On a recent canal journey, imagine my surprise on seeing an Alfred Matty boat complete with livery just passing the Gower Tip, almost as though it had got up to 88kph from the 1960’s.
David Wilson’s picture from the days of when this company delivered Albright and Wilson’s deadly cocktail to both Gower and Rattlechain tips was fresh in my mind when I took the picture above.
And of course Roy Martin’s time stamp smoking gun of a picture.
On this occasion no pulling an open boat load of toxic cargo.
As another coincidence of the time continuum, I also happened to see the below as part of a facebook reel from an old MACE news film shared on the Gongoozler Crew page. This dates from 1971.
This particular Matty boat was called “The Governor”, and I believe is still around though thankfully not transporting any toxic waste.
A study undertaken around this period, Autumn 1970, by Laurence Braithwaite entitled “The use of urban canals” from The University of Birmingham Centre for Urban and Regional Studies was a forward thinking piece on the “full potential of canals in urban areas”. The then state of the canals was looked at on the BCN network, and of interest to myself issues of pollution at this key time.
On page 18 he notes
“On one notorious case in the area the BWB Annual Report for 1969 says:
“On the BCN pollution entering the canal from a chemical works on an arm not in the Board’s ownership has created unpleasant conditions affecting the canal over some distance from the point of entry. Strong joint action by the board and the river authority resulted in action by the company and conditions should steadily improve; it is understood that the process giving rise to the particular circumstances has now ceased”
Though not named, they are of course referring to Albright and Wilson and the Houghton Chemical arm. Though slated to cease tipping by Matty boats in 1969 when white phosphorus was no longer produced at Oldbury, we know from Paul Bartlett’s first hand account that it continued into the 1970’s for some years after this, still dumping toxic waste via the toxic trail. Quite frankly, I do find it rather hypocritical of this board in that they were fully complicit in the dumping of toxic waste to land and water at this same time with their own tips, as well as their involvement with rattlechain itself.
OPINION
As for the opinion piece on this, I am so glad this commercial trade is dead, buried unfortunately in shallow graves of water and land around us of course and never, never, never coming back.
At present, the canals on the BCN are entering a terrible state of disrepair, fly tipping and overgrowth similar to the abandonment of the 60’s/ early 70’s as seen in some of the MACE films and highlighted in the Braithwaite study. There have been major pollution issues caused by industry and in many cases fuckwit pleasure boaters whose spread is now saturating the canal system to the point of overload.
It is shocking that no competency test or a “driving licence” is required to operate a narrow boat around the canals. This should be mandatory, and so should the enforcement of unregistered boats which are also getting more frequent- especially clapped out cruiser boats that appear to have a nasty habit of sinking. One incident recently I saw down the Delph Locks involved a boat whose operatives had not a bloody clue as to how locks work, resulting in flooding of a lock and cascading a downpour down a walkway. And then there are the fuckwits who trap birds in locks and squash them. There appears to me to be a middleclass arrogance of some boat owners who could not care less abut the waterways, rather their own polluting water snail pumping out bilge on their retired carefree way and occasionally flogging some handmade tat. Diesel boats must be phased out- I am sick and tired of this type of pollution causing damage to wildlife. They are a thing of yesterday and should not be a part of the future.
The CRT, now a charity, and a distant memory of the terrible former British Waterways do their best to some degree with volunteer help, but it is run by a board whose CEO is on six figures. Some have called for the Government to fund the waterways, but I am not one of them. The CRT has to get its own house in order and get those running the show to take a massive pay cut.
There are numerous serious leaks in key aqueduct locations over roads and rail bridges in the area, which appear to have been forgotten and potentially await disaster. These type of issues should be being put first and money not spent funding restoration pipedreams of long abandoned and lost canals.
Finally if the CRT want to encourage more people to use the canals safely, it needs to put back the canal bike barriers to stop the masked up thieves and drug dealers now using the network as a means of getting from a-b to avoid detection. Its policy of removing these is dreamt up by office based idiots , no doubt with a sustrans bent, without a clue as to what is going on. They live in blind stupidity.
Where will the canal system be in another 30 years? I dread to think.