Nighttime on Still Waters

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What is it about the heron that makes it such a frequent subject for social media posts featuring canal and riverside birds? There is something about it that is strange, singular almost. Spotting one is often felt to be a significant event that should be recorded and remembered. This week we look at the heron in the company of Dylan Thomas, John Moriarty, and Wendell Berry, and explore why it has such an impact on us.  

Journal entry:

“15th May, Saturday

There are times, sitting here, that stillness seems to fill the boat
 Like morning light 
 Pooling and seeping into every corner and crack. 
 It’s not silence 
        Nor even a quietness
 - Though it is both of those.

And all I can hear is Penny softly breathing,
 My pen scratching on paper,
 A wood pigeon’s lazy call.

Even the second-hand on the clock seems to move slower.”         

Episode Information

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.  

In this episode I read a passage from John Moriarty’s (2007) What the Curlew Said: Nostos continued. University of Michigan: Lilliput Press. 

I also read ‘The Heron’ by Wendell Berry that can be found in his (2018) anthology The Peace of Wild Things: And other poems. London: Penguin Books

The book I refer to by Richard Jeffries (1879) is his Wildlife in a Southern County of which many versions exist. It has recently been republished, with an introduction by Richard Mabey by Little Toller – Wildlife in a Southern County.

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 the rains swept in pushed by great fronts of ocean air – moisture from places with magical names that I hear on the shipping forecast and can only imagine. Life around progressed without a murmur and the ground drank heavily. 

In this episode we listen to the rain and to Thomas Merton. We also thinking about casting clouts and what that might mean.  

Journal entry:

“7th May, Friday

It was -1⁰ when I got up this morning.
 The sky was lightening in the east
 and the trees and hedgerows, 
 beside the night-edged cut, sang. 

Buttery waves of golden light 
 wash over the retreating frost.
 The sky is blue as Penny and I 
 Walk on starfields of ice. 

They glitter and sparkle, 
 But not as brightly as the notes
 Of the blackbird’s song, that pour 
 From that tree, over there, 
 In the corner.”                            

Episode Information

The Mindful Narrowboat vlog
You can enjoy Vanessa’s (and Zephyr, her dog) mindful narrowboat adventures cruising on NB Alice Grace by following The Mindful Narrowboat vlog. 

 Readings

In this episode I read a passage from Thomas Merton’s (2003) When the Trees say Nothing. Notre Dame: Sorin Books.

I also read ‘Sheep in the Rain’ by Tom Hennen which can be found in his (2013) Darkness Sticks to Everything. Washington: Copper Canyon Press. 

I also refer to:

Ruth Binney (2010) Weather Lore. Country Words and Country Ways series. Cincinnati: David and Charles.

Charles Dack (1911) Weather and Folklore of Peterborough and District. Peterborough: Peterborough Natural history, Scientific, and Archaeological Society. 

Miles Hadfield (1950) An English Almanac. London: JM Dent and Sons.

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

A lifetime ago, almost to the day, it turned cooler after an uncustomary warm and dry couple of weeks. Synoptic charts show high pressure moving up the country dragging with it frontal systems. No doubt, on that day, some looked at the clouds and grumbled. And life carried on as it had the days before. Engines shunted in sidings. People waited at bus stops. Shop tills rang out. Dogs barked. And, in the cabin of a small boat moored on the bank of the Grand Union, I took my first breath of air; sweet with cow pasture, and nettles, and paraffin. 

Journal entry:

“27th April, Tuesday.

This morning dawned with frost and golden washes of light. 
 I discovered a new patch of cowslips and hawthorns budding, and the first mallow and bugle clusters shouldering their way into the sunshine. 
 It should have been perfect. 
 The birds sang with a brilliant clarity managing to subsume the aural gash of traffic.
 But it wasn’t. 

Everything felt a little off kilter. 
 My shoulders and legs ached. 
 - Not so much in pain – just an awareness of them being there, 
 So that walking was not an automatic act, 
 But a conscious and deliberative one. 
 Consequently, it felt awkward, clumsy – not natural.

The morning chill lost that exhilarating feel and sank into my bones. 
 A racing mind that gravitates to the dark edges
 Where formless unease lurks. 

It was not that I was untouched by the world in which I walked, 
 Those spots of beauty – touches of joy, 
 But sometimes perfection and beauty lie in the small details
 Not the whole. 

Even Eden had its serpent.
 Et in Arcadia ego
‘Even in Arcadia , there I am.’”    

Episode Information

In this episode I talk about my mother’s memoirs that she wrote about her time living on the canal. You can hear more about her in Episode 2 The Erica behind the Erica and hear me reading an excerpt from her writing in which she described the harsh winter of 1963 in Episode 9 The Winter of 1962/63. 

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

Back where we belong. Under an old ash tree and a full April moon.
After nearly five months of restricted movements, we’re back home, out on the canal! Join us as we stop over at one of our most favourite places to tie up for the night. The sun is warm, the air is soft, and the moon is big. 

Journal entry:

“23rd April, Thursday.

Sitting up here on the roof of Erica
 I am surrounded by warmth and the sounds of life. 
 The water beneath my feet shifts in tessellating patterns of light;
 It is the taupey brown of old Morris Minors. 

There’s a slow easterly breeze that has the edge of freshness,
 But the afternoon sun is warm on my shoulders.
 I can feel the boat gently move beneath me – like something alive. 

Erica is back in her natural environment.” 

Episode Information

For some photographs and short videos – see the posts on Nighttime on Still Waters’ Facebook, Instagram and Twitter pages.
 
 

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

At the beginning of the week we were waking up to snow and each nights the temperatures have been slipping below zero. However, the days are filled with sunshine and warmth, and a vibrancy fills the word. Spring has arrived.  A few years ago, I discovered something wonderful that the isophenes of Spring tell us about the the progress of the season.  
 We also join the poet, writer, and naturalist, Edward Thomas, at the end of his 1913 bicycle ride in Pursuit of Spring and finds, high on the Quantocks Hills, the grave of Winter.   

Journal entry:

“15th April, Thursday.

Today was one of those perfect Spring days.
 The air still had that edge of ice to it,
 But the day was filled with a thick, syrupy, warmth
      that was heavy with blossom and insects.
 And there was that light that you seem to get only in April;
      the flooded, chalky, palettes you find
      in the paintings of Krøyer and the other Scandinavian artists.  

The day, and the season, is as fresh and as sweet as Spearmint Chewing Gum. 

Episode Information

In this episode refer to and read a short passage from Edward Thomas’ (1914) In Pursuit of Spring. A free (open access) copy can be found on the Project Guttenberg site which incidentally features a rather lovely picture of two narrowboats on the Paddington canal as a frontispiece -  Edward Thomas: In Pursuit of Spring.

For those interested in Edward Thomas’ wife, Helen, you can read her two lyrical and poignant autobiographies, As it Was and World without End in the collected edition, Under Storm’s Wing (2012) published by Carcanet. 

I also read a very short extract from Miles Hadfield (1950) An English Almanac published by JM Dent and Sons.

For progress on the ducks and swans – see the Nighttime on Still Waters Facebook, Instagram and Twitter accounts.
 
 

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

Boat blacking is when the hull of a boat is painted or sprayed with a protective – usually bitumen-based – paint to help minimise corrosion of the steel hull. For painted blacking, it is a process that occurs every 2 to 3 years. This week it was NB Erica’s turn for blacking, a time of convergence between ‘canal time’ and ‘land time.’  

Journal entry:

“10th April, Saturday.

I’ll show you something wonderful.
 - Go through the little swing gate in front of you. 
 Keep straight on. Go through the next gate into the field over which the ravens call. 
 Keep walking with the canal on your right.
 Mind your footing, the ground is a bit lumpy and can be boggy when wet. 
 The sun should be rising in front of you, a little to your left.
 There you will see a tangled old blackthorn tree,
       Fallen in last year’s storms,
           Crushing the barbed wire fence beneath it. 
 Today it is wreathed in the aura of delicate white petals, that smell of honey jars.

Even fallen trees can blossom.” 

Episode Details

You can see pictures of the Erica being craned in and out of the canal and the blacking on the Nighttime on Still Waters Facebook page, and on Instagram and Twitter (links below).
 
 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

A listener has asked, "After we left the boat and went to live in a house, did canals continue to play much of a part in my life?"
After the boat, we moved to Kings Langley, Hertfordshire. It was there I grew up and found my place within the world. At the time it was still a fairly small village. The main industry was the Ovaltine factory that bordered the Grand Union Canal which bisected the village. Working boats were still a relatively common sight. As well as through traffic from London to Birmingham and other cities to the north, they serviced the local industries; Ovaltine, Toovey's Mill, the John Dickinson mills at Nash Mills and Apsley, and Rose’s Lime Juice at Boxmoor Warf, Hemel Hempstead. 

As time went on, the number of working decreased, but the canal remained as a key part of the village and social topography and geography. 

“The canal wasn’t part of my life in a deliberate way. But that was because it was unconsciously so much part of our environment; the geographies of growing up.
 The playground and classroom that we all just took for granted.”

Journal entry:

“25th March, Thursday.

Tonight, the air is warm and still.
 The cabin doors are open. 
 The sounds and scents of a spring-time night
         fill the boat.

It is difficult to tell where the boat ends and the night begins” 

Episode Details

In this episode I read a few lines from John Clare’s (1820) The Shepherd’s Calendar. The text to ‘March’ can be read here - Poem Hunter: The Shepherd’s Calendar - March. 

I also refer to Ruth Binney’s (2010) Wise Words and Country Ways: Weather Lore published by David & Charles.

If you are interested in seeing Captain Mark Dexter’s picture of the Suez Canal, his Instagram account is: The Woodend Wanderer.

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 journey from winter into spring is often messy and ill-defined. Sometimes it feels as if we are making progress and at others the cold and damp of winter days returns. As we are also contemplating moving from lockdown it is not surprising that we can feel a bit of kilter. Reflecting on an encounter in WH Hudson’s book A Shepherd’s Life, there are times when we feel like a small boy lost among the ocean waves of the South Downs and at others the man on the bicycle.      

Journal entry:

“18th March, Thursday.

Today has been filled with the kind of skies in which rooks exalt. Throwing ragged silhouettes upon the beating wind. Ecstatic heraldry. 

Breathe deep, if you can.

Things are not right
 Nor will they ever be.
 But there are signals of joy,
 Like a bush burning in the wilderness.” 

Episode Details

In this episode I read Wendell Berry’s poem ‘Another Descent’ from his collection (2018) The Peace of Wild Things published by Penguin Books.

The encounter between the cyclist and the bird-scarer comes from WH Hudson’s (1910) A Shepherd’s Life: Impressions of the South Wiltshire Downs. You can read a digitised copy of this book, as part of the Project Guttenberg site, here: A Shepherd’s Life. 

I also refer to Lisa Schneidau’s (2018) Botanical Folktales of Britain and Ireland published by The History Press.

If you are interested in Patricia Carswell’s Girl on the River podcast, you can listen to it here.

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

These are the days of swan nests and duck eggs, but the call of a lone swan circling overhead, perhaps captures more precisely the tensions we feel moving through the seasons. 
The seasonal shifts in the activity of the swans and ducks are becoming increasingly visible reflecting the wider patterns of movement. Boats leaving and others moving in. Everything is in a state of transition; we are all in a state of transition.    

Journal entry:

“13th March, Saturday.

Sitting here in the well deck, at the messy edge of late winter in the silence before dawn, the world feels as blank as the year, but everywhere is full of life to come that will occur in summer.
 The life still unborn,
        the bees, dragon flies, 
             the gnats that will dance above the waters.

And then there will be the ducks that I will meet
          who will perplex me with their behaviour.

And the loosestrife flare
         and dandelion globe,
                the shimmer of light through silver birch leaves that are yet unformed.

The smell of rain on hot pavements
          the nettle flower I will see
                   and the millions I will miss. 

Do swallows darting across African skies, as I sit here, 
 dream of English summers as I do?”         

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 fascination of boots and canals. Boots have always been one of the most essential pieces of equipment for canals and canal-life. 
In this episode we re-join impresario, journalist and social reformer, James Hollingshead on his journey up what would later be known as the Grand Union in the late 1850s. We will discover his fascination with the footwear of those working on the canals and find out that the importance of the boot for canal-life is every bit as true today as it was in Victorian times.   

Journal entry:

“5th March, Friday.

This week, after an absence of some weeks, the cormorant is regularly back.
 Always circling the tree two or three times,
 Always alighting on the same branch.

The names we give to it sing like a litany or a darkly gothic ballad.

Brongie, coal goose, cowe’en elder, lairblade, parson, morvran, carn-hoverer, sea crow, scart.

It’s as if we recognise that we can never capture a life like this in a single name;
 Its strange elusive beauty,
 Its sleekness, its elegance and poise.

Balanced there on that gnarled branch
 Caught somewhere between darkness and light.”

Episode Information

In this episode I read some extracts from John Hollingshead’s ‘On the Canal’ published in Odd Journeys in and out of London (1860). 

I also read excerpts from John Clare’s (1820) The Shepherd’s Calendar. The text to ‘March’ can be read here - Poem Hunter: The Shepherd’s Calendar - March. 

I also read the last verse of John Masefield’s (1903) ‘Cargoes’. The full poem can be read here: John Masefield – Cargoes.

You can view Coalboat Alton’s photographs here
On Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/coalboat_alton/
On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Coalboat.Alton  
 

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.