Folk Tales from the Canal Side E-Book

Ian Douglas

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 170

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

Twisting and turning its way through great cities and towns is the eternal navigation: a network of canals that fed the industrial growth of our country. Nowadays we might consider our waterways a place to find peace and relaxation, but under that tranquil surface hides a turbulent past. Storyteller and narrowboat dweller Ian Douglas has salvaged a wealth of stories from the depths. Murder and mystery, heroes and love, devils and oatcakes are all wrapped up in this wonderful book – but beware … you will never see the towpath in the same way again!

Leseprobe

First published 2021

The History Press

97 St George’s Place

Cheltenham

GL50 3QB

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

Text © Ian Douglas, 2021

Illustrations © Gary Cordingley, 2021

Front cover illustration © Katherine Soutar

The right of Ian Douglas to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the Publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 0 7509 9702 7

Typesetting and origination by Typo•oglyphix

Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ Books Limited, Padstow, Cornwall.

eBook converted by Geethik Technologies

CONTENTS

Foreword

A Word to our Canal Boatman

About the Author

About the Illustrator

Acknowledgements

Introduction

About Getting Started

About the Navigators

About the Working Boats

About the Tunnels

About the Bridges

About the Horses

About the Pilfering

About a Port

About the Keelmen and Their Boats

About Living on Boats

About the Boatman’s Cabin

About the Locks

About a Boatman

About the Decline

About the End

Bibliography

FOREWORD

Our waterways are an important part of our heritage. Today, they are loved by a new generation of boaters, but the traditions of the original boatmen and women live on in stories handed down through the generations. This book shares their tales in the time-honoured way of storytelling. In these folktales, Ian shares with us the toils and laughter, humour and hard work of the characters of the cut.

The Industrial Revolution was fuelled by the canal network and the boatmen and women were the lifeblood of it. Today, our canals are no longer corridors of industry, they are an important leisure resource that is enjoyed by millions of people each year for its heritage and environment. Sadly, we no longer have many original boat families left but their lifestyles can be remembered through these folktales from the canal side.

Julie Sharman,

Chief Operating Officer, Canal & River Trust

A WORD TO OURCANAL BOATMAN

Don’t waste the Company’s water by drawing the paddles before the gate is well shut.

Don’t ‘jam’ a lock to spite your neighbour. It is like the dog in the manger, who would not eat the hay himself, nor would he let the horse eat it. Better give way and be happy.

Don’t urge your horse unduly, in order to be first at the lock. Such a race does the Animal more harm in ten minutes than will a whole, but steady, day’s work.

Don’t swear at your horse, your Donkey, your Wife or Children when you are vexed. At such times it would be a good thing to pause and count fifty; a better thing to laugh and be merry; better of all to pray.

Don’t work hard day and night and then take your earnings to the sign of the ‘Pig and Whistle’. If you do, I fear the Publican will get the Pig, and you and your family will get the whistle, and a very sorry tune it will play.

Don’t say you will never sign the pledge again because you have broken it once. Sign it again if you have broken it a score times. Like a drowning man, clutch at anything you think will save you, seek the help of God, and you will overcome the power of strong drink.

E. Clarke

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ian Douglas is a storyteller, who works extensively across the British Isles. With over twenty years of experience delivering storytelling, performance and theatre activities for schools, arts organisations, communities and festivals across Britain, he has developed a practice approach that mixes sensitivity, comedic energy and wit, leading to a style all of his own.

During his careers, Ian has worked as a theatre practitioner in residence for organisations across the North including Northern Stage and Live Theatre in Newcastle and, most recently, Theatre by the Lake in Keswick. Ian has had the privilege to sit at the knee of renowned storytellers such as Duncan Williamson, and at present is apprenticed to the First Laureate for Storytelling, Taffy Thomas.

The origins of Ian’s work are steeped in the traditions of street theatre and this has helped him to develop his unique storytelling style. His work has been described as ‘truly inspirational’ and draws upon a rich vein of British folk tales and world myths.

Ian hails from West Yorkshire but now lives with his wife, Jo, on a narrowboat called Hawker, wherever the neighbours are nice.

What I love about storytelling is its simplicity. Stories meet us halfway and we, the audience, have to be complicit for them to be successful. The stories I like to tell are fun, inviting and light-hearted – even the serious ones! I believe that storytelling has a unique ability to connect people, not only to each other but to the past, the future and to the world around us.

Ian Douglas

ABOUT THEILLUSTRATOR

Gary Cordingley is a professional storyteller and illustrator living in Cornwall, where he is the south-west area representative for the Society for Storytelling. He is currently working hard at promoting storytelling events for adult audiences across south Cornwall. Having recently graduated from the authorial illustration MA at Falmouth University, Gary is busy developing the connections between oral and visual storytelling and is delighted to have been commissioned to illustrate this beautiful book by his long-standing friend and fellow storyteller, Ian Douglas. You can find more information about Gary’s storytelling and illustration work on his website www.garycordingley.co.uk.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

When I asked The History Press if they would be interested in me putting this book together and they said yes, I foolhardily thought it would be a hop, skip and a jump to assemble it. How wrong I was – so my thanks really need to go to them for their patience.

I need to extend my deepest gratitude to the Canal & River Trust staff at Ellesmere Port, who kindly took us in, gave us tea and their time and let us leave paper everywhere.

The kids also need a mention because they have put up with my huffs and puffs, so to Orin, Ellie, Holly and Amy – sorry, I will cheer up now. To Pete and Dave, for the stories you gave us, I hope the book does them justice. Thank you to Gordon and Jackie for the help and advice. To Hawker, our home, without which we wouldn’t have had the inspiration.

Thanks must go to my friend Gary Cordingley who has brought the stories to life with his fine illustrations and of course to Katherine Soutar-Caddick for the cover image.

But mostly, thanks go to my wife, Jo. It’s our book really – without her, it wouldn’t have got done – and that’s the truth, now and forever, lovely lady.

INTRODUCTION

When I was young, me and my mates used to play on the canal. I grew up in Huddersfield, in West Yorkshire, a town that owes a lot to its canal heritage. Sadly, when I was a kid, most of the Huddersfield narrow canal had been drained and people used it as a glorified bin.

Our favourite game was jumping the locks. We would take it in turns to run as hard as we could and then leap across from one side of the lock to the other, something I wouldn’t even dare to attempt now. Luckily, none of us fell in – goodness knows what damage we would have done to ourselves if we had.

When we got bored with that little game we would, if we were feeling really brave, go and throw stones at the boats in the marina. Now, I know what you’re thinking, but it was just the thing we did, as far as we were concerned, they were posh people who had boats. I wouldn’t have liked to have had us lot around back then.

Thankfully, the canal in my home town is now fully operational and as you travel out of Standedge Tunnel and down the many locks, finally arriving in Aspley Basin, you can see the regeneration that it has, once more, brought to the areas it travels through.

And so, as I’m writing this, I’m struck by the irony of me now living on the canal. It is our home, and it has been for the last eight years. We live on narrowboat, Hawker. She is a 70ft-long Norseman and was built by a company called Hancock & Lane, who were, by all accounts, a well-respected boat-building company. Hawker is her third name, she was originally called Honermead and belonged to an estate that gave holidays to young people. The skipper’s name was Captain Smith, an ex-Rolls-Royce engineer, who apparently ran a very tight and tidy ship – he would turn in his grave if he saw the boat now. She was sold on and renamed by a private owner who converted her to live on; he called her Megfern, after his two daughters and that’s the name she had when we moved on board.

Jo and I set off in her for the first time on Christmas Eve 2013. It was a really windy day, I remember that. I also remember that we had our first ever argument about five minutes into that journey, but we soon got the hang of her and of each other and we haven’t looked back since. We are continual cruisers, which means we are always on a journey and we have to move on every two weeks, sometimes sooner, depending on where we moor up – but that suits us down to the ground. She has to come out of the water about every three years to have her bottom blacked, it’s a messy job but it’s an important one, because if you don’t do it you might go really rusty and eventually sink, which is not a good thing for a boat. The last time she was out, we took the opportunity to rename her. (Just so you know, it’s considered bad luck to name a boat while she’s in the water. I’m not a superstitious person but there’s no point taking chances.) So, she is now Hawker and if you’re ever passing, you are very welcome to come in for a brew.

People come to storytelling from all manner of directions. I grew up in a working-class household. When I was born my dad was a steel worker and my mum worked in the cotton mills as a doubler, but of course all that was gone by the time I left school. Thatcher and her lot put an end to that work, so I had to find something else.

I don’t remember there being many books in the house but there were stories; uncles and aunties who told all manner of tales about the wider world. My grandad was from Liverpool and he told us he lived near Ken Dodd, the comedian. Apparently, he had my grandad to thank for his famous teeth – it was a fight over a bike and my grandad won.

And so, for a long time, I’ve collected stories without really considering why, just that they spoke to me in some way. However, lately I’ve had a feeling that it’s time to dig a little deeper, to find those stories that might bring things closer to a full circle and so I’ve collected these.

The stories in this book are about real people, who did real things and lived real lives. I also think of them as ‘my’ people and as I’ve written the stories down I have put a face to each and every one of them – they are the faces from my life.

And so, here we are, you and I. I’ve been telling stories now for over twenty years but I’ve never written a book before so I hope that you will be kind. I also hope that you enjoy it; we’ve worked hard at it and all of the stories inside are true. The other thing they are is ours, the stories inside this book are as much a part of our heritage as they are the boaters’ and I do hope that when you read them you will in some way feel a connection with them, as I do.

ABOUT GETTINGSTARTED

Something New is the Cry in this wonderful age

And Novelty charms both the Peasant and sage.

So to me, it appears that the task doth belong

To tug out from my brain box another new song.

The subject, I trow, is most near to us all

Nothing less than the flooding our growing Canal

Which with labour and years to perfection shall rise;

A giant was once but an infant in size.

(Traditional song)

Starting is always the hardest thing. Once you start the journey, it gets easier. It’s a bit like pulling away from the bank, there’s a push and at first there’s nothing, no movement, and then she shifts and, slowly but surely, you’re away …

And who knows where you will end up, so let’s start, and where better than the place I’m sat right now. I’m sat in my chair in front of the fire on the Caldon Canal. The Caldon Canal runs from Etruria, in Stoke-on-Trent, to Froghall, in the pretty Churnet Valley, and boasts many fine sights along its 17 winding miles. One of the finest, and I know many would agree, is the Hollybush Inn at Denford – a good boaters’ pub at that.

Well, most evenings, sat at stool near the bar you will find a man called Dave Rhead; he gave me this one.

THE DEVIL IN THE STOVE PIPE

Going back a long while from now there was an old woman called Mary. Mary lived on a boat no more than 40ft long and, the thing was, she also worked from it. Inside her back cabin she had a little wood-fired stove with a nice big hotplate on it and every morning around 6 o’clock she would stoke up that stove until it was nice and hot and she would make oatcakes, hundreds of them, and she would wrap them in paper to keep them warm and then sell them to the workers at the potteries of Stoke-on-Trent.

Well, Mary, she was good at the oatcakes. In fact, she was so good that she could hardly make enough of them and people would say, ‘Mary, them oatcakes would tempt the Devil himself, they would’, but you see, that put the fear into Mary because she was a godly woman and the thought of the Devil coming for her oatcakes was as worse a thought as there could be.

Anyway, Mary’s biggest problem was that she was so busy with the oatcakes that she never had time for her boat – it was a right state and a half, I’ll tell you. It was the tattiest little boat on the cut and the inside was no better. Worse than that, though, Mary wasn’t looking after herself. She hadn’t much food in the cupboards, her clothes were threadbare and worn, and with winter coming there was nowhere near enough wood stacked to keep the stove alight.

One winter’s night, Mary was heading home from a long day selling oatcakes and she could see along the towpath a long line of boats moored in the darkness. The lights of the boats reflected on the still water and smoke was rising from stove pipes and it made her smile to see it, but then she remembered that she had no kindling, the small bits of dried wood sticks with which to easily light her fire. She started to panic at the thought of a long night in the cold.

As she made her way along in the dark she noticed that the boat tied up behind hers had a stack of kindling sitting on the back deck, minding its own business. Well, she knew that it was wrong, but she thought to herself, ‘Just a few sticks won’t go amiss and desperate times lead to desperate measures. I can just as easy replace them in the morning.’ She quietly stepped on to the deck and borrowed an armful and quickly rushed home to light the stove. Later that night she sat in the warmth of her fire and chuckled lightly to herself.

Well, here is where I would like to impart a little bit of friendly advice that will put you in good stead if you ever find yourself living on the cut. You should never EVER step onto someone else’s boat without asking first – it’s just not the done thing. Knock on the side of the boat and wait to be invited on first. And be aware that people who live on boats can often tell by the smallest movement of the water what is happening outside without needing to look, especially if a person was to step on board uninvited. Little did Mary realise it, but the man she stole from had felt his boat shift and so the next night he was waiting …

The following evening came, and once again Mary was heading back home after a long day’s work. If the first night had been cold then this night was colder, and she had to pull her shawl tight around herself to keep warm. She suddenly remembered that once again she had no kindling to start the fire. One time could be called ‘borrowing’ but a second time is ungodly, and as she helped herself to a small amount of kindling from her neighbour’s boat, she thought, ‘Right, tomorrow I shall replace all I’ve taken and make my peace with God.’

What she didn’t know was that this evening, the old boy inside was watching through a gap in the hatch. He saw everything, and he thought to himself, ‘Right, two can play at that game!’ In the last hours of the day he hatched a little plan.

Well, it just so happened that in a little tin at the back of a drawer in the boatman’s cabin of the old boy’s boat was a small amount of black powder – gun powder to you and me – anyway, the next morning as Mary was off up at the potteries making good trade, the old boatman, he took some of the kindling from the pile on his back deck and slowly, with the aid of a curved needle normally used to stitch boat canvas, he started to make small holes in the wood, just big enough that he could stuff them with the black powder. Finally, when he was happy with his work, he carefully made the pile up again on his back deck and sat satisfied, waiting for the plan to play out.

Well, the third and final night of the story came around and, as we all know, three is the magic number in stories. Mary was making her way down the towpath in the dark, and as she came close to her neighbour’s boat she stopped in the darkness, just to make sure there was no one around.

As quick and as quiet as she could, and knowing full well that she hadn’t even attempted to fend for herself or replace what she had stolen, she nipped on to the back deck, picked up the wood and had it away home. Well, once could be deemed as borrowing and twice could be seen as ungodly, but three times – well, that is the work of Old Scratch, the Devil himself.

Once she was safely inside she opened the stove door and made a neat pile in the cold ash of the night before and put a spark to the wood. A little flame started to glow as the kindling caught so she shut the door and opened the vents to let the fire grow … and grow it certainly did. The black powder ignited and went off with such a blast that it blew the stove pipe right off the top of the boat.