Love your waterways

A true passion

IWA Campaigns Officer Amy Tillson lives and works aboard a historic narrowboat with her family, and has long championed our inland waterways

Amy and Lucky Duck on the Stratford Canal 2008.

“In less than a year, I went from not knowing what a narrowboat was to living on one,” says Amy Tillson. “We haven’t really looked back, and the more time I’ve spent on waterways and living on boats, the more it’s just become a part of who I am.”

In the 14 years since that first encounter with narrowboats, Amy and her boyfriend (now husband) have thrown themselves into the waterways life. They’ve worked in a boatyard, spent a winter on a fuelboat delivering coal and doing pump-outs (which Amy describes as probably the hardest job she’s ever done), played an active role in several boating associations, and got involved in environmental efforts. Amy is also Campaigns Officer at the Inland Waterways Association.

It all began the year following Amy’s graduation from university when she became friends with liveaboard boaters in Cambridge.

The historic-boat bug

“I realised it was a fantastic community, and that really drew me in,” she says. “It wasn’t to do with the cost or anything, it was more the way of life in the community. That was the big thing that made me want to try it out.”

Initially, Amy and James started out on a modern 48ft narrowboat, although that soon changed. “Almost immediately, we got the historic boat bug,” she says. “We’d spent time with friends on their historic boat, and then we started going to historic boat rallies and joined the committee of the Historic Narrow Boat Club.”

Amy admits to being “a bit of a serial committee joiner”, and it was through that network of people that she met other people who had historic narrowboats, and finally found the couple’s current boat.

“She’s a fantastic old boat, called Willow, built in 1935 by Charles Hill in Bristol. The company built many other large ships, but only eight narrowboats, and she’s one of the eight. And she was built with what was, at that time, the revolutionary technology of welding wrought iron as opposed to riveting. Ours was one of the first-ever welded narrowboats. She’s 72ft long, which is one of the longest narrowboats, as most of the historic traditional working boats were up to 71ft 6in. Willow is a Severner, built for the Severn & Canal Carrying Company. The previous owner had converted the boat with a full cabin extension, and we bought it as a kind of empty shell and fitted it out.”

The couple initially spent six months moving around, although not as continuous-cruisers, as Amy explains: “The Fen waterways we travelled around on are run by the Environment Agency and the Cam Conservancy, not the Canal & River Trust, so there’s no continuouscruising option. We used visitor moorings, which are for 48 hours only. So, we stuck with the rules and moved every other day, although in some places, such as Cambridge, there are two sets of 48-hour visitor moorings, so we could stay for four days.”

After spending the summer on the move, Amy and James wanted a permanent mooring. As there was a waiting list for Cambridge moorings, the couple moored at nearby Waterbeach until they got a residential permit in the city. Here they stayed for more than ten years, living totally off-grid. During that time, the long narrowboat created some interesting challenges.

“We took Willow to Cambridge, down ‘the Backs’ to the Mill Pond. We went there between October and March when you can book passage and get your boat all the way through the centre of the city. Because our 72ft boat can do it, it means any other narrowboat can too. The punt hire operators wanted to put some extra pontoons in for the punts, and the Cam Conservancy agreed, but only if Willow could turn. So they mocked it up with temporary pontoons to see whether we’d still be able to turn. And we could.”

She adds that being on the Conservancy board at the time helped with the discussions.

le A h hA sA r Amy and James, by Willow.

Defending the waterways

There were other interesting and challenging experiences, too, which led to the start of Amy’s involvement in voluntary work for the waterways: “We had a lovely mooring in a great community with great people. But one of the challenges of living afloat is that you are always having to defend your choice of lifestyle – not just (sometimes) to your family or friends, but also to the authorities.”

Amy decided to face up to those challenges. She joined the committee of the local boaters association as the secretary, sat on the board of the Cam Conservancy and on the committee of the Historic Narrow Boat Club.

“We had so many meetings with the council and with the Conservators of the River Cam, which is the navigation authority in the area. There was always talk about raising our fees and generally making life more difficult for us. So we were just continuously fighting.”

That conflict led Amy to set up a River Users Group on the Cam to encourage dialogue between the various river users and resolve conflict. She comments that although the challenges have changed, they’re still there simply because of the lifestyle choices: “We are always an oddity, a bit of a ‘square peg in a round hole’ situation. We keep defending our rights. It’s not always easy.”

The couple later moved to Cheshire to live and work at a boatyard – an experience they greatly enjoyed, particularly learning about the business. It was during this period that she and James spent the winter supplying boaters with fuel and pump-out services. Afterwards, they moved to their current location in London.

Part of my identity

With Willow on a full residential mooring on the Grand Union Canal near Uxbridge, Amy and James are involved in different aspects of waterways life. James is a qualified skipper and steers tugs and freight boats, as well as commercial passenger-boats, including one with a restaurant, and an education boat.

However, the biggest change to the couple’s lives was the arrrival of their son, who is now three years old.

“We’re constantly changing Willow’s interior to make it work for the family, and we’ve got lots of modern luxuries,” comments Amy. “There’s also some lovely woodwork. Her previous owner repaired harmoniums and was an amazing woodworker.”

Bringing up a child on the waterways has its own challenge, she says, adding that it’s a brilliant way of life for him.

“For a start, he doesn’t know anything else, so he doesn’t think he’s missing out on anything,” she explains. “I love how he can spend so much time outside and get to know nature. He knows all the different types of water birds and the difference between moorhens and coots. We’ve got all these birds just outside our window.

“It’s also being part of the boating community. It’s absolutely wonderful for him because he’s met other boat children. Our marina has many families so he’s got lots of friends and we’re in a safe environment around the gated marina. He’s a very sociable three-year-old child as a result.”

Amy continues to be a waterways campaigner, using her experience and education in built environment and climate change research. But she still finds time to do some hobbies, including decorative canal art.

“For a long time, my main hobby was rowing. I spent most of my time on the water and used to row all the time in Cambridge. But now it’s all about roses and castles – that beautiful old-fashioned canal painting. I learned to do it when I was working at the boatyard up in Cheshire. Phil Speight is a master craftsman, and I was so lucky to learn from him in the tradition of the old working boatyards and decorative painting.”

Amy painted professionally when she worked at the yard and has done a few commissions since then. However, she says it’s mostly a hobby now, although she hopes to do more as her son gets older.

“I just absolutely love all the history and heritage that goes with it. That’s one of the reasons we have an old boat – I love being part of that long tradition of living and working on the waterways. I’ve done that for quite a while and now it feels like it’s part of my identity.”

Above:

Signwriting. JAmes TIdy

Above right:

Blacking at Streatham. JAmes TIdy

right: Helping

hands! JAmes TIdy

left: Painted

Ware. A. TIllson

The nerdy career

Working with IWA means getting to know the waterways around the country, and Amy adds that it’s such an important infrastructure: “I’ve been lucky enough to travel some of it, but through my job, I get to learn about all the interesting people and places across the whole system.”

She is currently involved in the heritage campaign and believes the waterways can help meet the challenges of adapting to climate change.

“Water resources are going to be critically important as a result of climate change. We need to make sure our waterways can help mitigate that by such things as transferring water from places where there’s a lot of water to places where there’s less, and using the navigations to transfer water. Perhaps using restored networks to transfer water instead of building a pipeline. Use the waterways for transporting freight as a great way to take lorries off the road and reduce emissions. That’s what they were built for. We’ve got a huge number of big rivers, big waterways, that can economically transport large amounts of freight.”

Amy concludes that her continued involvement with the waterways community, along with her most recent work as Campaigns Officer with IWA, means she’s “made a career out of being nerdy about the waterways”.