Digging for pleasure

Each group organises a series of visits to restoration schemes around the country, in conjunction with the local schemes, and volunteers will converge on the meeting point, often a pub near the accommodation, on the appointed Friday evening. At the Friday evening gathering will be a mixture of familiar and new faces, people of all ages and walks of life. Some people move around the country to see various sites and you may get to hear news of people you know but have not seen for some time - a sort of modern-day 'towpath telegraph'.

"Home" for the weekend is usually a village hall, scout hut or similar, and can vary in the availability of facilities depending on what is available in the area and the expected numbers, among other factors. Saturday generally dawns all too soon and the serious business of the day starts with breakfast - providing plentiful supplies of food plays a large part in keeping navvies happy. The work done on site depends partly on the stage the project has reached and partly on the season. Winter is a bad time to do anything involving masonry or concrete, due to the frost risk, whilst jungle bashing (navvy speak for clearing undergrowth) is a good idea as burning the wood on a bonfire produces welcome heat on a cold day. Come Spring and the more 'agricultural' activities are off limits due to nesting birds.

One advantage of having wrg to visit is that expertise which may not be available locally is often available. The combined experience of wrg encompasses all techniques known to waterway restoration - bricklaying (including rebuilding complete locks), carpentry, hedge laying and bank protection, to name a few. Many navvies' favourite job is getting very muddy and dirty clearing out the bottom of a lock chamber! Most groups can bring specialist equipment, and the people who can use it, if a particular job is in hand.

Whatever the work being tackled, a prime consideration has to be safety. Hard hats are compulsory and suitable work gloves and steel toe-capped boots are recommended. Plant and equipment (including vans) can only be operated after suitable training and authorisation under the wrg insurance scheme and there is a 'zero alcohol if driving' policy. Basically, work sites are dangerous places and even though the work is voluntary, the provisions of the Health and Safety at Work Act apply, giving responsibilities for safety not just to the 'employers' but also to the 'employees' as well.

Lunch will be taken on site or back at the hall if not too far and an evening meal and an evening meal, of suitable proportions for people who have been building up a healthy appetite in the fresh air, is provided after work stops. Evening entertainment can take a variety of forms; the local hostelry may experience an upsurge in trade or there may be an event organised by the local canal society. Sunday follows a similar pattern to the Saturday, except that work normally finishes earlier to allow the hall to be cleared in time for people to leave for home. It is wrg policy to leave accommodation in a better condition than when we arrived, which on occasion is not difficult, so that we can be invited back in the future. The catering kit and the tools have to be accounted for and loaded up for the return journey.

Larger projects are tackled at Canal Camps, a programme of which is arranged throughout the year. These usually last for one or two weeks and as well as restoration work, projects such as supplying the labour for the National Waterways Festival are carried out. A concentrated week's work on a restoration scheme can achieve what would otherwise take many months of Sunday work parties by a local canal society and can give a morale-lifting boost to their volunteers.

So why do we do it? There are many reasons, and probably every navvy would give a different answer. For my own part I feel that this is something positive I can do to help bring about the restoration of waterways I would like to see reopened, and one day travel on by boat. Apart from this, there is the opportunity to spend weekends in the open air, a pleasant relief after a week in a stuffy office, enjoy good company and get some badly-needed physical exercise. Working on canals also gives an appreciation of the skills and tenacity of our forebears, the original canal builders, who created the system we often take for granted with little more than picks, shovels, wheelbarrows and brute force.

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