Boating with the Humphries

Reader's Letters & Queries: NarrowBoat, Spring 2012

I was very pleased to see the photograph of Tom and Ellen Humphries (Winter 2010 NB page 5). I assumed that the little girl was their daughter Evelyn but if the photograph was taken in 1962 it could not have been her. In late August 1962 Mr E.W. Kempton, the British Waterways fleet manager at Bulls Bridge, kindly arranged for me to do a trip with a working boatman and his family. I was told to meet steerer T. Humphries at Croxley one Monday afternoon. His motor boat was the Stamford but I cannot remember the butty’s name except that it was definitely not Crater. It might have been Hyades. They were a delightful family and made me very welcome. Evelyn was definitely a teenager by then, about 16 or 17. We unloaded at Croxley on the Tuesday morning, set off at about 1pm and made Bulbourne that night. On Wednesday we reached the bottom of Buckby and arrived at Sutton’s Stop on Friday afternoon. Evelyn and I had great fun whipping up the paddles on the locks up to the Cowroast …