Voyage Into Ireland
This is a book review first published in IWA West Riding's Milepost in January 2019, and a challenge to local members to repair damage to a piece of public art.
Click to read full issue
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Peter's Waterways Blog
Voyage Into Ireland This is a book review first published in IWA West Riding's Milepost in January 2019, and a challenge to local members to repair damage to a piece of public art. |
Click to read full issue |
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Out-of-the-blue, as it were, came an email from Roger Burnett, who now lives in Dominica in the West Indies, with details of his book about Ireland's inland waterways, based on his voyage from 50 years ago. 'Voyage into Ireland' is a softback of 160 pages printed by, and available from, Amazon (ISBN 9781729493939, £11.95). It sent me to my bookshelves in search of Ray Gardner's 'Land of Time Enough', also about 1970's Ireland and Tom Rolt's 'Green & Silver' which gives a view from another twenty-five years earlier. The three book-structures are similar and all the authors were reluctant to leave at the end of their Irish journeying. All explain their routes, with tales from those they met, and expanded views on the topics they covered and the lands through which they passed. Roger's book has more on the navigational challenges and how well other published sources helped (or didn't help) with his journey. Each of his chapters is sandwiched between evocative sketches, and there are no photographs. I looked up 'Just My Type' (Simon Garfield) for advice on why the San Serif font was somehow diverting my concentration on the text: maybe it's just so unfamiliar in published books that it feels a new idea, contrasting sharply in a book with text written fifty years ago. Roger retains unchanged this original, evocative, text, for example his impression of the Great Bog of the Irish midlands and the then-recent mechanisation of peat and turf-cutting by the Turf Development Board. He predicts that "the turf industry has only a limited future" because "within 25 years all the areas of workable bog will have been exhausted". That send me in search of the Irish Times, reporting that the said Board now intend to stop harvesting peat for energy by 2030. Overall, the book is an thoroughly enjoyable read. |
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Roger also mentioned his membership of the IWA's North East Committee in 1967-8 and that sent me to the minute books. In May 1967, "Mr Burnett had received a letter from the West Riding County Planning Dept., requesting further constructive ideas on the Yorkshire Waterways.", and in June "Mr Burnett stressed that membership of I.W.A. was deterred by the subscription amount and Mr H Sykes proposed a probationary period of membership at 10/- " then in June "Mr Burnett reported that BWB. at Watford had given him permission to moor at Anchor Pit Lock but Mr Millis the Section Inspector had sent a verbal message for him to move to Brighouse Basin.". |
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Roger recalls a boat rally held to bring attention to the canal and in particular to Sowerby Bridge Wharf, which the local authority was intent on filling in and using as a car park. The warehouses were also threatened with demolition. Also the first boat that he sailed to the Caribbean in 1973-4 began her voyage from Sowerby Bridge Wharf after "we spent the winter moored below the Sunday School that years later was to be my studio. The canal and sailing scene everywhere is different today to what it was then. Here in the Caribbean, idyllic anchorages which I had all to myself in the early days are now crowded with marinas and hotels along the shoreline. Fortunately my books about the Caribbean captured the island as they were before mass tourism." He signed off "rushing for a refreshing bathe in the river before it gets dark"
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It is to Sowerby Bridge Wharf that Roger is forever entwined by his sculpture of lockkeeper and child pushing a lockbeam at the entrance to the Basin, and its plaque remembering local contributions for the commission in 2002. My picture was taken the next year, and within another year, the lockkeeper's windlass handle had been broken off. That is a shame because it's a brilliant piece of canal art, showing passers-by accurate detail of how canal structures are traditionally operated.
Roger's response to the damage was that a repair shouldn't be too complicated, that he could advise-from-afar, and that it was a challenge to the businesses and people thereabouts to secure the money and enthusiasm for a proper fix. There is an excellent volunteer opportunity for a local member to bring this about. Peter Scott |