Berkhamsted

Following Tuesday night at Pitstone we went up the Marsworth flight stopping for water at the junction the Aylesbury Arm. For the rest of the flight we were accompanied by another boat and then had the added help of the CRT volunteers. We made good time to the Tring summit and on to Cowroast.

Negotiating Marsworth Locks

Tring cutting

After Cowroast we started our descent to the Thames. We stopped off at the shopping/drop off moorings at Berkhamsted for provisions from Waitrose before moving down to a mooring near Raven's Lane Lock. The mooring was opposite the interesting property where the hire company Bridgewater Boats used to operate from.

Berkhamsted moorings

Also opposite, but a little harder to make out, was the Parish Church where Maggie's parents were married in 1945.

View of Berkhamsted Parish Church

We decided that our hard work locking needed rewarding so we went to the excellent Boat Inn for a drink - Oliver's Island bitter and Cornish Orchards cider - both went down a treat and the pub surroundings were very pleasant. Being a Fullers pub the menu was similar to that of the Grove Lock. It was well patronised.

Walking to Mentmore

We are part of a walking group of friends based around Milton Keynes that has a monthly walk. This month we arranged a walk based on the Grand Union to fit in with our travel plans. On Tuesday we moored Albert between Church Lock and Slapton but started (and finished) the walk at The Grove Lock inn. Albert served as a coffee stop for our friends.

Walking group and Albert

Lots of coffee mugs

(We used three cafetieres)

Outside Mentmore Towers

The route we planned walked along the towpath towards Slapton but left the canal near Bridgego Bridge otherwise known as the Great Train Robber bridge and climbed out of the valley to Mentmore before returning to Grove Lock via Ledburn.

The weather was kind, the company good and the food at the pub fine.

After the walk we moved on to Pitstone. The pound above Horton's Lock was shallow and we touched the bottom a couple of times but all-in-all it was a pleasant late afternoon trip.

Mooring up at Pitstone as the sun sets

  

Leighton Buzzard

We are on our way south for an autumn break on the Thames, or at least that's the plan. We left Yardley Gobion on Saturday morning in warm sunshine with the forecast of dropping temperatures but not much rain. Looking out over the valley of the River Tove near Castlethorpe reminded us how pleasant our home waters are. Within half a mile we were chasing a kingfisher down the cut.

Tove Valley looking towards Hanslope

Phillips bridge Cosgrove

We pushed on through Milton Keynes because our aim was to be in Leighton Buzzard for Sunday. As we passed through Wolverton a boat was going North with a small terrier trotting along the towpath happily wagging his tail. The small dog suddenly stopped, turned around and proceeded to follow our boat. The dog followed us for quite some distance and would not turn around and return to his owner's boat, which had stopped and was trying to encourage the dog to return. Luckily a walker arrived on the scene and managed to turn him around and he trotted back to the right boat.

As we passed through Campbell Park the first of a steady stream of Wyvern Shipping hire-boats came past going north. They had certainly chosen a good weekend for a break. We didn't find many boats going our direction until we met a broad-beam hire boat (yes there are such things) going south very slowly. The crew were under instruction and were not familiar with boat handling. Getting such a large craft through some of the narrow bridge holes near Simpson was tricky and not helped by overhanging trees restricting the navigation. Following behind we were reduced to going astern on a few occasions to slow down enough. The crew of the broad beam soon got the hang of it and after the instructor left them at Fenny Stratford they began to make good progress.

Trees, narrow bridges and wide boats

We stopped off at Stoke Hammond Lock for the night.

Today we moved on to Leighton Buzzard and by lunch we had found a mooring just above the Linslade/Leighton bridge. We took on water just before mooring up and met NB Morpheus.

Passing breasted up working boats above Leighton Lock

The afternoon was spent with our daughter Emily and grandchildren visiting the Leighton Buzzard Narrow Gauge Railway. Based on the sand extraction quarry area of the town this is a wonderful little railway that winds around the town with numerous level crossings. They were having a motor cycle event as well as running steam and diesel locos. We went on a train to the Stonehenge Quarry and back which was double-headed by two diesel locos each powered by 22 HP twin-cylinder diesels (not too dissimilar to the 2YWM in Albert). Matilda and Hugh really enjoyed the trip, particularly when the train stopped the traffic on the road.

Double-head diesels

Doll

However, the highlight of the afternoon (for me) was driving an 1877 loco called Chaloner with a vertical boiler. It was great fun. It's a wonderfully basic locomotive and doesn't even have a cab or spring suspension.

Chaloner

Outbound

Inbound

Driving Experience

The Leighton Buzzard Railway runs a whole series of events and I am sure we will be back. I would certainly recommend it if you are in Leighton Buzzard and want an afternoon off the boat.

Stoke Bruerne Village at War 2018

The Village at War this weekend appears to get bigger each year with more and more re-enactors tacking part. The whole village now gets swamped with people dressed in 1940s clothing - some dressed in military uniform, some impersonating characters such as Churchill and Montgomery and some simply enjoying dressing-up. There are even a few German Forces re-enactors involved.

Montgomery has a chat

German Forces occupy a lock

The event now has less direct emphasis on the canal and wartime boating but this is largely because more and more it has become a re-enactment event. To me that is fine because its success brings a wider range of members of the public to the canal and it financially helps support the Friends of the Canal Museum. However, don't let me give the impression that the canal is overlooked, they was a fine selection of working boats and canal traders.

NB Eclipse with its Lister (Video)

The wonderful coffee boat with its bespoke coffee machine in the bows

Now that's how to get chocolate on a crepe!

In the past I have reported the weather at this event being an Indian summer, but not this year. Despite this year's gloriously sunny and dry summer, that led to navigation restrictions, the recent weather has become mixed. Weather play an important part in the success of outdoor events such as Village at War and on Saturday with cloudy skies and early rain I did wonder about the event's successes. However, on the Sunday the crowds came out in force and Stoke B was just full of people.

We don't boat to this event because pride of place is given over to the historic boats and traders, but we bring along Harvey our 1932 Austin Seven RN box saloon. Not many non-military historic vehicles come to this event but those that do are nearly always pre-war. This year around a dozen turned up over the weekend. Being keen we brought Harvey on both days. There was in fact a lot of interest in our car, largely because it fitted in well with the theme of the event. I suspect that like many other private vehicles Harvey would have been laid up "for the duration" because the lack of petrol coupons.

Harvey and its much bigger cousin at the start of the show

In the past there have been well publicised fly-pasts of WWII aircraft. This year there was no real publicity but a RAF Battle of Britain Memorial Flight Spitfire did a couple of low passes much to the crowd's delight.

Spitfire Fly-past

Every year a George Formby impersonator Paul Casper entertains. But this year we watched the singer Lola Lamour delight the crowds on the Sunday. One of our favourite moments was when she did a duet in French with 92 year-old WII veteran Arthur. He had been in Normandy and sheltered from the Germans by a Belgium family.

Lola Lamour with Arthur under the bridge 

The picture of Lola doesn't appear to show much of an audience. That's because most of the audience were above the "stage" and the area in front was set up to allow dancing - we saw a young couple demonstrate some great jiving.

Model RC working boat (Video)

James Griffen (from Wyvern Shipping) was there with his model working boat. The boat carried munitions (full-size bullets). Watching it manoeuvre, I realised that it was producing an authentic sounding engine note. James informed me that it comes from a Lister HA2 but he would have preferred to have had the sound of a JP2! Unfortunately that but that wasn't available on the internet. The model has a steerer who moves the tiller (or perhaps it is actually the other way round!).

The event gave us the chance to meet up with some old friends, chat about boating and cars, enjoy a couple of drinks and food (hog roast), and marvel at the lengths some people go to recreate the past.

Water Ways by Jasper Winn

Back in June we noticed that the nearby Buckingham Literary Festival was featuring a talk about the canals by Jasper Winn who CRT had appointed a "writer in residence". A residency on over 2,000 miles of waterways is perhaps an interesting concept, hence my use of quotation marks. Whilst on the subject on syntax, the use of  two words for the title of his book is interesting - perhaps helpful for internet searches. Maybe it also gives more of a sense of routes and roaming. Jasper did a lot of wandering during the year by foot, kayak, bike and boat - the book's subtitle claims a thousand miles.

The book festival event was early on a sunny Sunday morning and it consisted of an illustrated talk  that was essentially a snapshot of the book's contents. We found the talk Jasper fascinating and enjoyably familiar; he covered a lot of ground. It was also obvious from the questions posed from the non-boating audience that they were also enthused by the presentation. I just had to purchase a copy of the book and have it signed.

During the talk I wondered if, being a canoeist, if Jasper was aware of the books William Bliss. After the talk and the signing, I chatted to him about this. He appeared to recall the name but there is no reference to Bliss in the book.

Unlike, for example, Terry Darlington's books that consist of a story of a voyage, Jasper's book not only reports on a series of journeys along canals, but it weaves into the chapters all the history of canal construction, the story of canal people through the centuries, the remarkable story of how our canals were saved, and the modern canal scene. Jasper previously wrote about his journey by kayak around Ireland and he uses this mode of transport on several journeys, but notably along the Kennet & Avon. As an example of how the book is constructed, he describes a walk along the Huddersfield Canal but combines it with a discussion on the lives and roles of navvies and the history of Standedge Tunnel.

The book is clearly very well researched and illustrated with a good selection of historic illustrations and contemporary images. It is not a stuffy text and is amusing throughout. I presume CRT must have made resources available but there certainly no evidence of them being involved editorially in the book; the  chapter on live-aboards is evidence. The book covers all you could expect to read about today's canals putting into context how and why they survived and their impact on modern society. It even has a useful glossary of terms, a bibliography and lists of relevant music, film and websites. A great read.

I did note one small editing problem on page 214. The text states "I cycled through Bruce Tunnel".  Jasper clearly kayaked through the tunnel, after all there is no towpath. Mind you, in a book of this type with over 300 pages production slips like this are inevitable.

The see that Water Ways is available from the usual on-line outlets and also available as a download.