119. Sonning

The first lock downstream after Caversham lock is Sonning Lock. The Captain and the First Mate have extensively pike fished this and so know the area very well.

The lock keeper at Sonning is Keith Burnage and he lives in the lock keeper with his missus Jo. He told us that he began his lock keeping career in 1999, as Summer Assistant at Day's Lock. He then went on to become Area Relief at various locks between Day's and Hurley, and finally became resident lock keeper at Sonning. In true naval tradition, we reckon that Keith is a forty fags a day man.

Basically,  Sonning consists of three or four pubs/hotels/restaurants call them what you may, a church, a social club a lock and a couple of telephone boxes. However, it does have an excellent dinner theatre. Basically,  this theatre shows comedy plays accompanied by an old style dinner fixed menu consisting of roasts, fancy pies and homemade stews. The downer is it only serves one real ale, bottles of 6X, a firm favourite of the Cabin Boy and Captain.

It is believed that  a bridge at Sonning has been in existence  since Roman times and this why it was   used as crossing point by the Roman army on their way up to Wallingford and  it was  also used by merchants and traders who were travelling to the west of England on leaving London.

The First Mate told us “The Great Western Railway runs about half a mile south of the village, in a two mile long cutting called Sonning Cutting. This was opened in 1840, and was the scene of one of the first railway disasters in 1841, when a goods train ran into a landslip.”Did anyone die? “Eagerly asked the Cabin Boy.”It was quite gruesome “continued the First Mate.” In those days Billy, peasants like you and me would have been travelling third class in open trucks”, anyway one day the train ran into a huge big mound of muck caused by a land slip and the train plowed into it, and at the same time throwing  the passengers out of the open trucks. He added,” I think that about ten people copped it.” It must have terrible for their families” added Billy.”Not only that Billy , and because they were stone masons, it delayed some of the work that was being carried out on the Houses of Parliament –you know Billy, all those trendy lefty MP’s of yours in the House of Commons and those toffy nosed friends of yours Captain, that are in the House of Lords and go there just to claim their daily attendance allowance. If you ask me both those houses of parliament are filled with a load of over-paid old duffers  who discuss what to do when something that won’t  ever happen  happens”, said the First Mate”.”And what about that mate of yours First Mate , yea that Enoch Powell, was he right then when he gave his Rivers of Blood speech in the sixties?””Well he was not far wrong you know, he warned about the dangers of mass immigration from the Commonwealth Nations and look at it today, we’ve added another twenty seven countries from the European Union with another nine or ten candidates or potential candidates seeking admission. Tell you more about him,  he was a hell of a clever bloke you know, his  speech  in which he warned  Britain that one day the Asians will  overtake  the white British population and  this will result  in a civil war between the white minority and the Asian majority, helped the Tories  win the next General Election,  and as well as being an ace orator,  he joined the army as a private  reached the rank of brigadier and after leaving Cambridge he became one of the youngest ever appointed full professors of Greek while working in Australia.”

“Wasn’t he sacked from the government after they won the election?” asked the Captain.””Yes he was, but at the next election he urged colleagues to vote Labour  and guess what, the Tories lost the next election in 1974 to that pipe smoking git who used to wear that flasher mac , yes that Harold Wilson”