Canals

Hi again,
Since I've been doing this blog, time has never gone so fast. If ever you get bored and can't find anything to do I suggest you start one of your own. I have never had a problem with boredom I'm constantly trying to find time to fit in everything work wise and squeezing in a little time for my hobbies is proving to be difficult. Having said that, I managed to do a sketch last week-end of a lock on the Shropshire Union canal. I like to put a few of my own illustrations into my books and this is going into my next one.

If you want more information on my first book, please click on the link below.
More information

Okay, time to get on with talking about writing and fishing.

Writing
I said at the end of my last post that I'd tell you how I got started in the freelance writing business. Well I suppose it was all down to needing a change. I spent over 30 years in a factory and so during the week I hardly saw any sunshine. This wasn't good especially as I liked to spend time in the countryside and to do a bit of fishing.
The job itself wasn't that bad and I climbed my way up the promotion ladder. I started on the production line but eventually worked my way up to the dizzy heights of being the production manager. I became one of the management team and often wondered how I came to be sitting in the boardroom once a week discussing business and strategy etc.

At that time I was responsible for over a £100,000 of output per week. It was at times quite exciting and my life was filled with a great big buzz and an equal amount of stress. The buzz was great, there is no greater satisfaction in this world than achieving ones goals. The fact that I managed a team of up to 200 people every week to hit our targets only served to heighten the sense of achievement. However, it wasn't all a case of back slapping and cries of didn't we do well, because sometimes circumstances prevailed that saw us fail our targets.

Another cloud also appeared on the horizon hailing the decline of manufacturing in the UK. Cheap imports were flooding in and the sword of redundancy was slashing its way through our factory on a regular basis. For several years I fought on through this situation but knew that it was only a matter of time and my number would eventually be pulled from the hat. I was so sure that my position in manufacturing was going to come to an end I asked myself a couple of questions.
Question 1: Did I want to stay in manufacturing? Answer: No.
Question 2: What else would I like to do? Honest Answer: I hadn't got a clue.

One thing I did realise was that I didn't want to go back into a factory. I also had this yearning to work for myself and be in charge of my own destiny. My career to date had always relied on other people and that isn't always a good thing. My biggest problem was that I didn't have any transferable skills. I had done a lot of courses during my climb up the promotion ladder and had loads of qualifications in manufacturing and even had letters after my name, but outside of manufacturing these were worth diddly squatt.

So I would have to start all over again, but doing what? I suppose this was when fate took a hand it just so happened that I saw an advert in a paper about becoming a writer and it rang a bell. It was one of those distance learning courses that you do from home and it sounded very professional. I also realised that I had dabbled with writing before, in fact I had started a couple of books and contributed twice to the factory magazine during the last few years. Anyway, while I pondering this move a redundancy situation presented itself to me and I took it. Signing up for the writing course seemed at the time like a sensible way forward because I could be doing that while I thought about other options.

I'd like to say at this point that this was a major turning point in my career and everything went like clockwork. Well I suppose it did for a bit, but when the chest pains I suffered one night turned into a heart attack it put the brakes on a bit.

Anyway, I did a stint in hospital and had stents put into my arteries and I went home to carry on with my studies. It was a blessing really because during that recovery period I couldn't do much more than sit in front of my computer. Eventually I finished the course and I felt better in myself although I knew then that I'd never be fully back to normal.

So I carried on with the writing and was soon looking at my name in print. I will go on and tell you about that in my next post.

I like canals, they are such peaceful places. I have had a dream for many years of holidaying on the canal. To take a narrow boat and while away the hours chugging from village to village. I'm sure our Yorkshire terrier Buzby, would enjoy it.


The only thing that puts me off are the locks. They look like hard work and I don't know if I'm physically capable of dealing with a day's worth of them. My wife wouldn't be able to cope with them either. I know the Norfolk Broads are lock free but I've been there and done it's a canal I want to sail on. I have even searched the Internet looking for areas of canal that don't have many locks, but as yet I haven't managed to find anything. If anybody can help with suggestions I'd be pleased to receive them. I just want a stretch where I can potter about for a week with a minimum number of locks.

Fishing
Talking about canals, if I was to take a canal holiday it would have to be early in the year before match anglers begin to line the towpath. It is rare that I fish canals now. In my old age I prefer to sit at the side of some beautiful pool and let life slide past like a sigh.

I can remember the time when the canal was my second home. I fished matches on it most week-ends and practised down the cut on summer nights after work. I became pretty good on the canal especially in the art of gudgeon bashing. This was the main species in our bit of the Trent & Mersey and I learned how to catch them fast enough to win our local championship for two years in succession.

I liked the canals because they made match fishing fairer. Rivers and pools can be very peggy and the winner often comes from the best pegs. I always remember fishing a match on a pool during November. This bit of water was shallow at peg one and went deeper as you went along the bank to peg thirty. Anyway we had suffered a heavy frost on the night before the match so you know what happened to the fish. Yes, they all went up to the deep end, the angler on peg thirty had over twenty pounds of fish and the sucker on peg one caught nowt.

This scenario doesn't happen on canals because of their uniform depth. This can only mean that the skill of the angler comes to the fore and isn't that how it should be.
Yes, canals are great for fishing, but the boats don't half give me the jip especially when captain birdseye comes chugging past with his throttle wide open at 6am on a summer's morning.
I'll leave you now with a lovely photo I took of our local canal at Sandon, complete with a lovely boat.