LIFE, BUT NOT QUITE AS WE KNOW IT

          It is always wise on board ship to have someone in charge, usually the Captain.  I have never held this position on any of our voyages, even though my name has been on the ‘Ship’s Articles’, because ‘twas I who chartered the vessel in recent years.  I booked the voyage and signed the cheque, so I would be held responsible in case of ‘shipwreck’.  But I have never been in charge of steering and navigation.  I prefer to leave captaincy to those of more confident ability.

          My first rank was a ‘ship’s baby’, being only one year old on my original boating holiday.  This was too young an age, even to ‘make my mark’ in the log (unless I sucked it.  Yeuch!).  As a girl I was an ‘able-bodied sea person (very PC), and later, as a mother, the ‘galley slave, responsible for, among other things, food, entertaining the lower ranks (and sometimes the Captain!), and discipline.  Although on board ship there isn’t room to swing the cat o’nine tails (Just joking.  We left him behind because he wouldn’t fit in the kitbag.  Maybe next time we’ll take the hamster.  There is room to swing a hamster, if you can catch it by the tail, or maybe the ears.  Don’t tell the RSPCA though).

          We have kept logs on all our journeys, times mostly, for going through lacks, mooring at night and for lunch, mishaps and also to note any interesting sights along our route.  All in 24 hour clock timings in the time honoured maritime fashion.  It’s a good way of recording sightings of wildlife, historical buildings or anything funny;

a way of remembering the holiday long after it is over.  Some have been kept, others have been lost, but all were enjoyable to keep and to read over at the end of the day.

          Because the River Thames is on many levels following the lie of the land, water-traffic goes through a series of locks between the different rises.  They are manned by lock-keepers, some employed by the river authority, some by the environmental agency.  Most of them are nice and helpful.  But in the 1970,s, at Clifton Lock, there was a real battleaxe of a lock-keeper.  She was Irish, I think, and known as ‘Bloody Mary’, and she didn’t like children being on deck when the boat was moving.  My father was warned to keep me inside when I was 9, before we got there, so he and my mother had to handle both the bow and stern ropes.  We had four

holidays in four years, so by the time I was 12, I didn’t need to hide from Mary, who thought I was quite competent by that time.

FROM OUR LOG

23/5/97

0956    Left Goring Lock.  Mum missed bollard.  Back of the boat swung out   .  I had to climb up the wall o the lock to catch her rope.

1520   Culham Lock.  Nobish lock-keeper didn’t catch my rope.  I had to run up the steps and the lock was 7ft 11in.

          On entering the gates of a lock, it is necessary to tie up.  Easy enough if the water is high; you can either loop the rope around the bollard, or go ashore and tie up.  But if the water is low you need to throw a line to the lock-keeper or assistant.  Some of the locks have steps cut into the lock wall, which, if the boat is in the right position, one can run up to the top.  In some locks, such as Sonning, and Sanford, the deepest lock on the River at 8ft10ins, this can cause problems.

          When the level of the water changes the line must be either tightened or paid out, and in the deeper locks the pull of the wash as it gushes through the valves can be very strong.  On one occasion in the 1970’s, it was raining and I could not hold the slippery rope, which was made of bright blue nylon, and it was burning my hands, so my father had to come and help me.  I think that may have been at Sonning which has a really deep fall.

          Once we were in a lock, my sister had a very important job to carry out. Situated in the aft cabin was a tiny, black button; possibly it was a circuit breaker.  Her job was to listen out for our father’s call of ‘Kill the engine’, and then to press the button, at which the motor would cut out immediately.  Once the lock gates opened the engine could be started quickly and our journey resumed.

          One task that has to be performed many times a day is mooring, tying up, making fast; whether it be for a short while at a lock, or for lunch, or an overnight stop.  It may be in a busy town, or a quaint village, or even a cow field.  Some mooring places are free, and for others there is a charge.  Usually a man comes along the towpath or river bank, tapping at windows to collect the payment, but sometimes a sign tells you where to go to pay the fee.  At Windsor the signs gave the instruction to pay at the leisure centre (wherever that may have been).  We never found it, although we didn’t look too hard for the building, which was rather naughty, but nobody came around to check that all boats had ‘paid and displayed’.  So, on two occasions we moored at Windsor for free.

          Finding a place to moor has become increasingly difficult, because there are more and more fees to be paid,  but also land has been bought up for fishing rights, prohibiting mooring.  You’d think it would be easier because there are fewer boats, but the rate of decline kin boats and mooring sites seems to have kept pace.

          For a brief stop there are gaps in the trees where one can tie up around a branch, but shallow water can prove a problem.  A stake in a field is one way of mooring, tying up with a round turn and two half-hitch knots.  On a towpath there can be rings to tie a mooring rope to, or a grass verge in which to drive a stake, or sometimes a bollard to fix the rope around.  The important thing to remember are to leave enough slack in the rope to allow for movement of the boat with the river and to make sure the rope does not impede any passers by, causing a danger.

          Feeding a family of five on a boat is a tricky operation requiring precision organisation.  The galley is only big enough for one person at a time, so if someone wishes to use the loo, usually off the galley area, the cook had better be skinny.  Facilities are very basic, so a properly cooked meal like one had at home, has to be adapted.  Cheat!  That’s the order of the day.  Cold meat and salad, soup, tins, all are useful, as is the local pub of take-away.  A simple meal and a glass or two of chilled white wine or lager, eaten on deck on a peaceful summer evening, delicious! 

          The trouble with eating ‘al fresco’, (Al Fresco sounds like a TV private eye, solving crimes with his slightly classier partner, Al Dente) is the attraction that the food holds for insects, both the crawling and flying varieties, who gather to grab their share of the feast.  This proved to be the problem when, at Windsor, my family and I wandered back through Riverside Gardens with our burgers and chip.  We decided, after the long walk uphill to the shops and back down again, to sit on a park bench for dinner.  Big mistake!

          We were quite worn out by our hike, and one of us opened a bottle of fizzy drink.  Carbonated drink doesn’t like hiking, swinging in a carrier bag, so it fizzed out, escaping the confines of its container.  Wasps zoomed in on the sweet, sticky mess, like bees to a honey pot, and would not be deterred.  We legged it, eating on the run back to the boat.

          The River is quite an international place, but at the same time, everyone is a part of the same community, sailors who travel a like course, going through the same motions, with their lives running parallel for a little while.

          We noticed that lots of the boats had flags.  Those that go to sea have the Red Ensign; others fly the flag of their captain’s homeland.  Most of the flags we saw were English and a few were German.  We decided to fly the flag for Wales, and bought a Welsh flag from a souvenir shop in the High Street in Windsor.

          This certainly attracted attention, some good and some no so good.  An assistant lock keeper at one lock asked us if we spoke Welsh as she had studied in Wales and learned some of the language while she was there.  Of course, coming from a predominantly English speaking part of the country, we had to admit we didn’t, but it was nice of her to ask.

          On the other hand, a boat full of young men was heard to comment scathingly, on spying our flag and my husband and eldest son both wearing Cardiff City shirts, that our boat was,

“An English barge full of Cardiff City supporters”.

          For four years in the 1970’s our holidays were always at the same time as my birthday in the first week of June.  The first trip was just after my ninth birthday, a few days after the event.  My tenth birthday was on the day we went away and I was given a Kodak Instamatic Camera which I kept for the next ten or twelve years, until it was lost, either outside in the street or at Cardiff Airport.  I still have some of the pictures which I took on that holiday.  For my eleventh birthday I was given a travelling alarm clock which we set for 1050, the time at which I was born, so everyone on board sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to me.  They were very happy birthdays indeed.