Twilight on the T&M

Last Traffic: NarrowBoat, Summer 2017

Harry Arnold

Harry Arnold talks us through a collection of encounters with workings boats on the T&M, including the craft of Seddons Salt, British Waterways and the Anderton Canal Carrying Company

I knew very little about working narrowboats when, on our very first canal holiday in October 1960, my wife Beryl and I passed Seddons Salt at Middlewich and saw a pair of immaculately painted Admiralclass boats unloading coal. We also observed Seddons’ own boats, lying empty and rather forlorn. I had seen craft of the British Waterways’ North-West Division Southern Carrying Fleet (to give it the full title) and local carriers passing through my home village on the Bridgewater Canal, but I had taken little notice. My transport interest then was railways, especially narrow gauge, and although I knew of Tom Rolt, through this, I was yet to read Narrow Boat and develop an obsession with canals. The holiday was my wife Beryl’s idea, so she might be blamed for this first encounter and an interest in working narrowboats that led to my professional life on the waterways. During this period I was able to observe and become involved with the last traffics on the Trent & …