Waterscape

Canal Life by Jon Seagrave.

OK, let’s start with the pretty picture. You can imagine it: pale winter sun and a light mist rising from the still water; the air perfumed with the sweet sulphur of coal-smoke, curling in slow wreaths across the frosted towpath. An early morning cyclist creaks through the stillness, past the endless, jumbled line of colourful boats, roofs piled high with flower-pots and bicycles, firewood and coal-sacks. A black flag hangs limply from a cane. Somewhere an ancient Lister engine coughs into life, a slow, erratic chug, as someone gets ready for a pre-breakfast move. It’s like a tiny town, transient and ever-shifting. No grid electricity. No mains water. Just one long street…

There’s lots of mornings just like that. They help you keep going.

So I lived on the canal. This was something that was bound to happen at some point, what with canals being edge places, and- without getting too Will Self about it- I’m deeply attracted to edge places. They’re somehow ingrained in my psyche; a youth spent exiled on the Outer London suburban margins seems to have stained me indelibly, however much I longed to escape it at the time. Adult me just can’t walk through a nice, juicy transitional interzone without getting all worked up. I’m hot for a liminal hotspot, and few places flaunt this status more brazenly than the canal.

‘For the rain it raineth every day’:

Floods in the Slad Road when it raineth every day,

Springs and streams racing down five valleys

When the rain it raineth every day.

But drought can bring its own problems too:

It must have been bit like this
When the turnpike trusts improved a road,
Or the inland navigators came to town and village:
Severn Trent out there outside Sapperton Church,
Putting in new pipes,
Such noise and mayhem
And workers whose accents
Were a long way from home.
It brought the children out to watch.
What else is there to do in the country in the 18th century?

With many thanks to Lucy Guenot:

1. R is for River
Letterpress print, playing with Severn names

2. Severn seeks the sea
Linocut and letterpress, using a phrase from one of Frank Mansell’s Cotswold Ballads: ‘The roads go down’

3. River Frome 1
Linocut of the Frome in the Nailsworth valley

4. River Frome 2
Linocut of the Frome in Stroud alongside Dr Newton’s way

NameAgeJobParishShipDestinationSentenceDate John Griffin28LabourerAveningTottenhamNew South WalesLife1818 George Ansloe18LabourerBisleyManliusVan Diemen’s Land7 years1828 William Bacchus15LabourerBisleyManliusVan Diemen’s Land7 years1828 Peter...