As
mentioned in an earlier trip report, the boats
were to be left for a week after the end of
the Windmill End Show. Although the
venue is a perfectly safe one during the show,
when once all the boats and trade stands have
gone it is not a safe place and after a week
all the coal would have either been stolen
or burnt, probably while still in the boats
holds! After talking to a couple of the lads
who look after boats at the Black Country
Living Museum, (Stour and GWR 15) I managed
to persuade them to enter our pair in the
following weekends working boat gathering.
This
week end is one I would recommend to
any one owning a working boat to attend,
for the BCLM put on loads of
things to keep boat crews entertained,
and all free of charge: A guided tour
of the museum, a special showing of
‘Painted Boats’ in
the museum’s 1920’s cinema,
concessionary price on tunnel trip,
opened the chip shop at night for boaters
only with Fish and Chips (cooked in
beef dripping) only £1.00, The
pub was opened after the museum shut
to the public from 6.00pm - 10.00pm
on Friday and 6.00 – 11.00pm on
Saturday, along with a piano player
in the pub on the Saturday night, as
well as Ma’ Pardoe’s light
mild £1.50 a pint.
There are, of course, certain ‘rules'
that you have to observe whilst on the museum
between 10.00am and 5.00pm, when the public
are there:
Boaters were not allowed in the pub.
Mobile phones were not allowed.
Dress had to be fitting to the period and
occupation (boatman)
No
plastic bags (ie: coal) - boats had to be
clothed
No
modern technology such as Ipod’s, computers
etc.
Strictly
no public allowed onto any boats.
With
all that said it was a most enjoyable week
end with hundreds of folks looking at the
boats and asking questions and with Dawn and
I taking full advantage of all the things
on offer.
Both day’s started off much the same
with President being steamed
up and leaving the site for a trip off for
about an hour, followed at about 10.30 by
the ex-Stewarts & Lloyds tug, Bittel,
towing two iron day boats along with long
time NBT member Bernard Hales
with his tug Enterprise with
a tow of four open iron day boats. Later on
in the day, ex Thomas Clayton tar boat
Stour fired up her Bollinder
and left the Museum for a 2 hour ‘jolly’.
On site Little Northwich motor boat
Bellatrix spent all day, both
days loading and unloading wooden crates onto
the wharf with the windlass operated crane.(Cliff
Sherwood even chain ganged Dawn
into an hour on the crane lifting and lowering
the crates. (I drank tea with his misses)
All together there was a total of 14 boats
in working trim and 5 tugs with their collection
of day boats in the museum along with other
boats outside the museum arm.
I had a chance both days for several pots
of tea over a chat with old timers and friends
old and new for it seemed as one group left
to look round, somebody else would turn up
and it would be “Dawn put the kettle
on, get the biscuits out!”
What
was nice was the number of people who came
up who knew the boats and said how nice the
boats were looking especially ex-Clayton
boaters John Blunn and Fred
Heritage, and NTB member Bernard Hales.
The last few weeks on the boats cleaning,
sorting and scrubbing ropework had paid off.
What we need to do is keep it up and continue
to improve the appearance of the boats over
the autumn and winter ready for next year’s
shows.
Blossom.
