Spent the day with Faber New Poet Will Burns – who walks the Wendover Arm of the Grand Union Canal to nourish his sense of wellbeing – and festival director Joanna Cherry, who uses England’s longest canal as her regular “runaway spot”.

David Bramwell spends the day with angler, author and squeaky-gate appreciator Chris Yates, to talk about our very natural connection with water.

Retired carpenter Derek Keller worked on our waterways in the years before the Canal & River Trust took over their guardianship. Now a Friend of the Trust, Derek has a boatload of extraordinary stories to share. Finally, our resident gongoozler John Shuttleworth joins us for another mischievous waterway fact.

David meets up with poet and Radio 3 presenter Ian Macmillan by the Calder and Hebble canal, to talk poetry and waterways, to hear Ian read a few of his own and to learn more about work in this area from CRT volunteer, the appropriately named Hilary Brook.

David spends a day on the Oxford Canal with Mark Robinson and Hugh Warwick. Both do important work for conservation groups and CRT, exploring and opening up canals as green pathways for wildlife. Together they look for evidence of different animals on the towpath and in the water, including otters, bats and leaf cutter bees.

Mercury Prize-winning musician Sam Lee meets up with David to discuss the relationship between water and Britain’s folk heritage. And, of course, Sam’s more than happy to belt out a few classics by the fireside. To wrap it all up Britain’s Got Talent semi-finalist Lorraine Bowen plays us out with her enchanting song, ‘Land Shanty’.

Presenter David Bramwell heads to Kings Cross St Pancras for the grand unveiling of a new pair of 2.5 tonne lock gates. This special CRT open-day offered him the chance to visit the St Pancras Water Tower, take a canalise-side historical tour and even meet some 19th century navvies!

Alice Lapworth shares tales of her life as a bargee in the 1950s, sharing space with a family of 11, sleeping under her parents’ bed and jiving to gramophone music on the towpath

David heads to South Yorkshire to discover how a forest of figs came to be growing along the banks of the Don and to uncover one of the greatest river success-stories of recent times: the return of the salmon.

David and author Dixe Wills explore Kent’s Royal Military Canal, a unique waterway version of Hadrian’s Wall, built to protect Britain from a French invasion. With guest appearances from John Shuttleworth and Ken Worthington.