Merry Christmas to all our Readers

Ironic Tonic

At lunchtime today Hardeep Singkohli's Sunday Lunch on BBC Radio Four shared our view of Pendle Hill for he was at Clarion House near Barley.

This is the last remaining Clarion House in Britain, apparently, and was the birthplace of the Independent Labour Party. The Clarion House was built to be a non-profit making co-operative with any excess money to be used in spreading the word of socialism in the hope that others would take it as a model of how society as a whole ought to be organised.Visitors could come and witness how people were prepared to devote their lives to the Clarion movement for no personal gain, other than the knowledge that they would leave the world a better place than when they entered it. Those early socialist pioneers who built the Clarion chose a place of recognised natural beauty in the fervent hope that the rest of the world would come to resemble it and become a place of beauty, not only physical beauty - but also a moral and social beauty. Today, the Clarion House is open on Sundays to dispense pint mugs of tea to walkers, cyclists and any other callers.
A couple of years ago, when we were last up this way, we visited another last remaining also noted for its drinks.  

Fitzpatrick's Bar 

in Rawtenstall is the legacy of the nineteenth century  Temperance movement which strove to dissuade people from consuming  the demon drink.

Inside, the shelves do not resemble those at your local pub.

The Fitzpatrick family were  herbalists who moved from Dublin and at one time had more than thirty such bars.



A coouple of weeks ago the owner of twelve years, Christopher Law, was stopped by the police in Burnley at 2.30 one morning for drink driving.
He  was fined £110 and banned from driving for 17 months.

Perhaps he will now patronise his own establishment.

Lost in the Post

As we are wintering at the other end of the country from our PO Box I recently set up a redirection for the mail to come to our winter mooring. This should have commenced two weeks ago but no mail has arrived.  I tried to call the sorting office where our PO Box is held but they are ex-directory. So I called the Redirection Team somewhere in the Royal Mail organisation.  They gave me a complaint number.  But still no mail.  So I took a train 200 miles to visit the sorting office personally.  Here I leaned the procedure for setting up a redirection:
1) Take the customer's money - DONE
2) Confirm to the source address the details of the redirection - DONE
3) Confirm to the destination the details of the redirection - DONE
4) Instruct the sorting office concerned and supply address labels -??????
It transpires that the labels from Royal Mail redirection Team to the Royal Mail sorting office are LOST IN THE POST.
I can only suppose that this level of performance is being developed in preparing Royal Mail for sale into the private sector.  If I were the queen, I think I would insist on the Royal tag being removed from the organisation.

Everything Everywhere but not For Life

Four years ago I was offered Free Home Broadband for Life by Orange as part of my mobile phone package. This week the new owner of that company - Everything Everywhere has disconnected my broadband and will only reconnect it if I agree to subscribe to one of their home phone packages.  They justify their blackmail on a clause in the terms and conditions which reserves the right to withdraw the offer at any time. A lawyer on BBC Radio Four last week expressed the view that the headline offer of Free Home Broadband for Life could not be withdrawn in this way as it would be considered by any cour as an unfair condition. But they have gone ahead and cut off my broadban. This reminds me of the often misquoted message scribbled by Mark Twain -
"... The report of my illness grew out of his illness, This report of my death was an exaggeration."
So, be warned: if you sign up with Everything Everywhere they cannot be trusted to honour their contract.

Remembering John Whitehouse

John was quietly passionate about several things - railways, canals, local industry, photography, and above all, Tipton.
In this film of his some of this passion is expressed . In his typically modest way the only name absent from the credits is his own.
If you knew John this will remind you of him: if you did not know him perhaps it will give you something to think about.

A Visit to the Circus

We had a busy weekend with jobs to accomplish and people to visit in Bath, Oxford, Aylesbury, Penn, Prestwood and Hyde Heath.
Whilst in Aylesbury we made a brief detour from our programme to take a look at the site of the new marina at Circus Field.

Work has started already on the marina to replace the moorings in the town centre basin.
By next summer there should be boats here.

Reedley Marina

We arrived here for the winter on Tuesday since when it has been rather hectic: what with grandchildren and Hallowe'en and bonfire night and berth holders meeting.

There is a webcam at the marina just click the link.  We have now moved from the  short jetty and are no longer visible on the webcam..
As we will not be taking Gecko out over the winter I will try to catch up on some of the posts I did not get round to making during the season so keep visiting the  blog.

John Whitehouse RIP

We have just learned that John Whitehouse has died.
We have little information about the circumstances and are too upset to write more.
The blog may be off air for a time.

Back on Track

Today we left Manchester and joined the Bridgewater Canal and after an hour were back on our original route. The diversion from Middlewich has been quite a trek but we have enjoyed it, even the last few days which we had some qualms about beforehand.




As we left Castlefield we took one last look at the Hilton hotel and the annexe for posh ducks.







There is a phenomenon well-known to canal boaters and was propounded as The Law of  Passing Boats viz:  two boats travelling in opposite directions on the same canal will only meet when there is too little space to pass.

We met our first boat at Waters Meeting where they  joined our arm and we joined theirs

We met our second boat at Barton Swing Aqueduct........

As you can see from this picture, we were first ones across.

No trip through  Worsley, the home of the Bridgewater Canal, would be complete without this illustration.

And from the sublime to the  other thing......

Longest Narrowboat Journey in the World

A couple of years ago when visiting our friends Paul and Chris (not forgetting Ivy) on their narrowboat which they live on near Arras we watched a film of the longest narrowboat journey in the world.  This was undertaken by Nick Sanders in a specially prepared narrowboat and butty.  (Were they names Unspoilt by Progress I & II?) Their journey was intended to go from the Black Country to the Black Sea but the butty sank somewhere on the Danube, I think . I believe the butty was eventually raised and joined the motor boat but my mind is a bit hazy on this point.

I have been unable to find a copy of the film but was reminded of it as we passed through Bollington on the Macclesfield Canal last week.

There on the bank was this motor boat with a head poking out of the side hatch.  Unfortunately the head disappeared and I was unable to verify whether this if the original boat or not.


Perhaps someone with a better memory or a copy of the film could clarify this.