Boater's final cruise

IT WAS the final cruise for boater Bob Wakely this week as he was carried in his coffin down the Thames in the working boat he had restored.

He travelled from Abingdon Lock to his home village of Sutton Courtenay on the 1937 working boat Chiswick, that he had carefully  restored, Alan Tilbury tells us.

Volunteers

In addition to restoration work, Bob, together with his wife Esther, were volunteers with the Camden Canals and Narrowboat Association.

He was diagnosed with cancer nine years ago, and died after an infection.  More than 80 people remembered him at his funeral in the village's All Saints Church.