Resurrecting the Town Class Sticker Album

More recent readers may not know about the Town Class Sticker Album - my repository, begun more than six years ago, for collecting photos of all the GU 'Town Class' motor boats.

It fell into disuse for a long time because I somehow came to believe that I had forgotten the password for it. But it's on the same account as this blog! So I am a fool. Glancing down it, there are photos of boats that I haven't seen for years (so lucky I grabbed them when I did) and so many missing ones that I could so easily have added - Aber, Alton, Aldgate, Banstead, Birmingham, Letchworth, Nuneaton, Renfrew... all of which I've seen up close in the past year; some of which I do have photos of. Then there are others where I could add more recent photos.

What sent me back to it today was a most unexpected find - well, I certainly didn't expect to find a large Northwich on the Sheffield and Tinsley Canal, but coming back from doing the Five Weirs Walk this afternoon, there it was - Naburn. Cut down a bit, of course, and apparently still a BW CRT workboat.

I shall now gradually set about tracking down photos taken in the last few years and uploading them to the album, and then we'll have a better idea of how many I've still to see.

Feeling detached

I finally got around to it! Having boated (in Warrior) all the way up the Chesterfield Canal from West Stockwith to Kiveton Park, and in Chertsey as far as Morse Lock, on Sunday we finally took a trip on the detached part of the canal, from Chesterfield itself.

It was a two hour trip - an hour out and an hour back - taking in three locks, on the Chesterfield Canal Trust's new trip boat John Varley II.

The section of the canal we travelled was largely rural, and to be honest, fairly devoid of any interest other than the fact of its restoration - but that is pretty amazing. It was very pleasant, particularly as we were two of only four passengers, the others being a very knowledgeable man and his grandson. Our numbers were equalled by those of the crew - a steerer,  a hostess and two lockpeople, one of whom was ninety. The volunteers seem to work incredibly hard, equivalent to a full time job in some cases.

My photos are rather disappointing - I put the longer lens on this time and a lot of them are a bit shaky. But here is a small taste.