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We volunteered once and it looks as though we are in for life. After the MADD event on the 28th October last year, we were asked if we would like to travel up from Silly Sussex to do some more work with the Buckingham Canal Society at Cosgrove as an event in the Whitbread Earth Action day. Whitbread had decided to donate funds to worthy causes, in return for which, those worthy causes were to undertake a particular day of work publicising Whitbread's involvement. In the event, the outbreak of foot and mouth prevented work at Cosgrove and as the money had already been spent, Whitbread agreed that we could assist the Milton Keynes IWA branch in a clean-up in preparation for the National Waterways Festival in August. On the morning of March 30th, we set sail from Pennylands, cruising sedately in a northerly direction to meet the rest of the gang at Giffard Park. In preparation for the day, father-in-law had welded his own personal grappling hook. It looked beautiful, lacking only its personal coat of arms; mind you it was a bit like heaving out an anchor. The Memsahib and I dressed formally for the occasion in our number 3 uniform, that is, camouflage gear. It worked perfectly, it was nice and comfortable, would wash well and being camouflage, nobody could see us to give us the rotten jobs. We lined up on the towpath by the pub and received our regulation issue of gloves, rubber, sewers for the use therein and hooks, grappling, rubbish for the pulling out of. For those of us with a higher degree of sartorial sense, there were also available plastic tabards with Whitbread Earth Action tastefully displayed across the front. The working gangs then leapfrogged each other from bridge to bridge, dragging out as much rubbish as they could. High on the list of finds, as ever, were supermarket trolleys but also a number of bicycles were found, a couple of them in fair condition. An earlier recce by mother-in-law had identified a wheelbarrow in the water by Dansteed Way bridge and it was hoped that it could be salvaged for use by the BCS. It was eventually hooked by assistant cleaner-upper, Helen and after much huffing and puffing, it was successfully removed. Unfortunately, it turned out to be full of hardened concrete but its wheel was removed for Bill to use to construct a state-of-the-art trolley for the turfer. All we needed then was another wheel to match it. We soon got into the swing of using the grappling hooks and only rarely captured a passing cyclist. Whenever we hooked something that looked as though it might have a wheel, measurements were taken to see if it would match the one already found. Alas, on the day, it was not to be. As we progressed slowly down the canal, the rubbish we collected was deposited in one of the lighters towed by Dave in Callisto and Roy with Imogen Rose. During the morning, coffee and biscuits were kindly provided by June and very welcome they were too. By lunchtime, we had worked up a good appetite and we spent a pleasant 40 minutes or so refuelling for the afternoon's efforts. The weather had stayed dry, although threatening rain but it was chilly and swinging the hooks certainly helped to keep us warm. Eventually, we arrived at Peartree Bridge Marina, which was to be our destination for the day. An interesting half hour was spent trying to help remove an unknown object from the bed of the canal. Finally, after a great deal of effort had been expended, it turned out to be a large piece of steel reinforcing mesh. This joined the rest of the rubbish in the lighters, which by now, were heavily laden. I counted in excess of thirty trolleys myself. I had been told that the haul was not as great as on the previous clean up but I felt that that was because of the success of the last event. However, we expected to find rubbish and the good citizens of Milton Keynes certainly did not disappoint us, apart from the fact that there were no mailbags this time!
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