Dreams Really Do Come True
By
Cherryl Holliday
Smashwords Edition
All rights reserved
Copyright © Cherryl Holliday 2011
Cherryl Holliday is hereby identified as author of this work
in accordance with section 77 of the Copyright, Designs
and Patents Act 1988
The book cover picture is copyright to Cherryl Holliday
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For my Grandchildren
Table of Contents
Chapter Two: Where it all began
Chapter Three: Messing Around in Boats and Learning the Ropes
Chapter Four: Hen Party, BBQ and a Broken Leg
Chapter Five: Field Mice, Conkers and Canal Art
Chapter Six: Lost Window and New Projects
Chapter Seven: Long Itchington to Frouds Bridge Marina
Chapter Eight: Winter Projects and Farewell to John
Chapter Nine: Cold Showers and Flat Batteries
Chapter Ten: Beam Engines and Railways
Chapter Eleven: Devizes to Frouds Bridge Marina
Chapter Twelve: Wind in the Willows
Chapter Thirteen: Hatched and Dispatched
Chapter Fourteen: Cancer and a Brass Bed
Chapter Fifteen: Surgery, Chemotherapy and Radiotherapy
Chapter Sixteen: Black Hands and a Broken Tooth
Chapter Seventeen: Nature’s Bounty
Chapter Eighteen: Best Laid Plans
Prologue
I was squeezed between two very large people on a full, twelve hour flight from Johannesburg to London. Silently, I cursed myself for volunteering to fly economy class as my neighbour’s elbow dug into my ribs for the umpteenth time - not only were they overflowing their own seats but mine as well! The company travel policy allowed for business class flights, but as I would be spending the weekend with my brother in Littlehampton in order to refresh before starting work, I didn’t think that I would need the relative luxury of a business class seat. Had I known then, what I knew now, I wouldn’t have been so willing to give up my privilege. I sighed inwardly.
‘Excuse me,’ the large woman who sat next to the window startled me with her loud irritable voice, ‘I need to get out.’ Before I had time to move, she jabbed her elbow into my side, and while pressing down on the armrest with her pudgy hand, she released her large frame from the seat. With a barely-stifled expletive she huffed impatiently while I stuffed my book into the seat pocket and struggled to my feet. She then glared at her husband who was on my other side and was desperately trying to get out of his seat to manoeuvre himself into the narrow aircraft aisle.
‘Perhaps we should change places. You sit next to the window so that I can get out easier next time,’ she commanded. I agreed – not only to keep the peace, but also I knew that I would only be jabbed in one side for the rest of the flight.
I was destined for a two month business assignment that would take me to various parts of England. Although that may sound exciting, to me it was just another business trip and a lot of hard work. To make things less attractive, it was the middle of winter. Nevertheless, I was looking forward to the weekends when I would re-acquaint myself with numerous family members whom I had not seen in many years.
Although I was quite used to traveling, this was the first time that I had been back to England since I had left nearly thirty years previously. Father had grown up on his family tobacco farm in Rhodesia before he spent many years in the Royal Air Force, where he met my mother. Once he left the RAF, he and Mother thought that they would like to raise their own offspring in a similar, idyllic way of life, so we were relocated. However, time had moved on and the life was no longer idyllic, as we soon discovered. But that is another story.
My grandmother had always predicted that England would call me back one day (I was born in England and had spent many happy early-childhood years there) but while I was living in a tropical climate, I hadn’t entertained the idea of returning permanently to cold, damp England.
That is not to say life had been easy; quite the contrary. I had been involved in a savage war, married young, had two lovely daughters (my pride and joy), got a divorce (a casualty of the war) and relocated my own small family (alone) to South Africa. I was now on the brink of a whole new adventure. Little did I realise that this business trip was to change my life forever.
In the twelve months that followed that work assignment, I was offered a job (which I took); relocated to England from South Africa, and met Ian (who became my husband several years later). We were joined by my daughters who are now raising their own families – in England. Life has certainly come full circle!
Ian and I needed to find some common ground on which to build our new relationship. We wanted to find a new pursuit and it had to be something that neither of us had been involved in before. The answer came to us quite unexpectedly. Together with eighteen co-workers, we hired two narrowboats for a weekend with the intention of sampling the delights of the English canals. We didn’t get very far; we didn’t sleep very much and we certainly drank more than I would care to admit to (or even remember); but we were hooked!
It would be another two years before we were in a position to buy our first boat. We had little money to spare but we were not short of enthusiasm.
We found Hermitage, a near derelict, 30 year old, 42 foot, narrowboat that needed much attention; a perfect project. The engine wouldn’t start, the exterior badly needed painting, the interior would need stripping out and starting again, but she floated!
As time went on we refurbished Hermitage and then shared the delights of narrowboating with friends and family alike. We had many great adventures, made some spectacular mistakes, and met some wonderful people as we learned the ropes. It wasn’t long before we were talking of exploring the entire English canal system and in order to do that we thought we should live on our boat rather than try to achieve our goal over weekends and holidays.
Years later, when the grandchildren came along, the thought occurred to me to capture our experiences on paper in order to pass them on to the children.
And so it was that a dream was conceived; to live on our own boat and explore the English canal system (oh… and write this book).
Chapter One
Winedown
‘Come on,’ Ian cajoled, ‘what have we got to lose?’
‘Nothing, I suppose,’ I replied reluctantly.
‘I’ll even buy you lunch,’ Ian said, sweetening the deal. ‘We don’t have to commit to anything; just take a look.’
‘Okay, okay, I get the message!’ I knew he wouldn’t let up so I thought I had better give in. On that day, without realising it, we had taken the first step towards our ‘dream come true’.
There are few who have a dream that germinates; the roots spreading out and crossing over into possibility, then, with gentle nurturing, continue to grow, finally to bloom into reality. Ian, my husband, and I have been numbered among those fortunate few, and we count our blessings every day. Our dream for our retirement was to have a narrowboat that we could live on comfortably and explore the English canal system.
We hadn’t finished renovating our period cottage when Ian set about looking for another likely venture, and it was not long before he found ‘The New Boat’ advertised for sale as a project; and I had just agreed to look at it. And if I am honest, I was concerned. We had done most of the cottage renovation ourselves (over weekends) but there was still quite a bit of work to be done. How would we find time for more work? Would some things be left undone; half completed? Were we taking on too much too soon? Time would tell!
We drove to Crick Marina in Northamptonshire, where the boat was on brokerage. As soon as I saw her tied up against the pontoon mooring, my heart sank. She was a project, all right, I thought. With the clean lines of a 60ft CoalCraft shell, she was clothed in nothing more than grey undercoat paint in order to prevent rust. I hadn’t really expected more than that because I had seen a photograph of her on the brokerage website, but on seeing her for the first time the reality of it hit home. On a positive note, she did have a beautifully fitted traditional boatman cabin and a 1963 Lister diesel HA2 in the engine room (that means two cylinders, air cooled; so I learned later). Ian wanted a veteran engine in an engine room rather than an engine compartment that was squeezed in underneath the floorboards. He wanted the room to be able to work when necessary. Forward of the engine room was a blank space with portholes. The bleak, exposed steel shouted of the amount of work that would be required. On the other hand, we would be free to design our own interior layout.
To put that into context: of the 60ft boat length, 48ft was usable cabin space. Of that 48ft, 8ft comprised the boatman cabin which provided a space to sit and sleep, another 8ft was the engine room. That left a 32ft blank space that was approximately 6ft wide. In that space we would need to provide lounge/dining facilities, sleeping for an additional four people and of course the all-important cooking and washing-up facilities. Not to mention ablution amenities - shower, loo and hand basin. Added to that, we had to provide for heating, lighting and gas as well as a mechanism for heating water and sustaining electrical power.
Ian was excited by the task, but I was daunted. We both had demanding, full-time jobs. We’ll never finish this in a month of Sundays, I thought. In addition, it was more than we had budgeted for – more than we could afford. The cottage renovation had been well over budget and we were still paying for it.
Ian smiled encouragingly at me, searching my face for a favourable reaction. ‘I’m not sure,’ I said doubtfully, as we walked back to the sales office.
‘I just want to find out more about the engine,’ he said. ‘Can’t hurt to ask.’
In the sales office, Ian asked about the engine and soon found himself talking to an enthusiast while I found myself left out in the cold. I didn’t begin to understand what they were talking about. I knew it was a diesel engine – I had come across Lister before, but that was about all I knew and I was not much wiser by the end of the conversation. I did discover that it was an air-cooled engine and that would mean that we couldn’t piggyback a water heating system from a water-cooled engine as we had done on Hermitage. We would have to find an alternative method of heating water, but it did mean that we had a built-in drying room for wet-weather gear. I wasn’t too worried about that. What worried me more was the size and expense of this project. But then again, wasn’t that what we wanted?
Ian learnt that the engine had been renovated by British Waterways (BW) in 2004 and that it had been intended for a working boat, but that the working boat had been scrapped before the engine went in. So, although it was a veteran engine, it was as good as new.
‘The boatman’s cabin is well built,’ I ventured lamely, trying to join in the conversation.
‘Yes,’ the salesman answered. ‘It was built by John Forth,’ he said simply, watching me closely for my reaction. Was that supposed to mean something to me? I smiled weakly, none the wiser. The salesman didn’t elaborate but instead turned his attention back to Ian.
We were to discover later that John Forth was a working coal merchant who, with his wife Maddy, had plied their trade on the Grand Union canal for more than twenty-five years and that John had fitted out more than a dozen narrowboats in his ‘spare time’. He was well known on that part of the canal was very well respected for his knowledge and craftsmanship.
It was a grey, wet day which reflected my mood perfectly as I struggled to find any enthusiasm. To top it all, I was cold and I hate being cold. This was supposed to be summer but it certainly didn’t feel like it. I was not in the mood to hear anymore. I fidgeted, looked around, and allowed my attention to wander. The conversation droned on around me while I started to think about the lunch that Ian had promised me.
‘Thank you very much for all your help,’ Ian said finally. I breathed a silent sigh of relief. ‘We’ll be in touch,’ he continued. Not if I had anything to do with it, I thought!
Over the next few weeks, Ian set about trying to convince me that this was a good deal; a great way to start; just what we were looking for. I stubbornly held onto my scepticism. Over the years it has not been often that our thinking was quite so far apart.
Ian returned to the brokerage website again and again (as if that would make me change my mind). In the meantime, John and Maddy Forth (the sellers) dropped the asking price. The New Boat was now affordable. Was it meant to be? I reluctantly gave in – conditionally. I knew that we were not equipped to initiate such a venture, but if John Forth could complete the insulation and lining (the wood panelling that covers the sides and roof of the inside of the cabin), run a loom of electric cables as well as a gas line – at an additional price, of course – then we were in with a fighting chance. That was my condition. This would bring the project to a point that was commonly known as a ‘lined sail-away’. But there was still the question of finance. I hadn’t quite appreciated it at the time, but my way of thinking was changing. I was looking at the possibilities.
Through Crick Marina (the broker) Ian contacted John Forth and set out our limitations and expectations. ‘I have to be honest with you, John,’ he said. ‘If you can do the job for the money agreed, we have a deal. But if you can’t then I’ll have to walk away.’ John thanked Ian for his openness and agreed to think it over and let us know.
Mid-morning, the following day, John called back. We had a deal! I didn’t realise just how much I had been hoping for that outcome – I’m still not sure quite when my thinking changed but it must have been Ian’s infectious enthusiasm that brought it about.
The sales office at Crick Marina was notified and the paperwork was put in place while Ian sorted out the finances. We were now committed and I finally (and happily) admitted that I was excited.
The first thing that needed to be done was to give ‘The New Boat’ a proper name. In that way the boat would become a part of us, we couldn’t keep calling it ‘The New Boat’. We looked for a name that would perhaps have a dual meaning. Narrowboating is all about chilling out, getting away from it all, retiring from a ‘rat race’, winding down and all those clichés; holiday brochures often associated narrowboating with long days of sunshine (in England?), and certainly an association with alcohol is never far away. All these thoughts were tossed into the pot for consideration and Ian and I sifted through the ideas while we shared a bottle of wine. We had seen extraordinary names like ‘Sloe Progress’, ‘Forever Cut’, ‘Bootle Bum Trinket’ (after Gerald Durrell’s boat?) and even ‘Didyoubringthebeeralong’. We, too, wanted something original. As the level in the bottle of wine lowered, so did the tone of the names we were coming up with, but eventually we settled on a name (I must confess that we were onto the second bottle by then, but at least we had cleaned up our thoughts). ‘The New Boat’ was to become ‘Winedown’.
‘I want to meet you both,’ John had said to us. ‘If you want me to do this extra work, I want to know who I am doing it for.’ That was a fair comment!
John and Maddy would ply their trade during the summer months, but during the winter period – a time when the canal could freeze over or stretches were closed for maintenance – John would fit out narrowboats to keep busy. Sadly, Winedown was to be his last, but that is another story.
John had told us that they were ‘doing their rounds’ but they usually stopped for the day sometime between 4pm and 6pm. He told us where he expected to be the next day so that we could meet up with them. They expected to be not far from Banbury on the Oxford canal. It should be easy enough to find.
The next day was Saturday. Ian and I set off in the afternoon to meet John and Maddy. The canal is never far from the road or the rail system and at the agreed point and the agreed time, we met; a point in my life that I will never forget. The afternoon sun still had warmth in it as the early autumn day lingered on. There was hardly a cloud in the sky and the only hint of autumn was the colour of the chestnut trees. The leaves had started to turn a lovely rust colour.
After parking the car, we walked towards the canal and saw John ambling along the footpath to greet us. His unruly, short but curly grey hair was ruffled in the slight breeze. He towered over me as he extended a hand, his kindly blue/grey eyes twinkled their greeting. ‘I’m John,’ he said, taking my hand and shaking it firmly, ‘pleased to meet you.’
‘I’m Cherryl,’ I said, mumbling my words but returning his firm handshake with one of my own, belying my timid response.
‘I’m Ian, pleased to meet you.’ Ian took Johns proffered hand. The two men swiftly sized each other up. They were of a similar age, height and build and each had a slightly protruding front which indicated that they were both losing the battle of the bulge.
‘We got here a lot earlier than we thought,’ John went on conversationally, ‘so Maddy has just cooked up a load of crayfish that we caught last night. Nothing like fresh crayfish and brown bread for tea,’ he went on happily. I had not heard of fishing for crayfish in the canal before. That would be another thing that John and Maddy taught us. Apparently, the American Signal crayfish has been introduced into the English river system for culinary purposes and had flourished beyond everyone’s wildest expectation. Now they have become a pest and their prolific breeding threatens our own English crayfish, so the Environment Agency is more than happy for people to trap them.
‘Crayfish?’ I enquired politely.
‘Yes, we put the trap out last night and the critters have been in fresh water all day,’ he said, ‘got to put them in fresh water to flush them out, you know.’ I didn’t know.
Maddy was waiting on the towpath next to their working boat ‘Newdigate’. Rocket, their rescued lurcher, watched with curiosity as we approached. Maddy’s long dark hair was tied up neatly behind her head in a no-nonsense, practical fashion. I noticed that it wasn’t scraped back severely, but rather allowed to softly frame her face while still being out of the way. This was an early indication of her feminine yet still-practical nature. ‘Hi, I’m Maddy,’ she said, taking my hand in a firm grip. I could tell that she was not a silent partner in their working relationship. This hand was a working hand and her confidence and warm welcome more than made up for her diminutive stature.
We immediately felt at ease with one another, although I really don’t know why. We came from different worlds. John and Maddy lived a simplistic and ideal (but not always easy), way of life on the canals while Ian and I were entrenched in the rat-race world of Information Technology. What did we have in common besides the boat? Even with boats, we looked at things from totally different angles. John was very traditional in his outlook and we were not.
John and Maddy invited us into the tiny boatman’s cabin of their working boat. This was their home that they shared with Rocket.
‘Now let’s talk business,’ John said, commanding the conversation as we squeezed into the cabin. ‘If I like you, I’ll work with you and you’ll find that I’m as good as my word,’ John said, setting out the conditions, ‘and I always shake on a deal,’ he concluded.
John and Ian worked out the details until they were both satisfied, while Maddy and I sat in close proximity making small talk. Rocket let out a long sigh and curled up at our feet. It was almost as if he had been through it all before. Finally the men shook hands and the deal was sealed. We opened a bottle of wine to cement the deal and in no time at all the conversation became less stilted and more relaxed. Our dream had started to germinate.
‘I don’t build boats,’ John told me as the level in the bottle was going down, ‘I build dreams,’ he continued proudly; and he was about to help us with ours.
The conversation eventually turned to the name of the boat. ‘Have you thought of a name?’ Maddy asked.
‘Oh yes,’ I said proudly, ‘we’ll call her Winedown!’
‘There is a theme emerging here.’ Maddy laughed as I looked at her quizzically. Two of the boats that John had recently fitted out included Jameson, named after Irish whisky and Moondarra, an Australian wine. Now there was Winedown.
Chapter Two
Where it all began
‘England will call you home,’ my paternal grandmother had often told me, but I had not taken her seriously. Why would I ever want to return to such a grey, dismal place where rain was commonplace and sunshine a treat? Anyway, I had spent more childhood years in Rhodesia than I had in England so where was ‘home’? I hadn’t even entertained the idea, yet Grandmother Duff had been right.
I had lived in Southern Africa – that is to say Rhodesia, as it was known at the time – and South Africa for almost twenty-eight years before England called me home. Although I was born in England, my father had relocated the family to Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia) when I was ten years old.
We were quite used to moving every few years because Father served in the RAF. Of his six children, only two of us were born in England; the other four were born in Ceylon (now Sri-Lanka), France, Cyprus and Singapore. So, really, I had spent very few of my first ten years in England.
My paternal grandparents had left England in 1926 in order to farm tobacco in Southern Rhodesia (the southernmost of the three countries that formed the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland), but Grandmother returned to England each year in April and never stopped referring to England as ‘home’.
I left Rhodesia in 1980 with my two daughters, Tanya and Rianna. By that time I had a broken marriage and little else to call my own, but I did have a burning desire to provide as much stability for my children as I could possible muster. That was not going to be easy as I had left school at the tender age of seventeen and later joined the Rhodesian Air Force in order to contribute to the war effort. When peace returned to Rhodesia in 1979, I found myself without direction and with few prospects. I had itchy feet. It was time to dump the baggage and move on, so I took my daughters to Johannesburg in search of a better life. I thought no more of my grandmother’s prediction as I struggled to provide for my family and improve my standard of living.
University had been out of the question because I simply couldn’t afford it and I had to work to support my children. The best that I could do was to attend evening classes and as a result was able to launch my career in Information Technology. It wasn’t long before travel was an integral part of my working life, and being sent to different countries on work assignments was quite normal.
So what happened to the stability that I wanted to provide for my girls? Well, I had gone to boarding school and it only seemed natural that my daughters would too. I didn’t think to question it. I had to support my children adequately and that meant that I couldn’t be precious about my working environment, so boarding school seemed to be the best solution. I was then able to schedule my work assignments to coincide with the school terms. In that way, I truly believed that I had found a very good balance between my working life and my family life.
In January 1996, I was sent to England on a two-month work assignment. Although work was my priority, I had the weekends free and I was able to visit relatives whom I had not seen in a very long time. It was during that time that a longing started to grow inside me. I still can’t imagine why – the months of January and February are probably the least hospitable months of the year. The winter of 1995/1996 had not been particularly cold, but to me, having left Johannesburg in the height of summer, it was freezing.
I found things to be strangely familiar and at the same time so utterly foreign. There was softness about the English countryside that I didn’t imagine for a moment could exist. I was intrigued and wanted to know more. Towns and cities were steeped in history that seemed to come alive for me. I was captivated. I was fascinated by the historical town of York and drank in the sights of London. The softness around Ascot was enchanting and attending the 13th century church in the little village of Linstead Pava with my aunt and uncle was unimaginably peaceful.
I was positive that I would have the opportunity to explore my feelings and satisfy my curiosity because I knew there had to be more work assignments in England, but I certainly had not intended to return on a permanent basis. I was not in a position to just leave and start a new life; I still had responsibilities. Tanya, my elder daughter, was working as a trainee interior designer, and Rianna was in her last year of school. I couldn’t just pack up and go. Their father had abandoned them when they were still of pre-school age and I was not about to do the same.
A few months after I had completed my assignment and returned to South Africa, I was made a very attractive employment and re-location offer. At first I discarded the thought out of hand (it was not the first employment offer that I had had), but as time went on I started to think more about it. Perhaps a change would do us all the world of good. Was it time to broaden our horizons? It was certainly time for a family discussion – the first of many.
Bubbly, blond and exuberant Rianna was excited, but slender, dark haired, cautious Tanya wasn’t happy. She didn’t want to leave David, her boyfriend – she was in love. If I was in any doubt as to the depth of Tanya’s and David’s feelings for each other, I was soon to find out when, a short time later, they set up home together.
I deliberated for a long time before the answer finally came to me. Actually it was handed to me. Later that year, one Friday evening, I was working overtime, which wasn’t unusual. Rianna had been invited to spend the weekend with friends so I had no reason to hurry home. It was nearly 11pm before I turned into my driveway. Unknowingly, that evening was to be a defining moment.
As I opened the gates, I wondered where Diggy was – my white English Bull Terrier (the girls had named the family dog Dignity ‘because bull terriers don’t have any’, they had reasoned, and Dignity had been shortened to Diggy). The faithful dog would usually sit at the gate and wait for me no matter what time I got home, so I was surprised that she wasn’t there. I parked the car in front of the garage and returned to close the gate; still no Diggy. I rummaged through my handbag for my keys and then unlocked the security grill gate that protected the front door. As I put the key into the lock to open the front door, Diggy came slowly around the corner of the house. Something was amiss. ‘Hey girl, what’s wrong?’ I crooned as I bent to stroke her. She nuzzled my hand and whined and she was looking dazed. I opened the front door and immediately all became clear.
I had been burgled! My hi-fi system had been strewn across the living room floor and my TV and video recorder were gone. A tangle of cut-off wires was all that remained. My records, CDs and precious books littered the carpet along with a few broken ornaments and photographs. I stared in disbelief, totally stunned. I couldn’t move. My brain was struggling to take it all in. The thieves must still have been in the house when I arrived home and had hurriedly left through the back door as I came in through the front door. I don’t know what had happened to Diggy, but she had certainly been subdued in one way or another. The police told me later that I was very lucky because it was not unusual for the home owner to be shot or stabbed (or worse) if they disturbed a burglary-in-progress as I had done.
The thieves had been systematically clearing the house of all its contents. It looked as if they had started in the master bedroom; the curtains had been torn down and along with the bed sheets, had been used to carry away all my clothes, personal belongings and anything that could be easily moved. My bedroom and those of my daughters looked as if a removals firm had been in and carted it all away, leaving only the heavy furniture. It’s hard to describe the feelings that were washing over me. I felt angry, dismayed, fearful, helpless, sickened and tearful, all at the same time. My home, my safe haven, had been violated and I struggled to pull myself together.
My first reaction was to call my friend Yvonne to ask if I could borrow some bedding for the night. I was exhausted and couldn’t think straight. I was in shock.
A short while later, David, Tanya’s boyfriend, came to help me. After she had phoned the police, Yvonne had called Tanya to tell her what had happened. David, in his characteristically calm and practical way had made me a hot drink while we waited for the police. Thankfully, the thieves hadn’t had time to strip the kitchen. After that, it didn’t take him long to discover that the thieves had been stashing my belongings over the garden wall – they would probably have returned later, with transport, to take it all away had I not disturbed them. With David’s help, I was lucky enough to have been able to retrieve most of my property.
A few days later my mind was made up. This was not the first time that I had been burgled but I was determined that it would be the last. It was time to leave South Africa.
I had once hoped that Tanya would grow out of her relationship with David. I had never approved of them living together outside marriage – I still clung to my old fashioned beliefs, and the way she had left home was reprehensible. But I must be fair and put that into context since I now have the benefit of hindsight. Tanya was head-strong and indomitable; she had inherited that from me and her fierce independence had been honed at boarding school, which she had attended from the age of six. Added to the mix, her teenage hormones were raging, fuelled by her desire to be with the love of her life, David. On the other hand there was my attitude to life that had been forged in my childhood where the draconian belief that children were seen but seldom heard, was stringently imposed. Added to that, the military discipline enforced through service in the Rhodesian Air Force all contributed to my austere attitude that ‘this is my home and we’ll do things my way’. It was a heady, combustible mix and was like using water to douse a chip-pan fire. We were out of step and certainly not seeing eye-to-eye on many issues, but I had failed to see how unhappy she really was.
Then, one day, the chip-pan exploded. I had been working overtime one Saturday to try to bring in a little extra money when the phone on my desk rang. I picked it up and before I could say anything Tanya spoke. ‘I’m leaving,’ she said simply but with determination.
‘We’ll talk about it when I get home,’ I told her firmly.
‘No!’ she almost shouted. ‘I’m leaving now.’ Without another word, without even saying good bye, she hung up the phone but I had heard the defiance in her voice. I knew she wouldn’t be at home when I got there but I dropped everything that I was doing and rushed home anyway. It took me thirty-five minutes to get home but by that time she had gone – all of her clothes and personal effects were gone, too. She had planned it with military precision. I was devastated; I was angry, confused and worried; I felt hurt and betrayed and every other negative emotion that you could imagine, but most of all I was helpless. I had no idea where she had gone and I even phoned David’s mother but she didn’t know anything. I realised much later that Rianna knew more than she ever admitted to. In the spirit of defiance and loyalty to her sister on one hand and concern for me on the other, she did her best to console me and reassure me that Tanya would be all right. It would be three agonising days before I heard from her again; but she had cut the apron strings in the only way that she knew how. She was determined to make a life of her own. She wasn’t coming home.
As time went by, I overcame the feeling of betrayal and resigned myself to the fact that Tanya had her own life – after all hadn’t I rebelliously left home when I was a teenager and survived? She was strong; she would do well. I had been wrong in trying to shelter her too much. I love my daughters dearly. I had forgiven her but I missed her terribly. Tanya and David were as one and not only had I learned to accept it but I realised how happy they both were. It was time for me to move on.
By the end of 1996, Rianna and I returned to England. Tanya and David had become engaged and were planning to marry. It broke my heart to leave her behind but I knew she had enough of my stubborn streak in her to make a success of her new life, and as it so happened, a few years later, Tanya and her husband David joined us and the family was happily re-united.
It was in 1996 that I met Ian, my husband. I had been irresistibly drawn to this tall, dark handsome Englishman with an easy smile, twinkling mischievous eyes and dark moustache and beard. He owed his rakish good looks to his Cornish ancestry. Funnily enough, I didn’t much like facial hair, but it certainly suited Ian – until the time, that is, when, about a year later his beard was turning to grey. When it was more ‘salt than pepper’, he shaved it off and he has been clean shaven ever since.
I settled into my new life in England with Ian at my side. We spent the first two years of our relationship happily teaching each other about our differences. Not only had we grown up in opposite hemispheres, but almost everything was different. Ian was an only child, the end of a long line of publicans; I was the eldest daughter - but fourth born - in a family of six children, who had lived in rural areas with farming connections. Ian had been educated as a day scholar in a boys’ boarding school; I had gone to a boarding school for young ladies. Ian had spent his early adulthood in peaceful Yorkshire; I had lived in a war-torn Rhodesia. The list went on. Even the forces of nature were different; in the northern hemisphere, water spirals down the plug hole in the opposite direction to that in the southern hemisphere. We had so much to learn from each other and it soon became apparent that we had a lifetime in which to do it.
In the summer of 1999 we started to look for a project that we could tackle together; something that would cement our relationship. We had thoroughly explored our differences, now we wanted something to call our own. Rianna had left home by that time and was living with her boyfriend Lee and I needed to avoid the ‘empty nest’ syndrome.
Ian and I had both been on a narrowboating weekend with friends and work colleagues and had thoroughly enjoyed the experience. Here was something that neither of us knew much about, but something that we could learn about together and make our own. We looked around for a narrowboat that needed a bit of work and we soon found a near derelict, thirty-year-old, ex-hire boat that had seen better days. After having a structural survey done – to ensure that she wouldn’t sink on our first time out – we bought narrowboat Hermitage.
The survey had indicated that Hermitage had had her hull re-plated, so we were sure that her structure was sound, but that was where it ended. She was a sad, neglected-looking boat with flaky paintwork interspersed with rust patches. Some rust spots had been painted over with red rust inhibitor and some patches just left to the elements. We had been told that the previous owner was a university student who had lived on the boat, but in reality – we guessed – she must have lived elsewhere. There had been a rudimentary attempt to make the internal structure habitable: it smelled of new varnish and old diesel but no-one could possibly have lived on her.
As you entered the cabin from the stern (back) deck, there was a galley like kitchen with cupboards either side of the two foot wide passageway and a new looking gas cooker that actually worked, but the sink was a little different. The waste water did go down the plug hole but didn’t drain away as you would expect. It emptied into a bucket strategically placed on top of the small fridge inside a cupboard. It reminded me of a greasy washing up bowl on a camping trip. The fridge in the cupboard under the sink was not connected to anything so clearly it wasn’t used much but it did have a musty smell about it when opened. The tiny bathroom, which was four feet long by two feet wide, was situated beyond the kitchen. It comprised an old, faded chemical-toilet that was positioned opposite a shower tray. The shower tray had duct tape over the waste water hole – that was because it was placed directly on top of the floorboards without any plumbing. There wasn’t even a waste water pump (a shower tray would usually be below the outside water level, so waste water had to be pumped against gravity to get rid of it). The shower had clearly never been used.
A slatted, wooden sliding door closed off the bathroom cubicle leaving space for a two-foot-wide passageway. Occupying the remaining two feet’s width of the boat and opposite the bathroom were two seats that were fixed to the cabin wall. These faced each other over a table. Each seat was approximately two feet wide. These seats converted into a single bed by dropping the small table to seat level and covering it with the backrest cushions.
Beyond all of that was the lounge (saloon). Actually, it was just an open space that was furnished with an old lounge chair to sit on and a chest of drawers for storage. The bottom drawer hid a paint bucket full of mosaic tiles that was a poor attempt at ballasting. Ballasting is a heavy material – probably concrete block – that is placed in the hold of the boat to enhance stability. The small bucket of mosaic tiles was as much use as a chocolate fireguard.
The pale wishy-washy curtains that covered the windows throughout the boat looked as if they were held up on knitting needles and they didn’t slide open easily. The floorboards weren’t fixed to anything. They were simply laid over the steel hull structure with a worn and faded green carpet (that smelled of damp and mildew) thrown over them to hold them in place. There was electric lighting in the form of three strip lights along the roof but the leisure batteries needed replacing, so at the time that we first saw Hermitage, we weren’t sure if they worked. The starter battery could not hold a charge so Ian had to start the diesel engine with a crank handle.
Hermitage was in a very sad state, clearly unloved, but none of that really mattered. We owned a narrowboat and we had our project! The first thing we did was to negotiate a berth in the Devizes Marina. We now had boating people around us from whom we could learn.
Hermitage, for all of her faults, had so much potential. She was forty-two feet long which was a lovely middle-of-the-road size. She had an extraordinarily large cruiser stern (back deck) which meant that the ten feet of open space at the rear provided a good seating area and gave us the prospect of being very sociable boaters. Although her interior was a shambles, we had the opportunity to learn, and put our practical skills to good use. Ian had dabbled in carpentry in the past and I was fairly good at needle work. If we had found that narrowboating didn’t suit us, we could always sell her on and hopefully not lose too much along the way, but that was an option we would never need to consider.
Ian promptly turned his attention to propulsion. Before we could go anywhere, we needed to be able to start the engine without having to crank it into life. New batteries were required. A lesson we learned early on was to make sure that you always had a starter battery that was isolated from the leisure batteries. If you weren’t vigilant you could easily drain the batteries by leaving something electrical running, such as lights or even the fridge, and if that happened and you couldn’t start the engine (to recharge the batteries) and you would be in a spot of bother. Once we had replaced the batteries, we quickly established that we had lighting – of a sort. Next, we had to learn about heating and plumbing.
We scrabbled around for literature on narrowboats. Before we could do anything to Hermitage, we had to have some idea of what we might want, or, more to the point, what was possible. Ian concentrated on the mechanical side of things while I turned my attention to the layout. We were going to strip her out and refurbish her, and Tanya and David had offered to help. They were living with us by the time we started work on Hermitage. They had left South Africa a year after they had married and were now looking around for jobs and a home of their own.
We had embarked on a new adventure and we wouldn’t look back.
Chapter Three
Messing around in Boats and Learning the Ropes
Once we had learned how to start and stop Hermitage, Ian scoured the internet for a helmsman's course. We had to start somewhere and we were not in any hurry to start stripping out the interior of Hermitage. We thought we would spend the first summer just messing around in our boat and learning the ropes. We had only a very basic idea as to how to moor up a boat and operate a lock; we knew nothing about canal etiquette or maritime law. Which side of the canal did you pass on? Who has right of way when approaching a bridge? Who has priority at a lock? Can you moor up anywhere? What is the proper way to tie the mooring rope? What is the law with regard to drinking while at the helm? It was time to get some expert help.
We spent a wonderful weekend quite literally learning the ropes on the Oxford canal with Mole, a nickname by which our tutor was fondly known. Mole, a soft-spoken man with a huge sense of humour and endless patience, regularly conducted helmsman's courses for beginners and refresher courses for the more experienced. He taught us how to navigate and steer a narrowboat; we learned all about locks, swing bridges and other movable bridges (often referred to as lift bridges). He took us through the hands-on as well as the theory of mooring and rope work, and with seemly endless practicality gave us loads of tips that were probably simple common sense to him but invaluable gems of information to us. For example, if you want to quickly take the chill off the inside of the boat, make a cup of tea; the heat rising from the gas will quickly warm the air in the relatively small cabin space. Needless to say, we have put this little gem of information to good use time and again.
At the end of that event-filled weekend, we were off to a good start with the basics although we knew that we still had a lot to learn. It had given me the confidence I needed to be persuaded to take the helm of Hermitage as a beginner. I hadn’t always been comfortable with the engine controls on Hermitage; they were tricky to say the least, as they appeared to have been home-made and even though I now had a little more confidence, I started to sweet-talk Ian into changing the control lever. Fortunately, it didn’t take too long before he did as I had asked! Bless him!
‘Remember that narrowboating is a contact sport,’ Mole had said on more than one occasion, ‘so the odd bump or scrape will just add character to your boat.’ What he didn’t tell us was that if you wanted to keep your boat looking good, the ‘character’ that was acquired as the result of a bump or scrape would have to be treated with rust inhibitor and the paint work repaired, which we discovered was an on-going task; just one of the many joys of boating. We didn’t have to worry too much about the paintwork initially as poor Hermitage was already in a shabby state. She badly needed a new coat of paint but that would be a project we would tackle after the interior makeover.
Devizes Marina is situated a little over two miles from the top of the Caen Hill flight of locks on the Kennet and Avon canal in Wiltshire. Travelling in a westerly direction from the marina towards the Caen Hill flight, the canal passes through the town of Devizes. The Caen Hill flight is renowned for the twenty-nine locks arranged over two miles, which lowers the canal approximately 237 feet to accommodate the steep terrain. Travelling in an easterly direction, the canal meanders through the Vale of Pewsey for approximately fifteen miles before the first lock is encountered at Wootton Rivers. As a beginner, this is a perfect stretch of the canal on which to become familiar with the boat and canal etiquette, and make great friends along the way. It’s just perfect for messing about on boats.
We spent the rest of the summer practising our newly-acquired boating skills during the weekends and surfing the internet looking for narrowboat interior designs at every other opportunity. One thing we quickly learned is that there was no such thing as a ‘normal’ layout. Each boat is laid out and fitted out according to the requirements of its owner, and the more we used our boat the better idea we had of what might suit us.
I found a nugget of information in The Narrowboat Builder’s Book (written by Graham Booth) that helped me to start planning the interior. Graham suggested that if you divide the width of the interior into three equal parts, you would not go far wrong. One third would always be used for the passageway while the other two thirds would be used for anything else. Graph paper was the answer. Each block on the graph paper would represent a two feet by two feet block of space on the boat. So, divide the width of the boat into three equal parts (a narrowboat is usually a little over six feet in width) and work out the length. The available interior cabin space on Hermitage was almost twenty-six feet long. That would give me thirteen blocks by three blocks. Simple! Armed with a pad of graph paper, I started to play around with potential layouts.
It wasn’t too long before Ian and I agreed a rough layout; a very rough layout. We would have seating and sleeping facilities in the front of the boat (the ‘pointy end’ as some would refer to it as) with a saloon (living area) close to the stern or back; the kitchen and bathroom would be somewhere in between. At least we had a starting point.
But, before we could start, we had to look at the question of ballast. When we had agreed the purchase of Hermitage, the boat surveyor had indicated in his report that the boat was riding high in the water and would need ballasting. Since it was not a ‘life or death’ situation – and at the time we hadn’t fully understood the reasoning – we hadn’t done much about it. Ballast is required to give the boat stability and trim. Because a narrowboat has a flat bottom and no keel, it could potentially be top heavy and unstable if the amount of boat above the waterline was not proportional to the amount of the boat below the waterline. In addition, if heavy furnishing – like the stove for example - is positioned along one side of the boat, the boat would sit lopsided in the water. Ballast, positioned appropriately, would correct these problems. Therefore, it seemed sensible to start with the floor and what was beneath the floor – the ballast.
Ian put concrete paving slabs into the hold beneath the floorboards, fitting them snugly between the steel ribs. This added weight would ensure that Hermitage would sit lower in the water. We couldn’t do much about the trim until we had settled on the layout, but at least we had made a start. Next, Ian fixed the floorboards into position. We could now walk safely through the cabin without the fear of tripping over loose floorboards, and Ian and David would have a firm base to work from.
‘I think we should start at the front of the boat and do a section at a time,’ Ian had contemplated, ‘instead of jumping in and stripping out the interior completely.’ I had agreed with that way of thinking. The forward cabin had previously been left unfinished without so much as a table or a cupboard in it; the former owners had called it ‘open plan’, so it made sense to start there. We could then keep the rudimentary facilities of cooking and washing-up intact (such as they were). In this way, we could occasionally take time out from the work and enjoy boating; a formula that worked very well for us (we knew that the renovation would take longer that way, but at least we would have fun).
The next project was to build two box seats into the forward cabin. Not only would they provide seating, but they would also provide valuable storage space. Each one was two feet wide by six feet long, and these were fitted against the cabin walls on each side of the boat, leaving a two-feet wide passage-way between the two. While Ian and David were occupied with that, Tanya and I looked for suitable upholstery fabric. We had foam cushions made to fit the box seats, and once we had those I set about making the cushion covers. When the weather permitted, I was able to set up my sewing machine on the back deck and work on the covers while David and Ian hammered and banged in the cabin below.
Tanya and I had found some lovely upholstery material in a cottage-industry type outlet that specialised in end-of-range material at knock-down prices. We were delighted with it. The dark green background was broken up with a rich gold and deep burgundy pattern. It looked quite regal and certainly wouldn’t look grubby easily. I found some upholstery piping cord in a fabric shop in Chippenham that matched the deep burgundy colour so I thought that I would use it to edge the cushions with. Things were coming together and it wasn’t long before we had seating; and, as an added bonus, the seats converted into a double bed by bridging the passageway when required.
‘It would be great to see in the millennium from our boat,’ I had suggested to Ian, ‘but before we can do that, we will have to make sure that the stove is fitted properly to give us the heating we will need’.
‘Is that the Royal We again?’ Ian chuckled, his eyes twinkling mischievously, knowing full well that it was his task.
‘Okay, bright spark! You will have to fit the stove and I will do the tiling behind it,’ I corrected, with mock severity.
Devizes Boat club was organising a millennium party at the clubhouse on Devizes Wharf and since we had joined the boat club shortly after we had bought Hermitage, we thought we would take our boat to the Wharf and join in the celebrations. As the millennium approached, David and Ian worked feverishly to finish their tasks in order to make it possible.
My eldest brother, Alex, and his wife, Elgene, were invited to join Tanya, David, Ian and me on the boat for the millennium festivities. Although Hermitage now had only one convertible double bed, all six adults could be adequately accommodated if we put sleeping bags on inflatable mattresses. Alex has never been one for DIY, but he and Elgene always showed an interest in what we were doing and they didn’t mind ‘roughing it’ for one night. I have a particularly close relationship with my sister-in-law, so I was very happy when they accepted our invitation. With the sleeping arrangements all worked out, we were set to see in the new century, and we had much to celebrate. Rianna had given birth to our first grandchild, James, only days before.
On the afternoon of New Year’s Eve, the six of us piled on board, stowed our gear and set off for the wharf in Devizes. There, we moored up alongside other boat-club members' boats. Let the celebrations begin! The fire in the newly-fitted stove was lit, then we opened a bottle of sparkling wine and toasted each other, proud of our achievements as well as our new grandparent status. There was no looking back. We all sat on the newly upholstered box seats, facing each other and happily catching up on news, views and other interesting things. You would have had to force us to suck a lemon just to get the smiles off our faces.
Before joining the club members in the hall above the canal museum, Ian stoked the fire again, adding more coal to make sure that it didn’t go out while we were out. We wrapped up warmly and we girls set silly fascinators on our heads and festive earrings in our ears before we all set off down the towpath towards the party. As we partied away the hours before midnight and the dawning of the millennium, we acquainted ourselves with other boat-club members and copious quantities of food and drink. Alex is a keen sailor (yachting, that is) so although they don’t have a narrowboat, they have a similar interest and that ensured that they were not left sitting in a corner like wall flowers. We were all determined that this would be a night we would never forget.