Nick Griffin: «All in a Good Cause» — путешествие по Северну для Alzheimer's Society

All in a Good Cause. Sailing from Stourport to Portishead

Источник: https://nickgriffin544956.substack.com/p/all-in-a-good-cause

Arriving in Portishead lock, safe at the end of the four-five days’ voyage. Absent Without Leave! I know; I’ve not posted anything here for four days - that’s the longest gap by far since I started on Substack last August. (By the way, my last post predicted that if Burnham wins in Makerfield he’ll call a general election straight away. The Telegraph has today published an article saying the same thing. Yet again, you read it here first!) Anyway, where have I been? Literally, all at sea. So apologies to regulars who may have missed your regular Griffin fix, but an unexpected charger problem on the little boat pictured here meant that my laptop died just before I could post on Friday (another on Restore, watch this space) and I couldn’t write any others. What’s that got to do with me? Well, I was on said boat, having volunteered to take her and her hale and hearty octagenarian owner all the way down the River Severn. That’s our mightiest river, which in her estuary stage has the second highest tidal range in the world and is, as a result, quite a dangerous beast if you don’t know what you’re doing.

When we met in a boat yard by chance a couple of months ago, he told me that he wanted to take the boat he’d bought some years back, and greatly cleaned up, down the river from the head of navigation at Stourport (a West Midlands canal hub, about as far from the sea as one can get in England) out onto the treacherous estuary at Sharpness, and down to Portishead on the south side of the Bristol Channel. As marked in red on this map: The map, by the way, gives an idea of the scale of our canal network, an engineering marvel which made the Industrial Revolution possible. Very sensibly, he knew he couldn’t do it alone, and a succession of friends who initially agreed to go with him had pulled out once they realised he was serious! Hence I stepped in, since I know the River Severn, its locks, dangers and riverside pubs very well. We agreed to pick up a pilot in Sharpness, which would mean I’d get the experience to make that much-feared journey by myself another time.

My skipper, Old Nick, further decided to use the voyage as a fund-raiser for the Alzheimer’s Society. So we packed up provisions in Famous Five style (beer and a decent single malt, rather than lemonade, mind) and set off. The journey was in two stages, the other weekend down to Sharpness on the basically non-tidal river and onto the Gloucester- Sharpness canal (the widest and deepest in the world when first built), and last weekend down the last bit of the canal and out onto the Bristol Channel. The channel’s funnel like shape it what makes the Atlantic tides so huge and dangerous. Stourpot-on-Severn grew up in late Georgian times where the Midlands canal network met the River Severn. As well as being a very important inland port, it also became a favourite place for working class Black Country families to take a penny a seat barge trip out of the smokey slums (wherein dwelt generations of my maternal grandmother’s family) for a day out in the clean air. The funfair built for them on the edge of the canal basins still operates today Here are just a few clips and pictures to give you a flavour of the voyage. The Severn is made navigable by a series of locks and weirs. Here’s Bevere Lock opening. The wet walls show how much the lock lowers the boat down on the downstream passage.

Could not load video. Just below Bevere Lock the river passes through Worcester, whose cathedral is one of England's finest Could not load video. Above: Short clip of the river just south of Worcester. As you can see, it’s quite a serious size by now. There’s quite a sharp current at you pass the weirs. We moored for the night by a riverside inn in historic Stourport-on-Severn (like Worcester, the scene of a battle in the English Civil War. On the wild lower Severn as it winds towards Gloucester, there's a tiny, rather ramshackle jetty. If you can spot it, there's a short walk up to the very lovely Tithe Barn and little gem of a church at Ashleworth. The barn must have been one of the last buildings created in the monastic system before the Dissolution of the Monasteries by Henry VIII. Historic tall ships in Gloucester Dock basin Could not load video. Above: Approaching Sharpess. The railway bridge disaster was actually in 1960. Five out of the eight crewmen on the two tankers, which destroyed each other and the bridge, lost their lives that stormy night.

The waterways are often very lovely. Left, early morning moored on the canal near Sharpness. Right, anchored in the river a few miles north of Gloucester, this was about two in the morning, taken with a five-second exposure We ‘stepped’ (i.e. raised) the mast in Sharpness. Although we weren’t going to hoist sail, sailing vessels are better balanced with their masts up. Old Nick (being an engineer by profession) had designed and built his own mast-raising rig, but being single-handed before hadn’t tested it. Thus, while it worked perfectly, it turned out that all sorts of things, including the turnbuckles which tighten the wire shrouds which hold up the mast, were jammed or otherwise slightly problematic. So, while we got the mast up in time for the lock-out (“time and tide wait for no man”), we didn’t have time to tighten the shrouds. So, any sailors out there, please don’t point out the fact they’re WAY too loose. We knew that, but with almost no wind it wasn’t going to matter.

Could not load video. Above: Approaching the older Severn road bridge. The Prince of Wales Bridge is visible ahead too. Good job they didn’t name it after the Duke of York! Above: We arrive in Portishead for a lock-in to the Marina. This was a derelict industrial site, left over the the days when Welsh coal was shipped over for two power stations. Now a smart leisure venue for Bristol and South Wales. Right: Safely moored in a Visitors’ Berth. Note the charity banner. The voyage will have raised well over £2,000 for Alzheimers, which is a real bonus on what was, in any case, a most enjoyable trip. So that’s why I’ve not posted for a few days; my apologies for any disappointment, and I hope you’ve found this rather hasty travel account interesting. By the way. Do not be tempted to undertake this journey yourself unless you know what you’re doing. If it’s in a good cause though, and you’ve got something between a 21ft yacht or motorboat and a 70 ft Dutch Barge, do feel free to contact me.

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