Chris Leah and his Wooden Canal Boat Society colleagues were on a trip to Liverpool with the boats “Southam” and “Lilith”. They had spent a night at Wigan Pier on a canal whose water was steadily leaking away.
As I hauled myself out of “Lilith”s forecabin into a sunny morning I looked down anxiously to check the water level. It would be an exaggeration to say that my worst fears were confirmed, for there was still water in the canal, but not much. Southam’s fore end was noticeably higher than her stern. I climbed down into Southam to light the range. Bex and Garry were soon up and about, so I decided to start the engine and have a go at getting the boats free.
I found that it was quite easy to get the pair to pivot across the cut, but with all the revving and thrashing and rocking and shafting I could muster, the fore end would just not come free. Fiona and Carlos emerged from Lilith’s back cabin, the engine’s roar proving an effective alarm clock. I was just beginning to wonder about strategies involving lines from the far bank, when a couple of steel boats appeared, heading uphill. I hailed the first one and the steerer agreed to give us a snatch off. I passed him a line from Lilith’s stern end T stud. He tied it on to his dolly, backed up and then went ahead, so that, when it reached the end of the slack, his boat was going at a fair lick. The line held and our pair started to move backwards off the obstruction. I gave our Samaritan a thumbs up and shouted my thanks, then I noticed that the T stud was now at a strange angle. The sudden tug had pulled out the spikes holding down the sterndeck from the rather decayed planks.
As I contemplated the damage I heard a shout from our helper. He threw me back the line and asked me to go ahead as he was now stemmed up (canal speak for aground) and needed to back off. I engaged forward gear and moved the breasted pair along the middle of the canal, throwing up black silt in our wake. Almost immediately Southam picked up some rubbish on her blade. I gave a burst of sterngear to clear it, but straight away she picked up more.
Fiona came to ask to be put off on the towpath as she and Carlos needed to go and catch a train. I explained, shouting over the roar of the engine, that I would stem up if I took the boats anywhere near the towpath, but I would endeavour to unload them at the first bridgehole. I glanced back and saw that the steel boat was still struggling to get free, the steerer pushing with a shaft . There was nothing I could do, but I imagine that we were now none too popular.
As we turned into the first bridgehole, the engine stalled as the blade picked up an extra large pile of garbage. I looked back again and was pleased to see that our helpers were on their way again. I shafted the bows over to the towpath under the bridge so that Carlos and Fiona could scramble off. A little work with the cabin shaft removed the blockage and I restarted the engine and continued, still breasted, while Bex and Garry, the only remaining crew, organised steaming cups of coffee.
At the first lock, in a rather bleak and barren area beside an industrial estate, Bex and Garry got off to work the lock, while I steered the breasted pair into the wide lock. Bex distributed bacon and egg butties, which we ate hungrily as the lock emptied. I decided that it would make sense to carry on breasted up (canal speak for having the boats tied tightly side by side) as there would probably not be much traffic and it would be easier to keep the domestic side of things ( ie regular brews and sandwiches) going if everyone was on Southam. Conversions are not so convenient as back cabins when it comes to steering and cooking at the same time. (“Southam” originally built to carry goods, was converted with a full length cabin in 1965)
The next pound was also low, but after the next lock there was a nice full pound. As the dreariness of Wigan slipped away behind us, we threaded woodlands through the narrowing Douglas valley. I had to lean hard on the tiller to swing the breasted pair round the many twists and turns. The distant high level M6 viaduct grew steadily bigger until, almost underneath it, we reached Dean lock. In the tail of this lock is a water point, so we stopped the pair and filled Southam’s tank.
Once again we had a low pound to plod through. I asked Garry to run ahead as there were swing bridges marked on the map. They turned out to have been swung out of use for many years, until we reached Appley Bridge, where Garry got off again to swing a new looking swing footbridge. Meanwhile Bex was inside the cabin making everything cleaner, tidier and less of a biohazard than before.
We passed a new housing development with a steep bank down to the water side carpeted with astroturf. How long, I wondered, before that lot lands in the canal and gets wrapped round someone’s blade. As we approached the next bridgehole, on a bend, the bows of a wide beam trip boat appeared. I pulled back the gear rod and the pair, with the momentum of the butty on the outside pulling them round, swung towards the towpath. I pushed the tiller to the inside and engaged forward gear again to straighten up. Southam’s fore end rose up and we juddered to a halt as the passing passengers smiled and waved. We had stemmed up on something big and solid. I pulled the lever back again and wound on power in sterngear. With black smoke from the exhaust and frothing water round our stern they came off surprisingly easily, but then the engine coughed and died.
I dived into the engine room and reached for the tools to strip down the lift pump. We had come a long way since the last time she stopped because of muck and water in the fuel, but I guessed that the agitation caused by stemming up had disturbed more residue in the tank. Soon I had the water and yuck purged from the fuel system and, engine restarted, I climbed back on to the sterndeck bearing a heady aroma of diesel.
Soon we were approaching Appley Lock, the last one before Liverpool. Like all the locks since Wigan, this one is paired, such was the volume of traffic at one time. At Appley the lock currently in use is the original single one of immense depth, while the later additions, now out of use, used two shallower locks for the same fall. As the emptying lock revealed the sill, the reason for the lack of water revealed itself. From under the top gates emanated not just a leak, but jets of water that the fire brigade would be proud of. The back ends of the boats, which had to back right into the deluge to get the bottom gates open, got drenched, and Lilith’s cabin flooded.
Below the lock a boat was waiting. A lockside conversation with its crew revealed that they were new to boating and, intimidated by its gargantuan proportions, were in two minds whether to risk working through this, their first lock. Bex and Garry offered to help them through, so I loosely tied the pair below the lock and had a go at cleaning the blade while I waited.
Although through the last lock, there remained 27 miles of canal to our destination. It would be important to get as far as Maghull, a suburb of Liverpool, that night in order to be ready to be ready for the link lads in the morning. I was eager to get a move on.
Back in the 1970s and 80s, when I had more links with Liverpool, the canal beyond the Mersey Motor Boat Club moorings at Lydiate was hardly ever used, except for an annual campaign cruise. Sometimes, on my way to join my barge, Parbella in the North docks I would cycle up the towpath, but I don’t think I ever saw a boat on the canal. We speculated about the possibility of setting up a working boat base on this unwanted backwater and dreamed of restarting carrying. Tony Syers my mate on the grain barges, had worked on the last regular traffic that went this way and always thought that it may be possible to restart the supply of grain by boat to Burscough mill, which had stopped in about 1960. The closure of a swing bridge in the docks, cutting off the canal from Seaforth grain terminal, put paid to these ideas.
Now, by contrast, with the opening of the link, via Liverpool pier head, to the South docks and maritime museum, the canal has become a destination, part of an urban regeneration strategy. However, just swanning into and out of Liverpool by boat is no longer allowed. It is controlled, and there are forms to fill in.
As we were arranging the trip , Tony gave me some numbers to ring to make the arrangements. I rang the office and tried to explain that I needed to take a pair of boats into Liverpool. “Oh” exclaimed a cultured female voice, “Have you had an information pack?” I tried to explain that I wasn’t interested in entering the docks but simply wanted to cruise the canal. I am visiting a friend who lives by the canal I explained, fearing that any hint of carrying goods may spark suspicion and bureaucratic hurdles. Nothing seemed to compute, so I ended the conversation as quickly as was decent and rang the mobile number that Tony had given me for the link lads. Here I got a far more sensible response. “Er yeah, we’ve got some boats going in on Wednesday, so just be at Ledsons swing bridge, Maghull, for 10 AM and you can go in with them”. It was now Tuesday dinner time and there was still a lot of ground to cover. This is why I had been pushing the boats ahead and refusing to stop for anything.
There was something on the blade that I just couldn’t seem to shift, so, when Garry and Bex returned, I decided to leave it and hope it would wear away and drop off. We hadn’t gone a mile though when it picked up something else. I stopped in a rural bridgehole where a wooded slope separated canal and railway. A little more poking with the shaft loosened the rubbish, and we proceeded unemcumbered by urban detritus.
The valley steadily widened and soon we were approaching Parbold. A pleasure boat was coming the other way and racing us for a bridgehole. I could see that it was his bridgehole, but I really didn’t want to give way after the problems it caused back at Appley Bridge. I blew a long blast on the hooter and set our bows for the bridge, unashamedly hoping to intimidate the smaller boat. It didn’t work and the plucky cruiser kept ploughing on straight at us. It was my turn to blink. I went astern and swung over to the inside. The cruiser, steerer head down like a motorcyclist inside his wheelhouse, growled past. I swung the pair back into the channel and just managed to straighten them up in time to get through cleanly.
At Parbold there is a tight turn where what was intended as a Wigan branch would have left the more direct trans Pennine main line. As things worked out the direct main line was never built and the Wigan branch became the main canal, the stub of the main route becoming a dry dock, now abandoned. We swung round this turn , passed the pub, then crossed the Douglas aqueduct and headed into the flatlands. We settled into a routine. When I thought a swing bridge was approaching I gave a couple of beeps on the hooter and Garry would come out of the cabin. I would let the bows brush the towpath and Garry would jump off and run ahead to swing the bridge while I let the boats drift slowly ahead. As the bridge swung clear, a burst of power took us through, then drift along the towpath again while Garry regained the boat .
Soon we were in Burscough, interestingly lined with moored boats, many of them wide beam. Garry had a long walk because I could not get near the towpath to pick him up. He climbed on at the entrance to the Rufford arm, now a source of traffic rather than the little used backwater that it used to be for it is now part of a through route to the Lancaster Canal as well as boasting a huge marina. We passed the mill that once kept the canal busy with grain boats, but is now sad and silent.
Though our need for water had been dealt with, there were toilets to be emptied, and the Nicholsons guide showed such facilities in the centre of Burscough. As scanned the towpath for suitable place to stop I noticed a familiar looking boat. Northern Lights is a steel boat of about 50 feet inhabited by Cookie, her partner Kenny and daughter Cara. Although they mostly stay around Burscough for work, I seem to bump into them all over the canal system. I steered over to the towpath and, as I hauled back on Lilith’s lines to absorb the last bit of momentum a smiling Cookie greeted me. She knew Southam well, as Dan, a mutual friend, had lived aboard her at Burscough some years ago.
It turned out that the elsan emptying facility was now closed as it was being redeveloped into posh housing. Bex and Garry were, however, keen to visit the shops, so they headed for the supermarket , while Cookie and I caught up on the news. Cookie told me that a friend had gone through the Liverpool Link but it was a bureaucratic nightmare as you have to convince two dock authorities as well as BW of the safety of your boat. I had entertained in the back of my head an idea of just nipping through to the South Docks if we found ourselves with time to spare, but this news put paid to that idea.
When Garry and Bex returned I was eager to get moving again. Time was moving on and it was still a long way to Maghull. Garry and I fell back into the same routine over swing bridges while Bex started cooking a meal. As we meandered across the West Lancashire plains we laid a trail of woodsmoke as Bex kept feeding the big ex army range. Before setting out I had loaded a good stock of ready cut firewood into Lilith so there was no anxiety about fuel supply.
The countryside around here reminds me of Belgium with wide, gently undulating, hedgeless fields of corn, cabbage and carrots. Here and there the odd spinney or row of poplars lends variety to the scene. The canal carefully follows the contours, though a straight waterway could have been built with minimal earthworks. Westwards, towards the sea, the land gently falls away. In between bridges, Garry had a go at steering the breasted boats, though at first I had to take them through bridgeholes. He went in to consume the product of Bex’s labours, while I enjoyed my portion at the tiller as the boats chugged into the evening.
It was dusk when we passed the Mersey Motor Boat Club’s Lydiate moorings. In the 1970s I had a girlfriend called Gill, still a good friend, whose parents had a 40 foot steel boat moored here. One midwinter weekend they let us go and stay on Rambler and take her for a trip. I think the idea was to do a Sunday trip into Liverpool. When we rose on Sunday morning the cut was locked solid with a good inch of ice. Nevertheless, being young, we began icebreaking our way towards the city. This is when I learned that, if using a shaft to break ice, you have to podge it down vertically, never whack it lengthwise on to the ice surface. Unfortunately the victim of my youthful error was an old wooden oar that Gill’s dad was very attached to. Beyond Maghull our progress was slowed as the ice thickened in the bleak countryside. At the first winding hole we gave up and headed back to Lydiate before our shattered trail hardened again.
This time Maghull was reached in the dark. I knew that we had to meet the link lads at a swing bridge, but I couldn’t remember the name of it, so consulting Nicholsons was of little help. At each swing bridge, of which there are a series through Maghull, I expected to see a queue of waiting boats, but there were none. Eventually , as we worked through what appeared to be the last swing bridge in Maghull, I decided to call it a day. We tied up to the towpath opposite a line of moored craft, at least one of which was occupied.
In the morning, as the bright sun started to lift the early mist, I unloaded my bike and set off in search of the elusive swing bridge. As I rode along I exchanged “good morning”s with many early dog walkers. Electric commuter trains rattled over a bridge taking the faithful to work. Soon I was out into the last fling of countryside, recognising it from my excursion so long ago, though on this spring morning it had lost the bleakness that I remembered. I passed a swing bridge giving access to a farm, and the winding hole where we had smashed our way round all those years ago. A couple of boats were tied up near the bridge, but I didn’t think this was the one so I carried on.
Suburbia began to encroach and a motorway roared overhead. The canal crossed a shallow valley on a low embankment and, at the far end of the straight I could see boats moored and beyond them a low crossing busy with cars and lorries. This, I thought, must be it, and headed back to see about breakfast.
I guessed that the bridge was about an hours boating away. Why it had been described as being in Maghull I’ve no idea. I would have said Kirkby. Perhaps it’s just that British Waterways don’t want to be associated with Kirkby. We decided to set out at 8.30 to give us plenty of time. As we passed the boats moored by the first swing bridge they started their engines and followed us.
As we approached the swing bridge I brought the boats in to the towpath behind the waiting craft and jumped down with Southam’s mast line to check the last bit of momentum. Two smiling BW men walked towards me. They were very interested in the history of the boats. I imagine they make a change from their usual stream of steel pleasure craft.
The skippers of the two boats that had followed us came to ask if they could go ahead of us. “No Problem” I said, and they returned to their boats. The BW men had now gone back to the bridge and were looking for a gap in the road traffic so that they could swing it. Eventually the barriers began to fall and there was a flurry of activity as engines were started, lines untied and pins pulled out. The BW men waved us forwards and the steel boats surged through the concrete narrows. As soon as the last boat was past us I pushed Southam’s gear rod forward and wound some power on.
As we cleared the bridge it started to close behind us. Round the first bend we ran along one side of Aintree race course for a good half mile. I was eager to keep up with the other boats, and for some time there was no difficulty about this. Bit by bit the exhaust got blacker and the wake frothier as our deeper draughted boat picked up more and more rubbish. Every now and then I gave a burst of sterngear, which usually cleared the blade briefly , only to pick up more rubbish. The other boats moved steadily into the distance until I lost sight of them, then, as we were passing under a railway bridge, the engine grunted, shuddered and stopped. Some work with the short shaft soon had the blade cleared again and we got moving once more.
No-one is likely to write poetry about the scenic delights of this canal, mostly light industry and sprawling housing estates, but I was really impressed by the wildlife. Each side of the channel there is a bank of reeds and lilies, inhabited by moorhens, ducks, coots and a surprising number of swans.
Eventually we came to the second swing bridge and the smiling canal men swung it open for us as we approached. As we passed through the bridge I tried to explain, over the roar of the engine, that we had been delayed by a bladeful. They smiled and waved and we headed on towards Liverpool.
Soon we were travelling along an open stretch of canal. To the left was a 1950s council estate with gardens backing on to the canal. To the right a border of bushes demarcated the edge of the Rimrose Valley country park, soft grassland gently falling away. We reached a narrows where once there had been a bridge. On the outside, inaccessible except by boat or by climbing over someone’s back garden fence, was a pile if rubbish, overwhelmed by brambles and ornamented by the corpse of a duck. Underneath this mess something gleamed to attract my eye. There seemed to be, incongruously, a pile of two foot high stainless steel stars dumped with the rest of the rubbish. Bex and I looked at each other. Why, I wondered, would anyone dump them here.
I knew Litherland well from my Liverpool barging days. Over to the right I could see the distant cranes of Seaforth container port and some of the wind turbines that now line the dock wall. Below a high concrete road bridge sat a pleasant canal cottage, once housing the bridgekeeper for the lift bridge, a meccano like structure that used to take a main road over the waterway. Beyond the house a couple of the steel boats were busy taking water but as we approached they set off again. We brought our boats to a halt on the moorings beyond the water point and sanitary station. This was the safe place, surrounded by a high fence and only accessible with a BW key, where we would stay the night, travelling on into Bootle to load in the morning.