Camp report
Easter on the Wilts & Berks
One canal, two sites, three leaders: Di Smurthwaite reports from the first Canal Camp of 2007...
Wilts & Berks Easter Camp, 2007 I d try to co-ordinate our camp story.
We had between 14 to 17 on the camp, most of them seasoned campaigners, with three newcomers. Two of them, Shantelle and Laura, were D-of-E-ers, and Adam (who became known as Digger ) was a student civil engineer. His nickname arose because he was used to driving excavators and dumpers at work, and Rachael was quickly able to pass him for his WRG tickets. He was apparently surprised to find so many oldies on the camp - he thought that it would be mostly youngsters working under a supervisor - but the best thing was that they all worked hard and enjoyed themselves, and promised to come on more camps. Paul Ireson was unaware of the camp, but was camping at Malmesbury, and called by to see how far Lock 4 had progressed since he was last there. On finding us slaving away there,
John Hawkins
Whether we have global warming to thank, or just luck, there can t have been many Easter camps with 9 days of brilliant weather - resulting in a fantastic amount of work achieved. We had two major projects under way on the Wilts & Berks, so it had been decided to run the camp on two sites, with at least two leaders, which in fact turned out to be three. Rachael was the only one who was able to be there for the whole camp, leading the work on Lock 4 at 7 Locks. At Steppingstones Bridge, Mike Palmer was leading from Saturday through to Thursday night, when Adrian was able to get away from work to lead through to the end on Monday. As cook, I was there throughout (although we were lucky enough to enjoy Jude s cooking on the first day), so I thought
Pouring concrete backfill behind the new nearside brick wall at Lock 4, Seven Locks
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