that I'll still be around then, aged 92, but I won't be doing much boatbuilding.

3) I'm insisting on having a day off every week. Well, sort of. I've chosen Wednesday, so that I can attend Latihan, but most Wednesdays I seem to spend catching up with office work and writing.

4)  I put a brave face on it but I'm still not very well. I get tired easily. I put it down to Long Covid. Whatever it is, it's a blasted nuisance.

Anyway, having got my excuses in first, what have we been doing? Nessie has largely repainted the interior. Currently he's putting trims round the windows where we've bulked up the insulation (because of hot summers rather than cold winters). The trim is made of strips of copper cut from an old hot water tank that was donated as scrap. The extended central heating is nearly ready to be tested. The LiFePo batteries are now charging off the sun and running all the electrics. I'm just finishing off the woodwork around the electricity cupboard, which will now include shelf space for tools etc, and more accessible fuses, switches etc. 

The windows.

The electrical cupboard.

I haven't been posting much because, well, nothing very exciting has happened. I've been plodding away at repairs and improvements to Hazel. Just lately this has mostly been in the electrical cupboard. This is under the foredeck and it's where the batteries and all the fuses and switches go. I was never very happy with it as the woodwork was rather thrown together (under pressure to get the boat finished) and the fuses etc were very inaccessible. The need to replace the batteries gave an excuse to rip it all out and do it better.

The new LiFePo batteries are now installed and charging nicely off the solar panels. The switches and fuses etc are being re-fitted in a much more ergonomic manner. There will actually be more storage space inside the cupboard too. 

Joe the Tree Surgeon has finished docking his boat Benevolence  at Guide Bridge and has tied her next to Hazel while he returns to Cumbria where he has work. He's looking to base himself aboard Benevolence  half the time and try to get work around Greater Manchester. 

Joe the tree feller bought himself a wooden narrow boat called Benevolence. She was built in 1938 by Nursers of Braunston for John Green of Macclesfield. In the 1980s my late friend Martin Cox was given the Keay Award for his work on her, but, since then, she's been rather neglected. Joe brought her from Oxford to Ashton, narrowly missing getting stranded by the breach at Bosley.

This week Benevolence has been on dock at Ashton Packet Boats. Joe said he was just going to have a look, put some patches on leaky bits and measure up for future replanking. Instead he ripped out a substantial length of rotten plank. I wondered if he was going to be ready for launching on Saturday, but, today he let in a substantial length of temporary pine plank. He's still cutting it fine, but Joe is a grafter! 

When he gets back to his native Cumbria, Joe will be looking out for some nice big oak trees that need felling. 

Once upon a time Lancashire was packed with cotton mills. Each one had a huge steam engine to drive the looms via cotton ropes and line shafting. One of the main traffics of the Ashton canal was short distance runs of coal from local pits to feed the boilers of the mills that lined it's banks. Tropical plants grew in the water because of the amount of hot water flowing out of the mills. 

In the 1950s and 60s, one by one, they closed down.  Amazingly, in the deepest Lancashire village of Haslingden one survived in production, steam powered, up until 1979. The engine and one of the weaving sheds are still there and are being restored and developed as a museum. Yesterday I paid it a visit. The weaving shed wasn't open but I got to see the magnificent mil engine and the exhibition of bikes, cars and smaller steam and internal combustion engines .It's not a highly polished professionally presented museum but a reflection of the volunteer's love of old engineering. I rather like that. It's only open once a month, but well worth a visit.  Here's some pictures.

I've just come across some photos of Southam  on a recycling trip in summer 2012. Work on resurrecting her is currently paused while we concentrate on Hazel,  but will soon resume.