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BRITISH Waterways propaganda department scored a major coup at the weekend with a front page picture and an article in the Sunday Telegraph Life section all about their need for volunteers for 61 locks 'from Bradford to Bath'.
 The picture showed one Brian Blessed, an elderly (75 it said) actor, with one hand on a windlass and the other waving, (not the picture shown) for no very obvious reason.
Wrong spindle
Blessed was dressed in a sports jacket—just the kit for working locks—with a life jacket over it. The life jacket is not fastened, so would be entirely useless, and his windlass has the large eye applied to a standard size spindle, thus ensuring that the process of wearing the corners off the spindle will be continued.
The article inside has a picture of the journalist who wrote it, also using the wrong eye, though he does look as if he knows what he is doing, which is more than can be said for Blessed.
How does it help?
 Presumably the actor was paid a fee for this by British Waterways; I do question the point of spending money in this way—how does a picture of a Z-list 'celebrity' help to promote volunteering? I suppose his age and the 1960s vintage police soap opera which is his main claim to fame indicate the age profile that British Waterways hopes to draw on for its volunteers.
 More seriously, the article does not indicate exactly what the volunteers will be doing or what level of supervision there will be. The mention of Bradford and Bath is worrying—I for one would not like to do Bath Deep Lock, (pictured) still less the Bingley Five Rise, under the supervision of a volunteer only doing the job one day a week, which is not going to generate a lot of experience.
Chatting
Waterscape does not make this clear either—it talks about volunteers 'helping boaters through locks'. According to the article, the main task of the volunteer will be 'chatting' to boaters and others, and advising them of the need to save water. All well and good, but if that is all they are going to do and there will still be professional lock keepers at the locations where they are now, then the volunteers are an additional feature and will not save any money—indeed they will cost money, since they are to receive uniforms and 'full training'. If the professional lock keepers are going to be dispensed with at tricky locations like Bingley, Bath, Tuel Lane, the Trent locks etc, I wonder who will be liable when things go wrong?
Do we need CaRT?
Now it seems that the advent of the Canal & River Trust is being delayed, I wonder if it is too late for a rethink? There has been much talk of Canal & River Trust being like the National Trust, but since the National Trust is an entirely private organisation which does not receive government funding, the analogy is a poor one.
What it is very much like is English Heritage, that was set up in 1983 to take over responsibility for heritage sites, mainly ruined castles, monasteries and the like which up until then had been the direct responsibility of a government department. It receives most of its funding from a government grant (which is being cut), but also runs a membership scheme rather like the National Trust. It has been pretty successful at preserving and presenting its sites to the public, and has a considerable expertise in maintaining historic structures.
Since the canal system is a 2,000 mile heritage park, managing it would not be very far from the existing skill set of the organisation. Why not transfer the canal system to English Heritage, to be managed as a distinct division of that organisation, with a specific remit to maintain it for navigation?
This would mean that the current senior management of British Waterways would no longer be needed, since its 'strategic' role would be undertaken by the existing management of English Heritage. The staff who actually do the work, however, would be required. This would avoid the creation of a new organisation, and put the canal system where it really belongs, as part of our heritage and leisure industry.
David Hymers
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