Wilts & Berks Canal Christmas Camp 26th Dec 2004 – 1st Jan 2005 We started planning for the two Christmas / New Year camps on the Wilts & Berks back in October – one the official camp on the Melksham Branch, and the other the unofficial one on the Foxham / Lyneham Branch, which has become an annual event. The reason we planned early was because Colin Fletcher, the Chairman of the Melksham Branch, was going to Australia for six weeks, and would probably not be around at the time WRG set the leadership plans in process. Colin and I decided that it would save funds for both branches if we shared accommodation (the Scout Hall at Calne), and even shared the work if necessary, so Colin suggested I could speak to WRG about it. The plan was for the majority to indulge in the usual winter work of scrub-bashing-and-stumppulling-and-big-bonfires, starting with complete clearance of the section from Pewsham Top Lock down to Double Bridge, then move on to Foxham on Seven Locks, where a lot of scrub clearance was also needed. For those who preferred more variety and a challenge, work could continue on the various sections of the Foxham / Lyneham Branch.
New Year on the Wilts & Berks Canal The scheduled work on the Foxham / Lyneham section also changed, for quite different reasons. We had already arranged to have the excavator ‘Blue’ for the week, then some friends of mine from a local engineering firm asked if they could park their digger at Dauntsey while they were not using it. Shortly after that another friend, who runs a hire company, said that he was bringing in all his hire machines for that week, and was running out of space in his yard, and could we park one at Dauntsey? So before we knew it we were awash with diggers – my 12-tonne JCB, ‘Blue’ and the hire company’s 3-tonne diggers, and the engineer’s 20-tonne machine. Following the tradition that has something to do with mouths and gift-horses, we set to with a Will (and anyone else with digger tickets) with dredging, moving infill, building up the towpath etc. Perhaps fortunately, the first few days saw freezing conditions, so the ground was good and firm so we didn’t churn it up too much. All was going well, but after heavy overnight rain we had a break from digging and spreading, and burned big piles of brash that had been previously cut out of the hedge by Essex WRG prior to hedge-laying in January. All the logs and bigger trunks were heaved over the hedge into the field for later collection by tractor and trailer: we raise funds for the canal by selling logs.
Luke Walker
However, as we all know, plans have to be flexible where canal restoration is concerned, and rarely work out exactly as expected, and for two quite separate reasons things turned out quite differently. Firstly we found out when Navvies 208 was sent out just before Christmas that the WRG camp had been moved from the Wilts & Berks, so we had to hastily change the accommodation to a slightly smaller one at Foxham Reading Rooms, and – to Colin’s disappointment – no scrub clearance was possible at Pewsham.
Camp reports
“More like a real canal than ever”: the view from Dauntsey Lock
Then back to the diggers – but disaster! My digger, which had been sitting in a field on the offside, three quarters of a mile from a road in either direction, had been broken into and the alternator, fuel lift pump, water separator and filter had been half-inched. They had been so carefully unbolted that it was obvious that the b*****s knew exactly what they were looking for. The other three diggers, which were parked nearer the Peterborough Arms and therefore much more accessible, had not been touched. We had had the pump running all night to lower the water level ready for dredging, even groping our way up the towpath on the way out of the pub at closing time to top up the fuel in the pump, and my 12-tonne digger had been in exactly the right place to continue the dredging.
page 11