up for discussion – please join in! We also have a letter from the Canal & River Trust. OK, it’s taking us to task a little for a report in the last issue, but it also thanks us for all our efforts, and it’s the first time for a while that CRT (or its predecessor British Waterways) has featured in these pages other than as a target, or at best as an entity to be discussed along the lines of “Are they still the enemy?” I look forward to more from CRT, whether it’s praise for our efforts, putting the other side if they disagree with us, or – even better – contributing to the discussions on how to get more canals restored. And we also have two letters from slightly older volunteers who would like to help us more, but feel inhibited from doing so by our upper age limit and/or our mode of operation (in particular, sleeping on village hall floors). Yes, I’m aware that the answer to the age question is that there is provision for over-70s to be on site (subject to some insurance issues which Head Office can advise on) – but the point that these people provide a good resource that we ought to be encouraging is a valid one. I mentioned the Cotswold Canals (as a home for itinerant canal camps) earlier, and sure enough there are two camp reports from the Cotswold Canals in this issue. There’s also a camp at Bowbridge Lock about to happen over New Year, another two weeks planned for Easter – see Camps Preview, pages 6-7 - and plenty of weekend digs. You could be forgiven for thinking that there’s some sort of a panic on in Gloucestershire right now. Well it’s not actually a panic, but the Cotswold Canals Trust folks have ended up with rather a lot of work to do between now and a year’s time. That’s when they plan to put in their bid to the Heritage Lottery Fund for the cash to restore the next section of canal (Phase 1b in Cotswold parlance) which gives the bit we’re currently working on (Phase 1a) its allimportant navigable link to the outside world via Saul Junction. So not only do we need to finish Phase 1a in order for Phase 1b to make any sense, we also need to do it to show the HLF that we can finish a job once we’ve started it, and demonstrate the credibility that HLF will be looking for when they scrutinise the Phase 1b application. The volunteers’ contribution to Phase 1a is mainly the locks at the upper end: we’ve restored Goughs Orchard and Griffin Mill locks, CCT’s own volunteers are just getting stuck into Ham Mill Lock, and we, the visiting teams (WRG canal camps and WRG regional groups plus NWPG and KESCRG) are cracking on with Bowbridge. But given that Griffin Mill took us about three years, what chance of finishing the rather trickier (given its constricted site and poor state) Bowbridge by late 2015? Well, at least the rebuilding methods chosen include a mortar mix that doesn’t restrict us to summer-only working. So with a good programme of weekend working parties by visiting groups as well as two camps at Easter and several in summer, it isn’t out of the question. But it’s still a lot of work – so do support these (particularly the weekend digs and Easter camps) if you can. All these working parties will need feeding. So in this issue we also have an article by Helen Gardner on what’s involved in being a Canal Camp cook. We included it (a) to encourage anyone who’s thinking of offering their services and to help them understand what they’re volunteering for, (b) to hopefully provoke some discussion and further contributions – Helen makes it clear that her way is just one way of doing stuff – and (c) because somebody suggested via WRG’s Facebook page that it would be a good article to run. Have you any ideas for future articles? Please suggest them. And finally, as ever, we have the ‘Infill’ not-so-serious page – which is in slight danger of being monopolised by Deirdre these days. We’ve had some excellent ‘humorous’ contributions from lots of other folk in the past – please keep them coming in. That leaves just one thing: many thanks from the Editor for all your contributions this year whether it’s camp reports, letters, photos, technical articles, progress reports, or whatever. Also to Robert Goundry for chasing up and collating progress reports, to Dave Wedd for compiling the diary, to John Hawkins for printing the magazine, to Chris Griffiths of Stroudprint for the colour covers, to the team of volunteers at the envelope-stuffing evenings in London, to the Head Office staff, to Lesley for proofreading, and to everyone else who helps to make Navvies what it is (whatever that is!) Not forgetting Deirdre (how could we?) Thank you, best wishes for Christmas, hopefully I’ll see some of you on the New Year Camp and if not, all the best for 2015. Martin Ludgate
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