At last: The Saltaire Wurlitzer

A terrible photo, but mine own. Many better ones are on the COS website (link below)

You probably wondered where I was going with that flight of fancy. Of course I was leading up to the high point of my trip to Saltaire: the organ concert. Saltaire's Victoria Hall has, since 2009 been home to the Wurlitzer cinema organ first installed in Oldham's Gaumont cinema in 1937 (that most significant of years) and owned, since the cinema's closure in 1961, by the Cinema Organ Society, who found it a number of different - and more or less successful - foster homes over the years. All the details, and some super photos of it in its original home, are on their website here.

I was extremely fortunate in that fellow historic boater David Lowe (Swallow and Apollo) is also a cinema organist, leading light of the Cinema Organ Society, and currently tuner of the Saltaire Wurlitzer. David wasn't playing the concert this month (although he is doing the April one) so in between operating the spotlight and checking on the organ, was able to give me a tour of its hidden workings in the interval. I am going to squeeze one more post out of this, so I'll say more about that next time :-)

In the meantime, here is a potted history of the cinema organ that David very kindly sent me when I first revealed my both unformed and uninformed fascination with this most extraordinary of instruments:

The great town hall organs became very orchestrally biased with many imitative stops.  Eccentric English organist and organ builder Robert Hope-Jones took the idea further at the turn of the last century with his organs which also had electric action (so the console could be detached from the organ itself), and even more percussions and effects.  He also advocated the unit system where one rank of pipes serves many purposes so a smaller number of pipes gives greater versatility.  His ideas were not well received in the UK so he emigrated to the USA and after some false starts ended up in partnership with the Wurlitzer company – a well established builder of high quality musical instruments.  Although intended for ballrooms, skating rinks, bars, hotels, town halls, residences, etc., an early Wurlitzer was installed in an early cinema in Chicago in 1910 and this was so successful that most Wurlitzer organs were installed in cinemas thereafter.  Though not designed (as some claim)  to accompany silent films the Wurlitzer (and other similar makes) were ideal for the purpose, far better than the church or concert type pipe organs (or harmoniums or automatic instruments, or a pianist; and cheaper than an orchestra).  With the coming of talkies only the larger  USA cinemas continued using the organs, but in the UK most unit type cinema organs were installed after the coming of talkies (i.e. post 1929), providing interval music, organ interludes etc., though it maybe that some accompanied silent films in the early 30s.  Another important use was for radio broadcasting.  Three Wurlitzer organs were installed in ballrooms in Blackpool (one post-World War 2).  Cinema organ use declined for a number of reasons;  post 1948 cinema audiences were falling off and many full time organists were dispensed with (but ABC Cinemas carried on with a reduced number), and some continued part time.  In the 1960s there was a bit of a revival until removal of organs began in earnest as cinemas closed or were twinned etc.  In the USA the revival was prompted by the early 1950 s ‘hi-fi’ stereo LP records by organists such as George Wright, and by the late 1950s and 60s organs were being re-installed in pizza restaurants, public halls and private residences  or restored in situ – similar over here but not, regrettably, the restaurants – not sure why. The Blackpool Tower ballroom Wurlitzer carried on but with the massive decline in ballroom dancing (now only for aficionados rather than the general public) its use is very much less and numbers on the dance floor very small.  

Other people's arcana: the cinema organ

When I was a child, and there wasn't much on the telly, sometimes I would be up early on a Sunday morning, before the rest of the household had stirred, and I would watch the Open University. It was invariably someone demonstrating mathematics and I just loved letting the incomprehensibility of it wash over me.

People are passionate about all sorts of different things. Most of those passions I don't share; many I can't even comprehend; some I have an interest in; a curiosity about. But whatever it is you're obsessed with, I get it; I respect it; I admire it. I am passionate about narrow boats (ok, a small subset of them). Other people are passionate about trains, or buses, or the Archers, or Scott Walker - so that I don't have to be (my brain would explode). And I am very, very glad that there are people out there whose passion is cinema organs. Because without them, we wouldn't have any, just as we wouldn't have steam locomotives or big Woolwiches. And they are such extraordinary, marvellous, and almost pointless, things.

They don't transport you from A to B; they don't provide clean water; a Mighty Wurlitzer never, ever, carried goods around the country; you can't even take one on holiday. They provide music, for entertainment - just as countless other instruments and electrical and electronic devices can. They do it at great cost, in terms of space, time and money. If they were animals, they would long be extinct. They are complex, massive, delicate, expensive, greedy, scary... and quite fabulous.

Here is (are?) the arcana. This 'simple glossary' is, in fact, a failsafe way to recreate that Sunday morning Open University feeling. And - on a serious, and professional, note - brings home just how easy it is to forget that something familiar and easy to you (me), whether that be historic narrow boats or Marxist theory, is a foreign language to the uninitiated. Fortunately for me, I don't have to learn it; I can just revel in it. And that's before we've even heard the organ played. That's just the poetry of the naming of its parts.

Following in the footsteps

The steps leading up to the street from Salts Mill, worn by hundreds of feet every day, thousands if not millions over the years. And I very much doubt whether they are the original ones.

You know sometimes when you're working a lock, you can't help but be standing in a puddle? As Pete pointed out to me at the AGM, that's not coincidence; that's a hollow in the stome worn by the boots of those who worked the lock before you. And I find that a pretty amazing thought.

Tiles and toilets

As a boater, of course I need no excuse to introduce the subject of toilets. It is a subject quite dear to my heart, I must confess, and one that frequently haunts my dreams in quite surreal ways (and that is all I am saying on that subject).

A philosopher friend of mine once, he claimed, sought words of wisdom from a venerable and respected sage, and after this guru had thought for a few minutes, this is what he brought forth: 'You never regret going to the toilet.'

Now, I can, hypothetically, conceive of circumstances in which that might not hold true - for example, if there is an axe murderer hiding behind the cubicle door - but as a rule of thumb it has served me well. So I like toilets for their practical value; but I am also very keen on their social history and aesthetics. For example, some old pubs have fabulous Victorian toilets - at least that is what men will tell you. But the ladies' will be sadly disappointing, often a 1960s adjunct - because when the originals were built, ladies didn't go in pubs.

So, when I go off on my travels, I am going to see whether I can find any interesting loos to report on. Not quite in Lucinda Lambton's league, but the third and fourth division of conveniences.

And I struck quite lucky in Saltaire. Firstly, I visited the toilets in Salts Mill. And when I say firstly, I do mean as soon as I got there. Having been there before, I knew this was a safe bet. The sanitaryware itself was very modern, as befits a recently renovated and repurposed building, but the tiles - or in this case, I think, glazed bricks - were rather good.

The basins were very new, but I rather liked them.

It was at the Victoria Hall that I struck sanitaryware gold though. Not original Victorian, but lovely thirties-ish tiles,

basins,

and even toilets.

Look at that fabulous cistern. I think it was porcelain, although it might have been enamel. And that pedastal. And what en excellent flush you would get with the help of all that gravity. I do wonder, in these days of saving water and using it more effectively, why the high level cistern hasn't made a comeback.

The Shipley Glen Tramway

And so to the Glen Tramway, Shipley's premier visitor attraction (if you don't count Saltaire, which I suspect the residents would prefer to categorise as a separate place); a small thing, with a long history, and, it seems, two competing websites - beware, only the latter is approved by the Trustees!

The Tramway was opened in 1895, to carry visitors up the hill to what was then a very popular spot for picnicking and promenading - only the steep ascent deterred people. Initially the fare was 1d each way, but people were inclined(!) to take the tram up and walk down, which meant the tram cars were unbalanced and this put additional wear on the mechanism, so the downhill fare was reduced to a halfpenny. It doesn't appear to be recorded whether this had the desired effect. The fare is now a very reasonable £1 each way, or £2 for unlimited travel for a day (I think you would get your full entertainment value out of this quite quickly).

The tram car is hauled up the hill on a rope made of steel with a hemp core, winding round a drum under the floor of the Top Station, from where the 'driver' controls it. Since an almost nasty accident in 1966 in which someone hurt their ankle, caused by the driver feeling peculiar and stepping out for some air, the controls have been fitted with a dead man's handle, and buffers installed at the bottom, so you can ride with confidence.

The motive power was originally provided by a gas engine supplied by John Robson of Shipley. The proprieters of Saltaire would not allow mains town gas to be piped across the park to the tramway, so it had its own gas plant for a number of years. Eventually it was supplied from the gasholder at Saltaire, but in 1915 was converted to run on oil - probably paraffin (hooray! It's a long time since that's had a mention on the blog). This was relatively short-lived, with an electric motor being installed in 1928, lasting for nearly forty years until it was irreparably damaged by vandalism and theft during one of the Tramway's very few and brief periods of disuse in 1967. It now has a new electric motor.

I eventually found the Bottom Station after a few fruitless detours through the car parks of Shipley. There's a small 'museum' here - basically a nice little collection of old tins and adverts in a shop setting. Passengers were outnumbered by volunteers when I arrived and I rode up the hill (top photo) almost alone (and I think the other three passengers were all volunteers).

There is not much to do at the top, other than go down. You can buy sweets in the shop, or make a selection from some rather sad looking postcards

Or you can promenade. I had planned to eat my lunch at the top, and so I did, but there was nowhere to sit (I had hoped at least for a bench) so I ate it standing up. Once a decent period had elapsed (about five minutes) I headed back to the station for the down hill journey.

Crowds of passengers had suddenly appeared, and on the way back down, the tram was full. In the shop I purchased, for £2, a copy of The Shipley Glen Tramway: Its Social History Since 1895 and its Mechanics by M.J. Leak (a former owner of the Tramway), first published in 2003, from where the information in this post was gleaned.

If you're in Saltaire, and especially if you have children to entertain, it can't hurt to go and have a ride. If you're a fan of historic funicular railways, you're probably already a volunteer.

The Venice of the West Riding

According to Wikipedia, nearly forty places in northern Europe have at one time or another been called The Venice of the North. The main qualification for being likened to that unique city seems to be some buildings, and the presence of some water, and English pretenders to the title include Paddington and Birmingham.

Well, as that's not much in the way of competition, I would like to nominate Saltaire for the title. It has canals (ok, a canal and a river); it has campaniles. And it has lions. I don't think Paddington has lions. (Although it does of course have a bear.)

Saltaire's lions are lovely. There are four of them, although I only photographed two. They are called War, Peace, Determination and Vigilance, and were originally commissioned from the scuptor, Thomas Milnes of London, to go at the base of Nelson's column. Some versions of the story have Milnes's lions being rejected for being too small - and the commision went to Landseer, whose lions were indeed bigger, and bronze - but arguably not as leonine and to my eyes certainly not as characterful. Anyway, it seems that Sir Titus had had his eye on them in Milnes's studio and was more than happy to snap them up for Saltaire.

Here is Peace, enjoying a restful snack (or possibly doing his nails) outside the Victoria Hall, relaxing in the sun like all good lions should,

And here is Vigilance, keeping a lookout outside the former Factory School.

Did I mention that it was a lovely day?


Sources:
The Victorian Web

Where the streets have no plastic windows

A fairly typical street in Saltaire. Saltaire is, in many ways, an odd place; odd in ways you can't quite put your finger on - and this is one of them. There are no uPVC double glazed windows. Not all the houses have their original windows - I would guess very few; not all the houses have windows in the original style. But there's no plastic.

This isn't just because it's a conservation area. Conservation areas are funny things - I recall from when I was on a planning authority, a conservation area made it just as hard to change a seventies replacement back to a Victorian replica as vice versa, which could be quite frustrating.

But Saltaire is a very old conservation area. Conservation areas were introduced under the Civic Amenities Act of 1967, and Saltaire was designated one in 1971 (Stamford in Lincolnshire - which is another of the Big Towns on my list - was the first). Whilst it feels as if uPVC windows have always been with us, they didn't in fact gain traction in Britain until the early 1980s. So there were none to be frozen into Saltaire's street scenes.

In 2014, the Bradford Telegraph and Argus reported a council crackdown on 'rogue doors', helpfully printing the addresses of the four offenders, presumably so that people could go and give them deprecating looks. I didn't take note of this before I went, otherwise I could have checked and reported back on whether the threats of enforcement action had been carried through. One of them was in Fanny Street. As most of the streets in Saltaire are named after members of Sir Titus' family (including himself), that's not so remarkable (she was one of his daughters), but I bet people seeking a desirable residence in Saltaire would, given the choice, rather live in any one of the other roads. Shallow and puerile it may be, but when I was looking at houses recently, if all other things had been equal I'd have paid a couple of thousand more to live in Industry Street or Freedom Road rather than spend the rest of my life giving my address as Cundy Street (as it turned out I ended up with none of these, which are all roads in the Walkley district of Sheffield).

I got the information about uPVC windows from the website of the British Plastics Federation, whose 'History of Windows' (admirably potted into a few paragraphs) also tells us that 'building down to a price rather than up to a standard post-Second World War lead [sic] to little of architectural merit in fenestration.'


Other sources:
Historic England

A walk in the park

On arriving in Saltaire, I first got my bearings by finding the canal. The trip boat was just leaving, but I decided against paying four quid for the half hour round trip. In fact, the boat had just left as I dithered; I considered following its route on foot, thus getting a better view (all the outside seats were taken) and saving the aforementioned four quid, but in the end I conceded that there wasn't really enough time; it being Sunday there hadn't been a sensibly early train, and I didn't arrive in the village until 11.20.

Canal without Trip Boat

So instead I went straight to Salts Mill, where I had a brief wander around, taking in the toilets (of which more anon) and the antique shop. The National dried milk tim (with 'cotton wool' scratched into its paint) was still there - at £16, not the £12 I'd remembered - but sadly the red cut glass lamp wasn't, or I'd have had it.

My next appointment was with the Shipley Glen Tramway, which opened at 12. To find that, I took a stroll through Roberts Park (and a few unintended detours, which are par for the course when I'm navigating). This was originally Saltaire Park, built along with the village for the healthy enjoyment of the workers, but became Roberts Park in 1920, when the Roberts family donated it to the local council in memory of their son Bertram.

A large sign sets down the rules of the park as set down by Sir Titus Salt (sadly now superceded), which include:

• Visitors are not to interfere with the cannons or the flag pole, nor to touch the trees, shrubs, plants of flowers, now to throw or leave about any orange peel or other refuse...
• No shooting no discharge or firearms of any kind, except by members of the Rifle Corps when on drill, and no bonfire or fireworks will be permitted without the permission in writing of the Firm.
• Stone throwing, disorderly and indecorous conduct, profane and indecent language, gambling, pitch and toss, and soliciting alms are strictly prohibited.
• Smoking is not allowed in the alcoves, nor spitting on the paths.
• The play grounds are not to be used on Sundays.

There are twenty rules in all, ensuring that the residents of Saltaire enjoyed themselves in the proper fashion.

 The original bandstand was long lost, but was replaced with a larger one as part of a four and a half million pound refurbishment in 2009. The statue was provided by Sir James Roberts (the same one who later handed over the park) in 1903, to mark the centenary of Salt's birth. Most pictures of it show his impressively bearded front view, in which he appears to be holding a scroll of paper modestly across his groin, but the sun was behind him, so I had to go for the less orthodox angle. He is surrounded by various sheep, goats, alpacas and other wool-bearing animals from which he made his fortune.

On one side the park is bounded by the River Aire, which separates it from the village and the mill.

It was certainly a lovely day for it.

More photos and info here (which is where I got most of my info from)

Steel/Wool

Usually when I'm on a train I'm not that bothered about having a clear view out of the window; even less which direction I'm facing. Just give me an aisle seat, airline style, and I'm happy; extra legroom and I'm delerious. Normally I'd have my nose in a book for the entire journey.

But Sunday was a bit different; I wanted to savour every bit of the trip, including the journey. Unfortunately, I didn't think of that until I'd chosen my seat, which did not have good window access. This was a Cross Country train with the notorious Virgin windows and I was in the worst possible spot for looking out. Nonetheless I craned my neck and did my best. Almost invariably when I leave Sheffield I'm heading south, so this was different from the start; deep, stone-lined cuttings, green and wet, interspersed with tunnels. Over the Don and through Attercliffe; a sea of factories, steel mills and scrap heaps - but how many of them still operating? 'Special Steels Limited: Long Bar Treatment'.  Lots of cleared sites too; places in the throes of demolition, and new housing on virtuous brownfield land.  Past the sewage works, through a disused station, red brick, five minutes out of Sheffield - what was that? Ten minutes before we reach the suburbs, then green fields; glimpses of canal. Spring sun emerging and the sky turning blue. Change at Leeds and run with the canal now for a way; I'm standing at the doors now looking out like a kid. Flashes of river, a tunnel and we arrive at Saltaire.

The station itself is characterless, rebuilt in 1984 almost two decades after it was closed, with hardly anything of the original remaining. Here's one old photo - the buildings were demolished in 1970, five years after it was closed. Quite a few people got off - I suppose the first sunny Sunday of spring brought them out - so I didn't stop to take any pictures on the platform. Here's what it looked like from the road above:

And the other side:

I didn't come back from Saltaire. I planned to come back from Shipley, but I didn't come back from Shipley either - having gone there for a bite to eat at teatime I managed to miss my train despite a mad dash for the station that got me there moments before it should have left (but with no sign of it in sight) I ended up getting a lift to Bradford Interchange and catching the Leeds train there. I'd never been to Bradford before.

The return fare was £12.50. I suspect this will turn out to be one of the cheapest of my Big Days Out.

Back on track

I love railway stations.* I love the sense they always give me of setting off for somewhere; the potential for adventure.

When I worked in Huddersfield, which is ten years ago now, I would get the train to Victoria, and then the tube to Kings Cross. People from all over the world would be milling around, speaking dozens of different languages, both travellers and residents of the most diverse city in the world. But none of that gave me the same thrill as the broad Yorkshire accent of the red-faced guard, straight out of central casting, who was frequently in charge of the GNER train I was catching to Wakefield. It was that voice that told me I was going somewhere; somewhere new and different. I still love to watch the landscape changing from a train window, whether I am travelling north or south, but there is still something about the stations themselves.

I love the architecture and the engineering, living history in iron and glass.

And I'm sure it's wrought iron, too, in this one.
I love the prosaic exoticism of the lists of stations that I shall probably never visit, each of them home to hundreds of people I shall never meet.
I love the numbers and the patterns, the lists and the things you can remember. I could so easily have been a trainspotter, if someone had introduced me to it at an impressionable age.
And I particularly liked this announcement board at Leeds last night, which gave the time of the train at each intermediate station. I hope that's something that will be rolled out more widely.

*Except Birmingham New Street, of course.

One down, 85 to go

 Yes, I finally made it to Saltaire. I had a splendid day, and I have only just got back, so more (at length) anon.

One for the road

Every now and again I have a burning question I need to ask about roads. Like why does the two lane A42 become the M42 at an apparently arbitrary point after which it continues with two lanes for many further miles? And I always turn to SABRE, the Society for All British and Irish Road Enthusiasts. I suspect the Irish must have arrived at the party after the acronym had been joyously pounced upon and the logo designed. If you are the sort of person who likes that sort of thing, it is a delight. They have a forum, in which they set each other quizzes, such as 'guess the road number' or 'identify fourteen badly drawn bridges' and get excited about rare street lamps.

It's a mine of information about roads, their history, their numbering (and its anomalies!) and an absolute must whether you like roads or simply enjoy immersion in other people's arcana.

Single handing through life

My first real single handed trip last autumn gave me time to do a lot of thinking. A lot of that was making up a fairy story, but thats another... well, another story.

Single handing was a very positive, and, dare I say it (because of the very real risk of sounding tossy), even a profound experience, which, I realised, provided a lot of useful parallels with life in gereral, especially for someone like me who has never felt entirely at ease in the social world.

Whe I got back, I jotted down a few of those points, and I recently came across that notebook again. This is a very personal take on things, but these are some of the things single-handing means to me, whether it be in boating or in life:

• Embracing solitude and finding strength in it.
• Enjoying meeting other people and spending time with them, but not being dependent on them.
• Taking responsibility for everything I do.
• Standing up for doing things the way I know, or feel, to be right.
• Being self-reliant, but...
• Asking for help when it's really needed, and...
• Accepting help gracefully even when it's not.
• Appreciating the moment.
• Setting my own boundaries and being clear about them.
• Setting my own pace and not being rushed.

What lessons from boating would you carry over into life in general?

Local interest

There are many excellent pubs in Sheffield. But for the four and a half years I have lived here, in leafy Broomhill, I have not had a decent local.

If things go according to plan, that might be about to change...

There are 10 sorts of people in the world...

... in the words of the old (well, relatively, I guess) joke.*

And I was led to wonder at the weekend which category I fitted in. Well, strictly speaking, I know, but more broadly, whether I would be classified as someone who knows about/can use a computer.

And I was wondering because our esteemed Chair, on Saturday, perpetuated that well known preconception that if you want anything done that involves a computer, then you need a young person. People seem to have been saying this for nearly as long as I can remember; since I, in fact, was myself a young person. It so happened that I was sitting next to a person who probably knew more about computers than anyone else in the room; he is in his sixties.  And I thought to myself, why does this idea, that might once have had some currency, persist so strongly?

Sure, young people can text with two thumbs, Instagram their breakfast, and conduct their social and sex lives online. But swiping a smartphone or tapping an app is no more using a computer than putting a ready meal in the microwave is cooking. And anyway, what is 'using a computer'? Does it mean being able to program one? In which case someone in their fifties might well have the edge over the younger generation. When I was at school, computers were The Future, and it was widely believed that we would all need to be able to program. Leaving aside that I was not a maths superstar (sadly) and one lunchbreak spent in a stuffy prefab classroom with smelly Mr Amor watching a gaggle of boys hunched over the school's one Acorn or BBC Micro or whatever it was was enough to convince me that this was not where my future lay (at least I tried!), the principles still underpinned much of the maths we did and what we were expected to understand (which is why I fall into the category* I do).  But then along came Apple, and Windows, and suddenly you didn't need to know how a computer worked in order to be able to use one, and so arguably the younger generation know less, not more, about such things. But when I ran this theory past a colleague today, she suggested that schoolkids are, once again, learning to code; this time so that they can all become games designers.

That is, in any case, mostly irrelevant, because when people say we need a young person to do this computery thing, they don't mean they need someone to program it; they mean they need someone to operate a software package. There are a vast number of things a computer can be made to do, and no one (at least, no one in HNBC) has mastered all of them. But most people who have had any sort of white collar job over the past thirty years will have mastered some of them, and the older of us will have had more practice and been exposed to a wider variety of packages and ways of doing things.

That was a bit of a rant that's not going anywhere really, but was just sparked by realising how absurd that well worn claim is. If it was ever true, I'm sure it isn't now.  What do you think?



* Those who understand binary and those who don't.

The first day of Spring

The sun was shining as I got out of the car outside Lapworth Village Hall, and I thought, this is what marks the end of the winter and the first green shoots of hope for the summer ahead: the HNBC AGM. Just as the November Social wraps up the boating season and is a chance to recap on the summer's boating just gone, and say au revoir to boating friends for the winter, the AGM sees us say hello again, pick up the conversations where we left off, and the plans made over the winter for the year's boating to come start to feel real.

So I do like the AGM. This year there were no contentious motions, and no contested elections (I miss being on the committee though, and knowing what goes on behind the scenes). I chatted with lots of people, and bought some books. The guest speaker was Julie Sharman, head of CRT's Asset Management. Asset Management is a more interesting subject than you might think, but not as interesting as the slideshow of old boatyard invoices we had in November.

Phil made an appeal for additional volunteers to help with the tea, but my HazChem training's not up to date so I had to decline.

Badge of honour

The other week, Sebastian dug out an old cello case from when he was a lot younger, and it had a collection of badges on it. And among them was this one, which I shall wear with pride whislt boating...

It would be nice to have an adult one too though...

A few deletions - and an addition

I've finally got round to tidying up the blogrolls, and getting rid of the moribund blogs that haven't posted for years. It's a shame, but in line with a decline in blogging generally, a lot of boat blogs - especially old boat blogs - seem to have fallen by the wayside. I've also mover the - now much shorter - 'old boats' blogroll above the much longer gereral one. This is purely for my convenience, so I don't have to scroll right down to see the new posts each day.

However - there is a bright spot, and it's what propmted this little sort out - thanks to Alan for drawing my attention to Enceladus' new blog. Great writing, Grand Unions and greyhounds - what more could anyone ask?

And I - along with Alan - played a small part in the unfolding of this story.

Books I read in February

Jim bought me a t-shirt:

I read books like other people watch telly - as my main mindless leisure activity. I read with my breakfast, and with my tea; I read for hours on the sofa most evenings, and mornings and afternoons too if it's cold out. I read on trains (one of the factors that edges rail travel ahead of driving) and while waiting for trains; I read in the bath, and occasionally, in the small hours if I can't sleep, in bed.

I get nervous if I don't have at least a couple of unread books to hand; I feel lost without them. I read books from the library and from charity shops; from Amazon and from WHSmiths at various stations, when caught short; from Abe Books or ebay when I'm looking for something special. I will pick up a book after tea and be 150 pages in by bedtime; I will read two or even three books over a particularly wet weekend. The one time I don't read much is on holiday, because that's when I'm at my most active and most social and actually have least time to fill.

So, these are the books I read in February. I will add a new note to say what the source of each one was.

Paul Finch Strangers (local library)
Competent, credulity-stretching police 'thriller'.

Sharon Bolton Little Black Lies (local library)
Better than average, emotionally laden thriller in the unusual setting of the Falklands.

Lucie Whitehouse Keep You Close (local library)
Another emotionally involving twisty psychological thriller, nicely written.

Lin Anderson The Special Dead (local library)
Police mystery full of clunky exposition rather in the manner of Peter James. Whose tendency to write non-sentences like this is also emulated. A lot.

Laurie Graham The Night in Question (local library)
A lovely book, really enjoyable, engaging, funny and sad story set among music hall artistes at the time of Jack the Ripper, with some beautiful characters and settings.

Matthew Engel Engel's England (Jim's local library)
A county by county journey through the historic counties of England. Generally excellent, with lots of interesting facts and plenty of laugh out loud bits. Some of the chapters felt as if they'd been wrapped up a bit abruptly. Still, if they hadn't been, it might have turned into a very long book indeed.

Elly Griffiths The Woman in Blue (local library)
I like Griffiths' Ruth Galloway series - these are meaty mysteries, with engaging - even loveable - characters. This latest paperback didn't disappoint.

Andrew Michael Hurley The Loney (local library)
Billed as a creepy thriller/horror story, I found this to be an absorbing study of childhood and religion - with an air of approaching menace. I was really enjoying it, until the denuement, which I didn't understand, although I suspect there was an element of the supernatural, which rather spoiled the whole thing.

Eva Dolan After You Die (local library)
Better than average police procedural/detective mystery. Actually does keep you guessing, whilst giving the reader a fair chance at working it out.

Elly Griffiths Smoke and Mirrors (local library)
The second in a new series for Griffiths, set post-war and featuring a detective/illusionist partnership. Reminded me of Bryant and May, although not in their league - but enjoyable nonetheless.

Books I didn't read in February

Anna McPartlin Somewhere Inside of Happy (local library)
Sickmakingly saccharine Oirish family saga; I couldn't get past page 20. I should have known from the title.

Flying visit

Following last week's winds, I thought it might be a good idea to pop down to Alvecote to check on Chertsey's cloths. Jim was in Sheffield for the weekend so we nipped down on Sunday. All was well - the cloths had rucked up a bit but none had come off. Jim loosened a few strings, straightened the cloths up, and tied them tight again. With the translucent cloth running the length of the boat undet the black ones, and firmly tied down with elastic, this was more about protecting the cloths than worrying about water getting in.

Anyway, with that done we repaired for Sunday lunch at the Barlow before heading back to Sheffield. What with a nice towpath walk for Ricky as well, it made for a pleasant day out.

Braunston booked

We may not be going very far afield this year, or for very long, but I'm not missing Braunston. The booking form is filled in and ready to be posted tomorrow. I've been at the Braunston show every year since 2006 - and have taken Chertsey 2010-2015 inclusive.

I wasn't able to get the boat there last year - and indeed, it's going to be tough this year but at least we're nearer now - because it's very inconveniently timed to coincide with the busiest time of the year for an Exams Officer, which is one of the many hats I have at work. Summer exams take place between May 22nd and June 10th, then everything has to be marked and double marked, and all the marks collated, and extenuating circumstances considered, and an exam board organised and held, and all the finalised marks uploaded to 'the system' by the first week of July.

So I shall be very glad of a break, no matter how brief.

Not going out

Well, I had planned my grand day out to Saltaire for tomorrow, but even if the snow stops, the weather is forecast to be cold and windy - not the beat weather for the outdoor activities I had planned. So I have decided to defer the trip for a month... Why a month? Because there's one other activity that won't be available again for that long. Fingers crossed for better weather in March.

Also I am having rather a busy weekend, and Jim is here in Sheffield helping me with it. Hopefully I should have some exciting news soon...

The secret of happiness

I would love to give credit where it's due, but I'm afraid I can't actually remember where I read this. Sorry, dear reader, and even more sorry to the author.

Everyone wants to know how to be happy, and there is no shortage of books and websites promising you the secret, from meditation, relaxation, sleep, diet, religion, friendship, exercise, volunteering, finding your life's purpose and any number of other quite difficult and time consuming commitments.

So this piece of advice stood out: of all the things you already do, work out which makes you happiest, and do more of it.

It didn't take me long to realise that I am happiest when I'm boating. I already put the advice into practice a bit last year, boating on into December - and now I'm itching to start 2017's; already envious of the Herbies and the others who are already out on the water.

Books I read in January

It's time to resurrect the never-popular 'Books I Read In...' feature. January started with four books in as many days - nearly four in three days, in fact - such is the nature of a rainy New Year's Day.

Ian Rankin Rather Be The Devil
Reliably good latest Rebus novel. Can't say too much about it - it was my Christmas present to Jim and he hasn't read it yet!


Cathi Unsworth Without The Moon
Police procedural set in WW2. Didn't live up to the gushing cover quotes; rather dull.


Tim Footman Leonard Cohen: Hallejulah
2009 biography I suspect hastily reprinted. Much thinner in every sense than Sylvie Simmons exhaustive 2013 tome; more of an annotated discography. Occasionally slightly amusing, but you can't really respect someone who dismisses 'Sing Another Song Boys' and 'Closing Time' and instead raves about the insipid 'Bird on the Wire' and someone else's version of 'Hallejulah'.

Sabine Durrant Lie With Me
I finished the Cohen biography on the Thameslink, so I had to quickly find something at St Pancras for the rest of the journey, so grabbed this in Smiths. Pretty good psychological thriller; if I saw the ending coming a mile off it's probably only because I read far too much of this sort of stuff.

B A Paris Behind Closed Doors
Another psychological thriller. Good plot idea, but could have been handled so much better to create real credibility and suspense.

Trevor Yorke  Britain's Railway Architecture and Heritage
I saw this on the second-hand shelf in Sebastian's shop and demanded it for Christmas. He forgot, but I got it for new year. Lovely photos, very helpful drawings, and plenty of material for wistful longing - it taught me more about engineering and architecture in a few pages than many much longer books have ever managed. 

Liz Nugent Lying in Wait
Now this is much more like it on the psychological thriller front. Using multiple viewpoints to really good effect, complex, engaging characters, and a genuinely enexpected, but still credible ending. Excellent stuff.  

Scarlet Thomas The Seed Collectors
Cleverly written, occasionally funny but ultimately tediously weird family saga.

Ann Cleeves Too Good to be True
Essentially a short story (a 'quick read') which suffers from the same as all short detective stories - no time to do more than skim the surface of character and crime before wrapping it all up neatly.

Kerry Wilkinson Down Among the Dead Men
Competent, un-gripping Manchester gangland tale - no sympathy for, hence no involvement with any of the characters. The second book I've read this month that makes it seem implausibly easy to incapacitate a Very Dangerous Person by persuading them to drink whisky laced with ground up pills.


Susan Hill The Small Hand
Ghostly novella. Nice writing, but the plot did nothing for me.


Rose Tremain The American Lover and other stories
I used not to like short stories, until I took a course on them and tried to write a couple. Now I really appreciate the skill and the artistry required to create a perfect small sketch rather than a great sprawling canvas of a novel. And these are wonderful examples of the craft.


David Brookfield The Skillful Teacher
You may surmise - and you would be correct - that this was one book I wasn't reading for fun. Nonetheless, as far as the genre goes (and it goes pretty low) this was good - lots of useful practical ideas and hardly any pseudo-theory.  

Andrew Marr Children of the Master
Enjoyable political romp, runs out of steam a bit towards the end. 

M.J. Arlidge The Doll's House
Workaday, unthrilling thriller. 

Books I didn't read in January
Tom Bowyer Broken Vows: The Tragedy of Power
I was looking forward to this; no fan of Tony Blair, I was anticipated a well evidenced, forensic dissection of New Labour policy from this biographer with a reputation for mercilessly skewering his subjects. But it read like the worst kind of Daily Mail journalism, and I couldn't stand it.  

Eighty today

Today is Chertsey's eightieth birthday.

At least, January 29th, 1937 was the date recorded for her delivery to the Grand Union Canal Carrying Company, so she was probably finished a bit before then. The real date to celebrate would be the day she first got her bottom wet, but there's no way of ever knowing when that was.

I really liked the idea of holding a party to celebrate at Chertsey's new local, but the chances of getting enough people to trek out there on a freezing day in January seemed pretty minimal. So instead we - Chertsey and I - will hopefully have a joint bash six months hence, when I won't be eighty, but will be having a birthday of some sort, give or take a day or two.

Anyway, Chertsey will be getting lots of birthday treats over the course of the year - blacking, engine tweaking, and a trip to Walsall to name but a few. And, hopefully, a trip up the Ashby around late July.

It's a bit sad that she's spending her big day alone though. If anyone at Alvecote is reading this, nip round the back of the Barlow and give her a pat from me.

The joys of planning and the delights of anticipation

I am the sort of person who does like to plan things. Sometimes unexpected nice things happen, and when they do, that's great. But nice things happen far more often if you plan them and set about making them happen. I also like to plan because I'm not a massive fan of dealing with the unexpected. If it's bad, I like to be able to prepare for it, and if it's good, I like to be able to look forward to it.

Of course, a certain amount of planning goes into a boat trip - but that's mainly around deciding the route and making sure there's enough time available. Occasionally we'll co-ordinate meeting up with someone, but we tend not to have an itinerary of things to do and places to see en route because there isn't the spare time available (much as I like the idea in principle). And we generally tend to be travelling to an event which has already been planned and organised for us. Nonetheless, I have in the past been quite remiss in not making the most of opportunities to see and do interesting things, having been entirely concerned with getting there in one piece. Hopefully I can remedy that a bit on our putative summer trip up the Ashby, and also maybe at Easter, to an extent.

So I am very much enjoying planning my trip to Saltaire. It's easier, because there's only my time to consider (and my interests too!)  I have a date in mind not too far off, and am pulling a few ideas together of things to do when I get there...

Yes, it's destination number 167

I don't suppose that anyone who's interested needs this final clue.

My first Random Town visit will be - as Halfie correctly, but cryptically, surmised - to Saltaire, a Yorkshire mill town with a difference, on the Leeds-Liverpool Canal. I visited last July, on our works outing. Most of our time then was spent in the massive Salts Mill development, exploring its shops, galleries and cafes. I went for a little wander around the village (is it a town, or a model village?), which was quite an odd experience - I recall it as a small island of well ordered picture-box pretty stone houses (a three bedroom one will set you back a quarter of a million) surrounded by a sea of untidy, unruly deprivation - into which one had to venture to get anything as mundane as a bottle of coke and a bar of chocolate.

I believe - please correct me if I'm wrong - that the boat Saltaire is the only one of the large motor boats to exist in two halves - i.e. that there are two Saltaires. This is more common with the 'small' boats, and particularly of course with butties, where the stern end becomes the fore end of a new boat (although I can't off the top of my head think of any large GU butties this has happened to).

I shan't visit this weekend, as I need a bit of time to plan and think about it, and anyway, I have a stinking cold. But I shall go soon. I'm very much looking forward to it.

The Big Town Tour - first stop

As luck would have it, the first Big Town selected at random is within easy striking distance of Sheffield. I can get there in an hour and twenty minutes for £12.50 return - it'll probably be the cheapest trip of the tour. It has a unique and famous industrial history, and it's on a waterway - one I've not boated on and possibly never will.

 By amazing coincidence, I visited there last year - and for the explicit purpose of visiting too, not to do or buy anything, or to see anyone, but just to visit the place. It was well worth it too. I've checked, and I didn't blog about it at the time, so I could just cheat and post some of the photos from that visit (and I probably will, but honestly, because I have some nice ones, and it was sunny) but one thing I didn't see was the station. This one did fall victim to Beeching - but was resurrected nineteen years later. So next time I have a free weekend I'll go again. I wonder if these two things I didn't buy but wished I had will still be there.

 I thought £12 was a bit steep for an empty tin, but this seemed much better value. I was kicking myself even as I walked back to the coach for not grabbing it.

Of course you can guess where I'll be going... If not I'll post a really heavy clue tomorrow. The fates have been kind with their choice of first stop on my tour.

Touring the Towns

DG had his Random Boroughs, in which he picked a - guess what - random London borough from his special jam jar to visit and write about. His latest random visiting project is the 'Herbert Dip' - the fifty two putative boroughs originally recommended by the Herbert Commission in 1960. While DG takes his randomised journeys in and around London, he travels further afield pretty frequently too - today he writes about Middlesbrough, for example.

Now, I would like to see more of this country. Until fifteen or so years ago, I'd hardly seen any of it, isolated in the little corner of the south east that for so many people is England. Since then, thanks to a couple of jobs I've seen a few bits of West and South Yorkshire and Derbyshire, and thanks to boating, quite a few places strung out along the inland waterways. But there's more, so much more. I have never, for example, been to the Lake District (not that my proposed project will help with that), although I did once live in a Windermere Road.

I like railways. I am fascinated by the fact that the large Grand Union boats were apparently named after towns randomly selected from a railway gazetteer. I have often idly thought about visiting the stations of those places - and some of them are no longer active of course; some may not even still exist.

Yesterday I came back from Newport (Gwent) on the train, and instead of changing as I usually do at Bristol Parkway, I changed at Temple Meads - the first time I've been there. It looked like a very fine station and I was right down the end of the platform about to take a photo when my train came in. Whilst on the journey home, a thought began to form in my mind...

What if I set my favourite random number generator to pick a number between 101 and 186 (we'll stick with the motors for now) and plan to visit the town or station after which that boat was named. It might not be practical, of course, to visit, say, 115, 128 or 165 on a whim, but I could still research them and plan a fantasy trip. Plenty of others though would be a realistic weekend outing. Many of them are places I've already been (103, 105, 111, 112, 113, 116, 120, 121, 122, 143, 146, 148 (of course!), 156, 160, 163, 167, 168 (many times), and 175) but in many cases it was a flying visit and/or a long time ago. Most likely it wasn't by train, and I didn't photograph the station, let alone write it up for the blog. So any one of them would be worth a second visit, plus there's a nearly 80% chance of picking somewhere I've never been.

At the very least it will give me something to write about (you may have noticed there's been a dearth recently). I'm thinking that any visit and research would have a strongish railway focus, looking also at any waterways connections and industrial history. So once I've posted this, I will pick my first random Big Town (some of which of course are really quite small) and see where it takes me. There's a good chance it will be somewhere in England - seventy seven of them are - but it could be one of the seven in Scotland, or the one in Wales, or even the one in Northern Ireland.

So come back tomorrow to see where the Big Town Tour will take us first.

To put you out of your misery, a key to the mysterious numbers may be found here.

Rare archive footage...

Apologies to those of you (you know who you are) who read eighteen page CWF threads and will already have seen this...  Courtesy of David Gunby (of Barrow) - the Fuhrer proves to be surprisingly perceptive.

Back to the Black Country

Everyone's talking about their boating plans - it must be that time of year. It doesn't look as if there will be a big trip for us this year, for two reasons - firstly, whatever we do will have to be fitted round Chertsey's docking - both for blacking and for a look at the engine; and secondly, because I can't take big chunks of time off work for the foreseeable future. I seem to have acquired a lot more responsibilities (not that I'm complaining about the money that comes with them), including being responsible now for exams, including exam boards which very inconsiderately take place in June and August (I'm not too bothered about the February ones).

Having boated late into the year last year (finishing at the beginning of December, in contrast to the previous year), I'm now itching to get started as soon as possible this year. Easter seems like a good time to start, and we were planning to go to Ellesmere Port. A habit has grown up over the past decade or so that in addition to the regular Easter gathering at the Port, in alternate years HNBC organise an alternative, more southerly, gathering for people based further south. Thus 2014 saw us at Foxton, and 2012 Droitwich - we (that is, HNBC) usually try to tie this into an anniversary event, or campaign of some kind. In 2016 it was the Basingstoke, but because of the need to travel on the Thames, and the possibility that it might be too floody at Easter, we went in the summer. So, the HNBC alternative Easter Gatherings tend to be in even-numbered years. So I assumed there wouldn't be one in 2017, and thus planned to hit the Port for only the second time with Chertsey (I think we've been three or four times in all).

But it appears there has been a bit of a mix up, which I can't guarantee I've fully got to the bottom of, but this is what I've pieced together from what was announced at the HNBC November 'social'. The Boat Museum at Ellesmere Port are celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of their first gathering, or their fiftieth gathering, either this year, or next year. At some point, it was believed that this would be in 2018, so HNBC decided not to organise an even that would clash with it. They therefore organised an alternative event for 2017. It then turned out that the Boat Museum are having their celebration in 2017 as well. So we have the clash of Easter Gatherings that we set out to avoid. 

This leaves us faced with a difficult choice: should we go to the Port, as originally tentatively planned, or should we abandon them for the heady delights of Brownhills and Walsall. Well, we have decided on the latter, for a few reasons. The Port will still be there next year, and in future years (obviously, Brownhills and Walsall will be too, but the thought of company renders them a lot more attractive. We might even get to visit Walsall Art Gallery before it closes). Brownhills is nearer our Alvecote base, by quite a long way, meaning that we won't be so tight for time. Hopefully quite a few fellow-HNBCers will be going as well. We even hope to take a brief detour along the way to meet up with the Princess Lucies. And... we get to travel a new route, never previously traversed in Chertsey, not indeed by me - the dreaded (not least by Jim) Bottom Road.

The Garden Bridge

I don't know what all the fuss is about over the proposed, massively expensive, potentially doomed, Garden Bridge over the Thames.

It's already been done, at far less expense, on the Coventry Canal. Can't those metropolitan elites think of something original?

Back in time for a bit more boating

Following my celebration of a thousand Chertsey posts, I thought I's continue counting backwards in hundreds through the posts on my previous blog, Warrior.

So, at -100, we have a brief, unillustrated, record of a day I often recall, with some small degree of pride - the day I steered through Islington tunnel thirteen times. This, in July 2009, is surrounded by posts detailing the excitement of Chertsey's purchase, though none of them fell on the magical 100 mark.

2009 a top posting year, with 267 posts, so it's little wonder that they weren't all exciting. Thus at -200 we have a brief quizzical look at county councils' logos. (I am well aware that I mentioned a county council in yesterday's post.) I wouldn't even bother clicking on that one, to be honest.

So let's hurry on to post -300. This edges us back into 2008, and my brave attempt to create an advent calendar with a Christmas-themed quote for each of 24 randomly selected photos. This one in fact is worth a look - it represents one of my finest sand-sculptural hours (which actually took place in July 2007, my heavens, nearly a decade ago.)

Back to -400, and still no boating. This one sees me at a conference. Extraordinarily, it appears that Boris Johnson was there and gave a speech. And that I had been at an even where Ken Livingstone spoke the previous week. This is extraordinary because I have absolutely no memory of having seen wither of these performers live, and had you asked me, would have sworn I hadn't. It just goes to show how worthwhile it is keeping a blog.

Post -500 features the Bill Fen pumpout. Hooray, a popular boating theme at last. And in the comments Nev introduces us to the concept of 'poking the pyramid'. You may of course rather wish he hadn't. Of course we haven't got a pumpout any more, dumpthrough or otherwise, and neither has Warrior. And I have still never emptied a toilet. I was gearing up to, recently, but the boat was tied up in such a position that I couldn't have got it off and across the other four boats between me and the bank.

Hooray! Post -600 finally sees Warrior on its travels - we are in March, in August 2007, en route to the IWA National at St Ives. I heard the other year that the weeping willow we planted at Floods Ferry before we left in 2005 is no longer there. The cat who attached himself to us at about the same time is still around though.

A return to dullness with -700 - discussions of Warrior's paint, and the painting of the engine - but with no pictures. But I do remember how exciting it was - and how cold - painting Warrior's engine as it sat on a trailer inside a shipping container at Stretton. Warrior has been through a couple of different paint schemes since then, but I don't think the engine has. Ironically, of course, Chertsey's engine is the same colour, Quite possibly the only two engines that colour (muscat) on the entire waterways system, and we've had both of them.

Finally, post -800 (you will recall that there was a total of 859 posts on the Warrior blog). And it's... the start of the original rag rug that still sits on Chertsey's back cabin floor. Others have come and gone, but this first one, the heaviest and densest of them all, endures. I can't believe that it is now over ten years old. It's still doing a brilliant job.

And there we have it. More interesting posts are to be found either side of most of the featured ones, but if you set yourself arbitary parameters you just have to take what you're given.

Wetton muddy walk

I went for a walk with my Ramblers group today for the first time in ages - looking at my records, it appears not sinec June 19th! So a more gentle start might have been called for than twelve miles with lots of hills.

The description of the walk said: 'From Hartington, to Wolfscote Hill, cross the Dove, over Narrowdale Hill to Wetton. Walk north between Wetton Hills to Ecton Hill then back over fields to Hartington.' Which I guess is what we did. The interesting thing about this walk was that it was taking advantage of access land rather than sticking to footpaths. So we covered areas that many of even the most seasoned members hadn't previously walked, and for those who like to collect them (and there are such people of course, two of whom were on the walk), there were not one, but two trig points.  From my perspective, the focus on access land meant there were a lot of muddy fields. Oh, and did I mention the hills?

At the top of Wolfscote Hill, we were told that there were stunning views... on the day in September when the leader had recced the walk.

Down in the dale, things were prettier

This being the White Peak, there was lots of limestone (my direction of causality may be a bit awry there).

Lots of people like it, but I prefer the nearer, grittier, bleaker, and - significantly - less slippery Dark Peak.

The start point of the walk was a twenty five mile drive from Sheffield, but it was still slightly disconcerting as always to find ourselves on paths (we didn't avoid all of them) maintained by Staffordshire County Council.

Squared off

My first crochet project is finished! Seventy-two squares, begun in September and the last one finished on Christmas day, now all joined together, finished off round the edge, and heaven knows how many ends tucked in and knotted off.

And I must say I am pleased. It's not perfect by any means, but one thing I have discovered is that crochet (at least on this scale) is quite forgiving. It's certainly satisfying to have made something so large. I don't know what the next project will be. The ultimate aim is lace, but I don't think I'm ready for that yet. I need to find whatever is the next stage of working towards that. Whilst practising the melodeon too of course.

Hundreds and Thousands

Well, it's taken just over seven years to get here, but this is Chertsey's 1000th post!  Hooray! Throw the streamers and release the balloons!

I thought I would celebrate by looking back at every hundredth post since this blog started on January 1st 2010. And in order to maintain some semblance of suspense, I shall do so in reverse order, starting with post number 900, which, in some way appropriately, marked the tenth anniversary of starting my first blog, nbWarrior. This was posted on April 1st last year, and was post number 1,759. In it I hinted at exciting new developments to come, trailing what was to become my new Rivetcounter blog. If you want to know the simple reason why Rivetcounter never took off, it's this: I couldn't deal with the template. I could never get it to look or behave how I wanted it to, especially on iPads. So I stuck with the tried and tested, and very dated, ten year old Blogger template that I've been using ever since I started that Warrior blog. Rivetcounter has now become a repository for hostiong photos that I want to hotlink to Canalworld. Sad, in a way, especially as it's such a brilliant title and I couldn't believe it wasn't already taken. I believe Sebastian has snapped up the Wordpress equivalent too, just in case I should ever want to have another go. I am of course still trying, and still failing, to emulate the great Diamond Geezer.

The 800th post is also the first post in April - two years earlier. 2014 and 2015 were the thinnest posting years, and in fact 2015 evades having a commemorative hundredth post at all (2010, 11 and 12 have two apiece). This post, about the relative merits of different stoves, demonstrates a rather annoying occurrence: all the photos posted with Blogpress over the years have disappeared, so for more than one of these commemorative posts, you will have to exercise your imagination. This is where I raved about the Origo stove. It's still going strong, and it's still great. It must have paid for itself many times over since 2014 by making cooking a meal on the boat an easy alternative to going to the pub.

Post 700, in May 2013, saw us 'ready for the off' - ready to set off for Langley Mill for the start of an epic year's boating. I seem to recall that we had a great time there, with half the Holymoorside Brass Band in the hold. As for the trip to Watford, Jim has certainly never forgotten it. It is also responsible for Alan Fincher buying Flamingo, so he probably hasn't either.

Amazingly, the 600th post occurred exactly one year earlier, in May 2012. This was while we were living on Bakewell, and I garnered  a healthy eight comments by asking the good people out there to identify the non-flowering plants growing on the mooring. I now know what not to eat.

Number 500 sees us immersed in the machinations of the CRT elections, when CRT was still a novelty, in January 2012, and I was still the press secretary for HNBOC, which was still HNBOC. Willow gets a mention, as escapologist. He is still around, poncing off the little old ladies of Newhaven, and must be at least fourteen by now. Apart from the fighting injuries which he still regularly incurs, he's looking well on it.

For post 400, we're back in 2011, and we're in Burton-on-Trent enjoying a couple of pints in the Coopers' Tavern - Bass and Jaipur in my case. Now I must be getting old, because I eschew Jaipur these days because my head can't take it. Back then, Burton was only associated in my mind with beer - we had yet to meet two of the town's finest natives who have become brilliant friends, met not through boating, but through the new job that I was over a year away from getting.

Still in 2011, in January, post 300 found us hopefully - but nervously - anticipating our escape from Great Haywood, having found ourselves iced in for six weeks en route from Kings Bromley to Stretton, as we moved to our (then) new mooring, where we were to stay for over five years. Reading the subsequent posts reassures me that we did make it, although we had to contend with lock closures and fallen trees along the way. The post is actually mostly about getting cheap train tickets. I must admit that I have reached the point of complacent prosperity where I have begun to consider just getting an open return sometimes. As a bit of an aside, I've been doing a bit more driving lately on long journeys. I still can't make up my mind which is better. Driving, when it goes well, is certainly more convenient and capable of greater spontaneity. However, I can never quite shake off the feeling that I am doing something terribly dangerous and it can be quite nerve-racking. When it goes wrong, it can be cold and expensive, and often there's no toilet. Going by train requires more planning, and simply doesn't work for some places (e.g. Braunston). But when it goes well it is comfortable and hassle-free; when it goes wrong it is frustrating, sometimes worrying (being dumped at Doncaster station on a Sunday night to be told that the last replacement bus had gone without us), and sometimes there is no toilet. Rail travel goes wrong more often, but more mildly, than driving. And at least when it goes badly wrong you get a refund. So I think rail clinches it, in the end.

Back to Your Hundred Best Blogs. At number 200 - getting into the depths of history here - we have a disquisition on one of this blog's favourite themes: tea. It is clear from the way I bemoan the quality of bag-made tea here that I have not yet discovered Yorkshire Tea teabags. Give me a good teabag any day in preference to too few leaves crammed too tightly into a fancy little pot. In fact, as soon as I finish writing this I'm off to make a cuppa. We still have the big brown pot, maybe a little more battered now. I'm pleasantly surprised to see that the link to Mike's photos still works, and I've just spent a distracted few minutes looking at them... Lovely to have the memories of our first trip to Braunston, on which Mike was such a help with boating as well as chronicling the trip.

Finally, the 100th post sees us on our travels again - but on Warrior this time - a Fens break in the midst of restoration work on Chertsey in April 2010. We have visited the splendid antiques market at Ely and made a number of purchases.  I believe we did put some of that copper behind Warrior's stovepipe; Chertsey definitely sports some. That brass chain is still Chertsey's best chimney chain. The eiderdown, sadly, I no longer have. I gave it to my sister - I'm not actually sure she even really wanted it, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. The days of going at seven miles an hour are probably behind us too now.

Prior to starting the Chertsey blog, I'd already racked up 859 posts on nbWarrior, so perhaps I'll continue counting backwards through them. But that's for another time. Right now I have to go and watch West Ham get knocked out of the FA Cup, then I can stop thinking about it for another year.

Aber added

There are so many boats missing from the sticker album that I have seen at close quarters in the last few years, but either haven't photographed, or can't lay my hands on the photos. However, browsing my old iPad over Christmas, now in Jim's hands, I found a lovely one of Aber, which was apparently taken on June 17th 2012.

Hang on, who's this?

Oh yes, I have grandchildren. And they're really rather sweet.

Eloise (nearly seven) and Max (nearly three - their birthdays are on the same day in March). Might even get round to taking them boating this year. One at a time. With a parent.

Now, can anyone identify the 'sheet music'?

Wot no narrow boats?

Chertsey is on the National Historic Ships Register. This doesn't cost anything, and does, I am sure, lots of very good things, so I shouldn't complain. Quite a lot of narrow boats are registered, and I know some have benefited from the small grants that NHS awards for restoration projects. They also run an annual photo competition, which I have entered, on occasion.

Every year they send me a nice calendar, with a historic shippy picture for each month. This is my default kitchen wall calendar for the year. For at least the last three years, one month has been illustrated with a narrow boat picture - December, for the past two years, because I suppose you don't get too many photos of snow-covered ships out at sea, and, in 2014 October (or possibly September) was illustrated with my photo (fame!) of the launch of Walton. It didn't win or even get commended in the competition, but unexpectedly seeing it in the calendar was far more rewarding.

But this year... no narrow boat pictures at all. Perhaps no one sent one in. I will make sure that I, at least, do this year.

HAPPY NEW YEAR

Hooray! I managed my 100 posts for 2016.

Once I'm back in Sheffield I shall pick up again and try to better that in 2017, even as the world collapses about our ears. I shan't be sorry to say goodbye to 2016, a year in which many horrid things happened - but it will also be memorable for the wonderful summer trip down to Woking and up the Thames, so it wasn't all bad.

I should have plenty to write about next year... on the cards is docking, an Easter trip to Brownhills and Walsall, a birthday cruise up the Ashby, the decoration of the back cabin and of course the Braunston (non stop?!) and Alvecote gatherings - but no long trips. Let's hope that whatever unexpected things 2017 brings are nice ones.

So here's to a good road for everyone in 2017.