A Different Dragonfly Cruise – and an Event to Look Forward to

On Saturday I had the pleasure of acting as second crew on Dragonfly, on what was an absolutely splendid autumn day.  The canal looked very attractive, and the trees were beginning to take on their autumnal colours.  The first two journeys were in some senses quite ‘normal’, i.e. families out for an adventure, doing something that some of them had never done before, and enjoying a canal boat trip; for some of them it was a novelty to discover (as so many people do) that there is a canal less than a mile from the centre of Swindon.  So that was in itself very enjoyable, and a great success.

The second part of the day was something different, for me at least – a society or group chartering Dragonfly, to give a different setting to their activities.  Poetry Swindon had chartered the boat for the afternoon as part of their week-long Poetry Swindon Festival 2015, and invited their members to come along and listen to poetry being read as the boat cruised gently along.  They had invited a very well-known poet, Jo Bell, to read some of her poems.  She is the Canal Laureate of the UK, appointed by the Poetry Society and Canal and River Trust.  Jo also has the very great advantage of having lived for the past twelve years on a boat at Honeystreet on the Kennet and Avon Canal, so she was able to set her poems in a proper boating context. 

We reckon that we had something over thirty visitors to the festival come along, so we ran three short trips to make sure they all had a chance to experience the poetry and the canal.  Again, it was fascinating to see their reaction – first of all to the canal, the boat and the lovely surrounding, and second to the idea of actually living on a boat – they plied Jo with many questions, since for some it was a new idea.  So, all in all, a very successful day, and one that showed the value of Dragonfly, in a new way.

And the event to look forward to?  This coming Thursday, Canal and River Trust are presenting their Living Waterways Awards, and we have been shortlisted for the Education and Learning Category for the work organised by Val Melville and the rest of the MCC branch for the very successful Heritage Open days at Pewsham last summer and the February half-term activity days at the Chippenham Museum which are still continuing.  A number of us are going to the event, and we wish Val and her team every success.

Chris Coyle