The River Years

Has it really been that long since I posted something on my blog? It is amazing where the time goes when you are retired - how did we ever find time to go to work?

As promised, I am going to bore you all with tales from yesteryear. Due to circumstances Jennie and I can no longer go cruising for several months at a time so all I can do is reminisce about the good old years!

1958 was the year it all started, many years before I introduced my wife to a waterway life. Mum and Dad hired a converted lifeboat called GOOD FAITH from Robinsons Hire Cruisers at Maidenhead Court Boathouse. Murphy's law dictated that as it was October the river was in flood and we could not cruise at all. The owner however was very generous and as the boat was not booked out for the following week we could have the boat for nothing for the second week! However, Dad was on weekly pay and had to get on his motorcycle combination and ride back to Stockbridge in Hampshire to draw his holiday pay for the second week, then we could eat. We cruised all the way to Goring and back in a week and were well and truly bitten by the cruising bug. We never had a refrigerator on board, Dad kept his beer cold by putting it in a nylon shopping bag and hanging it off of the rear of the boat, and as for the loo, we had better not go there.

These being my childhood years I am a bit hazy about the years that followed or is that due to my advancing years?

After GOOD FAITH we really went upmarket and hired a cruiser, BELLATRIX STAR, from Bates Cruisers at Chertsey. This was a bit like going from a Springer to a Kingsground! There followed a succession of boats, GAY JACQUELINE, a 42 foot wide beam cruiser, brand new, hired from Bushnells in Maidenhead. Rumour has it that is was built in mahogany at Appledore in Devon. Somewhere along the line we hired JADE from Banhams Boatyard in Cambridge and cruised a lot of the fens. Then there was the week on SANS CELIA hired from Tovil Boatyard at Maidstone on the River Medway. Apparently the boatyard is still there but no longer hires out cruisers but still does day hire.

During those days I often looked at Maidline boats who offered canal cruisers such as MAID MARY SONJA. It is with regret that we never hired one of these and ventured onto the canals in the 60's as by the time we got onto canals it was the 70's and things had started to change.

As an aside, I noticed in Waterways World that a canal cruiser built by Maidboats was up for sale for the princely sum of £5000. To my mind that must be an absolute bargain.

Then there was the lads cruise, three of us hired a cruiser from Bushnells of Maidenhead in 1970. The boat was called GAY BELINDA, we were all 20 years old, who would hire us a boat these days at that age and who would have the nerve to call their boats GAY something or other?

Then I got married and boating holidays went on hold for a couple of years, until 1973 when our canal cruising started. The canal cruising started from Trevor on the Llangollen Canal with a 40 foot boat called HALTON. More of that, with photographs will follow.