It was October 1974 when I arrived in Chester on a pair of floating chicken hutches.
My intention was to live aboard my humble craft for the next 3 years whilst attending the nearby Chester College with the aim of
becoming a teacher I soon discovered that I had innocently sailed into a conflict between posh boaters and ‘undesirables’. Because
of my ramshackle boats, I found myself classed in the latter category.
As one of the chief ‘undesirables’ decided to emigrate to Holland he had to dispose of his assets here. This gave
me the opportunity to buy a full length boat for £100. A simple BCN joey.
The boat carried a metal plate in each end with the number 9 painted on it, her Stewarts & Lloyds fleet
number. She had been part of the huge fleet that used to carry products from Coombeswood tubeworks. Her top
bends were painted yellow, denoting that she had later belonged to Alfred Matty, canal contractors.
I later discovered that one of the tricks of the seller was to tow away unattended boats, sell them to several
people, then disappear, leaving his victims arguing about who was now the rightful owner. Happily. I was never
challenged about the ownership of number 9.
At the time I was engaged to an R E teacher called Kathy. The romance of the canals had really got to me
and I envisaged a future living in a back cabin. She saw herself enjoying life in a nice semi detached suburban
house. We compromised on a full length conversion of our new old boat.
When she visited to view our future home, I pointed out that the boat needed a name. “Call it ‘Lilith’” she said,
explaining that it was Hebrew for a screech owl and that she’d solved someone’s final crossword clue that day by
knowing that fact.
It turned out to be rather more than that! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lilith
I found a mooring for “Lilith” on a farmer’s field at Croughton, halfway along the Wirral line of the Shroppie. It cost 50p a week!
It was clear that before beginning the conversion I would need to do some work on the hull.
Opposite my Chester mooring was Taylors boatyard.
(Photo by David Dixon)
Alan Parry was busy there rebuilding a classic Taylors cruiser,
“Barbara Joan”, which had been burned out by vandals. I asked him where I could get some oak. He advised that
I shouldn’t waste my money on oak but should just go to the local timber merchant and buy lengths of red
deal. “It’s just as good” he claimed. I was puzzled by this but took his advice as he was a proper boatbuilder.
Eventually it dawned on me that he was just being kind. He assumed that, like most wide eyed youngsters
that start doing up an old wooden boat, I would soon give up. He wanted to protect me from wasting too much money.
Work really started in the Easter break in 1975. I bought the longest piece of 2” X 8” red deal that they had at
the local builders merchant and somehow balanced it across the saddle and handlebars of my folding bike,
then carefully pushed the contraption the mile to my boats. I loaded it on to the roof of one of my tatty craft,
then set off to deliver it to “Lilith”.
I chipped out a plank, cut rough scarph joints on the ends of the new plank and bolted it into place. As I
removed one plank, those around it started to disintegrate, so I repeated the process on them.
Soon I got to planks that were curved and so the wood needed steaming. I had no equipment so I approached
Alan Parry again. He lent me a gas fired industrial wallpaper stripper to generate steam. David Jones, who
had taken over Taylors yard, let me use some space and the master boatbuilder, Arthur Howard, lent me some big G clamps.
I put the plank into a long plastic bag, scrounged from a carpet shop, then led steam from the wallpaper stripper
into it for a couple of hours. Whilst the plank was cooking I set up a crude former. I put a stout wooden
beam on to blocks so that it was off the ground, then put two more blocks on top of this at what looked like
the right distance apart. When the plank was ready I removed it from its bag and laid it on top of the blocks,
then used the clamps to bend the floppy plank down to touch the beam halfway between the blocks. I would then
lash the plank down so that the clamps could be removed and returned to Arthur. Next morning I would
release the plank, now hardened to its curve, load it up on to the boat roof and take it out to “Lilith” for fitting.
This method would not work on most boats. Luckily, joeys are of a simple shape with no complex curves or twists.
In the 1970s ex Stewarts & Lloyds joeys were everywhere as they gradually dispersed their fleet. Of all the wooden joeys that were in once in every corner of the network I’m only aware of 4 survivors. Birchills is in the Black Country Living Museum. Daisy now belongs to Forces Veterans Afloat and has been somehow re-bottomed in re steel. There may be another one called Flute. Someone kindly did some research and discovered that No9 was originally built in 1901, though how much original material survived is a moot point. As Lilith she is now celebrating her 125th year, though more than 50 years after her restoration began, she now needs lots of new planks again.
