1950s - Canoeing on the River Wey

Some of my earliest boating involved family picnics taken on the River Wey in hired skiffs, punts, and even a canoe.

Late 1960s - Boating with Friends on the River Wey

Having left school and started work, boating then meant trips with friends. These tended to be either my or Mike's colleagues from work.

1970s - Trips aboard "Matchmaker" Tony's Sharkie

Another friend, Tony Herbert, bought a small GRP yacht called a Sharkie. He kept her at Bosham in Chichester Harbour.

25 October 1998 - A Campaigning Cruise up Soham Lode

I learned of a campaign to open Soham Lode to navigation and join an intrepid pary of boaters and dignitaries attempting to reach Soham by boat.

I spend most of my time aboard friend, Robert Laws' boat St Kilda.

June 1999 - Attempt to Navigate Soham Lode

Steve King invited me to help him attempt to navigate Soham Lode as part of a campaign started the previous year by Tony Hinsley.

The attempt was filmed by Anglia TV and included in their programme on volunteering opportunities on the waterways.

6 August 2001 - A Short Trip aboard nbFulbourne

I cadge a lift aboard nb Fulbourne, a restored 70ft working narrowboat, as she makes the transfer from the Middle Level to the Great Ouse.

18 May 2002 - Operating The Ely Trip Boat

Ely boasts a Cathedral, known as "The Ship of the Fens". It also used to have a trip boat, operated by Steve King.

I'd encountered Steve, on an Internet newsgroup in 1998 and met him in February 1999 when I went to see him fitting out the steel shell he'd bought that would become Liberty Belle, that trip boat. Here you will find a 3,800 word article that I posted on the newsgroup about the day Steve invited me to skipper her.

January 2007 - All Along The Waterfront

I feel it's time to give more prominence to a page that's been on the site since 2021, my article, published in January 2007, about Steve King and his trip boat Liberty Belle. It was the sixth I had submitted to be published in the magazine that had become "Anglia Afloat". This page features the main article and adds photographs submitted but not used when published. The "Biography of a Boatman" column that forms part of the published article was added to the site in 2010 when I learnt of Steve's death.

1 July 2008 - Fancy A Dirty Weekend?

I take a trip to the River Gipping to see a work party in action that was rebuilding a lock. The event had been organised by the Waterways Recovery Group and I was gathering material for a magazine article.

A much shortened version of my submission appeared in Anglia Afloat Issue #34.

16-18 October 2009 - A Cruise Aboard Black Diamond

Responding to an invitation on a Norfolk Broads Forum I end up as one of the crew aboard Black Diamond, a 45ft ocean going yacht, based in Hartlepool marina.

The plan is for a weekend cruise to the Farne Islands with half a dozen strangers. Thanks to a storm, we are restricted to port for almost 24 hours so end up going south to Whitby instead. It's a shame it's taken me 15 years to write the report as my memory is a little hazy.

26 October 2010 - Steve King Remembered

On this day I learnt of Steve King's death earlier this year. I wrote a blog, which included a biography I had written for Anglia Afloat Magazine three years earlier. Now, some ten years later, the blog post has been moved to this site and I have taken the opportunity to add a number of related pages containing some of my memories of Steve.

16-20 July 2011 - A Trip to Germany

Diana and I go to visit her brother in Germany. We take a ferry across the Rhine near the Lorelei and go canoeing on the Lahn at Weilburg, paddling through the only waterway tunnel in Germany. (Our hosts stick to a Pedlo!).

28 August 2013 - A New Boating Interest?

I report on our house move which took place a few months earlier. We now live in what was intended to be the manager's house of a fishing holiday complex. Otters became regular visitors before we bought the place so the fishing's not so good now, but is does mean you need a boat to keep the lake tidy.