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Here is the article I have written for my writing group.
It was surprising how much I stank when my sister pulled me out of the canal.
We had been looking forward to this holiday in February 1974 for a good few months. We had booked a small boat, twenty six feet long with a front and rear deck. There was a tiller to steer and a diesel engine controlled by a single lever combined throttle and gear stick.
We arrived at the boatyard near Napton in Warwickshire and after a brief show around where sent on our way. It was quite modern for those days and had electric light and a heater. The heater was small catalytic gas heater really designed for cool summer evenings. The loo was modern too a cassette loo which we had been told to empty periodically by chucking the contents in a hedge! There was a bed on one side of the front cabin and a table/chairs on the other which converted into the second bed. Finally opposite the loo was a sink and small gas cooker.
We set off up the Oxford Canal heading east and then north. There were no boats to be seen so we plodded on. We approached somewhere called Anstey Waste. I had visions of some desolate area in which bandits roamed across the fog-covered land. It was pretty foggy the next day and as I lined up to pass under a bridge there was a huge bang and the boat rode up over something. I glanced behind and could see an object falling in the water. Had we hit a mine? Were the bandits out to get us? As we passed more flotsam, including a name plate, we realised we had hit a wreck!
The nest day we turned into the Ashby canal past a notice board that proudly proclaimed it was open. However, we did have to force our way past the single broken lock gate in the old stop lock.
We slid up the canal brushing the bottom. We couldn’t find anywhere to moor as we could not get near the bank. Finally we spotted a newly rebuilt bank on the side opposite the towpath and moored there in the thick fog. It was time to empty the loo, we got the cassette down the gang plank with much swearing. Then we tipped the contents down the bank with much coarse humour. Time for bed.
We woke up to a nice cold sunny day and gazed down the embankment at the lovely gardens which ended just where we had emptied the loo. We got out of there fast.
It was time to go home but the weather had turned really cold, so we took it in turns to steer. Tens minutes on the tiller, ten minutes cuddled up next to the catalytic heater.
The one hundred and eight degree turn at Hawkesbury was easy in a twenty six foot boat and we sailed on through Coventry power station. Near Wyken was a moored working narrow boat which we really liked. At Hawkesbury my sister taught herself how to jump from one gate to another without falling in.
We made it to Braunston and I decided to clean the roof. I was walking down the gunnel, that narrow strip down the edge of the boat, when I slipped. I was carrying the boats metal bucket and as the canal came nearer I thought, ‘if I lose this bucket we will lose out damage deposit!’ I was an accomplished school rugby player so thought nothing of throwing things whilst falling, so I lobed the bucket into the front of the boat. The canal came nearer still and I accepted that I was getting a very close look at the water. I somehow entered the water fairly vertically and my feet sank into the mud on the bottom to about halfway up my shins. As a swimmer I was used to the concept of taking a big breath before entering the water so had enough air for now. They say, ‘if you fall in just stand up, it is not deep.’ but as I stood on the bottom I found myself gazing at the bottom of the boat, They lie! It dawned on me that I wasn’t floating. The mud was holding me down. I had the ‘life flashes before your eyes experience’, it really does, it is a sort of fast forward of your life concluding with what a stupid way to kill yourself. I decided that death was a bad move, kicked my feet and swam strongly upwards. I made the surface and found I was wearing too many clothes to swim to the bank so I grabbed the boat. My sister arrived having come down the same slippery gunnel grabbed my belt and heaved me into the front cockpit. Apparently after hearing the splash she rushed to the back hatch couldn’t open it as it was bolted, fought the bolt, got it open, got on deck and had come down the side of the boat whilst I was still underwater. I think she had the worst experience.
So that was it, I took off the smelly clothes got dry and lived to tell the tale.
© G N Clutton 2020
Cheers Graham
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