Barrow's Boys - book review

Barrow's Boys

by Fergus Flemung

March 2014

I have been picking at this book for over a year and to be honest I can't remember where I bought it. This in itself will probably tell you that its not exactly a riveting page turner, but rather a book one has to persevere with.

Its redeeming feature is the bulk of its subject matter - the search for the North West Passage.

The book pivots round John Barrow, Second Secretary to the Admiralty, who wrote:

"To what purpose could a portion of our naval force be, at any one time, but more especially in a time of profound peace, more honorably or usefully employed than in completing those details of geographical and hydrographical science of which the grand outlines have been sketched by Cook... and many other of your own countrymen."

A bit ponderous in its delivery but what it is expressing is that in a time of peace how can we usefully employ some of the many naval ships and crews who are kicking their heels on half pay? His answer was to sponsor a long series of explorations which with hindsight all appear to be lost causes and to some extent pointless.

So whilst Barrow is the connecting feature in these tales, he was no explorer himself and it is the stories of the crews which are unpacked in painstaking detail.

Sadly, whilst the book has many redeeming features such as the insights into Arctic and Antartic exploration, it is also a slave to historical accuracy with its five page bibliography and eleven page index. No one could accuse Fleming of skimping on accuracy or playing fast and lose with history - this verges on an academic work and its readability suffers as a consequence.

And then there is the African element. In the main the book is about water based polar exploration, which is a hugely interesting subject, but in the pursuit of comprehensive accuracy there are large chunks devoted to African expeditions to find the source of the Niger and the location on Timbuktoo. Quite possibly valid subjects for research, but completely at odds with the polar elements and to me, as boring as Hell!

So I pressed on with this book, taking it with me on several boat trips last summer and finally, over a year after I embarked on my journey through its 500 pages, I have completed the trip and returned to port safe and sound. That may sound slow going but for many of the crews seeking out a North West Passage they found themselves icebound for several successive seasons and could easily spent three years or more locked in these desolate arctic regions. Against this background it is perhaps fitting that the account of their journey is unpacked with glacial slowness!

So, 10:10 for historical authenticity, 9:10 for literary quality, 7:10 for interest factor and 4:10 for readability.

If you are interested in the subject matter read on. If not - move on!

Cyder House Rules

Cyder making Course

March 2014

I have been tinkering with cider making over the last few years, trying to develop my skills by trial and error. All very entertaining but its slow progress and I have come to realise that I need a bit of help. Helen came to the rescue with an interesting Christmas present - a one day cider making course at the School of Artisan Food near Worksop.

The course was led by Simon Reed who makes the "Old Wife" Cider Brand in Kent, a cider equivalent of a micro brewery.

First up a pile of history and interesting facts:

• There are nearly 4,000 types of apple 
• They are all descended from about 24 varieties in Kazakhstan.
• There are about 400 types of pear in the UK
• There are 1100 small cider makers at work
• Per capita the UK is the cider drinking capital of the world 
• Just about any apple can be used to make cider
• The legal minimum apple quantity or mass produced cider is 35% (I hate to think what else goes into it)

Whilst not being one for semantics, I have been a bit trouble with the Cyder thing - it sounds a bit olde worlde pretentiousness. But I am wrong. Back in the day when there were more acres devoted to the apple than grain the first pressing was sold to the rich and was the Cyder. It was a watered down second pressing which was sold to the peasants, and this was the Cider. So, for the purposes of artisan cider, its actually Cyder that we are making.

Plasterers stirrer and the Shredder

As well as a whole ruck of great tips and advice we got to play with the big boys toys which included a range of methods of breaking up the apples - scratters, shredders, plasterers stirrers as well as a range of presses. Its a great way to try out the options and see what you get for your money.

Scratter

Having played with the big boys toys I now want some for myself, but they are terribly expensive. 

Breaking up the apples to a small pressable bits is a vital 1st stage and a scratter is really the way to go, But for the few gallons I want to make a plasterer's stirrer in a drill does a surprisingly effective job and at £5 its a really good option.

15L press

As for a press, its just begging for a DIY project. It need to be very strong but can have pressure applied by a bottle jack and is well within the scope of my carpentry skills. Its a tempting option but of course, I just need to find the time to build it before the Autumn.

Rough Old Wife and some DIY cider at the start of its 6 month route to drinkability

So I am now all ready to make cider (or cyder) but with no apples for six months I am limited to the small quantity of Braeburn / Bramley juice and a the one litre of pear juice which we pressed during the course.

In the meantime I have some more beer to make up. Hurrah for the mighty hop!

Walking the Bradley Loop - BCN

The Bradley Loop - BCN
A walking guide
Feb 2014

The following appeared in the Winter edition of The Boundary Post - the BCN Society's quarterly magazine.

This circular walk explores one of the most intriguing lost sections of the 1771 Old Main Line Canal from Birmingham to Wolverhampton, one which loops around Summer Hill and was cut off by the construction of the Coseley Tunnel in 1837 and finally abandoned in 1961. This hard won short cut took seven miles off the old route to Wolverhampton and created Bloomfield and Deepfields Junctions, but for a variety of reasons took 39 years to complete. My suggested walk includes both the still navigable Bradley Arm and the “new” Coseley cutting. This covers seven miles, but can be reduced to five if you take an overland route from Canal and River’s Bradley Works to Bloomfield Junction.

Bloomfield to Summer Hill

Bloomfield Junction is a good place to start, just north of Tipton where Hurst Lane crosses the canal. There is little to be seen at the site of the junction, or the web of old basins which lay beyond the railway line, which were filled in and redeveloped many years ago. The canal bed is now below about 50 feet of overburden thrown up by mining at Tibbington Colliery but the first tangible signs of the old loop lie in open ground behind Oval Road, where a curve of the channel and the outline of a basin can be found in public open space.

The line of the canal now becomes very apparent, its channel filled in but its winding course used as a popular tree lined pathway, snaking along and staying true to the 473ft Wolverhampton Level contour as it crosses Central Avenue, site of a demolished aqueduct. The pathway carries on over Upper Church Street and into the sprawling site of the old Moat Colliery, the canal clinging precariously to the side of Summer Hill as it twists and turns adding all those extra miles before it disappears under a 1970’s housing estate.

This area also contained the junction with the Ocker Hill Branch, its location still discernible as a widening at the end of Dryden Close. Sadly there is nothing to be found of the Ocker Hill Branch itself, which led to the old BCN works and pumping station above the Lower Ocker Branch. Its course lay between what is now St Marks Road and Highfield Road, terminating just before the roundabout on Ocker Hill Road.

Bradley

Whilst invisible on the ground, the line ran close to Upper Church Street and High Street but its curving course emerges again as it crosses the Wednesbury Oak Road next to Asda. The route then sashays round to the north of Turton Road into a horseshoe shaped area of open ground. This next section offers a choice of routes to explore, but of course you will want to look at them both! The most direct route is to head due north following the evocatively named Rotten Brunt Line, an embankment built in 1848 to carry the canal when the Bradley Locks were built down to the Walsall canal to the east. This embankment is today topped by a path but the route is clearly visible although the sites of the many basins in the area have vanished.

The Bradley Locks line is well worth a look, but this is bit off the itinerary for this walk. I suggest that you take the detour around the perimeter of the Wednesbury Oak Loop, its course defined by Turton Road, Batmans Hill Road and Weddell Wynd. The old canal wound round this huge loop serving mines and furnaces which were attracted by the rich 30ft coal seam which existed approx 600ft below. Having rejoined the old canal course at the end of the Rotten Brunt Embankment, the canal continues under the car park of a factory, beneath Bradley Lane and joins the far end of the current Bradley Arm, just outside the Trust’s lock gate factory.

Bradley Arm and Deepfields

At this point you could strike out back to Bloomfield and reduce the walk to 5 miles. However, that would miss out the Bradley Arm which may be in water but is rarely navigated and if you can’t face a couple of hours of playing jack in the box with your weedhatch, it is well worth an extra couple of miles on the towpath.

This section is immediately rewarded with the entrance to yet another lost loop which started from the basin outside the Trust’s works. This loop ran vaguely under Princess Anne Road, curving round to rejoin the canal at Loxdale Sidings at near Pothouse Bridge.

I like circular walks so my suggestion is to follow the towpath along as it makes its way west to Deepfields Junction. Then turn left / south into the broad Deepfields Cutting continuing through the 360 yard Coseley Tunnel. It’s a broad tunnel with a towpath railing which can be managed quite easily without a torch. Then it’s just half a mile or so back to Bloomfield Junction.

Bedsit Disco Queen - book review

Bedsit Disco Queen
by Tracey Thorn
February 2014

This is a real left field book for me - one of Helens which I picked up in the absence of anything else to read but found myself strangely engaged by Tracey's life with Everything But The Girl (EBTG). Tracey could well be described as an atypical pop star, one who found fame gradually and by the time it came she was mature enough to see it for the fickle and shallow thing it really is. 

Whilst EBTG has never really been my cup of tea, reading the story of her emergence from the indie music scene on the early 1980's really engaged with my early adulthood, her contemporaries providing the soundtrack to the start of my independent life. What was more, I have a early few EBTG albums on my i-pod so I listened to the evolution of their music as I read along tracking the changes from their bedsit start in Hull through to the international acclaim for their surprise hit "Missing" in 1994.

Its also great to see someone so level headed that they can appreciate the musical phase of life and then to settle in domesticity of home family and a whole new era with equal enthusiasm.

If you cant remember Missing search on You Tube and it will all come flooding back to you!

End result - I have belatedly gained an appreciation for the EBTG body of work and their albums are now regularly played as I drive to and from work.

A change is as good as  a rest!

Small Boat Down the Years - book review

Small Boat Down the Years

by Roger Pilkington

February 2014

I am usually a stickler for reading books on strict chronological order but Roger Pilkington's Small Boat series has become more than a bit repetitive so I jumped to the last book in date order as it was thinner and seemed to have moved from the formula which has become something of a straight jacket.

When I say straight jacket I mean that the series started as mostly narrative about his inland waterways travels, where he went, who he met and the escapades they got up to - which was great. But as time progressed the travels became more convoluted and kept covering old ground so the focus shifted to the history of the surrounding areas. This was OK but the absence of maps to ground the description left it all a bit up in the air and unsatisfactory and my thirst to read on has waned.

So, faces with a "last book" written in 1987 (remembering that he started his cruising in the last 1940's) this had scope to be a neat retrospective summary. And so it turned out to be.

The book was written when Roger was over 70 and had decided to hang up his windlass, using the book to cameo some of the highlights of a long and varied boating history. In some ways this condensed version delivered all the best of the previous books - all the boating with none of the history.

Its a good sampler book with the short accounts whetting the appetite to delve deeper into his extensive back catalogue. Its more like a series of disconnected short stories shared on from of a roaring log fire than a travelogue but well worth a read, particularly of you have never read any of his previous works.