Nighttime on Still Waters

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For our final summer readings session we are looking at a very different piece of writing. It is Lucy M. Boston’s The River at Green Knowe. Lucy M. Boston is probably better known for her earlier book The Children of Green Knowe for which she was runner up for the 1954 Carnegie Medal for best children’s literature. She would later win it with her fourth book in the series, Stranger at Green Knowe (1961). The River at Green Knowe is the third of her six books set in the ancient house of Green Knowe, which also served as Boston’s home.               

Although published in 1958, the book has a distinctively Edwardian feel about it despite it dealing with contemporary issues of alienation and homelessness experienced by refugees. The book is a series of stories about three children who are staying at Green Knowe for the summer and their adventures in a canoe on the river and canals around the house. Like all her books, The River at Green Knowe is a story filled with light and shadow, enchanting magic, and the threat of danger. 

More information and bibliographic details

Boston, Lucy M. (1958) The River at Green Knowe. London: Faber and Faber.

Green Knowe is located at Hemingford Grey, near Huntingdon in Cambridgeshire, UK. The house and its enchanting garden are open to the public – although check first before you travel. There is a delightful website where you can find lots of photographs of the house and grounds, as well as information about Lucy M. Boston and her books. The website is here: Green Knowe.

For a real treat, Brian Sibley's remarkable and haunting BBC Radio 4 dramatisation of Lucy M Boston's first book, The Children of Green Knowe, is available, free to stream, on SoundCloud. It is spellbinding: SoundCloud - The Children of Green Knowe. 

Green Knowe also have social media pages which regularly posts updates, information and images relating to the house and books. 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Green-Knowe-At-The-Manor-157877494323565/ 

Twitter: https://twitter.com/GreenKnoweManor

General Details

In the intro and the outro, Saint-Saen's The Swan is performed by Karr and Bernstein (1961) and available on CC at archive.org.

Two-stroke narrowboat engine recorded by 'James2nd' on the River weaver, Cheshire. Uploaded to Freesound.org on 23rd June 2018. Creative Commons Licence. 

Piano interludes composed and performed by Helen Ingram.

All other audio recorded on site. 

Contact
For pictures of Erica and images related to the podcasts or to contact me, follow me on:

• Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/noswpod
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nighttimeonstillwaters/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/NoswPod

I would love to hear from you. You can email me at [email protected]

Support the show

Become a 'Lock-Wheeler'
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Contact

• Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/noswpod
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nighttimeonstillwaters/
• Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/noswpod.bsky.social
• Mastodon: https://mastodon.world/@nosw  

I would love to hear from you. You can email me at [email protected] or drop me a line by going to the nowspod website and using either the contact form or, if you prefer, record your message by clicking on the microphone icon.

For more information about Nighttime on Still Waters

You can find more information and photographs about the podcasts and life aboard the Erica on our website at noswpod.com. 

Send us Fan Mail

In this second Summer Reading Special we discover the delights of Ernest Temple Thurston’s The Flower of Gloster. Published in 1911, Temple Thurston is writing about a very different world to the one in which last week’s authors (Hassell and Hollingshead) were writing. It is a nostalgic nod to a world that Temple Thurston recognises is dying. Described by LTC Rolt as unashamedly romantic, it is a lyrical description of his journey aboard the horse boat (pulled by a horse) ‘Flower of Gloster’ from Oxford to Inglesham in the west country. Temple Thurston paints an often idyllic picture of lifeaboard. He is accompanied by the working boatman Eynsham Harry, a quiet contemplative man whose rustic wisdom and ‘hedgerow philosophy’ is the perfect antidote to Temple Thurston’s world weary encounters with academics and business barons of the brave new world of the early 20th century.    

The book is also notable for inspiring LTC (Tom) Rolt to renovate an old working boat (‘Chressie’) and live for many months aboard with his newly wed wife cruising up and down the canals of pre-war England. His record of this time in the book Narrow Boat has since become a classic in waterways literature and has often been cited as instrumental in saving the canals and waterways of Britain. Rolt went on to become one of the founders of the Inland Waterways Association and a key player in canal conservation and restoration.           

More information and bibliographic details

Temple Thurston, Ernest. (1911) The Flower of Gloster. London: William Norgate.

The book has subsequently been republished a number of times and more recently in the form:

Temple Thurston, Ernest (1968) The Flower of Gloster: with introduction by LTC Rolt. London: David and Charles. 

General Details

In the intro and the outro, Saint-Saen's The Swan is performed by Karr and Bernstein (1961) and available on CC at archive.org.

Two-stroke narrowboat engine recorded by 'James2nd' on the River weaver, Cheshire. Uploaded to Freesound.org on 23rd June 2018. Creative Commons Licence. 

Piano interludes composed and performed by Helen Ingram.

All other audio recorded on site. 

Contact
For pictures of Erica and images related to the podcasts or to contact me, follow me on:

• Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/noswpod
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nighttimeonstillwaters/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/NoswPod

I would love to hear from you. You can email me at [email protected]

Support the show

Become a 'Lock-Wheeler'
Would you like to support this podcast by becoming a 'lock-wheeler' for Nighttime on Still Waters? Find out more: 'Lock-wheeling' for Nighttime on Still Waters.

Contact

• Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/noswpod
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nighttimeonstillwaters/
• Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/noswpod.bsky.social
• Mastodon: https://mastodon.world/@nosw  

I would love to hear from you. You can email me at [email protected] or drop me a line by going to the nowspod website and using either the contact form or, if you prefer, record your message by clicking on the microphone icon.

For more information about Nighttime on Still Waters

You can find more information and photographs about the podcasts and life aboard the Erica on our website at noswpod.com. 

Send us Fan Mail

This is the first of our Summer Reading Specials devoted to one or two books that are in some way related to waterways or life on them. They replace the normal format while Penny, Donna and I are away, off-line, and having adventures of our own. 

The first episode explores two very different authors who are writing when the canals were in their heyday. The first is John Hassell’s account of the Tour of the Grand Junction, published in 1819. We then embark on the almost exact journey some 40 years later in the company of John Hollingshead (and his companion Cuddy) under the skilful watch of ‘Captain’ Randle, the master of a flyboat called the Stourport. Hollingshead’s account is much more personable and is interested not just in the sights and sounds he encounters but also the people he meets.  

More information and bibliographic details

Copies of both Hassell and Hollingshead’s accounts can be found in reprinted forms (of varying quality) on book selling sites like Amazon. 

Hassel, John. (1819) Tour of the Grand Junction, Illustrated in a Series of Engravings; With an Historical and Topographical Description of those Parts of the Counties of Middlesex, Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire, and Northamptonshire, through which the Canal passes. London: Printed for J. Hassell.

A free, open-access, scanned and digitized copy of this book can be found on the archive.org site and is downloadable in multiple formats: Tour of the Grand Junction.

Hollingshead, John. (1860) Odd Journeys In and out of London. London: Goombridge and Sons.

 A free, open-access, scanned and digitised copy of this book is available to download in multiple formats on the archive.org website: Odd Journeys in and out of London.  

General Details

In the intro and the outro, Saint-Saen's The Swan is performed by Karr and Bernstein (1961) and available on CC at archive.org.

Two-stroke narrowboat engine recorded by 'James2nd' on the River weaver, Cheshire. Uploaded to Freesound.org on 23rd June 2018. Creative Commons Licence. 

Piano interludes composed and performed by Helen Ingram.

All other audio recorded on site. 

Contact
For pictures of Erica and images related to the podcasts or to contact me, follow me on:

• Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/noswpod
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nighttimeonstillwaters/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/NoswPod

I would love to hear from you. You can email me at [email protected]
 

Support the show

Become a 'Lock-Wheeler'
Would you like to support this podcast by becoming a 'lock-wheeler' for Nighttime on Still Waters? Find out more: 'Lock-wheeling' for Nighttime on Still Waters.

Contact

• Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/noswpod
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nighttimeonstillwaters/
• Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/noswpod.bsky.social
• Mastodon: https://mastodon.world/@nosw  

I would love to hear from you. You can email me at [email protected] or drop me a line by going to the nowspod website and using either the contact form or, if you prefer, record your message by clicking on the microphone icon.

For more information about Nighttime on Still Waters

You can find more information and photographs about the podcasts and life aboard the Erica on our website at noswpod.com. 

Send us Fan Mail

This week we explore and reflect upon a wonderful poem by narrowboater Steve May (NB Blue Phoenix), ‘The Magnificent Heron’. There is a growing appreciation of genuine encounters with animals and birds and, with the help of Martin Buber and Jacques Derrida, we reflect upon changing attitudes and understanding about how we relate to the non-human world.  

Journal entry:

“9th July, Friday

The air is oppressive and sticky. At this hour only jackdaws have the energy to yap.

Chance meeting with a stranger. The water is cool while we talk. He speaks with not just his voice but his face and body. I try to follow the coiled labyrinth of his thoughts. 

What strange creatures we are. We people our cosmos with such gods and monsters that we can scarce tell them apart.” 

Episode Information

This episode features the poem, ‘The Magnificent Heron’, by Steve May (from the NB Blue Phoenix). You can follow Steve and read his poem and see the accompanying video on Twitter: @bwannabes.

For those interested in reading more about Martin Buber’s writing on ‘I-It and I-Thou’ you might like to read his book I and Thou (1923/1937). There is a free open-access English translation (by Walter Kaufmann) of it on archive.org: I and Thou.

Jacques Derrida’s essays featuring his cat can be found in his The Animal That Therefore I Am (2008) published by Fordham University Press. 

All the soundscapes featured in this episode are all recorded on site apart from the sample of the grey heron (Ardea cinerea) night call. This was recorded at Berkel en Rodenrijs, Lansingerland, Zuid-Holland, Netherlands by Susanne Kuijpers on the night of 10th May 2021. It is available under Creative Copyright licence at Xeno-Canto: Sharing bird sounds from around the world.  

General Details

In the intro and the outro, Saint-Saen's The Swan is performed by Karr and Bernstein (1961) and available on CC at archive.org.

Two-stroke narrowboat engine recorded by 'James2nd' on the River weaver, Cheshire. Uploaded to Freesound.org on 23rd June 2018. Creative Commons Licence. 

Piano interludes composed and performed by Helen Ingram.

All other audio recorded on site. 

Contact
For pictures of Erica and images related to the podcasts or to contact me, follow me on:

• Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/noswpod
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nighttimeonstillwaters/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/NoswPod

I would love to hear from you. You can email me at [email protected]
 
 
 

Support the show

Become a 'Lock-Wheeler'
Would you like to support this podcast by becoming a 'lock-wheeler' for Nighttime on Still Waters? Find out more: 'Lock-wheeling' for Nighttime on Still Waters.

Contact

• Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/noswpod
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nighttimeonstillwaters/
• Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/noswpod.bsky.social
• Mastodon: https://mastodon.world/@nosw  

I would love to hear from you. You can email me at [email protected] or drop me a line by going to the nowspod website and using either the contact form or, if you prefer, record your message by clicking on the microphone icon.

For more information about Nighttime on Still Waters

You can find more information and photographs about the podcasts and life aboard the Erica on our website at noswpod.com. 

Send us Fan Mail

Did you know that each evening we experience THREE twilights? Each one with distinctive features and that during this period we respond in physiological ways. Similarly, our ancestors appeared to have taken advantage of these liminal periods of transition in ways that we might do well to remember. We finish the episode with a lovely passage from Tom Rolt’s Narrow Boat and there is also some sad news from the moorings.   

Journal entry:

“1st July, Thursday

 The day dawns with a silver light that presages a beautiful July day. The hay in the meadow above us has been cut and baled.

A heron breaks cover from the little cove umbrellaed with bushes. Around the corner glide the swans. The cob effortlessly swims, one cygnet tucked close to his side. There is a gentle dignity about him. His reflection casts a ghostly figure ‘5’ in the barely stirred water.

It is a message I had no heart to read." 

Episode Information

In this episode I finish with a reading from LTC (Tom) Rolt’s (1944) Narrow Boat first published by Eire and Spottiswoode. It is a book that has been viewed by many as saving the British waterways.

I also read RL Stevenson’s poem ‘Bed in Summer’ published in his volume of children’s verse, Child’s Garden of Verse (1885). You can read the poem here: ‘Bed in Summer’.

Extracts are also read from:

A Roger Ekirch (2005) At Day’s Close: A history of night time. Norton. 

Paul Bogard (ed.) (2008) Let There be Night: Testimony on behalf of the dark. Reno, Las Vegas: University of Nevada Press.

 Jack Byer’s (or perhaps Bayer) informative and beautifully researched vlog series on canals and narrowboats in the United States, American Narrowboater, can be viewed on his YouTube channel: American Narrowboater.

General Details

In the intro and the outro, Saint-Saen's The Swan is performed by Karr and Bernstein (1961) and available on CC at archive.org.

Two-stroke narrowboat engine recorded by 'James2nd' on the River weaver, Cheshire. Uploaded to Freesound.org on 23rd June 2018. Creative Commons Licence. 

Piano interludes composed and performed by Helen Ingram.

All other audio recorded on site. 

Contact
For pictures of Erica and images related to the podcasts or to contact me, follow me on:

• Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/noswpod
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nighttimeonstillwaters/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/NoswPod

I would love to hear from you. You can email me at [email protected]

Support the show

Become a 'Lock-Wheeler'
Would you like to support this podcast by becoming a 'lock-wheeler' for Nighttime on Still Waters? Find out more: 'Lock-wheeling' for Nighttime on Still Waters.

Contact

• Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/noswpod
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nighttimeonstillwaters/
• Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/noswpod.bsky.social
• Mastodon: https://mastodon.world/@nosw  

I would love to hear from you. You can email me at [email protected] or drop me a line by going to the nowspod website and using either the contact form or, if you prefer, record your message by clicking on the microphone icon.

For more information about Nighttime on Still Waters

You can find more information and photographs about the podcasts and life aboard the Erica on our website at noswpod.com. 

Send us Fan Mail

The hot weather has broken with rain and slab-like grey/white skies. While we wait for the sun’s return, it’s probably a good time to remember those lazy sunny days of long ago (and not so long ago). In this week’s episode we explore the sounds of canals in summer from bees to lock sluices and enjoy the words of John Betjeman and E Temple Thurston. 
We also discover the meaning of the word 'haysel'.

Journal entry:

“16th June, Wednesday

The summer heat has come, dustily settling across the fields and with it, the weighty, drowsiness that hums and buzzes in the head. The noontime hedges are as still as the night-time ones and the trees click and stretch beneath the sun. But the lethargy is short lived; the summer is still young, it hasn't yet shaken off the new-yeast of spring. The elder that the park-keeper laboured to cut back last month, explodes with green, lacy life, rearing in delight; defiantly laughing at the clean straight edges loved by sheers and humankind.”      

Episode Information

In this episode I read an extract from Miles Hadfield’s (1950) An English Almanac published by JM Dent and Sons. I also refer to a reference about haysel in Ruth Binney’s (2010) Weather Lore for the Wise Words and Country Ways series published by David and Charles. 

In this Summer Sounds section I read part of John Betjeman’s (Poet Laureate) ‘Inland Waterways’ which he wrote for the re-opening of Stratford upon Avon canal by the Queen Mother in 1964. It is published in The Best of John Betjeman (1978) published by Penguin. However, you can read the complete poem as well as a write up (with pictures) of the opening celebrations and its background on the Canal and River Trust’s Waterfront website: From the archives: A royal visit. 

I conclude by reading a short extract from E Temple Thurston’s (1911) evocative The Flower of Gloster published by David and Charles. 

General Details

In the intro and the outro, Saint-Saen's The Swan is performed by Karr and Bernstein (1961) and available on CC at archive.org.

Two-stroke narrowboat engine recorded by 'James2nd' on the River weaver, Cheshire. Uploaded to Freesound.org on 23rd June 2018. Creative Commons Licence. 

Piano interludes composed and performed by Helen Ingram.

All other audio recorded on site. 

Contact
For pictures of Erica and images related to the podcasts or to contact me, follow me on:

• Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/noswpod
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nighttimeonstillwaters/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/NoswPod

I would love to hear from you. You can email me at [email protected]

Support the show

Become a 'Lock-Wheeler'
Would you like to support this podcast by becoming a 'lock-wheeler' for Nighttime on Still Waters? Find out more: 'Lock-wheeling' for Nighttime on Still Waters.

Contact

• Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/noswpod
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nighttimeonstillwaters/
• Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/noswpod.bsky.social
• Mastodon: https://mastodon.world/@nosw  

I would love to hear from you. You can email me at [email protected] or drop me a line by going to the nowspod website and using either the contact form or, if you prefer, record your message by clicking on the microphone icon.

For more information about Nighttime on Still Waters

You can find more information and photographs about the podcasts and life aboard the Erica on our website at noswpod.com. 

Send us Fan Mail

The hold of early summer along the canal-side grows firmer each day. However, sometimes the changes and shifts in the season can affect us in surprising and sometimes disconcerting ways. This episode reflects on the birth of the idea that would eventually become the Nighttime on Still Waters podcast, and a reflection on radio and encounters in the night-time.    

Please note that this episode discusses mental health. 

Journal entry:

“13th June, Saturday

The lowering sun is now caught in the feathery tops of the ash trees on the bank. 
 Lone islands of cloud cast adrift on a sea of blue.

The light catches the deep drifts of ox eye daisies making their white petals shine.

I sit in the dappled sunlight drinking in the cooling breeze and watch the gnats dance on wings made of silver fire.”                 

Episode Information

During the podcast a read a passage from Charlie Connelly's (2019) The Last Train to Hilversum: A journey in the search of the magic of radio.  Bloomsbury Publishing.

I also read extracts from  Seán Street’s (2013) The Poetry of Radio: The colour of sound published by Routledge  
 
 

General Details

In the intro and the outro, Saint-Saen's The Swan is performed by Karr and Bernstein (1961) and available on CC at archive.org.

Two-stroke narrowboat engine recorded by 'James2nd' on the River weaver, Cheshire. Uploaded to Freesound.org on 23rd June 2018. Creative Commons Licence. 

Piano interludes composed and performed by Helen Ingram.

All other audio recorded on site. 

Contact
For pictures of Erica and images related to the podcasts or to contact me, follow me on:

• Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/noswpod
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nighttimeonstillwaters/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/NoswPod

I would love to hear from you. You can email me at [email protected]

Support the show

Become a 'Lock-Wheeler'
Would you like to support this podcast by becoming a 'lock-wheeler' for Nighttime on Still Waters? Find out more: 'Lock-wheeling' for Nighttime on Still Waters.

Contact

• Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/noswpod
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nighttimeonstillwaters/
• Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/noswpod.bsky.social
• Mastodon: https://mastodon.world/@nosw  

I would love to hear from you. You can email me at [email protected] or drop me a line by going to the nowspod website and using either the contact form or, if you prefer, record your message by clicking on the microphone icon.

For more information about Nighttime on Still Waters

You can find more information and photographs about the podcasts and life aboard the Erica on our website at noswpod.com. 

Send us Fan Mail

The world is filled with new life, fledglings of all kinds. It is noisy, messing, sometimes cruel, and so full of vitality and life. It’s an boisterous energy that cannot be contained or ignored. From vetch, to rabbits and birds and even humans, fledglings fill this world with a fragile, exuberant colour.  

In this episode we also discover some of your ‘first poems.’

Journal entry:

“2nd June, Wednesday

Great God, I love this weather. 
 When mounting, rock-grey slabs of clouds climb into the sky 
 and that playful wind, that precedes rain, 
 kicks and blusters the flaccid air
 that is heavy with 
 sticky heat and insects and pollen dust
 and the floral, vegetable scent of life.

I could stay in a place like this forever, 
 balanced on the razor-edge of a coming storm.”                 

Episode Information

In this episode I refer to the early 17th century English printed volume by Nicholas Breton of the 15th century The Kalendar of Shepherds: Being devices for the twelve months.

You can read a digitised reproduction of this book, with its wonderful woodcut engravings, in the Welcome Library: The Kalendar of Shepherds: Being devices for the twelve months.

I also refer to W. Keble Martin’s (1965) The Concise British Flora in Colour published by Ebury Press. It was a book that was much loved (and consulted) by my mother. 

General Details

In the intro and the outro, Saint-Saen's The Swan is performed by Karr and Bernstein (1961) and available on CC at archive.org.

Two-stroke narrowboat engine recorded by 'James2nd' on the River weaver, Cheshire. Uploaded to Freesound.org on 23rd June 2018. Creative Commons Licence. 

Piano interludes composed and performed by Helen Ingram.

All other audio recorded on site. 

Contact
For pictures of Erica and images related to the podcasts or to contact me, follow me on:

• Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/noswpod
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nighttimeonstillwaters/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/NoswPod

I would love to hear from you. You can email me at [email protected]

Support the show

Become a 'Lock-Wheeler'
Would you like to support this podcast by becoming a 'lock-wheeler' for Nighttime on Still Waters? Find out more: 'Lock-wheeling' for Nighttime on Still Waters.

Contact

• Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/noswpod
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nighttimeonstillwaters/
• Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/noswpod.bsky.social
• Mastodon: https://mastodon.world/@nosw  

I would love to hear from you. You can email me at [email protected] or drop me a line by going to the nowspod website and using either the contact form or, if you prefer, record your message by clicking on the microphone icon.

For more information about Nighttime on Still Waters

You can find more information and photographs about the podcasts and life aboard the Erica on our website at noswpod.com. 

Send us Fan Mail

What was the first poem that you ever learnt? This week marks the fourth anniversary of my mother’s death and, for some reason, it has brought to mind poems that she loved and that I shared with her as a child. There is something strangely powerful, evocative, perhaps even reassuring, about rhythm and rhymes. Sometimes, it might be, that the rhymes become the reason. 

Journal entry:

“28th May, Friday

We’re together again, 
 Hands deep in soil. 
 Planting seedlings
 Nurturing the earth,
 Coaxing life.

A fine rain spangles the air.
This feels good. 

And, when it comes down to it, 
 This is really all there is - 
     Tending the grounding
         and helping it grow.”      

Episode Information

In this episode I read a number of poems. 

A.A. Milne:

·         ‘Happiness’ (from When We Were Very Young. 1924 )

·         ‘Come Out with Me’ (from Now We Are Six, 1927) 

Kenneth Graham:

·         Duck’s Ditty (from The Wind in the Willows, 1908)

Walter de la Mare

·         Nod (from The Listeners and other Poems, 1912)

 For a taste of cruising (at times) a very different type of waterway on East Anglian washes and levels, you might be interested in the recent episodes of Venessa’s vlog: The Mindful Narrowboat

 General Details

In the intro and the outro, Saint-Saen's The Swan is performed by Karr and Bernstein (1961) and available on CC at archive.org.

Two-stroke narrowboat engine recorded by 'James2nd' on the River weaver, Cheshire. Uploaded to Freesound.org on 23rd June 2018. Creative Commons Licence. 

Piano interludes composed and performed by Helen Ingram.

All other audio recorded on site. 

Contact
For pictures of Erica and images related to the podcasts or to contact me, follow me on:

• Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/noswpod
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nighttimeonstillwaters/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/NoswPod

I would love to hear from you. You can email me at [email protected]

Support the show

Become a 'Lock-Wheeler'
Would you like to support this podcast by becoming a 'lock-wheeler' for Nighttime on Still Waters? Find out more: 'Lock-wheeling' for Nighttime on Still Waters.

Contact

• Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/noswpod
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nighttimeonstillwaters/
• Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/noswpod.bsky.social
• Mastodon: https://mastodon.world/@nosw  

I would love to hear from you. You can email me at [email protected] or drop me a line by going to the nowspod website and using either the contact form or, if you prefer, record your message by clicking on the microphone icon.

For more information about Nighttime on Still Waters

You can find more information and photographs about the podcasts and life aboard the Erica on our website at noswpod.com. 

Send us Fan Mail

What is ‘dead sleep’ and ‘morning sleep’? Why are 'duck hatches' invaluable? What should we do with the feral ducks?
In this far ranging episode. we explore the night-time of history and discover that, perhaps, the importance of the night for our well-being might not be purely as a time for sleep. We also talk about what scenarios we employed for choosing the right boat for us, and the problem of the feral ducks,  

So far month has been colder and wetter than the average. However, the world around us continues with its seasonal and geological cycles.   

Journal entry:

“21st May, Friday

Someone tore the clouds today
 And the sky
      Wept water and
           Hawthorn blossom
 Onto the shining street.”        

Episode Information

In this episode I read an extract from Kathleen Dean Moore’s essay ‘The gifts of darkness’ in Paul Bogard (ed) (2008). Let there be Night: Testimony on behalf of darkness. Reno, Las Vegas: University of Nevada Press.

I also refer to Matthew Beaumont (2015) Night Walking: A nocturnal history of London from Chaucer to Dickens. London, New York: Verso.

Podcasts mentioned:

Patricia Carswell – Girl on the River: The diary of a pint-sized rower

Fran and Richard’s Floating our Boat podcast

General Details

In the intro and the outro, Saint-Saen's The Swan is performed by Karr and Bernstein (1961) and available on CC at archive.org.

Two-stroke narrowboat engine recorded by 'James2nd' on the River weaver, Cheshire. Uploaded to Freesound.org on 23rd June 2018. Creative Commons Licence. 

Piano interludes composed and performed by Helen Ingram.

All other audio recorded on site. 

Contact
For pictures of Erica and images related to the podcasts or to contact me, follow me on:

• Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/noswpod
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nighttimeonstillwaters/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/NoswPod

I would love to hear from you. You can email me at [email protected]

Support the show

Become a 'Lock-Wheeler'
Would you like to support this podcast by becoming a 'lock-wheeler' for Nighttime on Still Waters? Find out more: 'Lock-wheeling' for Nighttime on Still Waters.

Contact

• Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/noswpod
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nighttimeonstillwaters/
• Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/noswpod.bsky.social
• Mastodon: https://mastodon.world/@nosw  

I would love to hear from you. You can email me at [email protected] or drop me a line by going to the nowspod website and using either the contact form or, if you prefer, record your message by clicking on the microphone icon.

For more information about Nighttime on Still Waters

You can find more information and photographs about the podcasts and life aboard the Erica on our website at noswpod.com.