Holiday Hiring Lionel Munk and Maid Line
The late Captain Lionel Munk was chairman of The Inland Waterways Association from 1958 to 1970, guiding the Association through one of the most difficult periods of waterway history, culminating in the passing of the 1968 Transport Act. This resulted in a new order for much of the waterway network. He also served as chairman of the Kennet & Avon Canal Association (later to become the K&A Canal Trust) and the Association of Pleasure Craft Operators (APCO). He is probably best remembered, however, as the founder of Maid Line, later Maidboats Ltd. From humble beginnings, this became one of the largest and most famous canal and river hire fleets. Expanding from the Thames, Captain Munk subsequently established a base at Brinklow on the Northern Oxford Canal. He was one of the first operators to regularly display canal cruisers at the Earls Court Boat Show, thus attracting many new people to the waterways. It was often said that he elevated the status of boating holidays in the social order of things: to take a canal holiday, in comfort, was no longer deemed to be eccentric. IWA co-founder Robert Aickman once remarked: “History may well decide that Captain Munk’s most important contribution to the waterways cause was the Maid Line fleet. For large scale boating for pleasure as envisaged by Captain Munk played an entirely indispensable part in securing the survival of the waterways.” Captain Lionel Munk with IWA activist Felix Pearson.
Boating Agencies
Whilst primarily associated with holidays on the Norfolk Broads, the major agencies Blakes and Hoseasons began to represent canal-based hire companies in the 1970s. They advertised minimum standards of comfort and facilities, and gave newcomers to the waterways a sense of security with the product they were booking. Both still operate today, with Blakes having some 470 craft available in the UK, and Hoseasons advertising 2,300 boats worldwide. Other agencies have joined them in recent years, most of them internet-orientated. They include Drifters, Latelink.com and Waterways Holidays, based in Aldershot.
26
DAVID BOLTON
Early canal cruisers came in all shapes and sizes and were, by today’s standards, decidedly primitive. Toilets were either ‘bucket and chuck it’, with shovels supplied to bury the contents, or were sea-toilets, flushing straight into the canal (unthinkable, and indeed illegal, today). On board heating was largely non-existent and drinking water was generally stored in bulky containers. Outboard engines were the norm, and lengthy treks carrying petrol cans to distant garages were all part of the canal holiday. Then came the steel narrowboat and with it, in stages, came water-cooled diesel engines, proper drinking-water tanks, better cooking and heating facilities and, perhaps best of all, pumpout toilets. The advances in boat technolgy and design have continued and the hire boat of 2010 is a real home-from-home featuring showers, central heating, full-sized cookers and fridges, colour TVs, DVD players and videos. Over the years operators have come and gone. There were Shropshire Union Cruises at Norbury Junction, Ladyline at Barbridge, Aylesbury Cruisers, Club Line Cruisers at Coventry and Brummagem Boats in central Birmingham, to name but a few. All are now consigned to history. British Waterways had a go at hiring too in the 1960s and ‘70s, and were berated by other operators for doing so; “landlords competing on unfair terms with their tenants” was the oft repeated complaint. They gave up after a while, to concentrate on running the waterways. But other operators came and stayed. The industry produces more than its fair share of great survivors, big and small. Anglo-Welsh, Alvechurch Boat Centres and Black Prince have all been on the scene for 30 years or more, but so too have small family concerns like Chas Hardern on the Shropshire Union Canal and Teddesley Boat Company on the Staffs & Worcs Canal.
WATERWAY IMAGES
Primitive to luxurious
Maid Line’s Maid Mary Sheila at Watford Locks on the Leicester Section of the Grand Union Canal in the 1970s.
| IWA waterways - Winter 2010
Holiday Hiring.indd 26
20/10/10 11:44:16