Blue Line

Blue Line Canal Carriers Ltd took over the boats and canal carrying contracts of Samuel Barlow Coal Co Ltd in January 1962. The principal backer of this firm was Michael Streat, a long-time Inland Waterways Association member who had for some years run a successful hire and hotel boat business based at Barlows’ Yard, Braunston. Initially there were four crewed pairs and several single motors and butties, all wooden, in the fleet, but one pair was relinquished and the wooden motors and butties were gradually sold off during 1962–64. This left three pairs operating a contract to supply Kearley & Tonge’s Jam Factory in Southall, Middlesex, generally known as the “Jam ’ole”. They were occasionally assisted by sub-contractors if needed.

For a while, loading was at Baddesley Basin in the flight of locks at Atherstone, but this was transferred to the wharf at Atherstone when the tramway connecting Baddesley Colliery to the canal was closed in the mid1960s. The change had the merit of saving the crews having to bowhaul the butties up and down six narrow locks. The original wooden motors were replaced by Blue Line with ex-Grand Union steel motors, and one steel butty was commissioned, but the contract terminated before the remaining two butties could be replaced.

In June 1970 a new government came into power and an early priority was to encourage industry to relocate from the London area to the North East. Grants were available and Kearley & Tonge were persuaded to move. In consequence the factory was gradually run down from September 1970, when the regular coal contract for 100 tons per week ended. There was a brief revival in October 1970 when a final 100 tons was delivered and with it went the last regular, day-to-day traffic on the Grand Union Canal.

Although the Blue Line pairs were not the only boats working on the Grand Union Canal in 1970, they were crewed by three families that in many ways represented the best traditions of the family boat system. These pictures illustrate some of the methods and techniques of working loaded boats fast and efficiently over long distances.

Jim Collins, his wife Doris and son Percy in April 1968 with Stanton and Belmont, two ex-Grand Union boats, about to leave the top lock of what British Waterways call ‘Soulbury Three’, the locals ‘Three Locks’ and boaters ‘Stoke Hammond Three’. This flight was one that the Grand Junction Canal Company had supplemented with narrow locks for use by single boats, hence the double arch of the bridge in the background. The custom was, when working through close-spaced flights of locks such as this with loaded boats, to “catch ’em abreast” in the flight and then to ‘single out’ for the long pounds above or below, and the pair can be seen to have been untied. Doris Collins is shipping the butty’s tiller and Jim is stepping aboard the motor to take over from Percy, who has probably brought the boats up the flight. Working this way required only one person to control both boats, while two people could work the locks with assistance from the motor steerer. The lettering of the boats is of interest. Blue Line adopted a modern typeface for cabin sides after taking over Barlows in 1962. This reflected Michael Streat’s philosophy of ‘continuity and change’, in other words of keeping the best of the past within the context of the present.

The boats are now properly under way on a ‘short snatcher’. This is a short towline used ‘among the locks’ which enables the boats to work at a good speed provided the butty is kept out of the motor’s wash on one quarter or the other. Note the bikes on both boats used for ‘lock wheeling’. If the boats have a ‘good road’, meaning that the next lock, Leighton, is ready for them (which information will have been passed to them by oncoming boats) the bikes will remain aboard, but if the road is ‘bad’ one of the bikes will be thrown ashore, probably at the bridge by the Globe pub and someone will then pedal furiously to Leighton Lock so as to have it ready and not delay the boats. Another advantage of working on a short snatcher is that cups of tea and sandwiches, or even a full plate of food, can easily be passed across to the motor merely by easing up the engine revolutions and letting the butty’s fore end close up.

Jim has now taken over the controls of the motor and Percy is about to step aboard the butty while the pair negotiate the long ‘Jackdaw Pound’ up to Leighton Buzzard. This will allow his mother to set about her house-keeping chores as the boats are under way. Having a grown-up or teenage son or daughter was a great help to boaters, but the task of looking after younger children fell to the mother who was effectively chained to the butty’s tiller while they were young and had to carry out all the domestic tasks after tying up at night or while waiting to load or discharge.

The second sequence of photographs shows Arthur Bray’s pair Nutfield and Raymond negotiating Horton Lock in the stretch known as ‘the fields’ between Leighton Buzzard and Marsworth in February 1970. In the first picture we see the boats arriving at Horton Lock with Arthur’s stepson, Ernie Kendall, placing Nutfield in exactly the right position to enter the lock and Arthur aboard Raymond also positioning the butty so as to slip in beside the motor. The motor will be steered so as to enter the lock centrally, then the fore end placed against the left-hand wall just before ‘holding back’ (going astern). The action of the reversed ‘blades’ will swing the stern over to the left, allowing the butty to slide in beside the motor without jamming. The butty may be seen to be somewhat battered about the fore end; this was inevitable with wooden boats that were worked hard. The constant movement of the timber as the boat was pulled through the water would cause even the best laid-on paint to crack and break up after a time. The cabin top of the motor is also of interest. There is nothing superfluous there: everything is in place and to hand, from the mop and cabin shaft to Ernie’s king-sized mug just by the water can. The large rubber mat on the ‘chimley pipe side’ of the engine casing was to protect the paint when Ernie, no small man, descended from a lockside. Note also that there is no ‘cutter’ over the exhaust pipe from the air-cooled engine. Many boaters preferred to keep the exhaust free of encumbrances except when passing through tunnels.

Here Arthur is about to ‘strap in’ using the paddle post for the purpose. The edges of the post may be seen to have been worn by numerous other boats’ straps. By positioning the strap in the right place, the force of strapping the boat will also start the butty’s gate moving, so that once some water is let in from above it will continue swinging shut. Ernie meanwhile has positioned the motor correctly before jumping up onto the lockside and is closing the motor’s gate. Another way of doing this which loaded boats sometimes used was to swing the tiller over so as to direct a stream of water from the ‘blades’ behind the gate, thus forcing it shut.

Arthur Bray brings Raymond into Horton Lock. Raymond has since been substantially rebuilt, but remains a ’small’ boat, as were the majority of boats built for and worked by Barlows. In consequence, unlike the ex-GUCCC Belmont, it was necessary to load with ‘slack boards’ in order to get a full economic load aboard. It will be seen how the coal is piled up at the stern and a small removable section of boarding has been placed in front of the ‘back door’ to allow light and air into the cabin. Unlike the motor, which has a small water can merely to serve the needs of the steerer, the butty has two large cans. This was because all the cooking and other domestic tasks were usually done on the butty, whose cabin has more room than the motor’s. Lying on the cabin top in front of Arthur is a check strap, and he will shortly step ashore with this and bring the boat to a stand by ‘strapping in’ round a stump placed at the lower end of the lock for this purpose. Today many of the stumps have disappeared and it is more common for the few remaining loaded pairs to stop the butty by checking it from the motor’s stern ‘dollies’.

A final shot of Arthur Bray’s pair, this time at the bottom lock of Nash Mills in November 1969. Here the boats have evidently come abreast down the short pound between the two locks, since a breasting strap is visible from the motor’s dollies and the butty’s tiller has been held in a central position with tiller strings. Nutfield’s stern quarter shows where the butty has nudged it entering locks, with a mark from the butty’s fore end fender prominent. No doubt this will soon be washed off with a mop going down the next river-fed pound to Kings Langley. On the butty, Rose Bray has something cooking in a saucepan on the range. Rose was a good cook and was very kind towards young single boatmen in supplying needy looking candidates with jam tarts. The ropework and plain wood has been well scrubbed and the boats look workaday but spotless.

Having opened his gate with the motor, Ernie has momentarily eased off while he takes the short snatcher from the butty’s fore end prior to continuing up the pound towards the next lock, Ivinghoe Bottom, or ‘Corkers’ to boaters. The butty’s fore end will be drawn over behind the motor, so there will be no need to open the butty’s gate. Arthur has stepped back on board and takes the tiller, with Mrs Rose Bray in the hatches. It was never the custom to drop paddles or to close gates unless working with following boats, or if the bottom gates were leaking badly and there was no prospect of immediate traffic in the other direction. The reasoning was that with constant traffic there was no need to waste time in closing gates or dropping paddles. All boats were expected to use lock wheelers to do this.

The third Blue Line pair was crewed by the Whitlock family. Here we see Mrs Whitlock’s cousin, Laura Carter, gently steering Renfrew into the awkward blind bridgehole at New Bradwell, near Wolverton, in April 1969. The Whitlock family never appeared to hurry, yet they got about the canal as quickly as anybody, the secret being to be in exactly the right place at exactly the right time and to anticipate what was coming round the next turn. Since the boats here are proceeding along the 11-mile ‘Fenny Pound’ from Cosgrove to Fenny Stratford, the butty is being towed on a long line. This keeps the butty well back out of the motor’s wash and thus allows the boats to travel faster. In those days it was rare for bridges to be full of rubbish round ‘the Fenny’ so there was little fear of the motor having to bring up in a bridge hole and for the steerer to be obliged to pull in yards of soggy rope before the on-coming butty caused it to become entangled in the motor’s blades. The ‘rims’ (chimney brasses) of both boats have been swathed with newspaper to protect them from the weather, which was a characteristic practice of the Whitlock family.

Rose Whitlock is seen shortly after the last picture, at the same place, about to steer into the bridgehole. The butty Lucy had a slightly extended cabin, which made the provision of ‘slack boards’ even more necessary. The family’s water requirements can be seen here to be catered for with three large cans and a plastic water carrier. Lucy was eventually sold off after Blue Line ceased to carry and deteriorated badly. It is a matter for rejoicing that she has recently been recovered and is currently undergoing a massive rebuild at Braunston, from which it is hoped she will one day reemerge in the sort of condition in which the Whitlocks always kept her.

Working downhill from Cowroast summit in February 1970, Renfrew & Lucy are seen here at Dudswell Bottom Lock some distance above Berkhamsted. Rose Whitlock has strapped the butty in and brought it to a stand within inches of the bottom gate and is now closing the top gate. The family was the last to use the traditional towing method of a ‘block rope’ and the butty’s top planks show the ‘running blocks’ set up all the way along with a small pulley taking the line from the butty’s mast to the motor’s dollies. This method was used ‘among the locks’ and was a very fast way of working. It meant that the butty almost acted as an independent unit with the motor merely supplying power. On leaving a lock there was no need for the motor steerer to ease off when picking up the tow. Laura Carter, as motor steerer, was able to go out of the lock without slackening speed, merely picking up the loose end of the towline and dropping the spliced loop over one of her dollies as she passed. The butty steerer, usually Rose Whitlock, would take up the slack by means of a tee stud set immediately in front of the cabin slide and the butty would accelerate out of the lock as if by magic. The snag with this system was that it made it difficult to move along the top planks of the butty and it could go spectacularly wrong. One boatman I know was caught up in the towline as a child, whisked out of the cabin and ended up with his leg severely damaged by getting caught in the running blocks. It also put a good deal of strain on a cabin, causing leaks.

Here the boats are setting off down the pound from Dudswell, with Rose Whitlock still paying out the line round the tee stud. The check strap is being towed astern, since it messed up the cabin sides or hatches if it was brought inboard, there was no propeller to worry about and also strapping in with a dry rope could sometimes be accompanied by the rope smouldering through the friction developed when it was placed round a stump. Strapping in was another skill that was acquired over many years, especially when working boats uphill through the ‘new’ locks between Napton and Knowle, because the butty would go out of sight from the lower end strapping stump, which was thoughtfully placed by the lower wing wall of the lock. Dudswell Bottom Lock is unusual in that there is no towpath through the arch of the bridge below. Uphill boats needing to strap in had to send the butty steerer up the narrow flight of steps seen on the left of the picture immediately below the bottom gate. One dark night I once jumped off a loaded butty on top of a courting couple here!

Loaded boats also meant empty boats, especially as the Jam ’ole contract was worked on a one-way basis. Here Ernie Kendall brings Nutfield & Raymond back uphill through Dudswell probably in February 1970. Running empty back up the ‘Junction’ – as the Grand Union between London and Braunston was still called by boaters right up to the end – was, towards the end of commercial carrying, a much less onerous piece of boating than going loaded. For a start the boats could run abreast if needed all the way from Cowley (the first lock after leaving the Jam ’ole) to Cowroast, and from the top of Marsworth to Leighton Buzzard (although nowadays one of the old swing bridges north of Leighton bridge is too narrow, so pairs must now single out at Grove Lock) and all the lock flights could be worked in this fashion. This made life very much easier for the butty steerer. On the longer pounds the butty would be drawn up close behind the motor on ‘cross straps’ and required the minimum of steering . . .