There has been a rather spectacular piece of chrome living on the roof of Craftybird.
It has been there ever since I was filmed for the Channel 4 programme Narrow Escapes. I ditched it only recently!
In the final edit, this large piece of battered chrome got about three seconds of screen time. Blink and you’d miss it. I’d like to tell you the whole story here as I really think it deserves a mention!
It was the final day of filming and John Shackleton, the cameraman, and I had spent the morning travelling from Bumble Hole Nature Reserve, through Netherton Tunnel and towards Tipton Canal Festival.
The canal was full of long strands of weed efficiently collecting plastic bags and debris, which were then being efficiently collected by Craftybird’s propeller. Every few hundred yards we slowed to a crawl and I had to stop and clear it.
Eventually we reached the festival, where more than 60 boats had turned up. I knew I was mooring next to Roach, but Lloyd, who was also mooring master, shouted across that I needed to go up to Dudley Tunnel Museum and turn so both boats would be facing the same way.
Getting through the festival took ages, mostly because of all the waving and exchanging of greetings or insults, depending on who I saw. On the towpath the Withymoor Island boaters were having a party around a couple of kegs of beer. I spotted Rich from Roach among them and told him I was off to turn.
At the museum there was enough room to wind a 70-foot boat. Traditionally, winding meant using the wind to help swing an unpowered boat around. On this occasion the wind was doing precisely the opposite.
It was blowing straight down the canal and I needed to make a U-turn directly into it. I got Craftybird partway around before a particularly strong gust caught her and made completing the turn impossible, so I reversed away to try again.
For once, because we were travelling backwards at a reasonable pace, I could actually steer her.
Suddenly the engine started to stall.
My enormous vintage Lister JP2 engine.
Stalling.
I didn’t even know it was possible to stall a JP2.
I turned it off immediately and there followed a stream of hardcore profanities. What I had forgotten was that the tiny microphone pinned to my dress meant John could hear every word.
By now we were floating silently in the middle of the canal.
“Let me film you opening the weed hatch and seeing what it is,” he said.
After all the visits to the weed hatch that morning, this was the one time we were both genuinely interested.
I opened it.
All I could see was chrome. A sea of shiny silver metal, massive and completely intimidating.
I gave it a tug. Nothing moved.
I decided I needed tools. In these situations I always think it’s good to phone a friend, even if they can’t reasonably do anything to help.
“Rich, do you have any tin snips?”
“No.”
“Can you find some?”
“Not easily. I’m having a beer.”
“Does anyone near you have any tin snips I can borrow?”
“I can ask, I suppose. Where are you?”
“By the Dudley Museum turning.”
“Which side of the towpath?”
“It doesn’t matter. You can board either side. We are currently at a 45-degree angle across the canal.”
Why I thought tin snips were going to cut it with the chrome monster, I have no idea.
When I returned, John was in the weed hatch wrestling with it.
“I think I’ve got it to move,” he shouted. “Can you grab it from the outside and give it a tug?”
I did, and eventually the enormous chrome monster came free from Craftybird’s prop.
It appeared to be a crumpled piece of a bus bumper.
John suggested filming me making a joke out of it. I told him I thought he should be taking the credit for removing it.
“It doesn’t work like that on TV,” he said. “I’m not supposed to be in your story.”
And there you have it. The man who actually removed the chrome monster was edited neatly out of the tale.
We put it on Craftybird’s roof and headed back towards the festival. As we passed the Withymoor Island boaters again, they raised their glasses.
“WELCOME TO TIPTON!”
Cheers to that.
I tied bunting to the chrome monster for the duration of the festival.
And then I kept it, trophy-like, on my roof for much longer than was appropriate.
Three seconds on television.
Worthy of its own episode, in my view.
You can spot the chrome monster in Channel 4’s Narrow Escapes, Series 2, Episode 20.
