Jump to content

Recommended Posts

I watched the programme last night about Timothy West and Punella Scales on Channel 4 last night.

I ended up being disappointed and feeling vaguely cheated. The programme was really about the Wests rather than the Canal. Clearly, Prunella's Alzheimer's is an important factor in their lives, and the ways in which they deal with the problems this brings are interesting.

When they did consider the Canal and Riquet's great role in its construction, they just looked at the obvious, touristic, visual aspects. The great achievement was not the digging of the Malpas tunnel but getting water to the watershed. Leonardo thought it impossible, but Riquet succeeded.

The importance of the Canal is not that it passes Carcassonne and Beziers but that it crosses the Montagne Noire creating a connection between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean.

Or have I missed the point?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I couldn't have a more different opinion CK!

I loved the programme and most of the info was new to me and it was a chance to "see" the canal du midi as it's unlikely that I will be visiting it in the foreseeable future.

Norman, when they got to Béziers, I thought about you scooting around those streets in your electric vehicle.  But I did wonder where the grim parts you talked about were?

Maybe, CK, it's me that's missed the point?

BTW, you need to take into account the whole thing about these programmes called Great Canal Journeys and yes, it IS about these "celebs" showing what fun their lives are and showing us these marvellous sights and adventures that us lesser mortals cannot begin to aspire to or maybe the advertisers would like to make us ALL aspire to these larks!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I enjoyed it too, Mint.  Taken in context with the other programmes, it is about the Wests and their travels and family. I love looking at and hearing about architectural and industrial heritage, but surely it would be a drier (no pun intended) proposition for the average viewer.

I've never done a canal holiday and I'm rather envious; it all seems so tranquil. Perhaps not so, if you had to moor up overnight in central Manchester/Birmingham/London.

I'm looking forward to the Falkirk Wheel next episode. A fantastic piece of modern engineering.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Grim in France is sometimes hidden behind a facade of looking decent. mint, I could take you to a no go area about 30 minutes from where I lived and it looks quite smart, but as it has had several programs on french tv about it, and I know of people who have had problems there, best not to hang around.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

We lived on the UK canals for two years and enjoyed every minute.

 

[URL=http://s134.photobucket.com/user/ckenway/media/Picture_0143.jpg.html][IMG]http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q99/ckenway/Picture_0143.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

 

We got to know the Wests, Timmothy Spall, David Suchet and David Jason when we were on the canals. Suchet and the Wests are very, or were very, involved in the canals. The Wests were patrons of Accessible Boating who try to get disabled people on the canals in specially modified canal boats. David Suchet was patron of the Inland Waterways Association for many year and was always to be seen round Braunston. Tim Spall (and his wife) had the only canal boat I know that had a proper library on it complete with one of those leather high backed winged chairs. He was a very well read man actually hence the library. There was a series called Waterworld on ITV around 2000/2001 and the Wests were on that quite a bit as well.

A lot of actors started with narrow boats because they were cheap to live on and you could move around the country taking your home with you. If you go to The Royal Shakespeare theater in Stratford upon Avon you will often find the odd actor moored in the basin opposite the theater or down the side on the river.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

[quote user="idun"]Grim in France is sometimes hidden behind a facade of looking decent. mint, I could take you to a no go area about 30 minutes from where I lived and it looks quite smart, but as it has had several programs on french tv about it, and I know of people who have had problems there, best not to hang around.
[/quote]

It’s the same in the UK. There are several well know towns where canals go through them and you are advised to moor outside at night and go through the next day without stopping yet the towns for non canal people do not have that bad a reputation. One place not to visit by boat is the National (Canal) Waterways Museum at Elsmere Port where the canal side moorings are pretty dangerous with people pouring petrol and lighter fuel through boat windows and striking a match. Care should be taken going through the locks at Warwick near the racecourse as you can get 'steamed' there. It's dangerous mooring near the Wedgewood factory and Chester Zoo not to mention Chester where they like to throw empty beer bottles at your boat at night from the town wall, still better than shooting the Welsh with a bow and arrow after sunset I suppose.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

[quote user="sid"]

I enjoyed it too, Mint.  Taken in context with the other programmes, it is about the Wests and their travels and family. I love looking at and hearing about architectural and industrial heritage, but surely it would be a drier (no pun intended) proposition for the average viewer.

I've never done a canal holiday and I'm rather envious; it all seems so tranquil. Perhaps not so, if you had to moor up overnight in central Manchester/Birmingham/London.

I'm looking forward to the Falkirk Wheel next episode. A fantastic piece of modern engineering.

 

[/quote]

Actually, Sid, they moored in London last week (well, last week's episode[:)]) and even they were quite surprised at how quiet it was.

Q, thank you for telling us about your experiences.  So.......you have just mentioned some of my favourite actors!

I used to live quite near the Avon and Kennet canal and have enjoyed many walks on the towpaths.

Anyone know the flight of 29 locks in Devizes?  Alas, they hadn't finished restoring them when I lived there in the 80s.  Don't know if they did restore the majority?

Do post, anyone with knowledge of the locks there!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I too saw the programme and was dissapointed with it. Timothys boat handling left a lot to be desired too, bouncing off anything that didn't move. We walk and see a lot of grockles on the boats as they are onlt about 3 miles from us. Good fun and a god spectator sport. La Somail is where the boat they were on is based. Minervois Cruisers and they are an English company. They just run steel 'wide' narrow boats and they seem quite comfortable. I have never heard of anyone have any particular problems with steering them though. These are they http://www.minervoiscruisers.com/

I have never had a holiday on the canal, but a good French friend of ours has a 30m peniche moored at Villedubert and every few years he takes it down to Sallèle d'Aude where there is a dry dock so that he can paint it. I was lucky to be able to crew for him once, 3 daze there and 4 back, well it's further as we had to go past the mooring to Pont Rouge a few k further to turn round. Several times Hugues, the owner, just told me to take the wheel, noy literally you understand, and he wandered of to the bow!! 80 odd feet away!! I managed to keep it in the middle and that 4 foot diameter wheel has 24 turns lock to lock and she steers like a pig! Fabulous fun though and very comfortable, even in March.

HERE she is..

The canal doesn't cross the Montagne Noire, but follows the valley to the south of them. The highest point is at Naurouze, 190 meters up and all of the locks both ways from there go down! What was a very large lake at Naurouze was fed from the Bassin St Ferriol, 15 or so miles away and was built by Pierre-Paul Riquet with his own money to prove that it could be done. There is a very good museum there and the walk around the lake is a lovely one.

 The most incredible part is the longest pound, 53.49 kilometres (33.24 mi) between Argens Lock (Aude) and the Fonsérannes Lock (Hérault) at teh eastern end. He must have had an oil fired laser to do that bit [:-))] The ground there isn't very lumpy, but it certainly ain't flat.

I almost wept when we found out about the trees. It seems that a couple of tree surgeons were cutting up in the north of France and then came down here to work, but they didn't sterilise their kit properly. The ammo boxes were ones shipped into the north of France and not the south as said in the programme. So up to 40,000 trees are coming down. This was the road just towards the locks at Trebes before

[URL=http://s47.photobucket.com/user/Jonzjob/media/Johns/DSC02236.jpg.html][IMG]http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f180/Jonzjob/Johns/DSC02236.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

Same place about 18 months back

[URL=http://s47.photobucket.com/user/Jonzjob/media/Johns/CanalTrebesnewtrees.jpg.html][IMG]http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f180/Jonzjob/Johns/CanalTrebesnewtrees.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

Going back to the programme. Not impressed, but I was impressed with Rick Steins trip down it even if the boat owner wasn't..

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The canal doesn't cross the Montagne Noire, but follows the valley to the south of them. The highest point is at Naurouze, 190 meters up and all of the locks both ways from there go down! What was a very large lake at Naurouze was fed from the Bassin St Ferriol, 15 or so miles away and was built by Pierre-Paul Riquet with his own money to prove that it could be done. There is a very good museum there and the walk around the lake is a lovely one.

Yes, you are right - it does not cross the Montagne Noire - I was just being economical with words.  [:P]

It is instructive to stand at the foot of the memorial to Riquet and look to the hills in the distance to see how far the water has come. Riquet's act of genius was to take water from the wrong side of the watershed on the Montagne Noire and culvert it into the Bassin St Ferriol and then to feed the canal at its summit. Providing water for a canal was the problem that had defeated the Romans and Leonardo da Vinci.

I feel that by focussing on the Malpas tunnel, the programme was ignoring the real feat of genius. I suspect the tunnel is more immediately interesting than a distant view of hills!

I did hear that there is a long term plan to replace the plane trees, which had originally come from Spain, with London plane trees, which are resistant to the infection.


 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

[quote user="mint"]Q, thank you for telling us about your experiences.  So.......you have just mentioned some of my favourite actors!

I used to live quite near the Avon and Kennet canal and have enjoyed many walks on the towpaths.

Anyone know the flight of 29 locks in Devizes?  Alas, they hadn't finished restoring them when I lived there in the 80s.  Don't know if they did restore the majority?

Do post, anyone with knowledge of the locks there!
[/quote]

They are called Caen Hill Locks and have been re-opened since 1990 by the Queen. Its actually called the Kennet and Avon Canal and is nearly 90 miles long and connects Bristol with the River Thames which in turn connects you to the rest of the canal system up to Wales, Birmingham and The Black Country and beyond. The West’s actually played a massive part in the restoration of the whole of the waterway by giving a lot of their time to raise money. The House of Commons canoe club sponsors the annual Devizes to Westminster canoe race every year through the canal and Thames to the H of C, some 125 miles and takes just under 18 hours. The whole length of the canal has been navigable since 2010. You can also cycle the length of the canal if you wish and there are camping sites on route. There is also good fishing on the canal as it is now very clean.

I guess it depends what turns you on but a canal holiday is wonderful and I would recommend it to anyone. Take some friends to split the cost, you will find the people on the canals very sociable and great fun. There are several 'rings' around the country so you don't have to do the same bit twice. Some take a week and others two weeks. We used to take the Scouts every Easter years ago, great fun. Something not many people know but the Royal Navy own and operate several canal boats and they all have names of famous naval commanders. Navy personnel can rent them for holidays and they are also used to help rehabilitate disabled Navy personnel.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Q said "There is also good fishing on the canal as it is now very clean."

That's more than you can say for the Canal du Midi and anyone who takes fish from there or swims in it must be MAD! The boats on the French canals almost all have 'sea toilets'. That is they empty into the canal after mincing it up a bit [:-))] The C du M has never smelled though, not to my knowledge anyway. That must be due to the through flow, which is a couple of miles an hour at times when they are busy. There are plans afoot (?) to both install emptying tanks and/or on-board treatment plants, but the plastic boats are so crammed in that gawd only knows where the kit would fit?

There is, or was, a cracking Wadsworth pub at the top of the Caen Hill lock flight and was one of my favourite watering lunch places when I was working in and around Devises. They served a lovely pint of my beer first love, 6X [kiss], but then the brewery is only a few hundred yards away init!!

The monument to PPR is very impressive isn't it Clarke. And the setting there is superb. One of our favourite walks is up near St Ferriol is along the 'rigole', a small canal/feeder that runs from assin du Lampy to Bassin St Ferriol. It's beautiful along there in the summer a about 8 or 10º cooler than near Carcassonne. Lovely for a pic-nic and a walk. Near there, at Cammazes the rigole runs through a tunnel at the edge of the village and the exit is quite worth the trip to see. The stone work is second to none. One year we went up to St Ferriol and found it almost empty! Not a leak, but about every ten years or so it's emptied for maintainance and you can see so much more of what went into it. We wandered around the waters edge, it wasn't totally drained, and we were about 100 feet below the normal water line! God only knows how much water it holds because the surface is about 64 hectares Very impressive. There is a lovely garden just below the barrage with a fountain that is powered by the head of water in the bassin. I don't know the height the water gets to, but it's bleedin high [:-))] and if you wander too close with no wind about you will find out that it's quite wet too! President Jefferson has a plaque in the gardens from when he visited. He was getting ideas how to build canals in the States and was well impressed. The gardens are lovely and worth the visit. All in all, if you get chance then a drive up there is not wasted..  Our favourite restaurant there is the Renaissance, on the junction of the main road through and the road that goes round the lake to the barrage. Good food and very friendly!!

Enjoy..

The Renaissance

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This is developing into a fascinating thread, with lots of knowledgeable people.

I didn't see this episode of the canal programme, but have seen quite a few of the others, and thoroughly enjoyed them; I suppose a balance had to be struck between keeping the interest of those who like pretty views or were fans of the Wests, showing some aspects of canal life and history to those who are into that and showing how the Wests are dealing with her growing problems.

I've only been on a canal boat once; last year we hired a boat to celebrate my husband's significant birthday, and we, our two sons and their partners plus our nearly 3 year old granddaughter had a wonderful time. Due to our younger son's business commitments abroad, we could only have a long weekend together on the boat, but it was splendid - and the name of our boat was 'Splendid' too.

We were on the Grand Union Canal and started near Milton Keynes, close enough for our son to join us from the airport on the Saturday morning and to get back there on the Monday; it meant we couldn't go very far, but it was a wonderful way to spend time together. We had fantastic weather all weekend, and found it great fun, especially as there were plenty of younger, stronger arms to do all the hard work.

Everyone we met was friendly and helpful at locks, and we had dozens of people calling out to ask who had the birthday and choruses of 'Happy Birthday' - we had a large balloon tethered to the boat, just to embarrass the birthday boy!
Link to comment
Share on other sites

[quote user="Quillan"]

They are called Caen Hill Locks and have been re-opened since 1990 by the Queen. Its actually called the Kennet and Avon Canal and is nearly 90 miles long and connects Bristol with the River Thames which in turn connects you to the rest of the canal system up to Wales, Birmingham and The Black Country and beyond. The West’s actually played a massive part in the restoration of the whole of the waterway by giving a lot of their time to raise money. The House of Commons canoe club sponsors the annual Devizes to Westminster canoe race every year through the canal and Thames to the H of C, some 125 miles and takes just under 18 hours. The whole length of the canal has been navigable since 2010. You can also cycle the length of the canal if you wish and there are camping sites on route. There is also good fishing on the canal as it is now very clean.

I guess it depends what turns you on but a canal holiday is wonderful and I would recommend it to anyone. Take some friends to split the cost, you will find the people on the canals very sociable and great fun. There are several 'rings' around the country so you don't have to do the same bit twice. Some take a week and others two weeks. We used to take the Scouts every Easter years ago, great fun. Something not many people know but the Royal Navy own and operate several canal boats and they all have names of famous naval commanders. Navy personnel can rent them for holidays and they are also used to help rehabilitate disabled Navy personnel.

 

[/quote]

Thanks, Q, I must be suffering from whatever it is that Prunella Scales suffers from!!!  That is, I can't remember names or remember them slightly wrongly.......aaarrrggghhh

And to think I used to go to Devizes once a month and talk to police trainers in that place they have where they train police men and women.  The only thing that stays in the mind are the nice lunches in their canteen which were a welcome perk of my job, athough I had nothing to do with the police other than to sort out bereavement literature for them.

When we first started house-hunting in France, I was very attracted to the area around the Nantes-Brest canal in northern Brittany near Dinan.  I would have happily lived there, near the canal, if we could have found a suitable house;

Link to comment
Share on other sites

One of my favourite spectator sport watching places is at the triple locks at Trebes. Le Boat have a hire point in the port and the locks are about 1/4 mile east. So after the experience of 10 mins or so training the happy holidaze start with the triple!!! They are across, around and every way but the correct one. The private owners must hate that flight! But I love it [6]

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share

×
×
  • Create New...