Another bit from the archives
 Adventures of the Nippy 

- by Richard Thomas & James Hewitt

The gaps are gradually being filled in President's history. Here is the story of her last days with BW, leading to her arrival at Hayhurst Yard at Northwich where she must have laid for about 5 years before Malcolm Braine found her. This has been extracted from “Adventures of the Nippy” by James Hewitt and reproduced with his permission.  The date is October 1967.  James takes up the tale…

I had spent a couple of days with Charlie when our Landover driver came shambling along the bank with a message that I must report to the section office in the morning. I went to the office all bright and early to see what they had in store. The length foreman collected some keys off the desk. "Come with me," he said. We went out to the wharf where an old josher motor boat lay, thoroughbred of the canals, basking in the early morning sun. She was loaded with 300 steel piles. "Deliver that lot to the piling gang at Disley and fetch her back," he said, handing me the keys. I glanced at the name on her cabin side. It was ‘President’.

The carriers Fellows Morton and Clayton were famous above all others for their fine fleet of steamers, of which they already had several when the firm was created by a merger in 1889. All were built with imposing names such as ‘Sultan’, ‘Emperor’, ‘King’, ‘Baroness’ - and ‘President’ which had been launched in 1908. They were intended to work primarily between London and Braunston on what was then known as the Grand Junction, towing a butty through the wide locks. The locks from there onwards to Birmingham were narrow at that time so the cargo would be transhipped to a horse drawn craft and the tow swapped for a butty heading south with the steamer loaded again. They had an all male crew which were expected to travel `fly' meaning to travel through the night. As diesel came into its own they were all converted to this newer type of machinery with a great saving both in space and in the numbers of crew required. Fellows Morton tended to carry lighter and more perishable cargoes such as groceries and this is why they have finer lines since capacity was of less importance.

I unlocked the doors and then started her engine, an air-cooled two cylinder Armstrong Siddeley, and whilst it warmed up I lit the stove, which turned out to be a primitive affair shaped like a bottle. With everything being ready for the off I untied the lines and coiled them neatly, then shoved her out before going to the controls. Forward gear was then engaged together with some revs though not too much since a tricky bend lay ahead with pleasure craft moored on the offside. A little knot of employees just happened to be standing by, curious to see if `the new lad' would make a hash of it. They drifted away disappointed.

I set off up the Peak on a crisp autumn morning, following the Goyt valley with its fine views opening to the left. Countryside lay all around, the trees with their leaves turned to an autumnal gold. Dark water flowed towards the stern where the propeller turned it briefly into frothy white.  Only a week before I had been toiling away, enclosed in a dusty workshop and now it felt like another life, being a component of the passing scene as we went serenely along, the latest of a long line of steerers at the helm of this historic craft.

There were three swing bridges between Marple and Disley none of which presented a problem. In reaching one I would stop her with her bows on the offside bank. After swinging the bridge I took her slowly through, putting a line round the handrail post then back to ‘President's counter before taking and holding a round turn. Once she was safely out of harm's way I allowed the line to tauten such that the bridge swung swiftly back so that the round turn could be taken off and the line gathered in from its standing end without interrupting our forward progress. I once travelled on another craft and the steerer tried to do this. He tightened his line much too soon, trapping me between cabin side and bridge to sustain a badly injured foot. It is really not worth trying if there are a number of crew of board, and the practice is probably banned by now.

All too soon my destination came into view, not only seen but also heard as a raucous clatter echoed down the peaceful water indicating a piling gang at work beyond Dryhurst Bridge. We commenced to unload without delay, first putting down a couple of planks to the bank with a line of piles on top down which the others could be slid. These early piles were merely painted with bitumastic, which seemed barely adequate and proved to be the case - they are all galvanised now.

With ‘President’ standing empty, I had a quick brew with the piling gang before setting off again to the next place where she could be turned. This was the `Clayhole', sited in a wood between Disley and New Mills. There were deposits of clay nearby which the canalmen had been digging out for some years until forced to stop by British Railways, fearful of their line being undermined. The winding hole had been recently dredged enabling ‘President’ to turn quite easily.

Charlie had a theory regarding winding holes. He felt that some had been created when the canal builders had come across a deposit of clay and decided to dig it out. The demand for clay must have been prodigious during the canal building age and it would explain why some are sited in rather odd places.

I made my way steadily back towards Marple. None of this seemed like work at all, so I continued long after finishing time and anyway the foreman had said to bring her back. Consequently it was early evening as we slid alongside the maintenance wharf and the engine could be stilled. I took the keys to the foreman's house. "Where have you left it?" he enquired. "I haven't left it anywhere, it's back here," I said. He looked astonished. "Took a load out and brought back the empty boat all in a day," he said. "It’s never been done before!" He told me to hang onto the keys since there were more to be taken, although they could not arrange men to load until Thursday. "Clean your boat out tomorrow," he advised. He was right about the need to clean her out since she was indeed rather grubby, and the next day I stripped everything moveable out of the cabin and engine room before setting about cleaning it. Working forward, I dug the clay and chippings, remains of earlier loads, out of the hold to prepare for the next consignment of piles, before finally washing her down.

Two men turned up on the following morning. One was a labourer like myself and in speaking it turned out that he had once worked on the Llangollen. The other was the ganger for Marple length, a Spaniard whom the men knew as Tony, although it was not his real name. Tony was a hard case and no mistake, which was not surprising on account of the life he had led. He had been forced to leave his native land during the civil war - never to return. He joined the French Foreign Legion and could describe life out in the desert, as well as Paris, where they went on leave. All of this I discovered by degrees since he was not a man who would take to close questioning and the others warned me that he had a quick temper. However, there was another side to him, which showed when a child went missing in New Mills where he lived. Tony joined the police and other volunteers in searching for the little waif. He loved his adopted country, "best place in world," he would say and he meant it.

We started our task of loading the boat with piles, some of which were not directly on the canal side and had to be carried. We wore heavy gloves to protect us against the sharp edges and the still tacky coating of bitumastic paint. A simple wharfside crane had once stood here, and in fact parts of it were still scattered around like some giant child's discarded Meccano set. We often had to stride over the jib in our task of loading the piles. Later on I had an opportunity to ask supervision about this and they said it had been taken down because of the expense involved in insurance and maintenance. This meant that every time a lorry load of piles or walings came, a mobile crane had to be hired in order to unload. Also the men had to haul cement mixers and compressors up makeshift ramps off their boat, or load piles slowly and laboriously by hand, as we were now doing.

In the meantime, another more serious problem opened up for me personally. Somehow or other they had discovered my past involvement with the IWA, even though I had been careful not to say anything and they still did not realise the full extent of it. According to the Marple Length Foreman the information had been relayed further up the line that an activist had been started by mistake. The instruction received had been brief. "Get rid of him!" Luckily the high official who had first threatened legal action over the Ashton, then found himself presenting a prize for navigation, had now retired or otherwise I could have been not merely fired but throttled for good measure. "So, you have decided to leave the angels and join the rotten swines?" said the foreman. I answered carefully that the latter might not turn out to be so bad. "Well, if you want to stay here you must decide which side you are on. There will be things said and done which you will not like, but say nothing, or make no mistake you will be out." The choice was not difficult to make since even my brief time of employment with them had revealed how much there was to learn about the business of running a canal, and that I was receiving valuable practical experience. I felt like an outsider watching their daily lives and how they did things, knowing even then that one day I should write a book since so little is known about the maintenance of canals affecting all who use them.

Loading completed, we delivered it to another piling gang and afterwards were put to sailing up and down to clear the channel of any floating objects such as the banks of floating sedge, or surges as they were called, torn loose by passing craft. Some of these were really massive such that a foreman had made a tool to deal with them. He did a saw cut down a shaft then took an old scythe blade and secured it in, calling the resulting tool a dynasaw with a twinkle in his eye, and it worked. Marple Section was subdivided into two lengths, Marple and Macclesfield with ‘President’ shared between. She was now required in the Macclesfield area which had their own crew so they took over. Tony and I were put to cutting hedges in Poynton where a work boat was already stationed…….

(James was moved to another boat at this time.  He continues the story a few pages later)

……. A thaw set in about this time along with sorry news of ‘President’. She had been taken to the annual Bosley stoppage and the Macclesfield crew had left her overnight in the filled chamber of number two. The lock keeper, who should have known better, assured them that she would be safe since the bottom gates did not leak, but he was mistaken. On the following morning the lock was found to be partly emptied causing ‘President's rudder and skeg to be damaged on the sill. They took her to Northwich where she was laid up until noticed by an enthusiast of steam. I have seen her since her restoration, now famous with a steam engine installed, immaculate in black, white and red. I can still imagine Tony at the helm saying her name in his own way.

The departure of ‘President’ meant that the section would be without a motor boat until a replacement arrived, so it came about that ‘Lancing’ was pressed into service. This could not be done officially as I already knew, so arrangements were made which proved to be generous and it was on the whole a very satisfying period for me. They continued to borrow her every now and then even after the replacement arrived, which turned out to be another josher ‘Roach’, equipped with the engine taken out of ‘President’.