122. Plethora of Lock-keepers

On arriving at Shiplake Lock we couldn’t believe our eyes, there were actually two lock-keepers on duty. The resident lock keeper is Geoff Horsnell, a river enthusiast for many years. Geoff worked in the City of London for 30 years before turning his hand to lock keeping and Geoff was accompanied by another lock keeper, Len.

The First mate asked Len “Why are there two lock-keepers on duty” to which he replied   “The third one hadn’t arrived yet” and Geoff chipped in “The fourth one’s also late”. Lock keepers are like London buses said the First Mate “You can never find one when you really need one,   and then suddenly a rake of them arrive all at the same time”. The Captain corrected him by saying you mean “Policeman”.””Yes” said the Cabin Boy having policeman connections “A bus load of Fuzz at the same time”

We had enjoyed the camaraderie between us and the lock-keepers and apparently the surfeit of lock-keepers had been caused by operator error at HQ, probably some young numerically dyslexic, not being able to distinguish between all digits between one and four.

120. Real Three Men in a Boat

While   waiting in Sonning lock we met another, the third one on this trip, a genuine Three Men in a Boat Crew. Instead of Jerome, George and Carl (Harriss) in the book,  we had Dave, Geoff and Harry accompanying them was Rollo and not Montmerency.

These chaps were real toughies and like those chaps in the book, they  were doing the trip in a genuine skiff. Skiffs found on the Thames are round-bottom clinker-built rowing boats that are still very common on the River Thames and other rivers in England. During the year, skiffing regattas are held in various riverside towns in England—the major event being the Skiff Championships Regatta at Henley.

These young men had been students at the other Oxford University, namely Oxford Brookes and were members of an Oxford rowing club and had been planning this trip for a couple of years .So much for their planning, they were trying to complete the journey in a total of four days, they didn’t have the sense to consult the weather forecast. They were well into day two of the journey; both the previous days had seen the heaviest rain of the year and more was forecast for the next two. Although they looked like drowned rats, their spirits were high and that was without proper accommodation and sustenance for they were camping and because of their arduous task which they had undertaken, they could not afford the pleasures that an over-suffiency of drink can bring. These boys were honed, toned and clearly too young to appreciate the real things in life such as wine, women and song but there again, decent chaps will always be decent chaps but boring.

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”

118. Cabin Boy gets knotted

Two of the essential knots for any boating person to know are the Cleat Hitch and the Bowline.

This was the third trip that the Cabin Boy had been roped into and in his case it proved to be true. Despite constant supervision by both of the other two crew, the Cabin Boy would only receive a grading of E- and the Captains report would be  “William appears to get tied up in knots when it comes to the actual practical side of the art of knot tying and the only type of knot he appeared to like is the possibly that one day he may get dog-knotted himself whilst practising coitus interruptus”.

After several reprimands by the Captain, the Boy did however successfully complete a Cleat Hitch but promptly spoilt it by trying to hide his perfect knot with a knot of toads and for the readers’ education, a knot is the collective noun for a group of toads, and in this case Billy was a toad.

117. Confluences, water gypsies and Tesco’s

Downstream from Caversham on the north bank, lies two features on the Thames that almost make it unique, a confluence and a supermarket superstore on a river.

The confluence is where the River Kennet enters the Thames, and the supermarket superstore is Tesco’s.

The River Kennet links the Thames with the Kennet and Avon Canal and therefore the boater who has all the time in world can now navigate from Reading to Bristol.

Of interest is where this Tesco’s is situated .It is situated out on a limb on the eastern part of Reading with little or no houses in the immediate vicinity. The argument that such stores drive local shops out of business is in this case pure folly .There is now a growing trend for supermarkets to source their own products via their own brands and this  surely is a cause for concern. In the past many supermarket products were obtained from local suppliers and in particular “fresh food” such as meat, fruit and vegetables. Today this is not the case you just go shopping for typical English Sunday lunch. You’ll find lamb from New Zealand, potatoes from Portugal and broccoli from Spain.

 Finally, chew over some facts about our food industry when you next sit down to a meal:

- Food production takes up 25% of the world's land - more than the world's forested area.

- Food in the UK now travels 50% further than it did two decades ago.

- A traditional Sunday lunch made from imported ingredients generates 650 times more carbon emissions than the same meal made from locally grown ingredients.

-  Sustain ,  an organization helping to achieve better nutrition in developing countries have shown  that a basket of 26 items of imported organic produce had travelled, collectively, a distance equivalent to six times round the equator, releasing as much CO₂ as an average family of four does through cooking meals for eight months.

- According to Deloitte  Touche, the largest professional services organization in the world, farm income from a 500-acre farm dropped from £80,000 in 1995/6 to just £2,400 in 2001. Conversely, about $300bn is now spent globally on agricultural subsidies.

- The global acreage of GM crops increased by 12% in 2003, reaching 58.7m hectares.

- In the 1970s, supermarkets offered about 5,000 different lines. Today that figure stands at 40,000.

- In the UK, five major supermarkets control more than 70% of grocery sales. In turn, they deal with fewer than 30 major food suppliers and processors.

116. Gypsy Rose Lee

We have been boating through the years along the Thames and a few years ago we had a surprise. “A woman “, yes a female of the species had eventually been appointed as a full time lock keeperess.

Although her real name is Tanya, we have always called her Gyspy Rose Lee because of her classic Romanic looks. Dark eyes , dark hair, white teeth, a pleasant smile and a nice pair of legs particularly in the summer when a skirt or a pair of culottes are worn.

Gypsie Rose Lee or GRL to the crew , does not wear a hankie  on her head  ,doesn’t wear   a pair of oversized earrings and as far as we know doesn’t quickly look at your half drunk cup of tea and tell you ,more’s  the pity that your boat is going to break down the next day. The only give away sign of her “ethnicity” is her familiar, Skippy a lurcher, who constantly accompanies her on her manly duties as a lock-keeper. We have just learnt that due to health and safety reasons that Skippy is no longer allowed to accompany his mistress to work. Of course such a pretty, well-kept, obedient and docile creature is a threat to any boater of a nervous disposition and it is also well known that such dogs are prone to jumping down or up 5 feet in order to severe the jugulars of innocent people who enjoy boating.

As we were leaving the lock the Captain said” We must have known GRL for over twenty years now”.”Not quite” replied The First Mate”, I remember when she used to be a holiday relief up at Benson, must have still been at school at time”.”Nothing wrong with school girls “ sniggered the Cabin Boy”, I used to get a bit of relief from them on the way back home from school when we  travelled to school by train from Hungerford to Newbury, we used to go into the toilet for a quick one” Now then Billy, you must have been only about twelve or thirteen at the time Billy and don’t say that you were already at it such a tender age”.”Sometimes did it with them two or three times in the train toilet on the way to and back from school”.’Did you ever get caught at it then Billy?”. “Only once when the guard saw smoke coming out from under the door opened, pulled the emergency cord and forced the train to suddenly stop. Luckily for us we beat a quick retreat before he came back and learnt our lesson to never smoke in the bogs of a train again.

D’ya know anything First Mate about the real Gypsy Rose Lee?” asked the  ever inquisitive Cabin Boy.””She was a Yankee girl who used to get her kit off for money, yeh a stripper who used to drive the audience wild by refusing to get all her clothes off to see the naughty bits and then just as the crowd were getting pissed off her, she’d suddenly drop her drawers.

115. Self-service

In order to save money and therefore reduce staff and hence put some loyal faithful servants out to graze, the Environmental Agency in their wisdom have slowly been making many of the locks self-service, in which boaters are allowed to operate themselves when lock keepers are off-duty, on holiday or have just popped in doors for a quick one.

When he had a proper job, the First Mate had been a senior manager in the water industry and unlike many people in top jobs had actually got his hands dirty by actually doing something practical, attending in-service training and slowly but surely progressing up the ladder on a merit basis and not because his Aunt Fanny’s second cousin once removed had been a student or playboy at Oxford.

In such large organisations the Peter Principle is rife whereby in a large organisation with a hierarchal structure   every employee tends to rise to their level of incompetence. Translating this into everyday English is means that only competent people are those who haven’t been promoted and it is these people that actually do the work.

After about 10 minutes the First Mate had still not opened the lock gates and the Cabin Boy went to investigate. The Cabin Boy came out with the solution; “These gates are not multitasking and can only do one thing at a time. You can only open the gates when the sluice gates are fully open and you have to wait until the appropriate light comes on.” Yes even a university graduate can be baffled by simple instructions.” said Billy the Cabin Boy