This event is the stuff of legend, but until randomly browsing today, looking for something entirely different, I had no idea that the occasion had been pictorially comemmorated. It is 11.03 on Friday June 26th 2009. Warrior is tied up part way up the Braunston locks (probably in the Nelson pound) in preparation for the rally. I am on Warrior - that's its headlamp bottom right. Along comes a rather lovely looking josher so out comes my camera (Petrel, I always think, is a lovely advert for twenty+ years of annual varnishing).
Jim however, is out on the towpath, and at the lock he gets chatting to the steerer - who is not attending the rally, but making haste to escape its clutches. As he tells it, the conversation goes something like this.
Jim: That's a lovely boat. Be no good for my missus though, she only wants a big Woolwich. Can't find one though. Looked at loads, none of them are any good...
Duncan (for it is he): I know where there's one. (hands over slip of paper) Ring this number.
Jim: (heart sinks).
And Duncan steers Petrel off, little knowing what he has set in train.
Indeed the stuff of legend - and how lovely to find the moment recorded, or at least the moments either side... ;-)
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