Jo and I had both grown up with boats, rowing boats and canoes. Jo lived at Sunbury on Thames and spent her childhood rowing Dad’s boat up and down the Thames just opposite her house. She went on a Thames Cruise on the Vera Bourne.
I had fallen in love with canals early age. Horse drawn trips at Llangollen and watching the secretive world of the BCN go by from our holiday train. A children’s TV programme about a race from Birmingham down to London with a suitable amount of baddies and adventure sealed my fate. It didn’t help that I was totally in love with the female lead
My first holidays were a bit of a disaster, 3 replacement engines on out little cruiser on the Llangollen canal. The boat had a real sea loo, you sucked in water from the canal did your bit and let it all out again. The engines seemed more suitable for river work and didn’t like going slowly at all.
We tried again, this time with a narrowboat from Napton. It was brand new but at the tight turn near Napton bottom lock the rudder sheared off!
A free holiday as compensation on a lovely little 26 foot narrow boat was, at last, good fun. I fell in at Braunston.
Many holidays followed before I met Jo.
Cheers Graham