Saturday 2^nd September 2000

The crew assembled in the usual manner from all points of the compass, in a variety of transport and converging on a seemingly obscure place on the map. The place in question was the bottom of Stoke Bruerne Locks, and when I arrived at about 5pm, most of the previous crew had departed and the majority of our crew where present. As we weren’t planning to move the boats that evening, we distributed our kit about the boat, had a meal and a few of us walked up to the top of the locks for a drink.

Sunday 3^rd September 2000

Sunday dawned bright and early (too bright and too early) and Maurice was up first to fire the boiler. He clanked about a bit to make sure we all knew. This was my first long trip on President, only having done a couple of days before, so I guessed I was going to have a lot to learn, however I was allocated the job of lock worker on the flight up to the Museum and this I can do! At the top of flight we singled out, blew the whistle a lot and generally made sure everyone knew we were there, and then headed off for the tunnel.

The journey through Blisworth was uneventful although we met a couple of boats coming in the opposite direction. I don’t know what they can see in the dark, but President must be a fairly daunting sight when you’re coming towards it. Once through the tunnel I was allowed my first attempt at steering President. I have a fair bit of experience of steering my own boat around the canal system but I have never steered a pair before and everyone has told me that steering President is a totally different experience. Fortunately the canal between Blisworth and Buckby is deep and wide so I gained confidence rapidly and was allowed to steer up the locks as well. On the way up Nick met the BW lengthsman and he let us moor at the top of the flight next to the Water Point, very handy for the Pub. It had been a very pleasant introduction to boating on President, the sun had been out most of the day and we had arrived at our stop in good time. We had a very sociable evening and we where joined for a meal in the pub by Chris and Norman Bowers and by David Stevenson (who was on the previous crew) who came to reclaim his wallet (he thought it had been stolen at Waltham Abbey but it had only been mislaid).

Monday 4^th September 2000

We left Buckby Top at 9.30am in sunshine and had an uneventful trip through Braunston tunnel and down the locks, arriving at Braunston itself at about midday. We were met here by Tim Coghlan who bought us all ‘refreshments’. Our departure was delayed slightly by Harry, Martin and Richard B. wondering of to look at some trinket selling boats. Do they think they are on holiday?!. We arrived at the Blue Lias pub at about Six. The landlord, Brian Stafford, was most accommodating and agreed to let us moor outside his pub in future provided we let him know in advance and he will give all President crews discount on the food!. It was at this point that our first disaster befell us, the shower pump switch became jammed!!. Nick quickly came to the rescue by providing a method of shorting the switch out whenever we needed the pump. That must be why he was made captain. Harry in the meantime had found the ‘Sea-searcher’ magnet somewhere and after attaching a rope to it, went ‘fishing’ around the bridge hole. Much to our surprise he came back with a windlass and a shovel!!. After this success we retired to the pub where we had yet another sociable evening with friends of Maurice and Ann.

Tuesday 5^th September 2000

The weather had taken a turn for the worse as we set of and grey skies drizzled on us. Nick purchased a new Boat Pole and switch at Warwickshire Fly and so the shower pump was back to full operation. The drizzle stopped as we worked through Bascote Staircase and Ann got on the bike and lock wheeled all the way to Fosse Bottom. We were going well until Bridge 36 on the outskirts of Leamington where we got stuck. Gentle manoeuvring and a bit of pulling got us through but we took it easy at all the bridge holes until we were past Leamington.

We stopped for supply restocking at Tesco’s (Bridge 46) where they provide a good mooring spot but no easy way down to the store. We arrived at our planned stop (The Cape of Good Hope at Warwick) early and moored right outside the pub. We had to move a couple of boats to make room for ourselves and hotel boats Tsaverna and Tsarina who were expected along later. Attracted a lot of interest from passers-by and some children from the pub who took great delight in being allowed to see the boatman’s cabins. Harry, enthused by his success yesterday, got the magnet out again but only found a bit of scrap metal. The pub children were not impressed by our assertions that he was taking his pet shark for a walk. We had an excellent meal in the pub and members of Nick’s family joined us for the nights festivities.

Wednesday 6^th September 2000

The weather forecast was for rain and as we set of for Hatton flight it was drizzling but that stopped as we started the locks and the rest of the day was fine. First Dave Goodman and then John Byham appeared and happily added to the lockside workers, helping us to reach the top in good time. At the top we moored to take on water, have some lunch and generally chat. After an hour or so we set off and soon arrived at the entrance to Shrewley tunnel. Our progress however was impeded by what appeared to be a tree in the canal and boats stuck in the tunnel. A party was despatched to investigate and discovered men from BW removing a large branch which had fallen in half an hour before we arrived just in front of hotel boats Dawn and Dusk. They had a chain saw and were cutting the branch up which our crew then helped to remove.

After about half an hour the way was clear and we set off into the tunnel. Somewhere in the tunnel we must have hit a spider colony with the funnel because as we came out into the light the top of President was crawling with hundreds of black spiders  Not a place for the arachnophobes amongst us. We then made good time and soon arrived at Knowle Locks. I was steering President and discovered that dealing with boat and butty can be more difficult than it first appears and let Kildare go to soon, leaving it no where to go but the wrong side of the lock pier. We worked up the first three locks with no problems but the pounds between the top three locks were very low and Nick decided to fill them from the summit pound. We tried to let British Waterways know but we couldn’t get hold of them. We also found that the summit pound was about six inches low but according to someone at Stephen Goldsbrough’s yard, it always was. We took it easy into Catherine de Barnes just in case but we didn’t encounter any difficulty and moored the north side of bridge 78. We then proceeded to do what we always did, take the hot ash from the fire, spread them out in the hedge and cool them down with water. This tends to generate a lot of steam and it was at this point that Mr. Angry of Catherine de Barnes appeared and had a right go at us about setting fire to ‘his’ hedge. We pointed out that it was the towpath side and we were just cooling the ash down etc. but he would not be mollified and names were taken and a camera was produced to take pictures of the ‘evidence’. After he left we proceeded to use the ‘evidence’ to fill in a hole in the towpath. Mr Angry later reappeared with another person, presumably a local official of some sort, and showed her the, by now, cold and shrunken pile of ash. The official seemed somewhat bemused by it all.

Thursday 7^th September 2000

Anticipating a longer day, we set of from Catherine de Barnes at 7.22am but within half a mile we were aground on mud mid channel when passing a plastic boat. We had a couple of runs at the obstruction but in the end we pulled the boat over. We also had to pull the boat through most of the bridges to Yardley, but it was next to a small picnic area just past Bridge 86 when we ran firmly aground in mid channel. A bit of probing with poles revealed the obstruction to be very solid, possibly concrete slabs or rocks. After a few attempts to free President, Nick made the decision to unpack the Tirfor. This was duly attached to a convenient sturdy tree and President was slowly tugged to deeper water.

At 12.25 we were 2 miles or so from Camp Hill Locks when Maurice announced from the engine room that he had a problem with a valve which meant we couldn’t inject water into the Boiler. We pulled in just past Bridge 88A and as we prepared to moor Harry found a mooring pin stuck in the towpath just where we wanted it! If anyone takes part in any ‘scrap heap challenges’ or the like, be sure to take Harry with you, he seems to have knack for finding useful scrap. The offending valve was taken apart and Dave Stott was called for advice. It was decided that repairing the valve was beyond our means and Dave set off to meet us and take the valve for repair. It looked like we were going to be stuck for the night. After a discussion it was thought that it might be possible to shim out the valve enough to get it working, but a suitable shim could not be found. Nick looked at the map to find out where we were and found that we were quite close to the Birmingham Railway Museum. It could be that they would have something suitable to fix the valve, so Harry and Martin were despatched on bikes to investigate. They were only round the corner however when they asked two workers on the opposite bank for directions. After explaining the problem, the workers suggested that they might be able to repair the valve. Harry risked life and limb to climb up a nasty looking spiked fence and onto the bridge to get across to them. He returned with not only our valve shimmed out with some fibre washers, but also with a complete spare valve!. The spare valve worked a treat. Dave Stott appeared just as we got steam up and he inspected and approved the repair. The workers turned out to be John Messenger and Bob Parsons from Hollow Extrusions to whom we give many thanks. As one of the crew said it was a pleasure to see the back of ‘Hollow Extrusions’. It would have been delightful to see the front but we were very pleased to see the back!. We finally made Camp hill locks at 3.37pm, some 8 and a bit hours after we had left Catherine de Barnes. Working through Camp Hill, Ashted and Farmers Bridge flight, we arrived at Farmers Bridge Junction just before 8pm. A bit more like a ‘President day’.

Friday 8^th September 2000

The final short leg was along the main line, up Factory Locks, and back to the BCLM. There were a lot of boats around both outside the Museum and in the dock, which made reversing the boats in more than a little interesting. After cleaning up and putting the boats to bed we all made our own way back to wherever we came from. I got back home at about 10pm, tired but happy to have been on such an interesting and varied trip. I will certainly be looking with interest at how the repairs to President are proceeding and I will be queuing up to join future crews.

Richard Allingham