Ashton Boatman

Before we left, Nessie had given us an allegedly good battery to work the headlight. In Preston Brook tunnel this faded to nothing. Luckily we had a good powerful LED torch with us which saw us through Saltisford and Barnton tunnels. The weather was still baking hot and the overheated water was beginning to cause problems for aquatic life. In the wide between the two tunnels we passed the sad remains (and stench) of many dead fish.We tied for the night opposite Anderton Marina.

A few years ago we tied at Anderton Marina overnight and they charged our batteries for free because of our charitable status. The marina is now under corporate management which is less altruistic.

In the morning we shafted “Hazel” over to the marina for a pumpout. The pump was very slow and didn’t complete the task, though we still had to pay the full £22.60. The cheerful lady operating the pump engaged me in a conversation about toilets and the necessary compound that we add to them to prevent odours. She congratulated us on the quality of our sewage. Nigel Hamilton arrived to examine “Hazel” for her Boat Safety Certificate, which, thankfully, he issued. We tried to fill “Hazel”s water tank but found that our hose was useless.

We carried on to Middlewich but were a bit worried about finding a suitable spot to tie. Some boats had ignored the notices closing the moorings to non festival boats, so we had to tie, breasted, just above Big Lock, making it a challenge for novice boaters to get past. Despite our insistence that these were historic boats, the festival organisers had included us in the floating market area.

On the Saturday morning Iain and Vicki arrived with the tombola to set up, our first use of the fine big gazebo that was donated several years ago.

I spent much of my time aboard “Hazel” chatting with visitors and doing my best to persuade them to become “Hazel” sponsors. This kept us busy all day and most of Sunday,

One of the difficulties if we have a private booking is to pare down the crew to just those for whom there is space in the back cabins. Generally I’m trying to fill the boats for trips so that the maximum of people can benefit, but, if it’s a private booking the boat is all for our guests. In this case the crew for the Weaver trip was to be Liz and me and sadly, others were disappointed to have to go home on Sunday. Aaron was to stay for Monday then leave us.

On Sunday evening I got a train home to collect the Land Rover. Changing trains on Crewe station I got a ‘phone call from one of our guests to say that the other had been taken into hospital and so they wouldn’t be coming.

We decided to go on to the Weaver anyway as the lift passages were booked and paid for. I started trying to get back some of the crew I’d sent home!

Monday evening found us back at Anderton where we took “Hazel” into Uplands marina ,where Liz keeps her boat. Maxine joined us and we all trooped off to the Stanley Arms for a meal, only to find that it was the chef's night off. We returned to the boat and Liz rustled up a meal from what was in the cupboards.

 Liz had  arranged for us to stay the night, charge the batteries and fill the water tank, using a borrowed hose. It was a struggle to get “Hazel” alongside the facilities area as the water was only deep enough for lightweight pleasure boats. Another £22.60 bought us a complete pump out from Anderton Marina in the morning.

Our booking on the Anderton lift was around midday and, after being lowered down we tied up and went for lunch in the lift cafe.

Afterwards we headed upriver

and tied in Northwich for shopping, where Maxine left us.

Wednesday morning Liz and I carried on upriver.

The plan had been to go to Winsford but Vale Royal locks were closed (are they ever open?). We winded below the locks and Liz made an excellent job of bringing the pair on to a landing stage on which there was only about 50 feet available because of a fibreglass cruiser that had been left there.

After lunch we went downstream again

to tie for the night at Acton Bridge. 

I took “Forget me Not” down to Dutton locks to seek out some old friends who live in one of the lockside houses. As a result of my phoning around ,Lois joined us.

Thursday afternoon we were booked back up the lift so we went back towards Anderton.

 After ascending we winded and headed North.

Just past the lift the canal narrows. We had travelled breasted for a short way from the winding hole but began to single out . As we started doing this we met a series of boats coming the other way. A complication was that the butty stuck to the motor, as sometimes happens, and it took a lot of pushing to get her to slip back so that we were only taking up 7 feet of canal width rather than 14 feet. For a horrible moment I thought that “Hazel” was going to collide head on with an oncoming steel boat. As we rounded the turn we were confronted with more oncoming craft as well as boats moored on both sides of the canal. A single boat could stop under control but, rather like an aeroplane, a motor and butty pair just has to keep moving forward. With some nifty steering we managed to keep moving and avoid any collisions.

We tied in the wide between Barnton and Saltisford tunnels. Alistair had been travelling from the deep South and joined us just in time for tea.

On Friday we travelled on through Saltisford tunnel and along the edge of the Weaver valley to Dutton. Whilst waiting for entry to Preston Brook tunnel Paul and Lynnette of the Dutton Dry DockCompany kindly donated some very useful rope.

We stopped briefly just after Preston Brook Marina so that Lois could catch a train home from Runcorn East station.

The idea of calling at the Bridgewater Motor Boat Club on a Friday evening was that it’s their club night when the bar is open. Their club house, at the Sprinch, is about 100 yards from the site of Simpson Davies boatyard where “Hazel” was built, now lost under an expressway. This particular Friday virtually everyone in the club had gone on a cruise to Middlewich and the bar was closed. Nevertheless, the few people who were there were very welcoming.

I’d left the Land Rover parked on a posh looking street in Middlewich. One of the door locks was faulty. My calculation was that if I left it somewhere posh they’d call the police, but this was preferable to leaving it somewhere dogrough, where it would get robbed. Sure enough, the shop got a ‘phone call from the police.

On Friday evening I caught a train from Runcorn to Winsford, then a ‘bus to Middlewich to pick up the vehicle. Early on Saturday morning I drove to Lymm to park it ready for the event. I had hoped to return to Runcorn by ‘bus but the first one was not until 9.30, which was too late. I walked along the old railway track and then alongside the Manchester Ship Canal, Including a detour along the now dry bed of the side cut that I remember being used by the “Humber Trader” and “Panary” to deliver grain to Allied Mills Warrington works. Eventually I caught a Runcorn bound bus from Daresbury.

Saturday should have been the “Hazel” sponsors trip. Our guests were Keith and Elsa Williams and Glenys and Graham Lee. Unfortunately I failed to turn the fuel on and this led to a series of problems culminating in the starter motor packing up. We had to haul the boats back to the Sprinch and throw them on to the mercies of the BMBC. Luckily our guests didn’t seem too disappointed and Graham and Glenys gave me a lift to Lymm to pick up the Land Rover, which was now in the wrong place again!

At the Lymm event we used road vehicles to establish our stall in a field full of historic cars and ran another successful tombola.

Monday 26^th should have been the day when we left the Bridgewater canal to start ascending the locks towards Ashton. Instead it was the day on which I took the starter motor to Middletons in Hulme to be fixed. That particular motor is not one that you can take to a car parts shop for an exchange. I asked Middletons to look into getting a spare as this was not the first time we’d had problems with it. They told me the cheapest one they’d been able to source was £800!

For the next fortnight myself and Aaron took it in turns to look after the boats at Runcorn. The BMBC people were very helpful, but eventually we had to move off their moorings as there was simply nowhere to put two 70’ boats without interfering with other activities.

Whilst the boats were stranded in Runcorn, ugly rumours circulated about problems on the Rochdale canal in Manchester. A check on the CRT website revealed that a heelpost had failed on one of the locks, thus denying us the most direct route home. I posted on Facebook that we would have to take the longer route via Macclesfield, only for someone to point out that another heelpost had failed on the Trent & Mersey, thus blocking that route.

Regular checking of stoppage updates suggested that the Trent & Mersey was going to be open first, so, when I was finally able to fit the repaired starter, Aaron and I set out once more in the direction of Middlewich.

Generally speaking, when our pair travel around the waterways they elicit a positive response from onlookers, be they boaters or gongoozlers. The cameras and mobile ‘phones often come out to record the event. Sadly, it’s an evolutionary quirk of humans that we notice the negative more than the positive. We notice loud, fat, stupid Americans much more than we notice quiet, slim, intelligent ones for example.

Preston Brook tunnel has a timed entry system to prevent boats meeting in the middle. We had to wait at the Northern entrance for our entry time. One boat was ahead of us. The last of a convoy of Northbound boats was a little late leaving the tunnel, but I’m pretty sure we were within our time slot. 10.30 to 10.40 AM, when we entered. I suppose I did go quite slow but as I exited the tunnel I saw an angry looking old man anxiously watching. I checked the time and saw that it was 11.02. We were 2 minutes late. As we passed his boat, the only one waiting, he launched into a tirade against me. The gist of this was that we were 5 minutes late and that this was proof positive that I was riding roughshod over the rights of law abiding boaters and people like me (?!!!!) thought the rules didn’t apply to us. His wife looked a little embarrassed. I pointed out that he really needed to go boating more often in order to learn the calming ways of the cut.

Immediately South of Barnton tunnel the canal describes an S bend. The southward part of this is rather tricky, a very tight turn leading to a blind narrow bridgehole which has been extended into the curve as the road has been widened. I was pleased that we were able to negotiate this without either boat catching the vicious concrete edging. Beyond this watery chicane the canal continues very narrow, with some moored boats to complicate navigation. As we passed these we could see a steel boat approaching from the opposite direction. Despite the restricted width of the waterway, there was room to pass each other. To my surprise the oncoming boat suddenly crashed into a forest of Japanese Knotweed on the outside bank and stopped.

As I passed the steerer he loudly asked “Why are you towing that pile of s**t” then ordered me to “cut it loose”. It was clear that an intake of intoxicating fluids had clouded his judgement. He shouted more abuse at Aaron as he passed. I didn’t catch the details but Aaron later told me that he had been very rude.

One of the sad things that I’ve noticed in recent years is that very few people seem to understand that a motor and butty are an item and that working boats that way is one of the traditions of the cut. The assumption, even amongst many boat dwellers, is that “Hazel” has broken down. My explanation that she is a butty usually meets with blank incomprehension. I even once had a red faced canal worker screaming at me because, having worked the motor through a lock, I drew a paddle to refill it for the following butty.

The roasting hot weather had ended with the Lymm festival and we boated on through many showers and gusty winds. We could have reached Middlewich that day , but I was aware of the need to get back to Runcorn by public transport. At Broken Cross, near Northwich, we found a 70 foot gap in a long line of moored craft and pulled into it, in spite of the now vicious and wet wind having other ideas. I rushed off to go and collect the Land Rover, discovering in the process how useless public transport can be away from Greater Manchester. We were both required back at base to do shop deliveries the next day.

On our return we discovered that a combination of speeding boats, gales and rather soft ground had conspired to pull out our mooring pins and set the boats adrift. They had been re-moored by a combination of strength from passing hire boaters and skill from the elderly couple on the next boat.

Sam joined us and we set off towards the flashes, then followed the wandering route through the woods, fields and reed beds of Whatcroft until, at last, Middlewich hove into view.

We stopped at Town Wharf to take water, then moved the short distance to Andersen’s hire base for a pump out. My calculation was that, if we left the fridge switched off, “Hazel” would need no more servicing until we reached Ashton.

It’s a strange thing, rather like the well known phenomenon regarding ‘buses. Whilst we were busy catering to “Hazel”s domestic needs, the cut was remarkably quiet. As soon as we started to work the locks, myriad craft appeared from both directions. A pleasure boat had occupied the lock landing so I had to perform some acrobatics to tie “Hazel” to a tree growing in the bank of the adjacent river Croco in order to allow a downhill boat to leave the first lock.

One of the boats following us was the former River class butty “Yeo”. Though still looking like a butty and sporting original fibreglass ‘blue tops’ this boat has in fact been discreetly motorised. River class boats, resembling anorexic Thames lighters, represent the final fling of working narrow boat building. Of welded steel construction with plywood cabins they had the innovation of glass fibre lids to protect the load rather than the traditional cloths. Some were built as late as 1962 and most had extremely short working lives.

“Yeo”s skipper generously helped others through the locks, including us, despite being singlehanded himself.

We tied the motor above the third lock to allow the bowhauled butty to catch up, then towed past the moored boats at The Wharf and past Wardle junction to work up Kings Lock and tie, breasted, beside the main road. I had positioned the Land rover nearby in the morning, so I was able to give Sam a lift back to his car. Later that evening “Yeo” passed us, bemoaning the time wasted helping others, tying for the night below Rumps Lock.

For the next day’s journey Alistair once again braved the motorways of England to join us, arriving first despite having travelled about 200 miles. Paul and Kate Sillitoe also joined us, along with Chrissie Gladwin. This was nice as I hadn’t seen them for years. Back in 1990 Paul helped me to fight the authoritarian British Waterways Bill. They helpfully left a car at Malkins Bank, our destination for the day.

The weather was a mix of sunshine and rain. From Middlewich to Sandbach the locks are single and narrow, well spaced out so we towed on a short strap between them. Rumps lock and Crows Nest Lock are notoriously tight and pose difficulties for a boat, such as “Southam”, suffering from middle aged spread.

At each lock the motor would tow the butty into the tail and stop it just short of the gates. The mastline would be thrown up on to the lockside and the gates closed behind the motor. Once the top paddles were drawn the butty would be pulled tight against the bottom gates and the line tied to a lockside bollard so that she couldn’t move. When the lock was full the top gate would be opened and the motor moved out, then backed on to the top gate as soon as it was closed to be left ticking over in reverse gear whilst waiting for the butty to work through.

The lock would be emptied with the butty right tight against the bottom gates. This is important. If left drifting below the lock the flush from the paddles would carry her away. If the line was slack and a gap was left between boat and gate then an eddy would carry her forward to hit the gates with an unpleasant crash. Similarly, once the butty is in the lock she has to be tied tightly forward to keep her from bashing about in the lock.

As the butty rises she is connected again to the motor with the short strap. The motor steerer steps aboard, engages forward gear and the butty helps to open the gate as she nudges forwards.

Above Crows Nest lock there’s a long pound which winds round the edge of Sandbach and carries on to Wheelock. The banks have been raised with brutal concrete to compensate for salt mining subsidence.

From Wheelock the locks are paired, ie, two narrow locks side by side. If they’re both working these are excellent for a motor and butty. The motor casts off the butty as they approach the locks and the butty drifts into one lock while the motor enters the other. The two boats work through simultaneously, then join together again above the lock. By using a long line to tow the motor can pull the butty out of its lock, thus saving a lot of effort.

On this occasion the long line strategy didn’t work as the angle of pull made the motor uncontrollable. I puzzled about this, it’s worked before! Eventually I realised that I’d only done it in the past going downhill, where the lock islands are shorter. Our line simply wasn’t long enough for uphill use. Instead we had to work the motor over to the butty’s side, which was inconvenient. I’ll bring a longer line next time!

Soon we reached Malkins Bank

where we caught up with “Yeo” again. “Yeo” was carrying on to tie just below the broken lock, several locks further up at Hassall Green. I wanted to stop at Malkins Bank to see more old friends that I’ve been out of touch with for years. For many years Malcolm Webster has run a boatyard in the arm here and has carried out some first class restorations. The last one was a new hull for “Lady Hatherton”, the former directors launch of the Staffordshire and Worcestershire canal. Nowadays he does little boat work as Pam, his partner, is disabled by a stroke and his time is taken up with caring for her.

We tied up and did the usual car shuffle to all get home again. From home I monitored updates on the lock repairs. As it happens, I was on “Hazel” doing some jobs when the lock opened, a little ahead of schedule. We couldn’t move immediately as I had to round up a crew and I was required at Ashton on the Thursday to do shop deliveries.

It was Friday 21^st July when we were able to move again. The schedule was set by lock limitations because of an (alleged) lack of water on the Macclesfield/Peak Forest summit and unavoidable appointments for me and Aaron on Monday 24^th.

My plan was to set off from Malkins bank at 7am and put in a good day in order to make sure we were on the Macclesfield canal by nightfall. In fact, just as I was preparing to start the engine, a rattle of paddle gear told me that someone else had started even earlier. A fibreglass boat passed and took the lock that I had just set.

Chrissie and her friend John had spent the night parked up in their respective camper vans. Aaron and Elizabeth had stayed on “Hazel”, myself on “Forget me Not”. Paul joined us having parked his car at Rode Heath and walked down. We were soon making good progress, despite the pleasure boat ahead of us, and quickly reached the lock that had been broken. This was once a paired lock, but one lock of the pair had long ago been abandoned. As we were leaving , Chrissie and Paul were changing over as butty steerers/lock wheelers so that Chrissie could exercise her dog on the towpath. Unfortunately Paul missed the boat as he tried to get aboard and fell into the head of the lock. We stopped the boats and lit the stove in “Hazel” to help Paul to dry out.

The two Pierpoint locks are singles close together, so we drew the butty into the tail of the first lock. As the motor rose in the first lock I saw that a boat was coming down the second lock, which would normally take our return lockfull. However, our butty was already firmly tied in the tail of the lock and it would be a major faff to back it out. I decided that I’d explain to the steerer of the downhill boat that it was our butty and needed to follow on. I had miscalculated the personality of the steerer.

Almost before he had entered the pound he began shouting that it was his lock and swearing at me. My attempt at explanation was drowned out by his foul mouthed tirade. I missed the next part of the canal rage incident as I was working the motor through the next lock. I am told that he approached Aaron and threatened him with violence, only backing off because Chrissie began videoing the scene with her ‘phone.

Peace returned above Peirpoint and soon we reached Rode Heath, where Paul left us to drive home and dry out properly. Steadily we climbed up away from the Cheshire plain through pleasant dairy farming country. Some locks were paired, some were single. We towed between some and bowhauled the butty between others, depending on the distance involved. At last we reached the paired locks that mark the summit.

Counter intuitively, the turn to the Macclesfield canal is to the right rather than the left. In fact this first part is a branch of the Trent & Mersey which turns Eastward to cross the main canal by an aqueduct. The Trent & Mersey company charged a huge toll for using this short length to discourage traders from using the shorter, but more heavily locked, Macclesfield route to get to Manchester. Along this short but expensive stretch we passed two wooden Thomas Clayton tar boats, “Tay” and “Spey”, facing in opposite directions.

Up until the mid 1960s, when ‘North Sea Gas’ made coal gas redundant, these wooden tank boats were used to transport liquid bye products, such as tar, from gasworks to chemical plants. They even transported diesel fuel from Ellesmere Port to the midlands!

At Hall Green stop lock the Macclesfield Canal proper begins. We worked through. The lock only has a fall of about 6”. We found a 70 foot gap in the moored craft and breasted up for the night.

I cycled to Malkins Bank to collect the Land Rover. Later I had a conversation with a hire boater who was baffled by the idea of using unpowered boats and had never heard of a butty. I told him to google it. He probably learned a lot about sandwiches that evening.

Having parked their vans nearby, Chrissie and John left in the morning. That left Aaron, Elizabeth and I with the pleasant task of moving the boats on to the bottom of Bosley locks, ready to ascend the following day. Because of (alleged) water shortages the locks were only open two days a week.

I was pleased to find that we were only third and fourth in the queue. Other boats began form up behind us, including “Tay”. Immediately ahead was a brand new all singing all dancing full knobs and whistles boat called “Unforgettable”. What an appropriate name that turned out to be. Its proud owner was a quietly spoken American from Michigan.

I cycled back to Hall Green, drove the Land Rover to Macclesfield then cycled back along the towpath to Bosley. I’d had a text to say that my hospital appointment had been changed to a telephone consultation, but Aaron still needed to get back to Ashton and Elizabeth had to get home for her cat.

At 8.30 prompt CRT volunteers arrived to unlock the flight and start helping boats through. Just as we were about to start moving Joe, Alex and John appeared simultaneously. Joe is a tree surgeon from Cumbria who supplied some of the timber for “Hazel”. He brought with him a young part trained sheep dog called Dexter who he had rescued from a rather unpleasant existence. Alex used to work at the Boat Museum but is now employed at the Wharf hire base in Middlewich. I wasn’t expecting John as the lack of ‘phone signal in the area meant that I hadn’t got his messages.

I took the motor up the locks, sometimes alone, sometimes with help from Joe, leaving the rest of the team to haul the butty through. I quickly found that we also had to work “Unforgettable” through the flight as the American was singlehanded and had new knee joints, which made it difficult to climb lock ladders. His strategy seemed to be to sit helplessly in a lock until someone worked it for him.

His plan was to take the boat via the Rochdale Canal to York. He would then have a routine of alternating 3 weeks on the boat, followed by 3 weeks in the USA, clocking up a formidable amount of air miles and a king sized carbon footprint. Of course, he is a climate change denier, in spite of the increasingly urgent warnings of climate scientists.

It will be interesting when he gets on to the tidal Ouse and has to negotiate the Selby bridges on a flood tide!

At the top lock Alex took over steering the motor and I enjoyed sitting on the deck watching the countryside slip by.

We tied in Macclesfield

and Alex and I walked to the nearby street where I had parked the Land rover. It was making a strange croaking noise and the battery was flat. As soon as we started trying to sort out the problem angry residents appeared complaining that the horn had been blaring all night, keeping them awake. It looked like the alarm had gone off, but I’d no idea why. The croaking noise was the horn extracting the last few milliamps of power from the battery.

Attempts to start the Land Rover proved futile, and noisy. Alex came to the rescue. He ‘phoned a friend in Macclesfield who gave him a lift to pick up his vehicle, then he gave Elizabeth, Aaron and me a lift back to Ashton.

After spending a night at home I got a train to Stalybridge where there was a charged up battery. I wrapped this in a plastic sack (lest any railway worker should object to me taking a lead acid battery on a train) and strapped it to a little trolley on which I trundled it to the station. After an easy rail trip to Macclesfield I was able to change batteries on the Land Rover, having first disconnected the horn. To my surprise, the engine started easily. I left the vehicle for future use and joined Joe and Dexter on the boats. I later discovered that the problem was nothing to do with the alarm but a short circuit in the steering column.

We set off for Marple. I had expected to have to do this trip at night because of my hospital appointment. Because it had changed to a telephone appointment I kept my ‘phone close by. Emuna was monitoring the landline at home in case they rang that one. In fact they didn’t ring at all, The text changing it to a telephone consultation had been sent in error and I should have been at the hospital! Such mistakes are inevitable in an underfunded understaffed service where everybody is under constant pressure.

As we got closer to Marple I imagined a huge queue of boats waiting to go down the locks, which are only open Tuesdays and Saturdays.

My anxiety grew as we passed solid lines of moored craft. These included “Holly” the cafe boat, the proprietors of which issue frequent You Tube vlogs about, well, themselves. We went through the penultimate bridge of the Macclesfield canal to find, amazingly, a 70 foot spot on the short term moorings opposite the former wharf, now a building site for yet more upmarket housing.

I later found out that this mooring had been occupied by “Zero”, the living boat attached to “Holly”. They’d just gone off to fill their water tank and, by stealing their mooring, we forced them into making an unscheduled evening trip to High Lane. It’s all there in their video, including a nice shot of our boats. Shame they still know nothing about them.

Joe, Dexter and I went for a walk around the area. At the head of the locks, waiting to be first through in the morning, we found, of course, “Unforgettable”.

When I emerged from my cabin next morning I noticed a bike chained up on the towpath that seemed strangely familiar. Joe was up too and we began to speculate about when Aaron would appear. There was a noise from within the back cabin and then the slide slid back to reveal the man himself. He’d cycled up from Ashton in the night.

I started the engine just after 8 and we moved through the old stop lock and the junction bridge to follow “Unforgettable” down the locks. Paul arrived to help, undaunted by his recent full immersion.The lock volunteers seemed to mostly concentrate on assisting the helpless American, which suited us fine as it kept him out of our way.

The final lock had a badly leaking top ground paddle which had partly drained the pound. I tied the motor below the lock, closed the bottom gates, then borrowed Aaron’s bike to ride up and see where the butty had got to. She was about 4 locks back so I rode back down, stopping to draw top paddles to prepare the locks. Lock 1 was already nearly full from the leaking paddle. I drew the paddles to finish filling, but the ground paddle was reluctant to go back down again. I wound it down against some resistance, then suddenly it dropped right down, the rack dropping away from the pinion.

I walked back up to the butty and bowhauled the last few locks. We reported the paddle problem to a CRT volunteer. He borrowed some tools to try to retrieve the rack, to no avail.

Soon we were away on the final 7 mile pound to Ashton.

 As we passed through Dukinfield lift bridge, grinding over submerged rubbish as usual, I noticed someone waving. It was Damien, a former  volunteer, in our charity shop, along with his partner.

We dropped off “Hazel” in Dukinfield at Dixon & Smith (Motor Engineers) workshop to charge up her batteries. As she crossed the Tame aqueduct “Forget me Not” picked up a bladeful of plastic bags, the first one of the whole journey. Alongside “Lilith” lay a CRT workboat. Not only had they not asked if they could breast up but they’d actually put their own lock on the museum gates without asking. On the towpath side lay the sunken remains of a burned out fibreglass cruiser.

There’s no place like home!

Many thanks to Liz Stahford, Chrissie Gladwin, Joe Hodgson and Rebekah Jane Parrott for most of the photos.

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