Ashton Boatman

Yesterday was a lovely day. It started cold so I lit the stove on "Hazel". Our first guests arrived at 11AM for a trip to Lumb Lane and back, about 2 hours. Two of them couldn't manage the steps so we used the lift to bring them on board. A straightforward trip, no problems. Aaron Booth and Mick Owen were the crew.

 It was the first canal trip for some of them and they loved it.

 As we came round the turn from Walk Bridge and breasted up I saw that a boat had taken our mooring. This wouldn't be a problem normally as we had another trip to do. However, if we're using the wheelchair lift we need to have "Hazel"s bow at a specific place on the wharf.

As we approached I gave a series of long blasts on the hooter but nobody emerged from the open doors of the boat until our bows were actually lying against it. The man came out and explained indignantly that they were taking water. Portland Basin wharf is not an official water point but there's a tap with a long hose that reaches to any part of the wharf.

When I explained about the need to unload disabled guests they became co-operative and moved off. We tied up and the other boat came in behind us to continue watering.

Mick had to leave so it was just me and Aaron for the afternoon trip. We just had time for a brew before they arrived. This time we were headed up the Peak Forest canal, so we had to negotiate the lift bridge. Normally we would send somebody ahead to do this but there was no-one available. As we approached I brought the butty up close and stopped with the bows in the narrows. I tied to the handy bollard and lifted the bridge. Returning to the boat I drove the pair through the bridge and stopped them with "Hazel"s stern just clear of the bridge. Aaron tied it then lowered the bridge. We set off again.

Between Dukinfield and Hyde the canal runs past a series of industrial estates, and yet they hardly intrude beyond the sylvan ribbon that borders the waterway. When I first came this way in 1977 we navigated past a huge and smelly landfill site with bulldozers heaping up the rubbish. That same place is now magical woodland.

We passed through Hyde and out into countryside bordering Haughton Vale, swinging the boats confidently round the tortuous bends as the canal follows the contours of the valley side.

The winding hole near the derelict Gee Cross mill was unusable until last year. It had become too silted with lack of use since "Maria" stopped doing horse drawn trips. CRT dredged in 2021 and we are now able to wind there again.

An angler sat staring at his float right opposite the hole. I explained that we had no choice but to disturb his fishing. He calmly dismantled his rod and sat watching us as we thrashed about in the muddy water, gradually turning the boats.

Aaron and me swapped boats when we set off and I enjoyed an hour or so of butty steering. I love steering the butty. It's a gentle tranquil experience but I don't often get the opportunity. The only incident on the trip was some difficulty getting past a moored boat that had come adrift. 

At the M67 bridge in Hyde I jumped on to the towpath to run forward and get on to the motor. Aaron chose to get back to steering the butty by crawling along its roof rather than using the towpath. Each to their own!  The boats couldn't go far out of line during this procedure as the canal here is a narrow concrete trough.

After working the lift bridge again we arrived at Portland Basin, stopping on the aqueduct to unload our guests, who were delighted with the experience. I went to move "Lilith" back on to the wharf as she had spent the day lying alongside the flats, then we moved the pair forward, breasted up and swung them round to tie alongside "Lilith".

The end of a wonderful days boating.

The following day I met one of the guests from the morning trip in the charity shop. She was once more full of praise for the experience and explained some of the hardships that some of them had been through.

Thank you Christine Dinsdale for the best of the photos.

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of Ashtac, the Inland Waterways Association organised a working party to clean up part of the Ashton Canal on 21st/22nd March 2022. Ashtac was the codename for the huge 'big dig' on the Ashton canal in 1972, when over 1000 volunteers from around the country came to clear rubbish from the derelict waterway. They even laid an industrial monorail in the bed of the drained canal to transport the rubbish.

I think it's a great omission in Portland Basin Museum that there's nothing about this on display. It was a major event in getting the waterway restoration movement started.

The 2022 effort was rather less ambitious. It mostly consisted of litter picking and scrub bashing at Eli Whalley's, or Donkey Stone Wharf as it seems to be known nowadays.

In fact it's proper name is Ashton Old Wharf. It's the original terminus of the Ashton Canal. It ceased to be a terminus when the Huddersfield Narrow canal was built. It's role as Ashton's main wharf was later lost to Portland Basin.

The final industrial use of the wharf was as Eli Whalley's donkey stone works. Donkey stones were blocks of reconstituted stone that , were used for polishing the stone steps of houses. They were often distributed by rag and bone men in exchange for, well, rags and bones.

https://www.tameside.gov.uk/blueplaque/eliwhalley 

Some years ago British Waterways did some landscaping work on the wharf, including erecting three sculptures of flying geese. More recently I understand it has been let on a long lease to somebody and has become derelict. Latterly its been haunt for fly tippers, anglers, drinkers and the occasional homeless person's tent.

Our original plan was to take "Forget me Not" along but her gearbox problem prevented this. Instead we took "Lilith",towed on the outward trip by the Ashton Packet Boat Co's "Joel", another wooden boat. Our depleted volunteer reserves meant that there were only four participants from our group, me, Kim Tranter, Daniel Stocks and Nessie.

We laid "Lilith" alongside the foliage that was aggressively invading the canal from the wharf then, using implements provided by CRT, we proceeded to remove that foliage.

There were lots of young workers there from a scheme that was something to do with the Princes Trust and the Fire Service.

A good day was had by all. I still bear the bramble scars to prove it. Many people were involved in litter picking and I did my best to get the aluminium cans and bits of scrap iron loaded on to "Lilith" so that they could be recycled.

Over the past few weeks we've had to cancel or postpone trip after trip on "Hazel" for various reasons, mostly weather related but health problems of guests have figured too. Today I thought at last we had it right. The weather was nice and we had guests on board for an overnight trip. It was a bit windy but nothing like we have experienced lately. Everything was readt so me and Aaron started to back the pair, breasted, into the basin ready to swing round and head off up the Peak Forest canal. All of a sudden the engine stalled. I restarted it but, as soon as I engaged reverse gear it stalled again. I had a look inside  the gearbox to discover that it was jammed in forward gear. The gear change mechanism was working correctly but the forward gear clutch simply wouldn't disengage, so, when you put it into reverse it's trying to go forward and backwards at the same time. This means I'm going to have to take the gearbox out and get it professionally looked at. How long this will take and what it will cost I know not.

Our guests seemed to have a nice afternoon chatting and exchanging life experiences. One is staying tonight and another has asked if she can come and stay on board with her dog sometime, which, of course, she can.

Here's a couple of photos of me and Aaron reversing the boats just before it all went wrong. Photographer Cheryl Louise Dinsdale.

I'm disappointed! I was promised something that would

Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!
You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout
Till you have drench'd our steeples, drown'd the cocks!
You sulphurous and thought-executing fires,
Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts,
Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder,
Smite flat the thick rotundity o' the world!
Crack nature's moulds, an germens spill at once,
That make ingrateful man!

What's actually happening is that it's a bit breezy and it's raining on and off. A sort of normal 
winter day in Ashton really.I actually postponed a trip because of the weather warnings.

 This, it seems, is Storm Eunice. She was supposed to be far worse 
than Storm Dudley. I was at the Knowl St boatyard with Cheryl Dinsdale when Dudley struck on 
Thursday. He at least got us soaked and blew things about a bit. When I got back to Portland Basin 
I found that "Lilith"s cloths had blown off. Nessie has since put them back on. 

I haven't taken any photos for a while, so, here's a nice picture of
"Lilith" on a sunny day. Photo by Jay Jengba.

        

          

                    

          
        

          
          

            
          
        

Tomorrow we have wellbeing guests arriving for a trip up the Peak Forest canal to Marple aqueduct. We'll stay there overnight then come back on Monday. Me and Aaron have spent most of the day cleaning and sorting her out after her use as a film location. We took her over the Tame aqueduct to charge her batteries at the workshop of Dixon & Smith (Motor Engineers) in Dukinfield. She goes there by people power, on this occasion me and Aaron. The reason they built canals was that they enabled huge loads to be moved for very little energy expenditure. "Hazel" weighs about 20 tons but she's no problem for us to move.

Aaron keeps warm and dry in his new dayglo ski suit.

After "Queen"s latest submarine adventure Nessie has got back to work concreting the bottom. This has involved a lot of shifting around of stuff inside. Some of it was rubbish and is being got rid of. Some of it is firewood and has gone to Stalybridge for cutting. Other stuff is useful or saleable. Once she's sorted out and reliably floating we can make good use of the space inside. It's all part of the WCBS getting sorted out after several years of drifting. We need more volunteers though, particularly people who are organisers rather than those who need to be organised.

Nessie emerges with bags of gunge out of the bilge.

On Monday, I was working at the Heritage Boatyard in Stalybridge. Dave and Kim were there working on our new small trailer, built around remnants of a trailer donated on a recycling trip a couple of years ago.

On Friday I collected some redundant advertising panels donated by Tameside Council. These had been round the market area while it was being revamped, a process that was delayed by the collapse of Carillion and then by the pandemic. They're made of tough plastic sandwiched between thin layers of aluminium. They'll be very useful for re-roofing "Southam" and are an environmental positive by being re-used rather than sent to landfill and then new materials having to be ripped from the Earth.

I tried to unload them and get them stacked on "Southam"s roof on my own, but discomfort from my catheter suggested I'd better stop. I later discovered that I'd taped it a bit too tightly to my leg, so certain movements were pulling it.

On Saturday morning Nessie and Aaron helped me to stack the panels. Aaron then helped to shift some bags of engineered wood flooring that have been donated. I'm not sure what we'll do with these but I'm fairly sure they'll come in useful.

"Queen", the oldest surviving wooden motor narrow boat  afloat (sometimes) is being unhelpful. She's up and down like a yoyo. She went down about a week ago and Nessie raised her again yesterday. I checked her at about 7pm and, though she was leaking, it was well within the capacity of the pumps.

In the evening I took part in a very positive committee meeting. We have a really good committee now. The biggest problem is that they're all so busy with their day jobs. We could do with some retired people joining (preferably ones without too many grandchildren, boats or camper vans so that they have some spare time)

Anyway!  I confidently reported to the meeting that "Queen" was afloat, only to find this morning that she'd gone down in the night. This time 3 pumps were still running strongly despite their batteries being under water. Obviously there's been a big influx somewhere. Mind you, I thought that before when she went down.

I wonder if we have a quantum leak, ie, one that doesn't leak when you're looking for it but pours in when you're not.

Nessie is not happy, especially as his car engine has blown up so he has to walk everywhere.

Here's a picture of "Queen"s bow when she was afloat yesterday. Isn't it a lovely shape!

Over the last few years through various difficulties such as not having enough volunteers, me having health problems and then the covid pandemic, certain areas of the WCBS have got into a mess. It's now time to make them unmessy! A big clear up is in order, particularly at the boatyard and aboard "Elton".

Poor "Elton" has always been the Cinderella of our fleet and when we didn't have enough time to sort out the metals collected on recycling trips etc, they  got dumped into "Elton"s hold. The idea was that they'd get sorted when we had time, but somehow that time was never found. A couple of times "Elton" sank and the additional sludge left after each inundation didn't make the job look any more attractive.

We decided to set up a working party to get it cleared, and the date selected was today.

At about 9 AM I extracted "Elton" from her place in the museum arm and shafted her across the canal. I tied her right next to the junction where we could work on the bank without risking conflict with passing towpath users.

Joe, the tree surgeon, was visiting from deepest Cumbria and, having been warned about the task in hand, brought some appropriate tools. At first it was just me and Joe. I bagged up aluminium cans in the boat and handed to Joe any items that needed stripping down. We bagged up separately the different categories of metal.

Soon Aaron arrived, then Kim. They took over working in the boat, Joe carried on stripping metal. I was kept busy carrying full bags of metal over the bridge to the trailer and advising on the different grades.