"Captain of your own ship" (E2)

You can't talk about canals without talking about boats. People told me loads of stories about boats. Owning them, sailing on them, living on them, dreaming about them, and the two best days in a boat owner's life–'the day you get it, and the day you sell it'.

We'll hear about one boat in particular called Spey which has its own important history. 

And we'll end up by listening to a load of rubbish. Ah no sorry, we will listen to some stories about a load of rubbish that's IN the canals, and some people who just wish the canals were a bit cleaner.

This project was created by Walk the Plank and the Manchester Bury and Bolton Canal Society with Whose Art Whose Culture funding from Salford CVS and the GMCA.

Recorded and produced by David McFarlane.

Music by David McFarlane and Ugnė Makselytė. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_25 0:09

Welcome to the Hidden Canal Podcast. Hello and welcome to episode two of the Hidden Canal Podcast. Once again, we're hearing from the people of Salford to find out what are their memories, thoughts, and feelings around canals. This week we'll hear from people who dream of living on a canal boat, we'll hear from some people who've actually done it, and we'll also hear about the state of the canals themselves and a little bit about how they were used in Manchester and Salford. And we'll also hear that not everyone has fond memories. Some people mostly remember the smell. We'll also meet Spey, a hundred-year-old tarboat, and we'll end on a spooky tale from the canal's past. Alright, off we go.

SPEAKER_00 1:10

So what's up with the canals, man? Why can't they use them as a like a means of transport here? No, we are just I just want them to be used like the way they do in Italy. So like they can be means of transport and means of social social edge to be easy on the speedboard from here to Bolt today.

SPEAKER_22 1:38

I like chip back in the back back in the past when you stuff level chip canals.

SPEAKER_19 1:46

And uh it's interested about history, how it was built, and that and like uh do you have canals that like go into each other and stuff?

SPEAKER_20 1:55

I think I'd probably said it before. I was intrigued with just how many canals converge around Manchester and Saltford. You know, I I grew up knowing about the Bridgewater Canal because I looked where I lived. And everybody knows about the ship canal, but there's so many other Ashton Canal and the Bury, Rochdale, and there seems to be so many. I mean Birmingham think they're the king of canals in this country, but we don't we're pretty good around the upper canals.

SPEAKER_17 2:22

And I think it's like I think it raises the economic economic system because like you've got people from uh from around um like around England and obviously the UK who actually like want to obviously visit it because it's a piece of history at the end of the day, it's very well known to I mean again just very industrial canals, I think.

SPEAKER_26 2:41

Um so they were just used for towing stock products and whatnot. There's a lot of bridges and you can see all the brick divots for where the the horses would help push their feet on and stuff.

SPEAKER_20 2:54

I think it's I suppose the obvious answer is it's industrial industry needs to get rid of its products and it also needs to get in its raw materials. So certain places do certain things and they need to so that Wedgewood wanted to send his pottery up to people here. People want to send cotton and then they make the cotton into something and then they want to send that somewhere else to sell it. So there was a need, and they haven't got the railways at that stage.

SPEAKER_23 3:28

There was an old saying there uh about if you lived in Manchester, uh it was impossible whichever direction you were coming into Manchester to north, east, south, or west. You either crossed the canal or went under the railway bridge. You couldn't get into Manchester town centre without going under a railway bridge or over the canal. And you can check that one out. You can look you can look at the tributaries for the canal. You say, oh yeah, cross that canal there. Oh, we've got to go under that railway bridge.

SPEAKER_20 4:02

When Wedgwood tried to send pottery by road, by the time it got to the other end up, it was broken because all the potholes canal was a nice smooth way of transporting things. I don't know about speed, it's possibly quicker than roads. I don't know. Railways change it again because they were after hopefully smooth as well. So I'm out because now we've got airports.

SPEAKER_14 4:25

Um right now the present of canals. I don't really like the present of canals now because we've got modern transportation like cars, boats, airplanes, much faster ways than using a canal, and because canals are man-made, and I think natural rivers are better than man-made because that means animals can live more in it instead of man-made ones, and the rivers don't need to be cleaned a lot like the canals.

SPEAKER_00 4:59

Yeah, I would like to spend all day away from this misery town here and this town, just give me stress. I take my boy then, take my nephews and all that, you know. Take the kids out of here. These kids got nothing to do, man. At least we spend if there's fish, we fish it and pull it back. It's just something to do, you know. But me as a joiner, you can give me an opportunity to build my own port in I can build a portal. The frame is just getting a pallet in here, but build it with a pallets, you know. Bam, bam, bam. In in three days, I've got a pot in three days. You get the give bring the pallets in. Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. Put some silk in here. Or put some whatever so that's something that can make it worth. Put tar in it. You put tar, you put the you paint the tar. So tar last in. Or you put tar on the on the on on the wood, you last no water will come on the tile.

SPEAKER_01 6:02

Canals are cool. I'd love to live on a canal boat one day. Um seems like a good way of living, you know. You can just be uh captaining your own shit, you can move about wherever you want. There's a lot of uh lot of lovely pubs along the way, fishing, all of that you know? Yeah, I don't know. I think it's amazing, like uh I'd I would love to um live on a canal boat one day. My granddad used to have one copy like a witch is a very good name for a canal boat. I don't want it like he would have to be a little bit more than a little bit.

SPEAKER_24 7:16

And it'd been saying quite a long time. This is this is the way I can kind of earn something in a way that'll work for me. I used to I used to house it the house focus on on the canals outside London, uh which I see a luxury and then I've thought, oh I don't I'll just invest on my savings anymore. Which it didn't work out well in the end, but I do it again.

SPEAKER_01 7:51

They do say though, like what I've heard is like you know, what is it like the best two days of owning a boat is the day you get it and the day you sell it. Yeah, I mean that's what I've heard because I've been you know, oh I can't wait to get a boat, and someone's like, best two days you have is the day you get it and the day you sell it.

SPEAKER_06 8:07

So I don't know our friends used to own um canal boat and invited us for a day, and it was therapy, it was therapeutic, just slows you you can't physically go faster as we're used to dash around in our lives. It was so lovely to just all day being able to move so slowly, slow enough to see what is happening around you on the way somewhere because we're just so used to running from point A to point B all day long, aren't we? And this just makes you enjoy the journey rather than just from destination to destination.

SPEAKER_12 8:48

I've only been on a canal boat three times, and the second time it got stuck about five years ago. There was a drought, and um, there was a celebration of the Wildlife Trust's carbon landscape. Um it was the end of their carbon landscape project, so they invited a lot of the volunteers to come and join them on a boat trip from Wigan. Um but it got stuck, it didn't go very far because the water was so low, and that's one of the big problems obviously with canals because managing water on canals is really difficult, especially in times of drought, but also in times of flood as well.

SPEAKER_10 9:27

I have been on a barge or two, yes. Um do you want me to tell you about it? Well you can hire them for like day trips, can't you? Yourself drive the canal. Well the not the canal, the barge, we need to cut that out. Oh gosh. Um and there was a lot of alcohol involved. We went from um Booth Town into Manchester, right into Deansgate, locks down that way, then got stuck because we went too far and then we had to be towed back out. But it was brilliant, it's a lovely, lovely trip from Boothstown into Manchester.

SPEAKER_05 10:07

I mean, I know someone that's got that's got a marrow, and they have it moored in um Lynn, like where my husband's father was, but uh they should open them up because there's nothing lovely than the canal. What do I like? I just like the freedom, you know. And you can pass through things, you're not in the like bus queues or cars when they're big in the room, just the openness in the space, and you can see everything, you see the old mills, don't you? But Lim's beautiful. I do, I I like Lynn. We used to go to Wales on it and everything. It's quite a big boat, it's a lovely life. It's a shame that the canals in Manchester and Salford are not clean. If you got the rat together and started doing them all up, put it on and say that. It'd be a lovely life for kids. My kids were brought up in that big boat and they loved it honestly. It's the openness, you can go down the canal and you see everything. It's no banging your arms when you're in your car and you're driving, you know, it's so peaceful, it's good, it's good for the soul. It is and for your health. What that?

SPEAKER_09 11:10

Uh one time I was with my brother at the Lowry's and there was like this festival, I forgot what it was called, but there was also um an area, you know where the water is near the um Lowry? They had like um kind of like a canoe kind of race. Like I imagining myself um canoeing on in river sites or um just imagining myself um taking part in canoe racing.

SPEAKER_11 11:39

For a walk. I've never actually looked water. It's quiet. It's in nature.

SPEAKER_09 11:52

This could also bring people's attention if they see a lot of uh people canoeing. Um you pass by them. I from one time I experienced canoeing, um, I'm not gonna lie, I was kind of scared of falling um sideways, but luckily I haven't. Yeah. But it was really it was really fun, like canoeing. And having like the feeling of actually swimming.

SPEAKER_11 12:22

I would like the idea of going in a boat. I've seen like boat cafes which look pretty cool. I think I did go in a barge ride once. A long time ago with this group my mum won't have some autistic people, but I was I was very ill that day, so don't really get sex for in so much.

SPEAKER_15 12:43

Um they're like really fun to go and ride like um sailing along and like just watching the view.

SPEAKER_16 12:57

Uh they're really good for like tours and c stuff and holidays.

SPEAKER_13 13:05

Um I'll just like to say that um I really like canals because this one time I went on one, it was my 10th birthday in 940th, so we did a combined 50th, and I went on it, and like it was so beautiful. And when I tried to like ride the boat, I almost smashed into the side, and it was real because like the response felt late on the boats.

SPEAKER_15 13:35

I've been on one, I think it was Mid Easter, and it was really fun. Everything was like Easter theme, loads on like um like chick teddies everywhere, and we did activities, and I think it was like two hours, and we sailed and then came back.

SPEAKER_16 13:51

Um, I feel like it's it was like a tool, and we went to these tools, and some of them like some people like some cats.

SPEAKER_15 14:06

Yeah, I think it was a canal penis, went in a lot bowl. They're just like really fun to watch the view when you go past, and they're not really fast, like you can like you can't really see stuff on the past like canvas. They go really fast, and sometimes it's a bit hard to say. Like canvas when you're in a boat or like one pass, you can see the feeling and the nice time. Like the fact that um anybody can remind them, and that um since the water's still, then you'll be able to like um stop it when when there's river mortars flow. So I think I've been on them like two times, um, and I think they were both like some of my relatives' birthdays, and I've um I had terms like driving it.

SPEAKER_26 15:04

Yeah, I spent a bit of time on boats. I've done like ferries on a holiday to France, I've done like little rubber dinghies with a motor. I've never been on a moving canal barge.

SPEAKER_00 15:17

Maybe I wouldn't mind I wouldn't mind to live on the boat to to to to involve yourself in with mother nature and stuff like that. You know what I mean? You can refresh your mind. Seeing beds, no noise, not too much noise or buses, no polishing, just breathing fresh air, you know. For a long time I've not been to Africa, so like I feel like man, this is uh this is where I wanna be, you know what I'm saying? Because in Africa, I grew up in the same town like this, but every now and then I will go like Victoria Force to see my no, like where I'm from there's Victoria Force man. So they like you can do them things like you can do you can take this canal system and take it back the Victoria Force in my and bring people back to Mukabe is dead. We can go we can go back to Zimbabwe. Mugabe is gone, yeah. So he thought he was gonna go with Zimbabwe, but he's dead. So everybody welcome now.

SPEAKER_08 16:18

Um living piece of British history. Spay is a tar boat and it it holds tar up and down the canals. It's almost a hundred years old and it survives out of spite. It shouldn't exist anymore. Um but Tom's parents and his friends, um Tom's parents and their friends uh decided to save it from being scrapped and keep it going as a fun little side project, and then it it just carried on and everyone has decided since then for over 20 years now to just keep it going and stay committed to it, to see that this piece of history still has a place in our modern world, despite all the difficulties that come with that. Never in my life would I have said that I would be learning how to restore and operate um, you know, a diesel engine on a boat. Um it just like you know, it's it's something that's completely like random that happened to me, but it is so cool. I I've gotten to do so many cool bits, like tarring the sides or doing all these little bits of upkeep or just even just painting like in these traditional styles, whatever it is, like it's awesome. It's a really unique way of getting about and I just love it. Like the pace, the weather comes as comes and goes, doesn't it? But like no matter what kind of day it is, just getting to see the landscapes of this country, which is so beautiful. Tom Kitching is is one of is is one of my closest friends. Let's let's let's say that first. Um I met him very, very randomly through a um website that looked like it had been cobbled together in the 90s and not updated then since then uh because I was looking for a mandolin teacher, um, which he was doing at the time. He plays the mandolin as well as as well as the fiddle. He's a musician, he's a he's a writer. Um he but but for me, he's he's the person who I saw putting in an incredible amount of effort to make sure that despite the fact that people of his uh of his parents' generation who are getting on, despite the fact that they can't commit as much time to spay as they would have done when they were younger, that the spark doesn't die out. And it was that like sharing that passion with him as I got to know him a bit better. Like that that's that's really what drew me to him as a person because he just like I said, his his excitement about it and his commitment to it is is very infectious, and he's made this thing accessible to me that I never would have been able to access otherwise. A long, long time ago when it was Tom's parents' generation, um it was a very small group, and then what Tom's doing was getting younger people involved to try and pass the skills on, but I'm just really I'm just really happy that I'm part of it. Like I'll I'll give anything a go, but it's just been it's been really, really exciting project for me. Like it's become something, it's become something that's actually really quite important to me. Like I I grew up in Huntersfield and um I didn't really understand what these bits of water were about. Um because I'm I'm Polish and I came over, I was six years old, and it's it's not really my culture and it's not really my place, and I just kind of felt like you know. I think I'm putting a bit of a different spin on it now as an adult, but like it was it always interested me, but I didn't have any way to get into it or anyone to talk to or anyone that had a connection to it. So I just kind of accepted that there were these weird little wooden gates on the water, and I was like, oh I don't I don't really know what that's all that's about. Um but you know, this event, I guess you could call it, of like meeting Tom who's my mandolin teacher, and then became my friend and then got me into it. Like it put the pieces into a different context, and like I could just appreciate it in a new way. Um the the practical side of what I've got into do is definitely a big part of it. I've brought a person. He has a very magnetic personality and he has this infectious excitement that just gets you to do things and try things, and I've I've always I'll try anything. So when he started talking about it and he invited me to come down to Liverpool to to see the boat and and meet his friends and the owner-owners and and just have a have a day at it and see what it's like. Like immediately um I was just yeah, just that interested. It's so cool. It's the it every every winter there's a there's a docking and we do a lot of restoration work. And it was then that I knew I was interested in more seriously than just going off for one or two days and and having a cool trip. And I realized that I'm actually really keen to see this project keep going. Historical aspect as well as Getting to meet all these people that have taken so much time out of their lives to see it going, like to keep it going. I think that my my favourite aspect of Spay is the community that's built around it and everyone that I've gotten to meet because they're all just incredible people.

SPEAKER_19 22:21

Even on the Salted Keys now, when it was the old salted docks, you know, um that ship canal, they used to have a boat. I mean I never went on it, but some of my friends there that was older Friday. She was queen of the boats, apparently. That lady there.

SPEAKER_05 22:38

The queen of the boat she was. Bit do Lolly. But she my husband's father had a marrow boat on the canal and he he loved it, honestly. He said it was not the open air, but he said it he had it moored at um right now, you know, before you get to Wales that far away. And when he used to come down to Manchester, he noticed that the canal was thick with rubbish. It was disgusting. And it and he he didn't like more putting the boat up mooring it down there, so he always kept it away from uh Salford and Stratford. Had it moored up in say about 30 years ago I had the boat, but I lived on it, quite lived on it as well, you know, for old days it's to take my kids. And they loved it, but they found it got near Manchester, Salford down there. The canals are all um, you know, full of rubbish with bikes and everything. And they found it hard to drive it, you know, to all the rubbish, so I never didn't like using it down here. But it's a good life. If you get a good mangot and it goes somewhere like it was he loved it in wowed up down there for a bit, you know. But he said he loved it when he went to Wales, it was so clear. It's the north of England, you see, it's it's so you're gonna get all this rubbish. I think this government's very, very laps with it into for all the rivers and community. It's not good.

SPEAKER_07 24:00

Yeah. I worked near the low centre, which has got the can um has got the manch chip canal, so I tried to Google some history about canals because I've never been on one before. And one history was um that it was found in the 17th century. But the canal what's near the low centre is is like polluted and it's got like like footballs and it smells quite a lot.

SPEAKER_17 24:29

So erm yeah, and but what I've recognised about the canal when I walk along it, obviously uh it is very like dirty and uh unclean, so I don't think it's very well maintained.

SPEAKER_21 24:41

As you got near the canal, and there was the railway first in the canal, you used to pinch your nose as you went past the canal and dropped down the hill because on the canal bridge was a urinal, and they were all over the place, all over the city itself over these urinals, and that one was particularly smelly, and it was just at the side of the steps that led down to the canal. So I have fond memories of that.

SPEAKER_07 25:06

It smells near the mansionship, like like where where the door is what I have to go through for the low centre. Um it's got like a load of pollution, like footballs, swigs, like really, and it like has all different stuff in there. And when they try and clean it, they can't like grab it all because it's all polluted.

SPEAKER_15 25:33

Um I've got like one little problem with canals now. But most of the time then they are littered like all the time by people, like like I've always wanted to go on like a canal, but like they're always like polluted and like rubbish and stuff. Um I think they're really dirty. And they got like little green stuff and like sticks and mud and then I think it's a lot of bit dirty because then when people go in canal boats like they dump stuff in the um canal and like put rubbish in it.

SPEAKER_26 26:13

Uh the canals in Northwich, filthy brown water, uh all churned up, but a lot of wildlife on them. You can see herons, ducks, all sorts. Um I'm trying to think of some bird names now. Lots of birds, sometimes fish, probably. You wouldn't see them because it's so filthy. I feel like compared to uh Manchester canals, they're probably a lot cleaner. Probably a lot less fly tipping in the canals in Northwich.

SPEAKER_15 26:45

A lot of um canals get forgotten about and then they get really dirty, and mud starts piling up and down, and it turns like not a canal anymore, and like yeah, sometimes animals now then take it out of their home.

unknown 26:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_23 26:59

I remember uh that old church over there, Christchurch. I used to play in there. There was there were three areas of play for playing around here. There was the old Donny Hills over there. It was a big air big area where you used to play as a young lad. There was the canals, and um there was the there was the local uh there was the local crops that you were playing on where all the houses had been wiped out during the war. So those were all your play areas, you know. Everything was done on the cheap. And that that churchyard was a classic area where nobody bothered you. You would just you could play around there, and uh I remember I remember some of the young lads they used to uh they used to break into the uh cryps. It was actually crypts there, and it's in it's in the Salford reporter uh before before it was actually closed and sealed over. These young lads broke into one of the cryps, lifted the body up and threw it in the canal. Yeah, it's in the reporter. So then you can look it up in the reporter. I thought, well.

SPEAKER_02 28:16

No, I'm I didn't I'm not earning to be honest with you. I know there were we were a rough crowd in Salford, but I can't believe any kid could dig up a body if they throw it in the canal. I think it's Salford Council again with their great imagination. You know, who it's true.

SPEAKER_23 28:37

Uh yeah, uh there's quite a few uh stories. If if you go on if you go in the Salford Reporter, um I think um the church, I think uh I think they uh had a word with uh the canal people because when they were sailing past on a Sunday when they when they've got the Sunday service on, they were shouting and screaming on all the barges while they were listening to the mass. And that's a complaint, that's a local complaint with the barge people. That's another story. But there's a lot of stories in the software reporter about what was happening on the canals. You know, but that that body being thrown in the uh in the literally over the wall into the canal.

SPEAKER_04 29:22

That's that's a well that's a really comical story, but it was interesting when they were dra when they were dredging the canal because there was more knocked off bikes and shopping trolleys and coffee all sorts of dumped, unless it things got caught.

SPEAKER_02 29:43

But to fill that canal in because it was dangerous.

SPEAKER_25 29:53

Well, that's us done for this week. Thanks for listening, and if you have a canal story you'd like to share with us, you can leave us a voice message at www.speakpipe.com forward slash hidden canal. This project was created by Walk the Plank and the Manchester Bolton and Berry Canal Society with Who's Art, Who's Culture Funding from Salford CVS and the GMCA. It was produced and recorded by me, David McFarland, with music from me and Ugnis Maxalite. See you next time.