WRG at 40 Forty views for forty years
“WRG is ultimately a self-licking lollipop” – Rick Barnes (but whatever does he mean?)
40 Views for 40 Years The 14th in a series of articles to celebrate WRG’s 40th(-ish) birthday by capturing the views of people who have been involved in various capacities. Sticking with the Cotswolds, time to find WRG Director and National Festival man Rick Barnes and see how far I could get before he could incriminate me. Though the benefit of writing it up is I get to edit those bits out if required... A: It stems from a very long-held boating background really. Been boating for a number of years, and I ended up in a situation with an awful lot of leave one year and I thought ‘ah – I’ve known about WRG for a number of years – I haven’t really done anything – perhaps I’ll give it a go’. Back in the – it seems dim and distant – days of 1998 I booked on a canal camp to go to Droitwich. Not too far away from where I was, so that if I didn’t like it I could go home again. It all kind of went downhill from there. It’s been fun ever since.
Q: What made you come back after that first week? A: A mixture of things: partially really enjoyed the work, [I’m a] practi-
All pictures by Martin Ludgate
Q: How and when did you first get involved with WRG?
cal person, [and enjoy] building stuff; continuing to enjoy the canals; but particularly the people. The canal camp we were on (that you’ll remember I’m sure), the people were absolutely fantastic, really, really welcoming and made you feel part of one big happy family type thing. Some characters in particular stood out as ever they do.
Q: What was the work that week? A: A variety of things, mainly brickwork – taking it out, pointing, clearing the pound just in front of the lock chamber. It was all on the Droitwich on the Junction Canal. It was a bit of an unknown quantity because nobody was sure what we were going to be finding and what needed to be done.
Q: What was your next step? A: I actually came back and did the National in 1998 at Salford Quays. A mud fest which I have succeeded in repeating several times with my work with festivals. Again, very interesting group of people; lots of people there; lots going on and just really enjoyed it.
Q: How did you interest in boats start in the first place? A: Some of my relatives have been very long-term supporters of canals and owned boats. Just recently we found an old cine film that showed me as a four/five year old pushing (probably very ineffectually) on a balance beam. Going boating with them for day trips and that sort of thing. Then occasionally going away for the weekend with them. First full-time holiday was back in the early 80s. It’s scary looking back.
Q: How did the Salford national differ from the camp? A: The number of people; partially the types of work; partially the challenges involved: like ooh – we need to get a pay booth across this rather broken bridge. It was almost – you want this doing? Let’s go away and find out a way of doing it. It was very much the implementation side of things that was interesting at Salford – the problem solving. After Salford I went back to Droitwich and assisted a certain person on a canal camp – just before the
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