Ralph gives the facts... - Unobtrusive observations?

Unobtrusive observations?

To give you readers a flavour of what has been going on over the last 12 months here are a few extracts from my log:

Feb 2012

Thin ice in marina. Tried to get to Bridge 86 but the ice is too thick after Bridge 88. Passed a BW patrol officer by Bridge 89 who took off his backpack retrieved a camera and proceeded to take photographs of my boat.

(Question: Is it normal to photograph all moving boats in winter these days?)

June 2012

Moored at GH (Gt Haywood). Man and women, not in BW uniforms took photos of the rear of my boat. I asked the man if he was checking moorings or licence? He said "Both". No chance! BW does not work that way.

(Question: Who are these people?)

Late August 2012

Moored on the Coventry Canal at Fradley. A man and a women with bikes stop and take a photos of the rear corner of the boat where the registration number is. Mine is the only boat in the row they photograph. Why?

(Note: Definitely not CaRT personnel)

Early Sept 2012

Moored Fishers Mill Bridge, Birmingham & Fazeley Canal.

Man rides up on bike takes photo of rear of boat. When challenged he just jumped on his bike and rode off at speed.

Emailed Darren Green of Central Shires to ask if he knew of any official surveys on 'his patch'. Received a speedy reply from him saying he was not aware of such an activity. For the record I believe him.

Obtrusive or not?

I'll leave you, dear reader, to decide if you regard such a series of events as 'unobtrusive monitoring' or not? Bear in mind though these are only some of the instances when I have observed my boat being photographed. Obviously I have no idea how many I may have missed. That's why the information requested from CaRT under the Date Protection Act will be most enlightening?

Final thoughts

Just suppose you had an expensive car worth say £40,000 and it was parked on your drive. Someone approached it stealthily, photographed it at close quarters and walked off quickly before you could question them.

On another occasion, when your car was parked in your works car park, a different person walked up to it and photographed it.

Later still, when it was parked in a local supermarket car park, yet another person photographed it.

This time you asked what they were doing but they refused to answer, jumped on a bike, and rode off at speed.

None of these people wore any uniform, carried any obvious I.D. and refused to answer when challenged.

Now what would you do? Ring the police would be my guess? Maybe that is what I should do next time?

As regards Damien Kemp's recent complete denial in narrowboatworld I feel I can't do better than repeat the now famous Mandy Rice-Davies quote:

"Well, he would, wouldn't he?"

Ralph Freeman