Roughly three and a half years ago I was travelling along the North Stratford Canal towards Birmingham with my friend Illia. We were both single-handed, as usual.
Illia raised a lift bridge and got back onto her boat to go through. As she did, another boat appeared coming the other way, so I had to hang back.
I’d already spotted that my chimney would need to come off to get under the bridge, so I took it off and put it beside my feet.
Then followed one of those slow-motion boating moments where everything becomes unexpectedly complicated. Boats were juggling for position, the shallow canal was throwing spanners into delicate manoeuvres, and there was a fair amount of rapid recalculation going on.
I was concentrating so hard on all of this that I completely forgot where I’d put the chimney.
And pushed it into the canal.
Gutted.
Absolutely furious with myself, I screamed in frustration. Illia was probably wondering exactly who she had hooked up with.
We tried to find it. A magnet was no use because the chimney is stainless steel. Poking around with a boat hook yielded nothing.
Eventually, we had to leave it there.
For the next couple of years I looked for it every time I passed beneath that lift bridge. Rich on Roach even donned a full drysuit and got into the canal to search for it.
Nothing.
And then, before Christmas, the Ebsford Environmental dredging team arrived.
They were based at Swallow Cruisers, and while I was there catching up with Daniel Allen I met Xavier Sargenti, their senior site manager. I mentioned my long-lost chimney in passing and thought no more about it.
Until today.
My chimney has come back.
The dredging team found it in the silt and returned it to me.
After more than three years sitting at the bottom of the North Stratford Canal, it is looking remarkably well.
THANK YOU to everyone on the dredgers who found it and made sure it got back to me.
It means far more than a slightly battered stainless-steel chimney probably ought to.
