Friday 17 March 2017

A View from the Back Window

This week I am taking a rest and its over to Guest Editor Steve Bacon

Since the beginning of this year, Ken has provided an information-packed blog eagerly awaited each weekend. This week, I hope to give another perspective from a Branch member. I retired in October 2015 and a couple of months later we moved to Royal Wootton Bassett having chosen just the spot to keep us occupied.
In February 2016 I started with the weekly working parties offering unskilled labour, and so I've seen our stretch of the canal through every season. It's very satisfying to see a job completed in a day. Early spring last year started with clearing trees and brush from the Dunnington Aqueduct with neat bonfires to consume the piles accumulated during the work-party. We moved on to the restored section at Templars Firs to tidy the offside – again with a bonfire or two to mark our activity – and later in the summer onto the canal to remove the weed growth. The yellow water-lilies are very attractive but they choke the canal; however, the two clumps of large white water-lilies were strictly protected and have been the subject of much amateur photography. I often meet camera-wielding walkers while I'm out with the dogs.



Our branch has a faithful band of volunteers coming from far and wide to keep the grass mown and the hedgerows held in check, and a well-respected WPO in John Bower to guide us in the tasks in hand. He has three deputies, so we can split up into sub-groups as necessary. The team has a wide range of practical skills to counter-balance my lack of them; several members can drive diggers and dumpers, but no-one can make it look quite so simple as Richard Hawkins who can fashion a track or a trench in a trice. The excavator is just like an extra arm, levelling the clay like spreading butter.
Other volunteers have left their mark on the Peterborough Arms: Frank Keohane and John Phillips have worked on plastering based on the traditional lime mix needed for a listed building, and although their achievements have already been celebrated in a report given to those who've loaned money for the PA, this year their handiwork will be revealed to a much wider audience.
Having moved from the clay soils of central Berkshire, I know how just how much difference there is between the water-logged soft mess in winter and the cracked dry surface in summer. The clay soil at Studley Grange is an order of magnitude stickier and softer in winter, but with a decent towpath it will become accessible this year. In mid-February, an excavator was hired for two days to create a spill-weir at the western end of Studley Grange by Bincknoll Lane; two trenches were dug, two ribbed plastic pipes were sunk in the clay and covered over, and the team's hi-viz jackets ended up a very low-vis grey.


Having moved to a house in Templars Firs (the road), I was asked to become project manager of the Templar's Firs Extension project (the canal). Actually, I've been busy working in the canal itself over the last few months diverting a path – but I hasten to add that this stretch is in my back garden, and not for restoration. Over Christmas and New Year, I was also busy managing the diversion of the all-weather access track, swapping hats between project management and unskilled labour under John's command. Many others joined the extra work-parties to erect the fencing and help lay 200 tons of scalpings.
Behind our back garden is the old Council Depot, which was moribund when I first saw it in 2015, but when we moved in, we found that it was a hive of activity 24/7 from Monday to Sunday, occupied by a consortium named ABC Electrification whose staff have raised funds for us and kindly allowed the WRG excavator to be parked overnight for over a fortnight. Last week, they finally vacated the buildings and the once-busy yard is now empty and waiting for a buyer.
Will the Templar's Firs Extension have to move up a gear soon? Will we need two work-parties in future – one midweek for us 'Last of the Summer Winers' and another at the weekend for those still working?
Steve Bacon,
Trustee representing the Membership.

If you would like to be one of our occasional guest editors let me know
Ken Oliver
@canalken  




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