> In message <6ig8a2Fp3k00U1@mid.individual.net>
> John Williamson btinternet.com> wrote:
>

>> Graeme Wall wrote:
>>

> [snip]

>>> Is there any commercial traffic on the canal system these days, MSC
>>> excepted?
>>>

>> There was still a guy with a boat selling coal along the Oxford & Grand
>> Union canals to places without road access as of last year. There's
>> still the touring theatre boat, ( http://www.mikron.org.uk/ )and BWB are
>> pushing for growth, according to their website:-
>>
>> http://www.britishwaterways.co.uk/london/freight

>
> I like their bit about developing a mumti-modal transport behicle for
> road/rail/river. It's called a container surely!
>

> Good to see they are looking at it seriously and sensibly. No doubt some
> civil servant will now come along and tell us it can't be done and is just
> grown men playing boats.
>

>> I vaguely remember some timber being carried on the River Lee until
>> fairly recently too, but that was a dying trade.

>
> Used for making coffins?
>

>>>> (Jason & his pair on the Grand Union delivering lime juice from the
>>>> docks to Roses at Hemel Hempstead in the 70s & early 80s. *Never* get
>>>> in his way, his boats were *heavy* & made of thick steel & they'd got
>>>> no brakes.)
>>>>

>>> I've heard of him I'm sure, something of a character IIRC.
>>>

>> Oh, yessss...... :-)
>>
>> He ran Jason's trip out of Little Venice for a while after the lime
>> juice run stopped, & I'm racking my brains now trying to remember his
>> surname. Murrell, that's it. He's from at least the third generation of
>> a boating family. I'd not want to swear he was born on a boat, but I'm
>> pretty sure his Mum was. T & D Murrell on the sides of the boats, from
>> Tam & Di, his parents.

>
> That's the bloke!
>

>> It's all coming back now.....
>>

>
> Steady on, take deep breaths...
>
>