Ready at last

Finally, after what seems like forever, the web site is ready, the CDs have been made and are now available for sale, the leaflets are here, cards have been printed and we're almost ready to set off on our trip, first to Cropredy and then on to London.

I just have a few letters to write and then I'm going to stop for a week and do some work on the boat. I need to sort out some paint work and the front deck is a mess - needs to be re-done completely.

It will be nice to do some physical work for a change.

Once I've done all that it will be time to start making phone calls to get started.

Watch this space!!

Having fun

It isn’t all work..



Wherever I go I seem to meet lovely people and New Mills Marina is no exception.

Norman and Sheila had their privacy invaded somewhat as I squeezed my boat between their boat and the jetty, but they were lovely about it and we get on well.
Hopefully I won’t be outstaying my welcome as I’ll be off to London soon.

I met up with Colin again; along with his daughter Georgia – now Harvey’s ‘best friend’ (see left).



It was great to see Tracey again too and everyone was very welcoming.

I had lots to do, what with the recordings and setting up the web site so I wasn’t twiddling my thumbs, but it was nice to get to know everyone and when it came to the first bank holiday I was delighted to find that we were going to take the boats out to ‘Buggy Basin’ for a couple of days. BBQ stuff was thrown in, tents, chairs … anything and everything … then off we went. It only took about an hour to get there but it didn’t matter – it was a fun. The BBQ was set up, and then a gazebo with mesh sides.

We lashed a couple of blankets around it as it was a chilly wind. Copious amounts of tea first – and then the alcohol started to appear – and disappear.

Norman asked if I’d be playing guitar and intimated that he might sing and ‘play the comb’ if I knew ‘The trail of the Lonesome pine’ … I had no idea – but I made a point of finding it on You Tube and learning it. I had already done the CD recording by then and Andy, keyboard player from Tangent, came with his much better half Sally, and together we got the song together.

We played a few other songs and then came Norman’s moment. I handed out song sheets to everyone and off we went. Norman didn’t let us down – he was a hit. Everyone was having fun …and choking because, by that time, we had brought the fire inside to try and keep warm but the smoke was a bit of a problem in such a confined space. Somewhere there is a very funny photo of the tent with smoke pouring out of it – I’m still trying to get hold of a copy.

We didn’t care about the smoke, we were having a good time and nothing was going to spoil it.
Andy played a couple of his own songs – I did the same but then tried to play as many as I could think of that everyone would know. It was a hoot. I didn’t look at my watch all evening, and I have no idea what time we went to bed, but we were all full of burgers and we all smelt like burnt sausages!!

The following morning, after I’d managed to get the coughing under control, I wandered over to Norman and told him that we’d had an offer from EMI – a £10,000 advance for the song.; Norman didn’t miss a beat – he said that would be fine but he wanted some better quality toilet paper for the comb; it seems the stuff I had provided had made his lips sore!

Bacon baps for breakfast and then more cups of tea. A shopping trip to top up the depleted stocks and the whole thing started again. It was a great way to spend bank holiday weekend. … even going home was fun. All in a line; shouting derogatory comments at each other.

It had been a lovely weekend…. Roll on the next one!!


The Acoustic festival of Britain

Next came the gig – I had been in touch with The Acoustic Festival of Britain and they had very kindly allowed me a spot. Jonathan and Andy had agreed to do it with me and so we had rehearsed the day before and then off we went. We were well early and decided to have breakfast before going in. We were on at 1pm and the stage would not be free for a sound check until 12noon so we enjoyed our bacon and eggs and then went around to the festival. We arrived at 11.50 … to be told that the times had changed and we were on at 12 noon.

I love to have time to get ready and relax before a performance, so this was not the greatest news, but we got down to the tent, sound-checked in record time and simply started.

I felt very out of balance but it seems we gave a good account of ourselves and we managed to attract quite a few people in so it wasn’t a lost cause.

The gig was filmed and I'm hoping that Andy will help me get some bits on You Tube ..... I'll let you know if and when.

After the set I had a quick chat with Kate Rusby … I wanted to see if she could help me to contact Mike Harding because he would be the one person who could really help me to get this project off the ground. I hate to be disturbed as I’m getting ready to go on stage and I assume that Kate is probably the same and so, I tried to explain everything in 3 seconds flat and probably left her confused.

She did tell me to get in touch with her Dad though – and I did get a contact address for Mike Harding so thank you Kate – and sorry for the burble.

Slowly but surely I’m getting things together and now it’s time to start getting that CD out to radio stations and see if I can get something going.

Wish me luck

Making the CD

I’ve been working on this whole concept now for almost two years and it has changed considerably over that time.

My first idea was to have a band on board and take them down to London, playing gigs along the way but, as soon as I started living on the boat, I realised that that was going to be a no-no. .. not enough space.

So, a major re-think later, the plan is to try to open venues and arrange events for acoustic musicians. It all sounds like great fun, but it’s not possible to live on fresh air, and so I had to find some way of earning money at the same time.

There are a couple of other ideas, that might come into play as this project goes forward, but the most obvious thing to do is to sell music at these events. To that end I have put together a CD of my own material, some from my time with Magna Carta and 4 new tracks recorded since I left the band.

To have a CD, you need a record company and so Mama Don’t Records was born.

Future CDs will feature the best musicians and writers that I come across as I work but there had to be a starting point and I don’t apologise for using my own material as I need to lift my own profile and let people know that I’m doing this as a musician, for musicians.

THE FIRST CD is called ‘Moving On’

It came about as follows;-

Jonathan Barrett played with Magna Carta several years ago. After he left the band we stayed in touch and, when I left Magna Carta, we started working on songs together.
By that time I had already decided to buy a narrow boat to run some kind of music project, so the house was sold and almost the whole of last summer was devoted to getting the boat right. There had to be space for everything I would need on board and so the interior design was quite crucial.

Eventually the boat was ready but I knew nothing about getting from A to B, I’d had a few lessons but not enough to feel confident enough to set out alone.

Through a series of happy accidents a friend recommended Tony who came and helped me to get my boat to Barnoldswick. We got on well and so I asked if he would be prepared to come with me on a trip to London and back. He said yes and so, in April, we set off from Barnoldswick and came to the Peak District (see previous post).

By that time Jonathan had started working with a band called Tangent, they rehearsed every week in New Mills, just down the road from where I am now moored…coincidence? I don’t think so.

I was chatting to Jonathan at one point and mentioned that I would dearly love to record some new tracks to put on an album and he suggested that I meet the guys from Tangent with a view to using the drummer’s home studio set up.

I jumped at the chance and on the 21st of April met Michael Gilbourne, great drums and percussion (he also teaches drums) and Andy Tillison, an excellent keyboard player and singer who also writes the material for Tangent.

We managed to record three tracks in one day – that’s pretty difficult to do when 3 out of 4 are not familiar with the songs. With more time, we could probably have had a more polished result, but I felt the recordings had a charm for being slightly reticent and was happy with what we had achieved.

A couple of years before I had recorded a song called ‘Africa Theme’ in Holland at the new recording studio in the Eekhoornnest Bungalow Park. We always stayed there when we were on tour and they had offered to let me try it out. I had left the song there hoping that Matt Barnhoorn, Magna Carta’s mandolin and violin player, would put harmony vocals on it. Sadly he never managed it and so it has stayed a one voice a cappella performance (I’m sure at some stage we’ll put that right).

I wasn’t sure if the recording would still be there but Piers de Jong found it and sent it over – so I then had four new songs.

It had to be mastered before it could go into production and so I got in touch with Digital Audio in Skipton. They had done a few CDs for us and the quality could not be faulted and so I felt confident of a good result.

The art work can be a massive headache. I had no idea what I wanted – other than it had to be fun, so I asked Walter Goyen if he could help me. I don’t know where he finds his patience but he said yes and came up with a great idea. We put the lyrics in and I had the idea of a booklet that could be reversed and become a hand-out so that the CD and the project could advertise each other. Emails – so many emails, poor Walter was flooded with them, but eventually it all started to come together.

A trip to Skipton sorted out the mastering but ‘Only Road Home’ wasn’t sitting properly. I had chosen the very first version that was ever recorded, as that was the one that had the impact on my Mum. I will never forget her sitting there, listening to the song. She had tears in her eyes and that was when I knew she understood why I lived for my music.

I asked Chris if we had any other versions that might fit the CD better and he found one that slotted in perfectly. He offered to sort it out and even went to Digital Audio to master it for me, which was very nice of him….but then he’s good at that sort of thing and I hope he enjoyed the process.

When everything was almost ready I received a list of ‘got to do this lot first’ … blimey it was quite a list and I thought I’d never get there but, eventually, all was in order and the CD was in production.

Two days ago it all paid off and the CDs arrived. For the first time I had in my hands a CD that was all mine. I don’t think it has sunk in yet.

Now I’m working on the web site to get a shop set up to sell them – I can’t live on fresh air and there’s still a long way to go….

From Barnoldswick to New Mills

I'd had trouble trying to get the boat builder to sort out my calorifier (hot water tank), it was leaking rather badly but they didn't seem to be able to find the time to come and sort it out for me. In the end I asked them to provide me with a new one so that I could have it fitted by someone else. The calorifier was delivered, then the engineer turned up to look at it and said it was going to be a long job and he wouldn't be able to do it before I wanted to leave on the 11th of April.

There was no way I could wait any longer, Tony had arrived and was ready to go, so I took the decision to risk setting off and hoped that the leak wouldn't get any worse on the trip.

On the evening of Saturday the 10th Pete and Bev joined us for dinner, as did Neil (we owed him for helping with the new satellite dish). We had a splendid Chinese meal and a fair amount of 'falling over water' and then said our farewells. It was a great way to say goodbye to Barnoldswick.

On Sunday we filled up with water, checked the engine, put away everything that might fall over, waved goodbye and set off for pastures new.

It was a beautiful day and, apart from running over the top of a few bedsteads, old bicycles and TVs it was fairly plain sailing until, just on the other side of Burnley, we came to a Gannow tunnel. We hadn't remembered that it was there - and we certainly weren't prepared, as I was again off the boat walking along with Harvey.
Tony wasn't able to easily pull in and pick us up so I shouted
"No problem, I'll walk over the top and see you on the other side"

I walked up to the road and realised that this was not going to be a simple task. I could see signs for the motorway, a massive roundabout, a railway track, a series of pedestrian tunnels to get underneath all the various roads that didn't lead to Rome - but no sign or mention of how to get back to the canal. I wandered in what I thought was the right direction until I met a very pleasant young man who said 'yes he could show me the way' but it was back the other way. We walked back under all the roads and then he sent me off down a long road with the instruction that I would find the canal behind The Gannow Wharf pub.

By this time I had been wandering around for quite some time and, although I had tried to call Tony, it wasn't ringing through. Suddenly I got a call from him asking where I was - he'd got through the tunnel in about 5 minutes and I was nowhere to be seen! In fact, by then, quite a bit further down the canal.

Eventually the boat came into view ....
"What happened?" said Tony "all you had to do was walk over the top!"
No answer to that is there?

It was time to moor up and, as we were already through Burnley, we stayed at the back of the pub. I made up my bed before dinner and Harvey took his chance and established that, when given the chance, he preffered the bed to the sofa.


On the Monday we were up bright and early. Tony had mentioned that he wanted to pop in and see his friend Steve who was somewhere on the next stretch. I took Harvey for a bit of a leg stretch, got some bread and milk at a local store and off we went.

We were meant to be checking the map to see exactly where we would find Steve when, going past a line of moored boats, Tony suddenly spotted him getting out of his boat.
We shouted to him and pulled over then tied up to his boat and spent a very pleasant couple of hours drinking tea, and chatting. Steve is working on his own boat and I have to say he's making a lovely job of it. The wide beam boats are like floating bungalows and this 'Humber Keel' was a beauty. I was almost envious - but then remembered that my boat was narrow so that I could go anywhere. We discovered that Steve also had his own chickens so when we set off again we had some very special fresh eggs. Thanks Steve - they were yummy.

Harvey didn't have his harness as Chris had forgotten to bring it back the last time he dropped Harvey off. I like Harvey to wear it when we're on the move, just in case he goes in, then at least I would be able to drag him out without strangling him! We arranged to meet Chris further along the way, somewhere near Church. I was on the bank, walking with Harvey when Chris phoned to say he was almost there. Harvey took advantage of the distraction and jumped in the canal for a swim when I wasn't looking (little monkey).

Chris walked with us for a little while but we didn't have time to stop as we needed to get through Blackburn before mooring up for the night.

Blackburn is another place where the canal is full of debris. It can be quite frightening when your boat lifts out of the water as you go over yet another shopping trolley. It's such a shame that it is abused in this way as the canal takes you through a different age and past some fascinating industrial architecture, like the imposing Imperial Mill in Blackburn...

http://www.princes-regeneration.org/bestpractice/impermill.htm

We just about made it through to the other side of Blackburn before it was too dark to continue.
It was still quite early for there to be a lot of boats and you can feel quite vulnerable moored up on your own but everyone was really friendly and we had no problem here.

Tuesday morning we set off at about 7:30am. We were not sure what time they closed the Wigan locks for the night and we were hoping to get through if possible.
It was a long haul from Blackburn to Wigan but it was not an unpleasant trip. We did a shopping stop when we spotted a Lidl not far from a bridge. They sell excellent bratwurst - which we spent the rest of the day looking forward to (we were not disappointed!).

We kept seeing Swans nesting at the side of the canal - but each time we were past before I could get a picture - but we also spotted lots of little ducklings and I did manage to get a shot of these guys.

Cute huh?

We thought the locks closed around 4:30 and the closer it got to that time, the more we were considering mooring up, but suddenly the canal came to an abrupt end, or rather an abrupt right turn, and we realised that we had actually arrived.
The lock keeper helped me with the first lock and then we met a lovely guy who used to work the Wigan flight on the work boats. He told us that back then each lock had its own key, that they each opened with three turns if the windlass and that they could get through the whole flight in 2 hours. It's certainly not like that now.

We realised there was someone ahead of us because all the locks were set against us. I wandered down a couple of locks to see how far ahead they were but, given the time, it would have been unfair to ask them to wait for us to catch up so we battled on intending to 'draw breath' half way through and then decide if we should go on.

At the halfway mark we found that the other boat, The Brighton Belle, had moored up and seemed to be in trouble. It turned out that they had hit the rudder in a lock and were waiting for someone to come out to help them.

Tony said we would wait to see if any extra help was needed and so we had a cup of tea (yes another!) and waited.

When the engineer arrived he said that the dry dock at the bottom of the locks was free in the morning and asked if we could help to get the other boat there.

Adventure!

We tied the two boats together and the engineers took charge of the boats. There were now three of us to wind the locks . easy peasy!! I was setting up ahead whilst the other couple were getting the boats in and out again. We were through in record time and after waving them a quick farewell we set off to find somewhere to moor for the night.



Just around the corner was a piece of heaven ... Scotman's Flash on one side Pearson's Flash on the other. A wildlife sanctuary, who could ask for more?




It wasn't easy to get the boat right in so we used the plank - not Harvey's favourite means of getting on and off the boat - but he managed.

We were shattered so we got an early night... after we'd eaten the bratwurst of course.


Wednesday morning we got up early .. to yet another beautiful day. We were tired but determined to get through Manchester locks before the day was through.

The trip to Manchester was fairly uneventful until we hit the Bridgewater canal. No signpost,
nothing to indicate that we were almost at the junction, no help at all. We almost went the wrong way but somehow managed to hang a left at the right time and headed into Manchester.


We went over the ship canal on the swing bridge - The bridge is operated from this tower.


We sailed on into Manchester and came into the basin where we were totally confused as to which way to go. The maps were not too helpful but eventually we worked out where we should be and I set off with my windlass to prepare the first lock.

What a mess! The water was flooding over the top of the gate at the front - and pouring out again at the back.

I managed to open the paddles to let the water out but it was coming in so fast that opening the gates was impossible on my own. Thankfully there are some lovely people around and I had quite a bit of help all the way through to the last one before we flopped into Ducie Street Junction. It was getting late, we wanted to look for Piccadilly Village but were not sure how far it was so we moored up behind another couple who had been there for a couple of nights with no problems and then we locked up and went for a walk.

We found that we could easily have made it to Piccadilly village - it was literally around the next corner - but we had a walk around and then went back for a nice meal and some well deserved rest.

Thursday was our earliest start of the whole trip. We had chosen to come this way because it was the shortest and easiest route but not the best area to be boating through.... Tony was telling tales of Beswick and Portland Basin where people have their windows put through and the like, so I was anxious to get through it all as fast as possible.

First we had to pass through Piccadilly village to get onto the Ashton canal.
It was pretty and clean and seemed strangely out of place.









We then started the long climb up to the lower peak forest canal. I soon found out that the narrow locks are so much easier than the double ones on the Leeds/Liverpool. Quick to fill and empty as they are only half the size - and not as heavy when it comes to opening and shutting the gates either.

As we moved into Beswick I began to see what Tony meant. It looked forsaken and, when we stopped for a cup of tea after a run of locks, Tony's phone was stolen from the roof.

That delayed us for a while as I thought that whoever stole it might have thrown the SIM card out and it was worth looking for as it had all his telephone numbers stored on it. No luck - it was gone and all we could do was have the number cancelled until he could get another phone.

There might be a lot of 'toe-rags' in the area but everyone we met that day was smiley and helpful. There were three kids who seemed to be a bit edgy, but once we got chatting they were nice enough. I read somewhere that every time you talk to someone you should talk to the highest part of them - something like that - and I do find that it tends to work. We all like to be shown respect.

On we went, got stuck a couple of times because the water was low, had a fight with a particularly stiff swing bridge and had a bit of help from a bunch of guys doing community service, until finally we came to Portland Basin and turned onto the Lower Peak Forest Canal

Looking back at Portland basin after turning onto the Lower Peak Forest canal

The Peak Forest Canal is reputedly one of the most beautiful canals in the UK and I can't disagree with that. We had beautiful sunshine and the scenery was truly breathtaking. It was a little difficult getting used to how narrow the canal was - and there was one point where it was impossible to avoid the overhanging trees but it seemed a million miles from what we had left behind and we were on the home straight.
We had hoped to get up Marple flight before we stopped but it wasn't going to happen, the lost phone and the fact that we had been stuck several times had delayed us too much so we stopped at the bottom of the flight.
Sadly I didn't take any photographs, which was a bit silly because it was a very picturesque spot. Harvey enjoyed his walk as we were surrounded by a wood.
We didn't have very far to go to finish our trip and so there was no rush to set off the following morning so we had a nice meal and watched a film before turning in.

There was another boat waiting to go up the flight so we thought we'd give them a chance to get ahead of us too, even though it meant that all the locks would probably be set against us.

Friday morning we rose to the sound of birds singing in the trees. The other boat had already set off so, after a cup of tea, I took Harvey and we went to set the first three locks. Strangely I found that the 2nd and 4th locks were set in our favour. The boat that had gone ahead had very kindly reset every other lock to make life easier for us. I wish I could remember the name of the boat, I thought I would remember because it had an unusual spelling but I thought wrong!!

Having checked out the first 4 locks I turned around and realised that Harvey had gone walk-about. He doesn't usually do that in unfamiliar surroundings, but it seems the woods and the scent of bunnies and/or pheasant had got the better of him. After searching for 30 minutes I was starting to get really worried. Tony came out and joined the search but Harvey was nowhere in sight. I passed several people walking dogs and no-one had seen him.
I remembered that my phone number was on his collar so I went back to the boat again for my mobile and, sure enough, someone had called ..... Harvey had been wandering around trying to find his way back (but going in the wrong direction) when someone had taken pity on him. We were reunited and, although I know I should have been cross with him, I was so relieved I just gave him a huge hug, told him he was a bad boy (I think He knew that anyway) and off we went.

I love doing locks - watching the boat rise or fall with the water. So simple and effective ... how do people think of these things?

We stopped half way for a cuppa and then met another boat coming down so the rest of the locks were all set in our favour. Going through Marple we gathered quite a crowd. I was winding the locks and got chatting to everyone - it was great. Then Tony said that he would do the last two and I could take the boat through because the next to tha last lock was the 2nd deepest in England and he thought I might like to be in it. With everyone watching we changed places and I steered out of the lock we were in, into the 2nd deepest..... I managed it with just a slight bump into the side, I was pleased with that because to have carved it up with everyone watching would not have been funny. Once the gates were shut I took this photo it's a long way up to the top of that gate!

Once through this lock there was just one more and we were then on the Upper Peak Forest canal. I turned around and took a shot back down the locks - pretty isn't it?


Two hours later we were mooring up between Alan on my starboard side and Norman and Sheila on my port side. Everyone was really helpful with getting us in. It was a tight fit but we made it and it was time for a Derbyshire brew.